Daily Bruin

‘Stargate’s’ Russell explains ‘strange reality to Hollywood’

By Michael Horowitz

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

Kurt Russell is in the middle of explaining the mathematical
theory he uses to select his film projects.

"There’s a strange reality to Hollywood," he says. "On a scale
of one to 10, there are projects that are offered. Then on a scale
of one to 10 is how much they want to pay you. If you arc those two
together, somewhere they’re going to meet."

His gestures are exaggerated and relaxed as he illustrates the
concept. The 30-odd years he’s spent in film have given him a great
deal of ease, and here at the Four Seasons to promote his upcoming
sci-fi adventure Stargate, he is anything but uptight.

"You might have a great script and they want to pay you very
little," he offers, "and you might want them to come up a little
bit so the arc is not quite so far down here, but at some point in
your mind, it’s worth it to do that.

"Other things are really horrendous projects with tremendous
salaries and what you eventually do is say ‘this is a two script
with a 10 salary and I’d need a 12 salary to do this thing! Then
they ‘well, we’ll give you a 12 salary’ and you say ‘make that two
into a four!’ and you start talking about that."

Russell is quite rational and pragmatic when it comes to
choosing his projects. He also tends to be very forthright. The
preceding comment leads to the sticky question of how much he was
paid for Stargate, but Russell does anything but flinch or
doublespeak.

"I’ll be honest with you," he starts to the dismay of his
publicist. "They offered me what I felt was a 12 salary for a three
script and I said ‘the script has potential though, these guys are
really good at what they do, the script has a chance at being a
seven script with some 10 effects.’"

Luckily, with a budget rumored to be around $55 million,
Stargate has the goods he was gambling on. Russell feels that films
powered by special effects are to him the hardest to chance. "These
are the greatest risk movies that actors can take," he states. "To
the actor, you know what you can do, sort of, mostly. And you don’t
really do things you don’t think you can do. When you take a risk
is when you plan on somebody else to come up with something."

That’s why the most important factor in his decision to star in
Stargate was the personnel involved. Mario Kassar, mega producer of
Terminator II and Basic Instinct and other hits was at the helm,
and the director was Roland Emmerich of Universal Soldier.
Incidentally, Russell was Emmerich’s wish list first-choice for the
part of Colonel Jack O’Neil.

"Mario Kassar, Roland Emmerich, and (co-writer) Dean Devlin were
three guys, in my estimation, showing a great amount of
enthusiasm," says Russell. "They really wanted to make a spectacle
movie, they had a very definite idea as to the approach to the kind
of movie they wanted to make."

Russell, best remembered for cult John Carpenter science fiction
films such as Escape From New York and The Thing, needs a
conceptual framework that the filmmakers have to be able to
articulate. The written screenplay can be a poor indicator of
certain imaginative elements.

"When you read a script like Stargate it brings up lots of
questions, foremost of which is well, what are these things going
to look like?" he laughs. "We’re dealing in science fiction and
with someone’s imagination. If you were to read E.T. and say, ‘what
a wonderful little screenplay. what’s that E.T. thing going to look
like?’ And they say ‘well, believe it or not, but there’s a lot of
significance in that it should look like a glass of water.’"

He takes a sip of water.

"You just don’t know what is going to be in the imagination of
the filmmaker and you’re sort of confused. After a while it comes
down to how excited are these guys and what have they done? And how
much enthusiasm do they have?"

So for all the calculation, Russell just got swept up in the
excitement. "When you sense a great deal of enthusiasm," he smiles
as he sits up in his chair, "I’m one to say, ‘hey, let’s throw in
with these guys!’"

Apparently however, seeing the finished product doesn’t factor
into the equation. Russell divulges that out of the five to six
films he catches a year, his own are never among them.

"I haven’t seen a movie I finished in the theater since … I
don’t know the last one I saw," he shrugs. "It had to be more than
15 years ago. Because if you’ve got time to go see a movie, you’re
certainly not going to go see a movie you did."

"I haven’t ever seen any movie I’ve done more than once," he
affirms. "It’s not out of design, it’s just that literally at this
point I’d have to sit down and shove the tape in the cartridge and
I get about five minutes into the movie and I say ‘I KNOW the
ending to this one! I want to watch something else! I was there, I
know how this works out!’

Russell shrugs again as he finishes his thought. If it weren’t
for being an actor it would be hard to see him having anything to
do with the entertainment industry.

