Ronnie James Dio, who died this morning after a bout with stomach cancer, was revered in the metal world while also representing, to many outside of it, the typical heavy metal cliche. The man who claimed to bring the devil horn symbol to metal (the raising of the forefinger and pinky in salute was something, he said, he picked up from his Italian grandmother) dressed in theatrical black velvet and leather, and tackled lyrics strewn with tales of devils, dragons, and rainbows with the same sincerity Barack Obama has when addressing the oil spill in the Gulf.

But to those of us who reveled in the excitement of a Ronnie James Dio song or performance, it was exactly this earnestness, careening madly and purposefully through an ironic world, that made the man so special. Dio’s music was often melodrama, but it was always in the service of optimism and joy.

While much of Dio’s music was special to me, a standout will always be the first song on his first album with Black Sabbath, “Neon Knights.” Alongside a defiantly simple but propellant statement via riff from Tony Iommi, a bold first step in the Sabs’ post-Ozzy existence, Ronnie easily matched his new band members’ kinetic metal energy and bombast while blending it seamlessly with the bright power of his own musical legacy to date.

Hardly in search of conventional narratives, Dio’s otherworldly poetry nonetheless did what any great creative fantasy should do, in that like these lines from “Neon Knights,” it enveloped the listener in another world.

Circles and rings, dragons and kings/Weaving a charm and a spell/Blessed by the night, holy and bright/Called by the toll of the bell/Bloodied angels fast descending/Moving on a never-bending light/Phantom figures free forever/Out of shadows, shining ever-bright.

Dio’s music was not always about the creation of stories (although it was sometimes that as well), but about the weaving of just these sorts of dreamscapes – sparkling and mystical raw settings onto which readers could implant their own detailed visions of his world.

I had the privilege of interviewing Ronnie James Dio twice – in 2000, and again in 2007. During our 2000 conversation, for his Magica album, we discussed how in his later days with Sabbath his lyrics had briefly shied away from fantasy, but that his fans clearly preferred his more natural lyrical inclinations. Then, Ronnie gave me some of this thoughts on the nature of death and the afterlife (or lack thereof).

…for Dio, who’s latest album, Magica, tells of a fantasy world where, as in much of his writing over the years, good battles evil, writing about reality left both him and his fans unsatisfied. “I’ve done things that haven’t struck fantasy at all,” recalls Dio, “that were much more socially realistic. I got very angry at the world around me, and felt I couldn’t speak in terms of dreams. I spoke about how if one doesn’t have a goal, then life’s pretty well non-existent. Looking around me, I got so angry at the injustices, especially for young people – no employment, drugs running rampant, disease everywhere, over-population, especially the AIDS situation, and it got me angry that nothing was being done about it and people were dropping like flies.”

But Dio found that addressing life’s everyday problems was the last thing his fans wanted from him. “I kept hearing from Dio fans that they loved the way I write, and wished I would go back to writing the way I did before. They said it gave them hope, it gave them a chance to think, so I changed, and wrote Magica. It was a reason to revert to writing the way I had.”

Dio describes Magica as “a morality play – good vs. evil,” saying that its “what life is all about.” Dio thinks of life in these absolute terms.

“There is good and there is evil,” he explains, “and in my belief it resides in each human being. I’m not a believer in an underworld, or an overworld, although I use those analogies as many writers do, because we don’t really know if there is or there isn’t. Death is the only time we’re going to find that out. So in my belief there is no heaven, there is no hell, it’s here on earth. That’s what this is all about.”

(Photo by fürschtua)

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. Will Jon Stewart ask ex-roommate Anthony Weiner about these disparaging comments on tonight’s Daily Show? Jon Stewart’s guest on tonight’s “The Daily Show” is Rep....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. “The Big Bang Theory” stolen by Belarus? This is one of the odder stories to come out...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

At the end of every episode of his hit CBS sitcoms “The Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men,” the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre, has some fun with the vanity cards, the quick title shots that flash on the screen for a second promoting a show’s production company. (Remember “Sit Ubu, sit?” That was a vanity card.) Lorre actually writes mini-essays on his, so fans with TIVO or DVR can pause the TV and read them. And for those without, he keeps them on this website.

On the vanity card following last night’s episode, Lorre told how a production company in the nation of Belarus has created a show that is a completely ripped-off version of “The Big Bang Theory” called “The Theorists.” The characters are called Sheldon, Leo, Hovard, Raj and Natasha, and the show is more than just a shadow of its inspiration – each episode is basically a translation of the episodes here!

