This Is Your Brain on Pop
A sad little man's pop culture memoir
I've had money and I've had none, but I've never been so broke that I couldn't leave town – Jim Morrison
For my mom, all the guys and girls who bought guitars after seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show and
didn’t have an ounce of musical talent between them, and Buck Naked, who after all was just out walking his
dog..
Foreword
I’m on record below with my opinion that the iPod is the greatest non-life saving invention of all time. Not only
that, it’s really occurred to me that once I’m gone I’d really like to leave my iPod to my Goddaughter Nicole,
because I can’t think of anything so compact that so sums up who a person was simply by assembling all of their
favorite low art. Yeah, I do believe with all sincerity that you are defined by what you listen to and watch.
Low art? I say it with humor, because as far as I'm concerned post Elvis most of our great artists chose to work
in pop mediums, both because they loved them and knew it was the way to get paid.
I’ve tried to avoid the obvious and over analyzed. No Griel Marcus here, I won’t be digressing into pre-civil war
folk music, if I feel like it I’ll wander off into movies and television shows, because you know eventually all of
those will be on your iPod too. I won’t be pointing out technical stuff like how the vocal on A Day in the Life
makes a whole revolution around your head when you listen on headphones to simulate the earth’s one day
revolution around the sun. Instead within occur some mere thoughts on my favorite tunes, movies, television
shows, and comedy bits and some personal stories that they evoked. Admittedly, it would be a whole lot easier to
write about what is not on my iPod, so believe me when I say that I’ve done my best not to repeat “This song
kicks all kinds of ass” over and over and over again even when “This song kicks all kinds of ass” would be more
eloquent and insightful than whatever I manage to come up with instead.
Chapter 1: Generation I-Pod
Chapter 2: Goofy Larks and the Beautiful Sounds of Sadness
Chapter 3: Singing, Over Singing, and Fading Soul
Chapter 4: Aching for Greatness
Chapter 5: Elvis Needs Boats
Chapter 6: The Music is Your Only Friend
Chapter 7: The Horrors of Living Past 25
Chapter 8: Too Crazy Beautiful for Words
Chapter 9: The Horrors of Dying Young
Chapter 10: Will Someone Please Say Something Funny?
Chapter 11: Believing You’re Going To Hell for Your Music
Chapter 12: Drowning in a Sandbox
Chapter 13: Speaking Out and Searching for Love
Chapter 14: Punks on Strike
Chapter 15: The Greatest and His Brothers
Chapter 16: The Wonder of Pop
Chapter 17: Rock and Roll Murderers and Anti-Christs
Chapter 18: Empty Nights Echo Your Name
Chapter 19: Music to Stalk by
Chapter 20: Eric Clapton Isn't Even a Demigod
Chapter 21: Assorted Things I’m Amused by that No One Else Even Thinks About
Chapter 22: What I Never Learned in High School
Chapter 23: Man Is at War with His Own Libido
Chapter 24: Send the Smokers to Concentration Camp
Chapter 25: That Ain’t My Bag, Man!
Chapter 26: Madness or Needles?
Chapter 27: My Scary Obsession with Teen Dramas
Chapter 28: I Can’t Help It. I Dig Frank Capra
Chapter 29: Where Have You Gone Lou Bega Jr.?
Chapter 30: Meathead or Mel Brooks?
Chapter 31: What Do You Do When Your Lead Singer Dies or Won't Talk to You?
Chapter 32: Ba Ding A Ding Dong Blue Moon
Chapter 33: I Always Thought I Was Going to be Quentin Tarantino
Chapter 34: Assembly Line Magic
Chapter 35: Ranting up a Storm
Chapter 36: Some Stuff Lorne Michaels Shouldn't be Ashamed of
Chapter 37: Anyone Else Miss Bon Scott and Chris Farley?
Chapter 1: Generation I-Pod
The Goal:
His plan was to play all the records that shaped his musical taste as a teenager in the order that he
discovered them, and the show he put together was equal parts history lesson and autobiography. –
Kristine McKenna on sharing a radio show with Joe Strummer
We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams – Willy Wonka
Am I in love? No, I thought I’d been in love, but I guess I wasn’t, it just passed over. I guess I haven’t met the
girl yet but I will and I hope I won’t be too long because I get lonesome sometimes. I get lonesome right in the
middle of a crowd, and I’ve got a feeling that with her, whoever she may be, I won’t be lonesome no matter
where I am. – Elvis Presley
When I first heard Elvis' voice I just knew that I wasn't going to work for anybody; and nobody was going to be
my boss. Hearing him for the first time was like busting out of jail. – Bob Dylan
The Star Spangled Banner – Marvin Gaye
Let’s get this started off properly. Marvin, a man of peace at
war with himself, transformed a mediocre poem about a
violent white male land mostly heard at baseball games into a
soul inclusive hymn of love and understanding. He performed
it at the 1983 NBA All Star Game, but the identity of the real
star was never really in doubt.
Do your best to forget Whitney Houston’s Vulcan Super Bowl
battle cry which called forth a modern ice age that might as
well be 1812 all over again.
I’m Not Like Anybody Else – The Kinks
Who is? Who wants to be?
Hurt – Johnny Cash
I always wanted to die like Johnny Cash, heartbroken after the love of my dreams passes.
Is She Really Going Out with Him? – Joe Jackson
Yes.
Yesterday – The Beatles
The only thing more amazing than this song being the most covered in the history of modern music, is the fact
that the original version is the only one that is in any way tolerable to listen to.
Oh, Yoko – John Lennon
People don’t like to say that Yoko broke up the Beatles anymore, but the first time John met her she had an
exhibit with an apple in it and he grabbed it and took a bite. Sounds a little Garden on Eden, just sayin’.
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap – Leslie Gore
La Isla Bonita – David Hasselhoff
The Glamorous Life – Sheila E
Entertainment today is beyond amazing. Not in quality but in terms of convenience. I always sit around thinking
about how bored I would be if I lived in the 1800’s. Wasn’t Abe Lincoln hiking for three days to borrow a book
or something like that? Nevertheless, I’ve been feeling like the old guy in the Shirley Temple movies these days.
You know the rich guy who everyone hated but they still kissed his ass because he was worth zillions of dollars
and was about to kick; the guy who hated everyone but Shirley. Although, truth be told that’s pretty much
always been my goal in life. I find myself telling people just 15 years younger than me stuff like “I remember
when you could only listen to four songs before having to flip over the vinyl. The first Walkman was the size of
a refrigerator.”
We had to carry around a huge disc player and four discs just to have the option to listen to 35 songs. Now these
punk kids and you and I get to shuffle 10,000 songs on something roughly the size and weight of a pack of
cigarettes. It’s not saving any lives, but I don’t care the iPod – greatest invention ever. No commercial intended,
but I don’t forsake a single dollar that guy Steve Jobs makes.
Buying or uh obtaining music at home – wonderful. Napster was the greatest invention ever for a while and all
Shawn Fanning got was sued. It’s a shame that they couldn’t have worked out the money issues to keep that
thing alive as a pay site. The wonder of seeing a video on television and then owning the song thirty seconds
later like I did with Supergrass’ Pumping on Your Stereo. But it all imploded and Steve Jobs’ only so so
invention iTunes is where I go to purchase music these days.
Here’s why iTunes stinks. I went to buy Portishead’s Sour Times, because it’s the only song of theirs that I’ve
really heard. I go to iTunes and I can purchase the entire album except Sour Times. What the hell is that? They
call it a partial album. Then they have certain songs where you can only own them if you purchase the entire
album. This can be pricey when you want to own some early U2 demos because you already have everything
else and find out that you need to purchase their entire catalog for $3000 dollars to get them. That’s what brings
people to steal. Didn’t Jim Morrison sort of once say “I want my music and I want it now”? I’m stoned and in a
supermarket and the only way I get what I want, despite my willingness to pay, is if I steal it? Here’s my stand
on it. Small artists that I like, I go out of my way to purchase their albums directly from them. Otherwise, if I can
get it on iTunes then I’ll go there first. If it isn’t on iTunes, I’m stealing it. Please don’t tell the FBI.
But now here is the wonder of today’s infotainment era. I’m online playing a heads up poker match for twenty
bucks and listening to Jim Rome’s show on the internet from two days ago. He starts talking about Magic
Johnson and what he’d give to be able to get the Magic Hour on DVD. He brings up Magic being so desperate as
his show sank into the abyss that he acquiesced and had Howard Stern, the show’s biggest ridiculer, on to
verbally lacerate him and then cut away to a 15 minute power jam of Sheila E’s The Glamorous Life.
So I say to myself. Hmm, I wouldn’t mind having The Glamorous Life on my iPod. Still playing poker and
listening to Rome, I jet onto iTunes and find out that the only version I can purchase is a live one with Ringo
Starr’s All Star Band. No offense to Ringo, but this means I’m stealing the original.
In the right corner, I see an iMix called the Worst Covers Ever. They have all the originals, well if they are
purchasable, along side the bad or perhaps as it turns out just really odd corresponding cover version. I quickly
purchased David Hasselhoff doing Madonna’s La Isla Bonita. You’ve got to have at least one tune from today’s
Pat Boone on your iPod.
Then I see that Leslie Gore once covered Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. What the hell is that? She does it sort of
how they would have done it at Stax records had they been on crack for 6 or 7 years. I don’t get this at all but it’s
wonderful on some level even if I can’t put my finger on what that level exactly is. Excuse me for a sec as I pop
onto the net and try to figure out how the hell this happened.
Wow, it was done for a joke album that sort of tried to recreate the best work of Leonard Nimoy and William
Shatner on demand. That’s too bad, because I dig Leslie Gore. For her time, she was the baddest white girl
around even if she did look like she was once in the Mickey Mouse Club. She was sort of Olivia Newton John at
the beginning of Grease on the Outside, with the leathered Olivia at the end on the inside. She definitely would
have kicked Nancy Sinatra’s ass. Marianne Faithful would have had her for lunch, but that’s still no reason to
have to be imitating Tina Turner in the new millennium. I’ll go listen to You Don’t Own Me again and try to
forget about it.
But my point is. That now takes me about 7 seconds. Fifteen years ago I’d be shuffling through my CD’s for
twenty minutes, realize I didn’t own it, have to drive to the record store and buy an entire album to get it. It’s not
the equivalent of hiking for three days to buy a book, but if there’s nothing I know more about the modern world
of technology it’s that we get spoiled in a hurry.
God – John Lennon
I was raised Jewish. I don’t have much use for religion personally, but I try not to discriminate. When I lived in
Los Angeles, I would see these Hasidic Jews walking around on hot summer days wearing heavy fur coats and
hats as if it were winter in Siberia. I’m all for committing yourself to a creed, but it would be really hard for me
to believe in any God that would want me to be that uncomfortable.
If You Change Your Mind – The Raspberries
This is the song you’ll find being played over and over again by your really dangerous stalkers. If someone gifts
you a copy of this song, I would recommend strongly that you change your name and leave the country. It’s just
not safe around this much feeling.
Eric Carmen starts out quiet like all please don’t destroy my will to live talks do. He rationally explains how he
knows that it’s over despite the fact that he’s spent every single moral ounce of energy doing everything he
could to be the man she dreamed about in the quieter corners of her mind. Of course, despite his overwhelming
need to be near her, he’ll selflessly leave her be out of the pure selflessness of his love. Oh yeah, in the mean
time he will be waiting for her to come to her senses every second of every slow turning agonizing day. Pretty
soon Carmen’s in agony filled orgiastic screaming cries of BABBBBY DOOONNNNN’T
GOOOOOOOOOs!!!!!!. It’s not a pretty sight.
Rape Me – Nirvana
You ever wonder whether with the right anti-depressants Kurt Cobain
could have become Barry Manilow?
I was lucky enough to see Nirvana before they exploded into ether and
regret. Man that guy could scream. You would think it would be hard
to look up to a terminally depressed heroin addict that could barely get
himself out of bed on a good day, but boy could that guy scream.
When I saw him he just tore himself apart. Imagine trying to duplicate Roger Daltrey’s screaming climax to
“Won’t Get Fooled Again” for like 90 minutes in a row. How could he possibly do that to himself night after
night? I mean just the pure accomplishment alone regardless of the music was amazing, but wow when that guy
was screaming it was like he knew every ounce of pain ever felt by anyone. It was impossible to hear that wail
and not think, “Wow this guy feels all my innermost doubts, desires, and regrets.” It’s like he took all the pain
and sadness, and hate and hypocrisy in the world and sucked it all up like a sponge until it killed him. The next
person who is surprised he committed suicide will be the first, but you have to miss having a guy like that
around.
So You Want to be a Rock and Roll Star – The Byrds
“There's nothing you can do that can't be done”
That’s the problem with everyone in America. Everyone wants to be a rock star. I’ve always tried to decide
whether I’d rather be a great athlete or a great musician. Sadly, I’m neither. Eventually, I decided on Rock Star
as being the better job. You can wear whatever you want. You can say whatever you want. I’m not a big Dire
Straights fan but that “money for nothing, chicks for free” line was brilliant. Here’s the coolest thing about being
an artist, though: I don’t care how trashy the thrill. You can be the guy who wrote Fabian’s “Turn Me Loose” for
all I care. You’ve still brought something to the world that no one else could have added. Someone else would
have cured Polio. Someone else would have figured out television, but no one but John Lennon was ever going
to write “All you need is love.”
“It's easy”
Pretty Vacant – The Sex Pistols
My favorite pistols cut, maybe because I figured out how to play it on guitar so quickly. It’s a blatant celebration
of worthlessness and stupidity by a guy who was neither.
Can somebody tell me why it took until 2005 for this band to be put into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Wonk: Enshrinement is for those with a body of work. The Sex Pistols only released one real album.
I don’t mean to be insensitive, but saying that the Sex Pistols only
released one album is like saying that the United States only dropped
one bomb on Nagasaki. If you read about the Pistols they were from
day one playing in front of less people than were in the band, talking
about creating a scene. They were the seed that produced a massive
rainstorm for a spent cloud.
I’m a big fan of art that normally isn’t found in museums, and as this
art – rock and roll, comic books, movies, television, and their assorted
paraphernalia has ascended in popularity there has been a trend
towards confining it into the cold houses of boredom that it initially
rebelled against. Thus, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, fought for by
Clevelanders, who are year after year insulted by the fact that its
induction ceremony still takes place in New York. I’ve been to the
Hall. It’s enjoyable for what it is, I dug seeing Jim Morrison’s Boy
Scout Uniform, but despite the good intentions behind it, it will
inevitably be just another means of co-opting the rebellion and the joy behind the music. It’s a Hard Rock Café
without the hamburgers. If Chuck Berry built a Rock Hall there would definitely be hamburgers.
I always sort of wanted to be the cool teacher who introduced kids to Kurt Vonnegut and encouraged them to
take the stuff they enjoyed and branch out from there. A few years after I blew off becoming a math teacher I
was in Cleveland sort of with a mid life crisis (I've had like 6 so far) and there was an article in the paper about
how the guy who was in charge of the education arm of the Hall of Fame had been fired for showing a video of
Jimi Hendrix to some kids - where you could see a topless woman in the audience - and I figured this is my
dream job and started e-mailing everyone at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame figuring I had found my dream gig.
One day I put a suit on and tried to find someone to talk to, unsuccessfully as it turned out, but I did convince
them to let me sit in on one of their classes and it really made me upset - the subject was “Multiculturalism and
Rock and Roll” and what really bugged me was their song selections almost seemed to indicate that they didn't
really like Rock and Roll or were even scared by the real thing.
The ones I remember were Paul Simon’s Graceland, Eleanor Rigby and a Jaz Coleman orchestrated version of a
Doors song. You definitely don’t want to get me on the cultural imperialism that is Graceland (Was Simon’s title
consciously playing on the accusations of Elvis stealing from another culture? I doubt it). The Coleman
selection, I just don't know why it was there, Rock and Roll should have value on its own not because some geek
decided to use an orchestra to legitimize it. Rigby I admire, but it just seemed to me that this was something that
someone who really didn't like the genre would pick. It's not a rock song other than it was done by a rock artist.
In its aim at something seemingly more legitimate (it always sort of bugged me that George Martin seemed to
think A Day in the Life was 1000 times better than She Loves You because it took 1000 times longer to record)
it really just seemed like a huge bait and switch that would really turn me off if I were a kid looking forward to a
visit to the Hall. Anyway, if you want a job at the hall, make sure you have a PHD. The DIY espoused by Rotten
and company is verboten.
Bob Dylan: Great paintings shouldn't be in museums. Museum's are cemeteries. Paintings should be on the walls
of restaurants, in dime stores, in gas stations, in men's rooms ... Music is the only thing that's in tune with what's
happening. It's not in book form, it's not on the stage ... It's not the bomb that has to go, man, it's the museums.
My Advice to All Grade School Kids Lucky Enough to Go to the Hall on a Field Trip
Steal stuff from the gift shop and if you get caught say that 90% of the inductees would have done the same. Just
to be literate mention Abby Hoffman's Steal This Book and how he was friends with John Lennon.
The only teachers that were worth having were the one's that would amusedly appreciate that answer enough to
give it partial credit.
I Fought the Law – Bobby Fuller Four
I Fought the Law – The Stay Cats
I Fought the Law – The Clash
I love Brian Setzer and the Cats’ version is more true to the original, but the Clash version ends all conversation.
The Tommy gun drums, the knife wielding guitars that echo police sirens (not for the last time check out Police
on my Back), Joe Strummer is robbing people with his six guns and it’ll take a whole squad to bring him down
(and they will) before he’s through.
For anyone, to talk about Rock and Roll with a straight face anymore, you really have to admit that the music
has been co-opted by the man. Bill Clinton on Arsenio playing Heartbreak Hotel, Revolution in a Nike ad, who
can remember whether it actually aired or not anymore, the only thing anyone wonders about now is why it was
such a big deal. So is that a good thing? Did Rock and Roll change the world? Is it led by its acolytes? Probably
not. It would be a cool story. My guess though is Fuller was right the first time when he noted the law won. The
law always wins. Really, that’s what it’s there for. Personally, I’m not sure if the worst part of the last twenty
years was the reign of the less talented George Bush or the night Roger Clinton sang A Change Is Gonna Come
on National Television. If pressed, I’m guessing I’d have to go with the latter.
Really though, never underestimate the power of Capitalism. I majored in Economics and not many Professors
really argue that Capitalism is a good thing, they just pretty much acknowledge that it’s on the biggest winning
streak of all time. Socialism? Nice idea but it’s 0-35. Not happy with that? Want to tell the capitalist monsters to
fuck off? Cool. Want to buy some tell the capitalist monsters to fuck off t-shirts? How about some coffee mugs?
We’ve got a ring tone that goes perfectly with that attitude. A lot of people think that’s a good thing. A
McDonald’s on every corner. Happy with that? I’m not.
Bob Dylan Pitches Victoria's Secret after Mulling It over for 35 Years or So
December 3, 1965
Q: If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest, which one would you choose?
Bob Dylan: Ladies garments.
(Theme From) The Monkees – The Monkees
Anyone besides me ever notice that they keep saying “We’re the new generation and we’ve got something to
say,” but the only thing they ever really have to say is “Hey, hey, we’re the Monkees”?
Maybe, that’s why Nixon didn’t take their generation seriously.
American Splendor
Sideways
American Splendor is about a guy like me, a semi-successful semi-loser writer from Cleveland After identifying
way too much with Sideways I sent a note to my friend Grant that went something like this. “I’ve spent my
whole life trying to be Elvis Presley and who do I turn out to be? Paul Giamotti. It’s just not fair.” God knows I
would have settled for Patrick Swayze.
Splendor is about Cleveland’s legendary file clerk/comic book writer Harvey Pekar, who made many
appearances on Late Night with David Letterman, as a cranky nutty piece of pop culture candy, until he was
banned from the show for life when he got tired of being Dave’s plaything and called him a shill for GE in one
of the rawest moments in television history. It makes Dave’s reaction to almost being kicked in the head by
Crispen Glover, in another infamous Late Night episode, look positively giddy in comparison.
I See Red – Split Enz
Hello. Can I have my adolescence back? Please, no seriously I’m begging. I went
to high school and college from 1980-1988. Gee, that era sounds familiar, hey,
isn't that basically the Ronald Reagan era? You’re goddamn right it was and I
want a refund. Can I be arrested for saying that I wish John Hinckley’s aim had
been just a little bit better? Was there ever a worse time in American History to
be young since the Eisenhower Administration? Hmm, let’s see:
60’s: Great Rock music, tons of drugs, women would seemingly have sex with
anyone they meet on the street.
70’s: Even more drugs, women would seemingly have sex with anyone they meet on the street.
80’s: Aids, the PMRC, “Just Say No to Drugs,” women would seemingly never have sex with anyone again,
unless you would sponsor their campaign against freedom of speech.
90’s: Bill Clinton says that oral sex is not sex leading high school girls to seemingly give oral favors to anyone
they meet in school regardless of whether they are a boy or a girl..
00’s: College girls apparently are always drunk and easily convinced to take their tops off for any guy they meet
on the street.
What????????
I’m guessing some people had sex in the 80’s, but it sure as hell wasn’t me! How did this happen to me? It’s just
not fair. Then the second I fill out and start to grow into my looks, my hair starts to fall out! I was good looking
for like a day and a half. Can anyone tell why I don’t believe in God? Sure, there have been worse atrocities in
the world like the holocaust to make one question the existence of God, but seriously I got screwed. Actually,
strike that I didn’t and that’s the problem.
I graduated from High School in 1984. If you haven’t read George Orwell’s 1984, maybe you better read that
first, because things are getting ugly around here these days.
Ronald Reagan and Ray Charles both died on almost the same day, and it was like a poll of the nation, because
as for as I’m concerned you aren’t allowed to like them both. The most brilliant sketch in the history of Saturday
Night Live starred Phil Hartman as Reagan. In it Reagan is an evil super genius, who pretends to be a doddering
fool whenever the press or Jimmy Stewart is around, but in reality he speaks 18 languages, never sleeps and is
busy engineering his takeover of the world.
Weird thing is that the people who worship Dutch do so for supposedly uniting the Nation. Has there ever been a
more divisive character in World History? If you did an exit poll on the 2000 election asking how best to
describe Reagan, they would be counting chads between the Adolph Hitler and the Jesus Christ votes, with Can’t
Decide being pretty close to the Nadar vote. How do I feel, really? I won’t say right out, but stop for a second
and imagine how much more effective Ronald was. I mean if Hitler were going to be reborn and start a
comeback wouldn’t it be much more effective to do so by Being John Malkovich-ing into the body of a kind,
spirited, humble, good looking actor? Ronald Reagan in King’s Row – so, so. Ronald Reagan, the first and
scariest reality show – Oscar worthy. I can’t remember who won best actor for those 8 years, but they should be
thanking the Academy that Ron was never nominated.
Want proof that it’s true? This is when I knew it was over; that this man was making the entire nation dance for
him like he was Yosemite Sam shooting bullets at their feet. I watched a Reagan Press Conference in High
School. Before Reagan comes out, Sam Donaldson or somebody with equally bad hair points out that just about
every reporter in the audience is wearing either a RED dress or a RED tie because that is Nancy Reagan’s
favorite color and Ron tends to only call on people wearing RED.
So Reagan comes out and the first thing he says is, “Oh my, Nancy would be so mad if the first person I called
on wasn’t that woman in the lovely RED dress.” He might have well have yelled “Dance Monkeys Dance!”
The man is so evil and in control of our free press that he decides what color they wear to speak to him and then
openly mocks them about it! Satan’s favorite color was RED too, by the way. My youth never had a chance.
Bodies - Sex Pistols
The most cogent statement on abortion ever is this one by John Lyden: It ain't about morals because it's immoral
to bring a kid into the world and not give a toss about it.
God Save the Queen – The Sex Pistols
Everyone knows what a genius piece of marketing propaganda this was on the cusp of the Queen’s Silver
Jubilee. You probably even know that despite the song being banned it sort of hit the top of the charts. Of course
you can’t have a banned song be number one so they left it blank that week, which every rapper and his crate full
of parental warning stickers knows is better than an orgasm with your true love. Morons, but then again that was
Johnny’s point wasn’t it?
We’re no better than England over 30 years later. Idiots burning Dixie Chick Albums because they dissed the
President in a time of war; idiots trying to bring freedom to the world by curtailing their own; weren’t we
supposed to be the shit, because we were allowed to dis the President?
Oh yeah, we were at war, and that changes everything. Sounds like a President who is being criticized a lot has a
huge incentive to get his ass into a war, doesn’t it? That makes a lot of sense.
Weren’t the Nuremberg Trials all about people being guilty despite following orders? I’m all for freeing the
world, but not by people who burn records. I don’t even care if they were recorded by Barry Manilow, Kenny
Rogers, Charles Manson, or the Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. Was I the only one paying attention to all
that civics crap they forced down my throat for 13 years?
Cold Hard Bitch – Jet
Nancy Reagan, our first Queen, owes me an apology too. I didn’t even do the entry drug beer, until I was like 22.
I got straight A’s at Northwestern. Damn, I wish somebody had fucked up my life by making me smoke
marijuana back then. Did Nancy keep me off drugs? Hell, no pissing off Nancy Reagan was the only good
reason I could think of back then to dabble. I share some responsibility. They set me off in a money obsessed
culture and I succumbed to the fear of spurning it. Parents can’t help but add to the pressure. They were stuck
supporting you for 22 years, who can blame them for praying every night that you don’t need a dollar or two. I
couldn't have even blamed them much if they had secretly hoped that I’d be their meal ticket out of the morass
that had already conquered them.
You always wonder whether the people who hit a home run with their lives made it from talent or just sheer guts
and drive. Is there a John Lennon out there who listened to his Aunt when she said he couldn’t make a living
with a guitar?
I’ve wasted numerous hours in therapy and the last guy I saw said all my problems came from my ambivalence
between commerce and art. Sure, he was right, but who didn’t know that going in? I’ve always been an option’s
trader, which means that I’m fairly wealthy if I do that, and apparently below the poverty line if I do anything
else. People say this is silly and that I see everything in black and white. Maybe they’re right , but if there is one
thing I know it’s that the type of groveling you have to do to make half as much as I do as a trader in an ordinary
gig makes suicide or trying to bribe someone to hook me up to a nitrous oxide tank for as long as my money
holds out look like a good life solution. I’d try my best at those jobs and still be hard pressed to last three weeks.
Like the champion I am, I’ve embraced mediocrity at all levels, which was always the only thing I didn’t want to
ever be. I’m guessing most people don’t have a struggle with alternate penchants between resolving to work
harder and rather only working on the days without an S in them. Most people probably don't romanticize an
early seemingly integrity saving heroin addicted death. Most people when they come upon a fork in the road
choose either right or left. Mostly I just crash into the median.
Bill Hicks decried the blissed out, bloated, television addicted masses, but Hicks died in his early thirties. The
next seven years can really knock the shit out of you. I’m sure there are a few people my age, who don’t agonize
over their misbegotten compromised lives. I hate those people. The soulless prosper and thrive in an age of
soullessness. Sorry, Mr. Orwell. Sorry, Mr. Huxley. I understood the message I was just too weak to do anything
about it. Maybe Boxer knew the pigs were using him and just wasn’t strong enough to do anything about it.
Which, of course, was always what the pigs had counted on.
So just put me in a camp, feed me drugs, and let me watch television. I give up. Hell, all you super motivated
people can go right along and continue to fuck each other over for a few bucks so your neighbor doesn’t have a
better home entertainment system than you do. I’ll do my best to look the other way.
It wasn’t my goal setting out, but sometimes I say to myself. you’ve never really hurt anyone badly other than
yourself. Not exactly George Bailey, but it's the best I can do. I’m guessing that puts me above at least 50
percent of the world. As far as my life is concerned I plead no contest.
Salieri: Mediocrities everywhere, now and to come: I absolve you all! Amen! Amen! Amen!
Love Roller
coaster – The Red Hot Chili Peppers
I really enjoy reading critical reviews, but here’s something I never quite understood. Beavis and Butthead, who
say everything either rules or sucks are morons, while Roger Ebert who gives everything either a thumbs up or a
thumbs down gets a Pulitzer Prize.
Baby Let Me Follow You Down – Bob Dylan
My favorite story about trying to reclaim my true love took place on a sunny summer afternoon. Supposedly, we
were trying to be friends. Hell, I had zero interest in being friends, but I wanted her back so I had to pretend to
go along with the plan.
In order to best play with my head, she would claim odd stuff like how she still wanted to be able to kiss me
from time to time. She was fond of uttering things like, “You just don’t understand how I could love you, but not
want to be with you.” She was right about that, as I still don’t have the slightest idea of how that can be so.
Anyway, on this warm afternoon we were out in a meadow by a pretty lake. My hands were under her shirt. Her
hands were under my shirt. Suddenly, I decided to go lower. That’s when her brain kicked back in and she said,
“I’m not comfortable with that.” Withdrawing, I said “Okay, they’re your rules.” Her response was “You should
get to have rules too.”
To which I plaintively wondered aloud, “What rules could I possibly have?”
Stop – The Spice Girls
Wannabe – The Spice Girls
Yeah, I sort of like The Spice Girls, you got a problem with that?
I’ve Gotta Dance to Keep From Crying – The Who
I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party So I’ll Go – The Beatles
The Tracks of My Tears – Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
“Though I’ve had a drink or two and I don’t care/There’s no fun in what I do if she’s not there.”
Yeah, I’m that guy at the party, the dreamer, longing for love but alone, either in the corner, or on the dance
floor entertaining more than relating. Lennon and Townshend were like that, but probably a little drunker and
angrier than me.
“I think I’ll take a walk and look for her.”
Windy – The Association
Not really. Was there ever a dorkier looking vocal group? They made the Four Freshmen look like a biker gang.
At my brother’s wedding the maid of honors’ name was Wendi. I was eating breakfast with her and her mother,
when her mother mentioned that she was named after this song. I immediately started to tell her that she had
gotten the title wrong, but then thought better of it. Don’t let your pop culture knowledge ruin other people’s
lives.
I’ll Come Running Back to You – Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers
No matter how pathetic your life, there has to be a single moment that was your coolest. Having never killed on
the Ed Sullivan Show like Elvis or the Beatles mine is a lot less impressive to anyone that isn’t me. I was 22. It
was the winter of 1988, and I was in a Chicago cab driven by an older African American man, who was probably
in his 70’s. He was listening to a cassette of gospel music. Now I had never heard a Soul Stirrers record in my
life, but I knew that was Sam Cooke’s voice and I had read a bit. “Hey is that the Soul Stirrers?” Dude looked at
me like, “Who the fuck is this white boy that knows the Soul Stirrers?” Not what I had aimed for when I was
dreaming late at night as a kid, but that was probably it for me.
