It Was Thirty Days Ago Today...
… Franklin Potcheck staged the bands to play. And it was a concert for the ages, viewed by more individuals than have ever attended a live play - by a factor exceeding twenty. Never before, and undoubtedly never again, will a cavalcade of stars and superstars, apex groups and super groups, be assembled as they were in the Oasis Theater. While Don McLean famously sang of a Day the music died, this was night when it lived, and lived large.
I was one of the fortunate 20,000 or so souls who witnessed this extravaganza in the flesh, perched high above the stage with my colleague Connie Scanlan in Broadcast Booth One, blessed with the opportunity to assist broadcasting the spectacle to five billion other viewers scattered across the planet. Last week, I was invited to preview a rough cut of Concert At Prism. Directed by Dick Maccarone, edited by he and Geno Polata (who also handled the audio mix) and produced by PEG Video, I can report to you that once the final embellishments are added, Concert will instantly become the benchmark against which all musical performance films - past and future - shall be measured. But none have nor ever will come close to equaling it. Masterpiece only begins to describe this incredible work of art.
I say this with confidence because from my bird’s-eye view I could see the entire pageant unfold in real time. Like a fly on a wall, I witnessed things that weren’t shown in the original feed; small interchanges among the performers, telling glances and the occasional miscues. Thankfully, many of these vignettes, captured by the battery of cameras at Maccarone’s fingertips, have been seamlessly woven into the narrative with skill, craftsmanship and at times a distinct sense of humor. From the ground rules of the Battle of the Bands at the top through the climactic revisiting of All Over the World at the end, the only thing missing is Yul Brynner.
But while the final cut will clock in at just a shade over four hours, much much more transpired during my weekend at Prism. Enough to fill a book --- tentatively titled The Prism Affairs, scheduled to be published in May of next year by Pinkie Books, (a subsidiary of PEG, the owner of Pinkiefinger), and written by yours truly.
This undertaking, along with another new project about which I’ll elaborate upon in a moment, leads me to announce that I’ve submitted my resignation as Editor-at-Large of Newsglance and that my resignation has been accepted. This came as no surprise to me because our boss Franklin Potcheck was the person who thought up and approved everything involved.
Returning to Prism… one incompletely sorted out incident continues to dominate the news.
Claudette St. Honore told police she was in her bedroom when an argument erupted between her father and Billi Blair, and was still there when it ended. Yes, she thought maybe they were lovers, but had no evidence. No, she knew of no one else in the suite when the shouting began. Yes, it probably had to do with some surgeries that had been conducted at St. Honore-owned facilities. No, she had no other insight into why the tragedy occurred, a half an hour after the World Standoff! Tournament award presentation ended.
She had no opinion as to where the shotgun came from, though the fingerprints on the weapon registered to B. Blair led police to conclude it had been produced by one of the parties present. Only one shot was fired, a blast that struck Claude St. Honore in his chest, hurtling him and a chair through a window, his body smashing onto the front hood of an unoccupied limousine below. His COD was listed as “Multiple Trauma.”
Two hours later, security guards and the Las Vegas police broke into the suite of Billi Blair. All they found was a message written in red lipstick on the master bathroom mirror:
Revenge is a kind of wild justice
Law enforcement authorities were investigating a tip that Blair, listed as a “person of interest” in the case, had fled to Europe.
The tragedy was compounded by another at Prism the next day, when three employees were burned to death in a flash fire in an electronics room they were inspecting on a subfloor of the hotel.
Oh, and yes, there was the woman who assaulted me at a party following the concert. Eventually, the entire backstory concerning that incident will no doubt be revealed, but as of this writing, I have been advised by counsel not to discuss any facts relating to that incident, so that’ll have to wait.
Ronnie Young Chang went back to San Francisco to run his import-export business, Kerensky to New York to go to dinner parties. Sarah Easton, after a two week stay at a hospital for treatment of exhaustion, quit her job and disappeared, telling a friend she was going on a long vacation to “hopefully find anonymity.”
