LISTENER CALL-IN FOR HOT PLATE RADIO

Ladies and germs--
We're getting close to recording the pilot show for Hot Plate! 120 Minute Radio Hour. . It will be pre-recorded before broadcast, and for the short term that's the way we will do the show. The plan is to evolve to where the show is live with call in, but for now I invite anyone who would like to call in to send me a recorded message on Facebook as if you were calling in to a show with a question or comment. You can include your name and location if you want to. Panel discussion on pilot will cover the current political situation, and all perspectives are welcome, so it's pretty broad. Conservatives and right wingers are encouraged to participate, if they are still following me here. Liberals and leftists also, of course. Etc.
  If you don't know how to send a prerecorded message on Facebook, message me on Facebook with typed words and I'll walk you through it. If you don't know how to do that, post a Facebook comment and I'll walk you through it here.

A LONG WAY TO GO, AND A SHORT TIME TO GET THERE

  The highbrow among you will have to wait patiently in your dens with the port for the day when I'm waxing about film in the vein of Welles, Bunuel, Murnau, Almodovar, Ozu, Eisenstein, and the rest of the highfalutin gang. This day is set aside for a more modest cinematic artisan-- Needham.
  I'm not sure what possessed me to screen "Smokey and the Bandit" last night, but it may have been my numerous failed attempts to find a movie our whole family could watch. My 12-year-old suffers from the media curse of this benighted era-- the blight of "animated" children's movies about adorable anthropomorphy has finally lost its charm for him, in part because of heavy exposure to the intermittently clever but mostly mean-spirited satires of the Seth McFarland empire, and his attitude about the kudzulike Star Wars franchise could best be described as tolerant, but despite his extensive internet-gleaned knowledge of everything under the sun, he has yet to make the jump to anything remotely adult. A trial balloon with Woody Allen's "earlier, funny" movies proved a bust, and in desperation I reached for a film that was like catnip for my generation. I'm talking about an exercise in cinematic storytelling that once upon a time fervently whispered to rednecks and middle schoolers alike-- "Smokey and the Bandit."
  Watching this film in 2017 on a DVD is both similar to and different from the 1977 experience. Subtitles thankfully drained some of the mystery from Paul Williams's Method acting as Little Enos,

CECIL, KERNELS, AND FLAN

  Last night, I drove to my dad's Senior Commune for dinner. On the way over, I listened to a Cecil Taylor album, and worked on my spiel about abstract music.
  On the Hot Plate radio show, I'll attempt to do something that may be even harder than getting Americans to talk civilly about politics-- I'm going to try to get people to accept abstract music. Or at least to learn to think about it beyond the "I hate this, therefore I question whether it's even music at all" response. I plan to demonstrate that abstract music can actually be a lot of fun, rather than the torture it's perceived to be by the uninitiated.
  By the time I got to my dad's, I'd gotten weary of the Taylor album I was listening to. The piece had done something many of Cecil's performances do-- gradually bumped up the dynamics and activity until by the end it's loud and busy. I was surprised at my reaction, because I like his work in general, and his work with the Feel Trio is some of his best. Willam Parker is one of the finest "avant-garde" bassists, and Tony Oxley is a spectacularly inventive drummer, with ideas on rhythm and texture that fit beautifully with Taylor's.
  Then I realized my error. You can't listen to music passively, drift away from it, and drift back in to dismiss it. I was rehearsing my talk about this very issue while I was "listening," and didn't really focus on the music while it was gradually building up. Cecil's high-energy climaxes are arrived at in an organic way, and if you're not onboard for the development, you're not going to enjoy the majestic clutter he's worked up to.

CAVETT EMPTOR

  Just as even the most unenthusiastic grain of sand must eventually make the jump to the bottom of the hourglass, we've at long last wound up here, plunked down by the merry fates into the thick of a day that seems likely to live in infamy, at least for some of us. (I gather that many of my fellow Americans are walking around in the throes of a kind of aggressive optimism, which is different from any I've ever felt in that its lucky sufferers are able to believe we are entering a golden age, while still feeling the need to angrily tweak those of us who don't quite buy it.)

I've been getting some minuscule solace from a book whose author is perhaps the tweediest man ever to wind up on a corrupt president's enemies list.
 On my choice of the word "corrupt," a word bandied about around the clock these days, I hasten to reassure the handful of Republicans who, despite their convictions that we'd all be better off without political correctness, are still inexplicably every bit as sensitive to criticism as the most entitled minority, that I am referring, I hope non-controversially, to Dick Nixon (long ago corrupt) and Dick Cavett (presumably still tweedy).