You Better Run – Robert Plant
Dogs – The Who
“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?” - Johnny Rotten in his last ten seconds as Johnny Rotten.
I’m not going to act like I’m old enough to have purchased a 78, but I have seen one and I’ve also owned the
song Help on vinyl, CD, VHS, DVD, and MP3. Those geniuses will eventually get me to purchase it as a
topping on a pizza. But teenagers have money and there is a lot of cool music out there. Back in the day, even
given that my music library was basically 90% late ‘60’s British Rock, I loved to go to stores that sold bootlegs.
It was like I felt that I was too good for official releases. Who needs to own the White Album, when I can buy
some ugly picture disk with two awful songs on it for three times as much? Not only were bootlegs illegal, but
they were expensive and of seriously questionable quality and hey what’s better than that? Want to own a live
show by The Who recorded a block and a half away at a baseball game with a portable Panasonic tape recorder,
packaged in a plain white sleeve with a top sheet that isn’t glued on? That’ll be $49.95. Thank you, come again.
Do you have to hear those rare silly Who B-Sides? Want to hear an early recording by Robert Plant and some
boring doodling Jimmy Page used to score some movie you’ve never heard of even though you don’t even own
half the Zeppelin catalog? A friend of mine bought some Swedish boot with like 10 live versions of Light My
Fire none of which was labeled correctly. I remember one title being something to the effect of “Fires yet again.”
Will we ever be as stupid as we were when we were 17?
Rain – The Beatles
I’m Down – The Beatles
The B Side – R.I.P.
Oney – Johnny Cash
Only because I tried to buy his version of U2’s One on iTunes and I hit the wrong button. Shouldn’t I get a
refund?
I am the Walrus – The Beatles
In Glass Onion, John Lennon wrote that the Walrus was Paul, but by the mid-80's David Crosby had done so
many drugs that if Lennon were still alive he surely would have reconsidered.
Goodbye Albums Red and Blue
Weakened by the invent of CD, they are all but dead now in the mp3 age. I’m talking about the Beatles
compilation packages 1963-1967 (red) and 1967-1970 (blue), which in their vinyl incarnation was the main
introduction to the Fab Four for my generation of music listeners. It’s why so many of us for some reason think
that Octopus’ Farm and Old Brown Shoe were hit singles, because they were on the blue album. Other than
those two selections those things were wall to wall monster hits. There’s really no need for them anymore, but I
can be nostalgic can’t I? When the Beatle catalog came onto compact disc, all of the inferior American versions
were dispensed with, but that’s no reason not to miss the discs that you grew up on. Every time I hear I Want to
Hold Your Hand end, I’m expecting I Saw Her Standing there to follow because that’s how it was on Meet the
Beatles, an album that doesn’t even exist anymore despite the fact that its cover is perhaps just as famous as that
of Sergeant Pepper’s.
When the Red and the Blue albums were finally released on CD, Capitol tarnished their legacy, by charging
customers for a two disc set even though all of the music could have fit onto a single CD. Now they are more
than likely dead, so lets take a moment and remember their genius covers, which showed the four in the same
pose and location but six or so years apart, and laugh at how everyone who thought they looked scraggly and
dangerous in the before pictures had no idea how much hell was about to break loose.
Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down – Kris Kristofferson
My choice as one of the more depressing moments in Rock and Roll History, Columbia’s 1992 celebration
concert for the 30th anniversary of Bob Dylan’s first recording. Sinead O’Connor had just gone Mandinka on
Saturday Night Live. After singing an A Capella version of Bob Marley’s War (Sinead was always big on the
Black struggle in those days having once appeared with Public Enemy’s logo painted on the side of her head)
Sinead to the great dismay of Lorne Michaels produced a picture of the Pope, ripped it in two and uttered the
ominous “Fight the real enemies.” Like I said Lorne wasn’t pleased. Sure Saturday Night Live had been sort of
anti-establishment for a while, but this is the same guy that went ballistic when Elvis Costello decided to blow
off Less than Zero in favor of Radio, Radio. And of course, Lorne wasn’t the only one with their knickers in a
bunch. After all Frank Sinatra wanted to rip Sinead’s head off for not letting them play the National Anthem
before one of her concerts, rumor had it that he’d have her at least knocked off for this heresy.
A few days later Sinead was scheduled to
play at what had been dubbed Bobfest at
Madison Square Garden. When she
appeared on stage the audience drowned
out her performance with boos. Unable to
continue a sobbing O’Connor warbled her
way through another version of War and
then left the stage to be comforted by Kris
Kristofferson, who was apparently the only
one in the arena who had any sympathy for
the world’s first bald female rock star. This
whole thing just left me beside myself as
did Dylan and the biggest stars of the 60’s
who subsequently acted like nothing had
happened when they appeared later in the
show. I know that Dylan hates to jump up and grab that Voice of a Generation mantle, but wouldn’t you think
that if anywhere there was likely to be sympathy for an outspoken political artist it would be at a Bob Dylan
tribute? Did anybody in the audience know who they were there to laud or were they just waiting for Eric
Clapton to come out? Did Dylan remember the hassle he got for going electric at the Newport Folk Festival?
Was George Harrison backstage whispering into Tom Petty’s ear how annoyed he was when John Lennon
opened his big mouth and talked about Christ? I respect people’s right to be annoyed at Sinead. I’m not saying
that they should have given her a standing ovation, but if anyone ever needed a better reason to grow a Mohawk
and hate the old guard, it was that night.
Mandinka – Sinead O’Connor
This may be wrong but the reason I love this song so much is because I have absolutely no idea what she is
talking about and I instead decided to believe that what she is saying is that she wants to ravage me like a
Mandinka warrior.
People Get Ready – The Impressions
People Get Ready – U2
People Get Ready – The Persuasions
Pretty much People Get Ready by anyone. All Aboard.
My Way – Sid Vicious
Sid and Nancy –
The Funniest and least harrowing tale of a mortal descent into heroin oblivion ever
I was out a while, back when this sort of punked out girl for some reason seemed to be attracted to me. She
asked me if I was taken, and eventually started telling me about how she’d been proposed to a couple of times. I
asked her if she had any regrets about saying no. She wondered if I thought that she should. I started to reference
Sid’s wonderful line reading of “regrets I’ve had a few, but then again too few to mention” (in my opinion pretty
much Sid’s only decent contribution to his genre). For some reason, she refused to let me even finish. She’d
never heard of Sid and didn’t have any intention of changing that. She told me to shut up and ply her with drinks,
which was about as likely to happen as God answering my pleas and getting Mary Stuart Masterson to leave her
husband and phone me up for a date.
The whole Sid cult is pretty inane if you ask me. He was an amusing dullard, who looked good. Style will get
you onto posters in people’s bedrooms. It won’t always lead to a happy life.
Have you all seen Sid and Nancy? I’m officially taking back everything I ever said about Chloe Webb.
Hopefully, she will be happy to hear that wherever she is. The first 100 or so times I saw Sid and Nancy I
thought to myself, “No one could have really been that annoying in real life.” I have this habit of just being
really annoyed when people play annoying characters. Everyone else will say, “Wow he or she really enveloped
the core being of that character’s soul.” I just have a headache because I spent 90 minutes with some person
conceived by Satan to make us all pay. It’s like when that chick Shelly Duvall played Olive Oyl - she said that
she couldn’t go full on tilt Olive Oyl until the very end or else people would be tearing their eyes out by the time
they had that boxing scene between Popeye and Bluto.
After reading some books about the 70s Punk Movement and re-watching The Filth and the Fury, I began to
realize that from everything I can tell, Nancy Spungeon really was that stupid and annoying.
I looked up Sid and Nancy on the Internet movie database and it said that the movie was a Romance-Drama. See,
those morons at Blockbuster, as usual, don’t know a thing. Sid & Nancy is the best musical comedy of the last
twenty five years. Sure it has the same structure as Romeo and Juliet and that isn’t often called high comedy, but
if you forget for a second that despite the fact that it’s completely true and probably fairly accurate it’s pretty
damn funny.
Go ahead, be offended that with two dead bodies on the table, I’m treating the whole thing like a Road Runner
cartoon and laughing my ass off. I didn’t make this movie, I just understand it. Like I said Sid Vicious was a sad,
foolish, pathetic dude that looked kind of cool. If I understand the myth properly, Sid as the ultimate Sex Pistols
fan sort of lived up to all of Johnny Rotten’s lyrics. He was this kid with “no future,” “pretty vacant”, he was
such an ultra fan that he became part of the band despite the fact that he couldn’t play the bass at all, which only
made him that much more the perfect embodiment of what became the punk stereotype.
The sad thing was that Johnny Rotten wasn’t joking. He really did hate every one every bit as much as he said he
did. Meanwhile, look at how insane late 70's London was back then. There was garbage piling up everywhere in
the street. Everyone was unemployed. All the kids were violent and wasting away on heroin. Perhaps this
wouldn’t be a good place to make a movie almost as silly as Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but there you
would be wrong. One of my favorite scenes in Grail is a shot of all these poor dark ages people who aren’t smart
enough to have anything better to do than hit mud puddles with a stick. Here, less than thirty years ago, Alex
Cox sees a London where little school kids run the streets like wild animals smashing up car fenders with their
lawn hockey sticks.
The way I figure it, this is about as good a romanticized version of a rock and roll myth as could be. Let’s forget
that Sid and Nancy died by the time they were 22 or so. Let’s just say that Sid and Nancy, facing the fact that
they weren’t ever going to really amount to anything, decided to just have a really good, over the top time for a
really short while. So try to keep the idea of Nancy Spungeon’s carved up bloody body on the bathroom floor
out of your head and enjoy the over the top fun that is Sid and Nancy.
One of the scenes that I used to make fun of in "Sid & Nancy" was the young lovers phoning up Nancy’s mother
with the good news that they had just gotten married. I thought it was a deficiency in the film that this scene
always made me laugh my head off. There’s nothing worse than filming a really serious movie and laughing at
it. What I never really realized was that Sid and Nancy is about the least serious movie ever made. So now I can
just enjoy the sheer comedy of Nancy telling her mother that they don’t have much need for sheets as a wedding
gift and that instead, could she please go to the American Express office, like right this second, and send them
some money for drugs or else they are going to fucking die! Treat Sid & Nancy like Spinal Tap and you realize
that they’re pretty close to sequels of each other. If anything, Johnny Rotten’s lyrics are even funnier then
Christopher Guest’s. Sure Johnny wasn’t kidding, but at least he had the decency to keep the wit in his
declarations of “Go fuck off” to the world.
So next time you watch the movie, don’t dwell on Nancy’s heroin tracks and the fact that she tells her mom quite
accurately that she is about to die. This time, enjoy a couple about half as intelligent as Jim Carrey and Jeff
Daniels in "Dumb and Dumber" and see what happens when you really are that dumb.
Nancy: She said we’d probably just use the money to buy drugs.
Sid: Well, we probably would.
Enjoy all the old men in bondage uniforms hanging by chains from the ceiling. Enjoy Johnny telling everyone he
sees how much he despises them whether they be exercising rock stars or morons pitching him awful songs on
the tour bus. Hey, how about that great dinner scene with Nancy’s Grandparents?
My favorite line of the movie is somebody informing Sid that the reason Johnny is all bandaged up is because,
“Johnny got beat up by fascists.” Sure he really did get beat up by fascists, but maybe that just makes it that
much funnier. Then, some of the bored punks start discussing the pros and cons of becoming a fascist. The odd
thing is that the more absurd the punks are, the more they succeed in making all the offended straight people
look that much more ridiculous in comparison. These people were so offended by the group that when one of
their songs went to number one they left the spot blank instead of acknowledging it. It’s not really that different
over here and if you think about it “Cop Killer” and “Fuck the Police” are pretty damn similar to “God Save the
Queen.” Should we have Chris Tucker star in a new movie on NWA?
Sure the final scenes of the heroin fallout are sort of gruesome, but I chalk that up to New York being much
more of a drag than swinging London. Heroin didn’t do half the damage to Sid Vicious as Alex Cox does to the
real menace of the English Punk movement.
When Johnny Rotten describes Sid Vicious in the Filth and the Fury, he cries about the fact that he couldn’t do
anything to save his dim friend, which makes me understand why Johnny Rotten doesn’t particularly like the
movie Sid and Nancy much. Alex Cox takes all the danger of the times and plays it as high comedy. The
beginning of Holidays in the Sun the first track on The Sex Pistols’ only album is the closest I’ve ever heard to
the sheer fury and evil of Nazi Storm Troopers. Alex Cox successfully turned the whole thing into "The
Producers." So next time you’re at a party and you want to laugh at the sound of Chloe Webb screeching,
“Siiiiiiiiiiiddddd, what about the farewell drugs?” Laugh all you want because it’s all pretty damn funny stuff.
Just don’t let someone who is 19 see you do it or they may just slit your throat.
Revolution – The Beatles
When Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith finally came out, it seemed like Darth Vader’s face was
plastered on every advertisement George Lucas had time to sign his tragic hero over to. It was then that I
realized that the dark side of the force was indeed advertising just like Bill Hicks said it was.
When Nike used Revolution for a sneaker ad, people quickly went ballistic, but now no one would even blink.
Pop songs as commercials are everywhere these days. Ask Pete Townshend how he could let his song of
spiritual quest, Bargain, be used by some morons who think the title is a perfect way to increase their commerce
and he’ll get incensed and say that they’re his songs and that he can do anything he wants with them. This is a
reasonable argument, but just don’t think that we’ll still hold you up to the same kind of hero worship that we
did back in the day.
Bill Hicks has been dead for over ten years now, but he’s more prescient than ever. One of the things he was
most adamant about was the following. Once you do a commercial, you’re forever off the artistic role call.
Maybe I hold my music in too high esteem. Maybe I should understand that in most cases they’re just as
disposable as the Oscar Meyer jingle, but is it too much to ask that the first time my niece hears Purple Haze it
isn’t in an Apple commercial?
The Ramones' Blitzkrieg Bop is even a commercial now. Nothing like images of Nazi’s and getting shot in the
back to move merchandise I guess. Can’t wait for the Ginsu knife ads with Helter Skelter in the background.
Nothing however prepared me for Viva Viagra to the tune of Viva Las Vegas. Thank God Elvis wasn't alive to
see that or to need it.
Even worse, death can’t even help you from selling out. Hey it’s Fred Astaire back from the grave dancing with
a Dirt Devil. It’s Elvis for Hershey’s. Is there no sector of our lives these capitalists won’t corrupt? As Hicks
said, “Stop putting a fucking dollar sign on everything!”
I Can’t Live without my Radio – LL Cool J
Around the Dial – The Kinks
Commercial radio as a means of conveying popular music is a completely dead medium, and Ray Davies’
requiem for the disc jockey who played what he felt was fresh and vibrant is more relevant now than when it was
originally released on the cusp of the MTV takeover of music. Let’s call John Peel’s recent death the last nail in
the coffin.
People like to deride the MP3 phenomenon as the death of the album in favor of the individual song, but really
what world are these people living in? When was the last time you really heard an album cut on an FM radio
station? An edgy radio station these days is one that
foregoes the single in favor of the song that is about to
be released when the other stations get tired of playing
it to death. Album oriented radio? Let me get this
straight, The Who were together as an original unit for
over 12 years and they only recorded three songs
Won’t Get Fooled Again, Baba O’Reilly, and Who Are
You? People like to say that they’re dying for a show
where the DJ plays an oleo of magical unexpected
treasures. Well, either the suits refuse to believe it or it
just isn’t true. My iPod is that radio station. When I
shuffle my 10,000 songs, it’s likely to be the only place
in the world you can hear Public Enemy’s Elvis
mocking Fight the Power followed by Heartbreak
Hotel.
How is quality new music supposed to get noticed?
The world’s a tough jungle, but if you have a brain
you’re looking for the good stuff on the internet or on
satellite radio. MIX 106? Please.
Baba O’Reilly – The Who
What an odd legacy for a great song. First just about everyone thinks it’s called Teenage Wasteland. Then they
all cheered when Roger Daltrey contemptuously shouted “They’re all wasted.” Now it’s just the latest
synthesized Townshend opus to serve as a television theme song.
Good Thing – Fine Young Cannibals
Here’s another good thing about the mp3 revolution. I first heard this song played during the Barry Levinson
movie Tin Men and fell in love with it. I rushed right out and purchased the Cannibals’ debut album, which I
didn’t especially enjoy, for reasons not least of which being that this song wasn’t on it. Of course it became a big
hit two years later. Where was iTunes when I needed it?
One more thing and I swear if I have a racist bone in my body I hope it is receding. Saw lead singer Roland Gift
in the movie Scandal and have to say that there are few things I find as amusing as hearing Black (AfricanEnglishmen?) men with English accents.
U Can’t Touch This – MC Hammer
Oh sure, he a bankrupt joke now, a moron with crabs in his knickers rapping over Super Freak. Fuck you. When
this came out it ruled, the video ruled, and for at least a year or so he single-handedly stamped out all the Black
unemployment in Oakland. Stop – Hammer Time, motherfucker!
Smells like Teen Spirit – Nirvana
Rock bands always need a good excuse for why their career went down the toilet. Dave Grohl has been pretty
successful so he has never needed to play the “our singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter blew his head off
with a shotgun” card, but as excuses go it’s a pretty good one. Nirvana of course was just about everyone else’s.
Mostly we’re talking about hair metal bands, who claimed that nobody could take them seriously after Kurt
Cobain emerged. Was someone ever really taking Winger seriously besides Stuart on Beavis and Butthead?
The strangest person to claim that Nirvana ended their meteoric music success has to be Mike Reno of
Loverboy. Nevermind came out in 1991. Working for the Weekend, which truth be told was the last time I had
to deal with Loverboy was a full decade before that. Loverboy didn’t even release an original album between
1987 and Nevermind. Had Mike Reno just written a song destined to be a huge hit called “Happy to be Happy?”
Record Exec: Mike Happy to be Happy is perhaps the greatest rock party song I’ve heard since Jessie’s Girl. In
any other year, I would be giving you the key to our corporate money vault, but it’s a weird time. Kids are
miserable right now and they don’t seem to have any interest in lightening up in this fiscal calendar.
Mike Reno (on VH1’s The Decade of Boys): The Backstreet Boys derailed my career. We were playing sold out
concerts and then suddenly the young girls were uninterested in seeing a band with an old gray haired singer
with a potbelly. Go figure, the Beatles would have faced the same problem.
Tombstone
I agree with those people that think that everyone should have a gun because I’ve seen a ton of Westerns and
almost nobody ever gets shot in those.
I found this really cool web site hosted by a relative of one of the bad guys in this movie. He was like, they
slurred my kin and were totally historically inaccurate, but that was sure a kick ass movie. Now there is a movie
critic you can trust.
See if you can ever take Billy Bob Thornton serious again after seeing him get bitch slapped a couple times by
Kurt Russell.
Turkey Creek Jack Johnson: Why do you do it?
Doc Holliday: Wyatt Earp is my friend.
Turkey Creek Jack Johnson: Friend? Hell, I got lots of friends.
Doc Holliday: I don't.
Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday, finest performance ever. You’re all saying that’s hyperbole, but in the end no one
ever really disagrees.
The scene where he mockingly imitates Johnny Ringo’s Wild West Pistol Show, with the cup he’s been drinking
from all night – maybe my favorite in a movie ever. I’m guessing the whole OK Corral shootout probably wasn’t
set off by a “make my day” wink by Holliday, but it’s sure entertaining to see it. Feigning illness and then
sneaking out to gun down Ringo before pal Earp had a chance to find out he was too slow to do similar; tearing
up on his deathbed over the book Earp hands him titled “My Friend Doc Holliday;” chuckling as he sees himself
die without his boots on, really the whole performance is a tour de force. Who won the Oscar that year? Then
again, who really cares?
Chapter 2: Goofy Larks and the Beautiful Sounds of Sadness
Good Morning Heartache – Billie Holliday
Wow, that is what it sounds like.
Cry Me a River – Julie London
This too.
We’ll Meet Again – Johnny Cash
How scary is it that I want to play this on my life’s heartache’s answering machine even after a decade or so?
Some sunny day.
The Dark Side if the Street – James Carr
She made me admit that my biggest fear was to end up alone and then she left me that way
forever.
When I Fall in Love – Sam Cooke
“It will be forever.”
This is my problem too many pop songs like this and nobody around to tell me what you do after the one you’ve
given your heart to forever leaves you to marry some other guy.
Here’s another thing that is a drag. If you’re married to a woman for ten years and remember exactly what you
both were wearing when you met, you are the most loving romantic guy in the world. If she broke up with you
ten years ago and you tell her that, you’re a stalker.
As Time Goes By – Dooley Wilson
Speaking of heartache, does anyone out there understand that this song doesn’t have happy connotations? It’s
Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman’s song sure, but Bogart doesn’t want to hear it because it makes him want
to kill himself.
My two most devastating movie scenes of all time
1. Bogart drunk goes off on Bergman for leaving him in Casablanca. As far as he’s concerned she’s
nothing but a whore, freedom fighting husband and all.
2. Walter Matthau drunk tells Tatum O’Neal he’s been using her for her baseball skills and has no interest
in socializing with her after the baseball season in The Bad News Bears.
It’s alright, neither of them really mean it, which is why they are both devastating.
Hellhounds on my Trail – Robert Johnson
Nothing evokes the glory of the blues and selling your soul to the Devil, quite like Ralph Macchio. I’m guessing
Bruce Lee wouldn’t have been thrilled with all that crane kick nonsense either.
Get out of my Dreams Get into my Car – Billy Ocean
Get in my Car – 50 Cent
I’m going to fess up here because like my hero Bill Hicks I value truth and honesty above all qualities. I just
added these to my iPod after hearing the 50 Cent song in my buddy’s car so I could ponder the following
scenario. A young man of 15 is stuck on a cross country trip with his father. He is at that age where they have
very little to talk about and it’s been very uncomfortable for at least an hour. Dad wants to share, son wants to be
left alone, plus dad is listening to a lame soft rock station. Billy Ocean’s most absurd song comes on the radio
and dad turns to son and says “Timmy, your mother and I fell in love to this song. It’s our song.” The boy’s
mood picks up dramatically. “Dad, wow this is just like one of my all time favorite songs!” “Fantastic, Timmy,
how does your song go?”
I got no pickup lines
I stay on the grind
I tell the ho’s all the time
Bitch get in my car (Bitch get in)
I got my 64, ridin' on Dayton spokes
And when I open that do'
Bitch get in my car
Who cares, I’ll listen to anything that Dre produces. I’m his bitch.
(Ghost) Riders in the Sky – Vaughn Monroe
(Ghost) Riders in the Sky – Frankie Laine
I had a lot of those car rides with my father. One day he was trying to play me the soundtrack to the Producers,
and I really wasn’t in the mood to listen. When I finally said that I really didn’t have time for show tunes, he
opined that maybe I should. I thought to myself. OK, once you’ve listened to Charlie Parker or the Beatles or
Marvin Gaye or any of the millions of songs I’ve scoured, I’ll listen to show tunes. I’m not much on his musical
tastes and he’s stubborn enough to never listen to anything I’d ever give him even if it is a blues record
thousands of times better than the genius he supposedly saw in Branson or wherever. It doesn’t matter. He
waited in the long roller coaster lines for me and let me goof off on the rides with shorter lines, while he stood in
the hot sun, and he knows that of everybody I’m the only one who has a clue what was happening entertainment
wise when he was young. He digs this song and so do I.
Jolly Green Giant – The Kingsmen
Double Shot of my Baby’s Love – The Swinging Medallions
I’m so through with Louie Louie. I don’t want to read any more books or essays about it. I don’t want to listen to
any more Louie Louie marathons. I certainly don’t want to hear your marching band playing it at halftime. I just
read about a town in Michigan who told their high school’s marching band it was verboten. Man, what a scary
town that must be. Banning a 40 year old song over profane lyrics that even the FBI couldn’t find. If you get
pulled over there don’t let them know you believe in evolution.
Marching Bands are amazing these days. When I was in high school, I’d be saying there’s no way they could be
playing cool music like The Clash. These days they waltz out playing London Calling or Ace of Spades or
whatever death metal the guy in charge happens to be into. We were lucky if we got a tribute to Lennon and
McCartney. Did you see that movie Drumline? Who’d have thought making a marching band movie would
work after American Pie trampled all over them? I liked it, but I really didn’t get the whole prized recruit thing.
This guy was acting like doing well in College Marching Band was his ticket out of the hood. He thought he was
Chris Webber and that they should be showering him with some cash on the side. Is there a professional
Marching Band circuit that I’m unaware of?
Imagine a town that has a problem with Louie Louie these days,
when it’s a common sight to see kids at ballparks dancing to
YMCA. “That’s my favorite song Daddy, what’s it about? ---The joys of anonymous gay sex, Timmy!”
You know who else doesn’t ever want to hear Louie Louie
again. That poor FBI agent who had to listen to it 1600 times
searching for the word penis. Life is much easier for the FBI
these days. I’m guessing it took them only 5 or 6 spins to figure
out they weren’t down with Fuck tha Police. Then again
knowing our government these days they probably never even
played it at all. The government made a much bigger deal out of
Ice T’s Cop Killer, which only makes sense since killing a cop,
is obviously much worse than telling one to fuck off.
Anyway, these are my favorite moron songs. Songs I love for the sheer stupidity of their groove.
If I had been the Kingsmen, I’d have done tons of songs about cartoon advertising characters.
Fan: You rock! Play Pillsbury Doughboy!
They pretty much invented the Fleshtones with this song. I’d be laughing at anything that calls the Jolly Green
Giant a big green kook, but what has me on the floor every time is the knucklehead in the background choosing
random moments to toss out the names of every single vegetable known to mankind corn, carrots, celery stalks
… They probably made the drummer go to the library and come back with as many vegetable names as he could
find, which frankly was time exceptionally well spent.
The Swinging Medallions were ten years ahead of their time in that you’d think that with a name like that they’d
have formed in the mid 70’s rather than the mid 60’s. This song is pretty raunchy. It’s my theory that this was
sent to that same poor FBI agent in charge of nasty pop songs, but he only listened to the organ intro and decided
he wasn’t listening to Louie Louie again no matter how much they paid him.
Woke up this morning, my head was so bad
The worst hangover that I ever had
What happened to me last night?
That girl of mine she loved me so right
She loved me so right
She loved me so hard
I finally passed out in her front yard
It wasn’t wine that I had too much of it was a double shot of my baby’s love
These guys listened to 60 hours of Louie Louie searching for the word penis and this slipped through the cracks.
Good thing to know censors are stupid. That’s like scolding a kid for watching South Park and then letting him
see Deep Throat after dinner.
Little Red Riding Hood – Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs
Mary’s Little Lamb – Otis Redding
Sam never fails to crack me up. All fairy tales should be told by this guy. So what if after listening you’re
convinced the wolf had rape on his mind more than … what exactly was the wolf after there? Either way Sam,
nobody’s buying your wolf’s I’m just a kind misunderstood guy line.
I wound up with the Otis song after blindly downloading an entire box set and then heard it one day and thought
to myself “What the fuck was that?” You know that old cliché he could sing the phone book etc, but turning
Mary Had a Little Lamb into a house scorching soul workout is just absurd.
Steve Cropper: What do you want to record today Otis?
Otis: I don’t care, but we’re gonna sure as hell make it funky.
Happiness is a Warm Gun – The Beatles
I apologize in advance, but I’m milking this joke for all I have. “Gee dad that’s a great song!” “It’s that group
I’ve tried to tell you about 100 times Timmy. It’s the Beatles, the greatest rock group of all time. Girls went wild
for them!” “Wow, that was the Beatles? What’s that song about Dad?” “Well son, a lot of the imagery is pretty
obscure, but I’m pretty sure that John Lennon wrote this song about his frequent use of heroin. He was a truly
great man, Timmy!”
Sorry, if the word Timmy appears anywhere else in this tome and isn’t the name of the artist, I’ll personally
refund all of your money. I’ve searched my iPod, and I don’t foresee this happening again.
By the way, I do think John Lennon was a great man, but it never fails to fascinate me wondering how parents
these days deal with the drug issue when trying to pass on their favorite records. I guess I’m excluding the ones
who get high with their kids. As Bill Hicks once said “The Beatles were so stoned they let Ringo sing a couple
of songs.”
Chapter 3: Singing, over-Singing, and Fading Soul
Your Precious Love – Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
This would be a good place to let you know where I’m coming from musically. I hate what I call Star Search
singing - trills in search of a reason. The worst example of this came during what I think was a Grammy tribute
to Marvin and Tammi by Patti Labelle and Office Space favorite Michael Bolton. I can’t prove it, but Marvin
and Tammi sounded like they felt every note they sang to each other. Patti and Michael were like bad metal
guitarists who know a lot of scales.
Luckily fate has enacted its final revenge on Michael (I’m guessing by God after a quick one on one with Otis
Redding). In the movie Office Space, a dorky tech guy, who loves rap, is named Michael Bolton and is forever
suffering by the association with someone I believe he terms an “ass clown.” Now ten years later, with Bolton’s
career sagging and the Mike Judge classic, having aired on cable 5,000,000 times, Bolton is constantly harassed
with the reference. If only God consistently meted out such sage retribution.
Shake your Body (Down to the Ground) – The Jacksons
Despite the above, I watch American Idol religiously. I don’t really have a very good excuse, and I’m not even
going to try to make one up. When the show first came on the air, I and I’m guessing the rest of the world
thought Randy Jackson was Michael’s brother, the one who replaced Jermaine after he stayed behind at Motown.
Now a few years later, everyone knows this guy is someone else who was apparently the Black guy in Journey
(don’t ask me, I never saw that video either). Not only that, but his fame has so eclipsed the original that when
America hears the name Randy Jackson they immediately think of the American Idol judge. I find this horribly
sad. Everyone’s always abusing Tito Jackson, but at least he’s still THE Tito Jackson.
By the way, could everyone please lay off of Tito!
Let’s get Serious – Jermaine Jackson
I admit it. This is only here because he’s so out of his mind that he named his son Jermajesty. It’s a passable
Stevie impersonation though.
Who’s Loving You – The Jackson 5
We need to discuss how the most beautiful 13 year old in the world became perhaps the nuttiest being ever to
walk the planet. I blame his father, Joseph Jackson, and Madonna.