Boo Lascaux finally held a news conference yesterday afternoon, in New Orleans, the text of which appeared in earlier issues of Newsglance but merits repeating here:
“Thank you all for showing up here. I don’t know that I’ve got anything earth-shattering to report to you, but I do appreciate you all coming. I’ve got two things I want to tell you about. The first is a little complicated. The second is a little simpler. Well, maybe I got three things to say.
“Some of you may wonder how I won the Standoff! tournament. Well, I’m not all so sure myself. I know there was some talk after the week we were there, like there was some kind a fix or something, but if there was, I didn’t know nothing about it. I just won because I won, and that’s all there is to say about that. But I did want to tell you something that none of those people from People Magazine or Newsglance or that famous New York Times or any of those other magazines told. Now, I’m not cutting on People Magazine or any of those other ones like them. I’m just telling you a story they didn’t know.
“My mama, Clotile, who left me the arrowheads, the arrowheads that caused all the commotion out in Las Vegas, my mama, when she had this little store in the Quarter, early every Sunday she’d take me and we’d bring flowers down to this graveyard, to the tomb of Marie Leveaux, down in the old St. Louis Cemetery. I don’t know why my mama done it, but I always went with her. Now Marie Leveaux was the great queen of voodoo, and I didn’t never know her and I don’t know nothing about voodoo, but my mama took me there anyway. And there was this tomb near Marie’s, some guy who was a chess master, they got this stone chessboard outside of it, and I used to sit there while my mama Clotile was over at Marie’s, and I used to touch those chess pieces. So if you want to know why I think I won, it’s because of all the time I spent touching those. That might sound crazy but, well, I think that has something to do with it.
“Now as far as this donation they’re going to let me make, I want you all to know that I’ve never had anything to do with charities, so I had to think about this one for awhile.
“Michelle, the mother of our boy, she’s the scholar of the family. She’s got her master’s degree, and she’s presently working on her doctorate, at LSU. She’s always loved the opera, and she’s working on this doctorate at LSU. She’s writing it on voice, she’s writing it on, please excuse me if I get the name wrong, she’s writing on the contrapuntal harmonic technique of the eighteenth century. Now I don’t know much about this contrapuntal theory but Michelle, she tells me that Mozart was the consummate genius in music, that he never wrote a piece that wasn’t great. He could write for opera, he could write for orchestras, he could write for quartets. But he never did anything lesser. Every time he composed, he wrote something better. And though I don’t understand what Michelle is writing about, I always believed in her. Now, there were a lot of people who didn’t believe in her, some of these theories that she wanted to explore, but there was one group that did, never let her down. And with that in mind, I’d like to announce to you that Mr. Potcheck has generously agreed to donate that charity prize to the Hurricane Foundation for the Performing Arts, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
“And finally, I’m proud to tell you that me and Michelle got married last week at that big chapel they got in Paris with all those round, stained-glass windows, the cathedral of Notre Dame. It’s hard getting in there, but Mr. Potcheck made a couple phone calls and everything worked out fine.
; “Thank you again for your attention. I got nothing else to say except I’m a happy, happy man. I’m very honored and very grateful.”
I have no doubt that in the weeks and months to come we’ll all be learning more about many of the loose threads connected to The Tournament and The Concert, not the least of which concerns What the hell is going on with Andy Polanski and Laura Loveland?
That was a rhetorical question. True, at the top of The Battle of the Bands there was a genuine sense of blood in the water as the pair were read the rules of engagement, while at the conclusion of the evening’s final song you might have thought they were going steady or something. Well here’s a clue for you all: Although I’m still not sure if the Walrus was Paul, I am certain that Laura and Andy, both of whom I am so very, very fortunate to count among my personal friends, are in fact going steady or something. And I’d like you all to tune into Fox at 10:30 pm Central Standard time a week from this Friday to perhaps discover exactly what.
Why then and there?
This one I know the answer to. On that evening in that timeslot on that network, I am delighted to report that the first episode of a new, one hour M-F nightly show will debut, Tonight with Jip Spotswood hosted by... yup. You can probably figure that detail out, too!