And the worst part, according to Lorre, is that nothing can be done, because the production company is owned by the government of Belarus.

A search of our beloved Internet unfortunately failed to uncover any video of this future Peabody winner (if you uncover any – please send!) but we did find some fine still photos of the cast. Imagine the cast members of “The Big Bang Theory” shot up with a quart of vodka per day and aged twenty years – welcome to “The Theorists.”

Related posts:

1. VIDEO of the Belarusian “Big Bang Theory!” Ah, the power of the Internet. Thanks to one of...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

But what many may not know is that earlier in their careers, Stewart and Weiner were roommates, living together in a crash pad in Soho back when Stewart was first hitting New York’s stand-up clubs, and Weiner was working for then-Congressman Chuck Schumer. (Technically, Stewart was actually rooming with a girl Weiner was dating, and Weiner was the boyfriend who moved on in.)

I interviewed Weiner for City Scoops magazine last year, when a mayoral run still looked possible, and asked him about his relationship with Stewart. Weiner, who said that he and Jon were still friends, surprised me with some negative comments about “The Daily Show,” calling it a “scam,” accusing it of fostering political cynicism, and claiming it had a “corrosive effect” on politics. Here’s the exchange:

LG: Have you been on “The Daily Show?”

AW: No. I don’t have a book. You gotta be selling something to go on his show.

LG: Well, if you run for Mayor…

AW: If I become Mayor, then they’ll probably waive that requirement. I wouldn’t want to go…I don’t know.

LG: Because it would be too weird?

AW: No, I love Jon’s show, and I TiVo it and watch it every day. But I think it has a bit of a corrosive effect on my business.

LG: In what sense?

AW: Its entire ethos is to make fun of politicians. Colbert’s worse…or better at it, I don’t know. I guess it’s really not fair to say it’s corrosive. It’s just that for a remarkable number of Jon’s viewers, that’s the sole source of news, and that’s both good and bad. It’s good that they’re gonna get it somewhere, and if it’s gonna be at a comedy show I’d rather it be there than Bill Maher or something like that. But on the other side, I don’t like the idea that there’s such a cynical view of politics and government.

LG: But you understand why that cynicism exists, right?

AW: Do I understand why that cynicism exists? Yes. I think it exists because of Jon’s show.

LG: Do you really?

AW: We could have the circular argument if you want. I think it accelerates itself. I think there becomes a feedback loop that’s corrosive. Congressmen do dumb things, yes, then are highlighted for doing dumb things, and highlighted some more, and people watch it and say that congressmen do dumb things, and so then when another congressman does a dumb thing, it’s like, “Well, my audience wants to watch a congressman do a dumb thing,” and then the audience laughs at the congressman doing a dumb thing, and then Jon says, “Hey, I got a great scam here, lemme go find another congressman doing a dumb thing,” and where do I get in? Where do I get in not doing a dumb thing? Not being a bozo?

LG: Have you ever expressed that to Jon?

AW: Oh yeah, we had…yes. The answer is yes.

LG: What did he have to say?

AW: The argument was somewhat predictable.

LG: Well, after last night, we know very well how Jon argues. (This interview took place the day after Stewart’s takedown of CNBC commentator Jim Cramer)

AW: What I thought was interesting about last night was the irony of watching the comedian be critical of the news guy for being funny.

LG: I don’t think that was the reason…

AW: …at the crux of it, it was the news guy defending himself by saying, “I’m being an entertainer. I’m being funny.” And the comedian saying, “Dude, don’t do that. You be the serious one and I’ll be…” which is kind of a theme of Jon’s joust with the “Crossfire” guys. The irony with Jon…we have to remember that Jon was critical of “Crossfire” because it dumbed down the debate. Some of my concern about Jon is that, it’s smart, but it can be just as corrosive, because we’re being treated like we’re dumb. And maybe some of us are.

Weiner’s comments to me were widely reported at the time, appearing on Politico, Wonkette, New York Magazine, and Gawker. So will Jon address these accusations on tonight’s show? Stay tuned.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The first general assumption is that it’s a remake of the 1984 Alex Cox film “Repo Man,” a new wave/punk classic featuring Emilio Estevez and Harry Dean Stanton as repo men living lives of druggy abandon while the music of Iggy Pop, Circle Jerks and Fear plays in the background. If you’ve never seen it, put it on your Netflix now – it’s a film with addictive energy that makes Emilio’s descent into Mighty Ducks territory all the sadder.