"Maybe when I’m ninety years old," he laughs, "and I’m senile
enough to where I don’t remember the endings of the movies, I’ll
sit down and watch some of them."

FILM: Stargate. Opening Friday everywhere. Free screening
tonight at Ackerman Grand Ballroom.

Specials concert lacks excitement

Despite good set, Palace show fails to rev up audience

By Gaby Mora

Daily Bruin Staff

The most disappointing aspect of the Specials show at the Palace
Friday night was the crowd leaving thinking they had seen the best
of this legendary ska band.

In contrast to the smiling fans that poured out of the venue by
10:30 p.m., the band members backstage realized their Los Angeles
stop was a disappointing dent in an otherwise successful national
tour.

It’s hard to say what went wrong. Since blowing away the
European, and later American, club scene with their merge of punk
and reggae in the 1980s, The Specials have always remained at the
top of the underground ska movement. And with a good song line up
Friday, they played a solid set. But no matter how good the music
sounded, something was just missing.

As the opening group, Let’s Go Bowling, walked off stage, their
first repeated words were, "I hate playing L.A." And although L.A.
seemed to like Let’s Go Bowling, and clearly loved The Specials,
the audience just wasn’t able to give them the energy to feed off
of and deliver a stellar show.

With four of the original members: lead vocalist Neville
Staples, lead guitar and vocalist Roddy Byers, bassist Horace
Panter and guitarist Lynval Golding ­ the reuniting of The
Specials is the most exciting thing to happen since the Skavoovie
tour last year with Special Beat, Selector, the Skatelites and the
Toasters.

"If anybody would have told me thirteen years ago that in 1994 I
would be playing all those songs again to even more American people
than fifteen years ago, I would have probably poured some liquid
over them, or thrown a bottle at them," says Panter, who worked as
a grade school teacher before reuniting for the tour. And although
the transition may seem odd to some, he laughingly explains, "I
figured that after having spent 15 years working with the
musicians, working with children wouldn’t be that difficult."

The only difficult thing was trying to figure out why after such
a rewarding performance in San Francisco on Wednesday, L.A. had
fallen flat. Panter tried to be optimistic before taking the stage
on Friday, "Last night was a bit quiet compared to some of the
other shows we’ve done, I must admit. But we’re at the end of a six
week tour, and it’s the first tour that the majority of us have
done in a couple of years. So we’re like sort of digging down to
get our energy for the gig, and its getting a bit grueling. But
once we’re there with the audience we go all out, like grrrrrrrrrr,
and then they get it back."

Unfortunately, the only thing the audience got back was almost a
pleading from the band to stop hurting each other and liven up.
Rounded out by keyboardist Mark Adams, drummer "Aitch" Bembridge
(originally from The Selector), and Adam Birch on trombone and
trumpet, The Specials were keen, musically, demonstrating the
maturity of a cohesive, well-rehearsed unit. But both Staples and
Byers suffered a cold, and though they did a good job of hiding
their coughing on the side of the stage between sets, that had to
have affected them.

By the third song, Byers seemed to give up on motivating the
crowd and concentrated on overly calculated dance moves. But
Staples refused to surrender. With a brace on his injured knee and
a slight grimace on his sweaty face, his jumps only got higher and
his yells for the crowd to liven up only got louder. When "Rat
Race" didn’t get the crowd riled up enough, they moved on to the
popular "Do the Dog."

But it wasn’t until the obscure "Stupid Marriage" that Staple’s
hard work payed off. As he took on the stance of "Judge Ruffneck"
sentencing Byers as "Rudeboy," the crowd finally responded to The
Specials by dancing and cheering furiously. But even after the
explosive reception for "Too Much Too Young," it was clear that the
crowd’s awakening was much too late.

The last bursts of energy during "Ghost Town" were enough to
bring Lets Go Bowling back on stage for a jubilant "Simmer Down"
encore with The Specials. As the crowd screamed in unison for "Nite
Club," Staples finally got a smile on his face and took his band
back for a second encore to finish off the night.

The last songs demonstrated that if the Specials would have kept
playing, the performance would have only gotten better. But the
Palace already had KROQ dance night slated for 10:30, and no matter
how well the show was going, the management was unwilling to give
up the extra ticket sales from two events on one night for what
could have been a satisfying show.

