Pop is Not

If pop music indeed has a “rebound,” the major qualification of swing music, then how does pop differ from jazz? Ask any smooth jazz artist. I never have listened to smooth jazz. Why would I want to? After being reared only on the best jazz/fusion, why would I resort to listening to a derivative product? It is the same question. Smooth jazz arose in the late l990’s as an adult contemporary alternative to the intellectually demanding and sometimes spiritually yearning genre of mainstream jazz. Because the blues are a major component of mainstream jazz, the “blues” feeling often is present in the realization of jazz music. Pop music is different because, although it does “rebound” like swing, it does not possess a similar underlying feeling. Instead pop music attempts to create an artificial euphoric feeling that substitutes for what normally would be a deeper message in the music. Erroneously this superimposed feeling of glee is construed to originate from the instrumental performance. In reality it emanates from the “Pop Artist.” It is the perfect vehicle for their self-indulgence. The instrumental accompaniment intends to be superficial, patronizing, and vain. Therefore pop music is not about the music. It is about the performers and their audience. This insincerity never will place the genre of pop and consequently smooth jazz in the artistic realm. The underlying feeling of pop is the glorification of us. It is a show. It is “Showbiz.” Pop never will be a platform for moving a consensus of spiritual, social, or philosophical ideas. Technically why is pop impotent? In addition to an underlying feeling not being present, there is no rhythmic clave. The pop groove, emanating from the casual strumming of an acoustic guitar, contains no rhythmic pattern of note. When theoretically analyzed this strumming pattern is nothing more than a repetitive serialization of 8^th notes played both ahead and behind the beat. Can two 8^th notes pulled toward one another over the pulse be considered a rhythmic clave? The answer is no. It does create a tension, a stroke and a rebound, but it is not a rhythmic pattern indicative of other more tradition styles of music. Popular dance forms, i.e., a rhythmic pattern that coincides with dance steps, are better examples of “clave.” In Latin music “clave” often is restricted to a definition of a 2/3 or 3/2 rhythmic pattern in salsa music. I use “clave” in a broader sense to define a rhythmic pattern of any origin. The verbal incantation of the dance the Cha Cha, “One, Two, Cha, Cha, Cha,” probably is the most recognizable. There are many. Understandably pop music is not dance music, and that is why it fails in any more demanding venues. For music to stand the test of time and persevere, its content must be substantial enough to move listeners on its on. When the performer is dead, who then will carry the torch?

Barry's Gordy's Motown Groove

If the common garden sprinkler is not swinging with its, “Tch, tch, tch” what does swing? The history and definition of “swing” in music and academic circles always has been hotly contested. Most easily swing should be defined as music with a “rebound.” The “pop” music groove has a rebound of sorts and like Rock ‘n’ Roll both swings and is straight at the same time. This could be the reason it has risen to prominence recently in the commercial world of music. Although fervently I hate playing in the pop style, because it requires a lessening of academic piano technique, I will give credit where credit is due. I enjoy listening to piano players who are adept at this style. Analytically I can realize the music has no inherent groove of its own, but it accomplishes a feel if purveyed by the right musicians. James Taylor would be the prime example of a pop artist. That groove he chooses to play is concrete and tangible in a very elusive way. The touch required to play pop is specific, but it is the antithesis to playing R&B, Hip Hop, and Soul music. The difference is pop music uses a loose, quick, ahead-of-the-beat touch and uses amplification to achieve its groove. R&B, Hip Hop, and Soul use a heavy touch in the center or behind the beat most easily personified by the playing of Motown bassist James Jamerson. Affectionately he was called the “Hook” because, instead of using two or three fingers in quick succession to articulate linear phrases on the strings of the electric bass, he only used one. The spacing of the notes resulting from only repetitive plucks from the same digit created the unique feel of the music. That of itself could be the qualifying definition of a Motown groove. Motown is a pop groove in the sense that it does not use the keyboard concept (a similar single hand repetitive attack) to supply groove. It uses a derivative rhythmic concept from soul and R&B, because each and every note is not essential to the feel of the song. The groove is “stretched” over the top of what would be an authentic soul or R&B groove. The deepening of the groove via accentuation of individual notes and phrasing in a non-repetitive way would create the original grooves from which Motown borrowed. Jamerson, in this somewhat limited but specific rhythmic concept, was able to provide enough soul but not too much to be palatable by white radio listening audiences of Motown. It could be said this groove, pioneered, chosen, and shaped by Barry Gordy, was the magic that made Motown Records successful. I for one never listened to Motown music as a child. As a keyboard player the feel of guitar-based music didn’t communicate to me. I was invited and tried several times to play in Allman Brothers cover type bands, but the music always was lacking to me. Instead my first vinyl record was of the Jeff Lorber Fusion. Here was an iconic jazz/fusion band that satisfied both my musical intellect and my need for keyboard-based groove. How would I know decades later this acquired taste would come back to haunt me as a professional musician?

Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Personal Musical Reflection

After a recent local symphony concert I found it odd I felt off balance, because I did not know how to pronounce the concertmaster’s name or know his country of ethnic origin. Likewise after not reading the program notes, in particularly ones relating to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, the Pastoral Symphony, again I felt off balance. As a composer myself almost possessing a D.M.A. in Composition from the Ohio State University, I remembered the necessity of “program notes” as a tool for selling your piece. While the composer tolls countless hours (“The piece lives in the time it takes to compose”) inside the piece, an unknowing audience has had no time with the piece before its first hearing. This raised a question in my mind for the first time as a listener. Also with countless of hours listening and studying music, I once never entertained the thought of having to listen, absorb, and understand a piece of music from an musically uneducated point-of-view. Because my entire life I have dedicated myself to the study, composition, and performance of music, I never would allow myself to listen to music without a myriad of preparatory information. This concert was different. Because I have been at sea for nine years, it has been nine years since I have heard any kind of concert. Isn’t that strange? I have been making my living as a professional pianist but not have had one opportunity to hear live music in a concert setting. This is an atrocity! When you perform music full-time as a vocation, it must be your interest in music declines. Your ears become tired, and the magic once that could be found in an inspired musical performance dissipates into the air like an early morning fog. It becomes rote like any other job. When I leave the ship job, my only desire is to escape the musical environment not only to rest my mind but my body. Performing music is mental prowess. Yes you must have the necessary learned physical technique, but performing music comes solely from the mind. The heart is involved but without the mind music performance would be impossible. It is a highly engaging combination of parameters that allow a quality musical performance. Unluckily a ship job ignores many of them. They provide you a “click track” to keep the time. They also provide you with pre-recording backing tracks in case you cannot play your part. In short it is not a real life music-making environment, but it pays the bills. At my first symphony concert in more than ten years I was surprised to be at a disadvantage. I was in my hometown, but a hometown of many years past. I was listening to a group I had heard before, but also not for many years past. I was listening in an auditorium in which I had performed numerous times at a college that now was a university. Ironically the Chairman of the Department of Music at this University and I shared the same doctoral advisor at Ohio State almost fifteen years ago. He completed the degree, but I did not because of affecting medical needs. That is why I began working for the cruise lines after my surgeries. I needed to make money from music, not spend it. Listening to both the Beethoven Pastoral Symphony and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in this setting was unbalancing. While alone I know I have a wealth of historical musical knowledge stored in the recesses of my brain, in this setting I was transmuted back to my childhood prior to the events that molded my now professional life. Being in one’s hometown inevitably demands you again become a child surrounding by antiquated unchanging memories. It could be the prime example of “Nature vs. Nurture” with your surroundings demanding you once again submit to your uneducated youth. As with all sentimental occurrences one believes a strong defensive cognition should not be required to healthily survive. That is not the case here. Society, or rather the geriatric class of Americans never in my experience transfer the balance of power to their younger social class. They wield it competitively until they are dead. That humorously is the only time a young person can acquire a lucrative and fulfilling orchestral job, when a geriatric dies. Thus America is presented with again a continual dilemma about her future. Without an investment in her younger generation, how will the power and integrity of a once affluent country be ensured? While I was not thinking about this as I listened to this symphony concert, I was thinking about how disconnected I felt. I knew quite a bit about the music, and as I challenged myself to enjoy the concert it was necessary to engage my mind. Then I began asking myself without my cognitive reflective process could I enjoy the music? Without an understanding of harmony, form, rhythm, and style could this music communicate with me? A popular adage concerning jazz music is that you do not have to understand it. You only must be able to “feel” it. This throughout life has been a crucial part of my own philosophy of music. I would not be involved with music composition or jazz improvisation, unless I could express my own internal experiences and feelings. That is my sole inspiration for musical composition. In former years one always feels a need for acceptance by one’s peers, but in time that necessity dwindles with one’s own faith in America’s cultural society. Lastly you compose because it is meaningful to you. Isn’t this the best method? Charles Ives sold insurance to make a living thus protecting his own compositional musical aesthetic. Without this attitude the need to be commercially successful surely will take over, and the pure, quintessential, artistic compositional aesthetic will be lost. As I listened to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6, I could not help but be surprised. While fully understanding Beethoven was a composer of the classic period, what I was hearing sounded romantic to me. The dates l780-l790 surface in my head as being the height of the “Classic Period” in music history, yet this symphony sounded like Brahms to me. Then it began to sound more like Aaron Copland’s Rodeo. It was “pastoral” I though to myself, so how does a composer achieve such a feeling? The melodic themes because of the time period were diatonic. The chromaticism of Wagner and the “Romantic Period” were still years away, but Beethoven was a visionary. His Grossa Fugue pushed the classical tenants of composition also alienating him from some in traditional Austrian society. This is what I liked about Beethoven. He was one of my favorite composers. Upon listening to this particular work my pre-conceived notions about Beethoven were being challenged. First the pure bravura of Beethoven was altered with the theme of a “Pastorale.” There were folk elements that seemed to drive the work. “This is unusual for Beethoven,” I thought to myself. How far is Ireland from Vienna? The triple meter and almost Scottish “snap” motive meant I could be listening to an Irish Jig. One movement labeled Andante sounded like a Johann Strauss Waltz. “That was a little more plausible,” I thought. While these elements certainly were different than the Egmont Overture or Eroica Symphony of which I knew, certain telltale Beethoven devices were in play. His accompanying countermelodies and pizzicatos in the low strings came and went. “Ah, that I recognize!” Only once though through the devices of “Sturm Und Drang” was his traditional classic aesthetic heard. It came as the thunder I later found out after reading the program notes. Beethoven successfully pushed his own composing dynamic with the Symphony No. 6. In retrospect after the drama of the 5^th Symphony this piece would be a logical reaction to such bravura. The Romantic treatment of this orchestra disguised the true nature of what I knew to be Beethoven, but that was okay. I was feeling almost sickly sweet from a man known to be confident, pompous, and arrogant. Other themes seemed to be pushing toward the Romantic Period, so that also was okay. What I heard in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 was similar. There were a slate of musical ideas reaching out to many time periods, ethnic backgrounds, and composers. Synthesizing them is the key and both pieces adequately achieved that goal. With only two pieces on the program, I experienced a wide range of musical ideas. With my own personal musical discomfort came a challenging of my own knowledge. Similarly to what happens in a ship band, you are not battling your own demons. You are battling the perceptions of others.

