TheModernSept2012V1N11

September 2012 • Vol. 1, No. 11

www.themodern.us

The Risky Business of Old-Time Rock and Roll Timothy Hutton Not ordinary people Thomas Jane: Raw Randy Couture Ultimate Fighting Movie Star NCIS’ Brian Dietzen Michael Biehn & Jennifer Blanc-Biehn In the Grindhouse Pokemon • Cassingles • Girdles

Rashida Jones Our Forever Girl

c ntents T h e M o d e r n — Yo u r l i f e i n r e t r o In this issue:

Reconnecting Timothy Hutton

The Oscar-winning actor’s long and storied career proves he’s not ordinary people.

Here and Now

Thomas Jane Raw

An actor with raw talent runs a comic book empire called Raw Studios.

Modern Spotlight

Michael Biehn and Jennifer Blanc-Biehn Play the victim.

Brian Dietzen

The perennial NCIS supporting player at last earns his stripes as a series regular.

Fighting Words

Randy Couture

The mixed-martial-arts legend, actor and entrepreneur is anything but expendable.

Girlie Action

Rashida Jones Forever Girl

On the cover: J essica Roberts | APM Jacob Schirmer | Bella

The Feminine Mystique

My Girdle is Killing Me! They made you curvy, but they didn’t tickle.

Photo Essay

Risky Business: Old Time Rock and Roll We celebrate the movie that started the lip-synch showoffs.

Retro Sports

NBC’s 2012 Olympic Production (with games) Let the games begin and the network showboating end.

Read This Retro Book

Keeping It Real with the Man of Steel We need Superman more than ever. So the least we can do is understand him.

The Great Forgotten

Forgotten Eighties Soundtrack Songs Sometimes the soundtracks have a longer shelf life than the movies themselves.

Retro Merch

Cassingles For one brief, shining moment, this technology was meant to be Top 40’s savior. If only they weren’t eaten alive.

Girls Were Girls & Men Were Men

James Coburn: Cool. Tough. Perennial. Magnificent.

Funny Papers

Notes on Scandals: Elizabeth Taylor’s run as America’s favorite drama queen.

Ode To Joysticks

Dig This DVD

Adventures in Modern Sound

Savant Quiz On Sale Now

Parting Shot: Dig Ann Margaret, The Bay City Rollers and a whole mess of elder statesmen and women getting down with the sound that is going down. On the town. And off the hook.

letter from the editor

Mom and Dad “digging the scene” in 1965 Hey, all you sucker millennials: being a twentysomething in 1965 was a whole different scene. Take my parents (please). That year, they’re not yet 30, and yet they’re already married for almost half a decade. They have one child in the hizzy (namely me) and one on the way.

What a concept: responsibility, housework and gravity by age 25.

The house, brand-new, is sold to them for a reasonable $13,000. The 30-year mortgage: $110 a month.

Twentysomethings in 1965 are serious. They work. They are way more mature than the tattooed-hipster-basement-dwelling-reality-show-wanna-be’s of today. Of course, to be fair, jobs are plentiful, even for the mere high-school graduate. And one salary supports an entire household, as my father proved.

Outside the house, mom and dad may have dug the “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” Beatles on the car radio, but once the moptops release Rubber Soul this year, uh, the folks will stick with Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, thank you.

Despite what you’ve heard about the youth rebellion of the Sixties, it was not all that and a bag of sunshine.

In 1965, mom and dad are burning charcoal, not draft cards. They’re experimenting with new Instant Folgers, not LSD. They’re not going to San Francisco; they’re going to Korvettes’ one-day sale on kitchen utensils.

Still, it’s not all Pleasant Valley Sunday. A drive up to New York from Philadelphia — with gas costing 31 cents per gallon — allows them their choice of Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, Zero Mostel in Fiddler on the Roof or Liza Minelli in Flora, The Red Menace.

Orchestra seats average $7.50. The Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, NJ features The Supremes, Sammy Davis, Jr., or Tom Jones. $30 gets you the show, which includes dinner and drinks.

What happened? Thankfully, mom and dad are still here, but where did this America go? It can all be summed up, symbolically, with The Latin Casino’s final chapters. In 1978, it turns into a neon-lit disco called The Emerald City. In the mid-’80s, it burns to the ground.

Today, it is the site of the Subaru of America headquarters.

Ron Sklar Editor

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Yo u r l i f e i n r e t r o .

C o n t a c t

Editor • Ron Sklar | Art Director • Jennifer Barlow | Copy Editor • Patty Wall Contributing Writers: Barrie Creedon • Mitch Gainsburg Silvan Carlson-Goodman • Jay S. Jacobs • Jacqueline Kravitz Strauss Art Wilson Photography: Harley Hall • Harleyhallphotography.com

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You’ve read about all of this in The Modern.

Now own it! It’s like a dream, only true!

The Brady Bunch, The Final Season DVD – Cheap!

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Superman Retro Book – Cheap!

Old Time Rock and Roll – Bob Seger Mp3 – Cheap!

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Timothy

Hutton The Oscar-winning actor’s long and storied career proves he’s not ordinary people.

“It feels like it has flown by,” actor Timothy Hutton tells me.

He’s referring to his experience on Leverage, his current hit series on TNT, now in its fifth season and moving its action from Chicago to Portland. Yet he may as well be talking about his long and amazing career, which stretches back to the late Seventies. Today, he seems as young and fresh as when he was just starting out as a teen hottie/ serious young man, in TV movies like Friendly Fire with Carol Burnett and Young Love, First Love with Valerie Bertinelli.

In 1980, at age 20, he became the youngest thespian ever to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His portrayal of a troubled, suicidal youth in the Robert-Redford-directed film

By Ronald Sklar The Modern | September 2012

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reconnecting

Ordinary People poked the nerve of an entire generation. Based on the bestselling novel of the same name, it dealt squarely with the uncomfortable subjects of death, grieving and coldly dysfunctional families.

“It was a pretty intense time,” he says of being a part of that film and being acclaimed at such a young age. “It was a wonderful time. It’s just that everything happened so fast. I never imagined anything like that. I was nineteen-years old and I was working on this amazing film.

Then the film came out and suddenly I had all these opportunities to do other films.

“I feel very fortunate that things happened that way. But it was quite challenging to stay levelheaded and try to keep my feet on the ground.

It can really grab you by the neck.

It forces you to have some kind of perspective. I really needed to be aware that it wasn’t always going to be like that, that this is a rare, exceptional situation. And I think that kind of helped me over the years. I certainly didn’t think that every film was going to have that kind of impact or success.”

He was right on that count. Although his next film, Taps (with newbie Tom Cruise) was a hit, a string of films afterward did not bang the gong as loudly: Turk 182, Daniel, and Made in Heaven were not box office or critical successes. He scored again with the classic The Falcon and the Snowman with Sean Penn, along with Everybody’s All American with Dennis Quaid.

His current role on TV, in Leverage, casts him as a former insurance investigator who leads a group of thieves against a crooked and dishonest world (all in the www.themodern.us

name of good, of course — think Robin Hood).

How do you keep it fresh in season five?

“You look at the stakes of the characters,” he explains. “You look at the opportunity you have with the storytelling. My character, instead of thinking about what has happened to him, thinks about

in Where the Boys Are and The Horizontal Lieutenant. He died at the age of 45 in 1979, only a short time before Tim won his Oscar.

On his father’s career potential, Tim says, “He was never really given enough opportunity to be regarded as a dramatic actor.

He was seen as more of a comedic actor. There were a few exceptions. He did that movie with Jane Fonda, called Period of Adjust-

“

It was a wonderful time. It’s just that everything happened so fast. I was nineteen years old and I was working on this

”

amazing film.

what can happen. He has taken responsibility for the safety of the team. He has come to a point where he genuinely trusts each of them. And it allows for a betrayal of that trust. And that’s a hint at what might possibly be coming up. The writers have been very successful at keeping it fresh by coming up with first-rate new storylines, character development and interpersonal relationships.”

As a kid, he had dreams of playing baseball and building bridges. (“Being an actor was not something that I set out to do. I even feel to this day sort of surprised that that’s what I do.”) However, his beloved actor father, Jim Hutton, inspired him to try the family trade.

The senior Hutton, lanky and funny, is best known for comedic roles

Timothy Hutton

ment, which Tennessee Williams wrote and George Roy Hill directed. That was an exception. He was a wonderful actor. He was a wonderful screen comedian. And he died too young. He was just starting to move into a different area, around the time of [his 1975 NBC TV series] Ellery Queen.

When Ellery Queen finished, I think he maybe started to feel that people maybe would not think of him as just the funny tall guy in Where the Boys Are, but instead as a more dramatic actor. I wish he had the opportunity to do more dramatic work.”

With his current series on firm footing, Hutton continues to look forward as his TV series evolves.

“It’s going to be, by far, the best year,” he says.

September 2012 | The Modern

Thomas Jane

Raw B

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An actor with raw talent runs a comic book empire called Raw Studios.

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here and now

Thomas Jane doesn’t shy away from controversial roles or from his passion for comic books and graphic novels. His early days as a struggling and often homeless actor have taken on the stuff of legend, but today he’s a bankable name who makes producers nod with satisfaction and recognition.

He’s appeared as Mickey Mantle in HBO’s 61*, a male prostitute in Showtime’s Hung, and a part of the famous firecracker scene in Boogie Nights. In addition, he annually sets Comic-Con ablaze with his totally wicked series of comic books and graphic novels: Dark Country, Bad Planet and Alien Worlds, among others.

His works are products of his personal production company, Raw Studios.

Busy man, but he takes a moment to give us his thoughts as to what keeps that engine revving. www.themodern.us

On being an actor There are certain actors who just want to say their lines and go home. Then there are actors who think of themselves more as storytellers. That’s how Harrison Ford once described himself. That always stuck with me. I like the idea that I’m a storyteller. Whether you are telling a ghost story around a campfire or in a $100 million movie, you’re telling stories. And if you are doing that with a graphic novel or a script, yeah, there are different rules, but essentially you are just telling stories, man.

