Adam Baran

With the Summer in FULL with a capital FULL Swing, it’s only fitting that I herald the premiere of Paula Abdul’s brand new video for her song Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow. I remember seeing Paula during her Under the Spell tour at Jones Beach in the summer of whatever year that was - 92 I think. I remember Paula had busted her knee and so the original concert date was pushed back to August. This was the very first concert I had ever seen, and it left a strong impression on me. It was the spectacle of all spectacles and set the standard for all future concerts I would see - yes, I’ve seen so many great shows over the years - the Stones, Bowie, Patti Smith, Bjork, the Dead a month before Jerry died, BB King, Isaac Hayes, Mavis Staples, Kid Creole and the Coconuts, Basement Jaxx, and Grizzly Bear - but none of them had what Paula had: dancers spinning around upside down in mid-air on strings to the tune of her 5th SpellBound single “Blowin Kisses In The Wind”, Color Me Badd as the opening number (they performed ‘I Wanna Sex You Up’ twice!), and the live appearance of Paula’s most famous collaborator, MC Skat Kat, who sang with her on the greatest duet of all time, Opposites Attract (sorry Neil and Barbra!). I mean this was a show.

I know what you will say, but Adam, now Paula Abdul is a big drunk who doles out hot heaping piles of unneccessary praise for idiots on American Idol. She was so uncooperative with the people behind her Bravo show Hey Paula, that they could only edit together six episodes, albeit glorious ones, before cancelling it all together. And her new song is so formulaic and standard fare pop, and her voice is just barely audible in the song and super auto-tune at that. Well yeah but so’s Madonna’s in her new awful song which I can’t listen to, 4 Minutes, and the rest of her theoretically crappy album Hard Candy, which despite it’s crappiness I now know all the words to, and listen to all the time. Hell I’ve even taken a shine to Cyndi Lauper’s uber-gay dance single “Into the Nightlife,” which I listened to like 6 times yesterday even though deep down, I’m ashamed. I chalk it up to a natural tendency do as much really gay stuff during the approaching weeks prior to Gay Pride day, as though I’m Sauron amassing a dark army before the big battle.

But there’s no shame with Paula. She is a pure untouched angel. She’s my Judy. Beaten down by the rigors of fame that led to her bulimia and her medical injuries which led to her current downer addiction, she pushes through with a single that like Cyndi and Madge, I can’t get out of my head. From her rivalry with Janet Jackson to her current rivalry with Simon, she’s been through the grist mill and emerged predictably a shell of her former self. Still, I’d rather listen to this than Beyonce or Rhianna any day. Paula’s new single is the modern equivalent of Judy Garland’s I Could Go On Singing - though I hope that Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow won’t be Paula’s swan song. Eagle’s calling and he’s calling your name, time to turn and bring the winds of change. Truer words were never spoken. She is forever my girl.

The rest of the UNDER THE SPELL TOUR after the jump (YouTube is really the fucking best thing ever.)

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From Friday’s Rock and Roll Fag Bar Tribute concert at Don Hill’s. Genius!

A few weeks ago, BF and I went to see Jerry Schatzberg’s rare film Puzzle of a Downfall Child, which stars Faye Dunaway in one of her most intruiging and brilliant performances, along with the late Roy Scheider. It’s a strange, very seventies Waldo Salt-esque film about a model, Lou Andreas Sand, played by Dunaway who enters the world of modeling and quickly becomes on of the most famous and popular faces on the scene, only to quickly collapse into substance abuse, depression, and a nervous breakdown. There’s lots of cutting back and forth between the past, which shows her rise and fall, and the present, as Dunaway, secluded in isolation after a breakdown, is interviewed by her old friend (much in the same way Jerry Schatzberg interviewed his old friend Anne Saint-Marie - a long-ago famous model who the the film is based on). In fact, there’s so much cutting and Euro doom and gloom moodiness in the early part of the film that it could have been called Ingmar Bergman’s Next Top Model.

The film is said to have been Dunaway’s favorite film, and it’s easy to see why. Her performance is so sharp and mannered it’s impossible to forget. She embodies the character, more than that she is the character. Odd, confused, officious, haughty, needy, desperate, achingly beautiful, but also weary underneath. Her accent is insane, completely mannered, but totally unplaceable. And she’s a bit cuckoo, which is always fun to watch.

Of course the film is out of print, never on DVD or VHS, but of course, it’s on YouTube from a French DVD source, (sorry for the subtitles and quality). So here’s the first part of the film, and after the jump, if you’re so inclined and you’ve got time on your hands at work, like me, you can watch it at your leisure.

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Two women at Dumpling Man, Memorial Day

“She didn’t want to move to Brooklyn, you know, remember, when Steve wanted her to move to Brooklyn and she didn’t want to you know? But then she (inaudible) in the backyard, and she started to change?”

“Yeah, Miranda really changed. Steve made her change. She used to be so cold and uptight but she let herself change.”

“Who do you think dies?”

“I think either Samantha or Big dies.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

Now you can watch my short film “JINX!” anytime you like, as it’s been added to the Videos section at IFC.Com.

Click here to watch it - http://www.ifc.com/video/On-IFC/Movies/

It’s basically the only original short film up on the IFC.com website, as they are slowly updating their site to include more short films. The quality is somewhat low-res, but it’s still pretty awesome. I’ve already had a great response from people who never got a chance to see it on IFC or during the Festivals.

Also, my favorite video store in the world, Kim’s Video, where they have almost everything you could ever hope to wish to want, now has JINX! available as well. The DVD rents for just $1 a nite, since it’s eleven minutes long, so if you want to see it in a higher quality form, head over to Kim’s at 6 St. Mark’s Place between 2nd and 3rd Avenues. And if you don’t know about Kim’s, how come you’re reading this blog?

I’ve been on a Bowie kick this week since Lily of the Valley and Justin Bond’s performance of “Under Pressure” at the Squeezebox After-Party (see previous post). I pulled out my old Bowie Singles collection and have been listening to it all week. Then I went and read the Bowie listing on Wikipedia. Did you know that David Bowie donated 10,000 bucks to the Jena Six Defense Fund?

One of the other things I remembered when reading about Bowie was that I’d always heard about this strange BBC bio documentary called “Cracked Actor.” In the half-hour doc, you’re supposed to see Bowie in a real coked-up, mentally unstable, emotionally exhausted state as he tries to eradicate the Ziggy Stardust character from his psyche. I’d always heard it was really rare, hard-to-find, etc. But of course it’s on Youtube and I found it and watched it this morning.

It’s quite fascinating. It’s not nearly as insane as I’d been led to believe. Sure Bowie is coked up. You can see him sniffing throughout, and he’s clearly being a prick to the interviewers - at one point he starts joking about how he can really come up with those perfect quotable things to say. The film, by Alan Yentob, takes place during the Diamond Dogs tour, as Bowie preps for his Los Angeles gig. It includes footage of the Ziggy Stardust and Alladin Sane tours also, moving around with an admittedly old-fashioned, but still engrossing style. There’s amazing footage of Bowie singing songs like Cracked Actor, Ziggy Stardust, My Death, Diamond Dogs, and Sweet Thing. At the end Bowie’s clearly morphing into the Philly Soul - Young Americans Bowie as he rehearses a trio of soul back-up singers on a new funky arrangement of John, I’m Only Dancing. The Thin White Duke Bowie is not far off. It’s easy to see where Todd Haynes got the documentary element for Velvet Goldmine - I know, I know - obviously it’s Citizen Kane too, but this is also in there in a big way.

Hope you enjoy it. It’s divided into five parts.