Pop Machine

Tips for parking smartly and cheaply

Tempo — 2009-06-13T15:41:44-05:00

Here are some parking tips from Tribune theater critic Chris Jones and me for your night on the cultural town:

Best theater parking in the Loop: Imperial Parking, 60 E. Randolph St. (between Michigan and Wabash Avenues). Evening theater parking is $14, and you can drop the car off with the valet and head directly to the theater.

Best parking discounts in Streeterville (and just about anywhere else downtown): $10 for up to six hours at InterPark Olympia Center Garage (161 E. Chicago Ave.) if you see "The Arabian Nights" at the Lookingglass Theatre. The $10 rate also applies to Drury Lane Water Tower Place patrons, who have the additional option of parking for $11 for up to four hours in Water Tower Place.

Theaters with easy free parking: Court Theatre (5535 S. Ellis Ave.), Northlight Theatre (9501 Skokie Blvd., Skokie), Marriott Theatre (10 Marriott Drive, Lincolnshire), Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace (100 Drury Lane, Oakbrook Terrace).

Theaters where you should consider using the valet: The Mercury Theatre (3745 N. Southport Ave. -- use the Blue Bayou one across the street) and the Theatre Building (1225 W. Belmont Ave.). You might be able to find non-permit street spots if you're willing to explore and to hoof it, but sometimes convenience trumps the headache.

Hint for parking at Second City/Pipers Alley: Avoid the in-building garage, and look for a non-metered spot a few blocks west on North Avenue or, if you're lucky, south of North on LaSalle Street.

Hint for parking at Steppenwolf Theatre: Avoid the lots, and seek on-the-street spots on Orchard Street north of North Avenue.

Hint for parking at Arie Crown Theater: Avoid the congested garage. Park in the South Loop and take a taxi.

The cool/cruel reality of Navy Pier: If you attend a Chicago Shakespeare Theater production, you get a 40 percent parking discount, which translates to $12 Monday-Thursday and $14.40 Friday-Sunday and holidays. If you attend any other show -- such Cirque Shanghai, a Skyline Stage concert or the IMAX Theatre -- the regular flat rates of $20 and $24 apply.

Final bit of common sense: If you're willing to walk a few blocks, you can avoid the congestion of everyone retrieving their car at the same time from the closest garage to the theater.

Pricey parking, scarce spots take toll on local entertainment

Tempo — 2009-06-13T15:33:43-05:00

Apollo Theater general manager Tara Attea has noticed a change in her customers' pre-show behavior.

They used to linger and chat in the lobby before strolling casually to their seats. Now, about 10 minutes before curtain time, a bunch of them dash out of the building, quarters in hand.

See, "Million Dollar Quartet," the show at the Apollo, is about an hour and 40 minutes long. The Lincoln Avenue meters last only two hours, and since LAZ Parking took them over from the city in February, they run 24 hours a day instead of going off duty at 9 p.m.

"You definitely see people calculating when to get their full two hours of quarters in a meter," said Attea, whose theater also offers $10 parking. "I think it takes away a little bit of the leisure of coming to a show."

Those new meters are neck-and-neck with the weather competing to be Chicagoans' No. 1 complaint, but for local cultural institutions, the parking issue goes beyond simple matters of increased rates and hours. Getting folks to come out to your entertainment venue involves convincing them that they're going to enjoy themselves, but no one enjoys stressing out about parking, and that stress has become increasingly difficult to escape.

Garage parking rates downtown and elsewhere have skyrocketed in recent years. Parking at Millennium Park Garage (convenient to everything from the Harris Theater to the Art Institute of Chicago and Symphony Center) cost $10 for less than 12 hours and $13 for 12-24 hours in early 2004. The same facility, now operated by LAZ, currently charges $19 for 0-8 hours, $22 for 8-12 hours and $24 for 12-24 hours, with no evening discount.

The situation in many neighborhoods has changed even more dramatically. The Music Box Theatre used to be a cultural oasis on a stretch of North Southport Avenue that included a few casual eateries and ample neighborhood parking.

Now the Southport corridor is bustling with bars, restaurants and the Mercury Theatre; the gentrified neighborhood has added permit parking to just about every side street; the Cubs are playing more night games, which add traffic and require additional street-parking permits; and the growing number of meters quadrupled their rates and increased their hours with the LAZ takeover.

"It's a two-hour limit, and some of our films go over two hours, so it forces a customer to refeed the meter during a film," Music Box programmer Brian Andreotti said.

A pay lot is located up the street at the Blaine School, but it fills up, especially on Cubs days. Have the parking complications hurt the Music Box's business?

"Absolutely, though it's more of a hunch," Andreotti said. "[Customers] often complain about parking, and you can maybe draw the conclusion that it will enter into their decision-making next time they're deciding what to do with their free time."

Several blocks south, at Southport and Belmont, the music club/restaurant Schubas has seen a similar neighborhood transformation, and now "parking is horrendous for people who don't live here," manager Jamie Alexakos said.

At least Schubas patrons can use a nearby public lot on Greenview Avenue or sometimes find street parking to the west on Belmont. But when the club's owners open Lincoln Hall this fall in the Lincoln Avenue space formerly occupied by the 3 Penny Cinema, they'll be dealing with an even busier neighborhood and those 24-hour meters.

"That's a tough one," Alexakos said.

The Gene Siskel Film Center shares parking concerns with the rest of the Loop theaters, including the Chicago Theatre across the street, but it faces an added psychological barrier: People don't appreciate paying more for parking than the actual event. That's not an issue with Broadway in Chicago shows, Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts or Lyric Opera productions, but it does come into play for someone spending $9 on a Film Center ticket and $14 for the Film Center's negotiated rate with the InterPark garage at 20 E. Randolph St.

Film Center programming director Barbara Scharres said customers do understand that the Film Center is downtown, where parking is at a premium, but the theater still hears its share of complaints, particularly from "people who come in from the suburbs" and infrequent visitors who attend one of the Film Center's specialized festivals.

A block west at the Goodman Theatre, executive director Roche Schulfer gets similar feedback. The theater negotiated a discount evening rate at the Government Center Self Park at Clark and Lake Streets; it was $13 when the garage opened in 2002 and is $19 now.

"Certainly in this economy, we're very sensitive to ticket price increases," Schulfer said. "But you don't have any control -- or very limited control -- over parking prices. They go up, and they go up, and that's it."

He added: "If you want to walk a few blocks, you probably can get better rates, but many people don't want to walk a few blocks at 10:30 at night in the Loop. Certainly all of our actors and creative personnel are parking a few blocks away."

Although the city has a large stake in maintaining a robust, profitable cultural life, parking apparently isn't on the Department of Cultural Affairs' radar. A department spokeswoman said Commissioner Lois Weisberg was too busy to discuss this subject last week; the spokeswoman added that "the most culturally vibrant communities are well-served by public transportation -- they tend to go hand in hand -- so that might lessen the impact."

It's true that some venues, including those in the Loop, are particularly well-served by public transportation. But it's also true that many entertainment patrons are not comfortable with taking the "L" or bus late at night.

The Theatre Building on Belmont Avenue is blocks from the Belmont Red Line stop and is accessible by bus, but Theatre Building executive director Joan Mazzonelli said visitors nonetheless prefer to drive, which wasn't a problem until the neighborhood "gentrified like crazy." The Theatre Building thus offers valet parking for $8, or if you eat across the street at Cooper's, you can park in the restaurant's lot for free. (Other theaters, such as the Goodman, also have valet-and-dine deals with nearby restaurants.) Or you can try to take advantage of the quirk that there are no meters on the south side of Belmont while the north side is lined with them.

Such non-metered, non-permit spots are the golden eggs for many folks who not only attend but also work at these venues. Jay Kelly, director of marketing and public relations for Victory Gardens Theater on Lincoln Avenue, said staff members there seek out the non-permit spots alongside Jonquil Park to the northwest or Oz Park to the southeast. Otherwise, the nearby Children's Memorial Hospital garage offers $6 parking to patrons, who also can opt for $11 valet service in front of the theater.

League of Chicago Theatres executive director Deb Clapp said no theaters have called her with parking concerns -- perhaps because they don't view it as a league issue, she speculated -- yet she experienced her own such frustrations just last week. Clapp attended the Non-Equity Jeff Awards at the Park West in Lincoln Park on Monday night and found herself circling the ever-congested neighborhood for 20 minutes rather than paying $30 for a garage spot a few blocks away on Clark Street.

"Finally I parked in a permit space," said Clapp, who was fortunate not to get a ticket. "Not only was it a permit space but it was a good seven-minute walk from the venue. There was no parking over there."

It's the same old ending for Cubs movies

Tempo — 2009-06-09T09:57:18-05:00

My wife has a ready-made quip, echoed by many at this point, for when I'm watching the Cubs and they've got runners at first and third with nobody out but can't score -- or their rookie pitcher has just thrown a beautiful game, and now the bullpen is generously giving back the lead:

  "I've seen this movie before."

  I still haven't come up with a zippy retort because it's the Cubs. We've all seen this movie before. It's the baseball version of "Groundhog Day," a classic comedy that of course was made by a native Cubs fan, Harold Ramis.

  Every year is a little different but essentially the same: It begins with optimism and energy and ends in heartbreak and disappointment. Wait till next year for the remake.  

But Bill Murray's character at long last awakens to a new day. Cubs fans have been living out the same futile story line and the same myths for 101 years.

