Orel Family

Lori and I saw David Chase's new romanticized semi-autobiographical movie Not Fade Away  last night. It's a new release with a spectacular soundtrack (Little Steven was its executive producer), but it was a private showing: we were the only ones in the theater at 9:30. That begs the question of whether something can fade away if it was never really there at all. Not Fade Away is not the first "Beatles era coming of age in New Jersey" movie;  I Wanna Hold Your Hand covered that ground way back in 1978. That movie was also more "down home" to me, as it started within walking distance of my childhood home. Not Fade Away's New Jersey feels more ersatz: It sure looks  like New Jersey, and is full of the types of artifacts and references that one might have found there in the '60's. It doesn't take more than a minute in to the opening scene for the "We're in New Jersey!" announcement with a name check of Delbarton Academy (a p...

I tried my best this year to avoid all of the Super Bowl hype. Sure, I've been watching them at least since Otis Taylor made mincemeat of Bud Grant's secondary, but I have long since grown tired of all the pre-game festivities. So, I tuned it out. Even with Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band finally on the bill as half-time performers, I did my best to ignore the details, paying only glancing attention to the interviews and none at all to reports from people at the rehearsals. I could be surprised live, along with most of the rest of the country. When I thought of writing something, of course my reason was to write of Bruce performing. After all, one of the famous apocryphal stories of Bruce was of his former manager, Mike Appel, attempting to get Bruce on the bill for a Super Bowl pregame show, in part by dangling an otherwise unknown song called "Balboa vs. the Earth Slayer." That was in 1973. Bruce was releasing a new album two days before the big g...