On Raw Studios I’ve always been a fan of science fiction and horror.

It’s what I grew up on. But the stuff that inspired me to be a storyteller didn’t exist. Raw Studios fulfilled a September 2012 | The Modern

here and now

need for the stuff that just wasn’t around. That’s how Bad Planet was born and all the books that came after that, like Pig Farm and Dark Country.

On attending Comic-Con It’s our sixth year and this year was our best year yet.

We had so much fun. We debuted our Dirty Laundry short to an unsuspecting crowd of Punisher fans. That really made my show. We kept it totally under wraps so nobody knew what we were unveiling. That was really the fun part for me: being in a room with 300 fans and unveiling this thing for them and just listening to the crowd respond. That surprise was so visceral and very rewarding. It was super cool.

On the Baltimore native’s humble beginnings in Hollywood: I came out here with no money and I didn’t tell anybody. I didn’t have any family or connections.

The first thing I did was walk up to Hollywood Boulevard and look at the stars on the sidewalk.

I had no idea how to get into Hollywood or how to be an actor, but I did find my way into an acting school. I sold my car and gave the money to the acting school. This left me without any money for a place to live, so I was homeless for a little bit. I stayed in welfare hotels downtown and slept on some park benches.

On the famous firecracker scene in Boogie Nights: It was Boogie Nights that got me noticed and got me steady work. I was lucky enough to get somebody to give me the script and that scene in particular was probably the best scene in the whole film. The character of Todd Parker was available, so I specifically asked to audition for Todd Parker just so I could be in that The Modern | September 2012

scene. The reason that movie is so good is because [director] Paul [Thomas Anderson] understands actors and lets them do their thing. Directors who get that usually end up with a really interesting movie. That’s because, believe it or not, when you are watching a movie, you are watching the actors. You’re not watching the focus or the shot; you are watching the actors.

And that’s the difference.

On portraying Mickey Mantle in ’61*: That was probably the most fun I had making a movie, just because I got to play baseball and make a movie! I also got to hang out with [major league outfielder and coach] Reggie Smith. I never played baseball before, so as Reggie said, I didn’t have any bad habits. [Director] Billy Crystal was a joy to work with. He knew every single game and every single play that the Yankees played in 1961. It was a magical experience. I am very grateful that I got to be a part of that.

On his starring role as a male prostitute in Hung: I took the job because it’s so hard to find great writing. I responded to the great writing. Writing is really hard. I think it’s the hardest job in Hollywood, to do it well. And the fact that the guy’s got a big dick is sort of the Trojan horse that gets you dragged into the show.

But I also think that the title drove a lot of people away.

There is something kind of braggadocio about it, about calling the show Hung. But when you watch it, you realize that the guy is sort of the opposite of a cocky guy with a big dick. He’s really an insecure, middle-aged hometown hero gone to seed. And that’s what makes it charming and fun. I had a blast and worked with a lot of great people, especially Anne Heche, my love.

On keeping his eyes on the prize: What I noticed about growing up and wanting to be an actor, if [an aspiring actor] had another thing that they could do, like if they were good with numbers or they could manage a restaurant, then nine times out of ten, that backup plan is what would happen for them.

I consciously decided never to have a net. I never put a net out. No Plan B. I think that did influence my life and I think that that did help. It did give me an advantage over some other folks who did have a Plan B. I didn’t have anything else to do. It was either do this or go hungry.

Check out Tom’s site: http://rawstudios.typepad.com/ www.themodern.us

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Michael Biehn Jennifer Blanc-Biehn Victims of Circumstance When sci-fi legend Michael Biehn was looking to write and direct a movie, he went back to basics. Biehn, who is beloved in genre circles for lead roles in The Terminator and Aliens, recently worked with Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino on their Grindhouse

double-feature. He would also read Rodriguez’ book Rebel Without a Crew and became intrigued with the idea of low-budget filmmaking.

Biehn and his wife, actress Jennifer Blanc-Biehn (The Divide) decided to make and star in The Victim.

The movie — about a stripper who witnesses a murder and has to hide from crooked cops with the help of a mysterious stranger — was filmed in an amazingly short twelve days.

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As the film was getting released, the couple gave us a call to discuss their labor of love.

What made you want to make a grindhouse film?

Michael Biehn: Because of my association with Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. I did Planet Terror [half of the Grindhouse project] for Robert. Quentin was around a lot. The two of them were just fascinating and fun people. They introduced me to the whole genre film community and the low-budget movies.

You hadn’t run across them before?

Michael Biehn: When I was a kid, I used to go to the drive-in theater. My parents would want to see Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. That would start at 8:00. At 6:00 we would all go down by the playground. They would start the first movie. It was hardly even dark by then. It was always Connie Stevens and Vic Morrow and stuff. A cheaper, low-budget movie. So I’d seen a lot of them, I just didn’t identify them as grindhouse films.

Both of your characters are anti-heroes, good people in many ways but deeply flawed, willing to make morally questionable choices. Is it fun to play such layered characters?

Jennifer Blanc-Biehn: I love the idea of presenting a girl that is morally questionable, yet you’re rooting for her. She’s a stripper. She takes off her clothes. She’s partying, doing drugs. Still, you don’t want to see her get hurt.

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She ends up having all kinds of strength based in that sexuality. That’s something that Michael has always clung to with this script. It points out a woman using her sexuality to get out of a bad situation.

You have worked with the biggest directors in the world: James Cameron, William Friedkin, Michael Bay, Rodriquez and many others. How did they affect your directing?

Michael Biehn: The movie wouldn’t have been made if I hadn’t worked with Robert Rodriguez. Robert is a bigger-thanlife personality and a lot of fun.

Very inspiring. Jim Cameron said it best: “One of the brilliant things about Robert is that he just doesn’t understand that he can’t do something.” That’s Robert’s philosophy. I’d ask him about filmmaking and what he was doing. He would say, “Why don’t you just go pick up a camera and go make a movie, Michael? You can do it. Go write something.” I’ve spent my whole life rewriting characters and scripts when I thought I could help make better

s_bukley / Shutterstock.com

Michael, was it weird writing that type of role for your wife?

Michael Biehn: You obviously don’t know Jennifer very well.

Jennifer Blanc-Biehn: Oh, my God! Michael Biehn: Jennifer is a lot of fun. She is very liberal. Nothing really shocks her. She’s been in the movie and theater business since she was a little girl. At twelve or thirteen she was touring with Brighton Beach Memoirs. She grew up on the streets of New York. She was doing a lot of crazy stuff when she was [young]. She’s a veteran of that. It wasn’t like I was asking Pollyanna to do anything.

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movies. I’ve worked with Jim over 25 years. He’s always said, “When are you going to make your own movie?”

Finally, circumstances fell into place. I didn’t know you could make a movie for as little as we did.

Jennifer Blanc-Biehn: I think we did a good job, considering our challenges and how quickly we did it.

Michael Biehn: Yeah, this really turned out to be quite a success story for us.

What were some of the classic grindhouse films which inspired you?

Michael Biehn: To be perfectly honest with you, until I did Grindhouse, I didn’t really know what a grindhouse movie was. The only reason I call myself a grindhouse moviemaker was because it was exploitation. I didn’t have enough money to do visual effects or makeup effects. I couldn’t do Eat My Dust because I didn’t have the budget for cars. I couldn’t do a zombie movie.

I couldn’t do a lot of things. I decided to set my sights on the sexuality. I am not an aficionado of grindhouse movies. You can talk to somebody like Quentin and he could tell you 100 movies. I just remember going to the

drive-in theaters and seeing these movies. I got an eyeopening when I worked for Robert and Quentin. They screened a number of grindhouse movies for us. They looked like low-budget exploitation movies.

Do you think your film can help get them to a new audience?

Michael Biehn: It’s very hard to make five-milliondollar movies these days and be successful, because there is nowhere to show the movies. There used to be a lot of theaters around. The big companies have monopolized the movie business. I’m from Lake Havasu, Arizona. I go back, and it’s a much larger town than when I was a kid growing up. It used to have one theater and show one movie. Now they have two cineplexes. Both are playing the same movies. Those are the same movies being played everywhere else across the country. It’s very hard to find independents, like Laemmle’s [an LA art-house chain], in smaller towns. You go to Kentucky and they just don’t have those. Nebraska. Oklahoma.

West Virginia. They don’t have art-house films. The only way you can see the movie is on DVD.

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fighting words

y d n a R e r u t Cou The mixed-martial-arts legend, actor and entrepreneur is anything but expendable.

“I don’t have any real fears or phobias,” admits Randy Couture, the combat-sports veteran and mixed-martial-arts champion who became the first man in UFC ( Ultimate Fighting Championship) history to win the heavyweight title three times, and retired from fighting at the spry age of 47. “I have a healthy respect for heights, but I’m not afraid of them. I jumped out of a lot of helicopters in the Army. I think it’s different to have a respect for something versus a fear of it.”

Distinction made. Respect is something that this Oregon native has earned big time, as to date he is the only UFC competitor to hold titles in both the heavyweight and light-heavyweight divisions. He has over 25 years of training in freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, and his offense technique in mixed-martial-arts competition is forever known as “ground and pound.”

“You are either coming off a commiseration or a celebration,” he says of his morning-after psychology during his years

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of going at it with very few rules. “And it certainly depends on the fight. If you made a mistake, you try to figure out what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again. There were some fights where I didn’t walk right for six weeks afterward.

There is definitely a psychological letdown after the fight is over. I wouldn’t call it a depression, but you feel rundown and exhausted. Sometimes it can last for longer than a week after a fight. Some guys don’t ever recover. They’re not the same fighters. They’re not the same athletes. I usually would take a week off, withdraw and reset, kind of recover, and then get back into the gym and start training again.”

Now, he’s no longer fighting but he’s hardly retired. Talk about fear vs. respect: he’s in the process of building an empire, swimming with the sharks in the world of big business (with his Las-Vegas-based gym and Xtreme-Couture merchandise). As well, he is keeping good pace in the biggest

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shark tank of all: Hollywood, as an actor.