  Now we're also trapped inside the same movie being made about the same movie, as filmmakers keep getting sucked into the Cubs/"Groundhog Day" vortex. They go in thinking they're going to document the Cubs' history-making championship season. They leave having depicted the team once again teasing and falling short.  

"Chasing October" writer/director/star Matt Liston tried this in 2003, quitting his day job to chronicle a Cubs season that ended, you may recall, with a fan deflecting a foul ball and the team falling apart in the National League Championship Series against the Florida Marlins.

  In 2006, Ouisie Shapiro made the HBO documentary "Wait 'Til Next Year: The Saga of the Chicago Cubs," described by the network as chronicling "the lives of die-hard Cubs fans, and the ultimate devotion they show their beloved team." In April, Jordan W. Lee won a Sports Emmy for the ESPN documentary "No Love Lost," which features 10 decades' of folks "giving their story about the heartache of the Cubs losing."

  And if you go to the Chicago Theatre on Friday at 10:30 p.m., you can see the premiere of "We Believe," in which documentarian John Scheinfeld ("The U.S. vs. John Lennon") looks at Cubs fandom ("a relationship that lasts a lifetime") during the Cubs' 2008 quest to break its century-long World Series drought. You know how it ends.  

These movies have become kind of a cottage industry for famous Cubs fans. Gary Sinise narrates "We Believe" and appears in "This Old Cub," Jeff Santo's 2004 documentary tribute to his father, former Cubs great and current radio broadcaster Ron Santo. Joe Mantegna narrates "This Old Cub" and appears in "We Believe."

  Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan appears in "We Believe," "No Love Lost" and "Chasing October." Jeff Garlin appears in "We Believe," "Chasing October" and "Wait 'Til Next Year." Dennis Franz appears in "We Believe" and "This Old Cub."  

Here's basically what they have to say: Cubs fans are long-suffering and crazy-loyal. Like Chicagoans in winter, they're resilient. Despite years of letdowns, they're full of hope.  

It's that lovable-loser mystique, and I have a specific problem with that. It's the word "loser."  

Presenting sumptuous visions of Wrigley Field and Chicago itself, "We Believe" equates the team and city while tracing their parallel histories. But is that really how Chicago sees itself?

I don't generally blow four-run leads. I try not to fall to pieces when the spotlight is brightest.   I'd rather view us as the Michael Jordan-era Bulls: playing smart, working as a team, outhustling the other guys and hitting the clutch shot.   

But perhaps I protest too much. Most of us are more like the Cubs. We keep awaiting that long-overdue breakthrough. We find ourselves setting aside big dreams to focus on staying above water (or .500). Do we really need millionaire athletes starring in that movie? 

 I might even flirt with treason and suggest that we seek our collective reflection in the White Sox, who are scrappy, constantly rebuilding and perpetually overlooked. But most of us like to score on occasion. 

 "We Believe" barely mentions the Sox, so South Siders can console themselves by watching a different movie: the seven-disc "Chicago White Sox 2005 World Series Collector's Edition." 

Jennifer Hudson's baby shower confirms the news

Tempo — 2009-05-31T11:34:25-05:00

A weekend baby shower in downtown Chicago confirmed what has long been rumored: Jennifer Hudson is pregnant.

“It was a baby shower, a quiet gathering of friends and mostly family,” singer/actress Felicia Fields, a longtime Hudson friend, said of Saturday’s get-together in a relative’s home. “They’re really trying to keep it kind of quiet.”

South Side native Hudson, the 27-year-old singing star who won the 2006 best supporting actress Oscar for “Dreamgirls,” is engaged to former reality TV star David Otunga, who’s currently pursuing a pro wrestling career. Hudson has said she no longer would live in Chicago after her mother, Darnell Donerson, brother Jason and nephew Julian King were found murdered in October, with William Balfour, the estranged husband of Jennifer’s sister Julia, charged with the crimes.

Hudson recently finished a co-headlining concert tour with singer Robin Thicke, with an April 25 show at the Arie Crown Theatre. Her manager and publicist previously denied that she is pregnant.

"It was a nice time that we had," Fields said of the shower. She didn’t want to get into when the baby is due, but speculation is that Hudson is many months along—an impression bolstered by her appearance of late.

As for whether Hudson received blue or pink gifts, Fields said, “They don’t know [the gender]. More yellow.”

Photo: Jennifer Hudson performs May 1 at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas (Ethan Miller/Getty Images).

Andy Partridge hails the Dukes, buries XTC, chides Robyn Hitchcock and considers himself done

Tempo — 2009-05-29T23:36:49-05:00

Here's the almost-uncut version of my interview with XTC's Andy Partridge. Be advised, I'm one of those XTC fanatics, so if you want a more compact version of this chat, please check out Sunday's Arts & Entertainment section.

The ever-melodic, adventurous, underappreciated British band XTC had just come off 1984’s coolly digital, low-selling “The Big Express” when they hauled out the Nehru jackets, analog equipment and primitive effects and redubbed themselves the Dukes of Stratosphear.

The head-swirling, exhilaratingly playful six-song EP that resulted, “25 O’Clock” (1985), not only transcended its elements (circa-1966-67 Electric Prunes, Pink Floyd, Move, Tomorrow, Yardbirds, Rolling Stones and Beatles), but also inspired XTC to hit a new artistic and commercial peak the following year with the ’60s-tinged album “Skylarking.” The Dukes returned in 1987 with a full album, “Psonic Psunspot,” that broadened the palette to incorporate the Hollies, Byrds and Beach Boys.

Now, nine years since XTC’s last album, band leader Andy Partridge has overseen the just-released, souped-up reissues of “25 O’Clock” and “Psonic Psunspot” as separate remastered CDs on his indie label Ape House. Each is packaged as a colorful board book and supplemented by bonus tracks, such as typically wiggy “Open a Can of Human Beans,” the last true Dukes song (on the “25 O’Clock” disc).

This ’80s take on ’60s psychedelia holds up remarkably well in the ’00s, and the rereleases offered an excellent opportunity to check in with Partridge, 55, who lives a far-from-public life in his hometown of Swindon, England. The quick-witted singer-songwriter talked about the Dukes’ brief golden era, XTC’s squabbles, his vexing collaboration with Robyn Hitchcock and why fans shouldn’t hold their breath for new music from him.

Pop Machine: “25 O’Clock” came out when I was in college, and I loved it and that psychedelic era you were sending up. It’s hard to think of any year in, say, the last 20 that would merit Dukes-like record.

Partridge: Literally it was like a year or even less than a year when things like that all came together. There’s probably not another time in history, although you could do a kind of Sex Dukes or something from ’77, not that I want to because I don’t particularly have amazingly fond memories of that era, or rather that music. But there’s a few times in history when you can do that.

PM: You probably could do some kind of synth-pop New Wave thing.

Partridge: But would people be kind of fond [of it]? Do you know what I mean? I think a lot of the allure of that psychedelic thing and specifically psychedelic singles was that kind of compact magic, all these effects that people hadn’t heard before and everybody looking for new ways of mashing up conventional sounds in the studio. And of course these days you’d just lean on a button, and there it is; it’s all sampled and pre-screwed-up for you. But then you really would have to play an electric saw at the bottom of a well and then have that spun in backwards and stuff like that.

PM: It’s by design this head-swirling music yet it’s relatively low-tech.

Partridge: Oh, it’s very low tech, yeah. It’s lots of echoes, reverbs, which are standard things that have been around since the studio inception pretty much, or certainly since the mid-’50s, and then there were all these little tricks like phasing, which you have to do with three machines. You have to run one copy of the track against another copy of the track slightly out of time, and then you capture the results on a third machine. It’s something that people tried to get rid of in the past. It was like an accidental sound that you didn’t want on your recordings. In fact you can hear it on a couple of early Beatles singles because they did the vocals to speakers in the studio, and when the backing track’s coming back through the speakers and they’ve got their mics open doing the vocals, the microphones are hearing the backing tracks slightly at a different time, so momentarily on some early Beatles singles you get a little phasing that wasn’t intended. It was a sort of thing that was deemed, “Well, we’d better try and get rid of that,” not “Let’s encourage it.” It’s all, I think the expression is, mom-and-pop effects.

PM: Movies that have dated effects often seem kind of laughable, but there’s something that still sounds really cool about the aural effects on these records.

Partridge: I don’t know. I might disagree with you. I guess 1967 psychedelia sonically is equivalent filmwise to somebody like George Melies doing these 13-minute-or-however-long-the-reel-was epics like “Voyage to the Moon”-type thing, and it’s all just local girls in circus outfits in great big giant cardboard and wood props that obviously look flat and painted and all that, but there’s immense charm about them. And I think there’s an immense charm about psychedelic singles because you can tell they’re having to cobble up these sounds out of what primitive bits and pieces they’ve got.

PM: When you look back on these Dukes records, how do you think they hold up compared to the XTC albums?

Partridge: To me they just look like the next XTC records. Because “Skylarking,” which happened between the two Dukes releases, is like the missing Dukes album, or vice versa. “Psonic Psunspot” is the missing XTC album after “Skylarking.” There’s no barrier. The barriers came down; it was like, for goodness sake, we’re just the Dukes or XTC, let’s have some fun with this.

PM: My feeling at the time was that the Dukes had kind of shaken something loose with you guys creatively—

Partridge: Yeah, I think so.

PM: --and that “The Big Express” had these kind of ‘80s cold textures to it, and then the Dukes was warmer and livelier.