Rumor Has It, There is a Dilemma

The Dilemma is a successful version of Neil Simon’s anachronistic attempted comedic farce Rumors. When I went to see this movie, I was not sure for what I was in store. I saw a resurrection or second chapter of Vince Vaughn’s work in the Break Up. There even was a canal for his tour boat. In actuality The Dilemma, directed by Ron Howard, was an in depth sometimes heart-wrenching character study of two married couples whose husbands are partners in the auto business. I believe fully Vaughn stepped up to the plate and could be chosen M.V.P. of the sincere, passionate, emotional leading man role. While many of his emotional responses were honed in the The Break Up, the presence of two co-leading ladies, Winona Ryder and Jennifer Connelly, diverts the painful ones or eases them with comedic intervention. One does not know upon entering the theater what genre the movie is. It unfolds as a drama that successfully masquerades as a comedy. The King of Queens handles the other male role. Why is The Dilemma successful and Rumors not? In this case The Dilemma is not a farce. In Rumors Simon needs more preparation setting the scene of an act in the Theater of the Absurd or the Three Penny Opera. Somehow an exquisite mansion and formal wear imply nothing of a forthcoming what-should-be light-hearted comedy. Instead it is pretentious making the consequent attempts at comedy fail. The characters do not know whether to be lowbrow, highbrow, or what results naturally in his play, neurotic. Watching neurotic affluence, while probably natural in their own circles, is unnerving. It is like watching a car careening out of control down an embankment with no happy ending in sight. At least in the Dilemma this is something about which the King was compelled. Rumors should be in the suspense category like a cheeky Agatha Christy novel, something sure to doom a Broadway bound production. Rumors emerges as an unsuccessful attempt at theater. There were a few good ideas, but Simon didn't show the technique to pull it off. The Dilemma does pull it off. It allows human moments unknown to the audience to unfold, develop, and drive the plot absorbing you in the drama. It breathes, improvises, and eventually shows compassion, something lacking severely in Simon's Rumors. Rumors is stiff just like its characters. Ron Howard opens the film with a large dose of Jennifer Connelly’s affection possibly foreshadowing the ending. Her's and Vaughn's chemistry seemed genuine, more than his chemistry with Jennifer Anniston in the Break Up. That is why they broke up. This makes the movie more palatable as a comedy. It had a happy ending, at least for three. Kevin James's marriage did suffer the consequences of its fate. The discovery of his friend’s wife’s affair created the dramatic tension, and Vaughn's resulting neurosis was the film. Luckily as a good guy should Vaughn remained true to his would be spouse, stays off the gambling, and eventually is loyal to his friend and business partner. Although psychologically continually the movie insinuated Vaughn would come out the loser, he won. It was a triumph.