Serros thrust into spoken-word world

UCLA student tours as road poet with Lollapalooza

By Gaby Mora

Daily Bruin Staff

If you thought your summer was cool, imagine playing basketball
with the Beastie Boys, performing on the same stage as Billy Corgan
of Smashing Pumpkins, touring the country in a luxury liner, and
most importantly, doing it all under the pretext of fulfilling your
career dreams.

Michele Serros had all of this, and more, to tell after
returning from her tour with Lollapalooza ’94. The graduating
Chicano studies major joined the summer’s most popular concert
series as one of 12 road poets performing on the side stages.

"It was pretty much like a circus," she laughs, "but it was all
very organized and surprisingly luxurious. We stayed in some
incredible hotels. But the most exciting thing was being a part of
the whole show with such amazing performers."

After publishing her first book of poetry, "Chicana Falsa," last
April, Serros became a performer herself. She did spoken word with
prominent poets and authors like Sandra Cisneros ("The House on
Mango Street"). This gained her enough publicity for Lollapalooza
scouts to approach her with an offer to join the tour.

"Since Nirvana cancelled," explains Serros, "the Lollapalooza
promoters had a lot of extra money which they decided to use for
acts on the side stages. They asked me for a press kit, so I was up
all night at Kinko’s trying to put something together and I just
sent it out thinking that I wouldn’t even be chosen for an
interview."

But on Mother’s Day she received a surprise that would change
her opinion of the holiday forever. "I always hated Mother’s Day
since my mother died," Serros says. "But this year was different.
It turned out to be one of the most exciting days ever. First I got
to read with Sandra Cisneros, and then when I got home I received
the phone call asking me to join the tour."

Despite all of the excitement last Mother’s Day, Serros still
couldn’t forget her mother, her prime inspiration for writing. It
was after her death that Serros finally became serious about her
writing, despite barriers posed by the rest of her family
members.

"I come from a traditional Mexican background which dictates a
woman’s position and a man’s position in society. And a woman’s
position is not as a published writer," she explains. "I had always
written in my diaries and other private things, and it wasn’t until
I had to write my mother’s obituary that I finally went public. I
decided I had nothing else to lose after that, and so I started to
seriously consider getting my work published.

"I never really felt any barriers from the outside, instead the
pressure was always from family members who still saw me as a
little girl. They are the ones who I was most afraid of performing
for."

In her poem "Annie Says," Serros relates how her aunt always
told her she could never be a poet because she had never traveled
to the cities listed on the back of an Oil of Olay bottle, and
because she had no relations with men.

And despite the many writing courses she has taken at school,
Serros’ best advice to students interested in getting their work
published is to look for inspiration outside of the classroom. "The
best influence for my writing has come from outside of an academic
setting. I write from the heart, from passion, and it’s very hard
to do that when you’ve got the fear of the big red pen after
you."

In a collage of poetry and short stories, "Chicana Falsa" comes
straight from the streets that the 27-year-old has walked.
Laughing, she warns that a lot of the material for her short
stories comes from eavesdropping on UCLA students’ conversations.
From the childhood recounting of seeing her first nude male body in
the poem "Shower Power Hippie Man," to the inner city speculation,
"Tag Banger’s Last Can," Serros’ work explores both personal and
public issues in her life.

But none is more moving than her struggle with being what she
describes in her book title, a "Chicana Falsa." "Some of my work
deals with the issue of racism within a race. I’ve been posed with
the question of, ‘Who is more Chicano or Chicana,’ all of my life,"
she says. "La Letty," the first poem in her book, perfectly
illustrates a young girl’s confusion about her heritage and the
culture she now identifies with.

It was the especially sensitive pieces like "La Letty" that made
Serros nervous when performing this summer. But she says that all
audiences, even those from cities with a low Chicano population,
were very receptive and open to her work. "I still get letters from
people on the tour and from people I met in the different cities,
which keeps the memory of my summer even more alive."

Hackett modernizes old plays

UCLA professor directs comedies for Getty museum

By Jeanna Blackman

Imagine the Getty museum asking you to direct two ancient
comedies. And ­ by the way ­ your work will be judged by
theater-goers as well as specialists in ancient history.

Director Michael Hackett, a UCLA theater professor, faced that
exact situation. A production of Menander’s "The Woman from Samos"
and Plautus’ "Casina" was the result. Under Hackett’s guidance,
graduate and undergraduate theater students, as well as established
equity performers, had to work together to produce something that
was entertaining and accurate.

