Hometown Hero

Ready for Confetti, Robert Earl Keen looks forward to singing for a hometownHouston crowd

Robert Earl Keen
Robert Earl Keen in concert
Photo by Susan Darrow
House of Blues

Yes, it’s true: For Robert Earl Keen, the road actually does go on forever. And the party never really ends. Indeed, if you just take a gander at the website of this eclectically inclined country-rocker, you’ll see what a relentlessly touring entertainer he is.

On Wednesday, the road takes Keen back to Houston, for a gig at one of his very favorite venues, The House of Blues. The Sharpstown High grad is looking forward to playing for a hometown crowd, because he knows what to expect from a boisterous audience of H-Town hearty-partiers.

And since Wednesday still counts as part of the Christmas season, he knows pretty much what the audience expects as well.

CultureMap: This time of year, I would imagine your fans are demanding to hear “Merry Christmas from the Family” [Keen’s signature tune about a drunken holiday gathering] even more than “The Road Goes On Forever,” right?

Robert Earl Keen: Absolutely. I think whenever I come around to this time of year, every year, I tell myself, “OK, I’m gonna see if I can just go out there and stand out there for an hour, and then play that song and just walk off, and see if that works.” I don’t know – I guess it’s kind of a funny, smart-ass fantasy.

"And I know there are people who don’t like Houston, or have a hard time defending it, because it’s sprawled out or whatever. But for me, personally – I guess it’s because I grew up there, I don’t know. But I always feel totally at peace in Houston."

But, yeah, there is a definite feeling that no matter what we’re playing, how good we’re doing, how many people are screaming “Robert Earl Keen! Robert Earl Keen! Robert Earl Keen!” – they’re still just waiting for this one song. I know that’s happening, I know there’s no way I’m going to get out of the building alive without playing it. So it’s a matter of, OK, let’s have enough anticipation to let everybody be excited about it – but not too much for them to get pissed off.

CM: Is there a special vibe you get from playing for a hometown audience?

REK: First off, the answer would be yes. And then I would have to say that, as long as I’ve been away, I always immediately feel at peace whenever I go back to Houston. Even when I’m on the freeway, I’m at peace. Houston has a certain vibe that no other place has. And I know there are people who don’t like Houston, or have a hard time defending it, because it’s sprawled out or whatever. But for me, personally – I guess it’s because I grew up there, I don’t know. But I always feel totally at peace in Houston.

CM: Ready for Confetti is the title of your latest… well, wait a minute. I guess they don’t call them albums anymore.

REK: No, they still call them albums. Or CDs. Projects. Episodes. [Laughs] Tragedies. Mistakes.

CM: Well, OK then. Like all of your albums, it’s a crazy-quilt mix of musical styles, ranging pure country to folk to country rock to Americana and on and on. And there’s diversity within individual songs -- like “I Gotta Go,” which sounds bouncy and cheery only until you really listen to the lyrics, and you realize it’s a pretty dang dark account of a guy who’s been spending his life racing toward his death.

REK: [Laughs] You’re right, it does have kind of a dark thing going. But it’s not near as dark as I’ve been in the past.

CM: But does this diversity ever work against you in terms of building an audience? Because, really, it’s not like I can give somebody who’s never heard your music a copy of Ready for Confetti – or any one of your albums, really – and tell them, “All right, this is typical Robert Earl Keen.”

REK: Well, because this is the way I am, I have to feel like my diversity is my strength. And the reason why I’ve been able to have a career that’s gone on now for nearly 30 years. As far as fans go, it’s like I always say: I’m like a Milton Bradley game, good for folks 8 to 80. When people come to hear me perform – unless they just don’t like me, they’re going to find something they like in the show.

CM: You are a true Texas cowboy, in that you actually maintain a ranch near your home in Kerrville. What’s a typical day at the ranch like for you?

REK: Oh, I kind of clean up a few things. Fix up the tack room. I’ve got three horses, so I’ve got to feed them. And I’ve got an old Dodge Dart – a ’63 Dodge Dart that my grandmother gave me. I start it up every time I go to the ranch, just to keep it running.

And occasionally I take people out hunting. There’s a pool there, so in the summertime I hang out by the pool. And when I write, I have this shack I call the Scriptorium where I write. I have about a half-dozen guitars up there, and about a thousand cowboy books. So I play my guitars, read these books – and build a campfire outside the door and eat deer sausage.

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Movie Review

Denzel Washington brings new spectacle to the Colosseum in Gladiator II

Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Paul Mescal in Gladiator II.

There are some films for which making a sequel is natural, and others where a follow-up is wholly unnecessary. Gladiator, which made both tons of money and was named Best Picture at the Oscars, told an impactful stand-alone story that ended with the protagonist dead and no real loose ends. And yet because there’s always more money to be made, here we are 24 years later with Gladiator II.

The lead character this time around is Lucius (Paul Mescal), a general in a North African army who becomes a prisoner of war when the Roman army led by Marcus Acacius (Pedro Pascal) bests him and his troops in battle. Taken back to Rome, he is put in the pool of captured men forced to fight at the Colosseum for the amusement of twin emperors Geta (Joseph Quinn) and Caracella (Fred Hechinger).

Lucius is controlled by Macrinus (Denzel Washington), an ambitious schemer who bets liberally on his prized fighter and always has an eye to move up in the world. Meanwhile, Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), the sister of Emperor Commodus from the first film, is now married to Marcus Acacius and has a unique connection with Lucius that is fairly obvious from the get-go.

Directed once again by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, the film commits a number of sins throughout its 150-minute running time, the most blatant of which is that, aside from a few embellishments, it essentially tells the same story as the first film. Lucius, like Maximus, is a deposed military leader who’s out for revenge on the person who killed his family. Instead of one obnoxious emperor, there are now two. And the only way for Lucius to earn his freedom is to fight his way out.

Stories told in the same world can echo each other and, if done well, overcome those similarities. But Gladiator II is shockingly boring for a purported sword-and-sandals epic. Scott and his team try to introduce new elements to the fights, like a gladiator riding a rhinoceros or a ship battle inside the Colosseum (with sharks!), but most of the sequences are inert with no propulsion to them.

The action fails because none of the relationships in the film amount to much. There are stand-out characters like Macrinus and the twin emperors, but instead of creating antipathy or strong feelings of triumph or defeat, the story just kind of happens without any sense of excitement or importance. Much of that issue lies at the feet of Lucius, who simply doesn’t inspire in the same way that Russell Crowe’s Maximus did.

Mescal is a fine actor who’s done good work in more intimate roles, but he’s not up to the task of being an action star, at least not in this film. Any bombast he shows with the character feels forced, and the story doesn’t give him enough opportunities to counteract that lack. Washington, however, fills up the screen with his charisma, and it’s during his scenes that the film comes closest to being rousing. Quinn and Hechinger are a lot of fun as the twin emperors, but in the end they feel like retreads of Joaquin Phoenix from the original.

Any sequel should have a purpose that sets it apart from what came before, but Scott, Scarpa, and the rest of their team fail in that respect in Gladiator II. It’s a mostly lifeless film that delivers scenes that would be exciting if they had any kind of good story to back them up.

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Gladiator II opens in theaters on November 22.

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