Let's play some rhythm changes on El Trumpeto!

The Not So Successful Rumors

While everyone seems to think a Neil Simon play inevitably will be a hit, I have to disagree with Rumors. After seeing a recent local performance of what was called a farcical comedy, I came out hating the play. Even, as with most theater performances I attend, my sincere effort to try and enjoy the play by supporting its actors was met with a queasy unliking to by the end torture at being trapped in the enclosed theater with those who seemed to love it. Symbolically it personified my own self prescribed war between those that love pop music and those who appreciate jazz and classical music. One is selfish, sickly sentimental, and inept at delivering a Freudian does of ID, and the other embraces the true human condition. As America seems to have forgotten, the ID is the driving force of human nature. If we as adults cannot continue to appreciate mature sexuality is our present from God for being human, we as a cultural and artistic county will continue down the road of despair. I, as a 48-year-old single adult male, have to self-medicate because of the lack of healthy sexuality in America. Everywhere I turn conversely I am confronted with gay rights. The message is not about being straight and nurturing humankind with what God intended. The message is about an aberrant behavior probably worthy of being accommodated but needing to be kept on the down low. That exactly is why past President Bill Clinton’s policy of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” worked. Making homosexuality a platform for notoriety is exactly why this local performance of Rumors failed. It didn’t deal with the real issues. It created a false platform for actors to be appreciated for their work, not the content of the play. This has been the trend in popular music for quite a few years now beginning with Glam Country. America, along with her cultural history, has abandoned the need for a far reaching and substantial philosophy of life. We have regressed into the most base consumerist society peddling shallow anodynes to a purposely uneducated populace for the financial gain of those who hold private stock. There is no money in art, so America would think. The artistic aesthetic, once valued and collected for the spiritual enlightenment of Americans, has been replaced with cheap immediate gratification commodity. With over 300 million cellular frequencies in use today, the mobile telephone distinctly has changed the cultural habits of America for the worse. The sheer necessity of having to ambulate to achieve social development has been bandaged with convenience, a convenience that has stymied the emotional dynamic that once fueled American popular music. How can art exist if there is no life? Rumors proved that. It did not exist, because there was no life. It was a farce so off the beaten track from what is now mainstream America, it almost was almost incomprehensible at least to me. I hated it. Hate is a strong word, but it is better to understand your suppressed feelings than suffer the consequence of depression. Acknowledging and understanding negative emotions is crucial for survival in the human race. Without being unpatriotic how can I express my vehement dislike of Rumors, a Neil Simon play? I can say that in l988 at the height of Reganomics and a recently created upper middle class, watching neurotic rich people behave badly may have funny. Today in our current social and economic climate it almost incited an Extreme Muslim type of reaction in me. “Why are these rich people being indulged in public at my expense?” They were not funny, and in a rare dichotomy it was on two discreet levels. The characters in the play were not funny, and the actors themselves were not funny. This raised the scenario if the play could have been successful with a different cast. Ask Ellen Chenoweth. Secondly is raised the scenario if the play could have been successful with a different director. Probably both are true. It would have saved the cast from humiliation, and only the play would have been bad. I kept hoping for that as the minutes tooled by. Unfortunately the dichotomy continued with no salvation, except for the utterance of a few profanities and some carpet crawling. It just didn’t work for me. Because it has been several decades since I have been exposed to the elite rich, luckily I had forgotten their vanity. The cruise industry in its tremendous favor has eliminated social class for the most part. Only recently on my last vessel did its ugly head rear condensed in one short sentence. “These guests’ money pays our salaries.” Suddenly my life as a cruise ship musician was reduced to Reganomics for the first time in ten years. I am working for the man, and I am being expected to do what the man says, not what my experience and education has taught me. That would be construed as talent, and as it now commonly should be known, America does not seek talent. How can that be true? Although I never once in my life have watched a reality or talent show on American television, I can instinctually say they have nothing to do with talent. The themselves are farces, much more successful ones than Neil Simon’s Rumors. I found myself throughout the dull narrative yearning for a Woody Allen moment, steeped in heterosexuality, warmth, and harmless self indulgence. Instead I got a grand peacocking glorification of the wealthy replete with their arrogance and expecting acceptance in society solely because of their money. It was repugnant to me, exactly like it was in the l980’s when I played music for the same social class. Both my retribution and salvation for hating the rich came from moving to the Midwest away from the South’s old money. I started a new life as a doctoral student and opened up my life forever away from the oppressive Good Old Boy network in place in the South. I was able to grow into an adult with an identity of my own, respected for who I was and what I believed, and accomplishing many of my personal artistic goals. It was blissful, and now it is over. Rumors proved that.