By way of explanation, a few days before PEG’s acquisition of the Fox Broadcasting Company, I met with Messrs. Potcheck and Walbee who, happy with my performance on the WST broadcast, made me an offer I had to accept which included giving me wide latitude on the show’s format and location, not to mention the addition of Connie Scanlan reprising his role as my partner-in-crime. How cool is that?
Now it might sound like pulling off such a major undertaking in such a short time borders on science fiction, but with Franklin and Ben and Connie involved I’m confident of a smooth launch. Oh, and did I mention my first guests will be Laura Loveland and Andy Polanski who’ll be addressing the “or something” topic? True story.
Hope to see you on the air then.
And thank you all, dear readers, for your past support and future participation in this crazy world of pop culture we share.
Rules Of Standoff!
PREPARATION
A game of Standoff consists of ten rounds called CONTRACTS. A game of Standoff! begins by mixing the 66 tiles in a bag or other container with each player drawing ten tiles. While a player may arrange the tiles in any desired order, it is recommended that they initially be set from left to right in ascending value.
RULES FOR PLAYING STANDOFF!
BRIEFLY
STANDOFF! is a game for 2, 3, or 4 players or teams. The play consists of outbidding opponents to capture CONTRACTS and bluffing opponents into overbidding CONTRACTS. Each player competes for the high score by collecting points through successfully bidding CONTRACTS and by receiving points when other players overbid CONTRACTS.
CONTENTS
Each STANDOFF! game consists of the following parts: the Board, containing playing pyramids for four players, CIRCLE, TRIANGLE, SQUARE and DIAMOND; 66 tiles, consisting of ten each of the bidding colors -Blue, Red, Green, Black, Silver and Gold, plus six “Wild” tiles marked with an asterisk (*); four STANDOFF! markers used for eliminating certain bidding colors; four packs of STANDOFF! cards, each containing seven cards marked Blue, Red, Green, Black, Silver, Gold and Wild(*); and a Score Pad.
PREPARATION
A game of STANDOFF! consists of ten rounds called CONTRACTS. A game of STANDOFF! begins by mixing the 66 tiles in a bag or other container with each player drawing ten tiles. While a player may arrange the tiles in any desired order, it is recommended that they initially be set from left to right in ascending value. For bidding purposes, the color values in STANDOFF! are ranked, beginning with the lowest--Blue, Red, Green, Black, Silver and Gold. Wild(*) is not a color and has no rank. Successfully capturing a CONTRACT with a bid of “five Red” is not worth any more or less points than capturing a CONTRACT with a bid of “five Gold”. It is the number bid, not the color, that determines the value of the CONTRACT.
Following the pick of the ten tiles, each player receives one pack of STANDOFF! cards, matching the CIRCLE, SQUARE, TRIANGLE or DIAMOND playing field which has been chosen by the player. The order of play is determined by each player drawing another tile and placing it in the center of the Board. The player with the highest ranking tile (Blue is low, Gold is high) begins the game. Thereafter the order of play is to the left of the previous bidder. At the beginning of each new CONTRACT, the player who was the high bidder for the preceding CONTRACT plays first. The tiles used to determine the order of play for CONTRACT ONE are returned to the bag.
THE PLAY
CONTRACT ONE begins with each player placing one tile face down in the top Contract Cluster on the player’s pyramid. Each player may position the arrow on top of the tile so that it points to any of the referenced spaces.
Each player then chooses one STANDOFF! card and separates it from the rest, keeping its face hidden. After each player has chosen a card from his own pack, the identity of the cards is revealed. This may be done by the players turning the cards over at the same time or by turning them over in the bidding order.
THE STANDOFF!
The faces of the STANDOFF! cards revealed determine the STANDOFF!, the colors which CANNOT be used in the bidding of the upcoming CONTRACT. However, any two cards which match each other are treated as offsetting and Wild(*) cards are treated as neutral.