Partridge: Yeah, I think so. The Dukes was a good excuse to have the costume ball, you know? Or the excuse to dress up crazy and not be yourself. And when you’re not being yourself, you probably reveal more about yourself then when you try to be guarded.

PM: And then “Skylarking” after that seemed to be taking that ‘60s warm vibe and putting it more in the context of an XTC album.

Partridge: I think we had so much fun doing the Dukes, it was like, well, that set a little more of a template of the way to be, I think.

PM: And “Oranges and Lemons” sounds logical after “Psonic Psunspot,” too.

Partridge: Yeah, yeah. I think so. But I do see the Dukes records as missing XTC albums now. At the time I thought, wow, this a wild departure, but now looking back at the big picture and the landscape and everything, they’re inevitable, and they slot in perfectly.

PM: Do they fit in the top ranks of XTC? Where would you put them personally?

Partridge: I’d put—in fact the pair of them together, when they were put together by Virgin as “Chips from the Chocolate Fireball”—I probably would have rated that as my personal favorite No. 4. My personal favorites would be “Apple Venus Volume 1,” “Nonsuch,” “Skylarking” and then the Dukes, I think.

PM: All right, what’s after that?

Partridge: Then it all goes hazy, and I woke up in a Korean clinic. Let me see, what would be after that. Mmmmmmmm-mmmmmm. That’s a tricky one because [big sigh]—you see, I like some parts of “Mummer,” but then again there’s things on “Big Express” I like a lot, but then there’s some things on “English Settlement.” Yeah, mmmm. No, that’s tough. It all goes hazy after that.

PM: How about “Black Sea”?

Partridge: [laughs] Ha ha ha HA! Yes, a few of those as well. I think the trend was we tended to get better, and that is a weird trend, an unusual trend for a band who usually go ka-boom and then get worse. There are very few bands in history that actually got better, and I think we were one of the few that did truthfully get quite a lot better.

PM: I would mostly agree with that, although I also think that kind of like with the Beatles, there’s this period and that period. You have your clanging-guitar period, of which “Black Sea” is a great example—

Partridge: Yeah, but the Beatle lyrics, the first maybe three albums, four albums, Beatle lyrics are rubbish, aren’t they. Come on.

PM: Do you think your lyrics are rubbish on those early ones?

Partridge: Yeah. The Beatle lyrics on the first few albums are like “I love you, you love me, oh how happy we will be, girl.” And the early XTC lyrics are just sort of a shotgun loaded with sci-fi buzz words and blasted at you, and you think: What the hell is he talking about? It took us maybe three albums to get into writing about reality.

PM: “English Settlement” is doing that.

Partridge: Yeah, I think we were on it by then.

PM: I think sound-wise, though, “Black Sea” is a really sustained attack.

Partridge: Yeah, that’s the muscular, height-of-touring album. That the kind of “Out of our way, I’m going to eat my way through this door if you don’t open it, I’m coming in.”

PM: All right, I’m going to ask the inevitable “What’s up with XTC now?” question

Partridge: Well, there is no XTC really—although we haven’t officially split. I rather like the idea of just disappearing into the ether, quietly, you know?

PM: My sense of it was that you and Dave Gregory have patched things up, but now Colin Moulding has disappeared?

Partridge: Colin and I fell out increasingly badly over things, and the baddest one, the final nail in the coffin really, was a financial mess that I inherited, but I shouldn’t really go into it because I don’t want to diss him too much. Things are difficult enough as it is. Let’s just say that we started to tail away from each other, and it got to be a nasty male divorce. And right now it’s still through the freezing cold sphere at the moment. But Dave and I are pretty good buddies again, actually probably better buddies at the moment than when he was in the band, to be honest. Because I think he felt like he had to do as he was told, and I was the band leader and it was a bit of “yes sir, no sir,” and now that dynamic’s been removed.

PM: Was the stuff with Colin happening when you were playing together, or is that all after that fact?

Partridge: It was after the fact, because we mutually supported each other when we were playing. We propped each other up in terms of the way to approach an album or how we were going to do things, but when Dave left [during the “Apple Venus” sessions], that was quite a limb wrenched from the band. Basically our arranger and sort of musical conscience probably left. But, you know, we had a good run, making good albums for 25 years. Most bands don’t last 25 weeks.

PM: Are you still in Swindon?

Partridge: Yeah.

PM: Is Colin there? Do you run into each other at the grocery store?

Partridge: No, he lives about three or four miles out of town in a village outside the town. We just seem to send each other irate e-mails.

PM: What about Dave?

Partridge: Yeah, I see Dave. He lives about two miles away. I see him occasionally. We go out for something to eat or get together and watch some obscure TV, or I’ll go over to his house, and he’ll cook dinner, and we’ll have mucho wine look at a load of old cranky TV and go, “Hey, what chord’s he playing there?” You know, that sort of nerdy stuff.

PM: When were “Open a Can of Human Beans” and “Tin Toy Clockwork Train” [bonus tracks on the "25 O'Clock" disc] recorded?

Partridge: “Open a Can of Human Beans” was done by, and I must use the phrase “ex-friend” because he was a very good friend of mine, and we fell out under really weird circumstances where I thought he was ripping me off, and he thought I was ripping him off. And then a lot of resentment—[laughs] it seems like I’m falling out with everybody here. But before we fell out, he said would I put together the Dukes for an MS charity disc [released in 2003] called “The Wish List,” and I wrote the song and got the Dukes together, the original four, to play that. And it did its thing on this charity record, and I thought because it was the Dukes we could use it as an extra track on this.

And then “Tin Toy Clockwork Train” weirdly was something that—and this is a bit of a long story, so I’ll try and do the short version. A few years ago a friend of mine sent me some photographs from Waterloo Station in London that he’d taken up on a balcony looking down on the floor in front of the Eurostar entrance for the train that goes to Paris and so on. And an advertising company had stuck a giant album sleeve on the floor, like 50 foot by 50 foot, and it was a parody—very, very close parody—of the “25 O’Clock” sleeve. So it was like, mmm, that’s weird—obviously advertising agency has no compunction about stealing it and altering it, using it for Eurostar. And then last year I had a call from an advertising agency in France saying, would I do a Dukes song for another promo for Eurostar in Europe, which they would give away free at stations in France. So I did this song, which was actually a song I had lying around; it was going to be for the bubblegum album we were going to do, but it was a song called “Tin Toy Aeroplane,” and I changed the lyrics and added a few things to it and called it “Tin Toy Clockwork Train” because of the railway connotations of Eurostar—and it was the same company that did this giant Dukes sleeve a few years earlier. So it was weirdly tied up in full circles. But it was very strange doing a parody of myself doing a parody of other bands.

PM: Did you record that on your own then?

Partridge: Yeah.

PM: And that was just last year?

Partridge: That was last year, tail end of last year.”

PM: So that’s the most recent Andy Partridge solo material?

Partridge: No, there’s some things I’ve done with Lighterthief, who is a friend of mine called Stuart Rowe, and you can get them on the Ape site. He’s releasing an EP every three months, and I’m playing guitar and singing on a lot of these things, so those are the most recent things I’ve done. If you go to the Ape site, under the Lighterthief heading there’s an EP called "Maximalism.”

PM: I heard a song from that on the MySpace page.

Partridge: Oh, right. Well, one of the tracks is called "Falling into the Future," which I wrote, and I also helped him play a few other instruments on that, and helped him mix it. so that’s probably the most recent thing.

PM: Was “Human Beans” the last recording featuring Colin, Dave and you together?

Partridge: Well, Dave actually did his contributions ‘round at my place. He didn’t want to particularly hang out with Colin. It’s like Pink Floyd, you know, except Colin’s Roger Waters, and I’m Dave Gilmour or something. “Oh, I’ve got to juggle him because he doesn’t like him, so he’d better do his part at my place, but I could do my part over there and da-da da-da,” that sort of thing.

PM: You’re sort of the Roger Waters but with a David Gilmour personality?

Partridge: [laughs] Yeah.

PM: ‘Cause you’re still the dominant guy like Roger Waters.

Partridge: I guess so, yeah. It’s something to do with nose size or whatever. I don’t know. Colin’s got the biggest feet, so what does that say?

PM: So what you’re really saying is this is a cry to Bob Geldof to get you guys together for the next big charity concert.

Partridge: Oh, dear me, no. [laughs]

PM: That would be a good thing, getting XTC playing live at some big—

Partridge: You know what? I hate it when they put bands back together, and you just see these middle-aged fat old men stumbling around the stage. You think, God, they were great when they were 22, but I don’t want to see them now they’re all 60. It’s horrible.

PM: You weren’t moved by the Pink Floyd reunion a little bit?

Partridge: No. Because Pink Floyd for me died when Syd Barrett left.

PM: Well, there you go. So you don’t like any of the post-Syd Pink Floyd?

Partridge: No, they got worse and worse in my opinion. There’s a few good things on the soundtrack of “More.” There’s a few good things on “Saucerful of Secrets” and a couple of tracks on “Ummagumma,” but largely to me they went downhill and downhill. They just got blander and blander.

PM: Is there an Andy Partridge solo album that’s going to come out?

Partridge: Well, I’m going to be truthful with you. I’ve written so many songs in the last handful of years that I just haven’t felt the need to finish them up. I just have literally about 350 parts of songs that I’m kind of thinking, well, what do I need to finish these up for? I’m wrestling with my attitude to music at the moment. I rather like being an enabler and running the Ape label and being the sleeve designer and the A&R man and all that kind of thing. But as far as my own music goes, I’m really wrestling with: Does anybody need any more songs from me? Do we need a lot of the music that’s out there? We don’t. But it’s that human desire to [dump] everywhere, isn’t it.