When I was a kid, I sent away a few box tops from Super Sugar Crisp (sugar is a dirty word now so the name of
the cereal has changed) for a poster of The Jackson Five, which I put up over my bed. I was extremely proud of
myself for understanding that the Jackson’s had soul and the Osmonds’ their Utah competition were all kinds of
pale white lame.
Here’s my amateur psychological evaluation. Aside from any physical or sexual abuse Michael might have
faced, he went through a major crisis when his voice changed. Along with having to worry about whether he
would ever be able to sing effectively again, he was hit with a massive case of acne that Joseph was less than
sympathetic about (please don’t use your offspring as a meal ticket). I really think that this crisis led to Michael’s
mass paranoia about his appearance.
Madonna? Here’s my theory. In the 80’s she seemed to imply that the path to long term success was staying
fresh. Every single album she released was accompanied by a radically new appearance – boy toy, Monroe lite,
dominatrix. I swear even her breasts changed size with each release. Michael didn’t know how to keep up. There
are significantly less options available to a young Black male when it comes to makeovers. After he parlayed the
Jeri curl option, the only alternative he could think of was plastic surgery.
La Toya, the Jackson black sheep, has always cracked me up. Desperate for attention La Toya would lob out
some wild accusation. The Jackson camp, usually tight skinned face lifted Jermaine, would say, “You guys all
know La Toya, she’s out of her mind!” Six months later, they’d acknowledge that everything she said was
absolutely true.
Aside from the circus, my biggest question about Mike is the early singing. Did he truly feel it when he sang this
song or was he just a master impersonator? I don’t think we’ll ever know. The real Michael Jackson has long
since left the building.
Which Joe Jackson would you fear more?
Try a Little Tenderness – Otis Redding
Nuke La Loosh: She may get wooly. Young girls they do get wooly … because of all the stress. Yeah, when they
get wooly, try a little tenderness.
Chapter 4: Aching for Greatness
Amadeus
"All I ever wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If
he didn't want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire and lust in my body and then deny me the
talent?"
This is essentially the haunted confession of forgotten composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), perhaps
the single character I most identify with in the history of movies. Salieri prays to God to give him musical talent
like his idol the boy genius Mozart. He wants nothing more than to be great and to play his music in tribute to
the greatness of God a lot like what John Coltrane tried to do. He is even depraved enough to think that his
father's death is a personal gift from up above. Unfortunately, he turns out to be a hack. People like his music but
perhaps only he knows exactly how much better Mozart is on his worst day than he is on his best. He is cursed
by his yearning inability to create great art but also because he alone knows the real thing when he hears it. It's
like being slapped in the face with your insignificance and mediocrity every day of your life. It's nice to be able
to appreciate art but dreadfully painful not to be able to approach it yourself.
To top it off, when he meets his idol Mozart, he finds him to be an obnoxious spoiled brat, who embarrasses his
talent and despoils Salieri's women. Incensed at the randomness of God given talent, Salieri chooses the side of
the devil and decides to take God's beautiful thing down. He sabotages Mozart's career and starts playing mind
games with him. Eventually he even gets Mozart to write a Requiem for his own death
My favorite scene has Jeffrey Jones as the Emperor desperately trying to play a simple tune Salieri has written to
honor Mozart's arrival. Salieri burns as Jones butchers his mediocre piece, but Mozart commits it to memory
immediately and improves on it immensely moments after sitting down at the piano. Similarly Mozart's death
bed composing to a transcribing Salieri is probably the best example of genius ever filmed. Not only is this guy
brilliant, but it comes flowing out of him effortlessly like water from a tap. He writes up his scores beautifully
without errors off the top of his head.
How can anyone resist a movie about a guy who takes on God, tosses a crucifix into a fireplace, and arguably
wins a haunted lonely victory? I wish I had written this, but unfortunately all I can really do is appreciate it.
Got to Get You into My Life – The Beatles
Rock’s biggest love affair ended when Paul McCartney married Heather Mills. The jilted lover who this song
was dedicated to was left behind by McCartney, who for some reason decided he felt too old to be sneaking into
bathrooms to smoke marijuana.
I often wonder. If Japan had refused to let Paul
out of jail, would England have had to attack?
As for Paul and Heather, is anyone surprised
that it didn’t work. I have no doubt that Paul
has a lot to offer a woman, given his wealth
and the fact that 50 years later he’s still a pretty
cute dude, but if I were a woman it would be
hard to be with a guy that was so into his dead wife. I mean you’re lying there next to Paul after some ex-Beatle
sex and you have to know that once it’s over he’d rather have old Linda there with him. They could have died
together in a car crash at their giddiest moment of love and Paul would have popped out of the car in heaven and
said “Hi Linda, Daddy’s home.” Is modern love crass enough that it can survive that?
There was an episode of the brilliant Curb Your Enthusiasm, where Larry David was hesitant to commit to his
wife for eternity. I wouldn’t and I’m a true believer in love. I have to believe that if there’s a heaven, we revert to
a state of ourselves at our most beautiful. Kids who died suddenly become the greatest potential of themselves.
You mean I suddenly get to hit on Marilyn Monroe at my best and you want me to commit to some chick I met
in Akron after I lost my hair? Not likely.
Plagiarism or just a really obvious idea? I swear I wrote this before the season finale of Curb, where Larry goes
to heaven, gets his hair back, and finds out Marilyn has a crush on him. Did Larry David hack into my
computer? God, I hope I have better things to do when I make my
millions.
Chapter 5: Elvis Needs Boats
Elvis is Everywhere – Mojo Nixon and Skid Roper
The funniest song ever written and a great statement of purpose. My buddy saw them open for the Pogues once
and for some reason we dreamed of having them on our radio show. Mojo deftly explains how Elvis really is
America, and how the only person with no Elvis in him is the evil anti-Elvis Michael J. Fox (this came out
before he got Parkinson’s so it was appropriate to make fun of him then).
Who knows where this line came from, but I’m forever a happier person because of it.
You know what’s going on in that Bermuda Triangle?
Down in the Bermuda Triangle?
Elvis needs boats.
Elvis needs boats.
Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, Elvis, Elvis needs boats.
A Last Ditch Attempt at Making Fun of Michael J Fox
The guy is so nice it's almost like killing Bambi after killing his mother first right in front of him, but I just don't
get how even diseases are dominated by celebrity these days. I gave to breast cancer because I love Sex and the
City. Want to give to autism? No, I've never been much of a Doug Flutie fan.
When Michael J Fox was diagnosed. The whole world mourned except Parkinson's charities. It was like they had
won the lottery or something.
Here's what happens when a celebrity, or well just about anyone who gets a disease or is closely related to
someone who does, proceeds to act. They suddenly realize what a huge problem this disease is, and how we're
totally not doing enough to cure it. Pretty soon, they are testifying before Congress because Congressmen love
getting autographs. Six months and apparently Michael J Fox was suddenly the foremost expert in Parkinson's
disease.
I get it. It sucks to get Parkinson's, but don't we all pretty much die of something? Should we really be doling out
our efforts to cure diseases based on the most famous person to have that disease. I applaud the advertising
masterstroke that was renaming ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease.
No one's sending any money out to cure Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.
Look at AIDS donations.
Here's a disease that's wiping out the planet, making us use condoms, which in my opinion was the worse of the
two, and no one cared until some people straight people liked starting disappearing from it like Rock Hudson
and Arthur Ashe.
More people die of Cancer, so they have the greater likelihood of nabbing a big name, but every once in a while
the ping pong balls land funny and Parkinson's research funds triple. I'm guessing those people had a hangover
the next morning that lasted for weeks.
Don Henley Must Die – Mojo Nixon
Lester Bangs’ James Taylor essay updated and set to music.
“Don Henley must die/Don’t let him get back together with Glen Frey”
To his credit Henley sort of got the joke and drunkenly popped on stage one night to sing it with Mojo. Very
Rock and Roll, nice job Don, I’ll forgive you for having to hear “I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” 8
million times. Well, then again maybe not.
88 Lines about 44 Women – The Nails
People who Died – Jim Carroll
These songs have extremely accurate titles. They are both pretty much lists. 88 lines makes me nostalgic for the
spookier sounds of the ‘80s. The vicious People who Died is pretty much a catalog of the carnage of a tougher
time and place Carroll survived to eventually be portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio, which come to think of it is a
pretty good reason to quit doing heroin.
Elvis ’56
Narrated by Levon Helm. Elvis plus television equals a blow greater than the atomic bomb; witness the future as
it happens. Perry Como on one channel, Elvis threatening his girl’s life if she leaves him on another. At the
beginning of the year he had all of James Dean’s dialog from Rebel Without a Cause memorized. At the end he
was dating Dean’s love interest from the movie, Natalie Wood. At the beginning of the year, he was working his
hips off trying to please. At the end, they ordered him not to move and he was powerful enough to stand there
and tease the world with his savage beauty, a single tantalizing sway of his hips achieving everything he had
once worked so hard to imagine. He nearly incites a riot allowed only to move a single finger for an entire show.
A lot of people have tried to conquer the world, for one brief shining moment he had.
Your Cheating Heart – Elvis Presley
A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man's music, when in fact almost every black solo
entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis. – Jackie Wilson
My two favorite quotes from the 20th Century –
Muhammad Ali - “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong.”
Elvis Presley – “I don’t sound like nobody.”
Man, he was so right, but what balls to come out and say it. Here is why in my mind Elvis Presley was the
coolest person of all time. He had his own personal definition of cool and he followed it to the letter. It’s plenty
easy to go to school with a Mohawk these days, but pre-Elvis if you were different you were suspect; it was after
all the conformity years of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Don’t think he didn’t have someone tease him about his
sideburns like every day at least seven times between high school and work. Don’t think people weren’t trying to
beat him up the first day he wore black slacks and a pink shirt to school. Don’t ever forget that most of Elvis’
Memphis Mafia were guys that kept him from getting his ass kicked in high school. I’ve never heard anyone say
it, but Elvis and Kurt Cobain had a lot more in common at 17 than people seem to realize. To me no matter how
it ended he’s as cool as it gets.
Before Colonel Tom Parker castrated him, Elvis was the pure definition of a bad motherfucker. “Hi, how are you
doing? Tonight I’ll be singing music the world hates dressed like the first white pimp. Oh and by the way, I’ll be
shaking like I’m being electrocuted right after hopping on to your daughter! Thank you. Thank you very much.”
With Elvis, it was even money on whether he’d be a star or hanging from a tree by the time he was 21.
Let’s hear from the Gospel of Rolling Stone Magazine, though – “Elvis Presley’s greatest work came during his
time with Sam Phillips and during his late 60’s comeback.” Rubbish. I hate those guys. The coolest man who
ever lived was the coolest man who ever lived when he recorded for RCA until he got sent a ticket by Uncle Sam
over to Germany. If I have to hear one more guy ejaculate over “Mystery Train” and discount what followed I’m
going on a shooting rampage. Don’t be ashamed to worship I Want You, I Need You, I Love You or any of his
other 50’s turbo fueled RCA product. Has anyone ever been that all over the map and this powerful all at the
same time? I can see him thinking to himself “nice lyrics but it could use some ums, uhs, and yeahs.” Listen to
that boy. He thought he could do anything, and for a while he could.
From King Creole:
Comedian: I heard you rehearsing before. Hey, what kind of songs you singing, folk songs?
Elvis: Uh, yeah, I guess so.
Comedian: That’s what I thought. What planet?
See, that guy understood Elvis Presley. Where’s his column? Listen to him do Your Cheating Heart. No wonder
he got tossed off The Grand Ole Opry. You don’t mess with Hank Williams down there. It’s a wonder he didn’t
get strung up. I dare you to find a weirder more outlandish version of a Hank Williams song. Anyone out there
who wants to claim that he saw Jackie Wilson do it this way, well I’m willing to listen.
It depresses me that Elvis gets tossed in as just a stealer of black music. What he did was mix up the Country and
Rhythm and Blues music that he innately knew better than any of those guys writing theses on folk music at
Baldwin Wallace’s Pop Culture Workshop and created something new whether he was conscious of it or not.
Rock and Roll wasn’t just a word Alan Freed used to sell his Rhythm and Blues records it was a melding of
black and white (miscegenation?). That’s always why I’ve thought the beginning of Rock and Roll wasn’t That’s
All Right Mama, but it’s flip side Blue Moon of Kentucky – initially a blue grass classic forever after as Sam
Phillips immediately acknowledged "Fine, fine, man, hell that's different. That's a pop song now little guy, that's
good." I love Chuck D, I respect Vernon Reid but that goes for Chuck Berry, whose first hit Maybelline was
originally sung by rednecks and called Ida Red.
Words of inspiration from Mickey Rourke:
Eddie: Which do you prefer, Sinatra or Mathis?
Boogie: I like Presley.
Hound Dog – Elvis Presley
Hound Dog - Big Mama Thornton
Here’s the same point from another side. “Elvis just stole Black music. Everyone knows the Big Mama Thornton
version is superior.” Let me break this down, with no offense meant to Big Mama or her fans if she really has
any.
1) The song was written by two white Jewish guys
2) The Elvis version doesn’t sound anything like the original . Elvis recorded Hound Dog something like
31 times before choosing take 28 - back at a time when people used to just pop into a studio and record
something once maybe twice - you don't record something 31 times if you only want to make a pale
white copy of it - his version has killer echo sonically different drumming and a great solo by Scottie Moore - he didn't
steal it he transformed it into something new and different.
3) The next person who utters this, check and see if Big Mama is on his iPod, because I tend to doubt it.
Side note on impersonators
I understand why people would want to go see an Elvis impersonator.
The thing I will never understand is why do people buy their albums?
You know the albums that they do their best to make sound exactly like
the original recording. Why not just buy the original recording? Of
course, if your fame can be judged solely by the number of impersonators
making a living wage off your corpse, there is little doubt that Elvis was
the biggest star of all time.
That TV Set and True Integrity
If I ever get business cards, there is going to be a picture of Elvis Presley shooting out a TV set on them. People
always use that as an example that he was nuts, but he was shooting the TV because he hated the passionless,
gaudy way that Robert Goulet was singing. I find it to be a touching bit of Rock and Roll integrity!
Frank Sinatra Welcomes Elvis Back from the Army
I’d love to have seen Frank’s initial reaction to doing this TV show, it couldn’t have been pretty. I searched for
this forever and finally found a decent chunk of it on You Tube. Elvis despite being overseas for a healthy
amount of time sings Fame and Fortune and I Got Stung, and he does so with perhaps the most complete
mastering of an audience of all time. He barely has to move, essentially he just drives the crowd into a frenzy by
implying that at any time he might deign to do so.
When Frank shares the stage with him, he might as well be 800 years old. It’s not all his fault. No one but Elvis
could sound credible singing the clunky Love Me Tender, and it doesn’t help matters when Elvis laughingly
throws himself into Witchcraft in a way that makes Frank look like a sexless eunuch.
You never know what you'll find in the Ladies Home Journal
I dig Cosmo, but it's rare that I find a Ladies Home Journal unless it's in someone's bathroom.
Kathy Westmoreland backup singer for Elvis on him touring despite his exhaustion and health issues: He'd say
“People have been waiting 20 years to see me, so I can't disappoint them.” Or, “I have 300 people working for
me. Their families depend on my working.”
A lot more sympathetic picture of the end than the pills and toilet stories.
Jailhouse Rock
"In 'Jailhouse Rock,' he was everything Rockabilly's about. I mean he was mean, surly, nasty, rude. In that movie
he didn't give a fuck about nothing except Rocking and Rolling, living fast, dying young, and leaving a good
looking corpse. Y'know, I watch that hillbilly, I want to be him so bad. . . Elvis looked good! Hey, I ain't no fag,
but Elvis was prettier than most women. Y'know, I always said if I had to fuck a guy, y'know...had to, if my life
depended on it. I'd fuck Elvis." -- Clarence Worley, "True Romance"
Elvis Presley used to work in a movie theater. He memorized every line James Dean had in "Rebel Without a
Cause," and that was before video made it a more realistic possibility. He apparently hated making this movie,
but he understood what he was creating. Elvis' Vince Everett is so mean and bitter that he snaps at a cheerful
maid, who looks uncannily like his cherished mother.
"Jailhouse Rock" is the very definition of an exploitation movie, and it established
the damning formula that Elvis would repeat over and over again in the sixties, but
he would never again allow himself to be filmed as unlikable as this. Vince Everett
is a happy-go-lucky construction worker who makes the mistake of beating a surly
drunk to death with his bare hands one night in a bar. In prison, he meets a washed
up country singer named Hunk Houghton, who convinces him there is money to be
made singing to the burgeoning teen audiences of the world.
On the outside, Elvis hooks up with a talent coordinator, discovers his own sound,
is cheated by a dishonest record executive, starts his own record company, and hits
the big time. The first things he wants when the money starts pouring in is a
ruthless lawyer and a Cadillac.
Along the way the kids get to see a topless Elvis whipped in prison, a bounty of
timeless oh-so-cool fashion, and perhaps the first example of a rocker smashing his
guitar in disgust. Whether he'll admit it or not, you know Pete Townshend was watching. The title number is
justifiably famous and was supposedly choreographed by Elvis himself. The soundtrack boasts a treasure trove
of song writing team Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller at their best. Elvis literally exudes sex, violence and anger
until the ending's unlikely redemption. In real life, Vince Everett wouldn't wind up with the girl, he'd wind up
with many and be knifed in yet another bar fight.
There is an exultant definition of Rock and Roll bad attitude in a party scene where Judy Tyler brings Elvis to
meet her socialite family. They start talking Jazz, dissonance, Brubeck, and Elvis is condescendingly asked his
opinion. "Lady, I don't know what the hell you are talking 'bout!" he sneers, as he tosses his beer aside and
abandons his date.
Elvis' explanation, "What do you expect? I come have a little beer and first thing you know some old broad's
pushing me in the corner about some stupid question...Shove their conversation! I'm not even sure they were
talkin' English."
"King Creole" was a better movie and a better performance, but in the history of cinema there was never a better
rebel song than this. Sadly, the tacked-on happy ending foreshadowed the future de-sexing of the King for mass
consumption; something that killed him way before prescription drugs had even taken their toll. Luckily, the
attitude, the aggression, and the sex were let out in a burst of fire and they got it all on film.
King Creole
Welcome to Elvis Noir, also known as the Encyclopedia
of Cool, Volume Three. Everyone says that King Creole
was Elvis Presley’s best film, but what they are really
saying is that it doesn’t have much competition. When
Elvis got drafted by the army, his only request to the
Government was for permission to finish King Creole
before entering the army. It was his best effort at proving
himself to be a legitimate actor and the heir to his hero
James Dean’s throne. Elvis was excited about being
directed by Michael Curtiz, perhaps on the downside of
his career but still the guy who orchestrated Casablanca,
and the film does an amazingly good job of grabbing the lead baton right out of Rebel Without a Cause’s hand,
leading many to believe that Presley could have been an inspired actor had he not been steered down the river by
Hal Wallis and Colonel Tom Parker into the generic “Elvis drives a speedboat” type of movie he would sleep
his way through in the 60s.
King Creole is shot in a dark and dingy black and white. Its opening paints the streets of the district as the
singing street vendors announce their wares to the waking city. Elvis situated in the seediest part of town sings a
sizzling duet of “Crawfish” with Black female vocalist Kitty White. White and Presley often sing
simultaneously with White singing in a traditional Creole fashion while Presley is all over the vocal scales
adding uhs and ums of hubris, dressed in official JD gear, white T-shirt and blue jeans. The whole sequence is
literally the definition of sensuality and soul.
King Creole although based on a Harold Robbin’s novel is truly Rebel without a Cause with the stakes raised.
The movie takes the Jim Stark character and throws him to the ghetto. It takes Dean’s confliction and
dissatisfied feelings for his father’s weakness, and turbo jets them to anger and disgust. Presley’s potential
hoodlum knows exactly what he wants from the world, money and respect. He’s not conflicted; he’s pissed,
reeking of sexual energy and looking for trouble. The kids Presley tangles with here are actual gang type crooks
not bored suburban punks, and Creole’s look, tone and feel are considerably darker. Danny Fisher’s world has
none of the brilliantly colorful possibilities of Stark’s. Jim Stark was having a mild identity crisis. Danny
Fisher’s life is hurtling to almost certain doom.
The musical numbers are as one would suspect pretty unbelievable. Elvis was in his swaggering prime here and
this would be the last time he would ever be filmed singing this aggressively and audaciously. When he was
desperately in need of credibility during his Comeback Special of 1969, he would reach back Creole’s
“Trouble”, which was angrily sung by Presley to lowlife gangster syndicate runner Walter Matthau as Maxie
Fields. Field questions Presley’s word and mettle and Elvis answers with the famous couplet “If you’re looking
for trouble/You came to the right place” and he means it. Additionally, all the songs serve the tenor and plot of
the movie as opposed to being a mere break for another Elvis performance.
Elvis handles his side of the acting portion as well. His Danny Fisher is brave, angry, and will under no
circumstances ever back down. He glides and dances his way through the movie like it was a ballet. Carolyn
Jones plays the drunk and depressed bad girl singer trapped in Matthau’s downbeat no future world. As the only
honest man in town says, “Everything he touches turns to drink.” She would later be Morticia Adams on TV; if
you aren’t aware of this, the film will drive you batty trying to figure out where you know her from. Dolores
Hart plays the good girl instantly infused with love for Presley on first sight. Even her goodness is tempered here
with desperation and the expectation of failure.
Below the surface there is the very entertaining Vic Morrow, for my money the true number one Juvenile
Delinquent of the fifties. Here and in Blackboard Jungle he’s rude, dangerous and downright mean. Presley’s
knife fight with Morrow almost makes you think about Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis going at it to the death, an idea
that probably would have delighted the better part of the unhearing nation.
King Creole ends just as Jailhouse Rock did with a solemn ballad. In Jailhouse Rock it meant that Presley had
been tamed, here he is hushed and chastened by experience and regret.
Somewhere Elvis is being judged for the course he let his life spiral into, but King Creole is his best defense. I
can almost see him desperately grasping the film reels before the muses.
Viva Las Vegas - Elvis Presley
Say what you will about the ‘Elvis movie’, but as a genre, and it is a genre, perhaps even
as much as John Wayne was a Genre unto himself, it is unrelentingly friendly. After he got
back from the army, he never again risked such a level of unlikeability as in his earlier
films. The fact that every one of those movies made money showed the extent to which the
world was desperate for just a glimpse of the man from year to year. In “Viva Las Vegas”
alone, he races cars, sings, flies a helicopter, dances, and water skis. Admit it, Elvis flying
a helicopter is as least as goofily, endearingly cool as Bo Diddley is a gunslinger ever was.
All in brilliant primary colors.
(You’re Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher – Jackie Wilson
Burning Love – Elvis Presley
The last big monster hits for both of these guys. Jackie Wilson was the only guy around who could compete with
Elvis both as a showman and a vocalist, and Elvis clearly was impressed. You can hear him on the Million
Dollar Quartet tapes talk about how cool he thought Wilson’s version of Don’t be Cruel was especially the way
he sped up the word telephone into tellyphone, and then there he was doing it the same way laughing his ass off
on the Ed Sullivan show a short time later. Some people say he was stealing, I clearly feel that he was part of a
scene that strode forward through a fun give and take.
He can’t really match Wilson’s falsetto Olympics here but he sure sounds like he’s having fun trying.
Big Hunk O’ Love – Elvis Presley
Isn’t it a cool thing when you think you have an artist sussed out and then you find something so weird, so
leftfield that you just have to sit there and smile. Aside from some horrid soundtrack material this is as weird as
it got. My choice as the first punk song ever and I’m guessing if pressed the Reverend Horton Heat might agree.
Baby, Let’s Play House – Elvis Presley
Run For Your Life – John Lennon
My Sweet Lord – George Harrison
Poor George Harrison writes an ode to the loveliness of God and what happens? He gets sued for ripping off
He’s So Fine. There’s a ton of unoriginal stuff in the Bible, where’s that lawsuit.
John Lennon got sued for quoting Chuck Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me in Come Together. The court was
unimpressed with his argument that his use of the phrase “Here come old flat top” should be lauded as the
invention of sampling.
Nevertheless, the song he should have gotten pinched for was Run for Your Life, which completely rewrites
Elvis’ House down to the word for word echo of “I’d rather see you dead little girl than to be with another man.”
I know it’s an homage.
Now I was once horribly in love, and had my heart broken into tiny little trampled on pieces. Is it wrong for me
to wish that she’d gotten hit by a car and was up in heaven continuing to pine for me rather than raising some
other dude’s kids? Just asking.
Tomorrow is a Long Time – Elvis Presley
Dylan said that Presley recording this song of his was his greatest honor. I wonder if Bob’s ever heard the home
recording of Elvis doing I Shall Be Released. At the end, Elvis says “Dylan!” as in wow that man moves me.
The reason Elvis recorded so much crap was that most of the material he saw was cut rate. His handlers figured
anything he recorded would be big on Elvis alone and demanded a discount before letting him record a song.
How much of this you can blame on Elvis is a key question to evaluating his mid period malaise. Then again he
once recorded Hey Jude and didn’t seem to have bothered to learn more than the first verse.
Heartbreak Hotel – Elvis Presley
Did God hand him that echo from on high? Anyone ever seen the movie by Christopher Columbus? Possibly
one of my favorite bad movies ever, Charlie Schlatter, channeling Michael J. Fox kidnaps a decaying early 70’s
Elvis to give to his alcoholic mom luring the meandering king out of his hotel with a coffee waitress who looks
just like Gladys. It’s sort of a true fan’s intervention after the fact. Charlie convinces Elvis to trim the mutton
chops and get back to being the baddest man on the planet again. Here are some high points.
1. When Charlie gets beat up, Elvis points out that he’s never lost a fight despite being attacked numerous
times, seemingly unaware that all of those fights took place in movies.
2. Elvis bags mom out by a pond and Charlie seems happy about it. Mom is played by Tuesday Weld who
bagged the real Elvis – so I’m guessing she brought some real life grit to the part.
3. In the end, Elvis gets back on his plane somewhat cognizant that sooner or later it will all start slipping
away again.
Chapter 6: The Music is your only Friend
Love Man – Otis Redding
This is the best song in the movie Dirty Dancing, although that scene where they dance
to Mickey and Sylvia is pretty sexy. “No one puts Baby in the corner” is a pretty
damned good piece of dialog.
Here’s what sticks for me when I see that movie though. Jennifer Grey is the younger
daughter of a Jewish family summering in the Catskills. Somehow her sister seems to
be either Catholic, the whitest girl alive, or both. Jennifer bags the hot guy due to her
ethnicity, but somehow didn’t get that the reason we all fell in love with her when she swooned over Patrick
Swayze was that awkward imperfect sexiness. Obviously, I’m not the first to point it out, but what made her go
to the plastic surgeon trying to look more like her Catholic movie sister? Second biggest nose error ever after
Michael.
If I had my way there would be a special place in hell for plastic surgeons. OK, if you specialize in treating burn
victims, we’ll talk. The rest of you lifters and enhancers are nothing but vermin preying on people’s insecurities.
You’re no better than the hair grafters and the penis builders.
Hello, I Love You – The Doors
“The music is your only friend”
Elvis was my first real exposure to music, and if I remember correctly it all came
about from Henry Winkler doing his best to get through Heartbreak Hotel on
Happy Days. In sixth grade, my teacher played a game of name that tune with our
class. She played Hound Dog and everyone wrote down Elvis Presley. He’d just
died and it was as close to a gimme as you were likely to get anywhere on the
planet. I, however, was incensed because I’d heard Hound Dog maybe 1800 times
and no way was that really Elvis. I nagged my teacher for about three hours
before she dug into her bag and admitted that she’d pawned off an impersonation on the class. She could have
told me that the German’s won both World Wars and I couldn’t have cared less. Pawning off some hack as Elvis
was a serious issue.
Beyond, that I really wasn’t that interested in pop music until about 15, when the big Doors revival happened.
For those of you, who weren’t around Rolling Stone had him on the cover with the proclamation “He’s Hot,
He’s Sexy, He’s Dead.” I remember sitting around at my caddy job with my friend John, both of us reading
identical paperback copies of No One Here Gets Out Alive. Face it; whether you think he was a genius or a
buffoon, tabloids have a tough time making up better stuff than any random page of that book.
Tons of my musical education came from The Rolling Stone Record Guide. I remember laughing to myself
when the second edition came out. In the first edition, just about every original Doors album is given four or five
stars. By the time the second edition came out, I’m pretty sure Dave Marsh had had enough of the whole
Morrison boom. He docked every single album 2 stars and called them the most overrated band ever.
Here’s my impression a bunch of years later. Dude had a remarkably sexy voice, Robbie Krieger was a fantastic
guitarist, Ray Manzerek needs to stop feasting of Morrison’s carcass and get a day job, and John Densmore
probably should’ve skipped that episode of Square Pegs.
Their first two albums, Morrison Hotel, and LA Woman hold up as good as any American band’s work ever.
Morrison was a lot like Elvis. He was either God or Bozo, it just depends on how fat he was when the picture
was taken. By the way, I tried to make myself a copy of Morrison’s trademark bead necklace, played basketball
in it and watched in horror as the cord broke and hundreds of beads scattered across the court.
By the way, if “sidewalk crouches at her feet like a dog that begs for something sweet” isn’t poetry I don’t want
to know what is.
Roadhouse Blues – The Doors
I tell you this, man, I tell you this
I don't know what's gonna happen, man,
but I wanna have
my kicks before the whole shithouse goes
up in flames
Alright!
Here’s something sure to piss off
everyone that isn’t Oliver Stone. To me
Morrison is just about the only credible
white male blues singer I’ve ever heard.
By the way, if “Woke up this morning got
myself a beer, the future’s uncertain the
end is always near” isn’t poetry …
Moonlight Drive - The Doors
Let's swim to the moon, uh huh
Let's climb through the tide
Penetrate the evening that the
City sleeps to hide
Ray Manzerek was convinced instantly, best financial decision he’s ever made, and he’s still telling that story.
It's how he stays something of a rock star.
True enough to Morrison’s obsession with death the song that started the band has its couple driving out to get
stoned and drown themselves. My guess is that to Morrison that was his idea of the perfect date.