Turns out, though, that “Repo Men” has nothing to do with that film, but is actually a dystopian-future film about a society where artificial human organs are for sale – and, if you don’t pay your bill, for automatic repossession. So while fans of the first film breathed easy, the plot sounds very similar to that of “Repo: The Genetic Opera,” a garish emo-punk opera released last year that achieved semi-cult-hit status, and which I can’t describe in full because I spent nearly three hours after watching it scratching at my eyes and ears with the tenacity of a mountain lion clawing at a dead gazelle trying to remove its sights and sounds from my mind. It was fucking ghastly, like someone took every silly, messed-up idea they had since they were six and threw it up on a movie screen. Consider this: It co-stars Paul Sorvino; Sarah Brightman, the best-selling soprano of all time; and Paris Hilton. Is there any way the three of them make sense together in one project?

After seeing it, the answer is clearly: no.

But while fans of that movie are gearing up the “irate” meter, for me, “Repo Men” is a clear throwback to a classic Monty Python sketch from their film “The Meaning of Life,” a movie the Pythons have described as their least favorite for the subdued creative inspiration that went into making it, but which I find equal to their earlier outlings. There’s a scene in the film called “Live Organ Transplants,” which features John Cleese and Michael Palin ringing a man’s doorbell to inquire, “Can we have your liver?” They then establish that the man has a liver donor’s card – and do their nasty repo business. It’s a classic scene – and remarkably similar (minus its comedy) to the plot of “Repo Men.”

So was “Repo Men” ripped off? Or with organ black markets a reality in certain countries and economic upheaval a societal constant, is it simply one of those creative notions that has a certain inevitability?

Either way, it’s interesting to see who the film will piss off most. Stay tuned – it’s currently scheduled to hit theaters March 19.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

So March 1 marks the beginning of the next battle in the last night wars, and as for the battle after that? Well, if we all keep our fingers crossed and pray really hard, it just might come in early September, as Conan O’Brien enters the fray on Fox as direct late night competitor # 4 (against Jay, Dave, and Stewart/Colbert.)

In the meantime, here are some thoughts/links on the astounding battle now behind us.

1. ESPN’s Bill Simmons, who correctly predicted that Leno would be back at The Tonight Show helm within a year back in March, tells New York Magazine’s Will Leitch that Conan’s show “sucked” at 11:30, that he was “too whiny” in how he handled it, and that if he does land at Fox at 11:00, he’ll fail there as well.

2. The Los Angeles Times’ Neal Gabler, in a piece that includes some fascinating background on how networks became so focused on younger demographics and why that might be a mistake, calls Leno’s ultimate victory here the revenge of the dorky over the hip.

3. Newsweek’s Joshua Alston lays out a road map for Jay Leno to rehabilitate his image, but unfortunately repeats the now established media fiction that Conan “lost his job.” He didn’t. He quit.

4. Johnny Carson’s longtime head writer says that all the hosts – Dave, Jay, and Conan – could learn something about class from his former boss, who he believes would just tell the whole lot of them to man up.

Related posts:

1. What “The Wire” can teach us about Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, and the current late night debacle So now, if you believe New York Magazine, the intensity...
2. Does Bob Dylan support Conan O’Brien? As the battle between Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, and NBC...
3. Kimmel, O’Brien, and the truth about Leno-Hate. Did’ja hear what Jimmy Kimmel said to Jay Leno last...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This sentence was spoken last night by Conan O’Brien on his second-to-last Tonight Show. He was referring to the problems in Haiti, but depending on what happens next for him, he might have also inadvertently been referring to members of his staff.

As we’ve all read by now, O’Brien and his reps haggled for days to get every dime they could from NBC for his staff’s severance packages, and Conan himself will donate a large sum – a seven figure amount, according to his management – toward those packages out of his own settlement, which is reported to be around $32 million.

There’s no word on how exactly the severance will break down – given the amount of money involved, maybe each staffer gets six months pay? One year’s worth? More? – but however long it lasts, given both the current weakness of the economy and the generally tough nature of finding jobs in television, there’s no guarantee that every member of his staff will find employment before their severance runs out.

The next month or so will be instructive, of course, as Conan and his reps negotiate with Fox to see if he can become the next – and, if it happens, almost certainly most successful – entertainer to spearhead their late night efforts. But from what we’re reading, affiliate relations, the same thing that ultimately killed “The Jay Leno Show” (and yes, I know, the show also sucked, but I’m just talking about the business end of this right now) makes a late night deal at Fox far from a sure thing.

