Sidetracked

Well, it’s official — I’m now one degree of separation from Kevin Bacon.

If you haven’t heard of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, the premise is this: Since Bacon has appeared in so many movies, you can connect him to just about anyone through six connections or less. For example:

Bela Lugosi has a Bacon number of 3:

1. Bela Lugosi was in “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” with Vincent Price

2. Vincent Price was in “The Raven” with Jack Nicholson

3. Jack Nicholson was in “A Few Good Men” with Kevin Bacon

 Badda-bing, badda-boom.

Me?

One. Because I talked to Kevin Bacon last week. And thanks to my interview, which lead to this Ticket story, anyone who knows me can claim 2.

Bacon and his brother Michael proved to be pretty good interviewees. Though Kevin Bacon has undoubetedly done scores of interviews over the years, he didn’t seem bored like some celebrities we talk to.

The Bacon Brothers have a new album, “New Year’s Day,” which they will be promoting when they appear at the Paso Robles Digital Film Festival this weekend.  During our interview, I asked Bacon about a song he wrote called “Too Old For ‘Playboy’,” which was about another planned interview.

“I used to always look at those interviews, though I rarely read them,” he said. “They were kind of cool with black and white photographs. And that, as a kid, was on the list of those dreams you want to accomplish, like sitting next to Ed McMahon on the ‘Tonight Show’ or seeing your name on a marquee. Those things you kind of check off of your dream list. But one was to do this ‘Playboy’ interview. And it finally happened one day. My publicist called, and I was really jazzed about it. It was a few years ago — I think it might have been around the “Mystic River” release. And then they called back and there had been a management change – a new editor – and they decided to go younger with the magazine, and I was out. And I thought, ‘I’m too old for Playboy.’ And I thought, “That’s a good title for the song.”

While his acting ability helps him perform before crowds, singing is still a very different experience, he said.

“From doing theater, I’m used to that idea of stepping out into a live situation where anything can happen,” he said. “But by the same token, playing music, there’s no character between me and the audience. And there is something that’s very vulnerable about saying, ‘Okay, here I have this experience in my life, and I wrote this little song about it. Now I want you to listen to it and clap along.’”

The Bacon family was headed by their father, Edmund Bacon, an urban planner sometimes referred to as The Father of Modern Philadelphia, and their mother, Ruth, a teacher and liberal activist, who wouldn’t allow Michael to play loud instruments.

“She wouldn’t buy me a drum set,” Michael said. “I could take cello lessons, and oboe lessons and banjo lessons. But drums and guitars were not her thing, and she didn’t encourage it at all.”

 At that point in the interview, Kevin chimed in: “She let me get a drum set.”

To which Michael added: “Kev – I worked them over for you, okay?”

While doing research on the brothers, I found this video of Kevin Bacon singing the theme from “Footloose,” which he famously starred in.  

 As the Ticket story noted, Arroyo Grande’s own Zac Efron will be playing Bacon’s character in a remake of “Footloose.”

  

    

Posted on November 20th, 2008 by Pat
Filed under: Music