“I’ve been in sixteen pictures now,” he says of his other career. “I don’t know if that’s a lot by the industry’s standard. But I’m certainly learning more, developing more tools, trying to create real emotion and finding the character so I can somehow tell the truth. I’m intrigued by the whole acting process. I don’t know if you’re naturally born with it or not, but it is something that I’m learning to do and I’m having fun doing it.”

An audition — and the acting competition — can prove to be just as big a blow as a sucker punch or a jab to the head. It can ravage the ego more than the ribcage, but Couture keeps his eyes fixed on the future and his shoulders at the ready.

“I became more and more comfortable with the realization that I wouldn’t be competing anymore,” he says of his UFC retirement. “Honestly, I think acting is taking up a big part of my life now. I’m competing with a lot of other guys for these roles, so I’ve got to put myself out there in a similar way. Mentally and physically, there is some crossover that I find from fighting to acting. I’ve shifted my focus to that and I feel like it’s going well.”

What makes Couture’s engine run? His adrenaline rush still belongs to mom.

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September 2012 | The Modern

fighting words

“I think it’s something I’ve learned from my mother,” he says of his tireless drive. “My mom was a single parent and had a particular work ethic. The kids had to pull our own weight. We had to do a lot of things around the household that other kids didn’t have to do. My mom was working two jobs, so we didn’t go without too much. So I took that example and the necessity of having to do a lot of things for myself and for my sisters. I realized very early on that I was going to get out of it whatever I put into it. It’s brought me a long way down the road.”

One of the stops along that road includes a juicy part in the Sly Stallone action blockbuster The Expendables (both the original and the sequel). Although a surprise summer hit to say the least, Couture had no doubt that the film would be the object of an international bromance.

Like father, like son. It’s a few go-rounds in a UFC ring that puts the rest of his life — and his other passions — into perspective.

He says, “After walking out into a [UFC] crowd like that and exposing yourself in that way and feeling that kind of adrenaline, everything else is a walk in the park.”

on sale now

The Princess Phone “It’s lovely…it’s little…it lights!”

These are not just words to describe the wife. This is the ad campaign for the Princess Telephone, introduced by The Bell System in 1959. The lightweight and lit-up device was marketed to women and available in pink, red, turquoise and gray (among other colors). Early models were too small to contain all the gear:

“I don’t know how it couldn’t be a hit with that cast of guys,” he says of the role call, which includes Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis and Chuck Norris. “I don’t know how anybody who grew up in the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties couldn’t go and watch that film.”

With his eyes fixed on the future, he still maintains a connection to his first love.

“I still have a very strong passion for fighting,” he says. “I’m now watching my son [Ryan Couture] compete and climb up the ladder. It’s very exciting for me to see him develop and see him finding success.

He has a strong passion for the sport. In some ways, I am vicariously living through him. I don’t worry at all. I see his preparation. I see the sacrifices he makes.

I see the passion. He’s doing what he wants to do.”

The Modern | September 2012

they required an external ringer and electric transformer for the illuminated dial. Its first customers complained that the phone was too light, and that it slid around on a flat surface too easily (a weight had to be added to keep it still).

Push button dialing was introduced in 1963 and the princess went into an eternal sleep in 1994.

During her reign, she lit up rooms and faces all over suburban America. www.themodern.us

retro sports

NBC’s 2012 Olympic Production (with games) Let the games begin and the network showboating end.

By Mitch Gainsburg I sit here and watch the 2012 Olympic games. I try to think back 40 years to the 1972 games, as it is as far back as I can remember. Olga Korbut, Mark Spitz, the Men’s Basketball debacle and — most of all — the death of Israeli athletes, stick out in my mind. Chris Schenkel and Jim McKay anchored ABC’s airing of the 1972 Summer Olympics. When it came to the competitions, they knew when to speak and when to just let us watch and enjoy. Back then, the broadcast was never about the network. It was always about the athletes. We didn’t have HDTV and had only two or three angles to view the action. It was simple and it was enjoyable to watch. The images of the ’72 Olympics are as clear as day to me.

That has to do with the way they were presented back then.

Forty years and billions of dollars later, we have ultra technology that offers 20 different views. “Up close and personal” is for real. Advertisers have taken over.

The network broadcast is all about itself. “Diarrhea of the mouth” is an understatement for the announcers. It has become The Olympic Broadcast, not The Olympic Games. What should be etched in my mind are Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Gabrielle Douglas, and the women’s soccer final between Japan and the USA, not the bloviating sounds of Bob Costas and the commentary of a clueless Ryan Seacrest. Both are pros and should know when it’s time to focus on what and why we are watching. I won’t even get into the five-hour closing ceremony of people taking pictures of people taking pictures.

Other than the fact that there were too many pro participants, I thought the competition was terrific. I The Modern | Septmeber 2012

applaud the amateurs winning the gold more then I do the pro athletes. Most of the professionals have experienced being the best in the world. The gold medal just adds to their hardware collection. To see a young gymnast who hasn’t made a dime win a gold medal beats seeing a two-time world champion/millionaire/tennis star jumping up and down with a gold medal they knew would be theirs before they got off the plane.

In 1972, Olga Korbut was the property of communism, Mark Spitz didn’t even have a sponsor, and the USA Men’s Basketball team were all in college. The closing ceremony was about the athletes and lasted an hour.

ABC actually had cameramen working the cameras and you felt like a part of the production, even if you just showed up in front of your TV. I can only imagine what the 2016 games in Rio will be like. We can expect a 3D production and maybe the mandatory thongs for the women’s beach volleyball players and perhaps commentary by Howard Stern and Sharon Osbourne.

Mitch Gainsburg (aka. Cashy the King) hosts The Sports Goombahs radio show and webcast www.sgshow.net www.themodern.us

modern spotlight

Brian

Dietzen The perennial NCIS supporting player at last earns his stripes as a series regular.

Dietzen knows a thing or three about earning. The Colorado native, who now lives in LA with his wife and two children, has been a good soldier, a series regular since practically its beginning. He plays the bespectacled, nervous assistant to Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard (David McCallum). However, only now, as it enters its tenth season, has Dietzen “officially” joined the cast, with his name featured in the opening credits. And even more importantly, he managed to seriously evolve his offbeat character, which at first was only a last-minute replacement/ afterthought.

“He’s one of the only people on

“It wasn’t always that way,” actor Brian Dietzen clarifies. He’s talking about the current sky-high ratings of his CBS series NCIS, on which he plays eccentric assistant Jimmy Palmer. The phenomenally popular procedural seems like it’s been on forever, but when it debuted in 2003 as a spinoff from JAG, the audience was actually small.

“When we first started, the numbers were good, but they weren’t stellar through the roof,” Dietzen explains. “That’s a testament to the work of the cast and crew and, obviously, the writing staff. We happily got to 20 million viewers pretty steadily. I feel like we’ve earned it over the course of years.”

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this team who has a relationship,” Dietzen says of Jimmy Palmer.

“He just got married. This year, he has to take over for Ducky, who at the end of last season we saw fall down with a heart attack. We are going to see Jimmy taking on a lot of responsibilities. We are going to see whether or not this character can hack it, if he can play with the big boys.”

Playing with the big boys is nothing new to the Shakespearian-trained actor, who works side-by-side with such TV perennials as Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly and, of course, David McCallum, who we first met back in the Sixties as a superspy on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. He says, “What’s great about working with David and Mark, who are living legends of the television industry, is that you don’t feel an intimidation factor when you are on the set. These are really cool guys. Mark always makes a point of going out of his way to sit and talk with everybody. He makes everyone comfortable. I’m learning to enjoy what we have, because it doesn’t come along very often. I’m learning from people who have been there and have done it before. I realize that I need to appreciate it in the moment because this thing is not going to be around forever. Working with those guys has been pretty fantastic for my learning process.”

Adding to that process was Dietzen’s feature film debut, in the musical From Justin to Kelly, which was a 2003 quick cash-in on the first American Idol winners. Although not a singer and dancer by trade, www.themodern.us

“

Dietzen seemed to have what it took to land a major role.

“I’ve done a lot of stage work, but not musicals,” he says. “I faked my way through [the audition], and they liked it well enough. So I got cast as [lead] Justin Guarini’s best friend. It was twelve weeks of living in South Beach in Miami. Yes, I did actually sing and I danced a ton in that movie.”

Dietzen attributes his unique career to balance, and constantly trying to maintain it.

“I am going to make the most of it,” he says of his current good fortunes. “And I balance that with: I’m also moving forward. Working on my own projects, pushing my career in other aspects. I think the balance between the two is the balance I strive to achieve.”

What’s great about working with David and Mark, who are living legends of the television industry, is that you don’t feel an intimidation factor when you are on the set. These

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are really cool guys.

Brian Dietzen

September 2012 | The Modern

girlie action

Rashida Jones

By Jay S. Jacobs There are very few things that make you more nostalgic than true love gone wrong. Actress Rashida Jones gave this conundrum a lot of thought when co-writing her first screenplay for Celeste and Jesse Forever.

The film — in which the hip young actress gets her first lead role in a film — looks at a couple who have been together since the tenth grade. They have recently divorced and are desperately trying to remain friends while dating other people.

The movie delves into a very basic question in life: why do relationships seem so much better after they are lost? Why do people get nostalgic for relationships that didn’t work?

“Joni Mitchell never lies,” Jones responded to me recently at the Regency Hotel in New York. “‘You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.’ I think our brains are programmed to remember pleasure and forget pain.

They just are. That’s why people can survive childbirth and pregnancy and whatever. Also, in this particular story, it feels like the life happenings are so violent.

They are so large, the things that happen. She’s confronted with the loss in such an immediate way. It’s almost impossible to ignore. It’s not like something you can move away from. It’s right in your face.”