PM: But at the same time you’ve put out a lot of discs of your demos and reissues and that sort of thing.

Partridge: Yeah, well, the “Fuzzy Warbles Collector's” [box of demo recordings] was great fun to put together, and I think it’s kind of a nice package. But I do feel that for us failure was an enormous sort of battery in our back, and it was a great spur to keep going and getting better and better and better. And I think there comes a point where you think: Damnit, we’re never going to get recognized here. We’re never going to get our due, and you just start to say to yourself—if your window cleaning business was just not happening, you’d say to yourself, “I guess I’m not cut out to be a window cleaner.” And I think I’m saying to myself, “I guess I’m not cut out to be a singer-songwriter.”

PM: But there are other bands from around the same time as XTC that you don’t really think about anymore whereas I feel like the XTC fans play you guys constantly and that you guys really hold up. I do.

Partridge: I get a sense that fans that like our stuff are more—I’m not going to use the word “nutty” but more “fanatical.” It’s like they distill what we do to a more pure essence, whereas you get seemingly other fans of other bands just say, “Oh, yeah, I quite like them,” but they seem to be extra rabid, the ones that get into XTC. And I think that it’s probably powered by our obscurity as well, because there’s a righteousness to it. They love a band which none of their friends have even heard of.

PM: Well, most of my friends have heard of you.

Partridge: You know what I mean. Not in England. This is how important we are in England. You know Mojo magazine?”

PM: Yes.

Partridge: We were told a few weeks back that we were getting what they called an Inspiration Award at the Mojo Awards, which is a big thing in London for the magazine and da da da da: We were getting this award for inspiration. Colin didn’t want to go to pick up the award. I didn’t really want to go, but my girlfriend bullied me into agreeing to go. Mojo then sent an e-mail saying, well, if Colin’s not going, you’re not getting the award. Dave and I thought: Well, that means we deserve it less ‘cause Colin’s choosing not to go to the ceremony. And then you begin to think: Hang on, they weren’t really going to give us this award. It wasn’t about our merit. It’s about some exclusive photo opportunity for the magazine or something like that. Do you know what I mean? They got pressured by a record company that spends a lot on advertising: “No, we want our band to have this.” They made this excuse of if Colin’s not going to go, they’re not going to give us the award. Don’t Dave and I deserve it then?”

PM: Were you supposed to perform at it?

Partridge: No, just pick it up.

PM: That’s bizarre, seems like bad form.

Partridge: That’s really bad form. That’s really morally bad. It’s a slap in the fact to myself and Dave.

PM: But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t release your songs or finish them.

Partridge: Mmmm. Maybe I’m sick with music. Because I’m not a musician. I only blundered into music because I figured it was a better way of attracting girls than with a pencil. I was going to have an art career.

PM: But you keep writing songs, though.

Partridge: Yeah, I do. It’s like a compulsion. I can’t stop. But I kind of think that I don’t know if any of them are as good as anything from the last 25 years.

PM: But do you always feel that way?

Partridge: No. It’s an age thing, and you also think: Is music a finite art? Do I have an X amount of songs in me, and now those X amount of songs have come out, all I’m left with is the dregs? Should I just be smart enough to stop? And I wish a lot of other people would stop because I hear what they’re doing. I’m not going to name any names, but I hear what so-called great musicians or great songwriters are doing, and you think: Jesus, I wish they’d have finished about 15 years ago or 20 years ago when they were on a high, not just this horrible process of seeing them grind down the hill and them being so addicted to fame or so addicted to whatever that they can’t stop. I’m left with wishing that a lot more people would say, “You know what? I’m not as good as I used to be. I’m going to stop and do something else.”

PM: Do you really think you’re not as good as you used to be?

Partridge: Yeah.

PM: So you think these songs that you’ve written, they just don’t have merit?

Partridge: Uh, not as much merit as, say, my favorite of XTC’s albums.

PM: But if you think XTC got better and better and “Apple Venus” is your best record, then you don’t think that you were on that downward slope at the end.

Partridge: No, I think as soon as the slope started to go down, with some parts of “Wasp Star [Apple Venus Volume 2].” Now in hindsight, it seems weaker. And it’s like a case of “Ah, damn, we’re going down the slope the other side. We’ve hit the pinnacle, and now the only way seems down.” I know that’s really a black-and-white way of thinking, but that’s sort of how I keep the world in perspective, I think. But like I say I do wish a lot of other people would stop. They just keep on crapping out substandard material, and a lot of them don’t have the thing of saying, “OK, I’ve done my best work now. Let me try something different.”

PM: Do you think McCartney should stop?

Partridge: Mmmm, yeah. But he can call me if he wants some help.

PM: What happened with this collaboration you were doing with Robyn Hitchcock?

Partridge: Well [deep breath], I must admit that I’m not holding out any great hopes for this because Robyn seems to be permanently on tour. We started this a couple of years ago, and he’s just been permanently around the globe somewhere, and I think we’ve had about four get-togethers in two years, which to me that’s not hot off the press. I’ll ring him up and say, “Look, spare some time to get together?” And he’ll say, “Well, I’ve got a tour of Scandinavia,” or “I’m going around America with a matey from R.E.M.” or “I’m touring England.” He just seems to be permanently out on the road, and I think four days of getting together and trying to write is not intense enough for me. I would have liked to have done like four days a week two years ago for quite a while until we had enough material to say, “Well, let’s throw half of that away, and this half is a great album.” But right now we have something like four half-finished tracks that are just kind of OK-ish.”

PM: Are those demos you were doing?

Partridge: Well, we were sort of recording as we were writing. It’s not a process I’m crazy on, because I like to get a song finished up and working as a solid piece of architecture before you’re even taken into the studio. So I don’t know what’s going to happen with that. I actually sent him an e-mail before he went off on his latest U.S. tour saying, “Do you think this is going to happen? Is this thing dying of apathy?” So I’m going to be honest with you. He’s going to have to show some phenomenally frightening commitment I think for it to get finished.

PM: What was his response to your e-mail?

Partridge: He left me a phone message which I missed, and then a confused e-mail back from him, and then I got a postcard from him in San Francisco saying, “Hey, when I get off this tour, let’s record some more.” And I’m thinking: Ohhhhhhh. Can I even remember who he is or what he looked like?

PM: What was the driving force behind that project?

Partridge: I liked him. I got together with him one day to write something for an album of his, and we came up with about six ideas, one of which he finished up, and it was called “[‘Cause It’s Love] Saint Parallelogram,” and he put that on an album of his. He is so quick witted, and he is a very creative fella. No sense of rhythm. He’s very creative. He just grabs stuff from the air, which I find very stimulating because that’s kind of how I tend to work as well. So to some extent it was like dealing with a mirror reflection of myself creatively. Maybe this is why the thing is not happening. Maybe we’re too alike.

PM: Except for your work habits.

Partridge: No, no, I like to get in there and get working, and we’re doing an album, let’s do it. But I think he’s addicted to globetrotting by the sound of it. I don’t know. Like I said in my e-mail, it could be that thing where it’s two forces that get together, one fire and one ice, and all you end up with is lukewarm water.

PM: Right, you and Spinal Tap.

Partridge: Yep. Is that where it came from?

PM: It’s Derek Smalls, who is Harry Shearer, the bassist, who says, “He’s like fire and he’s like ice, and I’m in the middle. I’m lukewarm water.” [The actual quote is: “They're two distinct types of visionaries, It's like fire and ice, basically. I feel my role in the band is to be somewhere in the middle of that, kind of like lukewarm water.”]

Partridge: [Laughs] I never knew that was where it came from. Damnit [laughs]. Well, scrub that one, then.

PM: Tell me about the decision to run a label at a time when labels are getting their butts kicked.

Partridge: It’s suicidal, huh?

PM: It’s a fun against-the-grain sort of thing.

Partridge: [laughs] In the six years that it’s been going, I think we’ve made 19,000 pounds, which has all been spend on pressing up the Dukes of Stratosphear board books and so on and going toward the next artist we’ve got coming out. So at the moment I think it’s a beautiful hobby, but it would be nice if it made some money.

PM: Is the Milk & Honey Band just someone you discovered?

Partridge: Yeah, literally. Somebody sent me an album they had out called “Boy from the Moon” on a little record label up in Manchester, and I thought it was great, and then I called him, and he said, “I’ve got loads more material, and I’m looking for a record deal,” and away we went. So yeah, people send me stuff, and if I like it, I’d say one in 100 or one in every 200 is worth following up. A lot of rubbish comes my way, but you’re going to have to dig through a lot of coal to find one diamond. But you know what? It’s my artistic thing. I love if I can do the sleeves and that kind of stuff. I love the object. We’re trying to get into doing vinyl, so now I can do my crazy art thing even larger.

PM: What do you think is the best thing you ever wrote?

Partridge: Umm, I’d say that “Easter Theater” [from "Apple Venus Volume 1"] is a contender, just ‘cause it came out exactly how I would have wanted it to come out, and it does say springtime, and it does have a—ooh, can I be really immodest? I think it’s as good as a Beatles thing. Yeah, I’m not supposed to say [stuff] like that, am I?

PM: I love that song.

Partridge: Part of the drive for being in a band is to be better than your heroes, and I think “Easter Theater” is on a par—it may not be better, but it’s on a par.

