Instead of watching NCIS, I’m tuned in to the Elton John / Leon Russell live concert on fuse.tv. Today is the launch day for their new duet album, The Union, produced by T-Bone Burnett and featuring such guest performers as Neil Young and Brian Wilson. Russell was big back in the late 60s and 70s and was one of Elton John’s strongest influences. While listening to some of Russell’s classics a couple of years ago, he decided to reach out to the performer, who had been at one of EJ’s Troubadour concerts, the ones that launched him in America. They toured briefly back then, but had little contact in the interim. EJ came up with the idea of doing a duet to bring Russell back into the spotlight, and the two of them wrote songs, along with Bernie Taupin. Russell reminds me of a cross between Santa Claus, Willie Nelson and the husband of one of my coworkers. He growls and mumbles more than he sings these days, but he can still tickle the ivories. I listened to The Union a few times during my round trip to San Antonio on Sunday and I like it quite a bit. It has elements that remind me of some of EJ’s albums, from Tumbleweed Connection to Too Low for Zero to The Road to El Dorado to The Big Picture, but it also has this gospel bluesy country feel that’s pretty cool. One of the amazing things about this story is that Russell had brain surgery just before they went into the studio. Can you imagine? Bracketed by solo performances, this fuse concert features the two men playing the entire album (along with band and brass and backing singers).
My wife got me a computer game as a stocking stuffer for Christmas a few years ago. CSI: Dark Motives, it’s called. I used to play adventure games like Rogue and Larn and Zork back in the early computer days, but not so much since then. I haven’t really had the time or the patience. The last one I played was probably Phantasmagoria, which I enjoyed. I’ve never gotten into any of the Nintendo, Game Boy, Wii modules. My daughter used to try to get me to play some of the more rudimentary games, like Mario Brothers, but not enough for me to figure out the controllers. For some reason, I dug out the CSI game recently and installed it for the first time. It’s actually the kind of game I enjoy: solving puzzles, putting things together, with the added benefit of an online mechanism that keeps track of it all so you don’t have to make notes. Imagine my surprise when I unlocked the extra features on the first module and found out it was written by Max Allan Collins, who I’ve gotten to interact a bit with lately at The Big Adios.
Jennifer Morrison, the actress who plays Cameron on House was a guest on How I Met Your Mother this week, which airs opposite…House! It took me a couple of scenes to recognize her out of context, just as she took me by surprise as Kirk’s mother on the reboot Star Trek movie. Her HIMYM character was fun, an activist that Ted is smitten by who’s a little bit nuts.
Castle was a touch lightweight this week, yanking a perpetrator out of the hat at the last second, someone who wasn’t really a series contender up until that moment, I thought. Then there was the schmaltzy scene with Castle and Beckett coming to the young lovers’ rescue, burgers and all, though I did like the way Beckett told Castle she’d bail him out if he ever got into trouble. It was a nice moment that took Castle off guard.