Oliver Stone’s movie might not have been accurate, but I’ve always thought of it as essentially the most
romantic version of the story a Doors fan could possibly stage. Maybe Martin Scorcese will make the version
where Jim is just a drunken ass for two hours, I’d rather get stoned and see the Stone version. Perhaps, showing
him as young and beautiful again in his moment of death was going overboard, but the scene a few minutes
earlier, where the drunken bearded and fat Morrison passes out holding a doll version of the 1967 pin up idol is
perfect. If nothing else, you have to admit that Jim has to be the scariest person ever to appear in Tiger Beat
Magazine or whatever they had back then. I wonder what magazine that didn’t cover crime has the most
reprehensible cast of characters. The Rock Magazines have their debauchery, but they really can’t match the
Sports Magazines for dangerous illegal behavior.
Light My Fire – The Doors
One of the cooler moments in Rock history was Morrison refusing to knuckle under to Ed Sullivan and change
the lyric “Girl we couldn’t get much higher” like the Stones who gave in and sang the feeble Let’s Spend Some
Time Together at Ed’s request. Nevertheless, Oliver Stone shouldn’t have felt the need to over dramatize.
Morrison didn’t walk up to the camera and spew the line out with fury like Val Kilmer does in the movie.
Morrison just sang it like he normally did. From what I know of the guy, he probably never even considered
Sullivan’s request and had forgotten about it long before the show filmed.
Riders on the Storm – The Doors
Go ahead and make fun of Jim Morrison for his drunken foolishness, but at least get it right. I read a
conversation in Jim De Rogatis’ Kill Your Idols : A New Generation of Rock Writers Reconsiders the Classics,
where he and a fellow critic unloaded on the stupidity of the lyric “Like a dog without a bone, an actor all
alone.” I sent him an e mail, acknowledging the triteness of the line. Only thing is that Morrison’s real words are
not “an actor all alone”, but “an actor out on loan”, which refers to the movie studio practice of lending out their
hired talent to other studios. It’s a metaphor that perfectly fits the moody detachment of the song.
De Rogatis’ defense was that every single web site listed the lyrics his way. The Internet is a great thing, but be
careful believing everything you find in the world’s largest porn depository. I doubt the Lizard King will get an
apology. Morrison gets so much crap for wanting to be a poet, as if that were an evil ambition. How about we
target the guys who want to become big stars and endorse products for a change.
Eddie and the Cruisers
Eddie Wilson: I want something great; I want something that nobody's ever done before.
Sal Amato: Why? We ain't great; we're just some guys from Jersey.
Eddie Wilson: If we can't be great, then there's no sense in ever playing music again.
I have a bit of a soft spot for this movie. I actually saw it in the theater, but everyone else waited for cable where
endless playings eventually led to "On the Dark Side" becoming a big hit for John Cafferty, whose Beaver
Brown band gave Eddie and the Cruisers' music its New Jersey sound.
Like I’ve said this was the era when everyone I knew seemed to be madly flipping through the book "No One
Here Gets out Alive", which suggested that the Rimbaud worshipping Lizard King had faked his own death. The
three living Doors didn't really do that much to squelch the rumors, after all people hadn't cared about the Doors
for years
Pretty soon the Elvis fans got jealous and started talking about John Burrows appearances at Michigan Burger
Kings. Did Elvis die mysteriously in France reading spooky poetry?
Well, no but nobody could stand to see the big guy dead either. It made
for a nice fairy tale, and it's actually not a bad hook for a movie.
I tend to doubt that you will ever see this movie double billed with
Citizen Kane, but the two movies are structured pretty similarly.
Instead of the nonsense of the sled, we have Ellen Barkin trying to find
out if Eddie Wilson really died when his car went off that bridge. To
make things fun, the master tapes for the band's never released second
album, A Season in Hell are missing too. It makes for a pretty amusing
Behind the Music episode.
Eddie and the Cruisers essentially pops Bruce Springsteen and the E
Street Band into the year 1963 right down to the Black saxophone
player, Wendell Newton. Wendell never says a word but he does O.D.
on heroin, most likely because that's what the writers felt Black
saxophone players do. Eddie (Michael Pare) feels pretty lousy about it
but he eventually just goes out and gets another Black Saxophone
player.
Essentially, Eddie and his crew recorded one classic best selling Rock
and Roll album. For his follow up, Eddie decides that he is going to
record his Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The film
makers desperately wanted to make Eddie to appear way ahead of his time. Brian Wilson didn't have a nervous
breakdown trying to out do the Beatles until a number of years later. If I ever make a movie about a Rock and
Roll singer, I will have him doing Elvis Presley songs in 1928. I will claim that my lead character can't possibly
be derivative just because he's doing Elvis' whole act since he will have been doing it 28 years earlier…
Response to Eddie's big creative achievement is decidedly negative. He's told the album is unreleasable. Pretty
soon Eddie's car is in the ocean and the master tapes are gone. Apparently, there was no E True Hollywood Story
or A&E Biography shows in '63 and the case lies dormant for twenty years when the Cruisers begin to enjoy a
resurgence of popularity.
Eddie and the Cruisers has a nice feel for Rock and Roll, and it does a pretty good job of revealing the damage
done to the survivors when that larger than life figure in your life disappears forever, but the thing that makes
this movie lovable to me is that Eddie wants to do something great. He has the revolutionary idea that even
though he is uneducated flotsam from the Jersey shore that he can add something beautiful and significant to the
world. In the end that is the great promise Rock and Roll has always held out to kids around the world.
Admittedly, most Rock Stars only use the music as a ladder to sex and glory, and even the ambitious guys are
often more likely to spit out a Tarkus or a Chicago 17 instead of a Pet Sounds or a Tommy, but God bless the
Eddie Wilsons who'd rather chuck the whole thing away than for a moment tarnish their most pure and
worthwhile dreams.
The music, which was stigmatized at the time for being too much of a Springsteen cloning, still actually sounds
pretty damn good. Sure, the ending does rely on a junkyard staying exactly the same for twenty years, and this
may be the only movie ever where the victims of a stalking give the stalker what he wants, send him off on his
way and wish him well, but it still works for me every time. Hell, I even sort of enjoyed the goofy flop Eddie and
the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!, where Eddie turns out to be a Canadian construction worker. Cable couldn't even
save it. I'm not recommending it, I may not even admit to having seen it at a party or a bar, but yeah I kind of
dug that one too.
Sequels Never as Good as the Original
In The Whole 9 Yards, Amanda Pete has one of
the most joyous nude scenes in movie history. In
The Whole 10 Yards, Amanda Pete has to turn her
back when she takes her top off. Really, if they are
going to rate movies and let you know about their
violence content, there should be a society who
publishes big Amanda Pete’s breasts will not be
seen in this movie warnings.
I Just Want to Make Love to You – Foghat
The coolest award
show appearance ever was made by Jim Carrey, who went method and
remained in character all night. Seemingly, Jim was enraged that Val Kilmer got
to play Jim Morrison on screen, and decided to show Oliver Stone and the
world what might have been. Carrey was definitely doing the Fat Elvis version
of Jim. When he won his award, for well for who really cares what, he lurched
onto the stage and spouted out something to the effect of “There's a lot of fine
looking pussy in here tonight!” I remember Courtney Love essentially
orgasming on the spot. Of course the killer coup de grace and all that really ever
again needs to be said was this threat/plea to MTV “Would it kill you to play
Foghat once in a while?”
Brilliance personified.
Territorial Pissings – Nirvana
Here’s why I don’t get to run award shows. I’d interrupt the Oscars to give Tom Hanks a special meritorious
service award for producing in A League of their Own and The Green Mile what are easily the two greatest
urination scenes in the history of the movies. When Tom let loose in Green Mile it’s like he’s experiencing the
rapture. Job well done, sir!
Chapter 7: The Horrors of Living Past 27
Ain’t Nobody Here, But Us Chickens – Louis Jordan
My grandmother used to always sing this song to us. Well, she tried to sing it; I don’t remember her knowing
much past the title.
After my heart was broken, I lived with my grandparents for a while and really got to know them. I had quit
making a lot of money to get a masters degree in education and become a teacher (giving credence to my
grandfather’s notion that all his second generation spawn were crazy). I thought I’d become the cool teacher, you
know Howard Hessman in Head of the Class, but with much more of Dr. Johnny Fever tossed in for flavor.
When I realized teaching math would bore me to tears, and the school made it clear that they couldn’t have me
falling asleep in the library every day, I escaped back to my life of stress and money.
My grandfather was lucky enough to play golf almost every day for like twenty years. When he got too old and
cranky to play golf, he limited his activity to crossword puzzles, getting the mail, and television. I’ve never seen
a man enjoy paying his bills more than my grandfather. If you ever for a moment tried to complain about taxes,
he’d tell you to stop moping; because at least that meant that you were making some money. He had thirty-yearold letters up on his office wall from the IRS, informing him that they had inspected his taxes and found nothing
wrong.
I was grown up when I lived with him. I had some money of my own, but damn if I wasn’t still every bit as
scared of him as when I was a kid. I MC’ed my sisters’ Bat Mitzvah and my grandfather heckled me! My dad
worked for him, and they argued ferociously about business at essentially every family get together I can
remember. Spending time in the same room with him as a kid was roughly as inviting as a night in a small cage
with a grizzly bear. By the time I was over 25, though . . . OK, I was still scared to death of him.
I was an options trader for quite a few years, and I would have killed to have had my grandfather’s voice and
size. He was like Paul Bunyan or something. He hated profanity, but he had a thundering voice. I can’t think of
anything scarier than the sonic boom that hit the air when he said, “Crap!” Nobody has ever said crap with the
intensity my grandfather did. Nobody came close. I could be ready for it and it would still scare the shit out of
me.
The last movie my grandfather attended was “Bugsy”, which he walked out of because he couldn’t stand how
much profanity was in it. His TV habits were short and simple. He watched sporting events and “The Rockford
Files”. “I like it. You have a mystery, and a few jokes and then they have a car chase at the end, so you can have
a little action.”
One morning, I was goofing around on his computer and listening to Howard Stern on his stereo. After awhile
my grandfather came downstairs to walk on his treadmill. Eventually, I got up to go work out myself. I looked
over at my grandfather, who was listening to the radio on a walkman, turned the stereo off and went to the club I
belonged to. When I got home, he was furious with me. “What the hell kind of show were you listening to? I’ve
never heard such language in my life!” Trying desperately to figure out what had happened, I realized that he
had probably turned the stereo back on after I left and sampled a little Howard. Now, I have no doubt that any
fifteen minutes of the Howard Stern show would have infuriated my grandfather, but I soon realized that he had
most likely sampled the fifteen minutes Howard Stern had spent that morning discussing his plans to “bitchslap” “Rockford” star James Garner for slurring his name on “The Tonight Show”. Who else in the world could
possibly have timing like me?
My grandfather went from sleeping on my grandmother’s porch after his widowed mom abandoned him, to
building up a few million dollars that he guarded like Fort Knox. He wasn’t so much cheap as he was really
appreciative of a way to save money. One day he decided that he felt like eating lobster that night, but when he
heard how much it would cost him, he was so revolted that he refused to pay it. This was an eighty-year-old
millionaire skimping on a twelve-dollar purchase. Who was he saving that two dollars for? This man beamed for
hours after only spending a quarter on coffee at McDonald’s with his senior card. I doubt that he was aware of
the Starbucks phenomenon, but I have little doubt that he would have had a coronary thinking about how much
money people were spending on different kinds of coffee. “I don’t want a goddamn mocha latte; I want a
goddamn cup of coffee!” That was his profane vocabulary – “crap” and “goddamn”. If he said both in the same
sentence you knew your life was in grave danger because he was pissed! I don’t think the Great Depression
made him that way; I think he was just born way too ornery to ever risk being made a fool. He was a really good
Gin player and he used to play by himself on the computer. I asked him to play with me about 500 times, but he
would always say something to the effect of, “Nahh, you might actually beat me,” and I’m pretty sure he meant
it. He would never for a second dare risk being shown up by his progeny.
I think that I was probably the closest of his grandchildren, even before I lived with him for a while, and my
guess is that the longest we had ever spoken to each other was about thirty seconds. I would say, “Hi, Papa Bob”
and he would grumble something scary back.
In the first twenty years of my life he had said something nice to me exactly once. He had taken me golfing with
another guy and his grandson. I lost my half of the foursome, but on the way home my grandfather assured me
that as far as he was concerned I had most likely won. “You beat that kid. They were cheating the entire time.”
He was very proud to have grandchildren; he just had no interest in talking to any of us. He was usually good for
a thirty-second inquiry into your life, which would eventually utterly convince him that you were completely out
of your mind. “He wants to get a tattoo? Aww, he’s crazy.”
He was real handy. I wasn’t. If he could use an old coffee pot as the fourth leg of a broken chair, he would spend
the rest of the day in nirvana. They never charged me rent to live with them, but being around meant I was often
called on to “Help.” Of course, I was never very much help. “Why am I missing all my favorite TV shows to
save four dollars on a new Dixie cup rack?”
Once he was fixing a sprinkler head and he asked me to dig a hole. He watched me for like thirty seconds, after
which he erupted. “Who in the world ever taught you to dig a goddamn hole?”
“Hey please don’t kill me. I was the kid in the glasses who got the good grades, remember?”
He was an electrician. Every once in a while he would rewire the lights. He could barely see and his hands
shook. Every thirty seconds or so he would shock himself, which meant sparks and one of his patented loud
“Crap”s. I was scared to death just watching him. My dad and uncle were electricians too, so the fact that I
barely knew enough to use a three prong adapter probably couldn’t have done much to help him tolerate my
household usefulness. “Not that screwdriver – the Phillips head goddamn it.”
I drove his car for a while. One day at about noon. I backed his side view mirror into the side of his garage. I’m
guessing I did about two hundred dollars of very noticeable damage. Hey, I can afford two hundred dollars. Why
should he care if I pay for it? Nonsense, I was scared to death. I went to an auto body shop and told them that I
would gladly pay them anything if they could somehow fix the thing before I had to go home and face his wrath.
When that desperate plea went unanswered, I had to fess up and face the music. Eventually, I had to listen to him
berate me for about two hours as I “helped” him prop the wounded mirror back into shape. After that he never
mentioned it again. Sure he was pissed about the accident, but eventually we had succeeded in avoiding paying
to have it fixed, which had to warm his heart.
I used to eat dinner with him and my grandmother. He would flat out scream at her if there wasn’t salt on the
table. I used to flinch at the way he would thunder at her, which amused her because she barely paid him the
slightest bit of attention. That’s just the way he was, she would say.
Once he fixed a bathroom scale and left it on the kitchen counter. She nagged him for like three days about
moving the damn thing. “I don’t want this scale up on my counter!” “Why, can’t you weigh yourself up there?”
He would bark back.
Another time I was upstairs asleep when I heard him growling my name. “Let me know if Brad comes down
here,” he bellowed. Figuring that I had done something wrong, I decided to get up, go downstairs, find out what
I had done this time, and get the berating over with. Only this time, as it turned out, he was replacing a light bulb
naked and had merely asked my grandmother to stand guard and keep me out of the kitchen.
My grandmother was huge into family gossip. She knew everything about everybody. It looked pretty apparent
that my grandfather barely knew anybody’s name, let alone their life stories, but after being around him I
realized that he knew everything about everybody. I’m still not sure if he was really interested or whether he had
no choice but to listen as my grandmother filled him in every night.
They never stopped sharing the same bed together, but they did each have their own bedroom television sets,
which they would watch simultaneously.
My grandfather spent a lot of time in the hospital towards the end of his life, but he was usually far too ornery
too die.
Once my aunt visited, and he went on for hours about how beautiful the falling snowflakes were. We were
convinced he was going to die for sure. Thankfully, a couple of days later they were watching Jenny Jones or
something. My aunt commented on the banality of the guest and he erupted with the classic, “How do you know
she didn’t talk to Jesus!” After that we would thankfully put up with the hollering, and forever hope that we’d
never see him pondering the beauty of snowflakes again.
“How’s he doing? He isn’t talking about snowflakes is he?”
Two days before he died he could barely speak, but it didn’t stop him from beaming over the fact that one of his
stocks was up two bucks and change. “Ahh, Sepricore!” I used to call him just about every day during the last
four or five years of his life. Sometimes we would even talk about something. The Cleveland Indians, why he
had lost interest in the “Rockford Files”, stock dividends. For the most part, I was just checking to see that he
was still there, and we’d mourn the fact that his age had left him pretty much bored out of his mind. Most of the
time I was just checking to make sure that the world as I knew it still existed, despite the rigors and forces of
time.
Choo Choo Ch-Boogie – Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan invented Chuck Berry, and if Chuck is in a reasonable
mood he’ll admit it. I was in San Francisco during the whole swing
revival, the one that finally peaked with that Gap commercial. They
called it swing, but it was really more of a jump blues thing and you
could expect at least five or six Jordan songs a night. My favorite band
at the time was Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums. They had a
wonderful singer guitarist named Carmen Getit, who was a dead ringer
for Jenna Elfman.
Girls were yours for the taking if you could Lindy Hop. This was quite
an incentive for me, but despite lessons I could never really get it down.
Here’s the problem. You need practice - lots of practice, and with a
partner. Now girls who could dance obviously preferred dancing with
guys who could dance. Girls who couldn’t dance were ok because if you had a penis and could dance you were
obviously willing to teach. I just sort of sat around and watched the mating ritual.
Chapter 8: Too Crazy Beautiful for Words
I’m Through with Love – Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe sings a chillingly heartbroken version of this song in Some Like it Hot in something remotely
approximating a dress that really needs to be seen on a big screen to be believed and for that matter properly
enjoyed.
Marilyn Monroe was the Christ of the dumb blondes. Now there was an intriguing woman. There have been
more books written about Marilyn Monroe than Leonardo da Vinci. I haven't done the actual count but I'd bet
my life on it. My fascination with her is the sadness. To me Marilyn Monroe and Billie Holiday are the all time
champs of the sadness genre with some small points to Julie London who caught the mood for a few minutes
every time she sang Cry Me a River. Certainly Marilyn Monroe wasn't the singer Billie Holiday was but she
does get tons of points from me for her version of I'm Through with Love. Don't let the fact that you heard Carol
Channing sing Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend eight million times make you forget that she was a really good
singer.
My theory is that she was killed by the creators of the dumb blonde cliché. She was unfortunate enough to be
just bright enough to know how stupid she was, which made her ultra
vulnerable. Frank Sinatra, Robert Kennedy and John F Kennedy, they
all slept with her but probably secretly hated her for the fact that she
wasn't on their level and yet they wanted her anyway. She was the
number one film star in the world and someone talked her into the
nonsense of high art and honing a craft. Someone should have let her
enjoy herself.
For some reason though the depth of her sadness makes her character
in Some like It Hot endlessly fascinating. She's almost a real life
version of Dorothy Comingore's Susan Alexander in Citizen Kane.
Semi-talented beautiful dim blonde catches the eye of a rich intellect
with a huge ego, who is embarrassed by his attraction to her so he
tries to transform her into something respectable and in turn crushes
her spirit. I find that character extremely engrossing. Her marriage to
Arthur Miller has always seemed to me like a heroically optimistic
deed. Someone should have let her know that being smart isn't really
all it's cracked up to be. On the one hand it's pretty cool that she tried
to study with Stasberg and the Methods, but I'm guessing that no one
was going to ever let her do a Charlize Theron type thing in a major
movie. With all her insecurities you just wish that someone had been
around to say to her - you're a magnificent light musical comedienne, and that's nothing to be ashamed of.
Joe DiMaggio wasn't the best guy in the world, but when I read about how bad Frank Sinatra treated her,
basically pimping her out to his friends. I sure wish he'd have kicked Frank's ass. The odd thing is that given
DiMaggio's stature in the Italian community, he might have been the only guy alive that could have gotten away
with it.
It's too bad no one ever gave her enough credit for her character in Gentleman Prefer Blondes. Her Loralei Lee is
a dumb blonde who is actually a pretty smart blonde, who understands what her looks can get for her, intends to
enjoy it, and is willing to let people think whatever they want to think about her. You know Madonna had to
have seen that movie a thousand times, and she is all the better off for it. Oddly enough that character was better
portrayed on the screen by Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Sharon Stone is of course a very pretty blonde who is
smart enough to hate the fact that the thing she is most famous for is uncrossing her legs during that famous
interrogation sequence. The tragic cycle never ends. Sometimes I feel sorry for these women, but usually the
feeling passes. It's too bad Katherine Hepburn wasn't a blonde they could have used her.
Another Pale Sequel – Anna Nicole Smith vs. Lady Di
I mean they both basically married a rich old guy they didn't really love. One was a little better in
public although not necessarily more entertaining. I'm sure if Anna had eventually gotten her
money she would have been against land mines, you know if someone had perhaps explained
what they were to her.
Elton John probably won't be writing an Anna Nicole song, but I can see something by Motley Crue
or Velvet Revolver.
Nevertheless, spare me the Marilyn comparisons. Marilyn was 1000 times hotter and had talent.
Comparing the two is like comparing Jimmy Cagney to Dustin Diamond.
East of Eden
“Hope I die before I get old”
There is something wonderfully basic about the James Dean legacy. He really only made three films. All of them
were arguably excellent and his performances in each are without a doubt brilliant and fiery. He died young so
he never ages except in the closing moments of Giant. Every character he played had solid American one
syllable names Cal Trask, Jim Stark, and Jett Rink. He was usually garbed in the eternally cool combination of
blue jeans and a plain white shirt so he never seems dated or out of touch. The camera loved him and despite the
brevity of his career there seems to be as many still photos of him around as there are of Madonna. I've met
people who idolized the guy enough to litter their apartments with his likeness who had never even seen one of
his films. Even his death at the wheel of a Porsche Spider is suitably romantic and edgy.
"East of Eden" was the only film that came out while Dean was alive and it remains his best film and most
electric performance. In Rebel Without a Cause, he was a little confused and his Dad was sympathetically
ineffectual, here he is convinced that he was born a bad seed and his Dad is a bible thumping taskmaster unable
to show his desperate to please son any sort of sympathy or love.
Based on the John Steinbeck novel, East of Eden recasts the Cain and Abel story in Salinas, California. Richard
Davalos is the high minded good egg Aron. Both Aron and Dean have been led to believe that their Mother is
dead, and Aron especially is convinced that she was some kind of saintly presence in her time on Earth.
Meanwhile, ultra religious Dad (Raymond Massey) is desperately wasting all of his money trying to refrigerate
lettuce for long train rides.
Dean isn't just a little confused here he is downright tormented and you can see it in his twisted gnarled and
tightly conflicted body language. He leans, slouches, and alternates his speech between resigned mumbles of
annoyance and rifle shot explosions of occasional anger. Dean's Cal is desperate for his father's love and
approval and the fact that he doesn't have it makes him angry as a bear. In essence, he perfectly reflected the
discomforting truth of the modern American teenager. They've been trying to interpret the modern teen ever
since and no one has ever come close to his accuracy or his cool, and God knows every self respecting, self
reflecting want to be hip person has spent every second of their lives trying. There was a reason that Elvis
Presley memorized every one of his lines in every one of his movies.
It helps that he acts his ass off here, but
the fact that he is achingly beautiful
doesn't hurt either. Never in the history of
movies was a film so absolutely
enraptured by its subject than East of Eden
is with Dean. The camera desperately
records his every twist and turn of emotion
as if preserving it were of the utmost
importance. As much as Dean's Cal wants
his fathers love, Elia Kazan seems to be
equally fascinated and in love with every
one of Dean's movements.
Just about every scene Dean has with
Raymond Massey here is unbelievable.
The fact that Massey disliked Dean in real
life apparently helped things along. Early
in the movie Massey sits across a long
table from Dean. The close ups are always
slanted to show Dean on the bottom and Massey at the top. Massey tells Dean to read a list from the bible. Dean
reads it back hostilely. Massey instructs him to leave out the numbers, but Dean growing angrier by the second
would rather be struck dead on the spot than give in. All of Dean's characters are pretty easy to tick off. In Rebel,
he would have played Russian Roulette with six bullets if you ever dared to call him chicken to try it. Dean's Cal
has discovered that his mother is still alive, and that his father has covered up the fact that she left him all of his
life. When he discovers that she is a well heeled hard bitten Madame up in Monterey, he becomes convinced that
Aron inherited the good biblical nature from his father and that he got all the bad from his mother.
Again Dean is left twisted and tormented in agony. The fact that Aron has his father's love makes him want to
hate his brother, but years and years of being told that Aron was the second coming have convinced him that it is
true. Ice Cube's relationship with Morris Chestnut in Boyz 'N' the Hood is exactly parallel. Both have been
conditioned to believe that the other brother's life was so much more important than their own.
Julie Harris' Abra is the perfect portrait of the modern American young woman. She is Aron's girlfriend, and
Dean scares her to death. Of course this just makes her want him all the more. Her brain tells her to be with
Aron, but every other part of her is fascinated by Dean's walk on the wild side. This movie came out around the
same time Leo Durocher said "Nice Guys Finish Last" and East of Eden is documented proof.
Dean's Cal has his strong sides. He works like a mule to help his fathers lettuce nonsense succeed and when it
fails concocts a bean investing scheme to make back the money the previous episode burned up. His hopes of
providing his father with this birthday present get trumped by Aron's engagement announcement, and then to top
it off his father finds a way to disapprove of how he made the money. When Massey refuses the money from
Dean, Dean breaks down and tries to hug his father. Massey recoils from him and Dean's subsequent devastation
is probably the most painfully electric acting I've ever seen. It's just seconds later that he comes out from under
the darkness of a willow tree to embrace the bad side and share some pain with his brother. Something like this
is probably why Anakin joined the dark side.
Then again – Revenge of the Sith came out and it turned out to be something much less compelling.
Rebel Without a Cause
"You're tearing me apart!"
There ought to be some sort of law that states something to the effect of the following. If you have a role in a
dramatic movie deemed to be a classic, you shouldn't be allowed to then go ahead and typecast yourself in a silly
sit-com. It kind of ruins things when you watch James Dean, the most dramatic of even the method actors, emote
his heart out opposite Mr. Howell and the Chief from Get Smart. Dean was so out on a wire here that they often
had to put swelling dramatic music over his scenes to discourage people from laughing. It can't help things when
half of those scenes are opposite Mr. Magoo.
"Rebel Without a Cause" has such beautiful color photography that it seems almost impossible to conceive of the
fact that they initially started filming it in black and white. Dean is every bit as tormented here as he was in "East
of Eden," but it's more of an existential torment this time. He's filled with rage and he's not quite sure why. Dean,
as well as every other kid in this movie, again has huge problems with his father (Jim Backus), but this time he
hates his father's mild mannered best intentioned weakness as a man. Dean is so disgusted by his Dad's
ineffectuality that he refuses to back down to anybody for any reason. Check out how enraged he gets when Dad
tries to give him important life advice while traipsing around in Mom's apron.
"East of Eden" is definitely the stronger movie, but this performance is likely to be the one that tugged and
forever defined the unexplainable angst of youth. The opening scene alone is probably the most heart rending bit
of self pity ever filmed with Dean picturesquely drunk in the streets lovingly making a bed out of newspaper for
one of those cymbal crashing toy monkeys. Personally, I'd kill to look that good for even a second. Mickey
Rourke has probably even tried. Dean is also a hoot in the police station giggling when he is frisked, howling
along drunkenly with the police sirens, and affecting mock fighting poses at the passing cops.
Of course, it never hurts to look bad ass
as hell in jeans and a red jacket and to
participate in knife fights and chicken
runs. Unfortunately, for Jim Stark (Dean)
he makes it about three quarters of the
way through his hazing as the new kid.
Had Buzz Gunderson (Corey Allen)
made it out of the chicken run alive, they
probably would have gone on to be best
friends and terrorize greater Los Angeles
together. Instead Dean winds up with
Dennis Hopper and a bunch of other
goons trying to hunt him down. I have always found Buzz to be a great icon. He understands the ennui of the age
and he shows Dean how effective it is to die young. Seconds before he goes off the cliff in a stolen car, Buzz
tells Jim he likes him. Dean wonders why if that's the case are they risking their lives with the chicken run. "We
gotta do something," he answers. Jim winds up looking cool as he spirals out of his car. Buzz gets a great view
on the way down.
People like to say that Dean was nothing but a Marlon Brando imitation, but Marlon never looked this young,
this perfect, and his attempt at rebellion in "The Wild One" comes in a movie that has always seemed to me to be
almost as silly and dated as "Reefer Madness" even with that great line where he is asked what he's rebelling
against and he responds with "What have you got?"
Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood also grasp at Dean as a substitute father figure. Had Mineo's Plato survived this
movie, I'm sure he would have ended up as some kind of serial killer somewhere. He probably would have made
a great Lee Harvey Oswald. He first meets Jim at the police station after blowing away a bunch of innocent
puppies. As for Wood, she's desperate for a little fatherly affection and will do anything to get it. I would say it
all seems a little silly but that's how Charlie Manson got all his women and he lived just outside of Los Angeles
too. Nevertheless, if you look hard enough you'll see how the movie puts all the blame on science. If it weren't
for science, we wouldn't know how insignificant we all were in an infinite universe, we wouldn't be able to blow
ourselves to pieces with atomic weaponry. Marvel Comics had the same concerns, but in that world everyone got
super powers so they could keep up. In the end, Dean searches for a reason to be moral anyway.
Cool Hand Luke
“That’s the sound of the men they’re working on the chain gang.”
Three performances stand as the purest defined enduring epitome of cool and they are all in trouble with the law
in their first five minutes. James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock, and Paul
Newman in Cool Hand Luke, but I'm not so sure I wouldn't put Newman for that one slice of time eternal on top
of them all. Newman even manages to look unbelievably cool lying flat on his back shoveling beans into his
mouth.
It's eerie because it seems pretty clear that Dean would have wound up starring in Cool Hand Luke had he
managed to survive his twenties. Jo Van Fleet played his mother in East of Eden just as she plays Luke's here.
Richard Davalos his brother in Eden is here, as is Dennis Hopper from Rebel. At least I think Hopper is. I've
watched both numerous times and have yet to figure out which juvenile delinquent or convict he might be.
You can make an argument that this indeed is the real Rebel
Without a Cause. The title actually fits Cool Hand Luke better.
Rebel opens in brilliant Technicolor on a drunken James Dean
laughing in the street. Luke opens just as textured and colorfully
burned into the film with Newman just as worse for the wear cutting
down parking meters for no perceptible reason other than boredom
or perhaps a little dissatisfaction with the world and his life. Dean
risked his neck not to be called chicken. Newman tosses of his life
away like he has a general disregard for the concept, and he does it
with a cocksure mischievous grin on his face. It's interesting to
think what Dean would do with Luke, but it's almost inconceivable
to think he could have done anything better.