PM: Is there one where you think, I don’t know why people like that one?

Partridge: Mmm, yeah, there was a single that was a hit in England called “Sgt. Rock (Is Going to Help Me)" which I think is pretty banal. The actual music isn’t too bad, but the sentiment and the lyric are pretty crappy. I would’ve rather forgotten it, but of course Virgin picked out and said, “Hey, here’s the single.” You say, “Oh, no, they picked that one!”

PM: It’s got a good beat.

Partridge: It’s got a good beat. The chords are kind of nice. Interesting chords and an interesting sort of groove to it, but the actual song over the top is pretty pathetic.

PM: Are you flummoxed by the idea of what’s considered commercial now and what becomes a hit?

Partridge: Yeah, I wouldn’t know. But then again to be honest I never did, because things that we put out that were hits I wouldn’t have thought they would’ve been a hit, and things that we put out which I thought might have been a hit weren’t, so obviously I have no idea. And I don’t think anybody else really has. The way of gauging public tastes, it’s like trying to nail smoke to a wall, and if you think you can do, you’re going to give yourself a lot of heartache.

PM: I always wonder how much of it is public taste and how much of it is the mechanism of the industry and radio.

Partridge: Exactly. “Stupidly Happy,” I thought radio would pick it up and play it, genuinely, because I thought this is so instantaneous. You’re singing it before it’s half over. But no radio station picked it up, and no radio station as far as I know played it.

PM: I did hear it a bit in Chicago. [Full disclosure: I've heard it on WXRT-FM 93.1, where my wife works.]

Partridge: McDonald’s contacted me and said could they use it for an ad campaign, and I thought: OK, millionaire-dom, here I come. And they even storyboarded something out, and then they just dropped the idea. So, oh well.

PM: Was there any song of yours that you were the most disappointed wasn’t a hit?

Partridge: Actually maybe that. One of our early singles, “Wait Till Your Boat Goes Down,” I thought was very melodic, and it died a death. I know that I was disappointed at the time, but then I was more easily disappointed at the time, being a fragile young man. Now I’m just a big hairy-assed lump. Nothing much disappoints me now.

Who should be Queen's next singer?

Tempo — 2009-05-13T12:07:54-05:00

Queen + Paul Rodgers is now minus Paul Rodgers.

The former Bad Company singer, who’s once again touring with that ’70s band this summer, told Billboard that his days as Freddie Mercury’s fill-in are pretty much over.

"At this point we’re gonna sit back from this," Rodgers told the trade magazine, saying his collaboration with Queen guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor "was never meant to be a permanent arrangement."

Queen + Paul Rodgers were the champions for two world tours, but their sole studio album, last year’s "The Cosmos Rocks," bit the dust.

The Queen guys haven’t made any announcements, but we’re already handicapping who should be their next singer.

George Michael?

Josh Groban?

Adam Lambert?

'Rock 'n' Roll' and the songs that changed the world

Tempo — 2009-04-30T23:34:56-05:00

When people talk about "important" rock songs, some obvious candidates come to mind:

Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'"

John Lennon's "Imagine"

Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A."

But the music-making world-changers of Tom Stoppard's "Rock 'n' Roll," which begins previews Saturday and officially opens May 11 at the Goodman Theatre, are artists who bubbled resolutely beneath the mainstream, such as the Velvet Underground and the Plastic People of the Universe.

The latter group, which took its name from a Frank Zappa song and which was heavily influenced by the Velvets, is almost completely unknown on this side of the Atlantic. Yet in its native Czechoslovakia, it helped bring about Communism's downfall.

Spurred by the Plastic People's 1976 arrest after a countercultural show, playwright and future Czech president Vaclav Havel co-authored "Charter 77," a manifesto of the anti-Communist movement behind the so-called Velvet Revolution of late 1989. Not only do some theorize that the Velvet Revolution got its name from the similarly named band, but Havel reportedly told Velvet Underground leader Lou Reed, "Because of you, I am president."

At any rate, Stoppard’s acclaimed play comes with its own eclectic, built-in playlist: three decades of songs driving a story that incorporates an unreformed Czech communist living in Cambridge, England, after the 1968 Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia; his music-loving protege who bounces between Cambridge and Prague; and a young woman inspired and haunted by the beatific image of drug-addled visionary Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd tooling around Cambridge.

As usual, Stoppard has many metaphors at work: the contrast between the young, pie-eyed Barrett and his older, lost self (as well as his cynical-minded ex-bandmates) offering an allegory on communism while the Rolling Stones’ progression from the ’60s to the ’90s tells a tale of capitalism.

But let’s stick to the music itself, because the playwright clearly understands its transformative power. There’s an intriguing question here:

Which rock songs truly have changed the world?

Did the Beatles teach everyone that "All You Need Is Love"?

Did the will.i.am-led "Yes We Can" video pave the way for Barack Obama's election?

Was Aretha Franklin's demand for "Respect" answered in the affirmative?

“Rock ‘n’ Roll” director Charles Newell singled out “More Trouble Every Day,” a song that Zappa wrote for the first Mothers of Invention album, “Freak Out!”, and rerecorded throughout his career.

“If you listen to it today, it is astonishingly prescient,” said Newell, a Zappa freak himself, as he noted its influence on the Plastic People and other groups.

Let’s open this up to the rest of you. Lay ‘em on us: the songs that changed the world.

Disney's Next Big Thing? He's aiming higher

Tempo — 2009-04-04T00:13:51-05:00

Playing back newly recorded vocals and tweaking sound levels while planted in the center of a vast mixing console, Cody Fry is right at home.

It’s his parents’ home in Northfield, actually, and his dad’s built-in professional recording studio, but on this day while on his freshman spring break from Belmont University in Nashville, Fry (above) is playing his recurrent role of engineer, producer, mixer, multi-instrumentalist and singer/songwriter.

The song playing is a rich slice of blue-eyed soul called “Weakness” on which the 18-year-old New Trier High School graduate has added a string arrangement (via keyboard samplers) to add drama to his Stevie-Wonder-with-cream tenor. Niko Xidas, 19, Fry’s best friend whose drumming is the recording’s only non-Fry contribution, is impressed to hear the full arrangement.

“Cody always surprises me,” Xidas says with a smile.

Aside from resulting in a three-song EP, “All Is Life,” now selling on iTunes, Fry’s do-it-yourself ethos has put him at the center of a contest he’ll have to rely upon others to win.

Fry is one of 11 artists vying to become Radio Disney’s N.B.T. (Next Big Thing). Over the past 22 weeks, each act had a two-week period in which two songs were featured on the N.B.T. Web site (radio.disney.go.com/artists/nbt) and fans voted online. At the end of the preliminary voting period, Fry was in second place behind a slick (actually, they’re all pretty slick) Long Island, N.Y., four-piece rock band called Push Play.

The final online voting opened Saturday and will last through April 23, with the winner to be announced April 27. The victor will be featured at a to-be-announced high-profile Radio Disney concert and will receive the full-on Radio Disney push that has propelled the careers of Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, Hilary Duff and others.

Fry would love to collect the most votes, but he has mixed feelings about winning. “Disney has a very associated stigma with them,” he says. “Just look at the artists they have on their tours right now. Would I call many of their artists musicians? I’m not sure. They’re definitely artists, for sure, but I’m a musician, and music has always been what it’s about.”

Says father Gary Fry, “Cody is very, very concerned that he be viewed as having musical substance.”

So, Cody Fry says, he appreciates that the contest has built him an enthusiastic fan base, and “it would be nice to win it, but at the same time Disney is not going to make or break my music career. This [contest] is about how many votes you can drum up in a three-week period, whereas music is way more than that.”

If Fry does win, he’ll certainly represent the Disney brand stylishly. He’s clean-cut, blond and slim, wearing Converse sneakers, blue jeans, a striped shirt, a black tie, a charcoal pin-striped vest and a gray sports jacket.

Is this his usual outfit?

“He dresses like this absolutely every day,” laughs Xidas, who preceded Fry from New Trier to Belmont.

“Not every day,” Fry says.

“Every day,” Xidas laughs again. “It’s usually just a sport coat, button-down [shirt], tie, maybe minus the vest sometimes.”

“I try to look nice every day,” Fry admits. “That’s something that my dad and his father instilled in me. When you put on something that you feel good in, it just brightens your whole day pretty much. I want to be taken seriously, so I dress like a serious person needs to dress.”

With his father composing and recording scores for movies, TV shows and commercials, Fry grew up surrounded by music. He and his three sisters did voice-overs on their dad’s McDonald’s ads, and he also sang on Nintendo and Hi-C commercials as well as a potty-training video.

Gary says he first envisioned his son’s future when the 13-year-old Cody stood out among hundreds of school choir kids participating in Disney World’s Singabration. “It was just his obvious immersion in the music, his total passion for what he was doing as a performer, and looking at him, you knew there was nowhere else on earth he would rather be,” his father said.

Fry learned classical piano early on, and his mother, Carol, gave him his first guitar when he was a high school sophomore, at which point he began writing songs. He also taught himself bass, drums and whatever other instrument caught his fancy.

New Trier music teacher Derek Fawcett, who became Fry’s voice coach, recalls that after Fry saw Fawcett’s band perform with a mandolin player in Chicago, “he went home, got online, got himself a used mandolin and was recording with it a few weeks later.”To Fawcett, Fry’s musical background and natural talent were immediately apparent, but his greatest gift may be his enthusiasm, which the teacher termed “really infectious.”