Even the pretty and funny Jones admits that this inyour-face view is a new thing for her. However, Jones comes from an artistic family — her father is legendary musician Quincy Jones and her mother is the beautiful Mod Squad star Peggy Lipton — so she learned early that sometimes you have to open yourself up to share your art.

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Jones has become a rising star in Hollywood, appearing in the critically acclaimed sitcoms The Office and Parks and Recreation. She has also been making great strides in film, turning in important supporting performances in I Love You Man, The Social Network, Our Idiot Brother and The Muppets.

As you might expect, Jones wrote the screenplay with a man who is her best friend. Jones and Will McCormack — a character actor who has been in films like Syriana and Prime — dated for a few months many years ago. Unlike Celeste and Jesse, they quickly realized that they didn’t click romantically; they were destined to be best friends — and eventually collaborators.

“We wanted to be able to honestly convey the way that it feels when you are trying to let go of somebody, in a way that felt like it would reflect people’s lives,” Jones explained. “I feel like often I go see movies and I really like them and they are great and they are entertaining, but I don’t feel represented. I feel like they stop when it gets really ugly and gross and things start to go really bad. We wanted to show that a little bit.

“I was in a dark place.” Jones laughed, thinking back.

Luckily, McCormack was in a better place. The script was written with Jones in mind for the female lead and another good friend, Andy Samberg of Saturday Night Live, to play the guy.

Jones knew that she wanted to stretch as an actress. She is mostly known for playing sweet, likable characters, but she wanted to try something a little thornier. Celeste is a bit of a hypocrite in some ways (“In a lot of ways,” Jones agreed), rather selfwww.themodern.us

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I feel like often I go see movies and I really like them and they are great and they are entertaining, but I don’t feel represented. I feel like they stop when it gets really ugly and gross and things start to

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go really bad.

Rashida Jones

girlie action centered, kind of bossy and often very judgmental.

“I really wanted to play a dynamic, complicated character,” Jones said. “I’ve played a lot of nice, sweet, friendly, affable, dependable, sturdy, pragmatic characters. We struggled a little bit at the beginning, with how unlikable to make her, because at some point you want people to go along with the ride. But we definitely wanted her to come off hypocritical and judgmental and myopic, because it gives her somewhere to go.

“By the way, the place she goes is not that far. A lot of really, really tough things happen to her and she changes like that much.” Jones held her thumb and forefinger close together, but not touching. “She just doesn’t yell

at someone in line. That idea — it takes so much to change you a little — was important to us. But it’s easier to do when you start somebody in a place where they have a lot of flaws that they are not necessarily conscious of.”

She found that it’s also simpler as an actress who gets to perform her own words.” But not always.

“Definitely acting a part that you write is easier, because you tend to write it in a cadence that feels comfortable for you,” Jones said. “You’ve read it over and over again. If something doesn’t feel true, you just change it. You know all your lines. Actually, there were a lot of times when the script supervisor was like: ‘Umm, you said it wrong…’ I’m like: Right, sorry. But I feel like it was generally easier to say something that you had some hand in creating.”

Celeste and Jesse Forever is a smart and bittersweet look at the ties that bond people together — and those that tear them apart. Jones and McCormack were recently discussing relationships and decided that women hurt more, initially, when a relationship ends. However, long-term, men regret it more.

“Men deny and deny and deny and when they finally feel it, it’s too late,” Jones said. “They regret it forever.

Women have no choice but to process the pain as it’s happening and move on.”

Any relationship will be difficult, Jones decided. So whether Celeste goes back with Jesse like nothing ever happened or opens herself up to Paul [a lawyer character played by Chris Messina who wants to pick up the pieces], the most important thing is for her to be true to herself.

“It’s a science experiment,” Jones said. “You can put two elements together and hopefully it’s a compound that works. I think for Celeste and Jesse, there is something about their dynamic that will never change. She’ll always kind of be in charge. Even if they worked it out again, they’d end up back in that groove, you know? She needs somebody who is going to call her on her shit. Paul may or may not be that person, but she has to create a different dynamic to be happy.”

So, could Celeste and Jesse be the start of a new golden age of romantic comedy — one where the happy ending isn’t as important as the voyage?

“If we could start any kind of golden age... any kind of age… that’s huge,” Jones laughed. “Anything with age in it is great.”

Jay S. Jacobs is the author of the books Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits and Pretty Good Years: A Biography of Tori Amos. He is also senior editor and founder of the pop culture web magazine www.popentertainment.com.

The Modern | September 2012

www.themodern.us

the feminine mystique

My Girdle is Killing Me! They made you curvy, but they didn’t tickle.

By Jacqueline Kravitz Strauss Girdles were the bane of women all over the world back in the middle of the last century. And the middle is what they were all about… and all around!

Women found it very hard to live within them, but mostly, they couldn’t live without them.

What woman did not try to squeeze her 36" waist into a “2-way stretch” back in the day, making it look like she had a 24" waist and an hourglass figure? Watching my mother do it was quite entertaining. She’d pull and grunt and pull and grunt until her flabby belly was squished between several layers of latex, cotton, whale bone and nylon. Yes, ironically, I did say “whale bone.”

Then, of course, everything that was being held in by the girdle would push the flesh out and over it.

So something had to be done about that. The answer was a ‘long-line’ bra. That would hold the midriff in and push the remaining flesh up above it. But there, it would create a loftier cleavage which, in every generation, was always very desirable.

So after all this pushing, pulling and grunting, Mom would put on her stockings — not pantyhose — the kind that came in pairs. She’d garter the hose to the girdle, pull up her pantaloons (in Yiddish they were called gotkas), and she was ready to slip into her dress. Dressing like this was almost torture. And I can still remember how it felt to hug Mom when she was corseted — kind of like hugging a knight in armor.

To wear these garments all day could be agonizing, especially if it were summertime. So in hot weather, it was time to let it all hang out, and go without.

But those days are gone now. No more corsets with stays, or girdles with garters. And “real stockings” are very hard to find. But that doesn’t mean www.themodern.us

some of us don’t need to be squished in a little to, shall we say “smooth out our lumps and bumps”?

So we buy ourselves “body shapers.” That’s just a euphemism for a girdle. We don’t want to think we’re wearing a girdle, but c’mon, gals, we’re still wearing girdles. They’re not quite as difficult to get into, and

they don’t feel quite as restrictive as those older garments, but they’re still doing the same job, just with a different name!

Jackie Strauss is a Philadelphia-based writer who is married with children and grandchildren, and who enjoys spending her Saturday nights on the all-nostalgia talk show Remember When on WPHT 1210 AM along with co-hosts Steve Ross and Jim Murray.

Copyright 2012 © Jacqueline Kravitz Strauss All Rights Reserved

The “I Can’t Believe It’s A Girdle” Girdle They called this the “I Can’t Believe It’s a Girdle” girdle in 1971. But no matter how you wore it and how they sold it, it was still a dread. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ2qX5Jun8g&feature=related

September 2012 | The Modern

photo essay

Risky

Business This flick begat one of the most copied movie clichés of all time — lip-synching to old-time rock and roll.

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The last two decades of movies generated one mother of a cinematic cliché: stars lip-synching to old pop songs.

Dig: The Big Chill, Must Love Dogs, Because I Said So, To Wong Foo, Muriel’s Wedding, Mermaids, Thelma and Louise, (and on TV, Murphy Brown), just to name a few.

The Patient Zero of this trend: Risky Business (1983). However, all is forgiven: this film broke ground on so many other levels, including an expert meshing of soundtrack hits and superb story.

Other accolades; Entertainment Weekly called it one of the 50 Best High School Movies; Variety said the film was like a “promising first novel,” and Rotten Tomatoes still keeps it at a certified fresh 98%.

As for Tom Cruise? He disturbs us now because we feel like we can no longer relate to him, but back in 1983, he was the most relatable star we had: the arrogant, preppy, caffeine-charged, college-educated young man with boundless ambition on his sharp mind — we knew him all too well, almost as well as Cruise knew himself. He would play many variations of douchebags in the coming decades, but from the start he was always the guy who was placed next to you in the yearbook. Yet he would eventually excel way past your humble, short-term plans. Compared to his biggerthan-life reach for the stars, you have a jealous little mind. Just remain trapped in your perennial dysfunction and watch him up there on the big screen, working it like you never could.

In 1983, Janet Maslin of The New York Times summed it all up in the review of this joint: “you would be hard pressed to find a film whose hero’s problems are of less concern to the world at large. “ And yet…and yet…

Shirts courtesy of Oxxford Clothes oxxfordclothes.com On the cover: Jessica Roberts | APM • Jacob Schirmer | Bella Don Hood | Major • And Erik Knoff Photographer: Harley Hall | Harley Hall Photography The Modern | September 2012

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photo essay Just take those old records off the shelf I’ll sit and listen to ‘em by myself Today’s music ain’t got the same soul I like that old time rock ‘n’ roll Don’t try to take me to a disco You’ll never even get me out on the floor In ten minutes I’ll be late for the door I like that old time rock ‘n’ roll Still like that old time rock ‘n’ roll That kind of music just soothes the soul I reminisce about the days of old With that old time rock ‘n’ roll Won’t go to hear ‘em play a tango I’d rather hear some blues or funky old soul There’s only one sure way to get me to go Start playing old time rock ‘n’ roll Call me a relic, call me what you will Say I’m old-fashioned, say I’m over the hill Today’s music ain’t got the same soul I like that old time rock ‘n’ roll

The Modern | September 2012

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photo essay

Still like that old time rock ‘n’ roll That kind of music just soothes the soul I reminisce about the days of old With that old time rock ‘n’ roll

read this retro book

Keeping It Real with The Man of Steel We need Superman more than ever. So the least we can do is understand him.

By Ronald Sklar Good thing Superman has strong shoulders, because he carries the weight of the world on them.

We project all of our cultural fears and anxieties onto him, constantly ask him for help and rescue, and although times change, we prefer him not to.

Nevertheless, we tell his story over and over again. It never gets old.