Cool Hand Luke is a prison flick. There's nothing better for a robust
existential drama than a prison flick. Wondering what it's all for
when your days are spent either working to exhaustion, trying to pass the off time, possibly even some time in
the box. If you're really lucky you might even get a Jesus parable, crucifixion poses will be made, and there's
enough time for the hottest girl washing a car all wet and sudsy scene until Denise Richards ventured in from
Wild Things.
Newman's Luke is a loser, but he has an indefatigable will. George Kennedy beats him to an inch of his life and
he simply tells him matter of factly that he will have to literally kill him to keep him down, and you know a fight
is ugly when prisoners want it stopped to save the new guy.
Lucas Jackson apparently was a war hero, won the silver and bronze star, went in a private came out a private. "I
was just doing time", he says. He's his mother's favorite even after he fouls up his life. She passes in to tell him
she'll be dead by the time he gets out and she doesn't care what he does when she's gone, and yet you can tell she
adores every look she can get of his beauty and will. "We always thought you'd be strong enough to carry us,"
she says "Was we wrong?" "I don't know," he says "things aren't always what they seem ... You know that a man
has got to go his own way." That's as directly knowable as Newman gets. Was it a girl, the war, just life, we can
only guess.
Luke starts performing his miracles and the entire camp starts feeding on his will, his inability to be beat, and
therefore they needed to break him, and you know they will. Strother Martin does. "What we've got here is
failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach, so you get what we had here last week which is the way
he wants it. Well, he gets it. And I don't like it any more than you men."
Luke survives his first day, he eats fifty eggs, and plays it like a hustle the whole way, he wins mythical poker
hands, and pretty soon he's got the men racing to out hustle the man, furiously trying to outlast the day tarring a
road in the sun. They have to break him.
He gets angry with God. "Dying? Boy, he can have this little life any time he wants to. Do ya hear that? Are ya
hearin' it? Come on. You're welcome to it, old timer. Let me know you're up there. Come on. Love me, hate me,
kill me, anything. Just let me know it. ..I'm just standin' in the rain talkin' to myself." And then again a moment
later his mother is dead.
He gets put in the box so he won't run to the funeral. "Calling it your job don't make it right Boss." So he runs
just to be ornery. He runs a hound to death. They catch him, bring him back and chain him. He runs again and
sends the prisoners a picture of him in a bar with two babes. His legend grows, but eventually they track him
down, and beat him just enough so he can live to return. He tries to expose himself, but no one will believe it
could be true. It seems like the world is leaning on him. He begins to despise their worship. "Oh come on! Stop
beating it! Get out there yourself. Stop feeding off me. Get out of here. I can't breathe. Give me some air."
They work him to death but he refuses to budge. "That ditch is Boss Kean's ditch. And I told him that dirt in it's
your dirt. What's your dirt doing in his ditch?" They make him dig his own grave while his minions watch. He
breaks. He accepts their God. "You got your mind right Luke?" His disciples turn on him. "Where are you now?"
he yells out enraged. He looks like he might be playing ball, when he takes off with the camp's truck. He knows
he's beat, but they'll have to kill him. He goes out with the same cock-eyed grin he came in with. The legend can
only build in its retelling.
An amazing accomplishment by Newman as the best fight man has left in him.
Chapter 9: The Horrors of Dying Young
Always – Ella Fitzgerald
Always – Frank Sinatra
Always – Patsy Cline
I’m extremely in love with Theresa Wright in Pride of the Yankees. This is her and Lou Gehrig’s song.
Pride of the Yankees
Poor Babe Ruth. He was desperately and passionately hopeful that his life story would be made into a Grade-A
classic like "Pride of the Yankees," and in return he was rewarded with "The Babe Ruth Story," starring the
incredibly un-athletic and clown-like William Bendix, in perhaps the closest thing to an Ed Wood sports movie
ever made by a major studio. Even 1992's "The Babe" stuck him with the gargantuan and tremendously
overweight John Goodman, who barely looked capable of running to first base without suffering from severe
heart failure. Ruth was a big man, but he was never that big. See for yourself. The Babe appears larger than life
portraying his legend as joyfully as only he could in this pæan to teammate Lou Gehrig. If I have any criticism of
"Pride of the Yankees," it's in the way it builds up Gehrig as the soft spoken intelligent alternative to the loud,
raucous, and hard living Ruth.
One of the great legends of Babe Ruth was how he visited a bed ridden young man and promised to hit a home
run for him in that day's game. The Babe of course delivered on that promise. That scene is in "Pride of the
Yankees," but according to the film, after Ruth and the photographers left the hospital room, the shy and saintly
Gehrig promised the boy two home runs if he would just promise to get better. I'm pretty sure this last bit of
embellishment is pure fantasy. Besides, Lou Gehrig was impressive enough to stand on his own.
"The Pride of the Yankees" isn't really a dyed-in-the-wool baseball movie, but it is a wonderful romance and
heartfelt weeper. Then again, how could it fail? It's a great and true story, penned by the guy who wrote "Citizen
Kane," starring Gary Cooper. Odds are Herman J. Mankiewicz and Gary Cooper could have even turned my life
into something worth poring over.
Henry Louis Gehrig was born the son of immigrant German parents, which made him an unlikely hero for a
movie made during and dedicated to the men off fighting World War II. A little bit of a mama's boy, the young
Gehrig promises to follow in the footsteps of his Uncle Otto and become an engineer, despite his prodigious
baseball and football talents. When mom falls ill, Lou tells his layabout Dad to pretend he has a job and heads
off for the minor leagues. The film has great fun with the elder Gehrigs complete lack of knowledge or respect
for the baseball world. In the early days of the game, players weren't the high priced heroes of today. According
to Mom, "Baseballers are good for nothing. Loafers in short pants!"
Gehrig is soon called up to the Yankees but can't seem to make his way off the pines until Wally Pipp sits out a
game with the most famous headache in the history of modern civilization. Gehrig would proceed to play in over
2,000 consecutive games, and Pipp would never really be heard of again. For the record, all of the baseball
scenes in the movie were shot in reverse so the right handed Cooper could plausibly resemble the left handed
Gehrig.
When rookie Lou finally enters his first game, he trips over a row of baseball bats and is branded "Tanglefoot"
by the adorable socialite Eleanor Twitchell, played by the beautiful and spunky Teresa Wright...while this is
most likely yet another tall tale, all reports seem to agree that Lou and Eleanor had one of the most loving and
supportive relationships in the history of the American League. The confident and pretty Eleanor is completely
taken with the shy and forthright Gehrig (who could resist a guy who wears a tuxedo to a carnival?) and their
growing love affair is one of the gentlest and most romantic in the history of film.
Sadly, they don't name diseases after heroes with happy endings, but Cooper shows Gehrig coping with his
ailment in the manliest of fashions, fruitlessly trying to keep the true nature of his illness from his loving wife,
and in the end delivering the most wonderful speech that ever echoed across a ball yard. Rent it with "Brian's
Song" and have yourself a great cathartic cry. Now if only the same could be done for the delightful and
deserving Ruth.
Brian’s Song
There seems to be nothing girls like more than really sappy depressing
movies where someone's true love dies at the end of some tragic disease. I've
never seen "Love Story" before, but I did sit through all of the extremely
painful "Terms of Endearment" and it has to be the worst movie I have ever
seen. I suppose there's got to be something about a man that doesn't want to
let him show off his emotional core in front of other people no matter how
cathartic it might be. Of course, the exception to the rule is "Brian's Song".
Perhaps it's because it's all about football and camaraderie, and planning one's comeback well after it becomes
obvious that you've played your last down, but "Brian's Song" can melt the hearts of the coldest, most
emotionally stunted men in the universe, leaving them sobbing in delicate, weeping hordes of sadness. It's the
"Old Yeller" of adult males, and no real man will ever fault another for getting a bit misty in it's presence. Men
have been known to emotionally break down at the merest presence of it's simple solemn theme music.
"Brian's Song" is the story of two football players Brian Piccolo (James Caan) and Gale Sayers (Billy Dee
Williams). These were the '70s, so of course it was Billy Dee Williams' job to play every significant Black role
put to film. Now that's Denzel Washington's job. Both Piccolo and Sayers were drafted in the same year by the
Chicago Bears. Sayers was Black, almost painfully soft-spoken, and headed straight for the Hall of Fame.
Piccolo, on the other hand, was one of those fast-talking, joke-cracking, slow White guys with more heart than
he knew what to do with and lucky as hell to make the team as Sayers' backup. They became the first interracial
roommates in the history of the Chicago Bears and good friends. When Sayers' blows his knee out in a preseason
game before their second season together, Piccolo inherits Sayers’ job, but is intent and determined to help his
friend and rival rehabilitate the knee back to one hundred percent so he can beat him out for the job honorably.
For a brief moment of glory, they get to be in the same backfield together, but Piccolo starts to break down and
is eventually diagnosed with cancer.
It's hardly a fair fight.
"Brian's Song" draws you in with the friendship of two utterly likeable guys and then sucker punches you with
the less talented one's inevitable though brave demise. The fact that it's all true only better serves it in its goal of
reducing even the best of our ranks into a wailing slobbering likeness of Richard Simmons, and yet somehow
we're all the better because of it. Many movies have tried to knock off their main character and get under your
tear ducts: "Pride of the Yankees," "Knute Rockne: All American," "Bang the Drum Slowly". But none ever hit
home the way this one does. By the end, everyone is so sad that you can barely understand a word of dialogue,
but it remains the best example of the most different of men competing fairly and getting along peacefully ever
filmed. Too bad someone had to die to get it on screen.
Terms of Endearment
Ok, just for laughs
Garret Breedlove: You need a lot of drinks.
Aurora Greenway: To break the ice?
Garret Breedlove: To kill the bug you have up your ass!
Somewhere along the way a consensus seems to have dubbed Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space with the title
"worst movie of all time", but is it? Certainly, it may be the least technically proficient movie, the poorest
conceived movie, even the most incompetently executed, but is it really the worst movie of all time? It can't be.
People love going to see that movie so much they even went to see Tim Burton's version of Ed Wood Behind the
Music. Plan 9 From Outer Space has inspired more joy to the world than the Partridge Family and the Brady
Bunch combined. The world's worst movie should be the one that was so painful to watch that it eventually so
sapped the energy from your body that you couldn't even muster the strength to leave the theater. It's the 2-4
hours of your life that you would give anything not to have wasted. It's the subject of your nightmares. The one
experience that forever after blackened your rosy outlook on life.
For me that movie is "Terms of Endearment." I left my car's lights on once during ET: The Extraterrestrial and
had to call my father at 12:30 in the morning to drive 45 minutes into the snows of an Ohioan winter to give me
a jump start. That to me was a better experience than sitting through all two hours and twelve minutes of this
mind numbingly awful mother-daughter gabfest.
Sure it won lots of Oscars. It won best picture. I don't care. I still truly believe I would rather see Yentl three
times in a row than venture anywhere near to another showing of Terms of Endearment. Terms of Endearment is
so bad that Jack Nicholson won an Oscar for best supporting actor, deserved the award, is generally very
entertaining here as essentially Jack Nicholson if he were an astronaut ("There are 106 astronauts in the whole
fucking world and I'm one of them!"), and yet the movie still made me want to gouge both of my eyes out with
an ice pick. So please spare me how brilliant you think Taxi and Broadcast News were, because James L. Brooks
needs to be punished for this movie. If I had been in a Cambodian Prison camp for twenty years and they offered
me either brutal torture or another chance to see this movie ... well you get the idea.
"Terms of Endearment" is a series of glances into the soap opera life of Shirley MacLaine's infinitely annoying
widow, Aurora Greenway. Every couple of years we get to see that she is still an uptight bitch. Let me set the
world straight on this. If you play a character who is supposed to be irritating really well, it is not an example of
exceptional acting, it is merely irritating! Shirley didn't deserve to be named best actress for this she needed to be
slapped once for every life she has ever claimed to have lived.
Debra Winger is her daughter Emma. She digs show tunes. She gets stoned listening to Ethel Merman. Shirley is
the most overprotective, controlling, micro managing harpy of a mother in the annals of cinema, literature, and
comic books. Her glare could kill Nazis like the Ark of the Covenant. George S. Patton would find her stiff. She
should be out hunting down terminators not having garden parties.
Aurora likes to collect goofy suitors, but never puts out to any of them. She apparently just likes having people
around to worship her. Danny Devito is one of them, but since Jack is in the movie he acts as retarded as he did
when he played Martini in One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest. Where oh where is Louis DePalma when this
movie seems to meander its way into its 12th hour?
The night before Emma's wedding mom tells her the following. "If you marry Flap Horton tomorrow, it will be a
mistake of such gigantic proportions it will ruin your life and make wretched your destiny." Mom skips the
wedding, but for some reason she starts calling her daughter daily every fifteen minutes between 7AM and
11PM. When the line is busy she has the operator cut in as if it were an emergency when basically it's all about
how one of her prized house plants has died or something similarly banal.
To her credit she is right about Flap (Jeff Daniels), but come on his name is Flap. You don't need to be a rocket
scientist to know not to marry a guy named Flap. Flap is a big dull boring English professor type who moves
Emma to Iowa, keeps her popping out kids and doesn't make any money. He's eventually so boring and
unavailable that Emma starts sleeping with the only guy in town less interesting than Flap. John Lithgow's Iowa
banker Sam Burns is so lame he practically even has a doctor's note of permission to cheat on his frigid wife.
Every time Emma is about to pop out another kid Aurora gets pissed off. At one point she suggests a cheap
illegal abortion. Her grandson calls her Mrs. Greenway. Isn't that special?
To Emma's credit, she is a pretty bad Mom herself. You would be a bad Mom too if you had three whiny kids, a
husband named Flap and had to live in Iowa. Believe me I get it. I just don't understand why I should have to
watch it.
For a while Shirley looks as if she is about to loosen up. Screwing Jack Nicholson will do that for you. Of
course, the second she admits she is crazy about him, party boy Jack dumps her. This doesn't do much for
anyone's enjoyment of the movie. I'd compare it to Bambi's mom dying. It's a real drag to see him go. Oddly
enough this movie reminds me a lot of the film Giant. It's a too long movie about the oh so long lives of a boring
Texas family. If you took Terms of Endearment without the Jack Nicholson scenes and spliced it together with
Giant minus the James Dean sequences, I'm pretty sure that you would have four hours of footage that could
easily kill household pests and other assorted vermin.
Eventually it looks like Emma is about to leave Flap and run back to Mom, which you know is what Shirley
always wanted. Mom is all about controlling every aspect of her daughter's life, which is perfect because Emma
is just about dying for Mom's approval. So much so in fact that she gets a couple of malignant tumors and starts
to expire oh so slowly to the sound of the awful Vangelis light score. Wow what a drag. If Jack was going to die,
I could maybe shed a few tears, but frankly I wouldn't be too upset if Shirley, Jeff Daniels, John Lithgow and all
three grouchy unloved kids sprouted a couple of Cancerous tumors. It's a lot like Titanic if the whole boat was
filled with hundreds of Billy Zanes.
At least in Old Yeller things move swiftly. We see some foam in the old boy's mouth and it's off to get the
shotgun. Here they have to march in the childhood friend, the kids, the unfaithful husband. Nurses get yelled at.
Speeches are made. Tears are shed. Personally, I'm about as sad to see her drop off as the munchkins were when
that house fell on the Wicked Witch of the East.
Did Debra Winger didn't really get Cancer or did Shirley MacLaine merely hound her to death with her
numerous and endlessly painful array of interfering shrieking phone calls? As the movie ends Aurora holds her
grand daughter and thinks. Ah ... another young girl for me to make miserable. I think that movie was called the
Evening Star but to tell you the truth I'd sooner watch Barbara Bush do a seductive strip tease. There's no doubt
in my mind that there is more art to be found in a week's worth of General Hospital re-runs.
Chapter 10: Will Someone Please Say Something Funny?
How to Relax your Colored Friends at Parties – Lenny Bruce
Here’s one of my big personal issues. Somewhere along the way, maybe when I was a kid reading about how
history was a function of great men, I bought into the chic of martyrdom. I’d rather be John Lennon, dead and
gone, than Paul McCartney, happy and thriving. The notion that being remembered when you’ve been consigned
to the rotting dust of the after life is somehow more important than enjoying your brief time on the planet. It’s
kind of sick in a way. Shouldn’t I want to be Jerry Seinfeld, universally loved, polishing my 400 Porsches and
prattling on and on about breakfast cereal, than a tormented, heroin addicted, ghost persecuted by mankind?
People will tell you that the men in charge didn’t understand Lenny Bruce, but in truth, the real problem was that
they tore him down, because they understood exactly what he was saying. It was much more about business as
usual than how upset they were that people could hear a man say the word cocksucker in public.
It’s pretty universally acknowledged that Bruce isn’t well represented by his existing recordings, but his
autobiography How to Talk Dirty and Influence People is brilliant. Its only flaw is that given Bruce’s love and
constant demand for the truth, the dictates of those who wanted to see him rot in a cell forced him to lie about his
drug use.
First of all reading the book should end all debates about whether politics aside the guy was funny or not.
Anyone warped enough to stake out a rectory in order to steal priest garments so he could solicit money and sex
from bored housewives as a compassionate man of the cloth is in my mind one hilarious motherfucker.
Politically, he was just absolutely correct about how the rich used race and religion to keep the unwashed in line.
Most of all though, he understood the power of words and not just the ones that were supposedly profane. Words
are perhaps man’s greatest invention, but Bruce understood that words could be perverted. It’s what’s in a man’s
heart that matters and words are just our best available option when we try to convey to others who we are and
what we’re about.
The saddest thing about Bruce to me isn’t the loss of his lifestyle and career or even his cold naked dead body on
the bathroom floor, but the sense of pain he felt in court having to listen to humorless drones recite his precious
words to a jury of his supposed peers. Time and again he begged that if they were going to judge him for his
ideas that at least he be allowed to present them just as he had before policeman after policeman hauled him
away in cuffs. Personally, I can’t blame the system for refusing to allow his simple sane request. When you are
out to railroad someone for telling the hard truth the last thing you want to do is risk letting people understand
his message.
He's a Rebel – The Crystals
Policeman after a gun toting Phil Spector wouldn't let Michelle Phillips leave his mansion: Mr. Spector, we
have warned you about this over and over again.
Usually when a celebrity is accused of a crime, for some reason the first thing I think is that they couldn't have
done it. When I heard about Phil Spector's night with Lana Clarkson, I immediately thought, well he finally did
it. I'm sure he's no more guilty than Robert Blake or O.J. Simpson, but you have to feel sorry for a defense
lawyer who has to deal with a client who has been photographed with more guns than all the Compton rappers
combined. John Lennon, The Ramones, Leonard Cohen, who didn't Phil Spector point a gun at over the last forty
years?
Frankly, though, what honest defense lawyer could present this case with a straight face. That giant Einstein
toupee that he wore to court should have been enough to convince anyone that the guy isn't mentally well. I don't
care how many celebrities Los Angeles lets get away with murder, mental illness and guns don't go together. It
had to be the least surprising murder of all time. I'm not sure what lawyers are allowed to tell a jury, but there
has to be at least a hundred different times that the lonely Spector invited someone over to his mansion and
pulled a gun on them when after six or seven hours they begged to leave.
I always laugh when I think of Ron Silver as Alan Dershowitz in Reversal of Fortune proclaiming that he would
never take a case unless it had an important legal impact. Obviously, in the Simpson case the important legal
impact was getting on television and making some extra cash. At one point Leslie Abramson the only person
alive who finds the Menendez brother cuddly, said she had to help out Spector because he was “an idol and the
definition of cool.” If only poor Charlie Manson were a little more talented, he might have gotten better legal
representation.
My guess is that any number of filmmakers could take on Spector's life and the end results would run the gamut
from Horse Feathers all the way to Raging Bull, perhaps all in the same film. Hell, one second Phil's making
Johnny Ramone play the opening chord to Rock and Roll High School 1100 times and the next he's threatening
to end Dee Dee. Should we get Mel Brooks or Martin Scorcese?
Nevertheless, Phil worshiped Lenny Bruce took care of him financially in the last stages of his life, tried to keep
the photographs of his death scene out of the press, and paid for his funeral. He helped out Alan Freed when he
was down on his luck. Many times he was about as personable as a man could ever be. What would art be
without mental instability?
The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television – George Carlin
Carlin isn’t like Bruce because he’s profane. He’s like Bruce because he is fascinated with words and enraged at
the way they are used to keep people down. There’s a group of people that wish that George was satisfied with
just being clever. His examination of the slang in baseball and football is funny and very clever. Why can’t
George just stick with the clever jokes? Why has he become so bitter? Frankly, the more bitter he gets the more
he inspires me. It takes guts to go on television and tell people that Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or whatever
your cult of preference is makes as much sense as worshiping trees. Excising the religious from your
demographic isn’t how Jerry Seinfeld got his 704th Porsche. Fuck the bemused comics and bring on the guys
who are angry.
So Baseball versus Football, fun and amusing, but his analysis of how the people in power manipulate our words
to keep us stupid, brilliant and inspiring!
“I don't like words that hide the truth. I don't like words that conceal reality. I don't like euphemisms, or
euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Cause Americans have a lot of
trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth, so they invent the kind of a soft language to
protest themselves from it, and it gets worse with every generation. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse.
I'll give you an example of that. There's a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It's when a fighting
person's nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum. Can't take anymore input. The
nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap. In the First World War, that condition was called shell
shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables, shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That
was seventy years ago. Then a whole generation went by and the Second World War came along and that very
same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn't seem to
hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock! Battle fatigue. Then we had the war in Korea,
1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time, and the very same combat condition was called operational
exhaustion. Hey, were up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the
phrase. It's totally sterile now. Operational exhaustion. Sounds like something that might happen to your car.
Then of course, came the war in Viet Nam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years, and
thanks to the lies and deceits surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was
called post-traumatic stress disorder. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely
buried under jargon. Post-traumatic stress disorder. I'll bet you if we'd of still been calling it shell shock, some of
those Viet Nam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I'll betcha. I'll betcha.”
Actually, though the funniest thing I ever heard Carlin say was on the Tonight Show, and it’s a wonder that he
got away with it at the time. In much the same way that All in the Family could probably never exist in today’s
politically correct world he’d probably be lynched had he said it in front of Jay Leno rather than Johnny Carson.
I’m paraphrasing but basically George talked about how he and Richard Pryor were contemporaries, and how
Richard had a heart attack, and then George had a heart attack. Then Richard had another heart attack, which
George again followed with one of his own. “Then Richard lit himself on fire and I said the hell with that and
had another heart attack!”
Every word Bill Hicks uttered that I can get my grubby little hands on
Bill Hicks: Anyway, I’m having a conversation about democracy and my dad came out with this statement.
“Well the peasants shouldn’t be allowed to vote. That’s how old my dad is he still uses the word peasants… and
then he went on to explain that also includes the poor people of this country, and particularly black poor
families, because they are quote unquote too ignorant to know what’s going on quote unquote. And I wanted to
point out, I said Dad what you are talking about is not America, that’s not democracy. Democracy, I think
Thomas Jefferson had a great quote. He said “the only true repository of the powers of the country should be in
the hands of the people themselves and if we feel they are not intelligent enough or informed enough to enact
their responsibilities with discretion it is not our job to take that power from them but to inform them.” And
that’s the way I feel, and so ironically enough … my dad while he thinks himself a patriot is actually an elitist,
who thinks that the country should be run by a few people mainly corporate interests who do run this country
and not by us which this country was formed under the highest and purest of ideals that we are all created equal
And all men are equal. So ironically I’m the true American and my dad is not … and yet he did not have enough
self awareness to understand that, which why I recommended five dried grams of psilocybin mushrooms.
The man I most wish would have been president of the United States is dead now. He was at one time a drunk
and a heavy drug user. Before he cleaned up my friend, Grant, met him and told him that he was his hero and
how much he had influenced his own stand up career and Hicks said, “Do you have any Cocaine?” We’re all
really a work in progress.
From Bill Hicks: Sane Man a must see on DVD.
Comedy Show Satanic and Offensive
Editor,
My husband and I went to Bill Hicks’ performance expecting comedy. What we got was far from comedy. In two
hours we were quote unquote “entertained” by this comedian who delighted us in his opinion in how smoking is
great and non-smokers are expletive, drinking and drugs are lots of fun and all fine and dandy. The audience
was flipped off by this comedian. This is comedy? Then it got worse. We were given one comedian, his enactment
of two young girls performing oral sex on each other. We were shown how former President Reagan screwed us,
another vulgar sex imitation! We were shown how a rock star should rape a young girl and how it would hurt
her so badly she would yell for her mama. This is comedy? The comedian told us how he doesn’t like porno
unless they show … no I don’t even think the newspaper can print that word. Towards the end of the show the
comedian stated that he wanted us to think that he was the Anti-Christ. My point is we did not know that Comedy
Works dished out two hours of vulgarity. The language alone was enough to make one ill. I would like to inform
anyone thinking about going to Bill Hicks’ performance that this is anything but comedy.
Well, that’s certainly not my opinion. Denis Leary became famous by ripping him off word for word, while the
world ignored him. When he seemed to finally be on the brink of success, his life was taken short by a tragic
illness that left him feverishly trying to spread his gospel with every breath he had left in his body. When he
wanted to he could be the funniest person on the planet, but most of the time he was more interested in drilling
into your head his dark poetry, which was as far as I’m concerned right about everything (except maybe
smoking, but no one has ever been funnier presenting the other side).
On October 1st, 1993, Hicks became the first person censored at the Ed Sullivan Theater since Elvis Presley. Not
for swinging his hips (although it’s true Hicks loved to do Elvis impressions), but for his thoughts. That was the
day David Letterman died for me. Hicks’ had previously done Letterman 11 times. Even though Jay Leno was a
friend of his, he refused to do the Leno show, referring to it as “a cultural train wreck.” As a huge Letterman fan
he too was crushed, he compared it to finding out that there was no Santa Claus. As he said, they kept asking
him on their show, but they wouldn’t let him be himself. Once, they wouldn’t even let him tell a joke about
accidentally blinding a fellow student with a pencil, because apparently that would offend the handicapped. Who
are these people?
His set had been pre-approved, but at the last minute the Letterman show decided they couldn’t risk putting on a
guy talking about abortion, the double standard of hating homosexuals and yet being excited by lesbians, prolifers, and how perhaps Jesus wouldn’t really be excited to see people wearing crosses in his honor, having not
had a particularly good experience with them, himself.
Right after his ouster, Hicks performed the exact set that had been censored to a night club audience and then
went on one of the most brilliant examinations of free speech and how television executives, with their
commercials for alcohol, the number two killer drug in America, were indeed nothing but drug pushers doing
their best to keep Americans stupid and happy so they could continue to buy the crap they offered during its
commercial breaks.
“Anyway, they folded like a house of cards, and meanwhile, Bob Saget is on tonight which gives you an idea of
the level of comedy they think you can handle. Do you understand the contempt the networks have for us that
put on that puerile bullshit and not give me, not just me, but anyone else with a point of view perhaps, maybe
even one you don’t agree with on television. They cow-tow to the special interest groups and a couple of
deranged motherfucking people, who hear the word Jesus and immediately think you’re making fun of Jesus,
when I did not make fun of Jesus. They hear the word gay. I did not make fun of gays, what I made fun of was a
double standard that exists in this fucking country, they think you’re too stupid to see through that and that’s
exactly what they fucking count on, while they sell the number two killer drug in this country, fucking alcohol,
and they have the gall to do it in your fucking living room with your children there. They don’t even lurk around
playgrounds. You drug dealing capitalist motherfucker!
“And here’s the punch line to the whole story, you ready? ‘Bill, we really love you and we want you back on in a
couple of weeks.’ Really? I don’t know if I can learn to juggle that quickly! Hi, I’m Bill Hicks. I used to have a
social conscience and want to help the world by trying to point out how our belief systems are affecting us
negatively. Now, watch this, an apple! Stay stupid America keep drinking beers. Stay Stupid! …”
“You know it amazes how afraid they are of one person, basically, a joke blower … You know what? The
majority of people are very reasonable I’ve found, and you know what? They don’t write letters when something
offends them on TV, because reasonable people know, IT’S JUST FUCKING TELEVISION! Not only that but
reasonable people have… a life! They’re not sitting in some trailer with some fucking crayon in their hands, with
some chicken scrawl going “I saw a guy talk about Jesus on your show. I’m not going to tune in no more.” And
also reasonable people know ultimately, that they are just fucking jokes. Are you so afraid of a guy telling
jokes?”
Doug Stanhope at the end of 2005 wrote something brilliant about Hicks, who by the way was the only
entertainer I know that had the guts to loudly criticize the fireworks show known as the first Gulf War.
“Bill Hicks and Lenny Bruce are just as relevant today”
You say that as though it’s a good thing.
When comics are known for commenting on the obvious flaws and let-downs of current society, you’d hope that
the sooner they are outdated, the better.
But they are not.
Ten years, thirty years. Shit gets worse and less care.
I’d rather have those comics seen as antiquated as a rotary dial or vaginal intercourse than still live in a world
where so little has changed.
Stanhope is right, except for the fact that Hicks becomes more and more prescient every day just like George
Orwell’s 1984. The celebrity fueled dumbing down of America out to control its people, selling arms to other
countries before we go out and blow them up with our own superior versions. The line that Bill Maher basically
lost his show Politically Incorrect with after 9-11, was one that he had cribbed from Hicks. Drugs, gun control,
Waco, the Rodney King trial, pornography, the evil of celebrity endorsements, the super evil of advertising and
marketing, flag burning, the pro-life movement, Religion. He didn’t shy away from any topic and he never sold
out. But he was wrong, he wasn’t just a joke blower. He was dangerous. If I have my way hopefully he’ll one
day be seen as a prophet.
“…we always kill the guys who try and help us. Isn’t that strange, that we let the little demons run amok,
always? John Lennon: murdered. John Kennedy: murdered. Martin Luther King: murdered. Gandhi: murdered.
Jesus: murdered. Reagan … wounded. You know. Bad fucking choice.
“But even though that’s the case, where we live in a world where good men are murdered and little demons run
amok, I’m sorry I still believe it isn’t; in fact I had a vision of a way we could have no enemies ever again, if
you’re interested in this. Anybody interested in hearing this? It’s kind of an interesting theory, and all we have to
do is make one decisive act and we can rid the world of all our enemies at once. Here’s what we do. You know
all that money we spend on nuclear weapons and defense ever year? Trillions of dollars. Instead, if we spent this
money feeding and clothing the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being
excluded … not one … we could as one race explore outer space together in peace, for ever, Thank you very
much. You’re great.”