"I didn’t want it to be a history lesson," Hackett says. "These
plays created the conventions we know of in western comedy." What
Menander did then had now become stereotype. This is part of the
reason why these ancient comedies haven’t lost their appeal.

"No matter how different we may seem from the Roman Empire, some
things remain the same ­ misunderstandings between children
and their parents, tension between men and women and the struggle
for social position and money," Hackett says.

The music, composed by Nathan Birnbaum, is something that helped
quite a bit in giving it a more modern feel. "The music can hold
things together," Hackett says. All of the designers had a similar
task ­ to create an image that was historically accurate and
still interesting to the contemporary theater audience.

Hackett turned to graduate theater design students to tackle the
problem. Wesley McBride, set designer, Alex Jaeger, costume
designer and Jane Fitzgerald Hall lighting coordinator, all worked
with Hackett to achieve his vision.

In fact, several students worked on this equity production. Five
undergraduate actors had the opportunity to be in the chorus, which
most considered to be the learning experience of a lifetime. "There
is a process in how focused they are," says Antonia Bath, one of
the students.

Jeremiah Wiggins, another chorus member, says that the
experience was especially educational because the equity actors had
such distinctive styles of working. "At this age, you want to think
you know everything," says Wiggins. They showed him otherwise.

But the students weren’t the only ones getting an education.
"UCLA students are so talented that (the process) is a mutual
learning experience," says Hackett. Each group has its own
expectations and make their own contributions. "The professionals
brought stamina and consistency," Hackett says, "while the students
have a sense of community and an idealism the professionals found
refreshing."

However, no one said it would be easy for the students and the
professionals to become a whole. "We had to make an effort to
create an ensemble company," says LaJessica Mathis, another one of
the chorus members. She credits Hackett for bringing the two groups
together.

The weather also seems to have played a part. "The first night
in the space, it was raining hard," Wiggins says. "But dealing with
it really brought us together as a cast." Yet all three
undergraduates were quick to point out that most of the equity
performers were very approachable when the students needed some
advice, such as what to do after they graduate.

Mathis mentioned an additional benefit that came with their
professor being the director in an outside production. "It was a
new deal that you could say something back to the director. That
was a trip," she says.

The three females in the chorus had an additional worry when it
came to the dress rehearsals. Their costumes were bulking objects
that had a large stuffed phallus hanging between their legs. "I
don’t know how men walk around with a penis," Mathis says.

"It was interesting to learn to walk like a man," Bath adds.

But overall, the experience as a whole was a positive one.
According to Hackett, working with the students, the professionals
and the Getty has been "wonderful."

‘Dreams’ reflects UCLA reality

Film documents American youths’ love of basketball

By Bernie Cook

Special to The Bruin

Kristaan Johnson. omm’A Givens. J.R. Henderson. Toby Bailey.
These are special names, hyped names, strange and yet already
familiar. While games are still a month away, practice has started
for these four "blue chip" freshman who joined the UCLA men’s
basketball team. Together with four returning starters, these
highly touted high schoolers have propelled UCLA to the pinnacle of
the pre-season rankings. Althon College Basketball has ranked the
Bruins No. 1, ahead of defending national champion Arkansas. This
is time to dream hoops in Westwood. Before a freshman scores a
basket that counts. Or turns the ball over.

Also debuting this month in Westwood is the engrossing
documentary Hoop Dreams, a humanist examination of America’s
fascination with hoops. Linking NBA All-Star games to asphalt
fantasies, Hoop Dreams adds history and dimension to the feverish
appeal of basketball. The film produces a narrative of the lives of
two young African American men whose identities and possibilities
are tied to the game.

Arthur Agee. William Gates. These names spark no recognition.
Unlike omm’A, these are common names, suggesting ordinariness and
regularity. However, the documentary provides not just names, but
stories, families and connections. The genius of the film is in the
details.

Hoop Dreams packs its nearly three-hour length with dynamic,
painful growth. The film introduces junior high schoolers Agee and
Gates as they watch an NBA All-Star game, enthralled by the
virtuosity of Michael Jordan flying to the rack. Immediately, the
spindly Agee and the solid Gates hit their home courts, emulating
and imagining. By the film’s end, the names Agee and Gates sound
more resonantly than Jordan. Hoop Dreams succeeds marvelously where
shoe company ad campaigns fail. It renders complexly the nuances of
life, both on and off the court.