America is Not Swinging

America is not swinging. Wynton knows it, and now I know it. I have given this

issue the benefit of the doubt for about a year now. As time passes it becomes more and more apparent, America is not swinging. The funny thing is I feel like the bad guy, and I have been treated like the bad guy. It seems there is a huge conspiracy in music circles to keep it concealed that America is not swinging. Who could ever think that producing true feeling in music ever could be considered bad? I have to know who is responsible for this movement, this movement of no swinging. Was Louis Armstrong bad? Of course not, and we have a sizeable history that proves Louis Armstrong was swinging. Maybe he was the first swinger, because in jazz circles often he is given that title. The First Swinger. It was not Bix Biderbeck. Louis not only loosened up the rhythm of American popular music, but he constructed the first viable improvised solos. These two things directly are related to the expression of true personal feeling. I am not talking about any of the hype we see on television today that passes as music. We see pantomiming puppets pulling strings of guitars with absolutely not one drop of talent. Talent. That must be the defining word. No talent, and America is not swinging. I guess it is my sole responsibility to define talent and swinging so there will be a remote possibility that America could again begin to swing. Will he have to wait for an end to the depression? Glenn Miller swung his ass off all through World War ll. It seems then America wanted good feeling music. It seems America has been duped to believe the music that is being performed today falsely in “pop” style has good feeling. That only could be if there were no feeling. Stravinsky or Schoenberg said music was incapable of producing feeling of itself. Of course not. Do you hear a tree fall in the woods if you are not there? For a feeling to be created, there must be a human being present to synthesize the stimulus and create the appropriate or desired feeling. Can feeling be transmitted via music? I believe non-swinging America will agree that most of us would not listen to music if it did not MOVE us. That means moving our emotions, or creating and/or manipulating our feelings. The first time I heard true sadness personified in music, it was in a G.F. Handel concerto grosso slow movement. I asked myself how anyone could not perceive this music was meant to produce or purge human sadness? While visual art, especially Abstract Expressionism, can produce emotional responses the musical aesthetic has the most potential. That is because emotions are waves of varying frequency, and sound is waves of varying frequency. While only now is it becoming known that electromagnetic waves affect both our thinking and our emotions, even non-swinging America would admit the reason why we go to concerts is to have our emotions moved. Music can do it. Why then is non-swinging America replete to the core with non-swinging music? I have been asking myself this for a few years now. After watching a PBS fundraiser showcasing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, I had to blog and expose their music for what it is not. It is NOT rock, yet non-swinging America seems not to notice. Rock music swings. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones proved that, and their great successes came from their swing. Today swing seems not necessary for some reason. It must be because America has become so self-centered or rather spiritually needed, that we cannot bare the notion of a band that knows more about music than us. Enter the worst idea ever in non-swinging America, Karioke. This is where the movement must have begun. Forget the band. Forget Louis Armstrong. I want to get up on stage drunk and try to sing. Let’s in one fell swoop demolish the successful and lucrative history of American popular music. Let’s create the MP3 and demand music be free to the listening public. Let’s emasculate the record companies that shaped our adolescence and allow music to be traded online instead. It all became about us, not the music and its musicians. Musicians are a dying breed. All one has to do is turn on the tube to see music is a dying craft. The Trans-Siberian Orchestra was the worst possible example of a hypocritical musical ensemble. Hiding behind the guise simply of playing some traditional classic music, this ensemble concocted a cinema-like live stage show that had zero musical content. Yes, they were playing the notes of Mozart, but it was not Mozart. Does non-swinging America need a Mozartian to explain why the music was shallow and empty? It was because either by neglect, sheer ignorance, or conscious misguided choice these musicians were playing mechanical, metronomic, sterile notes devoid absolutely of the elements that create feeling. I assume that they did not really want feeling music. They wanted a stage spectacle glorifying the self-centered listener. If one wanted actually to hear music, he would go to an orchestra or chamber music concert. Should this orchestra be allowed to rape Mozart for their own personal gain. I think Mozart, if he could rise from his early unmerited grave, would protest if he were rich. Then again if her were poor and was receiving royalties for the performance, he probably reluctantly would agree to the performance. What is it exactly of which I am writing? Phrasing, dynamics, tempi, and rhythmic feel. Playing the way the Trans-Siberian orchestra plays is easy. It takes no talent. It takes very little musical technique to play “their” way. All one has to do is watch and see if there is a kinesthetic connection between the musician and his/her instrument. Is there a connection? Is there a connection? Like Charlie Haden, the illustrious Ornette Coleman’s bassist, are they making love to their instrument? Are they even getting to first base? Are they trying, or are they just raping their instruments with insincere, unfeeling, disdain? Usually human beings become musicians because they feel a need to express themselves individually. They want to speak through their instruments. Why would anyone take the time to learn musical technique on an instrument, and then stop at the most crucial part of music production? I asked the three questions previously. Without phrasing, there are no sentences. With no sentences there can be no paragraphs. While the words seem to exist (notes) they are displayed in a jumbled barrage of unfeeling misunderstanding. This is the definition of “pop” style. It is a stagnant line of repeated notes. The elements that bring life to the notes are absent. Instead of the inherent quintessential expression possessed in the mind and soul of the composer and the piece, a bullshit theatrical circle jerk is concocted attempting to masturbate the crowd with jive attitude. The true nature of the music is ignored or worse not even recognized. Why play Mozart at all? Is this to what America has evolved in its musical community? The mass public demands Musica Reservata, the antique practice where the groups’ needs outweigh the importance of the composer’s music. There was a time when America appreciated Louis Armstrong. Is it that there is not in existence currently a musical artist that exhibits true talent, a deep philosophical understanding of music history, vast personal experience, and an ability to synthesize these elements into a moving musical performance? That is the requirement of a collegiate music program, and they are failing. Because the record companies have declined and personal glorification devices are fueling our weak economy, quality live and recorded music is at an American low. America is not swinging.