(Sound of three gun shots as Hicks pretends to have been assassinated)
The 5 Stages of Drinking – Larry Miller
“I don’t mind going to that board meeting looking like Keith Richards.”
Got to see him at Cobb’s Comedy Club in San Francisco; later that night he got mugged and beaten up. That’s
just not right.
World Hunger – Sam Kinison
I can’t explain how revolutionary this routine was when HBO and Rodney Dangerfield unleashed it on the world
in the mid 80’s My guitar teacher basically described the routine to me in graphic detail and it still didn’t prepare
me for the outrageousness of Kinison angry demented screaming truth. Did he really just say that? Am I going to
hell for laughing at this? Say what you will about his output from that point on, because he became something of
a caricature of himself and never came close to the legacy of Bruce, Carlin or Hicks, but wow Kinison on that
Dangerfield special was a nuclear bomb going off, and anyone who didn’t experience it at the time will never
know what a seismic event it was.
No Refunds – Doug Stanhope
“At least Black people knew when they were slaves, you remain clueless….Hard work is fine if it’s a
work of passion, but just to work hard to buy shit to impress people? You fucking loser.”
People like to play the “Who’s the next Bob Dylan?” game. Comedy is the same way. There’s been a
pretty simple chain of rebel hipster heroes. Bruce – Pryor – Hicks. Hicks, who was shunned in his day
would probably still be shunned today, but just about every relevant white comedian of the last 15
years plays in his shadow like just like all those English guitar heroes did when Jimi Hendrix, Hick’s
hero, came to town. Hicks was so prescient and American culture so repetitive that his concerns have
become even more relevant now than they were during his life.
Doug Stanhope: I agree with everything Bill Maher and David Cross have to say, I just don’t
understand why they have to be such assholes?
Sometimes it pays to bet on the long shots.
The best stand up comic alive today used to have the following as his signature joke. “So I told my
girlfriend I wanted to fuck her between the tits. She said, “How are you going to make that feel good
for me?” I said, “Right before I come I’ll stop punching you in the face!”
Stanhope’s first chance to grab some notoriety came when he and Joe Rogan succeeded Jimmy
Kimmel and Adam Corolla as hosts of The Man Show, a reign that just about everyone including
Stanhope’s mother would acknowledge to be worse than dismal. “There are still cultures in this world,
like so removed from society, that in the Amazon there are still tribes that still believe …that the
camera can steal your soul, which I always thought was ridiculous until I did The Man Show.”
Rogan then went on to make a ton of money hosting Fear Factor, while Stanhope wound up doing one
Girls Gone Wild commercial that to his horror was played on six cable stations every night from 2 am
to 5 am for what must have seemed to Stanhope to be the next forty years. Could this career have gone
any worse? Stanhope then had to watch Fox News report the arrest and jailing of Girls Gone Wild CEO
Joe Francis, while playing video clips of Stanhope’s commercials in the background, likely inducing a
good two thirds of the country into believing that Stanhope was the one going to prison.
Doug Stanhope is not the next Hicks, because he’s the only comedian I’ve ever seen to whom that
statement would be faint praise. How do you turn that career around and achieve your art? You stop
playing the game, and that’s exactly what Stanhope did.
He said fuck it and jumped off the treadmill, something that Hicks, who remained a careerist until the
day he died, probably could never have done, and it brought Stanhope a sort of peaceful resignation to
go with his righteously hilarious indignation and maddeningly active racing mind.
Or to say it another way, who else in the history of show business ever decided it would be a good
career move to leave Los Angeles and relocate to Bisbee, Arizona, where he could live cheaper and
lower his monetary needs? Disgusted by an endless succession of chain comedy clubs where the people
who came to see him were hostile and had no idea who he was, he started booking his own dates at
rock clubs.
When Richard Jeni committed suicide, it was widely speculated that despite making a ton of money
doing corporate shows, his lack of success gnawed at him. Stanhope is as likely to be hired for a
corporate gig as Barbara Bush is to one day move to New Orleans and congregate with the home town
folks.
Hicks was a preacher. He spent the last days of his life desperately trying to change his father’s politics.
Stanhope just offers his opinion, tells you that he feels for you, and goes on his way. He basically
makes being the town drunk a heroic act of civil disobedience.
Stanhope plays to a lot of the same concerns as Hicks, drugs both legal and illegal, abortion, the
corporate deadening of our consumerist souls, and yet Stanhope’s gutter poetry has become the
realization of something Hicks started but never fully mastered. Any four minutes of Stanhope is so
profane and wise that the words rise above themselves to become a thing of beauty. He won’t be
winning tons of fans by telling them that being molested by a priest is nothing compared to the crap
they try to stick in your head, but he’ll walk away amused as amused at the horror middle America
reacts to him with every bit as much as Hicks was almost terminally depressed by it.
Profanity is so essential to relating Stanhope’s view of the modern world that to go without it would be
like commissioning Michelangelo and telling him that he wasn’t allowed to use the color red. Whereas
Hicks spent numerous frustrated hours trying to get network television to let him be himself, Stanhope
somewhere along the way decided not to even try. There’s plenty of art that can’t be shown on network
television and Stanhope seemingly decided that applied to his work as well.
Stanhope’s most Pollyanna-like move had to be his completely serious run for the Libertarian
Presidential nomination. Convinced that every single sane person he talked to claimed to be a
Libertarian, but because of the no names proffered by the party, would never in a million years vote for
any of their candidates, Stanhope did his best to bring some humor and notoriety to the party, until
realizing that the absurd finance rules of running for election would make it impossible for him to
continue to earn a living. Nevertheless, he did it in the least political fashion possible, never for a
second considering the fact that he could use an ounce of his efforts to curry someone’s favor.
Stanhope is what he is, he views the world the way he does, and he’s going to do his best to enjoy his
time on the planet in the meantime.
He’s going to thank the God he doesn’t believe in that Hunter Thompson committed suicide. He’s
going to laud Ricky Williams for quitting football to smoke marijuana (“Some would say that drugs
ruined Ricky Williams’ career, which is not true … Drug testing ruined Ricky Williams’ career.”).
He’s going to respond to your images of aborted fetuses by relating in infinite detail how creepy he
thinks the birth process is, and then charge the photographers of those fetuses with the sickest kind of
child porn imaginable. He’ll marvel at the insanity of the Iraq war seconds after breaking down why
he’d want to have sex with a grown up two headed baby. He’ll even respond to inaccurate claims that
he slurred an ethnic or religious group, by actually going ahead and slurring that specific ethnic or
religious group. Meanwhile he’ll be drinking a beer in the back of the club feeling sorry for you
because you have to wake up early tomorrow morning to go to that job you need anti-depressants to
make semi-tolerable, and as he encourages you to throw a wrench into the fine art of American
productivity, he’ll give you an hour and a half of the most manically frustrated combustibly funny
peace that he’s managed to carve out for himself despite the rigors of the modern world.
Will Doug Stanhope be remembered accurately as the funniest most insightful comedian of his day?
Not a chance. History loves a martyr and Stanhope isn’t falling into that trap.
Smoking Section – Doug Stanhope
Here despite the fact that he’s constantly telling his audience how stupid they are shows the charity
behind him. Stanhope inevitably finds himself chain smoking in front of a crowd that isn’t allowed to
smoke due to anti-smoking laws, and will often invite small groups of people to share the stage with
him briefly so they can serve their addiction.
Scared Straight – Doug Stanhope
My first exposure to Stanhope as he looks back at the TV classic, which kept kids in trouble out of jail only to
leave them stuck in a similar hell working dead end jobs at the Dairy Plant. Maybe they would have had more
fun holding up liquor stores.
Not an Artist – Doug Stanhope
“Why is it that the Venus de Milo is art but the fat kid in front of Big Boy’s restaurants is an eyesore? They’re
both statues. How do you know the Venus de Milo didn’t used to have an arm with a big plate of spaghetti in it?”
Take the Stanhope challenge and try to explain how the explanatory text on Kafka’s The Metamorphosis can be
twice as long as the book itself. I see his point, but to tell you the truth I love reading that interpretation
nonsense. Hopefully you do too or this book is gathering dust as you listen to your own mp3’s. Sometimes the
explanation is ten times as entertaining and artful as the original.
Then again maybe Doug’s right and it is just a story about a guy who turns into a bug.
Note: Exploratory notes to this text would be complete masturbation, but I’d read them.
Strategic Grill Locations – Mitch Hedberg
I’d have Mitch All Together on there, but I left it in the rent a car CD player when I drove to New York
something Mitch probably did ten thousand times. I was surprised when I opened up a Doug Stanhope disc and
saw in the liner notes that Mitch and Dave Attell were his favorite comics. Stanhope is such a hard guy. But
when Hedberg died I realized that to Stanhope, Mitch was the comedian he longed to be in a world where he
didn’t have so much angst. No politics, no bad breakups, no feeling that the world was closing in on him. Just a
sweet stoner with no cares in the world relating all the goofy thoughts running through his head in an infectious
drawl.
I first saw Mitch live in San Francisco, and although I loved him it wasn’t exactly a set that went well. Your
average comedy club audience is mostly filled with straights who decided to get their laugh on for a night.
Doug Stanhope: What’s my name? You don’t have the slightest idea what my fucking name is … You’re only
here because you got free passes or something.
Mitch was once on That ‘70’s Show which was genius casting, because he was like an Eagles roadie who’d
smoked a laced joint and popped back into the world unscathed 20 years later. A little of it was an act, but
Hedberg was probably the least confident comedian in the history of the medium. He’d slouch before the mike,
his long hair flowing over his tinted blue sunglasses, and stare at the ground like he had his jokes written at the
base of the microphone. He could be slaying an audience and he would still spend more time apologizing for
himself than actually telling jokes. On the right night, that was just as funny.
Mitch released his Comedy Central Special as a bonus DVD to his last album. You can watch the edited version
where Mitch is spewing out jokes like Don Rickles or you can watch the unedited version that is three times as
long and a complete mess. I think you know which version I prefer.
The night in San Francisco, the crowd was looking at Mitch like he was modern art being shown backstage at the
Jerry Springer show. After awhile, people starting buying him drinks just to see how hammered he would get.
Not one to be confrontational, Mitch kept accepting them until his wife Lynn walked onto the stage and took one
out of his hands, which was hardly the worst thing she did to Mitch during the show. After about 15 more
minutes of more Mitch ramblings, Lyn started yelling out “Tell them about the CD’s,” which Mitch proceeded to
ignore until she yelled it out for about the 17th time. Finally, in true Hedberg fashion he replied “I ain’t gonna
waste my time for what like three people … would anyone here actually buy this crap?” Me and two other guys
cheered yes.
A couple of years later, I met him outside of Largo, and asked him about the show. Thinking back it was
probably sort of insensitive of me. When, I introduced myself to David Cross and told him that we had a mutual
friend from his comedy past, he treated me like a fungus, who could blame Mitch for going off on me after
bringing that night up.
“You were there? That’s hilarious.”
I don’t know how to describe it to you but the instant you met this guy you realized that he didn’t have a cruel
bone in his body. Maybe the sweetest thing God ever produced. He spent like 20 minutes smoking with me. He
introduced me to his wife. I asked him if he got sick of staying in so many hotel rooms and his answer was “No
way, we love it.” I’m guessing Mitch was thinking of the genius way he’d found to get the world to clean up his
room for him.
After his death, I read about how he’d met a couple of college kids and after hearing about their sweatbox dorm
room returned the next day with an air conditioner. The only celebrity death that’s ever left me severely
depressed.
Immigrant Song – Led Zeppelin
Does anyone remember laughter? You do if this is in your music library.
What Is and What Should Never Be – Led Zeppelin
Love when the guitar break goes from one speaker to the other. OK, I admit it, I’m easily amused.
Rock and Roll – Led Zeppelin
It’s a good thing, drum intros can’t be copy written or else Zeppelin would owe Little Richard and the guy who
played on Keep a Knocking a ton of dough.
Dyer Maker – Led Zeppelin
I admit it. I had no clue it was a play on the word Jamaica for at least 20 years. I just thought it was some weird
title they made up after a night with lots of drugs and fish.
By the way, if you ever wondered why John Paul Jones wasn’t asked to participate in that 90’s reunion, refer to
the following formula.
Lots of Money/3 < Lots of Money/2
I was by far the top math student in my school.
Led Zeppelin – Achilles’ Last Stand
Here’s what I never understood in high school. When Achilles was born his mother dipped him in the river Styx
making him invulnerable everywhere except for the spot that she held him from his heel. He also has the greatest
armor ever constructed, forged by the God Hephaestus. What does he need it for? Shouldn’t he just have a really
good metal shoe?
Chapter 11: Believing You’re Going To Hell for Your Music
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry – Hank Williams
I once saw a show where Jules Shear claimed that he stole all of his songs. I doubt that’s true but if it is at least
he stole good ones. He died when he was 29. Dude looked at least 50. I guess that’s what you call hard living.
You should avoid that movie about him with George Hamilton, unless you’re really into movies with mystical
Negroes like The Green Mile and The Legend of Bagger Vance. My memory is sketchy on this one, I think the
movie sort of implies that they were partners and he died – I can’t remember but I’m pretty sure that the actor
Rex Ingram continues to talk to Hank from beyond the dead in an Obi Wan Knobi sort of way.
There’s a scene where they bring Hank into a record exec’s office. The guy who seems to be aware of the song
stealing rumor, locks Hank in a room, and challenges him to write a song about meeting a girl on the street.
Hank comes out with I Can’t Help It If I’m Still in Love with You after about 30 seconds of intense
concentration.
Movie biographies are sort of fascinating to me. I can understand sort of embellishing the existing legends or
making something up about someone that seems like it should have happened, but where exactly does a writer
decide to just make something up that never even remotely happened. My favorite example is Pride of the
Yankees. Babe Ruth promised to hit a home run for a sick kid from the hospital. Oh yeah, well then Lou Gehrig
secretly promised to hit the kid two homers, kept it to himself out of sheer modesty, and inspired the kid to beat
his life threatening ailment!! I’m guessing the Crickets didn’t show up on Maria Elena’s doorstep wanting to
reunite the night Buddy Holly’s plane went down either.
That’ll be the Day – Buddy Holly
Bespectacled geek quotes John Wayne in the Searchers. Asserts beyond all measures of plausibility that if he and
his girlfriend part, she’ll be the one with the broken heart: The patron saint of outcasts everywhere.
Breathless – Jerry Lee Lewis
God, that Dennis Quaid movie really sucked. Whoever was behind
that thing apparently ignored the middle name and thought they were
doing the life story of the guy who starred in The Nutty Professor. The
movie should have been directed by someone who could have gotten
in touch with Lewis’ psychosis like Martin Scorcese, who apparently
was also confused and cast the comedian with Robert De Niro in King
of Comedy. Then again, I suppose there was no reason for Martin to make Raging Bull twice.
A few years back Jerry Lewis played the Devil
in Damn Yankees, and I couldn’t help but think
that it was definitely the role Jerry Lee was
born to play.
The thing that gives these 50’s rockers their
edge to me (and who has more edge to this day
than Jerry Lee?) is that as a group most of them
honestly thought they were going to hell for
their music. Marilyn Manson is an obvious
poseur in comparison.
Johnny B. Goode – Chuck Berry
“Before Elvis there was nothing”
“If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry”
See among other things John Lennon was a way better rock critic than me too.
Musically, I’m not sure Chuck really invented much. Maybe he just moved it from the
piano to the guitar, but if he got paid for every song that was inconceivable without
this one, he’d be so rich even he wouldn’t be concerned with money anymore, and
believe me that is saying something.
Promise Land – Chuck Berry
You’d think that with all the reverence Bruce Springsteen et al have for this song it would be on a few of his
hundred of greatest hits comps, but for a long time I found it impossible to find.
Too Much Monkey Business – Chuck Berry
Bitter guitar hero invents Rap.
Subterranean Homesick Blues – Bob Dylan
Jewish kid from Minnesota with political and social agenda pays attention.
It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) – REM
Guys from Georgia see if they can continue the tradition with enough words that it could have been written by
Bruce Springsteen and Marcel Proust, virtually ensuring that it would be nearly impossible to reproduce live
without Michael Stipe holding a lyric sheet. How could any Rock critic not like a song that name drops both
Lester Bangs and Lenny Bruce? Before you sit around for hours trying to make literal sense of the overload,
listen to Mike Mills in the background singing “time I had some time alone,” which makes it a great commentary
on the infotainment glut of the modern world. Also, it’s amazingly much more credible a rap song than the one
they did with KRS-1.
Oh Carol – Chuck Berry
I was reading Chuck’s autobiography during a 1988 hospital visit. My mother picked it up and noticed Chuck
was sort of preoccupied with sex, and while it’s true that dude was and remains to this day a bit of a freak, he
always did have quite a head on his shoulders.
Highlights from the Taylor Hackford movie Hail, Hail Rock and Roll
1.
2.
3.
4.
Johnnie Johnson finally gets some well deserved recognition thanks to super fan Keith Richards.
Chuck and Keith argue for twenty minutes over the vibrato of a double stop on the intro to Oh, Carol
Little Richard informs Bo Diddley that he is and always has been Black
Chuck plays with a rehearsed band for the first time in three decades
Brown Eyed Handsome Man – Chuck Berry
Chuck pens I’m Black and I’m Proud a decade before James Brown. Ever the pragmatist, he eases up on the
message.
Brown Eyes Handsome Man – Buddy Holly
I love Buddy, but frankly this never made much sense to me.
Brown Eyed Handsome Man – Million Dollar Quartet
Really just a trio, since everyone knows Johnny Cash hit the road right after the pictures were taken. Elvis
however was worth at least a mil all by himself. Again, if you think Elvis didn’t appreciate the authors of the
music he covered (the Elvis never wrote anything argument) check out his undeniable glee at Chuck’s lyrics.
Elvis Presley knew more about the music of his era than Frank Sinatra knew about the mob, and that’s saying
something.
True Love Ways – Buddy Holly
All in all a pretty simple song, but with Buddy’s sincerity and King Curtis’ sax around for support, the most
beautiful thing ever recorded. If I ever get married it will be played.
The Buddy Holly Story
Death does amazing things for a performer's reputation. Had Gary Busey gone by the wayside after his
swaggering, confident performance as bespectacled '50s hiccupping proto-nerd and Elvis Costello inspiration
Buddy Holly, and before all the drugs, motorcycles, and religious awakenings, who knows how impressive his
legend might have become? Sure, Jennifer Lopez was the bomb in "Selena," but this is the all time greatest
portrayal of a dead Rock star.
"The Buddy Holly Story" plays a little hard and fast with the truth, but it makes for a great myth, and most
importantly gets the music absolutely right. Although Busey would have dwarfed the real Holly in size, the
actors all play their own instruments and the vocal similarity between the two Lubbock boys is eerie.
Buddy Holly was the geek's rock star. He wore big black horned rim glasses, had a silly perm, and a goofy smile.
He also had the audacity to threaten the subject of his first hit "That'll Be the Day" that, "If we ever part I'll leave
you." Holly died in a tragic plane crash at the age of twenty two, but had by that time amassed a huge catalog of
classic songs with styles ranging from the pure Rockabilly of "Rave On," to the Bo Diddly beat of "Not Fade
Away," to the lump in the throat romance of "True Love Ways." The Beatles took their name from a variant of
Holly's Crickets and super fan Paul McCartney owns every piece of music he ever recorded.
Rash's film has great fun with the mistaken perception that Holly and the Crickets were black, especially in the
retelling of his breaking the color barrier at the previous all Black Apollo in Harlem. "Well, we weren't
expecting you all either." Although it may overstate Holly's command of the studio at the expense of real life
collaborator Norman Petty, it probably doesn't do so by much. There is a joyful recreation of Holly's
overdubbing techniques and a wonderful amused reaction by Busey in response to a studio violinist's claim that
Holly's song "Raining in My Heart" has striking similarities to Beethovan's techniques. Try to forget for a
moment that Holly's record label is run by Conrad Janis of "Mork and Mindy" fame, and enjoy the
performances.
Aside from Holly's career, the film chronicles the singer's whirlwind romance with Maria Elena Santiago, to
whom he is said to have proposed to on their first date. Busey pulls off an awkward grace and humor in a
wonderful scene where the singer asks Maria's Aunt for courting permission as his alter ego, Charles Hardin.
Accurate portrayals of '50s Rockers as diverse as Sam Cooke and Eddie Cochran make the picture a joyous
experience for true connoisseurs of the era. Until they get that epic version of The Big Bopper's life and career
off the table, this is still the best Rock and Roll biography ever filmed.
Something Else – Eddie Cochran
I met this guy in college and asked him where he was from. When he told me he came from Albert Lea,
Minnesota, I was immediately knocked out. “Dude, that’s where Eddie Cochran grew up!” Followed of course,
by “Who’s Eddie Cochran?” Jesus, it’s not like it’s New York or Paris. It’s Albert Lea, Minnesota. Shouldn’t
there be a huge statue of the guy there or something. If I were mayor every single school would be named after
one of his relatives.
Cupid – Sam Cooke
I love how he makes the arrow sound, but it’s nothing compared to the wail he produces when he embodies the
line “Please hear my cry.”
Oh, Pretty Woman – Roy Orbison
Kind of puts you in the mood for a fairy tale about a really pretty prostitute with a heart of gold, doesn’t it? I
know hookers need to look slutty, but if you look like Julia Roberts should you be putting on an ugly blond wig
to attract customers? Guess I’ll need to phone Hugh Grant to answer that question.
Unchained Melody – The Righteous Brothers
Sorry, all I can think of is clay, Demi Moore’s boyish bob, and my hard on.
Please Please Please – James Brown
Reeling and Rocking – The Rolling Stones
I don’t mean to belabor the Elvis race issue, but you rarely hear anyone harp the same criticism at the early
Stones. Watch the TAMI show some time if you can find it. James Brown comes out and rips the joint in half.
Mick Jagger follows and does the Vegas impersonation. I’m not saying Mick didn’t worship Soul Brother
Number One, but back to back he never looked whiter. Of course a studio filled with screaming girls couldn’t
care less.
Prisoner of Love – James Brown
Just to remind you that even minus the funk, dude could flat out sing.
It’s a Mans, Mans, Mans World – James Brown
James point being I think that despite the muscles, the accomplishments, the power, the money we’re all brought
to our knees in two seconds flat by a flash of pussy.
Walkin’ After Midnight – Patsy Cline
There’s got to be a way to separate good Country music from the line dancing crap doesn’t there? I lived in San
Francisco for about ten years, and after about three nothing really phases you. Naked people painted red in the
Gay Pride parade? Yawn. Although, I do have to admit that the lesbian line dancers that followed them down
Market Street did give me more than a little bit of the creeps. In the meantime, the less Country music the guy
with his finger on the button listens to the better.
Oooh My Head – Ritchie Valens
Pretty good stuff – raw and tasty, but do you ever get the feeling that sometimes on his gloomier days Carl
Perkins thought to himself, “Fuck if I died in that car crash, maybe they would have made a movie about me.”
Blue Suede Shoes – Carl Perkins
I read somewhere that Sam Phillips sold Elvis’ contract because he knew that he had Carl Perkins and if Carl
hadn’t had the car accident that he’d have been right. Carl was a great artist and all, but if someone has whatever
Sam was smoking that day can they please send me some? Dude looked like a school teacher.
Cathy’s Clown – The Everly Brothers
I love when they stop singing together and Don or is it Phil (if you know you’re a better man than I) solos on the
bridge (“I gotta stand tall/You know a man can’t crawl”)
When I was young I bought an Everly’s greatest hits album only to realize when I got home that it was filled
with versions that had been re-recorded after they left their original label. About a year ago I stopped a kid from
making the same mistake with a Temptations set. You’re probably not very impressed, but I felt like a hero.
It’s Up to You – Ricky Nelson
My favorite song by him; I could write about how underrated he was, and how great his guitarist James Burton
was, but I doubt I could do better than Steven King’s obituary or Bob Dylan’s dedication of Lonesome Town to
him. Johnny Suede dug him too.
Garden Party – Rick Nelson
The greatest revenge against claims that you’ve become irrelevant is to declare it isn’t true and to hit the top of
the charts with it. Rick gets booed at an oldies show for neglecting to remain an oldie, and declares
inspirationally that “If memories were all I sang I’d rather drive a truck.” Perfect comeback and he even
managed a nod to Elvis the guy who inspired him.
Ooh My Soul – Little Richard
He’s just a colorful guy nowadays, but when you think about it. How did a Black man this loud, weird, and
effeminate spend all of those years south of the Mason Dixon line without getting strung up? They weren’t
playing back then.
The Girl Can’t Help It – Little Richard
The typical film about the early years of Rock and Roll was
called something like "Rock Rock Rock" or "Don't Knock the
Rock," was in black and white, had Alan Freed in it, and had
essentially the same plot every time. Look at the insidious jungle
rhythms the kids are listening to now! Is the world coming to an
end? Eventually there would be a town council meeting where
some clean cut kid would remind the worried horde about how
scary the Charleston seemed back in the day, and they would
compromise and have a big dance hosted by Bill Haley and the
Comets. For some reason you still have a better chance of seeing
those movies on television then the real prize of the litter. Maybe
"The Girl Can't Help It" is still too wild and beautiful to be believed. Certainly every second of the wild,
strutting, full-color screamer Little Richard is.
"The Girl Can't Help It" is big time camp fun in Deluxe Color and Cinemascope it boasts of at its onset. It's a
great looking great sounding movie, a music showcase for the
rockers and the silly Austin Powers of it's time. 1950's Leslie
Nielson, Tom Ewell stars as Tom Miller, a drunk, deep in
hock, talent agent haunted by ghostly visions of hot former
client Julie London singing Cry Me A River and managing to
wear nine outfits over the course on just that one song. He is
approached by equally washed up mobster Fats Murdock
(Edmond O'Brien) to make his girlfriend into a star worth
meriting his attention. Fat's is my all time favorite mobster.
He's vain, he has a lackey named Mouse, and he lives large
and enjoys himself.
Jayne Mansfield makes an amazing entrance as Miller is
telling Fats how unlikely it would be for his girlfriend to have
any talent. When Ewell finally sees her he spills his drink and
quivers like a high school kid would with a naked Madonna.
How in the world did Tom Ewell get to star opposite both
Marilyn Monroe ("The Seven Year Itch") and Jayne Mansfield at their hottest?
Before long, Mansfield's Jeri Jordan is walking down the street to the Little Richard title song melting the
iceman's cargo, causing milk bottles to ejaculate and shattering some old guys glasses. A second later she is in
Miller's apartment holding ice cold milk bottles over her gigantic breasts. Subtlety isn't one of its high points.
Miller hits every nightclub in town with her. They check out the music then she wanders around in front of the
club's managers in these amazing tight and low cut dresses that would be worth checking out even if the music
wasn't as hot as it is.
Little Richard was at the height of his cool in this picture. He sings "Ready Teddy" in front of his all Black band
dancing and strutting at his piano. A sight so revolutionary for its time and maybe even now that it's surprising
they even got it on the screen. Check out Gene Vincent and his Blue Caps doing "Be Bop A Lula" in full color
because you can't anywhere else.
Of course when Jeri discloses that she can't sing and just wants to be a wife, homemaker, and mom, Miller thinks
the gig is up, but Fats assures him he couldn't be any worse than Eddie Cochran doing "Twenty Flight Rock" on
TV and providing the impetus for John Lennon and Paul McCartney to hook up at the same time.
Rock around the Clock – Bill Haley and the Comets
One of the great new recent pop culture phrases is Jump the Shark, which tries to ascertain when a television
show begins to go downhill, and sadly they all do. The phrase comes from the Happy Day’s episode where
Fonzie jumps over a caged shark on water skis. Truly though Happy Days jumped the shark when they changed
the theme music from Clock to that Sunday, Monday, tripe.
It’s pretty much the demarcation point between when the show moved from a sensitive nostalgic view of
growing up in the 50’s to the Fonzie Show. Somehow from that point on every character in the show lost about
20 IQ points, which is never a good idea when you have Anson Williams around.
Chapter 12: Drowning in a Sandbox
Brian Wison – Barenaked Ladies
I wanted to write a novel about the madness and malaise of genius that referenced Brian Wilson sitting in his bed
year after year, but sadly Barenaked Ladies nailed it in a five minute pop song. That was no excuse to start
rapping though.
Sweet Little Sixteen – Chuck Berry
Surfing U.S.A. – The Beach Boys
Chuck Berry never made any bones about the fact that as a Black man in his 30’s he was doing his best to write
about stuff that white 16 year olds would go bananas over. The Beach Boys were white 16 year olds so they took
Chuck’s burgers, dancing, and car themes and added some sun and hot chicks. What more could anyone want?
And yes, they are both the same song for all of you out there who thought there was no recycling before MC
Hammer.
Sail on Sailor – The Beach Boys
Man, I think I’ve read maybe six books about the Beach Boys and seen at least four movies about them,
including Helter Skelter, in both categories. Anyway, where the hell did this come from? I knew John Stamos
was sort of in the band for some time, but when was there a black guy in The Beach Boys? Will people stop
writing books about Pet Sounds and tell me when the hell there was a black guy in the Beach Boys? Hey, props
to Blondie Chaplin for saving the guys from being as white as their idols the Four Freshmen. This should have
been a disaster, but hey after it’s all over, I’m thinking that a Stevie Wonder collaboration with Brian Wilson
might have been much more productive than his time with Paul McCartney. And stop acting like you knew there
was a black guy in the Beach Boys. I could show you a live film clip of them performing this. You’d recognize it
as a Beach Boys song, you’d see Mike Love wearing that stupid hat he started wearing when he lost his hair, and
you’d still be muttering to yourself “when was there a black guy in the Beach Boys?”