Hoop Dreams is about the experience of life in contemporary
America. It is particularly, at times problematically, about race.
Former Marquette coach and current college hoops analyst Al McGuire
once said, "the only thing in this country that blacks really
dominate, except poverty, is basketball."

Like McGuire, the three filmmakers (Peter Gilbert, Frederick
Marx and Steve James) are white and well-intentioned. They set out
to dramatize a particular racial and class experience of life and a
game. However, their intentions may have blinded them to the
intrusiveness of utilizing the documentary form to construct a
tight narrative of the lives of two inner-city black men and their
families.

The film dramatizes b-ball, warts and all. Or, as ESPN
commentator Bill Raftery would exclaim, describing a basket made
despite a foul, "the hoop and the harm." Dreams of the NBA and
promise of release from need meet the realities of lives caught in
cycles of poverty, where opportunities seem nonexistent and
institutions uncaring.

Basketball is the latest incarnation of the American dream of
social mobility. The idea that talent in this sport cannot lead to
wealth and standing in America is not a lie, but that access to
these rewards is available to all comers. The dream of hoops is
ephemeral, often only a blown anterior cruciate ligament away from
a nightmare. Progress through each level of the sport is tortuous.
As the film demonstrates, to make it to the major college level is
an amazing achievement.

Even more amazing, Agee’s mom reminds the filmmakers, is making
it to your eighteenth birthday on the mean streets of Chicago. In
one of the film’s most revealing segments, Arthur’s mom is both
proud and thankful for her son’s continued survival: "He made it to
18, and that’s great. That is something." The film reminds viewers
to think beyond the court. Out of bounds lies rejection, poverty,
death. No wonder so many men (and women) seek the embrace of a
game.

Yet the game’s promise can easily betray. The film’s focus is
relentlessly masculine, poignantly depicting "failed" men ­
those who did not "make it" ­ projecting their dreams for self
onto little sons, brothers, others. The ideology of major,
competitive sports in America is intricately tied up with
constructions of successful, functioning masculinity. The film’s
father figures, former players Bo Agee and Curtis Gates, represent
the failure of hoops to guarantee security and identity. Reformed
crack addict and penitent father Bo challenges Arthur to
one-on-one, refusing to admit his son’s superior ability. After
showing highlights of Curtis throwing down dunks in high school,
the camera captures him on the blacktop failing to clear the
rim.

The presence of mothers, sisters, girlfriends and daughters in
the film is largely kept peripheral. As in the highest level of the
game, the NBA, women are kept on the sidelines, nurturing and
cheering, but not participating.

Hoop Dreams’ emphasis on struggle is perhaps its greatest lesson
for the UCLA community. For hoop fans, the tendency is to believe
the hype generated by the media-driven economy of the sport.
Athletes performing at the sport’s highest levels must always
combat unreal expectation. Success is not only expected, but
required. How many of UCLA’s faithful considered last season a
failure after a loss to underdog Tulsa in the NCAA’s first round?
How many demand a trip to the Final Four this season? The double
edge of expectation is the assumption that performance comes easy
for blue chip ballplayers. Driven by the meat market of high school
scouting, the mantra of basketball is talent. Talent gets you
there. Talent wins ball games. Talent makes you rich.

Lost amid the shuffling Nikes is the concept of effort. Hoop
Dreams is all about effort, struggle, setbacks. The accumulation of
detail, the portrait of young men’s lives, reminds the hoop fan of
sacrifice. The more gifted natural athlete, Gates powerfully jams
before beginning high school. Yet, after leading St. Joseph’s as a
freshman and sophomore, Gates suffers a tear in his knee ligament.
Before his heralded freshman season, on the cusp of glory like
Givens, Johnson, Henderson and Bailey, UCLA forward Ed O’Bannon
suffered a devastating knee injury. Both players endured several
surgeries and arduous rehabilitation.

Explosive talents before becoming injured, each had to face the
uncertainty of reaching previous heights with a body that has
already failed. Once the top-rated high school prospect in the
country, O’Bannon has pushed himself to the point of All-America
consideration in his senior season. He will likely be selected in
the next NBA draft. Gates returned to St. Joe’s and played well
enough to gain a scholarship to Marquette. All their talent could
not prevent their injuries. Only determination and effort returned
them to the court.

