Pop Stand

The disco window slams shut

In the blink of an eye...

In the sparkle of a sequin...

And before you could say "Stayin' Alive"....

The World's Largest Disco sold out!

"This includes both the VIP and General Admission events. We expect there will be some cancellations, so if you are interested in signing up for our waiting list please do so," the disco organizers announce in an email.

Oh, no! Perhaps it was the last two days' of relentless disco talk on PopStand that did it! We have been on kind of a disco kick.

The grim bulletin continues:

"As previously promised, there will be a small allotment of tickets (300) that will go on sale to the general public on Saturday, August 13th at 10:00am thru Ticketmaster.com.  These tickets will be sold at a cost of $65 but will include all regular Ticketmaster services charges. Star 102.5 will also be giving away tickets on the air over the next few months so be sure to listen in for your chance to win tickets."

The disco is Nov. 26 at the Buffalo Convention Center. Above is a Buffalo News file photo taken at last year's bash, of a Toronto guy dancing the night away.

Those of us unfortunate enough to be left out in the cold may get on the waiting list by clicking here -- or here for the VIP waiting list.

So... that's that.

We now return to our previous programming.

-- Mary Kunz Goldman

 

Mirror, mirror on the ball...

Buffalo is a disco town! Yesterday's post about Kevin O'Connell under the mirror ball at the old Club 747 prompted this passionate note from a Pop stand reader, brimming with additions and clarifications.

Please pardon the intrusion but I did not see your e-mail address at the end of your blog on the Buffalo News' website. That hilarious airplane "set" was the actual nightclub. And to those who think the World's Largest Disco has anything to do at all with what disco was really like, well, then they also must believe the Germans won WW II. The World's Largest Disco is a big party, but it is a Halloween beer blast and nothing more. Almost all discos had a dress code and people actually DRESSED UP to go out (no sneakers or jeans allowed). I have no idea why people "dress up" in crazy ragged clothing and rainbow Afro wigs and think, "this is disco."

Darn, and just when we were congratulating ourselves for having assembled our crazy ragged clothing and rainbow Afro wig months ahead of time for this year's World's Largest Disco! That is the World's Largest Disco pictured above, by the way, in a News file photo.

Guess it is back to the drawing board!

Meanwhile, for everyone else out there interested in disco history, Howard -- that is the guy I married -- got the great deejay Shane, Brother Shane talking about his memories of Club 747.

Shane, pictured recently against the backdrop of the Buffalo Statler...

... talks about how the airplane interiors were authentic down to the last detail -- the drop tray tables, the luggage compartments.

"The last thing we did was design and build the cockpit and the audio-visual system," he recalls. "It had to be extremely powerful to make the nightly takeoff seem incredibly real to passengers. This was my primary contribution."

Wow, they had a nightly takeoff? 

This story just gets better and better.

-- Mary Kunz Goldman

Rare footage from Club 747

With the first tickets to the World's Largest Disco going on sale Saturday -- the disco takes over the Buffalo Convention Center on Nov. 26 -- the least we can do is get psyched by watching old footage of Kevin O'Connell in Disco Step by Step at the old Club 747.

Thanks to WBEN radio anchor Steve Cichon for bringing this video to our attention. Now we finally know why Steve sounds so preoccupied when announcing the news!

Can you believe Kevin O'Connell in this video? I was fascinated, too, just looking around at all the girls' dresses. They are so demure by today's standards! And that hilarious airplane set. Too funny. There is also that classic disco version of "Singin' in the Rain." Well, I could go on and on.

Alert, alert, great glimpses of 1970s mustaches, alert!

After watching Part 1 up above you may feel free to watch Part 2.

OK, now, back to work with our sparkly selves. But before you go ... tickets to the World's Largest Disco are $60 Saturday and Sunday, for people on the disco organizers' coveted mailing list, and you know who you are. For the rest of us tickets go on sale Aug. 13 and are $65. Info is all on the disco's glorious and glittering Web site.

-- Mary Kunz Goldman

 

Remember him?

I went to the Amherst Theatre to see, um, "Certified Copy" (it always takes me a minute or two to remember that title). And before the movie, there was the usual round of previews.

The first two were the kind that doesn't quite register. The kind that throws all kinds of imagery at you and gives you no real idea what the movie is about. I spent those previews with one eye on the screen and the other on my mom, sitting next to me. I kept worrying something would come up that offended her.

But the third preview!

I was sitting there, only half concentrating, and suddenly got a funny feeling.

"That's Buffalo!" I said. "I know that corner!"

Then the movie switched to some un-Buffalo looking place -- I think New York City -- and I wondered if I had been imagining things. Then it clicked that no, it had been our old Buffalo Savings Bank building. It was. It was! And a few seconds later I had it figured out, that it must be that Keanu Reeves movie that was shot (well, a bit of it was, anyway) around here.