A short somewhat relevant anecdote
I was once sitting on the floor of my friend’s kitchen with my red 1962 copy Japanese Telecaster. I can’t play it
very well, but I’m really good at using it as a prop. There was another guy there who I’d just met, sort of one of
your Ohio biker types (there’s never been a movie about these people and really there shouldn’t ever be one
either.) I asked him what kind of music he liked and he told me that he wasn’t much of a music snob; he just
liked The Beach Boys. “Cool,” I said, “Are you a Pet Sounds guy or are you an anti- Pet Sounds guy.” What he
actually was, was someone who didn’t really appreciate those kinds of questions. Definitely, an anti-Pet Sounds
guy even though I’m sure he’s never heard anything off of it besides Sloop John B. (If you’re not a music dork
like me it’s essentially the difference between Brian Wilson aiming for high art and Brian Wilson writing Fun,
Fun, Fun – there are others who argue that Fun, Fun, Fun was high art but those wise guys are really just trying
to fuck with intelligent discourse for their own amusement – OK, I admit it – it’s usually me). Keith Moon was
an anti- Pet Sounds guy, too and look how much fun he was for a while. I’m a Pet Sounds guy. This dude
probably just liked to hold bikini clad women on his shoulders. Actually, I’d like to hold bikini clad women on
my shoulders, but I’d drop them or fall down in less than half of Help me Rhonda.
River Song – Dennis Wilson
Forever – Dennis Wilson
For the rebel in all of us there is Dennis Wilson. You can’t really argue that Brian
Wilson wasn’t 99% of the Beach Boys, but for the ornery among us who never
like to agree with everybody else there is the Dennis Wilson theory. You know
for the guy out there still telling people that he’s always thought Stuart Sutcliffe
was the coolest and most talented Beatle.
The Dennis Wilson theory goes like this. Brian was the music of the Beach Boys.
Dennis was everything else. Could he play drums? Hell, if I know. Probably, as
well as Stu eventually got on the bass, which I’m pretty sure meant playing in the
right key, but still having a damn good reason to turn his back to the crowd. I’m
not sure if I’ve ever even heard Dennis’ drumming. Wasn’t it all Hal Blaine?
It doesn’t matter. Because, there’s little argument that Dennis was the coolest
Beach Boy. He was the guy who surfed. He was the guy who got laid. He was the
guy in “Two Lane Blacktop.” He was the guy who hung out with Charles
Manson. He was the guy that banged Mike Love’s daughter.
Anyway, hearing River Song for the first time totally blew me away. I don’t know if he was singing along in
1965, but by 1977, wow. No one has heard this song and I’m stuck hearing the Eagles everywhere I go. It’s just
not right. This stands up well next to God Only Knows as it’s spooky step-sister with nothing to apologize for
and nearly all of those harmonies are overdubbed Dennis. This may be one of his only homers, but he hit this
thing way, way, way out of the park. He survived his brush with Manson; I wish he could’ve gotten past the
Cocaine. If Chris Rock were white he’d be yelling out, “How the hell gonna Beach Boy drown? That just ain’t
right.”
Forever is simpler, but probably just as amazing. The prettiest song in The Beach Boy catalog, and if I ever get
married they’ll be playing this and Buddy Holly’s True Love Ways.
Feel free to send me your – Al Jardine was the key to the Beach Boys theories.
Warmth of the Sun – The Beach Boys
I’m guessing that Mike Love is probably not the greatest guy in the world, but I’ve always thought he got a
much worse rap than he deserves.
First of all, the guy is never mentioned when songwriting authorship is concerned. Every time I’ve read about
how Brian Wilson created the California Myth of fast cars, surfing, and sun, I’ve wondered how the hell he
could have done it given his admitted ignorance of both fast cars and surfing. I’m guessing there were also a
bunch of years where he didn’t get much sun either.
I’ve done my damnedest to try and figure out which lyrics were the responsibility of Love, Brian, Jan Berry,
Roger Christian or basically anything not written by Tony Asher or Van Dyke Parks. My guess is that Love had
way more to do with the lyrics and their rhythmic construction than anyone wants to acknowledge and my
suspicions were pretty much confirmed by hearing the guy talk intelligently about the subject on Howard Stern
once.
The biggest knock people have with him, OK besides his own often stupid behavior, is his resistance to the move
from the Fun, Fun, Fun million selling single Beach Boys to Brian’s more artistic album oriented Pet Sounds
vision. I’d prefer that Mike had supported his cousin, but can you really blame the guy for his position? He was
living the high life and suddenly he’s not included on the writing, his cousin is doped out of his mind, and Van
Dykes Park is running around the studio refusing to interpret his lyrics because he hasn’t really much more of an
understanding of them than Love does. I’d be a bit worried too. Brian made some great music, but in the long
run Mike Love was probably right about the drugs. Maybe his family’s lack of support had as much to do with
Brian’s collapse as his drug use. Who knows?
I wouldn’t want Love’s legacy, but he was in his late 20’s and I’m not without sympathy for the guy who’s been
cast aside Murray Wilson as the ogre in the saga of America’s band.
God Only Knows – The Beach Boys
Heroes and Villains – The Beach Boys
Let’s defend another lyricist, while we are at it. No one hates advertising more than I do, but Tony Asher also
gets a bad rap because he once participated in it and Pet Sounds flopped, while Van Dyke Parks’ legend (myth?)
only grew when Smile disappeared. I’ve always thought the lyrics he did for Pet Sounds were every bit as
beautiful and complex (in many ways through their simplicity) as the music.
Your Imagination – Brian Wilson
Brian Wilson now lives in Illinois. Who knows why? The leader of the Beach Boys needed to get out of the sun
to get sane?
Here’s the crazier part to me. The guy who wrote the lyrics to this song is a radio talk show host named Steve
Dahl, sort of Chicago’s answer to Howard Stern and the man behind the Comiskey Park Disco Demolition riot
of 1979.
I may have the chronology a little messed yup here, but I started listening to Dahl, when I got to Northwestern in
1984 and listened until I left for San Francisco in 1989. Somewhere along the way Dahl read Steven Gaines’
Beach Boys biography Heroes and Villains and reveled in the insanity – Brian in bed, the Maharishi, the
Mansons, the drugs. He wound up to some extent making a television movie out of it, which given Dahl’s
constant derision of its main character turned out to be much better than it probably deserved to be.
Not letting it go, Dahl finally got Wilson on his radio show; during what I’m pretty sure was still his Dr. Landy
period. Wilson came into the studio and immediately went into a weird coughing fit, barely able to speak
begging for a cough drop. Dahl repeated the clip roughly as many times as Gilligan’s Island and The Brady
Bunch were aired in syndication during the ‘70’s. I have absolutely no idea how he went from this to
collaborating with Wilson on what I think is his best solo single. Irving Berlin never phoned up Wagner did he?
After awhile, I suppose you have to stop wondering about the insanity of true genius and just enjoy the music.
Smile – Brian Wilson
I think the great thing about the end of this saga was that Brian Wilson was saved by his fans. He got some
people around him to tell him that they worshiped him and that they loved him no matter what the final result
was, and he finally busted through the brick wall project that nearly dragged him down to the bottom of his sea
of tunes.
Chapter 13: Speaking Out and Searching for Love
Masters of War – Bob Dylan
In 1991, Bob Dylan was given a lifetime achievement award at the Grammy Awards, which to me is sort of like
a special on Lenny Bruce hosted by Carrot Top. Amid the first Gulf War Distraction (as Bill Hicks called it),
Dylan wandered out muttered his way through Masters of War, although I’m pretty sure not even people familiar
with the song had any idea what it was. Afterward, he came out and muttered the following acceptance speech.
"You know my daddy he didn't leave me too much... He was a very simple man... But he did tell me one thing,
he said, 'Son' ...He said so many things you know...but he did say, 'you know it's possible to become so defiled in
this world that even your own mother and father will abandon you. But if that happens, God will always believe
in your own ability to mend your own ways.' Thank you."
He was immediately mocked as if he were senile. Saturday Night Live had him caricatured on Weekend Update
with a mock Tom Petty on hand to translate. Was I the only one who thought it was the coolest Grammy
appearance ever? Here's a guy getting a lifetime achievement award from a bunch of squares who never game
him the time of day and Bob's pranking them with barely interpretable punk blast against the war and the
establishment. He probably felt like he was still in high school and flipping off his teachers when they turned
their backs.
Here's a story from 2004 that warms my heart and makes me glad to be alive. “Last week, radio talk shows in
Colorado were abuzz over a local punk band's plans to cover 'Masters of War' at a Friday night talent show at
Boulder High School. Rumors about the band, which drolly calls itself the Coalition of the Willing, prompted
calls to the Secret Service in Denver because of alleged threats against President Bush.”
Another Great Dylan Controversy
Bob Dylan accepts the Tom Paine Free Speech Award:
“I haven't got any guitar, I can talk though. I want to thank you for the Tom Paine award on behalf of everybody
that went down to Cuba. First of all because they're all young and it's took me a long time to get young and now
I consider myself young. And I'm proud of it. I'm proud that I'm young. And I only wish that all you people who
are sitting out here today or tonight weren't here and I could see all kinds of faces with hair on their head - and
everything like that, everything leading to youngness, celebrating the anniversary when we overthrew the House
Un-American Activities just yesterday, - Because you people should be at the beach. You should be out there
and you should be swimming and you should be just relaxing in the time you have to relax. It is not an old
peoples' world. It is not an old peoples' world. It has nothing to do with old people. Old people when their hair
grows out, they should go out. And I look down to see the people that are governing me and making my rules and they haven't got any hair on their head - I get very uptight about it.”
About 30 seconds later Bob was booed off the dais by the very people who were honoring him after sharing
perhaps way “too soon” (three weeks or so after John F. Kennedy's death) how he sort of empathized with Lee
Harvey Oswald. Now this was perhaps a questionable move by Bob, but perhaps the greatest illustration of
American hypocrisy of all time. He was after all being given THE FREE SPEECH award.
Criminal – Fiona Apple
No I’m not going to discuss the sleazy child porn evoking video. Fiona was another performer crucified for an
acceptance speech. At the MTV video awards, she came off as unappreciative and pretentious with her quoting
of Maya Angelou, but what she was actually trying to say, that kids at home shouldn’t get hung up with the
notion that celebrity was all there was to life, made sense and needed to be said.
Like a Rolling Stone – Bob Dylan
The live you’re Judas version. “Play it fucking loud!” Dylan tells The Band. I don’t really see the reason for an
entire book on this song. Personally, the coolest thing about it to me was that guitarist Al Kooper talked his way
behind the organ and Dylan was cool enough to dig it.
Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35 – Bob Dylan
Positively 4th Street – Bob Dylan
I was sort of reared on the Rolling Stones Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, which portrayed the holy trinity
to be the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. I hadn’t a clue, who Dylan was and the section on him in
the first edition read like it had been written by Picasso during his cubist period, so I went out into the cold and
purchased Bob Dylan’s greatest hits, which of course led me to be walking around my school with my Walkman
on saying what the hell is this crap? Can this guy sing? Actually to this day Blowing in the Wind does nothing
but put me to sleep. I did my best and eventually a few of the songs really grew on me. Rainy Day Woman is a
crack up, despite the fact that it sounds like it takes barely as much time to be played as it took to be written and
performed, but I did enjoy the absurdly irrelevant title and I think I understood that he had more on his mind by
getting stoned than Ray Charles did when he sang the wonderful Let’s Go Get Stoned.
Positively 4th Street would make Eminem and Elvis Costello proud with its vitriol and numerous grade A put
downs. It's routinely on the top five of Dylan recordings and to its eternal credit it has very little socially
redeeming content to recommend it other than the notion that Dylan might be right.
You say you lost your faith
But that's not where it's at
You had no faith to lose
And you know it
Wow, that cold. Pretty much the only one to take as much abuse as the subject of 4th Street on record has been
Em’s mother.
Bob Dylan’s 115th Dream – Bob Dylan
Maggie’s Farm – Bob Dylan
It’s All Over Now Baby Blue- Bob Dylan
"I try my best to be just like I am/But everybody wants you to be just like them."
I’ve always been sort of fascinated by the feud between Miles Davis and Wynton Marsalis. I side with Miles, but
Wynton was definitely eloquent about it. Wynton loved the Jazz Miles, but Miles wanted to be whatever he felt
like being, whether it be funk, bop, or jamming with Jimi Hendrix.
I don’t have this word for word, but Wynton once said something to the effect of “You don’t understand it was
like our greatest General went over to the other side,” which sounds exactly to me to be something people were
saying while watching Dylan bust their eardrums with Maggie’s Farm at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival.
“They sing while you slave and I just get bored”
Dylan is easily as much a chameleon as Madonna and David Bowie ever were. Whatever he was at the time was
what he was that day just don’t expect him to be that tomorrow. I’ve never had any doubt that despite how much
he loved Woody Guthrie that a part of Bob Dylan from day one always wanted to be a rock star, maybe not
forever, but at least for a few years. Besides, I’m guessing Bob Dylan had little interest in ever being that liked
and respected. I don’t blame Pete Seeger for going ballistic. Joan Baez has always sort of bored me, but she got
it. Her side had the propaganda voice of a lifetime and instead of leading them through the forest he decided to
follow his muse and be an artist. I’m guessing FDR wouldn’t have been pleased if Patton walked in to work one
day and told everyone that he’d decided to go off and become a Trappist monk. For all I know, Dylan showing
up at a rally or two might have ended the Viet Nam War a few years earlier, but my record collection sure would
be a lot poorer for it.
See it’s hard to fault the folkies for their political beliefs, but man a lot of them sure seem to have a need to be
dropped into a mosh pit for a few days. Dylan wanted to be Neil Cassady. I’m sure the whole thing got to be a
drag and he wanted to move on. You know that scene in Animal House where John Belushi hears that guy
singing “I gave my love a chicken” and smashes his guitar. That was Dylan at Newport. I’ve seen him say that
he wasn’t trying to upset anybody, but c’mon if that wasn’t the biggest one finger salute ever, what is? He even
pulled the do 15 minutes and leave the stage bit that pissed off the Manager of the First Avenue in Purple Rain.
So Peter Yarrow pops out and begs Bob to do another song without the band, and he comes out and sings It’s All
Over Now Baby Blue. That’s definitely Sinead O’Connor ripping up a picture of the Pope territory.
Listen to 115th Dream. He starts out like he’s still acoustic Bob from the Freewheelin’ days and then busts out
laughing as if nothing could be more absurd before breaking into it again with his rock band. I find the whole
thing to be pretty damn funny, but frankly he’s really lucky he didn’t get shot. In a way he used those people for
a time and moved on. To their credit I’m guessing that not a lot of folkies were packing in those days. Too bad
Malcolm couldn’t say the same about his old crew.
This Land is Your Land – Woody Guthrie
There’s never been a cooler rock and roll statement than Woody’s guitar that read “This machine kills fascists.”
We sang this song in Kindergarten, which if Ronald Reagan had understood it would have drove him bat shit
crazy.
Only a Pawn in the Game – Bob Dylan
Really it’s not about Black and White it’s about dollars and cents and all the rich folks know it and don’t feel
like sharing the info.
Hurricane – Bob Dylan
It’s pretty amazing what a great protest song he could still write after he had abandoned the form years before.
No wonder Joan Baez was so pissed.
My first year at Northwestern, which was 1984, I took a law seminar. The professor told us about how many
Black men were routinely tossed in jail for crimes they had obviously not committed. As proof he offered, the
case of boxer Ruben “Hurricane” Carter, an innocent man tossed into jail for murder whose cause had been
championed by Bob Dylan. By the professor’s manner it was my assumption that he’d long ago been released,
but he actually was still in jail at the time.
In 1992, I read an article in Sport Illustrated about the case that pretty much made me cry. It told the story about
how a group of unconventional Canadians adopted an illiterate New York Street kid, Lesra Martin. They taught
him to read and encouraged him to read books about his race and culture. At a flea market this kid purchased his
very first book, Ruben Carter’s autobiography the 16th Round. Inspired by the book, Lesra writes a letter to
Carter in jail. A bitter Carter has refused to answer all correspondence for years, but he is so touched with
Lesra’s story that the two meet and the Canadians work for years to secure Carter’s release from prison. His
innocence seems to be completely obvious to anyone, but a complete racist, and his co-defendant John Artis,
even refused an offer of clemency had he admitted his and Carter’s guilt. Carter is finally released from prison
and not only moves to Canada, but marries one of the Canadians. Martin, who had been illiterate goes on to
graduate from law school. It was simply the most amazing, inspiring story that I had ever read and touched me
deeply. I immediately said to myself, someone needs to make this into a movie.
It was made into a movie by Norman Jewison. Jewison of course is the director that passionately wanted to helm
a movie about Malcom X, and found himself up against Spike Lee, who also wanted to direct Malcolm’s story.
Lee was passionate that the story of Malcom X needed to be filmed by a Black man, one of Spike’s arguments
that really gave me pause. I saw his point, but it was really something that I didn’t want to believe artistically.
Why couldn’t a white director like Jewison make a good movie about Malcolm X? Jewison, then moved on and
made Hurricane about Carter’s case, which starred Denzel Washington, the same man who had starred as
Malcolm in Lee’s movie. I think there was talk for a while of Denzel playing Jackie Robinson, too, but although
I often joke about Washington’s omni-presence (almost like in the 50’s the only Black man America would
allow on the screen was Sidney Poitier), but hell, if I were making a movie about an important figure in AfricanAmerican history I’d try to get Denzel, too.
Both movies show Washington as a proud Black man stuck in jail, and the argument is made that Carter was in
jail because of his strong pride and willingness to speak out on racial injustices. The only problem is that upon
release of the movie, people started pointing out that Ruben Carter wasn’t exactly Malcolm X. I’ve since read a
bunch of really convincing articles that argue that Carter wasn’t really a contender for the Middleweight title of
the world, that the fight depicted in the movie showing Carter screwed out of a victory for a fight he dominated
was pretty much fiction, that he is a rapt story teller, who has told a bunch of different stories, that he was violent
his entire life, that he had never really spoken out about civil rights, that he fell out with the Canadians and
divorced the woman he married, and most damaging of all that when he was out on parole awaiting his second
trial, that was boosted forth by the Dylan song, that he assaulted a woman, who was one of his supporters. Now,
I have absolutely no idea what to think.
Talented writers can use their skill to make you believe whatever they want, and even well educated critical
thinkers can fall prey to it. I often read something and feel completely inspired about an issue and then read
something else and am embarrassed for my original feelings. That original Sports Illustrated article made me feel
that Carter was a caged saint. The web pages I’ve read make a really convincing argument that he’s just a violent
con artist. This thing is now more muddled in my mind than the Kennedy assassination. When you grow up I
guess you have to eventually realize that no one is a saint and no one is the devil. There are probably tons of men
imprisoned unfairly because of their race, I’m just not sure whether Carter was one of them or not. In the end,
like Chris Rock said if you can afford Johnny Cochran, you’re going home.
Dylan, from what I can gather, didn’t exactly go out and do a Woodward and Bernstein when he wrote
Hurricane, he basically met Carter and told Carter’s side of the story. Did he have any responsibility to his
audience to delve into the case more deeply than he did, before accusing a bunch of policemen of
institutionalized racism? It would have been nice I guess. What happens to us all when brilliant songwriters
aren’t preaching peace like John Lennon and instead start inspiring people to blindly follow the Government into
a war with Iraq. Hurricane, remains a brilliant protest song, but damn don’t let a great song or great movie make
up your mind for you, use it as a stepping stone to do your research before making up your mind. You might
agree with the start of your inspiration, you might be swayed totally to the other side, or you might end up like
me completely baffled about who killed those people in Paterson, New Jersey.
Things Have Changed – Bob Dylan
Back in ’83 or so my friend’s brother posited that Bob Dylan was proof that even the best of us have only so
many good ideas, and at the time I had to agree. He’d release album after album that Time Magazine would call
his best since Blood on the Tracks and then forget about by the time of his next mediocre release.
Surprising then isn’t it that he’s the only old guy around these days with something new to say. Nice comeback,
Zim.
Absolutely Sweet Marie – Jason and the Scorchers
Looking for Lewis and Clark – The Long Ryders
All hail the aborted country punk revolution - Hank Williams plus 100,000 volts. Absolutely Sweet Marie
crackles like an electrical storm. The best hardest rocking Dylan cover ever for my money. I dig Jimi too so
please don’t string me up for spurning All Along the Watchtower. I’ve always loved that “I waited for you inside
the frozen traffic” line. Of course everyone knows that “to live outside the law you must be honest,” which is
probably why politicians have little difficulty lying.
I find the Long Ryder’s Rickenbacker Byrd fascination superior to Tom Petty’s, apparently though, no one else
did.
Pablo Picasso – The Modern Lovers
I remember sitting in the theater watching There’s Something About Mary and thinking to myself. Wow, that’s
weird music, that’s Jonathan Richman weird. Wow, that is Jonathan Richman. Given the knucklehead punk
rockers of today, how punk rock of Jonathan Richman to sing bewildered ballads about double chocolate
malteds.
Well he was only 5'3"
But girls could not resist his stare
Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole
Those are still my favorite lyrics of his. So much of a man’s identity, especially if he isn’t Clark Gable to begin
with, rests with his ability to mack on a girl without being humiliated and dismissed outright as out of his league.
I’m not sure if Jonathan was saying I’m an artist treat me special, or give me a break I’m a human being, or what
but next time a girl politely dismisses you try muttering under your breath “Pablo Picasso never got called an
asshole.”
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out – Bruce Springsteen
All these years I’ve been sort of embarrassed about this song. It’s my favorite cut on Born to Run, but I had no
idea what the hell a Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out was, then I saw a documentary about the making of the album
where Bruce admits he hasn’t any idea what it means either. I’m not sure whether I’m relieved or disappointed.
Hungry Heart – Bruce Springsteen
It doesn’t do much for my rep, but if there is a song by a serious artist that his fans think is too pop or even
perhaps a sell out, it’s probably my favorite thing in their catalog. In my defense most attempts at hitting the
singles chart don’t start out with something as bleak as
Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never went back
When people ask me if I like Bruce Springsteen, I usually say I liked him best when he was really wordy. Back
in the day when he was like “hell I bet I can get ten more adjectives in this sentence.” Born to Run yes Born in
the USA not so much.
From Small Things Big Things Someday Come – Dave Edmunds
Because the Night – Patti Smith
It’s so amazing when guys in their prime just toss away great songs to others like they were something that
accidentally came out when they drinking their morning coffee, and then 20 years later some of them are
wishing they’d saved a few up.
Superstition - Jeff Beck
‘Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers – Jeff Beck
Stevie: Hey, Jeff I really want to thank you for playing on my album. I wrote this cool song for you to record. I
think it could really be a big hit for you.
Jeff: Cool Stevie, thanks man.
Two weeks later
Stevie: Hey, Jeff you know I realized that song I wrote for you could really be a big hit for me.
Jeff: Dude, that’s not cool.
Stevie: How about doing Cause We’ve Ended as Lovers instead?
That’s OK, Stevie’s Superstition is in another league from Beck’s. Whereas Lovers is the most beautiful thing
Jeff ever recorded.
Rosalita – Bruce Springsteen
Man, I wish when my girlfriend’s father didn’t like me I could have waved a record contract at him like Bruce
does here. Oh, well.
Starting Over – John Lennon
If I Fell – The Beatles
To Know Her is to Love Her – The Beatles
This Boy – The Beatles
Life is a bitch, isn’t it? Back to Chris Rock “How’s a
guy gonna get shot just after releasing a song called
Starting Over?” I worship John Lennon. He was the
only guy pre-Bono (who I still remember bowing down
to a statue of Lennon at the US Festival), who thought
about what he could do positively with his talent and the
great fame and fortune that had been bestowed upon him. Elvis thought about it a lot, but was pretty much too
overwhelmed by it to do anything other than buying people a lot of Cadillac’s. If Bono went to Elvis for help
with the African AIDS crisis, there’d be a bunch of HIV positive Botswana's driving around in Escalades.
More importantly though, hearing John Lennon’s voice just never fails to make me smile. He can be singing
about Heroin withdrawal in Cold Turkey, and I’m beaming like a little school girl. The only thing in his entire
catalog I can’t handle is Mother. Mother is not on my iPod. Mother scares the living shit out of me. If you are
playing Mother at your parties, you need to be seeking psychological help immediately.
Artist’s voices change through time if they manage to make it out alive past the age of 27. Frank Sinatra’s is
obvious. Elvis at the end of his career always sounded like Cher to me.
John Lennon’s voice got sort of higher and more limited. Maybe he just stopped masking it with effects in his
search for truth. The Lennon vocals that knock me out the most are the early ones where you can hear that they
were right when they quoted him in Backbeat as being “fucking desperate” - desperate to find true love.
Especially on the bridges of Anna, This Boy, and my favorite a cover of the Phil Spector hit To Know Him is to
Love Him (genders reversed). Spector wrote the song about his departed father (or maybe he just thought the
phrase on his father’s grave was cool), something which Lennon was well acquainted with. He turns it into the
ache and pain of someone who wants healing from the loss of his mother in the arrival of a true love for the ages.
Something he sang about achieving almost incessantly after he’d met Yoko Ono. This isn’t an out there
interpretation. He literally says as much in the song Julia. Here is the bridge to the Beatles cover version. Just
hearing Lennon cry out the word why punches me in the gut every time.
Why can’t she see?
How blind can she be?
Someday she’ll see that she was meant just for me
The dark side of Lennon, the one that gave him his edge, the one that kept his peace and love message from
making him look like Doug Henning, is implied in that last line. Lennon doesn’t seem to believe that the girl will
one day end up with him. He just wants her to feel his pain.
That’s why If I Fell and not Helter Skelter is the most evil song in the Beatles catalog.
If I fell in love with you
Would you promise to be true
And help me understand
'cause I've been in love before
And I found that love was more
Than just holding hands
If I give my heart to you
I must be sure
From the very start
That you would love me more than her
If I trust in you oh please
Don't run and hide
If I love you too oh please
Don't hurt my pride like her
'cause I couldn't stand the pain
And I would be sad if our new love was in vain
So I hope you see that I
Would love to love you
And that she will cry
When she learns we are two
If I fell in love with you
That’s some twisted stuff, falling in love as a way to hurt the one that hurt you. How can any girl think she isn’t
second best after hearing that? And yet, after he sings that joyful I would love to love you – I’m swooning like
the rest of those screaming girls.
By the way, a lot was made quite cruelly about the fact that Yoko was ugly especially when compared to his first
wife Cynthia. As far as I can tell, when you’re dealing with a man who could have any woman on the face of the
earth – your wife included, that’s a pretty good indication that’s he’s totally in love with her and should be
congratulated and applauded for appreciating a woman with a brain. That aside, I have no interest in hearing her
fake orgasm on Double Fantasy ever again.
One more quick note about this song. I love listening for the spot where Paul tries to hit the right note for the
word vain and fails miserably. Rock and Roll is all about leaving the charming mistakes alone.
P.S. I Love You – The Beatles
Ask Me Why – The Beatles
No one ever seems to say it, but some of the lyrics of early Beatles efforts can seem pretty corny, (“I love you
woo, woo, woo,” okay I’m open to the argument that they were laughing their asses off when they sang that), but
does it really matter. There’s so much innocence, so much enthusiastic joyful harmony, and when John Lennon
brings it to the next level by letting loose with the sheer desperation of “but you’re the only love that I’ve ever
had.” You believe the misery – so smile.
I Should Have Known Better – The Beatles
It’s always amused me that John Lennon stole the harmonica he played on all the early Beatles hits. He probably
eventually lost it, but it would have been cool if say he had given it back in the late ‘70’s. “Hi, I knicked this
from you back in ’62, which was probably wrong, but if you hold on to it for a few years some nerd businessman
from Seattle will probably give you a couple hundred grand for it.” Businesses are such front runners. When
you’re starving you have to steal your instruments, when you have all the cash you need they pay you to take
them.
Chapter 14: Punks on Strike
Submission – The Sex Pistols
Glen Matlock was the Mike Love of the Sex Pistols, and Johnny's biggest mistake ever. A band is usually just
the four kids in high school or its equivalent that were into something remotely close to the same music. So
you're gonna have your bass player who likes the Beatles, you have to deal with it when the dude can play and
he's writing a lot of the music. Though replacing him with a cool looking dude who can't play was if you think
about it exactly the opposite of the way the Beatles did it. Can you imagine me back then saying to the band
“C'mon fellas – shouldn't it be about the music!”?
By the time Nirvana became the 4th seismic wave of Rock History, it was thankfully cool to like John Lennon
again. Kurt's love of the Beatles boded well for the future of the band. Everything else about him didn't.
No Feelings – The Sex Pistols
I love Johnny Rotten. When is he not fun? A guy who can’t sing yet is a brilliant singer, an angry man of love, a
pinprick in everything that is pretentious and everyone that is full of themselves – when ironically enough he’d
probably be the first person to admit to membership in both
categories.
London Calling – The Clash
This will only prove what a dork I am and have always been, but I went to a summer debate camp in 1982 at the
University of Kentucky. Me and one of my best friends got there and must have listened to this song in our dorm
room about 1500 times in a row. Two dorks thrashing around in punk ecstasy. Weird juxtaposition, huh? I like to
think that if I had any musical ability at all that I would have been Weezer ten years before they were, Happy
Days tribute video and all.
Should I Stay or Should I Go – The Clash
I’m not sure exactly what it is with me, high school debate, and the multiple replaying of Clash songs, but I
made it to the National Debate Championship along with this girl I was totally in love with but couldn’t ever
have (she loved someone else more than Elvis loved his mother). When I realized this fact for about the 150th
time and had my ejection from said National Debate Championship staring me sadly in the face, I walked up to
the jukebox in the lunch room and punched in this song about $4’s worth of quarters times (this was 1983 let’s
say 16). I’m not sure if I wanted to hear it that many times or make everybody else do the same. Probably both.
A side note on ring tones –
What the hell? I can buy an entire song for 99 cents but for a ten second snippet for my phone it’s three dollars?
Bought London Calling expecting that awesome bass intro got some random section instead. Corporate laziness
at its worst.
Hatred – The Kinks
Let’s call this the last blast of power from my favorite ever band, and a great practical joke by Ray on his long
suffering, more beautiful brother Dave. These guys make the Gallagher brothers from Oasis look like Nelson. So
Ray gives Dave a song about how much they hate each other, asks him to record it, and then secretly goes off
and makes it a duet between them. How appropriate that to the best of my knowledge the only real duet they ever
did involved as little studio time together as conceivably possible. Much better though, than any of the duets
those people, Bono included, phoned into Frank Sinatra’s recording studio.
A Message to You Rudy – The Specials
Ghost Town – The Specials
I put Rudy on a CD I made for my under ten nieces and nephews for its joyful exuberance. It’s a great song for
kids along with any number of Beatles songs like Yellow Submarine or All Together Now. Ghost Town is so
spooky it’ll have to wait a few years.
