No One Here Is Surprised.

Still disappointed though. Every time David Cassidy has a concert date, I hold a glimmer of hope that he'll pull out all the stops and actually deliver something good this time. Because I think he still can. But, nope. Another missed opportunity at the Nokia Theater last night. All the more reason to "cherish" those albums.

If you attended the concert and want to bitch and moan, you can do it here. If you want to praise his performance, you can do that too but you better make it believable. Claiming "spontaneity" ain't going to cut it.

UPDATE: First uploaded video. A bit bizarre, no? Sounds more like a performance you'd catch in a bar-type venue than in a seated one. Double-click on the video to access the YT page. I'm sure the user will post additional footage of the concert.

Sure Looks Sincere, Doesn't He?

Guess they underestimated his acting talent.



Can anyone tell me what the frig John Lennon had to do with the question? Aside from the random "John Lennon was my BFF, now do you believe I'm cool?!" factor.

Who else is hoping the über-fan dinner guest regales the DC fandom with her meeting come Sunday morning? Who doesn't give a flying fig?

And here's my open letter to David Cassidy, because, well, you saw the video too:

David, I'm so, so, sorry I lost track of you all these years. You hate me because I dropped you like a hot potato, but what did I know? I was twelve. Your show had already been off the air for over four years - I discovered you through reruns, for pete's sake! There were no Partridge Family albums left in the stores when my mother did her Christmas shopping - all she could find for me was "The World of the Partridge Family". But you could have tried harder to reach us, no? You had these great RCA albums you could have hawked. (I was still too young to watch "Police Story".) I'm so sorry I was a fair weather fan. I'm back now. I have seen the light: your voice was unparalleled (no offense but I have trouble saying "is" - you have to admit, it has declined in some respects) and I hate - not as much as you do, of course - that people don't credit your talent beyond being a heart throb. And we know that's not talent, that's genetics. So I'm doing what I can to right my wrongs: I'm blogging my little heart out to get the word out that you are talented and all that mania was deserved. It wasn't just hype. It was your talent and your charisma that shone through and touched us. I've been re-discovering your career for the past ten months now and have yet to tire of your albums (well, not all of them - a couple were crap on a disc, sorry).

But please, you have to do your part. You have to respect your fans enough to realize that we know how conflicted you are about that teen idol business. Don't pander to this overblown fake nostalgia bit and go on about how you love your fans for what they've given you (you went this route to promote "Ruby" and we all know how that turned out...wince.) The majority of us abandoned you! We gave you heartache. We made it so that casting agents didn't give you the time of day. We thought we were too cool for you. I'll even admit to some eye rolling when a friend reminded my teenage self of my young crush on you. "The Harder They Fall" indeed.

But now, I've seen the errors of my ways and I won't stand for anyone disrespecting you or The Partridge Family. Today, I am unapologetic in my stance: "the guy has his issues but he had one of the most beautiful male voices in popular music and he's recorded a sublime version of "Ain't No Sunshine"". I can rattle off your accomplishments almost as well as your hundreds of loyal fans who never abandoned you throughout the decades. I am a born again believer. I'm not alone either. Please. Trust us. No more of these uncomfortable interviews with fake fawning from "on-air personalities". We are above that.

While I'm at it, might as well ask you: can you make your records easier to obtain? I'm trying my darnedest to buy some of your albums but they are OUT OF PRINT. The online store showed stock, I clicked "buy" and waited and waited and waited and finally, I received an email advising me it was OUT OF PRINT and I was out of luck. And how about all those unreleased Partridge Family songs tucked away in vaults? Wouldn't it just be the bees' knees to release those gems for the 40th anniversary of the PF? One last thing: that movie coming up? Once it's wrapped and you're actively promoting it, can you NOT say it's the best work you've ever done? Cause that line is getting, like all of us, kind of old.

"Come on baby, let's start anew..."

Suite tickets available for Grande Prairie Nokia concert

Seller's info here.

Never. Sure, buddy, whatever you say....

"He's starred on Broadway and London's West End – with Laurence Olivier, no less. He co-starred, with both his brothers, on Ruby & the Rockits , the most expensive television show ever produced by ABC Family. He received an Emmy nomination for "A Chance to Live," the highest-rated episode of Police Story that ever aired. He revamped and starred in the Las Vegas extravaganza EFX.