I had forgotten all about that movie and now it appears it is on its way. And it's funny how it hits you when you are not expecting it. You just do not expect to see Buffalo in a movie trailer, first thing.

This might not be exactly the trailer I saw but this trailer does show fleeting glimpses of Buffalo, same as that one did.

You can also watch Keanu Reeves discussing the movie, when you get a minute. Keanu sounds kind of nice, you know? He is not annoying to hear talk, which is not something you can say about a lot of movie actors. Most of them, take away the script, and it is not pretty.

On the other hand he has this hairy hippie look. He had that when he was here, too -- see photo from The Buffalo News' files, up above, of Keanu looking like a some bum you normally would not look twice at.  This picture is kinder to him:

 

... but still, at least from certain angles, that unkempt look does not show him off to best advantage.

It did make possible this hilarious comment on the YouTube video, though: "I was hoping Keanu's beard would magically leap off his face and suffocate the interviewers over their stupid questions."

Hahahahaaa!!

Back to Keanu's visit to Buffalo. The pictures here were taken in November 2009. How time flies! No wonder the movie was gone from my mind.

Now, to see or not to see "Henry's Crime," that is the question! I do not think I will bother. It seemed pretty trashy.

Still it is fun to see those clips of Buffalo.

-- Mary Kunz Goldman

 

Oh say, can you sing it?

Good comes out of bad, as the saying goes. Christina Aguilera's National Anthem goof at the Super Bowl is a case in point. Days later, and people are still talking about it -- not only her mistake, but her style, which could be called overblown. And we are playing the game of: If Christina sings it badly, who sings it well?

"Perhaps next year they could simply play Robert Merrill's devout yet robust recording of the Anthem. It has never been done better," an attorney writes on Facebook. Wow, he is right. The great opera baritone does a marvelous job.

Someone else posted this priceless clip from a Chicago all-star NHL game. The anthem is being sung by Wayne Messmer, the public address announcer for the Chicago Cubs.

It is fascinating to get on YouTube, search for "The Star-Spangled Banner," and see what turns up.

Here is something to make you cry: Britain's famous Coldstream Guards,  in their beefeater hats and red coats, playing our anthem at Buckingham Palace in solidarity with us the day after the World Trade Center attacks.

Whitney Houston, in the classic performance everyone loves, added a few curlicues but sang it pretty much straight, at least compared with Aguilera.

And let us not neglect to include Bob Goulet. "I wish he had been singing at the Super Bowl today," someone commented last Sunday.

We all know by now that our anthem began as a lowlife British drinking song. But in a way that plays into its dignity. It has thrills built into it, because it was designed -- as the best pub songs were -- to show off a singer's skills. Irish tenors do a great job with it. The great John McCormack had a hit with it in 1917. That is a good recording, considering its age! McCormack, charming with his brogue, even does a second verse.

Once I got to interview John McDermott, one of the original Three Irish Tenors. Though a Canadian, he admitted to loving "The Star-Spangled Banner," which you can hear him singing, along with "O Canada," thrillingly at a Toronto Maple Leafs game here.

"It drives me crazy when people try to do 'The Star-Spangled Banner' their own way," McDermott said when we talked. "God, it's the anthem! Do it the way it was written and you won't get into trouble."

-- Mary Kunz Goldman

 

 

Have a ball

Every once in a while when you are out walking, don't you see something that makes you want to take a picture? That happened to me yesterday when I was walking up to HSBC's high-rise downtown Buffalo headquarters.

They have these nifty gigantic Christmas tree ornaments outside in the plaza!

Just sitting there! They are the cutest thing.

It's such an obvious idea, but I never remember seeing them before. And I was charmed. I thought of fishing in my purse for my camera, decided it was too darned cold, then decided no, I had to take a picture, I had to. So I got out my camera. I began focusing on an ornament when --

"Hey! No pictures! No pictures!" A guard was yelling at me.

"I was just -- the ornaments --"

"Since 9/11, no pictures!"

"I look like such a terrorist." I had to tease the guard a little. He just took such obvious pleasure in bossing me. This is the second or third time this has happened to me. Once I was taking pictures down by the bridge on Louisiana Street, one of the factories or other, I forget. No particular reason. I just like taking pictures. The guard there was nicer.

And now that I think of it I was yelled at by an HSBC guard before. I cannot remember what I was trying to take a picture of that time around. I guess I never learn.

The good news, I got on Flickr and found a picture someone else managed to snap, presumably when the guard was not looking. It is sad when so much ill will exists in the season of good will that it is necessary to have guards stop people from photographing a Christmas ornament.

But still.

They sure are cute.

-- Mary Kunz Goldman

 

A smile to start the weekend: How to make Jim and Pam's 'Office' baby even cuter!