The New Scarlett Johansson

The long anticipated exposing of Scarlett Johansson’s voluptuous bare breasts is upon what Hollywood filmmakers should be doting. While the complete package of Halle Berry voraciously has satisfied most yearning adolescent males, the lineage of maturation on screen has great potential. Woody Allen successfully created a more adult and liberal role for Ms. Johansson in Match Point. The Island turned her into a full-fledged Hollywood screen beauty. The prudent preening of the once one-legged Grace Maclean could create box office history. What other child star has America seen who grew such bankable breats in such a short time? Jennifer Love Hewitt had hers in I Know What You Did Last Summer. They were a major visual focus of the film. Leelee Sobieski had hers in The Glass House. Lindsay Lohan and Kim Kardashian single-handedly launched their media careers with the leaking of home made sex tapes exposing their all ready developed bodies. Only Johansson’s breasts have developed on the silver screen like well-cultivated melons seeking the proper expose at the state fair. Who will provide the proper vehicle for such an exposure? Noel Black’s treatment of Betsy Russell in Private School for Girls created a cathartic adolescent sexual fantasy. Matthew Modine, dressed in drag, infiltrated the all girl dormitory of his object of desire Phoebe Cates. Russell, albeit with surgery-enhanced breasts, was given the appropriate seductive scenario for the exposure of her curvaceous cleavage to the then transvestite Modine. Johansson needs a similar scene in the appropriate movie, more tastefully coupling her own personally discovered sexual desires. Only with this personal awareness will the true power of her yet-to-be-uncovered breasts be released. It is a savvy art director and cinematographer who will harness the true potential much like Howard Hughes did of Jane Russell. The proper palette is crucial for the unveiling of what could be the most revered breasts in Hollywood. As with the passage of time creating children undoubtedly always has its consequences. It is fortunate Jennifer Connelly’s dark side has enabled her to continue acting in roles demanding deep emotional reflection. Her catalog is diverse and substantial. With her desire to act in dramatic roles came the slow demise of the exact same potential her breasts displayed in many Hollywood films. A pang of remorse must be felt at the dying of a once highly esteemed adolescent fantasy. Johansson stands firmly in a position to inherit the coveted grail of Best Hollywood Breasts only if they are exposed in exactly the right moment.