The Daily Planet has yet to go digital, and Clark Kent could no longer find a phone booth for a quick change, yet Superman remains stronger than Kryptonite. We continue to want to know what makes him make us tick.

In Larry Tye’s new book, Superman: The High-Flying History of America’s Most Enduring Hero [Random House], we learn why we have Superman on the brain, and how the Superman story is actually Biblical (even more specifically, Jewish).

We also examine why, in this digital age, Superman continues to outsell all the other sucker superheroes.

We think of Superman as a constant, but how can any character continue to inspire millions through so many decades?

It’s his never losing the sense of right from wrong.

Dark heroes like Batman had a problem with that, and [Superman] was never fraught like Spiderman.

He was always the familiar Dudley Do-Right kind of character. In times of trouble, like what we are The Modern | September 2012

going through right now, I think he is really reassuring to people.

In your book, you theorize that Superman’s story is actually based on a biblical theme.

Superman is — in my firm opinion — Jewish.

I knew that his creators were Jewish and his publishers were Jewish, but everything from the fact that his name — when he came down from the Planet Krypton — was Kal-El, which in Hebrew suggests the vessel or the voice of God. His “truth, justice and the American way” were strained out of the Jewish book called The Mishna [which instructs that] truth, justice and peace are what Jews must strive for. He floats in from outer space and is rescued by his parents — two Gentiles named John and Martha Kent. They adopt him and raise him in the Midwest. If that’s not the Moses and Exodus story, I don’t know what is. Most compelling of all to me, any name that ends in “man” is either a superhero or a Jew. In this case, it’s both.

In the Fifties, conservative America was spooked by the immorality of comic books. This led to comic www.themodern.us

books being tossed into bonfires and burned, which was a troubling reminder of Nazi Germany. At that time, was even Superman considered immoral as well?

What we now refer to as The Comic Book Scare coincided with The Red Scare. The idea that the PTA and various clergy were going after comic books was surprising to me. The fact that one of their prime targets was Superman was even more surprising. He was the most straight-laced and un-sexiest of all the comic book characters. But they couldn’t make a compelling case for comic books polluting the minds of kids unless they went after the titan of the comic books, and that was Superman. The fact is, he outlasted the scare.

wants to send you to a

Yankees game Baseball Santa Claus offers FREE sports tickets to those New Yorkers who may not otherwise have the means to attend. The tickets are awarded through an essay contest that asks why you think you deserve the free tickets.

Answer as best you can, and that sweet booty may be coming your way.

We often think of a Superman curse, inflicted upon actors like George Reeves and Christopher Reeve, who both played Superman. Do you subscribe to this theory?

I would say that it certainly is compelling. Starting with George Reeves and his suicide, continuing with Christopher Reeve and his accident. On the one hand, you look at it logically and you say that there were tens of thousands of people involved with Superman in various media over the years, and bad things would happen to some of them. It’s just a matter of chance. On the other hand, the notion of a curse is too compelling to throw away. Too many bad things happened in too dramatic a fashion that, even given chance, is an awful lot of bad stuff.

Why does Superman continue to be so popular today? Aren’t we more sophisticated and jaded now?

What we know for sure is, in the 1990s, the bestselling comic book of all time was The Death of Superman issue. So when we tried to get rid of Superman, people were shocked and outraged. I think, when next summer we come upon Superman’s 75th birthday, and with the new Man of Steel movie, we will show that we need Superman now more than ever. Guys like me would like to think that behind my Clark-Kent-nerd exterior is a Superman. I think that everybody still can relate to that. There are more Clark Kents than there are Supermans or Batmans out there. And each story is still as compelling and as hopeful as it’s ever been. www.themodern.us

September 2012 | The Modern

Promoting: • Literacy and education • Paying it forward • College scholarships • Great memories!

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the great forgotten

Forgotten Eighties

Soundtrack Songs Sometimes the soundtracks have a longer shelf life than the movies themselves. Sometimes it’s vice versa.

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When Tom Cruise, in his dress shirt and tighty whiteys, danced across his parents’ living room in Risky Business, not only was a star born, but an iconic movie musical moment for the decade was birthed.

In fact, the image has become so ubiquitous that people forget that the song, “Old Time Rock and Roll” by Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band, was not written for the film. In fact, the recording was a two-year-old live album version of a five-year-old minor hit single.

However, the scene illustrates the powerful marriage of movies and music in the Eighties. The Eighties were the absolute boom time for soundtrack albums, living up to the promise of the late Seventies soundtrack explosion of Saturday Night Fever, Star Wars and Grease and surpassing it. Movies like Flashdance, Purple Rain, Urban Cowboy, Footloose, Fast Times at Ridgemont High and St. Elmo’s Fire became virtual hit jukeboxes as well as cleaning up in the cineplexes. Movies, music and MTV exploded the idea of visual music.

There are so many well-known Eighties film songs that I’m not going to discuss the obvious songs, because you can hear “Don’t You (Forget About Me),” “When Doves Cry and “Flashdance (What a Feeling)” any time and anyplace

The Modern | September 2012

you want. This discussion involves more obscure songs from mostly forgotten movies. Still, they are all great. And no, I didn’t do a Spinal Tap song for the third straight list, though God knows I could have.

“Everything Works if You Let It” – Cheap Trick

Roadie was supposed to be the big acting debut for a singer coming off one of the biggest-selling albums of the Seventies. Yet due to vocal and drug problems, Meat Loaf was unable to sing on the soundtrack.

Therefore, the producers put together a Who’s Who of current radio (circa 1980), including Pat Benatar, Eddie Rabbitt, Blondie, Styx and Teddy Pendergrass. Hot off their breakthroughs Live at Budokan and Dream Police, Cheap Trick was tabbed for the soundtrack opener and lead single. The song became a minor hit (and the film a notorious bust), but since the single only appeared on the soundtrack and an official Cheap Trick EP, this wonderful power pop song has been pretty much forgotten by both movie fans and Cheap Trick fans since then. www.youtube.com/embed/d7qZXGpqla4

“(Together In) Electric Dreams” – Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder

This song was a bit of super-grouping, so it’s kind of surprising that the song “(Together In) Electric Dreams” barely made a ripple when it came out. (At least in the US, but it was huge in Europe.) Giorgio Moroder was the Eurotrash super-producer behind all of Donna Summer’s disco hits. He had recently switched over to soundtrack music and was knocking the hits out of the park, writing and producing Blondie’s “Call Me” from American Gigolo and the great majority of the Flashdance soundtrack. Phil Oakey was the lead singer of The Human League, who themselves had just topped the charts with “Don’t You Want Me” and “(Keep Feeling) Fascination.” Maybe it was just that Electric Dreams — about a nerdy guy whose Pong-era home computer fell obsessively in love with hottie-next-door Virginia Madsen — kind of sucked and was a huge failure. Whatever the reason, this song faded into obscurity like punch cards and Fortran. www.youtube.com/embed/1rZ0Dp06OO4 www.themodern.us

“Cruel Summer” – Bananarama

Okay, this one is a bit of a cheat. “Cruel Summer” did become huge soon after appearing prominently in a beach party scene in which Daniel-san first fell in love with a young Elisabeth Shue during The Karate Kid. However, the song was not the single released from The Karate Kid soundtrack (that was “The Moment of Truth” by Survivor, which barely charted) and the Bananarama song was not even on the soundtrack album.

Also, the music video had no clips from the movie, which was standard early-Eighties MTV marketing. So the fun and frothy beats of “Cruel Summer” probably would have been a big hit even if they weren’t used in the film. But the tune was used in the movie, so I’m going with my gut and counting it, because, like Mr. Miyagi said, “Walk on road, hmm? Walk left side, safe.

Walk right side, safe. Walk middle, sooner or later, get squished just like grape.” www.youtube.com/embed/-YHaOMe_uRc

“The Neverending Story” – Limahl

Limahl has a very unique status in the music world. He is one of the rare artists who was a one-hit wonder, twice over. First the charismatic spiky haired singer was the lead singer of Kajagoogoo, a band that rode the song “Too Shy” high up the charts in 1983.

Soon after the tour promoting the band’s big hit, the other members of the band fired their handsome vocalist by telephone — Limahl insisted the others were jealous of the fact that he was getting the most attention. He started his solo career by teaming with Giorgio Moroder (yes, him again) for this theme song to a fantasy film of the same name. The song became a big hit – much bigger than the movie — and Limahl never charted again. www.youtube.com/embed/-RkTwKRlPMM

“As the World Falls Down” – David Bowie

Back when David Bowie still thought he could be an actor, he occasionally even took on roles in which he could take advantage of the day job as a singer. Probably his best movie — both as an actor and as a singer – was Labyrinth, a fantasy film created by Muppet master Jim Henson and Star Wars creator George Lucas. Bowie wrote five songs, which he sang as the Goblin King.

All of them were very good, but this one, in which he Septemberr 2012 | The Modern

the great forgotten tries to seduce a teenager (played by a then-unknown, future-Oscar-winner Jennifer Connelly) at a costume ball, is just stunningly beautiful. www.youtube.com/embed/CvLnPO9t4Wg

“One Sunny Day” – Ray Parker Jr. & Helen Terry

Even if you were looking for a low-budget duet for your little film “Quicksilver,” this was an odd merging of talents. Both artists had been huge a few years before this song was released, so it may have been worth a shot. Parker had R&B hits going back to 1978’s “Jack and Jill” with his old band Raydio. In 1984, he had topped the charts with the theme to Ghostbusters, but he didn’t seem to be able to follow up that smash. Terry was more obscure: the British songstress was plucked from anonymity at a London pub by Boy George to join Culture Club in 1982.