When Fry attended Grammy Camp in Los Angeles as a high-schooler, the camp director enlisted him to play keyboards in a benefit concert honoring producer Quincy Jones, thus enabling him to share a stage with Kanye West, John Legend and Gloria Estefan. A year later Fry was playing guitar and singing among his idols in a Grammy tribute to Beatles producer George Martin.

“Sitting there eating chips and guacamole with Michael McDonald, I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Fry recalls.

Grammy Foundation senior education director David Sears says he was impressed by the “good vibes” that Fry brought to these ensembles. “He feels very comfortable in a lead or support role and doesn’t have any ego about that one way or the other,” Sears says.

Fry cites John Mayer and Justin Timberlake as influences, though more for their versatility and collaborative tendencies than lyrical content. Fry, like his parents and Xidas, is a devout Christian, which in part led to the two friends’ choice of Belmont, a Baptist school with a strong musical program.

“That’s why we do everything that we do, because God is allowing us to do it,” Xidas says.

“Not using the talents that God gave us would be a disservice to Him,” Fry adds.

Fry isn’t interested in being categorized as a Christian artist; he’d rather make music for everyone. But his spiritual interests inform his lyrics, such as in “Weakness” when he sings to the song’s girl, “We’ve got God to hold up the world.”

“The reason I write music, and the reason my lyrics come out the way that they do, is because the world needs some sort of moral force right now,” Fry says. “It just seems that there’s so much chaos, especially with music. It’s about sex, drugs and abusing women.”

Xidas, who drums with other musicians in Nashville, sees himself as Fry’s lifelong collaborator. “I’ve had this dream since high school just to play with an artist who I love and who I respect and whose music just moves me, and Cody is that for me for sure,” he says. “And it’s awesome that we’re good friends also.”

Radio Disney became aware of Fry when a Chicago-based officer for the network forwarded his music to the Los Angeles headquarters. Radio Disney music director Kelly Edwards says she was knocked out when he came in for an interview and began singing.

“We were literally blown away by him just sitting on the couch with his guitar,” Edwards says. “Everyone in the room was literally silent when he was done. We just weren’t prepared for how talented he was.”

Soon Fry will learn whether Radio Disney fans render the same verdict. He says he’s not worried.

“My plan obviously is to finish this Disney thing out, see how it goes,” Fry says. “The whole concept of a record deal is a bit different than it was 10 years ago, but I’d love to get some way to get my music out to people, have people like it, play massive shows and release CDs and keep collaborating with other artists until I die, pretty much.”

'Fast & Furious': The title remains the same

Tempo — 2009-03-12T10:05:30-05:00

It used to be that movies would come with different titles while serving up the same ol’ slop. Now the titles barely need changing.

The first “Fast”/“Furious” film was 2001’s “The Fast and the Furious,” which starred Vin Diesel and Paul Walker as dudes who drove fast furiously and Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster as their tough gals. Then came 2003’s “2 Fast 2 Furious,” which brought back Walker but none of the others.

The 2006 third entry, which featured more furiously fast cars and zero original actors, was called “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.”

Come April 3, Diesel, Walker, Rodriguez and Brewster will all be back on screen in “Fast & Furious,” which comes with the tagline “New Model. Original Parts.”

This is the most curious progression of sequel titles since “First Blood,” “Rambo: First Blood Pt. II,” “Rambo III” (which really should’ve been “Rambo II: First Blood Pt. III”) and finally last year, “Rambo.”

This almost makes one nostalgic for the numbered “Friday the 13th” and “Police Academy” movies. “High School Musical” and “Spider-Man” 1-3 aside, digits apparently have lost their title cache.

The “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies opted for the dreaded colon titles: “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End”—unmemorable mouthfuls all of ’em.

I love J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and most of the movies have been all right, but I’ve never been a big fan of those “Harry Potter and the …” titles. I’m always doing the mental math: “…Order of the Phoenix” = No. 5, “…Half-Blood Prince” = No. 6.

The James Bond series was going fine until the producers ran out of Ian Fleming titles and started constructing titles by pulling key words out of a hat. After “Live and Let Die,” did we really need “Tomorrow Never Dies” and “Die Another Day”?

But back to “Fast & Furious.” Universal Pictures rebuffed our inquiry into its strategy of turning titles into mere brand names. But if people rush out to see this new model with almost the same title, imagine the other movies that could reboot by dropping their definite articles:

“Hottie & Nottie”
“Squid & Whale”
“Falcon & Snowman”
“Sorrow & Pity”

Meanwhile, we eagerly await the next entries in the “Fast/“Furious” series:

“Fast ‘n’ Furious”
“Fast, Furious”
“FastFurious”
“F&F”

We are the knights who say 'Meh'!

Tempo — 2009-03-01T20:13:03-06:00

“Meh” is by definition something you don’t get heated about.

If this shrug of a word were a person, it would be Derek Smalls, the “This is Spinal Tap” bassist (played by Harry Shearer) who characterized himself as “lukewarm water.”

How exciting was loading the dishwasher today?

Meh.

Yet “The Daily Show” correspondent John Hodgman set off something of a “meh” firestorm by kvetching about the expression on Twitter last week.

“Did I ever tell you people how much I hate the word ‘meh'?" he wrote. “Nothing announces ‘I have missed the point’ more than that word.”

Over additional Tweets he added: “It is the essence of blinkered Internet malcontentism. And a rejection of joy....By definition it may mean disinterest (although simple silence would be a more damning and sincere response in that case)…but in use it almost universally seems to signal: I am just interested enough to make one last joyless, nitpicky swipe and then disappear.”

Some agreed with Hodgman’s outburst. Others predictably commented: “Meh.”

“His whole idea seemed to be that if people couldn’t say anything nice, they shouldn’t say anything at all,” said A.C. Kemp, author of “The Perfect Insult for Every Occasion.” “I think he might be missing the point.”

Jeffrey Wells, who as author of the blog Hollywood Elsewhere (hollywood-elsewhere.com) has meh’d many a movie, agreed.

“It’s the equivalent of an old-fashioned carnival, and they hand you the hammer, and you swing, and the little thing doesn’t get off the ground,” Wells said. “That’s what the ‘meh’ is.”

In a 2007 Tribune story, Nathan Bierma traced the expression’s popularity to two “Simpsons” episodes: one from 1995 one in which Marge weaves, “Hi Bart” on a loom, and he indifferently replies, “Meh,” and a 2001 show where Bart and Lisa respond, “Meh,” to Homer’s invitation to an amusement park. When their father presses his case, Bart says, “We said ‘meh,’” and Lisa adds, “M-E-H. Meh.”

Regardless of backlash, the word may be here to stay. Last November publisher HarperCollins added it the word to the Collins English Dictionary, news that in the lexicography world inspired a rousing...

You know.

Right Oscar, wrong movie

Tempo — 2009-02-27T08:10:26-06:00

Few are begrudging Kate Winslet winning her first Oscar in six nominations for “The Reader.” As the common refrain in Hollywood went last week: “It’s time.”

Yet few argue that her portrayal of former Nazi concentration camp guard Hanna Schmitz is her strongest work ever. Her performances in last year’s “Revolutionary Road” and 2006’s “Little Children” were more complex and searing, and she transfixed even in her 1994 debut, “Heavenly Creatures.”

So Winslet has joined a long, honorable tradition of accomplished artists who won Academy Awards for the “wrong” movie. Here are 10 more (which are not necessarily intended as commentaries on who actually won in those years):
-
Martin Scorsese
Won: best director for “The Departed” (2006)
Should have won: best director for “GoodFellas” (1990), “Raging Bull” (1980) or “Taxi Driver (1976).
Scorsese’s work in “The Departed” was expert but far from the groundbreaking status of those earlier classics.
-
Reese Witherspoon
Won: best actress for “Walk the Line” (2005)
Should have won: best actress for “Election” (1999)
She was fine in the borderline-supporting role of June Carter, but her primly ambitious high-schooler Tracy Flick from “Election” is a timelessly hilarious, horrifying creation.
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Renee Zellweger
Won: best supporting actress for “Cold Mountain” (2003)
Should have won: best actress for “Nurse Betty” (2000) or best supporting actress for “Jerry Maguire” (1996)
Her indelible work in the two earlier movies wasn’t even nominated, yet she won for a performance that seemed right out of “Mama’s Family.”
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Randy Newman
Won: best song for “If I Didn’t Have You” from “Monsters, Inc.” (2001)
Should have won: best song for “When She Loved Me” from “Toy Story 2” (1999) or “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” from “Toy Story” (1995)
Newman was on his 16th nomination when he finally got his statuette, but could you hum a few bars of “If I Didn’t Have You”? Those “Toy Story” songs are essential to the movies.
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Russell Crowe
Won: best actor for “Gladiator” (2000)
Should have won: best actor for “The Insider” (1999) or best supporting actor for “L.A. Confidential” (1997)
Crowe was charismatically heroic in “Gladiator” but had more going on in “The Insider” and “L.A. Confidential,” as well as “A Beautiful Mind” the following year.
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Al Pacino
Won: best actor for “Scent of a Woman” (1992)
Should have won: best actor for “Dog Day Afternoon” (1975), “The Godfather Part II” (1974) or “The Godfather” (1972).
HOO-ahh! This is the classic career achievement award for a hambone performance. He was better in “Glengarry Glen Ross” that same year.
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Paul Newman
Won: best actor for “The Color of Money” (1986)
Should have won: best actor for “The Verdict” (1982), “Hud” (1963) or “The Hustler” (1961)
The Academy finally gave Newman a competitive Oscar the year after awarding him an honorary one, but his second go-’round as Fast Eddie Felson wasn’t an improvement over the original “Hustler.”
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Sydney Pollack
Won: best director for “Out of Africa” (1985)
Should have won: best director for “Tootsie” (1982)
“Out of Africa” sure looked nice, but with “Tootsie” Pollack took an infamously troubled project and made an all-time great comedy.
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Sidney Poitier
Won: best actor for “Lilies of the Field” (1963)
Should have won: best actor for “In the Heat of the Night” (1967) or “The Defiant Ones” (1958)
When looking at Poitier’s landmark career, does anyone consider “Lilies of the Field” to be the high point?
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Charles Chaplin
Won: best original dramatic score for “Limelight” (1972)
Should have won: best director and/or actor for “Modern Times” (1936) or “City Lights” (1931).
Talk about catching up late to a guy: Thanks to a quirk in Academy rules, “Limelight” was honored 20 years after it was made. Chaplin’s two most revered films received zero nominations.
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Who are we missing?