So let’s imagine for a moment that Fox doesn’t happen for Conan, and his 200+ staffers pound the pavement, seeking to hook up with new shows or other opportunities. With the full force of Hollywood’s sympathy carrying them aloft, there’s no doubt that many of them will find new gigs before the severance runs out.

But will all of them? Chances are, the answer is no, for the simple reason that great jobs in Hollywood are hard to come by. And for those that do get new gigs, how many will get jobs that pay them significantly less than The Tonight Show did?

I certainly hope for the best for all of them – I’ve known several members of his writing staff for years – and for this reason and more, as the world hails the conquering, martyred hero of late night, there’s one nagging question I can’t get out of my head.

If some of his current staffers are still unemployed three, six, twelve months down the line – or, months after whenever the generous severance packages run out, whenever that may be – will at least one of them have the following recurring thought bouncing around his or her head?

“Would 12:05 really have been so bad?”

Yes, NBC insulted the hell out of Conan by pulling the move they did. They behaved without sense or tact, and piled bad decision upon bad decision until they made their network look like Enron and Lehman Brothers rolled into one.

But freely admitting that NBC gave Conan a crappy, insulting choice calls to mind the fact that so many Americans in 2010 are faced with bad choices that have far greater consequences – like, for instance, whether or not to use what little money they have on health insurance.

If it seems an out-of-context comparison, it’s not. Because while, as Conan indicated in his much-lauded statement of defiance, he agonized about the legacy of The Tonight Show in making his decision to leave NBC – a legacy that, according to all the Conan die-hards, has been pretty much dead for almost 20 years anyway – it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that in the end, Conan placed that already-tarnished legacy above the well-being of his staffers.

If the fate of his staffers had been his primary concern, as the narrative of the past few days and statements from his management would have us believe, then the choice would have been simple: take the 12:05 slot, and save every job.

Was 12:05 a crappy option? Absolutely.

But guess what? Life is hard, and filled with crappy options for each and every one of us even in good times – and these are not good times. National unemployment is hovering around ten percent, health care is becoming even more prohibitively expensive every year, and people nationwide are changing careers, taking lower paying jobs, and making the sorts of tough decisions that result in far bigger problems than the loss of a talk show.

The deeper we all delved into this story, the more absurd and lacking perspective it seemed, especially when some began hailing Conan as a hero for recessionary times for the way he stood up to corporate interests. For Team Conan, Coco is a little man taking a big stand.

But not only is this misguided, it’s backwards.

Because while people all over the country were making real choices with real consequences, Conan’s choice was this: move a television show – a show he got paid the kingly amount of somewhere between $10 and $15 million a year to host – to a starting time one half-hour later; or put 200 people out of work while personally walking away with tens of millions of dollars.

He chose the latter.

###

Related posts:

1. What “The Wire” can teach us about Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, and the current late night debacle So now, if you believe New York Magazine, the intensity...
2. Does Bob Dylan support Conan O’Brien? As the battle between Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, and NBC...
3. Kimmel, O’Brien, and the truth about Leno-Hate. Did’ja hear what Jimmy Kimmel said to Jay Leno last...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Conan O’Brien, therefore, is us – the little guy. Conan is he or she who is mad as hell, can’t take it anymore, and is now rising up to claim what is rightfully theirs.

Hogwash.

Because if we’re looking at this situation realistically, a much better comparison – and one that contradicts the Conan-as-revolutionary meme – comes to us from HBO’s landmark series, “The Wire.”

For those unfamiliar, “The Wire,” which ran for five seasons and is widely regarded as the best dramatic series in television history, chronicled all sides of the drug trade in the city of Baltimore, including the dealers, the police, the government officials and the media. Without turning this into a full-on Wire tribute, suffice it to say that in its breadth and honesty, it is television as art, and if you haven’t seen it, you owe it to yourself to put the series DVD at the top of your Amazon wishlist or Netflix queue.

(Warning: Wire spoilers ahead)

One phrase viewers of “The Wire” became intimately familiar with by series end is “the game,” which is shorthand for the life of drug dealing and murder that they have chosen to live. So when the mother of young drug dealer D’Angelo Barksdale persuades him to take a 20-year prison sentence instead of turning state’s witness for the good of the family, since her brother runs – and she profits handsomely from – the drug empire he works for, it’s accepted as all part of the game. Later, when he turns up dead in prison, that is too.