Terry became a talent to reckon with due to her raw and passionate vocals on the smash “Church of the Poison Mind,” but by 1986 the Club was closed due to infighting and George’s drug problems. “One Sunny Day” was nothing like either performer’s normal musical style, but it was one of the most effortlessly effervescent tunes to hit the radio (or mostly miss the radio) that summer. Too bad the movie, a silly trifle about Manhattan bike messengers starring Kevin Bacon, wasn’t seen by enough people for the world to know that they were missing the song. www.youtube.com/embed/AgfZY_9e2-A

“But Not Tonight” – Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode wasn’t yet the best-selling synthgoth hitmakers that they would soon become when this 1986 soundtrack single was released. Although they had just had their first US top 40 single “People Are People” the year before, it wasn’t until 1987 that the band became huge. Yet, while “But Not Tonight” was not a big hit, it is arguably the band’s finest song.

It adorned the soundtrack to the barely remembered film Modern Girls about three cute LA 20-somethings (Daphne Zuniga, Cynthia Gibb and Virginia Madsen — again!) trying to find themselves in the Hollywood club scene. “But Not Tonight” is also intriguing because it is one of the rare songs in which the famously morose DM lead singer Dave Gahan actually sounded rather happy. Well, as upbeat as he got, anyway… www.youtube.com/embed/8YDEy1Fasik

“Man Size Love” – Klymaxx

The “Meeting in the Ladies Room” ladies had a short shelf life as hitmakers, and this was their fourth (and final) big hit in just over a year before the group The Modern | September 2012

slid back into obscurity. Part of the very (datedly) Eighties-sounding soundtrack to Running Scared, a very-odd-couple/buddy-cops movie starring comedian Billy Crystal and hoofer Gregory Hines. This song was not the biggest hit single from the movie (that was Michael McDonald’s “Sweet Freedom”), but “Man Size Love” has aged much better. www.youtube.com/embed/OqnR7V1xEcE

“This Woman’s Work” – Kate Bush

John Hughes was arguably the most music-centric filmmaker of the Eighties, lending his eclectic song tastes to films such as The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Sixteen Candles, Weird Science and Pretty in Pink. Surprisingly, though, his greatest soundtrack album is nearly forgotten. She’s Having a Baby was his grown-up movie, about a young couple (Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern) expecting their first child. Hughes pulled together one of the great soundtrack albums of all time. It featured frisky ska (English Beat/General Public leader Dave Wakeling’s solo title track), sultry R&B (Bryan Ferry’s take on Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love,”) gorgeous light jazz (Everything But the Girl’s captivating “Apron Strings”) and smart, propulsive pop (Kirsty MacColl’s cover of the Smiths’ obscurity “You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet Baby.”) However, this was the best song on the album, a stunningly gorgeous and vaguely tragic meditation on childbirth by British alt-goddess Kate Bush. The song became an international smash two years later when Bush included it on her Sensual World album. www.youtube.com/embed/7TupvVpxY_U

“Hazy Shade of Winter” – The Bangles

There were only two good things about Less Than Zero, the gawd-awful adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ hip urban novel of the Eighties: the wonderful performance by a relatively obscure Robert Downey, Jr. as a doomed drug dealer, and the music from the soundtrack. The album veered from hair metal (Poison covering KISS’ “Rock & Roll All Nite”) to hip-hop (LL Cool J’s “Going Back to Cali”) to hardcore (Slayer covering Iron Butterfly’s “Inna Gadda Da Vida”). The best song on this cover-heavy soundtrack (and by far the biggest hit) was this surging girl group’s power pop take on the semi-obscure Simon & Garfunkel tune “Hazy Shade of Winter.” It is one of those rare occasions when the cover is even better than the original, and hearing this wondrous song almost was worth seeing the movie. Almost. www.youtube.com/embed/NFRx4PkXeVM www.themodern.us

retro merch Jay S. Jacobs

Cassingles For one brief, shining moment, this technology was meant to be Top 40’s savior. If only they weren’t eaten alive.

By Jay S. Jacobs There have been tons of different ways to collect your favorite songs over the years. 45s, 12-inch singles, CD singles, K-Tel albums, 78s, downloads, mp3s — each had its positives and negatives.

But no format was ever as much of a pain in the ass as the cassingle.

Let’s paint a mental picture. Flash back twenty years.

You’re riding down girl highway, a big, nasty redhead by your side. Your top is down. Your Alpine cassette deck is cranked up and you’re jamming to your favorite song. You were born to ride.

You look over and see the redhead’s hair whipping in the wind. Right as she looks back and smiles seductively at you from behind her Ray-bans, the song starts to fade away.

You look at her sheepishly, reach into a case with dozens of the other current hits of the day. You throw back a few you don’t feel like hearing, before finally happening upon the perfect mood setter. You fumble to press the little cassette out of the tight cardboard sleeve, but it seems stuck. Finally you get it out. You pop your other song out of the deck, not even bothwww.themodern.us

ering to put it back into its slipcase, which has gotten worn and ripped due to use.

You put the new single in for your girl. Shit, you forgot to rewind it last time. You hit the rewind button. It makes a screeching sound that makes the redhead flinch. Finally it gets back to the beginning. There, you’re safe for another five minutes.

But are you? You sit there tensely, waiting for the first sign of tortured, strangled distortion suggesting that the tape is being eaten by the deck. And this is giving you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t hit another car or wrap your ride around a tree during the minute or two that you’ve been driving with your eyes off of the road.

Whatever, the redhead is out of the mood.

And yet, in it’s own clumsy uselessness, there was something kind of lovable about the humble cassingle.

The format came into popularity in 1987, when the music industry finally was performing the last rites on vinyl. Cassette albums had pretty much replaced the old LP as the format of choice, so the record execs figured the cassingle would be the new alternative to the 45.

The idea had been toyed with previously. As early as 1980, Bow Wow Wow released a cassette single and the Go-Go’s smash “We Got the Beat” was also an early take on the style.

However, once they became the source of our single satisfaction, we quickly realized the inconvenience of the cassingle. It was too big and bulky. There was usually a maximum of ten minutes of music on it, often with both sides having the same one or two songs on each.

A cassingle could not be transferred to another form of media, as compared to an LP or CD, which could easily be taped. Even taping from a cassingle into a mix tape was a real pain until deck-to-deck cassette recorders became popular in the early Nineties.

The cassingle had about a five-year window of popularity before the CD and the download doomed it to a huge, forgotten box in your parents’ basement. Which is where it probably belongs.

Jay S. Jacobs is the author of the books Wild Years: The Music and Myth of Tom Waits and Pretty Good Years: A Biography of Tori Amos. He is also senior editor and founder of the pop culture web magazine www.popentertainment.com.

September 2012 | The Modern

girls were girls & men were men

James Coburn Cool. Tough. Perennial. Magnificent.

By Jay S. Jacobs It’s not so hard to be a tough guy in Hollywood.

It’s infinitely more difficult to be cool. In a film career that spanned decades, James Coburn always radiated an air of complete coolness that seemed effortless.

Coburn displayed an aura of good humor and complete unruffled self-confidence. And then there was that grin, which quickly became Coburn’s trademark. James Coburn was one of the last of a breed: good-looking, smart, funny, leading men who survived on wits, charm and an unlimited supply of poise.

He worked regularly through the Sixties and Seventies — becoming enough of a pop culture icon that he appeared top-center on the cover of Paul McCartney & Wings’ hit album Band on the Run — but a crippling case of rheumatoid arthritis made it nearly impossible for him to work. He became enamored with martial arts — becoming so involved in the scene that he was one of the pallbearers at Bruce Lee’s funeral — and by the Nineties he was able to mostly heal his arthritic condition through natural medicine. He returned to a full schedule and worked steadily until his death of a heart attack in 2002.

Coburn played hundreds of roles in a career that spanned 45 years, 70 movies and over 100 TV appearances. Here are some of his coolest.

The Magnificent Seven – Britt After putting in some time in the Hollywood trenches — he had already done two movies and three TV guest roles in just over a year — Coburn’s breakthrough role was in this classic John Sturges western.

Coburn turned heads with his acting chops and his knife-throwing abilities as Britt, one of a group of cowboys defending a town against a horde of outlaws. The film was a variation on the classic Akira Kurosawa film The Seven Samurai and starred a Who’s Who of Sixties tough guys, including Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and Robert Vaughn. Perhaps Coburn’s most famous scene in The Magnificent Seven is one where Britt out-duels a bad The Modern | September 2012

guy who has a gun and Coburn just has a knife. Coburn received knife-throwing lessons from long-time stunt man Richard Farnsworth, who years later became a respected actor himself in films like The Grey Fox, The Natural, Misery and A Straight Story. www.youtube.com/embed/xPRrt_4niXc Our Man Flint and In Like Flint – Derek Flint The Sixties were the boom time for spy movies, with the James Bond and Matt Helm series pulling the masses into theaters at a record pace. At the height of the Cold War, it was the ideal time to fight unthinkable evil with a suave gait and an unmistakable twinkle in a secret agent’s eyes.

And no eyes twinkled more than those of Derek Flint.

Our Man Flint and In Like Flint were two of that most illusive breed — parodies of a movie style that against all odds even work as a legit part of that particular genre. Coburn plays a billionaire playboy/former spy who has to return to duty to save the world from a nefarious plot for world domination. Comedian Mike Myers often acknowledged that the Flint movies were a big inspiration for his Austin Powers series.

The character of Austin even said, “Hey! In Like Flint!

That’s my favorite movie,” in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. www.youtube.com/embed/pzSMMs73pq0 The Great Escape – Louis Sedgwick Director Sturges remembered his young star after the success of The Magnificent Seven, and cast Coburn in his follow-up film, which also became a film classic. It was based on a true story in which a group of war prisoners set up a complex escape plan from a Nazi prison camp. Again Coburn was working with a list of the biggest tough guys in film, including Seven co-stars McQueen and Bronson, plus James Garner, Donald Pleasance and Richard Attenborough. The group worked together to www.themodern.us

set up an elaborate tunnel system out of the camp, though (spoiler alert!) Coburn was one of only three characters who actually got away. www.youtube.com/embed/xkwmIDx9RwQ The Last of Sheila – Clinton This little-remembered murder mystery is one of the great forgotten movies of the Seventies. Coburn played an eccentric millionaire movie producer whose wife was killed in a mysterious hit-and-run after one of his blowout parties. A year later, he invited several of the guests to take part in an elaborate island-hopping game designed to unmask the killer. The movie was written by a couple of first-time screenwriters who were famous for different careers. In one of the great odd couplings in Hollywood history, actor Tony (Psycho) Perkins and composer Stephen (West Side Story) Sondheim were good friends who shared a love of games and puzzles and decided to write the film on a lark. They never did another film. In Coburn, they found their perfect omniscient game master. A fascinating ensemble cast included some of the biggest names of the Seventies: James Mason, Richard Benjamin, Dyan Cannon, Joan Hackett, Ian McShane and December 2011 “Girls Were Girls…” subject, Raquel Welch. www.youtube.com/embed/EPLgmD_RTLU Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid – Pat Garrett Coburn worked with many of the great directors of the last century, but he has said that his favorite director was Sam Peckinpah.