Revolution 1 + 9 = a 10!

Tempo — 2009-02-23T19:36:36-06:00

It's been a while since I had my mind blown by a newly unearthed Beatles outtake, but holy cow.

I must admit, I never really had heard any connection between the Beatles' sound collage "Revolution 9" and the actual song, "Revolution 1" (the White Album song remade for the more familiar, more electric single version).

Then the 10-minute-long take 20 of "Revolution 1" surfaced on YouTube a couple of days ago, and one of my fellow Beatle geek friends passed it along to me today. It contains the seeds of "Revolution 9" as well as a mind-warping siren-like guitar that should have made the final version.

I don't know where this came from, but thank you. Why don't the Beatles release this cool stuff themselves? There are also an epic "Helter Skelter" and the pre-"Revolution 9" mind trip "Carnival of LIght" sitting around somewhere, yet the Beatles can't even get "Let It Be" out on DVD.

Well, anyway, plug in your headphones and fasten your seatbelts.

Ms. and Mr. Winslet and those smokin' Oscar parties

Tempo — 2009-02-23T14:09:57-06:00

HOLLYWOOD—Steps from the Kodak Theatre, the Governors Ball is at full bustle about an hour after the Academy Awards has ended.

The décor is Asian, the music is swing, and the energy is post-Oscars exhale. Acting nominees Melissa Leo and Viola Davis are hugging. “WALL-E” director Andrew Stanton, Oscar in hand, and singer-songwriter Peter Gabriel are expressing mutual appreciation.

Jerry Lewis cuts a swath through the room. Dreamworks Animation chief Jeffrey Katzenberg and his wife are among the few actually making use of their chairs as they finish dinner. An army of white-jacketed servers stand at attention for anyone who would like to relieve them of the sushi rolls and smoked salmon pizza slices on their trays.

“Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle enters, and an impromptu receiving line forms. He’s a well-liked guy, gracious and charming, and a happy love bubble has formed around him.

Now we leave that scene for the Vanity Fair party, the annual A-lister extravaganza that has moved to the bar at West Hollywood’s Sunset Tower Hotel. The party’s space is smaller than before, and the guest list is said to be down from 1,500 to 800, but at 11:45 p.m., the place is packed and buzzing.

Inching forward are Kate Winslet, her Oscar and her husband, “Revolutionary Road” director Sam Mendes. Jon Voight, a.k.a. Angelina Jolie’s dad, is telling Winslet how wonderful she is. Naomi Watts congratulates her while heading for the door.

Meanwhile, Mendes, who filmed much of “Road to Perdition” in Chicago, voices his appreciation for the city’s theater scene. “Chicago is the only theater town that I think is better than London,” he tells me.

“Outside, outside,” Winslet directs him toward the back.

“Forgive me,” Mendes says with a smile. “I am Mr. Winslet.”

California’s anti-smoking law doesn’t apply to Oscar night revelers. Supporting actor nominee Josh Brolin is puffing away while at a cocktail table with wife Diane Lane and Jessica Alba, whose hand he kisses in greeting. In the semi-outside area in back, Natalie Portman, Jason Segel and now Winslet are taking their drags.

I ask Elton John about his summer Wrigley Field shows with Billy Joel, and he says, “I’m excited to play there. That place is hallowed ground for me. I’m a big baseball fan.”

Which part of the field does he plan to occupy? “Probably first base—if I could get to first base,” he laughs.

Elvis Costello, who will take a seat next to John later, is making the rounds with his wife, singer/pianist Diana Krall, who played a show earlier that night. Costello has been busy as always, wrapping up a new album in Nashville that’s due out in June. The concept this time: no drums.

Hey, there’s George Hamilton.

Tina Fey is chatting with fellow former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Molly Shannon. I tell Fey about seeing her in Second City in the mid-’90s, and she is polite about this lame conversation starter before returning to Shannon.

Robert De Niro is in the middle of the room on a cell phone. When he’s off and walking toward a door, a couple of tall look-alike brunettes ask if they’d pose for photo with him, and he politely waves them off.

Sean Penn is walking purposefully through the room. He is not smiling, which figures. Imagine if he’d lost.

Anne Hathaway did not win but might as well have for her beaming energy as well-wishers take turns embracing her. She says loudly to a friend, “Isn’t my new boyfriend so nice?”

Hey, there’s Lloyd...I mean, Rex Lee.

Filmmaker Judd Apatow and his wife, actress Leslie Mann, are moving toward the back, and her feet are killing her. This is a common theme among women at this party, some of whom are standing with their high-heels in their hands.

I ask Apatow whether he thinks the “Ghostbusters” sequel is going to happen, and he stresses he’s not involved but thinks it’s inevitable. “They’re remaking everything. They’re remaking ‘Knocked Up,’” he cracks.

Weinstein Co. co-owner Harvey Weinstein is in a corner conducting business-sounding conversations, but he takes a break to say he thought the Academy Awards show played great. “They reinvented the Oscars,” he says.

In general, reviews among this crowd are positive. They enjoyed Hugh Jackman and really liked those multi-actor tributes to the nominated performers.

Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel are together looking...together. Sisters Emily and Zooey Deschanel say hello and chat unprompted; they’re nice. An older man approaches supporting actor nominee/Steppenwolf veteran Michael Shannon and declares, “I voted for you!”

Hey, there’s Rupert Murdoch.

Live from backstage at the Oscars

Tempo — 2009-02-22T19:51:39-06:00

11:34 p.m. "Slumdog Millionaire" director Danny Boyle and producer Christian Colson are the final triumphant Oscar-clutchers to take the backstage mic. Boyle is talking about how the movie's "spine" is deceptive because it appears to be the game show, but it really is the love story.

The director considers the Academy recognition a gift--not just for him but also filmmakers who aren't looking to make big franchise movies. "It's a triumph for this kind of film," Boyle says. "It's independent minded, and it's working really against the odds."

Someone asks about word that the leading couple, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, might be a couple in real life. Boyle says he doesn't know, but Colson says no, they're not.

Now Boyle is talking about the emotional reaction of the "Slumdog" kids when they were up on the Academy Awards stage. "They were really crying and crying. It was beautiful, actually."

A theme that keeps coming up is the way divergent cultures came together on "Slumdog," with Bollywood on one side and Hollywood on the other. "We're Brits really, trapped in the middle," Boyle says. "It's a lovely trap, really....Culture fusion's a wonderful thing."

"I think it's a measure of how much America has changed and is changing before our eyes," Colson says of U.S. audiences' embrace of "Slumdog" and, more general, its increased global interest in recent months. "Certanly for the first time in my lifetime America is cool again."

Finally, Boyle discusses his movie's journey, from triumphs at the Telluride and Toronto film festivals in late summer though Fox Searchlight's aggressive campaign, which relied largely on word of mouth.

"What we have benefited from," Boyle said, "is that people have taken it to their hearts."

And that ends the backstage portion of our program. Tune in here Monday for reports on some late-night, sure-to-be-fabulous parties.

11:26 p.m. Announcement: "Just to let you know, we are not getting Hugh Jackman."

And the backstage crowd goes, "Awwwwwww."

11:11 p.m. Sean Penn is here. Is he smiling? Uh, no. Let's say his energy is not quite as warm as Ms. Winslet's.

Perhaps taking his cue, the reporters are asking him serious questions. What would he say to those anti-gay protesters a few blocks away?

“I’d tell them to turn in their hate card and find their better self," Penn says. "I think these are largely taught limitations and ignorances.”

What should President Obama gay rights?.

Well, Penn is disappointed that Obama doesn't support gay marriage, though he suspects that's a political and not deeply felt stance. “I don’t think that any of us, particularly our president, will long be able to take that position. Because it’s not a human luxury. These are human needs, and they will be gotten."

Someone else asks Penn about a particuarly nasty anti-gay poster, and Penn says, "I think if we get used to dismissing thise comments instead of responding to them, we’ll be better off."

It goes on like this--all valid questions for an issues-oriented press conference but not exactly celebratory. Finally, mercifully, the session ends. Does Penn ever crack a smile?

Uh, no.

10:58 p.m. It's Kate Winslet.

The first question is whether she's concerned that people found her Nazi character to be sympathetic.

"I can’t be responsible for the emotional response that the audience has to a film. I don’t think any actor can,” she says, though noting that she thinks it's good for viewers to process complicated reactions.