Those who love Jim and Pam Halpert of "The Office" -- and how could you not, after they got married on the Maid of the Mist? -- are delighted at the birth of little Cecelia Marie, who, despite some other suggestions from co-workers, was named after Jenna Fischer's real-life newborn niece.

Anybody who missed Michael blundering straight into the delivery room trailing a massing balloon bouquet should set aside some time to catch the full episode on NBC.com -- it's worth it!

Could anything make little Cecelia Marie cuter?

How about a baby toupee? The Baby Toupee peoplehave four varied products available  -- at left we see the Lil Kim -- as well as an online photo album of adorable babies wearing these toupees with an innate sense of suaveness.

Have a great weekend!

-- Anne Neville

Red carpet memories

When it comes to Oscar night, it's all about fashion. Well, maybe it's not ALL about fashion, but this is the night when many people have their eyes glued to the red carpet to see who is wearing what … and from whom.

To bide our time leading up to the Academy Awards show at 8 p.m. Sunday, we took a look back at some of the memorable fashions from years past … both remarkable and, well, ridiculous.

While we focused on women and only chose 10 (talk about tough!), we know we just brushed the surface.

What is your most memorable fashion from the Academy Awards … good or bad? We would love to hear from you.

-- Susan Martin

Photos: Bjork, Halle Berry and Diane Keaton.

(A different) Simon says

New York Fashion Week was last week, and any armchair fashionista worth her weight in September Vogues can tell you that this season there were more opportunities than ever before to follow the festivities.

If you only read a fraction of the blogs (hey, it's my job and even I feel like I've barely scratched the surface a week later) you know this: Fashion at this point in time is overwhelming. Key trends?  Please. We all know that every season there are more key trends (all of which somehow conflict with one another) than any mere mall shopper could follow. But this season, it is just plain nuts.

Which is why this article in the New York Observer is such a welcome read. In it fashion columnist Simon Doonan, who in his real life is creative director at Barneys New York, says that "anyone who claims to understand the now vast writhing Fashion hydra in any way, shape or form is a big fat fibber."

Fashion is going "bonkers,"  he says, and as such it is even more chaotic than usual. He says designers are "playing pin the tail on the donkey" and that they "have no power over" us.

This means that we as fashion consumers have the freedom to define our own trends. "Where there are no rules there can be no mistakes," he says.

That's good news for most of us, not to mention extremely validating for the millions of women who have said those things about designers all along.

Just one thing though. Please don't tell anyone who still owns a pair of Zubaz that Simon says anything goes.

Tim Bits: Tim Gunn's new show

"Tim Gunn's Guide to Style" debuts officially at 10 tonight on Bravo TV, but last night the network gave viewers an unscheduled sneak peak at the new series in between reruns of "Top Chef."

The episode that aired last night (which is not the one scheduled to run three times tonight and then non-stop for the next week) focused on makeover subject Karen Vito, one of those "mutton-dressing-as-veal" women with over-processed hair, too much makeup and too many tight clothes from the juniors department that makeover shows just can't get enough of. The ever diplomatic and debonair Gunn might have actually made a permanent difference in this woman's life, and the women in her PTA might never be exposed to her cami-clad cleavage again. Our lips to Gunn's ears.

About the show: All the components of the makeover show are present -- the wardrobe review, the closet purge, the confessional, the shopping trip, the hair and makeup updates, the final reveal -- but they are done with an atypical amount of restraint and class. Gunn and former model Veronica Webb provide much in the way of fundamental fashion advice to their utter clueless subjects. Webb teaches them about proper undergarments, Gunn makes paper dolls of the women (using 20-odd exact body measurements) to teach them about their proportions, and both experts accompany the women on the shopping trip, helping them to find 10 key wardrobe pieces that every woman needs (because, no offense to Stacey and Clinton, but most women who are fashion challenged really do need to learn about classic basics before they are urged to go wild on those ill-fitting blazers, wildly printed skirts and kee-razy stiletto pumps). And I'd pick the to-die-for Coach satchel and black Tahitian pearls Gunn gave to Karen over a trip to the 360-degree mirror any day of the week.

If you think you can wait to catch the show (which technically you can, considering Bravo's scheduling practices), you might want to reconsider, because during tonight's premiere you'll also get a first glimpse at the designers who will compete on season four of "Project Runway," which doesn't debut until mid-November. Controlling middle-aged woman? Check. Obnoxious, arrogant, ungroomed artiste? Check. Ditzy-doodly space case? Check. Unassuming foreign person with mad design skills? Check. The haughty, the queeny, the delicate, the mediocre? Check. Check. Check. And check.

I, for one, can't wait. Maybe Daniel Franco will be back!

-- Barbara Sullivan