Coburn made three films with the man, this one as well as the earlier Major Dundee and the later Cross of Iron. Coburn played Garrett, an aging old-west bandit who is hired years later to help hunt down an old friend of his — the legendary outlaw Billy the Kid. His co-stars were an interesting blend of old-schoolwestern stars and musicians. The Kid was played by singer/songwriter-turned-actor Kris Kristofferson.

Kristofferson’s wife and fellow singer Rita Coolidge had a supporting role as the Kid’s lover and a mysterious stranger named Alias was the first acting role of folk-rock icon Bob Dylan (and one of the few movie parts he ever took on). Also populating the landscape were such western icons as Slim Pickens, Chill Wills www.themodern.us

and Jack Elam. Unfortunately, the film became the source of some serious battles between Peckinpah and his producers. The producers took the editing from the temperamental director and Peckinpah’s final cut was never used. Director Martin Scorcese was one of the few who saw it at the time, and said it was Peckinpah’s best work since The Wild Bunch. However, the version that was released to the theaters, recut by the producers, became a critical and box-office failure. Peckinpah was so horrified by what they had done to his film that he tried to have his name removed. The original Peckinpah cut was not released until 1988, when it was restored for a video release, and the film’s reputation has grown substantially since the restoration. www.youtube.com/embed/_CcadC-S8-E Charade – Tex Panthollow This classic film, a mash-up of drama, comedy, mystery and romance, has been called the best Hitchcock film that Alfred never made. A labyrinthine romantic thriller filmed mostly in Paris with co-stars Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, the film was able to successfully juggle styles and genres. Hepburn starred as a woman whose husband was murdered and gets thrown into an odd scheme concerning World War II art. Coburn played one of her late husband’s former spy colleagues, a smart and funny ladies’ man who figures out where the art was hidden, but meets a deadly end once he tracks it down. Interestingly, because Universal Studios neglected to put a copyright notice in the credits, the film was immediately considered public domain upon release. www.youtube.com/embed/NMkeqjacvAU Hard Times – Spencer “Speed” Weed Hard on the heels of the multi-Academy Award winning film The Sting, Hard Times took a slightly darker look at the small-time criminal underground during the Great Depression. Reteaming with his frequent co-star Charles Bronson, Coburn plays Speed, a fast-talking promoter of back-alley bareknuckle fights. Bronson plays an aging con man named Chaney who bets Speed he could take on any guy there. Chaney wins in one punch, and Speed decides to become his manager. Hard Times was the first film directed by screenwriter Walter Hill, who went on to make The Warriors, 48 Hrs. and the upcoming Bullet to the Head. www.youtube.com/embed/WA-UbX5NZxA September 2012 | The Modern

notes on scandals

Photoplay Calls The Shots

Elizabeth Taylor’s run as America’s favorite drama queen

By Barrie Creedon

Considering the level of outrage spewed from the papers, the professional scolds, and even the Vatican (which knows a whole lot more about scandal now than it did then), you’d think serial-home-wrecker Elizabeth Taylor was the most immoral woman in history.

September 1958

December 1959

Here is the first home she wrecked, belonging to the way adorable Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.

Liz’s third husband was producer Mike Todd. Eddie was his BFF. Mike was killed in a plane crash. His grieving widow decided Eddie was the next best thing.

Whew! That was quick.

July 1962 Whew! That was quick.

October 1962 Shameless, yeah, but really, really, really, really interesting.

March 1963 Poor Mrs. Burton. Debbie should have reached out to her and given her the score.

The Modern | March 2012

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January 1961 And then there’s the threat of kidnappers and accusations of being a bad mother and other stuff.

September 1961 Initially, public sympathy was firmly with the spurned yet eminently adorable Debbie. However, the everresourceful Liz got herself gravely ill with pneumonia in the spring of 1961 — tracheotomy and all — and for her trouble got some sympathy of her own, notably in the form of an Academy Award for best actress in Butterfield 8.

July 1960 Being swathed in jewels and furs 24/7, and forced to share a bed with Eddie Fisher? Not as easy as it sounds.

April 1963 Liz and Dick weren’t married yet — that wouldn’t happen until March of ‘64 — but the above cover gives you a good idea of what future Liz covers were going to be about — lots of drama, lots of hospitalizations. www.themodern.us

December 1961 They look supremely happy, don’t they?

By the late 1960s, the image of Liz As Maneater was pretty much done. She divorced Burton — twice — and went on to marry again, also twice. Then she pretty much left showbiz for the role of Saint Liz of the AIDS Ward, and all was forgiven.

Eddie remarried a few times post-Liz, went on drugs, got off drugs (supposedly), and left us at age 82 in 2010.

Richard Burton, who basically drank himself to death (a surgery for back pain reportedly showed that his spinal cord was covered with crystallized alcohol) checked out at only 58 in 1984.

Liz left us in March of last year.

Getting the last laugh is the still really, truly adorable Debbie, who continues to wow ’em at age 80.

Barrie Creedon lives and writes in Philadelphia, PA. March 2012 | The Modern

ode to joysticks

Pokémon The staying power of this obsession is now influencing a whole new generation of players — and games.

By Silvan Carlson-Goodman The world of video games has been irrevocably changed by an autistic child who had an obsessive fascination with bugs. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokémon, recently revealed that he was diagnosed with Asperger’s, which really makes a lot of sense. The other high-up managers at Nintendo have always perpetually referred to Tajiri as “reclusive” and “eccentric.” Sometimes the image of the brilliant artist is synonymous with those terms, but it also seems to be a new pastime in the modern era to to try and figure out when the word “eccentric” was used to say that past artists were actually autistic and when it

was used to say that they were actually gay (example: Leonardo da Vinci.)

Pokémon is remarkable for being one of the few video games out there that pretty much everybody knows about regardless of their interest in the medium. Thanks to the TV show and the toys, children have been in a frenzy for the brand for almost twenty years now. And if you’ve ever played one of the games, it isn’t hard to see why. It’s easy to take the cynical argument and just grouch about how it’s all a marketing ploy in order to brainwash the kids into buying things they don’t need.

But there is definitely more to it than that. There’s a pure aesthetic locked away in there that is perfectly represented by the game’s slogan of “gotta catch ‘em all.”

There have been several iterations of the games at this point but all of the them follow the same concept as the very first ones: you are a young boy (or girl) in a The Modern | September 2012

place where it is customary to strike out at a young age and explore the world in order to become a Pokémon trainer. Pokémon is a translation of Pocket Monster, and that is exactly what they are. They are creatures of all different shapes and sizes that you can capture and train as you see fit. The entire hook of the games has always been based around the idea of finding all of the different types. The original games had 151 of them and each one was completely unique. In the beginning of the game you were likely to find nothing but “Rattatas” or “Pidgeys” which were nothing more than a small purple rat and a brown pigeon, respectively.

But by the end of the game you had been exposed to creatures such as “Scyther” who was a giant bug with swords for hands, or the most powerful Pokémon of them all, “Mewtwo” who was a cloned and genetically modified psychic cat. The world was always ready to show you something more and more exotic.

This entire mechanics of collection is a clear spin on Satoshi Tajiri’s obsessive childhood hobby of bug collection. In that pastime he also found a way to connect with other people who shared his passion, a social outlet that he found hard to come by because of his difficulties. Upon first seeing the original Game Boy’s ability to link up with other Game Boys, he imagined a bug walking across the connecting cable from one system to the other. In this way he imagined a game where children could collect creatures and share those creatures with other people.

And sure enough, to this day, it is hard to find a schoolyard playground without at least a handful of children showing off their Pokémon collections to each other.

The ramifications of the games go so far beyond that though. Whether it is due to a marketing gimmick or genuine interest in the human brain’s need to collect a complete set of something, many games in the industry since Pokémon have included some sort of collection aspect. Some games ventured incredibly close to Pokémon’s brightly shining star, such as Robopon, a game where you collect and train different types of robots.

But even games that share almost no apparent similarities with Pokémon wear signs of its heritage. In the recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series of games, www.themodern.us

where you control soldiers in made-up modern wars, there exists a mechanic in the multiplayer where you can level up. And as you increase through the ranks you unlock “perks” which give you special abilities such as always dropping a grenade when you die, or the ability to run faster. The thing is, you can pick and choose which ones you want to use in any given battle, which reeks of the part of Pokémon where you choose which Pokémon you want to have with you. And since Modern Warfare has been so successful, games are now copying that formula, spreading the ideas of Pokémon even further.

As another example, the recent Batman: Arkham Asylum game puts you in control of the titular caped crusader as he tries yet again to take down the Joker. As you play, it becomes apparent that the Riddler has also been up to hijinks and has left clues to his puzzles all around the game for you to find. This aspect of searching and collecting adds a whole new layer to the game,

which is otherwise focused solely on beating people up.

It is hard to say if that aspect of the game could ever have existed if Satoshi Tajiri hadn’t infected the world with his need to collect bugs so many years ago.

Silvan Carlson-Goodman grew up in Brooklyn where he played video games instead of going to school.