Effort and sacrifice are experiences deftly demonstrated in Hoop
Dreams. The hoop fans should not only fill Pauley Pavilion this
Fall, but should throng to the theaters as well. In all its
complexity, Hoop Dreams demands to be seen and discussed.

Box set documents Prine’s truly ‘Great Days’

By Michael Tatum

From marrying a belly dancer who encourages him to blow up his
TV to wondering whether his cat’s death was an accident or a
suicide, nobody comes close to capturing the "Big Old Goofy World"
like John Prine.

Most singer-songwriters who emerged in the 1970s were either
shallow and self-pitying (Jackson Browne), corny and lightweight
(John Denver) or both (James Taylor). To compound their sins, all
of the of the above and others moved away from the roots of
singer-songwriting ­ blues, fold, and country ­ and sold
out their muse to the sterile, studio-slick, emotionally vacant
California sound.

Prine didn’t. He combined a sharp eye for detail and a poet’s
gift for metaphor with a back-to-basics commitment that earned him
the respect of his peers ­ Bonnie Raitt, Bruce Springsteen,
Tom Petty, Kris Kristoferson, and others. But like so many artists
who refuse to cheapen their art by pandering to commercial whims,
it didn’t exactly earn him widespread radio airplay or overwhelming
album sales.

But with Great Days, the new two-CD career retrospective from
Rhino Records, Prine has the last laugh. It re-establishes him as
nothing less than one of the great singer-songwriters of the rock
era, ranking with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison.

Discovered in the early 70s by Kris Kristoferson, who joked
Prine was "so good we might have to break his thumbs," Prine came
almost immediately to the attention of rock critics bored with the
bland self-absorption of Sweet Baby James and Harry Chapin. On his
self-titled first album, he sang about a heroin-addicted Vietnam
vet ("Sam Stone"), the elderly (the empathetic "Hello In There" and
"Angel From Montgomery"), and "Paradise," a coal-mining town he
visited in his youth. But he could crack a joke too ­ "Illegal
Smile" finds his harried protagonist ("All my friends turned out to
be insurance salesmen") trying to rationalize his marijuana use to
a judge: "I didn’t kill anyone/ I was just trying to have me some
fun."

And he didn’t stop there. In the 20-plus years since, he’s
turned out many fine records (Sweet Revenge and The Missing Years
among this writer’s favorites), and as this set proves, an almost
embarrassing amount of brilliant songs.

At his best, Prine never resorts to cheap sentiment, and rarely
ever relies on tired tropes and cliches to get his point across.
Even his love songs state universal feelings in striking ways.
Prine’s separation song, "Christmas In Prison," actually extends
the metaphor to include descriptions of the lonely things an ex-con
might actually be doing on Christmas in his cell: eating bad food,
carving pistols out of wood, and dreaming of his lost sweetheart,
even when he doesn’t dream. The chorus’s lovely tag line, "We’re
rolling my sweetheart / we’re flowing by God" is simple but
beautiful, reminiscent of the romanticism of Robert Burns’ best
poems.

Or take "Blue Umbrella." James Taylor sang ‘I’ve seen fire and
I’ve seen rain," but Prine’s weather metaphors are hardly as
contrived: "Just give me one more season," he sings to his lover,
"so I can figure out the other four."

But of course, the cuts that leap out on the first listening are
the miniature stand-up comedy routines, the ones that Prine fans
always seem to holler for at his concerts: the raucous Hank
Williams tribute/ parody "Yes I Guess They Oughta Name A Drink
After You," the hilarious pro-organ donation ditty "Please Don’t
Bury Me" ("I’d rather have them cut me up and pass me all around"),
and "Dear Abby," four fictitious, tongue-in-cheek letters to the
famed columnist, who advises "Stop wishing for bad luck and
knocking on wood." Not to mention "Come Back To Us Barbara Lewis
Hare Krishna Beauregard," (featuring backing vocals by Bonnie
Raitt) which deserves some kind of medal on the basis of its
outrageous title alone.

It should go without saying that this package, like other Rhino
anthologies, is beautifully packaged and sounds great. The booklet
is in itself worth the price of admission, featuring an amusing
song-by-song rundown by Prine himself.

The only criticism one could have of this first-rate is the
length ­ one could have comprised a four CD box set from Prine
that would have had no filler. But as an introduction to a
world-class songwriter, this will do.

MUSIC: The John Prine Anthology: Great Days. (Rhino)