But with all that, David Cassidy understands – and appreciates – that when people hear his name, the first thing that still comes to mind is The Partridge Family, a television show that appeared in 1970, ran for four seasons and garnered not one Emmy nomination. It was seen as fluff, but its fans were, and remain, fervently loyal.

"It'll never bother me that I'm best-known for that," Cassidy says with a laugh during a phone interview from Los Angeles.""

Bolding mine, of course. From the article here.

What a bloody hypocrite. Guess it wouldn't do to verbally admit it STILL bothers him. At least not outright, in an interview publicizing an upcoming show, where fans can expect to hear "a lot of songs from the Partridge Family catalog" no less. Wonder how soon we can expect another "that was then, this is now" outburst?

Gotta love the intro to the article. A list of his accomplishments phrased in a way to make us realize that they are vastly superior to the fluff show that was "The Partridge Family". By gosh, ""Ruby & the Rockits" was the most expensive television show ever produced by ABC Family"! Can you imagine how good it must have been?!

By the way, that spring project he'll discuss during next week's radio chat is a movie.

Pretty sure I've already featured "Lyin' to Myself" in one of my posts, so here's "Living a Lie" from his third RCA album from the mid-seventies, "Gettin' it in the Street". That other voice you hear is Gerry Buckley's. "Doesn't really matter" indeed as I doubt he'll play anything from those RCA albums.

Counterfactuals

"Counterfactuals are the woulda-coulda-shouldas of life, all the things that might happen in the future, but haven't yet, or that could have happened in the past, but didn't quite. Human beings care deeply about those possible worlds - as deeply as they care about the real actual world."

Alison Gopnick, "The Philosophical Baby - What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and The Meaning of Life"

(Not everything I read has to do with David Cassidy, you know. I just have a gift for relating it to him. :-))

So, if anyone asks why you're reading a blog about David Cassidy: you are pondering the counterfactuals of his career.

New Song from David Cassidy...

Well, for me at least. Perhaps if I had been actively following him in the late eighties and early nineties, I might have heard this at one point? Thanks to CherishDavid for sharing it via that great fandom meeting place in cyberspace. His phrasing sounds "lazy" here, for lack of a better word, but his voice is still bloody sexy. The song ain't half bad either. Could still be a hit...

Favorite Keith Scene in The Partridge Family

Well, seeing as David Cassidy considers himself "first and foremost an actor", I would be remiss not to muse about his acting roles once in a while. Honestly, when I rediscovered him via YT, his talent as a vocalist wowed me so much that it overshadowed his acting for me and fueled pretty much half of my blog posts.

Let's turn to his acting now. Most of us discovered him through "The Partridge Family", so tell me about your favorite scene of his in that show. Now that the whole series is available on DVD, it will be easy for us to identify the scenes correctly.

First, let's get some obvious assumptions out of the way:

-Keith Partridge was NOT a complex role and no one is proposing that David Cassidy's performance was Emmy-worthy
-"The Partridge Family" was a lighthearted sitcom built around selling records - its creators and producers had no aspirations to create a show worthy of critical acclaim or a spot in a time capsule (if they had, perhaps they would have paid more attention to story continuity!)
-We are commenting on DC's acting here (did he elicit the correct emotions from you and was he believable in the scene?), not the script quality nor the story plausibility

When I can actually stop my eyes from ping-ponging all over David Cassidy's gorgeous face during close-ups and concentrate on his expressive eyes and his delivery, one scene does stand out. It's from the first episode in Season 3, "This Male Chauvinist Piggy Went To Market". You remember the episode? Keith loses a "battle of the sexes" challenge to his sister Laurie and Goose, the school bully, makes fun of Keith for losing to a girl. Their verbal exchange escalates and Laurie intervenes and physically prevents Goose from hitting Keith. To be disabled by a girl further humiliates Goose who vows revenge on Keith.

The confrontation between Keith and Goose happens after a concert (from the 19 minute mark) and Keith plainly tells Goose he has no intention of fighting him. Cassidy plays this scene subtly and convincingly. His stance, his voice and his eyes especially, convey the natural fear, defiance and resignation one would expect to feel when standing up to a bigger opponent. Look at his eyes when Goose asks him "You mean you're going to stand there and let me take a poke at you?". He even gulps at the right time. That might be my favorite scene of DC's in the show.

Your turn.