2006 YEAR IN REVIEW

On a personal level, this year was a busy one. At the end of January, we took the kids on their first ever plane ride to visit my baby brother in california, with Grandma and Poppa. We took in Disneyland and stayed a few days.
In April, Sam began soccer classes.
In May, Kat and I went to the Bahamas for 5 days to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. We had a fantastic time. Our first night there, we slept 12 glorious hours! Later in the month, we went to Hershey, Pennsylvania for a couple days and took in Hersheypark.
In June, Sam graduated preschool.
In August, Allie turned 2 and we all went to Silver Bay at Lake George for a few days to stay with the California Whytes as well as the NY Whytes. Sam and Allie got to spend some good quality time with their California Cousins.
In September, Sam began Kindergarten and I released the CD I'd been working on for 8 years, ODYSSEY!. In November, Sam turned 5. We also had Thanksgiving at our house.
Then started the chaos of December: Channukah, Christmas, my father's birthday, Kat's birthday and the upcoming New Year's. Though, this year, we're opting for a very mild, stay-at-home New Year's un-bash.
But the biggest development of December, and indeed, the year, was that soon after launching the ODYSSEY! website, The Brooklyn Academy of Music noticed it and emailed me with a request to perform it live on December 21st! I was shocked! I had never performed ANYTHING live and this album has certainly never been performed anything CLOSE to live before. I said yes, of course, and quickly formed a band made of friends, aquaintances, and a couple of seniors from the high school where I work. We rehearsed when we could and it was scary as hell. As the date approached, I began to lose my fear. It was so liberating. At rehearsals, I sang with gusto and played with confidence. Occasionally, people would wander in to hear us rehearse and I didn't even flinch. A week before the 21st, my good buddy George announced to me that he had a 1967 Bernie Kessel custom Gibson guitar I could use if I wanted. IF I WANTED! When the date arrived, I came into BAM, rarin' to go. Everyone was so excited and the sound check went amazingly. People began to file in and I was still not nervous. We began the show and I wasn't nervous at all. I was thrilled and excited. Unfortunately, my guitar was ever so slightly out of tune, but I didn't want to ruin the flow of the show, so I tried to ignore it. Halfway through, I did tune it, but the audience didn't seem to mind. We finished the show to a standing ovation which my low self-esteem attributes to generous friends and kvelling family in the audience. It was still nice, though. I signed a couple autographs, sold a handful of CDs and went home thinking..."So...that's it?" It was so anti-climactic. I mean, I had a blast doing it, but I don't want it to end! I intend to try to perform it several more times in 2007. We'll see.


OK , let's talk 2006 movies:

SNAKES ON A PLANE
We all know the hoopla around this film, so I won't go into that at all. My brother edited the music video that accompanies the end credits. He and I saw the film together with an empty theater. We agreed that the movie was stupid and kind of fun, but would have benefitted from a big, rowdy audience. The video at the end was kinda thrilling, though. I really wanted to jump up and point to Russ, yelling, "HE EDITED THIS!" But I didn't. Sorry, Russ.

BORAT
This was the funniest movie I've seen all year. It was not nearly as clever as some people make it out to be, and I'm not a huge fan of "cringe comedy," but this was one sick, funny movie with one or two small missteps.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Ever so slightly pretentious, but emotional and very funny. The girl was phenomenal.

ERAGON
I didn't actually see this, but I read the book last year and loathed it. It was written by a 15 year old boy, which is impressive...until you read it. It reads like a 15-year-old boy wrote it. Flat, cliché-ridden, and extremely derivitive, this book was very badly written.

DA VINCI CODE
Conversely, I LOVED this book. Then the movie came out and it looked so lame that I couldn't bear to see it. It was so universally panned, and derided by zealots for being not realistic (imagine a fictional novel!) that I began to absorb some of the hate. I found myself disgusted that I owned the book! Then I came to my senses and told myself that I really enjoyed the book, however fictional it might be. So, there, I like Dan Brown's books. Nyeah!

PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN 2
I was disappointed by the first one, but my wife loved it, so we went to see the second. Neither of us remember the first at all, which made for a healthy amount of confusion for us, especially the end, but we enjoyed it nevertheless and rented the original one the next day. We went, "Oohh!! Now I get it!" several times.

DEPARTED
Excellent rip-roaring thriller from Martin Scorcese. His best since Goodfellas.

CARS
Not Pixar's best, but better than everything else out there for kids.

THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
Small movie, very well done. Funny and thought-provoking.

V FOR VENDETTA
Big movie, mostly well done. Thought-provoking, in a not-at-all subtle way. It was a very ham-handed story and the analogies were as transparent as light fog. Yet I appreciated the message and thrilled to the action.

X-MEN : THE LAST STAND
Another big-budget action-fest. But as with all the X-Men films, this one kicked ass.

BUBBLE
This was an incredibly small movie that nobody saw. It was made by Steven Soderbergh, who did Solaris, Ocean's 11 and Ocean's 12. All of the actors were first-time actors and it looked like a student film, with no artificial lighting or special effects or makeup effects or anything. I found it dreary and unpleasant, but an interesting experiment.