After the STANDOFF! cards are revealed, the player who is the first bidder in the CONTRACT announces which colors cannot be bid in that CONTRACT. (Example: With four players in the game, the STANDOFF! cards revealed are Black, Black, Silver and Wild(*). The player announces “STANDOFF! Silver” and places one of the STANDOFF! markers over the Silver space in the center of the Board.) Any player disagreeing with what colors are on STANDOFF! status for the CONTRACT must do so before play begins. If there are no challenges, the colors which cannot be bid are those which are covered by STANDOFF! MARKERS.
STRATEGY
A successful bid for a CONTRACT is made when a player correctly bids a higher number of tiles of a given color than any other player. The tiles making up the number are only those which are on the Board in play closing a given CONTRACT. The player determines his bids by taking into account the tiles which he has placed on the Board and what the player believes the other players have placed on the Board. Table talk is allowed and encouraged.
THE BIDDING
Once the proper STANDOFF! colors have been eliminated with the STANDOFF! markers, the bidding begins. The first player to bid may choose any color and any multiple of that color as a first bid. Wild(*) is not a color and is never bid. It is not necessary for the bidder to bid a color he has in play. The lowest possible bid to begin a CONTRACT is “one Blue.” The second lowest bid is “one Red.” The highest single tile bid is “one Gold.” Once Gold has been reached, the next player must either increase the bid to a higher denomination (such as “two Blues” or “two Blacks” or “three Reds”) or challenge.
THE CHALLENGE
A player may challenge the previous bidder when the player believes that when all of the tiles on the Board are revealed at the end of the bidding, the number of tiles of the specific color bid (“four Reds”) will not be present, thus resulting in a loss to the final bidder and a gain for the challenging players. So on any given turn, a player MUST either raise the last bid or challenge the last bid. The bidding for each CONTRACT ends when the bid of one player has been challenged by all the remaining players. A bidding player wins if there are at least as many colored tiles plus Wild(*) tiles on the Board as called for in his final bid. A bidding player loses if there are not as many colored tiles plus Wild(*) tiles as called for in his final bid. A bid of “four Red” wins with 4R, 5R, 6R, etc., 3R & 1*, 2R & 2*, 1R & 3*, etc. A bid of “four Red” loses with 1R, 2R, 3R, 1R & 2*, 2R & 1*, 3*, 4*, 5*, etc. Tiles which are not the color bid are ignored in the count.
THE SCORING
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Each player begins each ten CONTRACT game with 100 points. These points are added to or subtracted from after each CONTRACT. However, if a player’s point total reaches zero, that player is eliminated for the rest of the game. Determining each CONTRACT VALUE is accomplished by first adding the CONTRACT number (one, two, etc.) to the final number bid in the play of that CONTRACT. For example, if a final bid in CONTRACT FIVE is “seven Black,” the CONTRACT VALUE becomes twelve points. If the final bid is successfully reached in the play, the CONTRACT VALUE is added to the point total of the successful bidding player and the CONTRACT VALUE is subtracted from the point totals of each of the other players. If the final bid is not successfully reached in the play, the CONTRACT VALUE is added to the point totals of the other players and subtracted from the point total of the bidding player.
EXCHANGING TILES
After the end of play in CONTRACT ONE, and after each succeeding CONTRACT, each player has the option of exchanging up to three (0, 1, 2 or 3) tiles before play begins on the next CONTRACT. To exchange tiles, the player announces, “I am exchanging (the number desired) tiles.” The player chooses the tiles to be traded and places them face down in the center of the Board, and then picks an equal number of tiles from the bag. After all players have made exchanges, the discarded tiles are placed in the bag. The option to exchange tiles can be exercised in any allowable number before each of the last nine CONTRACTS, at the choice of the individual player. One exception is when a Wild(*) tile has been used in the previous CONTRACT. If a Wild(*) tile has been used, it MUST be discarded and exchanged prior to the next CONTRACT.
WINNING STANDOFF!
The player with the most points at the completion of the ten CONTRACTS is the winner. In the event two players have the same high point total, all the tiles are mixed together and each player draws three. A FINAL CONTRACT for one point is played, with the player who bid the last CONTRACT opening the bidding. A successful bid wins the one point. An overbid costs the player one point. No colors are on STANDOFF! in this FINAL CONTRACT.
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