Yakkity Yak

Welcome to Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Come on in, it’s safe. No, we promise there are no Huns here out to kill you. Mongolia is known for its unique architecture, fascinating indigenous animals, and words that are really hard to spell, even when anglicized. But enough about this country that we really really promise you won’t get killed in. In the heart of Ulan Bator is the Hotel Mongolia, which served as the second pit stop…in a racearoundtheworld. Last week, teams raced from Seattle to Beijing, where they learned that slow and steady, at least in the first leg, got you nothing but trouble, as Bilal and Sa’eed were Philiminated quicker than a Cleveland Browns’ quarterback getting sacked and Vipul and Arti couldn’t overcome their total lack of directional fortitude and were more compassionately Philiminated. Who will get their heads chopped off (but not by Mongols! We swear!)…next?

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Noir Ne’re-Do-Well

On its surface, The Black Dahlia looks like a can’t-miss film. Directed by Brian De Palma, whose fame has been cut from the cloths of Scarface and The Untouchables, sporting a cast of folks who look like they were lifted right out of 1940′s Hollywood (most notably Aaron Eckhardt and Scarlett Johansson ), and claming to focus on the “most notorious unsolved murder in California history,” the film should be one of the best-produced period mysteries of the year. Instead, what you get from watching the movie is a cautionary tale – not about the cut throat life in Hollywood but about not giving too much credence to movie trailers. Indeed, The Black Dahlia is far lesser than the film it is advertised to be and, whether you view it as an intentional but subtle skewering of the noir style or not, far lesser than the sum of its elsewhere wonderful parts.

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Funny Business

Do you remember when The West Wing used to be good? Back in those early seasons when Sam, Josh, Toby and CJ were the heavy hitters; the Josh/Donna relationship was still “will they/won’t they/just kiss already damn it;” and, most importantly, when Aaron Sorkin and Thomas Schlamme were still at the helm? They left around season four, and The West Wing turned into simply one of the better shows on television instead of the “you must watch this” behemoth it was when it first started. Sorkin and Schlamme made their return to the small screen on September 18th with Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, and if the first two episodes are any indication, they’ve picked up right where they left off.

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Worth a Listen? Absolutely

The radio listener’s ear is fickle. What crawls out of the woodwork one day can just as quickly and unassumingly become passé. Too often, bands try unsuccessfully to reinvent themselves to fit the mold of what the 18- to 25-year-old demographic is listening to. It’s refreshing, then, when you get to listen to an album from a band like Sister Hazel, whose Absolutely, due out October 10, contains the same sound that you remember on the radio (in their case, “All For You” from the 1997 album …Somewhere More Familiar) and haven’t heard since.

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This Ringing in My Ears Won’t Stop

Those are lyrics from the opening song of last night’s set by The Raconteurs at the House of Blues in Atlantic City, but it could also easily explain the way my hearing is functioning right now. They rocked the house volume-wise, but was it worth $50 and a trip to the Showboat Casino (where I didn’t even approach a slot machine)? Put me down as a firm “Eh.”

The opening band, Philadelphia’s own Dr. Dog, started strong with their fun, trippy “Say Something,” but were only interesting for one more song after that. By the end of their set, the drunk, idiot frat boys from NYC who were standing near me were giving them an enthusiastic thumbs down. I didn’t want to associate myself with the drunkards, but I silently concurred.

Save for the fact that I was fifteen feet from Brendan Benson when The Raconteurs took the stage (anyone who knows me personally knows my affection for his music), their set was underwhelming. Aside from the opening “Intimate Secretary,” “Level,” and a great version of “Together,” the songs weren’t of the level you hear on the album. White did a great job of blending in with the band despite the fact that 90% of the crowd was there because they knew his music (I was there, of course, for Benson), but his shrieky vocals made it impossible to understand the music unless you had committed it to memory. He and Benson traded some spectacular guitar solos, but they were the only memorable things about the majority of the set.

While the experience of the concert and the adventure of getting there made the trip worthwhile, the music I experienced while there was not quite worth the price of admission. Go listen to The Raconteurs’ studio album, save yourself $40, and enjoy.