Peckerwood Manor

"Don't pop the hip, Cassie!" as they say in "A Chorus Line," and whatever you do, don't turn 44 or 60 years old.  Why, you ask? Because they're both danger zones! According to a new  Stanford University  study, our bodies don't age in a straight progression from year to year. Instead, we age dramatically at the ages of 44 and 60. First, at age 44, there are lightening-fast, accelerated changes "on a molecular level" which affect "cardiovascular functioning, lipid metabolism, and alcohol metabolism." In other words, you start losing your ability to process all those delicious vodka stingers, cheese burgers and bowls of ice cream. Can you say, "le fuck?"  But wait, it gets worse. In your 60s, the second burst brings  "a rapid decline in immune regulation," which means you'll likely get sick more often and have added trouble fighting it off. That cold which lasted a few days in your 20s? It might last up to ...

Lift that wheelbarrow-full of Werther's, my dear, because you're getting older. Or rather, Madonna is getting older - you and I remain spring freshets - because 40-years ago this week, (yes, 40!), Madonna released "Borderline," the fourth single from her first LP, "Madonna." It was her break-out single, or rather, the one that got her noticed not just by gay and Black record buyers, who were onto her well before, but by all the muddled masses.  At the time, critics hailed her "soulful" vocal performance. I'm not kidding. Conversely, it was around this time that Mick Jagger publicly noted that she sounded like "Minnie Mouse on helium." But this may have been sour grapes on Mick's part, since years previous in 1978, according to the very juicy " Jagger Unauthorized" by Christopher Anderson , she rode his baloney pony at his Plaza Hotel suite, and the next morning, sashayed away, but not before telling him, "One day I...

"Scarface" is now 40 years old, and if you saw it in a movie theatre during its original 1983 run, then, oh, my, you're getting up there, aren't you? Me? I wasn't even a stye in my mother's eye yet (just go with me on this) (because you know it's true). As you're likely aware, "Scarface" was a remake of the 1932 original directed by Howard Hawks and headlined by Paul Muni. But this wasn't just any remake. Though it was released in 1983, having been kicked around in development in the late 1970s, I've always looked upon it as a late-1970s movie which predicted the 1980s-era of unshackled greed, or the coke-snorting, bloody reality of Reaganomics.  This isn't a stretch on my part. Though the script was written by Oliver Stone, there was a reason De Palma famously kicked Stone off the set once shooting commenced, since De Palma, though excited by Stone's dialogue - which is gloriously obscene - was far more interested in creating...