The next question hits more of an emotional chord, noting British scorn for her crying acceptances of previous awards and wondering what the British will think of her emotional Oscar acceptance.

"I really don't care, and quite honestly it makes me sad that my own country can't be happy for the successes of their own kind like Americans can," she said. "So I really don't care."

Ted Casablanca of E! then wondered that if she's no longer going to do so many nude scenes, to whom would she pass the nudie torch?

That got a good cackle from the best actress winner, who took a loooooong pause before answering "Susan Sarandon"

As she answered another question, Winslet paused and noted, "It's just dawning on me now that I won an oscar. it's just starting to sink in. Oh my God." She lets out a huge breath.

The London Daily Mail's Baz Bamigboye, who has covered Winslet since she was 17, gets the microphone, and upon hearing him, Winslet rushes off the stage with her Oscar, finds him in the audience and wraps him up in a hug--an incredibly sweet moment that draws applause from the rest of the room.

"Just tell me how this little girl from Reading feels tonight," Bamigboye finally asks.

"Like a little girl from Reading," Winslet tearfully answers.

Discussing her five previous Oscar trips in which she went home without a statuette, she says, "Winning is really a lot better than losing. A lot better."

Finally, she's asked how her husband, "Revolutionary Road" director Sam Mendes, feels about her frequent nakedness on screen.

"He's used to it," says Winslet, who seems used to this question. "He'd seen me naked before he even met me."

Winslet finishes up by pumping the Oscar in the air as the room applauds.

10:55 p.m. "We have asked Hugh Jackman to come to the room," announces the room coordinator as the show's end credits play.

10:42 p.m.: Sean Penn wins best actor, so the Mickey Rourke show won't be appearing backstage. But at least Mr. Penn might be compelled to talk to reporters now.

10:28 p.m.: As the best actress presentation carries on, we're told over the loudspeaker that Yojiro Takita, director of winning foreign-language film "Departures," is coming backstage. As he fields questions in Japanese, Kate WInslet is named best actress.

Finally a question in English: Was he surprised that "Departures" won instead of "Waltzing with Bashir"?

Answer, via a translator: Yes.

10:21 p.m.: "Slumdog" editing winner Chris Dickens is backstage now. He's asked about whether he expected such a triumphant Oscar night, and he says when he saw how the movie was received, he thought it had a shot for, say, a writing award, but he wasn't envisioning the movie's near sweep, which just has one award to go. Speaking of which, the hostess says Dickens must return to his seat now for the end of the show.

10:13 p.m.: The trio of sound mixing winners for "Slumdog Millionaire" are on stage, and Resul Pookutty is doing the talking, discussing how he is the first Indian film craftsman to be nominated for and to win an Oscar.

As he continues speaking, Reese Witherspoon appears on TV to introduce the best director Oscar. Will the "Slumdog" sound mixing winners stop to see whether Danny Boyle wins the director prize?

No, they're still talking. OK, they stopped. Now they're walking out of the room as Reese Witherspoon announces, "And the Oscar goes to Danny Boyle."

Pookutty, halfway out the door, freezes, spins back toward the room and yelps, "Woo!"

10:09 p.m.: Sound editing winner Richard King ("The Dark Knight") arrives and has to correct the first questioner who addresses him as the visual effects winner. The questioner then asks whether King was disappointed that "The Dark Knight" didn't receive more nominations.

"We had hoped that [director] Christ Nolan would get nominatedbecause he was all of our guiding force and the energy behind the film.”

10:06 p.m. The visual effects winners for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" are talking about the blurring lines of live action and computer graphics and how they hope other effects specialists will be inspired by their film to push the ball forward.

9:54 p.m.: A Japanese translator has been secured, so Kunio Kato, director of the winning animated short "La Maison en Petits Cubes" has arrived backstage. The first questions, naturally, are asked and answered in Japanese, but someone does ask an English-language one about what has made him most excited this night:

"Meeting Jack Black was the most exciting for him," the translator translates.

9:52 p.m.: An announcement: "Just so you know, we just had word that Jerry Lewis will not be coming up to the interview room."

Groans all around.

All in all, this has been an awfully sedate Oscar night. Can't Mickey Rourke win now and sprint back here?

9:37 p.m. Ledger's parents, Kim Ledger and Sally Bell, take the stage along with his older sister Kate.

Kate discusses how she and Heath seemed to know that his "Dark Knight" performance was something special, but the more interesting question is where the Oscar will be kept. The answer is that it's going to his daughter, Matilda, but apparently not for a while.

“She can’t sign for it until she turns 18, so it stays in trust for her either here or in Australia,” Kim says.

Someone asks this question, which spurs some pained expresses among the reporter crowd: “As the parents of Heath Ledger were you aware you were raising a potential Oscar winner?”

“We didn’t know which way he was going to go, but he certainly had an amazing passion for this, and from the age of 12 it became apparent that he was extremely good at what he did,” Kim says.

And have they been in touch with Matilda's mother, Michelle Williams?

“Not just yet because we're back here, but we’re very close with Michelle, and she’s doing an amazing job with Matilda," Kate says. "We’re in constant contact, and we always will be.”

9:17 p.m. "Do we want Heath Ledger's family in the room? Are there any questions?" the room hostess asks the assembled journalists.

"Yes!" comes the resounding reply.

8:52 p.m.: After taking a long time to get going, backstage has been a logjam of winners taking the stage bam-bam-bam! Because the winners are so stacked up, the room's hostess announces, the interview times are going to get shorter, so "WALL-E" writer-director Andrew Stanton holds court briefly.

He says the approach for "WALL-E" isn't much different from that for the very first Pixar film, "Toy Story."

“We’ve just been trying to make the most sophisticated film we can with deep characters…That’s sort of been the same attack on every film. Even though 'WALL-E' is getting more attention, I don’t think we’ve approached it any differently from any other film.”

As for how winning his second best animated feature Oscar (after "Finding Nemo") feels, Stanton says: "You know that song 'Love is wonderful the second time around?' So is winning an Oscar."

8:40 p.m.: "Slumdog Millionaire" winning original screenwriter Simon Beaufoy describes Mumbai as "an operatic place," the only possible setting for his movie's wild swings from light to darkness and back again.

"I couldn’t have written this film for New York or London or Paris,” he says.

As a Brit, he also knows that he had to take an unBritish approach to the movie's wild romance. "You know what the English are like," he says. "The’re very repressed people. and you don’t get that in India [which has] an utterly uncyncial approach to romance.”

To him the most surprising response to his movie is that Indian filmmakers have responded to "Slumdog" and its focus on the poor, a subject ignored by Bollywood films

"Finally we don’t have to make a fil about the middle classes getting married and have five dance numbers in front of the French Alps,” Beaufoy says. "The fact that we did and mainstream oaudineces have gone to see this filmin indiea has opened up a pathway for Indian directors...

“If you can get Hollywood and Bollywood combining, you can get a whole new genre of film. I think the potential is amazing.”

“the finalncial markets are crashing around the world and a film comes out that
is ostensibly about being a millionaire but it’s really about something more: the value of love… lve….this money thing has been shown to be a real false idol.”

8:26 p.m.: Penelope Cruz comes back, and three of the first four questions are in Spanish. The English one is what she said in Spanish while accepting Oscar. She says she was dedicating the award to "all of the actors of my country."

Has she spoken to "Vicky Christina Barcelona" writer-director Woody Allen yet?

“I’m going to call Woody right now," she says.. He sent me flowers last week when I won for BAFTA. I adore him.”

This is a pretty straightforward Q&A, which is to say that she's calmed down from the fluttering emotions of her acceptance speech. Of "Nine" co-star Sophia Loren, she says: "She’s a woman with a golden heart. No, she’s a woman with a heart of gold.”

She also praises "I’m always insecure on the set no matter what. When you’re working with Woody Allen, you now you can trust the person you’re working with.”

As a nominee speaking with an accent, she sees progress in Hollywood's growing cross-pollination:

“We are all mixed together more and more every day and that has to be reflected in cinema. I’m happy that that door seems to be open.”

8:25 p.m.: A female voice came over the speakers asking the following: "The winner for animated short speaks Japanese and we can’t find his translator. Can anyone translate?"

8:20 p.m.: Yep, we got a writer first, Dustin Lance Black, original screenplay winner for "Milk."

Ted Casablanca of E! started things by asking whether President Obama should reverse his stand on gay marriage.

Black responded yes, but "for inspiration we need to look not to Prop 8 but dream bigger and look at the 1964 Civil Rights Act…I think it’s time for the gay and lesbian community to have a federal act for full civil rights.”

Black later choked up discussing the debt he felt to Harvey Milk: “Harvey gave me his story to save my life, and I thought it was time to pass it on.”

He also talked about writing "Milk" as a spec script and said he first thought about the movie and Oscars together at this point: “I think it was the moment that we first saw Sean [Penn] with his hair cut and the suit on, and he came on to the set, and I was just blown away that it was everything what I’d heard and seen of Harvey.”

8:13 p.m.: Just in case you're wondering, no one has shown up back here yet. Where's Penelope Cruz? Or will we get the writers first?

OK, we're backstage now, which means I'm in a large function room at the Renaissance Hotel in the same mall complex as the Kodak Theatre, and a few hundred journalists in formal wear at laptops are watching flat-screen TVs positioned around the room.

The winners eventually will make their way back here, and I'll tell you what's going on.

Hey, it looks like Penelope Cruz will be first.