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modern tech

Adventures in Modern Sound

By Art Wilson In 1970, I left my career teaching high school science in New Jersey and expanded my moonlighting as a musician and guitar teacher to a full-time music endeavor.

From my high-rise apartment, I started making calls to agents and managers announcing my availability, annoying my roommate, Steve, with the repetitive spiel.

I got a contact to a band in need of a lead guitarist. There had been an acclaimed all-female rock band,

tion Gap. The group not only had a trendy name, but reflected the wide age range of its members, including teen guitarist Johnny, who had attended the high school where I recently taught. I loaned Johnny my vintage repainted Danelectro bass, and he became the fifth member of the new Painted Pony.

The ladies were cousins from upstate Pennsylvania, but were sharing an apartment in West Philly, near the University of Pennsylvania campus. They were all talented. Doreen belted the anthems of Grace Slick, Janis Joplin, and Melanie. We played pop music of the day, what would now be called classic rock. We were a cute

Foxy Lady (named for the Jimi Hendrix hit), that had broken up. Members of Foxy Lady and some male musicians formed The Painted Pony, which also dissolved but was reforming. The name was from the lyrics of “Spinning Wheel� by Blood, Sweat, & Tears.

Steve and I went to the audition at a house in South Philadelphia. The women had changed their first and/ or last names to stage names. Lynne was on drums, Maria on rhythm guitar, Doreen on vocals, and there was a male bassist.

The audition was fun and flirty, and I got the job.

Shortly after that, the bassist dropped out and I obtained a new one. I had been in a band, The Genera-

novelty and seemed to appeal to the audiences.

The band was booked regularly at a few clubs and played some one-nighters. We often performed at The Crown Point Inn, which was a large venue in Paulsboro NJ, and regularly at The Roxy, a smaller go-go bar in Clifton Heights, PA. A special run was at afternoon sessions at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. The NCO club was reserved to entertain wounded Marine veterans. Even having returned from Vietnam myself, a year before, I was initially shocked by what I saw. Many of these Marines were in wheelchairs and had walking aids. There were all variations of amputees.

The Modern | September 2012

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After the initial aversion, and the reward of seeing how we brightened their day, we forgot about the disabilities. Maria met and became romantically involved with one of the Marines, a double-leg amputee, who — when he chose to — walked normally on artificial legs.

He would hang out with us, and he became our friend.

Another unexpected personal connection lasted way past the duration of the band. It was between Johnny and Doreen, our youngest female member.

They eventually married and started a family.

I learned a hard lesson right after The Painted Pony decided to call it quits after a year or so. At the end of

burglarized, and everything visible in the back seat was stolen. The head of my Sunn guitar amp was gone, and of sentimental value. Also gone: that vintage Danelectro bass, and my Guild electric guitar, which was my first, at age fifteen. What was hidden in the trunk was saved — the speaker cabinet of the Sunn amplifier, and my prized Fender Jazzmaster guitar.

We spent the rest of the date at the local police district headquarters, completing paperwork on the crime. The stolen goods were never found.

But I still have good memories of The Painted Pony, remembering how we were like a family and entertained our following.

Art Wilson is a Philadelphia-based musician, teacher, software specialist and retired chemist.

savant quiz w

Moves Like Rainman!

Be a savant and spook your friends with your odd, unlikely knowledge!

Q:

What was the household phone number on The Brady Bunch?

A: 555-6161

our last gig, I packed all of my musical gear into my two-door car. I drove home and parked the car in the lot of my apartment building, too tired to make multiple trips up the elevator carrying instruments and amplifiers.

All was fine in the morning, but I irresponsibly left everything in the car, and even worse, I was to be driving it on a blind date that night. We attended a show at the original Electric Factory concert venue in downtown Philadelphia. It was a nostalgic retrospective by Buffalo Bob Smith, of The Howdy Doody Show, and very entertaining.

But returning to my car, we discovered it had been www.themodern.us

Q:

What was the domestic gross for the 1956 film The Ten Commandments?

A: $185,000,000 (net profit).

Adjusted for inflation in 2012: $1,025,730,000

Q:

What is the recording length of The Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie"?

A: 2:09

dig this dvd

The Brady Bunch, Season 5 The Complete Final Season 1973-1974 (Paramount Home Video-2006)

In 1974, TV has moved on, but the Bradys stay put.

By Ronald Sklar In this, its final season, the kids of The Brady Bunch are trying their darndest to keep it perky, but are as weary as the tired plots that stagger out as the series crawls to a close. However, don’t stick a fork in it yet — the show never even charted in the Top 10 during its five years in prime time, but once it became an afternoon rerun staple…well, you know the story of a lovely lady.

The Modern | September 2012

Here, the actors are phoning in their performances, and doing so on a rotary dial land phone.

Don’t blame cousin Oliver — the real jinx of this final season is that the TV world of the 1970s has moved on, without inviting the Bunch along. The kids truly want to get with it — you can see it in their faces and in their far-out clothes — but producer Sherwood Schwartz is keeping them trapped in a Pleasantville of the Fifties (but with earth tones and plaid trousers).

While the rest of their generation is getting stoned and running wild in the streets, the Bradys are going on double-dates to the pizza parlor.

While their peers are attending arena-sized rock concerts, the Bradys are synch-dancing on a local TV talent show in what seem like pajamas (but they’re just Seventies clothes).

The attempt to keep the goods from spoiling is about as effective as Sam the butcher’s meat locker (incidentally, we find out this season that Sam’s last name is Franklin, not The Butcher).

Still, to keep it real, we get mildly intolerant references to the high cost of meat, and even Peter gets all angsty on us by musing, “wallpaper is so meaningless in the scheme of things.”

However, by 1974, the era of the charming-kid sitcom is over, and the Bradys are the last ones out, turning off the fading, flickering light due to the energy crisis.

Schwartz did make an attempt to appeal to the new television tastes, which we see here. The Kelly Kids, a spin-off involving two boring honkies adopting three orphans of a rainbow of colors, failed to move onto the next season’s TV schedule. And thanks to the success of Archie Bunker, we even get to hear a toilet flush in the shared Brady bathroom. www.themodern.us

Even though we don’t raise an eyebrow now, this was quite shocking in its day.

The most topical subject that is thrown at us is the earth-shattering controversy of women drivers, to which Marcia comments to Greg, “that’s a typical male chauvinist reaction. You’re prejudiced against female drivers!” Whoa.

Even sex, which by the early Seventies was finally allowed to spread through television like an unchecked STD, was seeping its way into the doublebagged Brady home: when having to learn Spanish for a client, Mike asks Carol, in the series’ most obvious double entendre, “Shall we habla espanol together?” To which Carol purrs, “I’ll habla with you anytime, señor.” Send the kids out of the room, fast.

Even Bobby — the best Brady — gives us a peek into his deepest sexual complexities when he tells his brothers, “I’d rather kiss a basketball or a catcher’s mitt than any dumb old girl.” And this wasn’t even elected by TV Guide to be “a very special episode.”

It’s little cousin Oliver, however, who blows the entire series out of the water by asking a nervous Carol about the birds and the bees. After she promises to delve into it after dinner, Oliver confides, “You know, Cindy, I think your mother has a hard time discussing sex.”

The flapjack-eating, UFO-spotting, choresswapping, mascot-swiping, Charleston-dancing, Joe-Namath-worshipping, rabbit-breeding, model-airplane-building gang gives us a sentimental goodbye to a world that will be gone forever once cancellation sets in, and we only have our modern, snobby, superior selves to blame. Except for reruns and DVDs, a world this side of Huck Finn is not coming back. Ever. Are you happy now?

Examine it from two angles: the series can be either charmingly tranquil (try it in place of Percocet), or disturbingly antiquated (are TV kids that much more natural today?). But let’s face it: even at this late stage, maybe just a few of these final episodes are funny. www.themodern.us

Brother Peter posing as Phil Packer, a “swinging guy from another high school,” is a riot as he tries to get through the night with a fake mustache and a girl clearly out of his league. And no, you’re not dreaming: those are the Bradys running through an amusement park outside of Cincinnati, playing tag team racing to get Dad’s architectural plans into the hands of a client (as always, Mike always wins the bid).

In that same episode, your assignment is to listen for Maureen McCormick to pronounce the word lunch as leeeeunnnnch, and add this to her vocabulary list (school as skeeeuwl, mature as matchur, werewolf as wore-wolf).

Contrary to how it must look, Peter is not stoned when he can’t remember his sister’s name and that he’s allergic to pie but he eats it anyway; the simple explanation is that it’s not even Peter!

He has an exact twin at school whom he’s only just met, and nobody, not even his own parents, can tell the difference between them. This is called “running out of ideas for plots,” and yet somehow, it’s still kind of funny. It just is.

You have to love them, though. A family who works so hard to get Davy Jones and Joe Namath to come to their house, and who still has a huge problem with the American Revolutionary traitor Benedict Arnold, can’t be all bummer. And if you think you’re so above it all, ask yourself this: could you clean your own house as cheerfully and as intensely as Alice? Watch her at work and do the same: we can make the world a whole lot brighter.

Ultimately, all of you must turn yourselves around and face it, even in this fifth and final season: it’s classic. And as Carol says at the resolution of yet another mishap, “Well, as long as everybody’s happy, I guess that’s all that counts.” Damn straight.

And as superior as you think you are to the Bradys, you will never get them out of your head. Ever. They win.

September2012 | The Modern

parting

sh t

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIlsqkBis3k Who says that mom and dad (or great-great grandma) doesn’t dig rock and roll? Here, the geriatric crowd is completely off the hook as they par-tay the night away with the biggest stars in the world in 1975 — The Bay City Rollers and Ann Margret.

These old cats and kittens may have survived the Depression, World War II and Ish Kabibble, but here they are living in the moment, pumping booty and havin’ themselves a ball, ya’ll. Tonight, they will not let their rhumatiz get them down. Instead, they will GET DOWN. Laugh all you want, but may you be blessed to live long enough to groove to the Rollers in your twilight years. And somebody put Crowd Control on alert.

Ronald Sklar