By series end, the implications of the game are clear. If you choose to play it, you may reap great rewards, but you will probably end up dead or in jail. That’s just how it goes.

But what’s unspoken about the game – and, I believe, one small part of why the show was such an incredible achievement – is that in exposing it with such brazen honesty, it reflected as well on the games in our own lives. Whatever profession you’re in, there are situations you find yourself in, trade-offs and sacrifices you make, and things you do that you may not have done were you able to live your life exactly the way you wanted to. Some of these are well known and oft-discussed, and some may never be mentioned. But we all have a game in our lives, and areas such as politics, the media or show business have games that are particularly intense. Hollywood certainly does, and here’s where the comparison becomes relevant for late night.

The outrage against Jay Leno – claims that he engineered this in some devious fashion, and that Conan has been the sacrificial lamb/victim in all this – boils down to one point of view: that Jay Leno has been playing the game, but Conan hasn’t.

This is naive at best; disingenuous or manipulative at worst. Either way, it’s just wrong.

Because, as I pointed out the other day in “Kimmel, O’Brien, and the truth about Leno-Hate,” Conan O’Brien was just as willing to throw Jay Leno overboard – with no consideration for him or his future – as many assert that Jay Leno is willing to do to Conan now.

When the deal was made in 2004 for Conan to take over The Tonight Show, it was obvious that Leno didn’t want to “retire,” as many are now calling for him to do. He was pressured by NBC, and to attempt to avoid the hassle of the Letterman/Leno battle of the early 90s, he agreed.

But while all this was happening, what was Conan thinking? We can’t see inside his head, of course, but just from what we know of all this, he had to know that:

1. He would be displacing Jay Leno from a job he’d had for over a decade;
2. He would be displacing Jay Leno from a job he excelled at (whatever your thoughts on its content), as his show had been #1 in late night for years;
3. He would be displacing Jay Leno from a job he didn’t really want to leave;
4. He wouldn’t have to do this himself, but would have the toughest lawyers and agents in the game doing his bidding;
5. He would be doing all this for no reason other than his own selfish benefit.

Conan O’Brien wanted The Tonight Show. Jay Leno had it. So Jay had to be displaced. Simple as that.

Conan, from day one of this debacle, has been playing the game. Like Stringer Bell, the ruthless second in the Barksdale organization in “The Wire,” there were people that needed to be displaced in order for him to succeed, and certain unpleasant acts that needed to occur for him to occupy a place of power. When those acts blew back on Stringer – he was gunned down by not one, but two people he had tried to kill – he was not surprised. Conan shouldn’t be either.

Obviously, this is intended as metaphor. I’m certainly not asserting any literal bloodlust on Conan’s part, and I do believe that overall, he’s a pretty nice guy. But he’s not naive, stupid, or unwilling to do the things you need to do to get ahead in Hollywood. In other words, he’s as willing to play the game as anyone else, including Jay Leno.

In “The Wire,” Marlo Stanfield, the dealer who conquers the Barksdales and becomes the new power in the drug trade, murders a mentor named Proposition Joe in cold blood so he can take over his territory. Prop Joe tries to save himself by saying, “I’ll just go away.” Marlo, cold blooded as he is, doesn’t believe that Joe can stay away from the game, and can’t risk having Joe come back on him. So he has his henchman, Chris Partlow, blow Joe’s head off.

Conan in 2004 was like Marlo in one sense. His henchpeople (agents) went to NBC and said, we want Jay’s territory. And they got it. The biggest difference, of course, is that they did let Jay walk away – with millions and millions of dollars. Because that’s how their game is played. Luckily for all in this saga, the rules of the game in Hollywood are much different than the rules of the game on the streets of Baltimore.

But in either place, if you play the game, you know the rules, and you also know that the game may blow back on you. Conan had no problem playing the game in 2004. And if “The Wire” taught us anything, it’s that once you’re in the game, you’re there to stay.

###

Related posts:

1. Does Bob Dylan support Conan O’Brien? As the battle between Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, and NBC...
2. Kimmel, O’Brien, and the truth about Leno-Hate. Did’ja hear what Jimmy Kimmel said to Jay Leno last...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Related posts:

1. Next Up for Conan O’Brien The Conan/Jay saga has finally wound down after two insane...
2. What “The Wire” can teach us about Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno, and the current late night debacle So now, if you believe New York Magazine, the intensity...
3. Kimmel, O’Brien, and the truth about Leno-Hate. Did’ja hear what Jimmy Kimmel said to Jay Leno last...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.