THE LAKE HOUSE
This came out in 2006, but we didn't see it until we rented it. It was a passable romance story with some time travel thrown in for the fellas. Not bad, but not great, either. The time travel science was not even CLOSE to anything resembling plausable.

THE BREAK UP
Not terrible, but not godawful, either. This was another one we rented in 2006.

FRIENDS WITH MONEY
The last movie from 2006 that we rented in 2006. I liked it, Kat didn't. There's no real story to speak of. It's just one of those "slice-of-life of a group of couples" kinda movies. But I found it intelligent and poignant.


To recap the TV I watched this year:
The Simpsons is running on fumes at this point. It's a sad decline.
Heroes started strong, but is degenerating into a B-movie.
Deal or No Deal is dumb but a lot of fun.
Studio 60 is the best show I currently watch on TV. After most episodes I just sit and marvel at how well-done it is.
Survivor is also running on fumes. No matter how many twists they add, the show is just unengaging for me.
Lost is likewise slipping, as they refocus the story away from what made it great.
E.R. is one of those shows that I watch out of habit at this point. I hope skip ER and Survivor next season completely. It would certainly free up my Thursdays.



Most music was either terrible or forgettable in 2006, with the following excepetions:

The Beatles' LOVE. This mash-up of Beatles songs is a fresh take on classic tracks and a lot of fun to identify all the segments that were layered and altered to make this album.

Meat Loaf's BAT OUT OF HELL 3. This isn't a great album by any means. But it's the most frustrating album of the year for me. Out of the 14 song, 7 are Jim Steinman songs, 4 of which are old ones, previously done by other artists. Each of these old songs are worse for the wear on this album. Two of the new songs are good and the third is great, but Meat gives the chorus the "wrong" delivery and it irritates me. The other songs are not by Jim Steinman and do not belong on a so-called "Bat Out Of Hell" album.

Bob Seger's FACE THE PROMISE, David Gilmour's ON AN ISLAND and Tom Petty's HIGHWAY COMPANION are both unexceptional, except for the fact that Tom Petty and Bob Seger are still putting out music. I like Bob Seger a lot. This album is not bad at all, but it's no Night Moves or Stranger in Town or Live Bullet. Likewise, HIGHWAY COMPANION is a warm, cozy, heartfelt album, but it just doesn't jump at me like Wildflowers did. Gilmour's new effort is a clear departure from Pink Floyd. It's great doctor's room music. It's very mellow and well done, but it's so lazy and languid that it's impossible to care.


So, in the real world:
Democrats took half of the government. Let's just hope they take advantage of it.

Saddam was killed. I don't really care. It won't change anything.

Steve Irwin was killed. He was a great guy who loved animals and never EVER blamed anyone but himself when he got hurt. I'm sure his reaction to his stinging would be "My bad!"

Britney Spears. Now, I'm no fan, but jeez, when did the world turn on this poor crazy broad? She's just a dumb blonde from the South who made a mistake in finding a husband. The only difference from the 125,000 others just like her is that she has cameras on her EVERY MINUTE OF EVERY DAY! She was carrying her baby in one arm while trying to get in her car while being chased by paparazzi. She slipped a little and the baby slid down her waist a bit before she regained her balance. The media went wild about what a bad parent she is. She drove with the baby in the front seat. True, a bad move, but I would bet you thousands of other mothers do the same thing. It just seems that every single move she made in 2006 was reciprocated with an admonishment. Again, I'm no fan of hers, but leave her alone already!

Well that's all I can come up with right now. "Happy New Year. May she be a damn sight better than the last one."
Have a fantastic 2007.

CARTOONS

When I was a kid, I loved cartoons. I guess all kids did. Then I grew up and I still loved cartoons. Only, I called it "animation." I went to animation festivals and got really excited whenever I could see computer animation. When Pixar emerged, I instantly became a fan. When Pixar put out the first ever all-CG film, Toy Story, I went opening night. I collect Pixar's films and love each one. I also went to all the other CG films that were coming out...like ANTZ. Antz sucked. I can't even remember what else came out in the first bunch of years after Toy Story because it all sucked. Then I had kids and got to watch Saturday Morning cartoons again. With VERY few exceptions, they all suck. Most current animation is terrible. Pixar still loves animation enough to put their hearts and souls into each film, like Disney used to, but no longer does. It's too easy for animation to be done nowadays, so anybody with a Mac and $200 can make a TV show. $1000 can get you a feature film. It's too cheap and easy to do, so no care or love or craftsmanship goes into it. Looney Tunes cartoons were art. They were funny and sophisticated and hold up to this day, 60 years later. Tom and Jerry as well. These days it's all fart jokes and merchandising. I've felt this sadness for a long time, but this week I heard an NPR reporter put my thoughts into the most articulate and heartfelt 5 minutes I've ever heard spoken on NPR. I share it with you now. Click the NPR logo below:

I acted in a student film project, in which students had to produce a re-enactment of a scene from a famous movie. The movie I was asked to be a part of was School Of Rock. Enjoy!