Copeland

Before leaving for my one day vacation at Northport Long Island, I was asked for a favor at work. Genevieve told me "You are going to laugh, but could you pick up Steward Copeland at his hotel on Saturday?" and said yes without knowing who the Copeland guy was. The name sounded familiar, so I just pretended I knew... Later on I told my friends about it and they made fun of me, "How can you not know that Copeland was The Police drummer?"

Long story short, went to pick him up. 6:45 sharp, and there he was sitting on the W hotel bar. I briefly introduced myself and since he didn't offer me a seat, I just told him that I would be near the door. He came by after eating his snack and we went out on the street. He smoked a cigarette, I hailed a cab and off we went to the Lincoln Center. We talked about the film, about NY vs LA, about composing and about paparazzis. We got to the Walter Reade and he greeted some people, introduced the film and sat down on the bench. We thought he would want to hang out somewhere else during the screening, but he sat there the whole time, enjoying the film and watching people's reactions as if he was re-living those moments of his life as a rockstar.

The documentary is called "Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out" and it is very genuine and cute. You do feel like a member of the band. You see the fan hysteria. I love the way it starts, the animation and stop motion is very adhoc with the aesthetics of new wave. It is very well edited -after all, he is a drummer and they know about rhythm-. His choice of songs and acts is also great. You see all the brotherly love. They were so cool that nowadays kids in Williamsburg and Greenpoint (ok, Lower East Side too) dress exactly like that. The texture (super 8), the colors, etc. I learned that he is not Brit but American and that he was studying in Berkeley when they called him to start this band. Plus he acknowledged that Sting was the genius and composer of all those catchy songs.

In the Q & A he was very responsive and friendly (almost too much). Then he went back to his pissy stand-offish mode.

Ohh and he declared that he listens to Death Metal, Bluegrass and Brazilian music and he is now jamming with the kid from Slipknot and the guy from Primus.

WORD!