The Comedians – Roy Orbison
“It's always something cruel that laughter drowns”
This Elvis Costello composition is perhaps the greatest match of song to performer ever. Orbison might as well
have written it himself. Recorded for his last album, it distills the heartbreaking virtuosity of his whole career as
he describes the utter heartbreak of his lover tricking him onto a Ferris wheel as she skips off with its operator.
They say that you are always the last to know
They say that all that glitters is not gold
It's not just that you're never coming back to me
It's the bitter way that I was told.
And I'm up while the dawn is breaking
Even though my heart is aching
I should be drinking a toast
to absent friends
Instead of these comedians
Devastating
Tweeter and the Monkey Man – Traveling Wilburys
What a wonder this album is, every fear you ever had about your musical heroes fading talents rebutted with
great joy and fun. George Harrison wrote some great songs, but he’s clearly best suited for the Scottie Pippen
role. They rescued Roy Orbison from obscurity. Jeff Lynne’s production, well I have mixed feelings and Tom
Petty lucked into a great experience. It’s Bob Dylan’s album though finally freed from having to be Bob Dylan
and getting to just write songs again. Who knew he was paying so much attention to Bruce Springsteen and
would get the last word?
Lonely Weekends – Charlie Rich
Best Elvis impersonation ever!
Who Will the Next Fool Be – Charlie Rich
He was great as himself too.
Lies – The Knickerbockers
Best Beatles impersonation ever! Unlike Charlie Rich there was no second act.
The Right Profile – The Clash
Joe's crying tribute to a nearly forgotten Monty Clift
Sheilah Graham: He was only forty-five when he died. It would have been better for this sensitive man had he
never come to Hollywood, never heard the shrill trumpet of success and the canned laughter of this desperate
insecure society
In the words of Robert E Lee Prewitt in From Here to Eternity:
Nobody ever lies about being lonely.
A man don't go his own way, he's nothing.
A man should be what he can do.
Charlie Can’t Surf – The Clash
Rock the Casbah – The Clash
This is totally a guess on my part, but I tend to believe that taken in context Joe Strummer was trying to say that
the freedom of his music would set the Middle East free from its more tyrannical aspects, not Halliburton. I’m
guessing he wouldn’t have been particularly pleased to be the soundtrack to George W. Bush laying waste to a
bunch of sand niggers. Then again that’s just me; I like to listen to the lyrics.
The reign of the super powers must be over
So many armies can’t free the earth
Soon the rock will roll over
Africa is choking on their coca cola
Garageland – The Clash
The cool immediacy of punk; Charles Shaar Murray saw an early clash show and reviewed the band with the
less than flattering appraisal that they were “The kind of garage band who should be speedily returned to their
garage, preferably with the motor running, which would undoubtedly be more of a loss to their friends and
families than to either Rock and Roll.”
In response, Joe Strummer decided to wear the dis as a badge of honor.
Hitsville UK – The Clash
“Punk died the day The Clash signed with CBS” – Mark Perry, Sniffin’ Glue
Apparently, dudes agreed because wow did they ever do their best to fuck up their careers business wise. Putting
out a three disk set is usually bad enough. Insisting that the label charge their fans for only a single disk, while a
wonderful sentiment, meant Joe Strummer was smoking way to much weed. Personally, I’d have rather they
made a respectable living and stayed together a few years longer. No wonder Topper was addicted to heroin.
Every album the band recorded seemed to get them further and further in debt. Romantic? - sure. Stupid? –
definitely.
The Magnificent Seven – The Clash
Know Your Rights – The Clash
Clash City Rocker – The Clash
This is Radio Clash – The Clash
We are the Clash – The Clash
Please try to remember that Joe Strummer was the first credible white rapper. The Magnificent Seven is proof
enough, but the real evidence follows with the eponymous songs. No one ever loved singing about how cool his
band was as much, and no one ever did it more often. We are the Clash comes from the discredited “I just threw
Mick Jones out of the band because he was being an ass” album, Cut the Crap, but it remains a guilty pleasure.
“You have the right to free speech, as long as you’re not dumb enough to actually try it.”
When Joe Strummer died, I was devastated and no one seemed to care. Not a single song on the radio in the
whole city of Cleveland. Fuckers.
I appreciated seeing Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, and Dave Grohl paying tribute to him by doing London
Calling at the Grammy’s but though they got the fury of the coming ice age they missed the humor in lines like
London calling, yes I was there too
An' you know what they said - well some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
An' after all this, won't you give me a smile?
Death or Glory – The Clash
Am I a bad person because the following is one of my favorite couplet ever?
But I believe in this and it's been tested by research
That he who fucks nun will later join the church
This one isn’t bad either.
Every cheap hood strikes a bargain with the world
And ends up making payments on a sofa or a girl
Chapter 15: The Greatest and His Brothers
Duke Ellington: I contend that the Negro is the creative voice of America, is creative America, and it was a
happy day in America when the first unhappy slave was landed on its shores.
Muhammad Ali (Black Superman) – Johnny Wakelin
Along with Jackie Robinson, the only athlete that ever really mattered. He’s my favorite poet (delivery counts
big with me) and the first and most uplifting rapper of all time. Was this fighting disciple of pure love actually
once seen as America’s angriest and most dangerous? The most hated man in America eventually becomes the
most loved man in the world – try pulling that off. Dude’s life is like a Greek Myth filled with great flights of
fancy, some he made up, and so many that were true that I wouldn’t be all that surprised if in a few hundred
years they started to wonder how much was real and how much was Hollywood.
There are some famous snapshots of Ali and the Beatles taken when the then Clay was training for the first
Liston fight. See if your eyes stay on the Beatles, I doubt it.
No athlete was ever as principled, as purposefully political, as wily, as psychologically deadly, as courageous, or
as talented at his best as Ali. He saved boxing and then when he left, he killed it. Intellectuals dig boxing, but
they should have retired the ugly thing after Ali stepped down. He did it perfectly, why go on. In the ‘70’s if Ali
was fighting there was nothing else happening anywhere on the planet.
I read Ali’s first autobiography in high school. It’s incredibly entertaining and from what I’ve heard almost
complete bullshit. Did he and Frazier really take a limo ride through the city agreeing on Black brotherhood,
when Ali was in exile, hell if I know, but it was a great read. The greatest myth of all time is the one about him
coming back from the Olympics and tossing his medal into the Ohio river after confronting stateside racism. He
had just lost it but that was a much cooler story, and I’m guessing he faced enough discrimination to justify it.
The book led me to The Autobiography of Malcolm X, which remains the greatest piece of literature that I have
ever read.
He lost his athletic prime to an ugly war and had to rely on sheer determination and his ability to take a punch to
regain his rightful throne. He lost as much as he won in the Foreman fight, essentially in both cases the world.
The only two people I’ve ever stood in line to shake hands with are Ray Davies and Muhammad Ali. I’m pretty
proud of that.
How the people who truly hated his mouth in the sixties would love to see his current state, and yet I swear that
to this day that there is a radiance about the man. My hands are tinier than most girls, so you know his huge mitt
engulfed mine. I miss that voice. It’s like Elvis had he lost the ability to sing. Man could that man talk, but then
again when you tell everyone that you are going to shock the world and then you do it six or seven times maybe
there is really nothing left to be said, and yet we learn again that nobody ever beats time unscathed, especially
athletes.
Cool Things I dig about Ali
1. Great Superhero like origin as he learns to box after having his bicycle stolen, and wants to whoop the
guy that did it.
2. Dug Sam Cooke, introduced him on camera after beating Liston for the title. The biggest ego-maniac in
the history of sport using his biggest moment to laud Cooke as the Heavyweight Champion of singers.
3. Blew off all his high school assignments by telling everyone he would be champion of the world. Got
away with it because Principal believed him.
4. As good looking as he said he was
5. Man he was fun to watch when he was young. Holding his hands down around his waist, mocking his
opponent, making faces, predicting his round of victory. Dancing around like Baryshnikov. Throwing
down bombs from angles no one had ever considered before.
6. The Ali shuffle. Part showbiz, part genius. His way of announcing “I’m about to kick your ass.” Pretty
much 90% of Nintendo’s Mike Tyson’s Punch-out.
7. Float like a butterfly, Sting like a bee. Best slogan ever.
8. “Rumble, young man Rumble. I am a bad man!
9. The whole build-up to the first Liston fight was left out of Michael Mann’s movie Ali, possibly because
that year or two in itself was worth a movie. Ali calling him too ugly to be champ. Recording an entire
album about how he was gonna kick Liston’s ass. Ali showing up at random times like a stalker to yell
his head off like an enraged panther.
The reporters who thought he was scared shitless. Liston, the gangster's bad man convinced Ali was out
of his mind eventually winding up the one who was scared
shitless. Then Ali starts showing up with
Malcolm X, who 90% of the white world at the time thought was the Anti-Christ.
Not to mention the fight itself as the then Cassius Clay comes out and plays with Liston.
Liston can’t hit him. He can hit Liston at will, but then he gets blinding by a solution on Liston’s
gloves and after thinking about quitting for a while, went out and faced what was thought to be the most lethal
heavyweight ever -- blind for a round and a half! Are you
fucking serious? Eventually his eyes clear,
Liston quits and he starts pointing to every
reporter, who had ever doubted him.
Oh, and then he changes his name the next day and aligns himself with the Nation
of Islam, who
even most liberals of the time thought was the Black Ku Klux Klan. Did anyone ever seize a moment like this?
Maybe only Ali in Zaire a decade later.
10. The photo of Ali standing over the downed re-matched Liston, is my favorite photograph of all time and
has a neat side story. The man who took the photo was used to getting the second best seat at
heavyweight title fights. The photographer with the prime ticket can be seen right between Ali's legs in
the famous shot.
11. Cosell: Muhammad, you're being truculent
Ali: Howard, I don't know what truculent means, but if it means I'm pretty, you're right.
12. Beat Ernie Terrell silly after he refused to acknowledge his new identity. “What’s my name, fool?” Pow!
“What’s my name?” Whap!
13. “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet-Cong.”
14. Essentially offered a choice between being inducted into the army and being able to rake in the cash by
confining his fighting to one on one appearances, or making no money and losing the title he prized
above everything, he stuck by his principals and chose the latter.
15. Wilt Chamberlain is about to sign to fight Ali. Ali is instructed to not say anything to screw up the big
payday until the Stilt signs because he’s worried about being made a fool of. Chamberlain walks in the
room, grabs the pen and Ali bellows out “Tiiiiiimmmmbbbbbeeeerrr.” Chamberlain backs out.
16. Zaire, another movie in itself. He conquers Africa and then he conquers Foreman, who he had no
business beating by using his brains. He ruins Foreman’s life for a decade. Foreman returns worshiping
Ali and makes a small fortune by doing his best impression of the guy who kicked his ass.
17. As Sinbad in the greatest moment of his career said he has some smoking hot daughters.
I skipped out of work to shake Ali’s hand in San Francisco, and waited in line to buy a book I already owned to
meet him. The man in front of me in line was a Black Muslim. He wanted the champ to autograph a picture of
Ali and Malcolm X. This presented some problems:
1. Because of his trembling hands, he wasn’t signing anything, they were pasting his autograph into the
books.
2. It had to bring back sad thoughts about how he and Malcolm ended up. I think that the two eventually
made the same journey to true Islam, but Ali was misled about Malcolm and spoke out against him after
he had left the Nation.
3. I really think Ali felt bad that he had let the kid down. Even though he might not have wanted to sign it
had he been healthy.
So when Ali shook my hand, he was a bit distracted, but here’s the holiness of the man to me. When he noticed
my disappointment, he turned his attention immediately upon me and made that cool boxing pose that Red Foxx
stole from him when he used to get mad on Sanford and Son. Imagine spending years and years shaking people’s
hand and caring about each and every one.
Bill Visits Ray Charles – Bill Cosby
Fat Albert Theme
He doesn’t need my pity, because he has a ton of money, but I feel for this guy. I’m guessing he has his faults
and I wouldn’t want to have to be one of his daughters, but if there is one thing that was obvious it was that Bill
Cosby worshiped his son as his greatest masterpiece. He looked at his son like Elvis looked at Gladys, and it’s
horrible that he lost him in such horrible random fashion.
Nevertheless, isn't it odd that anyone can really make fun of Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles because they were
blind and no one is ever offended. If a paraplegic became a sex rock star would that suddenly be acceptable
territory? Christopher Reeves was a paraplegic and there were a lot of jokes, but people were offended by them.
They'd laugh, but they'd be offended. I credit that to the fact that he was famous before he was paralyzed. That's
a downer. Now if he had become paralyzed first and then played Superman, well that's a great uplifting story so I
guess fire away! Sadly, wasn't that the premise of a Damon Wayons' movie?
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – Gil Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon – Gil Scott Heron
Public Enemy over 15 years before Public Enemy and if you don’t believe it check out the intro to It Takes a
Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. He’s as funny on both of these as he is angry and poetic. Moon will
probably get you laughing immediately, on the tenth listen you’ll realize how angry it is, on the twentieth you’ll
have to start reevaluating whether Tang was worth it.
Do the Right Thing
It bothers me when people get ticked off at Spike Lee’s public persona, because I think that he does himself and
his work a disservice by falling into the same trap that he so presciently warned the world of in what I think to be
the best made and most important movie of the last twenty years Do The Right Thing. Do the Right Thing is an
amazingly mature political statement that manages to be scathingly hilarious right up until the very moment that
it hits you square in the stomach so hard that you can barely breath.
When Lee's Do The Right Thing lost the Palme D'or award in 1989 to Steven Soderbergh's Sex Lies and
Videotape, there were many issues that plagued the film which continue to weigh against it for many white
Americans. Why were there no sympathetic characters? Why does Spike Lee's character Mookie incite a riot by
yelling “hate” and throwing a garbage can through his employer Sal’s window bringing forth the ugly
destruction of Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, Wall of Fame and all? Since Mookie is constantly being told to "do the
right thing", and he is portrayed by the writer and director, is the
movie a call
for violence? Don't the dueling quotes from Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X
that end the movie cloud the issue even more? What does he mean
by “do the
right thing,” when he seems to be hedging his bets throughout the
whole movie?
The truth however is that unlike Oliver Stone's JFK Spike Lee chose to use his skills to illuminate an issue rather
than to pummel his audience with an opinion. The tragedy is that Spike Lee does have a strong opinion and thus
moviegoers were unable to separate themselves from the violent blaze of the ending and lost the true meaning
entirely, which was plain and simply uttered as early as the first two words of dialog, "Wake up!" Not
surprisingly these were also the final words of Lee’s previous effort School Daze.
It must be admitted that Spike Lee didn’t do much to help his audience understand the film. In fact he was so
appalled that it was misunderstood and at the ways it was misunderstood that he most likely reinforced people's
misconceptions. I have long argued that although Lee's public rhetoric is strong and opinionated Do The Right
Thing is the most passionate and fair minded film that I have ever seen. Unlike the media, which scribbles down
every attention grabbing outrage that Lee utters, his characters are allowed to not only debate issues, but to
debate them with the best possible argument that person can use given his situational place in life.
Anyone can make a film which bysteps the other sides stronger viewpoints. Oliver Stone certainly doesn’t
provide an intelligent proponent of the Warren Commission in JFK (well if there is one). JFK like Do the Right
Thing is a brave political statement and masterfully made. Stone’s film is a skillful piece of propaganda. Political
commercial directors should pray to be half as convincing. Stone doesn’t care about fairness. He has a point he
wants to make and he was so effective that as a result of JFK there was a big furor which resulted in the release
of documents pertaining to John F Kennedy’s murder. Is the world a better place because of it? I doubt it.
On the other hand Do the Right Thing was a cry by Spike Lee for the world to pay attention to the escalation of
racial strife in the United States. Unfortunately, it’s fair and even tone worked against it. If you watch Do the
Right Thing today it is eerily prescient of the events that would culminate in Los Angeles’ Rodney King riots. In
the short term, it might have been better for Lee’s cause if Do the Right Thing had been made by Stone.
Hopefully some day people will see Lee’s true even handed and gentle statement for what it is,a call to arms and
a prayer for a better world. The fact that it wasn’t nominated for a best picture Oscar is a sad joke and almost as
embarrassing as the separate drinking fountains of the ‘60s.
The triumph and tragedy of Do the Right Thing is that everyone has a valid viewpoint, but not many are willing
to compromise. The key to the issue is black and white, and yet don't fall into that racial trap. Although the film
explores racial issues the true point is that no issue is black and white, there are no easy answers. Racism is
dogma and it can’t be solved through dogmatic means. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X have been codified
historically as symbols of love vs. hate and nonviolence vs. violence when in fact the truth is much more
complicated than that. People feel a need to make things simple, but civil rights issues are not black and white, it
is not a math problem, and there is no pat answer. It is of utmost significance that although the quotes at the end
of the film take different opinions, the dominant image of these two men in the movie is of the famous photo of
them smiling and shaking hands despite their differences. That was Spike Lee's point and it was ignored.
Repeatedly throughout the film Spike Lee is practically screaming that the choice is not between black and
white. It is quite simply one of love versus hate.
I saw Lee speak in Berkeley shortly before the release of Malcolm X, and he was asked, as he had been many
times before, "Why did Mookie throw the garbage can through Sal's window?" Spike had two flip and clever
answers, which spoke of his anger not of the eloquence of his film. He quipped that:
1) I've been asked that question hundreds of times, but never by a black person.
and
2) How come none of these people care that a black man died? Sal has insurance. Radio Raheem is dead.
This theme is echoed in the film by the mayor's concern not for police brutality, but for the damage that was
done to public property.
Lee has a valid point when he rails against politicians, who are more concerned with property than human life,
but I think that the question is still valid only when one ignores the whole of the movie.
Danny Aiello’s Sal argues quite elegantly that insurance money does not replace the sentimental value of the
pizzeria that he literally built himself. He is seen as generous and loving towards the people in the neighborhood.
He tells his son Pino in a beautifully written scene of his joy at having watched the children of the neighborhood
grow up on his pizza. He stresses to his son that these are good people, some of them don't like us, but most of
them do. The confrontation itself actually takes place because Sal stays late to make a pizza for some of his
favorite customers rather than closing up shop and going home on time. Sal's Achilles’ heel is his temper and his
intolerance.
The main confrontation in the film is initiated, by the character Buggin’ Out played by Giancarlo Esposito. Like
many mini-debates within this film, both parties have a valid point. Buggin' Out points out that since Sal's
clientele is mostly black that it would be appropriate to have an African American wall of fame as well as an
Italian one. Sal counters this by telling Buggin' Out that it's his place. If Buggin' Out wants to get his own place,
he can do whatever he wants with it. This issue is brought up immediately in the movie’s theme Public Enemy’s
"Fight the Power" which notes that "none of my heroes appear on no stamps."
Both parties had they been communicating and rational rather than confrontational could probably have avoided
the whole thing. Had they each chosen love over hate, Buggin' Out would have calmly convinced Sal of the
issues importance to him, and Sal would probably have put some new pictures on the wall. Lee also tells African
Americans that if they are rational and loving and it is not returned (and there is strong historical aspect for him
to believe that this is the case) that they should take the appropriate steps as a last resort "by any means
necessary." Not only is there a vacant lot right next to Sal's where a black business could be, Lee uses his film
itself as his own wall of fame. For the answer is clearly one of self reliance. Buggin’ Out should have built his
own place.
All of the characters in Do the Right Thing are sympathetic, most are flawed (welcome to the real world people).
One character who definitely "does the right thing" is Mister Senior Love Daddy, as played by Samuel L
Jackson. Spike Lee does not have him continually say "and that's the truth Ruth" merely because it’s a goofy and
fun DJ cliche. Love Daddy is Spike Lee’s actual voice, the words that he is sure of in this quagmire of racial
strife. In the choice of love vs. hate, there is no doubt which side Love Daddy is on. His station is called
WELOVE and there is a big sign outside of the station that spells out We Love, which Lee often uses as a
background for the acts of selflessness and good will that do take place in the movie.
Love Daddy is not lazy. He is "the only 12 hour" DJ in the world. There is a much discussed scene about
midway through the movie that can only be described as a montage of ethnic slurs. Lee has a little fun with the
terrible names we create for people unlike ourselves. There is a joy in the creativity of the slurs. If we could
move on from the fear and hatred behind those words, they would become harmless, archaic and funny.
Nevertheless, at this point in time the words are filled with pain that pierces deeper than the recipient might be
willing to admit. It is with hurtful pride that Lee’s African American Mookie tells Pino, "If you see a nigger kick
his ass." Just as the film seems about to explode with hate and careen into violence, Love Daddy breaks it up.
Sliding from the back of the screen like a referee breaking up two fighters intent on continuing well after the
round is over, he once again shouts the truth. "You all need to chill out." This intercession by love, though
perhaps artificially arranged, provides a moment of calm, an eye in the storm where Mookie literally takes a
shower to cool down. Notice that Love Daddy in fact has built his own business, and uses it to honor his musical
heroes that do not appear on no stamps. The real message once again is choose love, be rational, and work hard.
Lee uses many other occasions to point out his black heroes, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X are the
obvious ones, but look for the basketball and baseball jerseys sported by many characters throughout the film.
Look at the huge mural of Mike Tyson, who courtesy of Robin Harris is not immortalized wholeheartedly. Even
the most racist major character, Pino, played by John Turturro, somehow finds the ability to worship Eddie
Murphy and Magic Johnson, because to him they are somehow "more than black." Especially notice the jersey
worn by Lee's Mookie during the first half of the film, that of Jackie Robinson, a proud man who integrated
baseball by withholding his great temper and proclivities towards retribution. Robinson was no Uncle Tom, once
he had shown and demanded his worth to the white world, he spoke and fought loudly for those who might
follow. Here’s hoping that Lee gets Robinson’s film made someday too.
Throughout the movie Lee is constantly prodding the black characters. The movie is not a call for violence. It is
a call for self-improvement for his people. Lee in effect says that when we as a people get together and do
everything unilaterally to solve our problems, despite our current tragic situation, then we as African Americans
will have the moral upper hand. It is the message of Martin Luther King filtered through Malcom X's message of
self reliance, education, and sweat. Do the Right Thing is a means of informing white America of the powder
keg of race relations. Wake up something must be done. It is also a threat that if black efforts to obtain equality
through hard work, self reliance, and education are met with continued racism and intolerance, he has no
problem endorsing hate if that is the only means for his people to survive.
So why does Mookie throw the garbage can through the window? It's not Sal's fault that Bill Nunn’s Radio
Raheem is dead. Trashing Sal's is by no means productive. The anger should have been directed at the long gone
police not at Sal. I think that many white Americans can understand the emotions behind the riot, they just do not
understand why it is Mookie, significantly played by Lee, who starts the riot. Is Spike Lee saying that he
believes this was the right thing to do in this situation? Out of context this is a valid opinion, but given the movie
as a whole, it is Lee's point that the tragedy of the movie is that Mookie, given the attitudes of the majority of the
film's characters had no choice but to throw that garbage can through the window.
Mookie should not be viewed as the moral center of the movie. He is almost literally used as a human rope in the
race relation tug of war. Just about every character implores and demands that he choose between black and
white, love and hate. Neither side of the racial war is willing to compromise. These character's are mostly
intolerant, and Mookie is in the unfortunate predicament of attempting to walk a high wire down the middle as
he is pulled at by both sides. The true message of Do the Right Thing is that no one wins when people choose to
believe that they have the only valid opinion. No matter who was successful in pulling Mookie from the other
side he was still going to fall off the rope. Lee believes that right thing to do is to be hard working, loving and
tolerant, and the examples are in every frame of the movie.
Let's look at Mookie as a character. He is consistently caught between his race and his job. The conflict is
exemplified by the two jerseys that Mookie wears during the course of the movie. As noted above, Mookie
sports a replica of Jackie Robinson's original Brooklyn Dodgers uniform, an homage to the black hero and the
black area where the film takes place. After taking a midday shower, he changes into a Sal's Pizzeria jersey. He
is clearly trying to balance his racial pride with his need to "get paid, make that money." The rest of the movie
can be seen as a contest for Mookie's support.
Start with the martyred Radio Raheem. He is treated both as a religious figure and as an example of the worst
case scenario for a black youth gone wrong. He is the largest and strongest African American figure in the
movie. This power is expressed by his radio, which is the essence of his identity. He plays one Public Enemy
tape incessantly because it is all that he likes and plays it so loud that there is no way to coexist with him without
liking his music. He is like a lot of flawed people in the world, who feel that their overwhelming loyalty to their
friends is enough reason to ignore their hatred and ill will towards everyone else.
Raheem's first major appearance with Mookie is very telling. Spike's homage to Robert Mitchum's tainted
preacher in Night of the Hunter both illustrates Raheem's nature and criticizes young black men, by substituting
Mitchum's tattooed hands for Raheem's Gold LOVE and HATE version of brass knuckles. It is to Lee's credit
that he is able to have fun with the creativity of the language and style of Raheem and other misguided
characters at the same time he stridently opposes the damning cliché that is the boom box carrying ghetto youth
wasting his money and time acquiring gold jewelry while he desperately tries to affirm his manhood and equality
with loud and blind bravado. As Sal says "these are good people" albeit one's whose potential has been
misdirected for many reasons. The movie fails to conclusively answer why these lives have gone wrong, but it
argues that it is nonetheless necessary to "wake up" to them.
Raheem's version of Mitchum's Cain and Abel narrative of love and hate is in this version cloaked in boxing
terms, which hark back to the boxing attire Rosie Perez wears while dancing to the only song Raheem likes PE’s
Fight the Power. This boxing image foreshadows the agony of the violent end of these attitudes and is climaxed
by the bloody pictures of Black and Italian fighters which are shown from Sal's Wall of Fame as Raheem lies
dead and Sal's burns to the ground.
Raheem tells Mookie that there are no two ways about it. "If I love you I love you, but if I hate you I hate you."
Every issue is black and white to Raheem and if you are on the wrong side the message is clear that you had
better be ready to fight. If Mookie is to be his friend he has to be on his side.
Raheem is next shown in a confrontation, with a group of Latino's. Rather than share the music of their two
cultures and grow, the two try to drown each other out. Raheem's victory is not based on anything more than the
power of his huge radio.
During the playful fire hydrant scene, Raheem appears as if Moses parting the Red Sea. The youth of the
neighborhood separate and let Raheem by not out of respect for his radio's aversion to water, but seemingly out
of fear for his size, power and cool. Something they do not hold for the white motorist unlucky enough to follow
him.
It is at this point that we meet Raheem's symmetrical counterpoint in the visage of a huge racist white cop, who
tells the people he has been appointed to protect and that if anyone gets out of line they will have to deal with
him. The only difference between Raheem and the cop is their skin color. Both are intolerant to people different
from themselves, and both exist as a function of their strength and power. They are the same flawed person,
whose personality and identity are fixed, by what should be the meaningless difference in the color of his skin. It
is at the hands of this cop that Raheem dies in the crucifiction like choke hold grasp of his white alter ego. His
death over a radio is a tragic waste, but it is almost fated by the conflict of these two characters, who are easily
the most radically intolerant in the movie. The playful early scene where Raheem proudly proclaims that hate
has been ko'd by love, culminates in Raheems lifeless body, layed out in much the same postion as Tommy
Smith's black gloved posture on the medal stand of the 1968 olympics, only here the lifeless body holds up only
the hand of the hate that killed him spelled out in the gold, indicative of his misguided life.
One of the interracial friendships that does exist is the one between Mookie and Richard Edson's character Vido.
Vido prefer's Mookie to his brother Pino, because "he listens to me and you don't." Pino though overtly racist is
still allowed by Lee time to be heard sympathetically and in his own words. He is given reasons for his hostility
towards the place "he detests like a sickness." It may even be suggested that in a world that has chosen hate over
love that Pino is the most self realized character in the movie. He tells Vido to remember who he is and that
Mookie is not to be trusted, a prediction that is realized by Mookie's final decision.
According to Lee, the obvious best solution is for everyone to disregard their differences, be tolerant and get
along. Unilaterally Lee is calling for his people to do what they can to have the upper hand morally, as King
preached, while raising themselves up to a level that is better able to compete for respect through economic and
intellectual power as suggested by Malcolm X. Like Malcolm X, Spike will not rule out violence, but anyone
who watches Do the Right Thing intelligently can’t help but see his sadness at what he sees to be inevitable
conflict.
From the other side of the fence though is Mister Senior Love Daddy. Because he is self aware and tolerant he
sees no problem with Mookie's friendship with Vido. The same cannot be said for Buggin' Out, who has to be
told by Mookie that Vido is “down.” Nonetheless he intolerantly warns Mookie to "stay black".
In Buggin’ Out’s key confrontation with Sal, he argues that it’s a free country. The exact same argument is made
seconds later to Buggin’ Out by John Savage, the white man in the Larry Bird jersey whose bicycle accidentally
runs over his new Air Jordans. With the tables turned Buggin’ Out sadly yet humorously chalks the notion up as
nonsense.
The movie’s message is not the riot at the end. The riot is only the sad result of the path not taken. The path that
is taken by the older wiser characters played by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. At the film’s onset Dee and Davis
are so at odds that they are both filmed at opposing angles.. When Ossie Davis’ Da Mayor does a nice thing by
buying Dee’s Mother Sister some flowers the characters stop being filmed at opposing angles. When Dee
accepts Davis’ kindness and praises Da Mayor for saving a boy from being hit in traffic, Lee lets you know that
this is the right path by illuminating a street light over Davis’ head. If you’re not convinced by this point listen
carefully to the sound track because a little bell literally goes off. The message of the film is in that bell going
off, but because it was stuck in the middle of the film and followed by violence it was sadly ignored.
The film’s right thing to do is to get along despite our differences. Sadly everyone was too concerned with their
own point of view to see that Mookie’s actions were the only course acceptable to a world that insists that you
choose one side or the other.
Fuck tha Police – NWA
If there was any universal lesson about pop culture and the Twentieth Century, I suppose it should have been to
never underestimate the ability of the next generation to extend the boundaries of noise, venom, and world
threatening bad taste. When I was in college, I used to wonder how things could ever get any more menacing to
the adult world than punk rock. How was it conceivably possible for people raised on punk to be confronted with
anything more threatening, nihilistic, and loud? In the end we all underestimated rap.
It seemed at the time to me to be not much more than a one note novelty act. I remember being fairly entertained
by the more melodic efforts that hit the charts like Young MC's "Bust a Move" and De La Soul's "Me Myself
and I", but the possibility that rap would become as diverse and dominant a force as it is today seemed totally out
of the question to me until Public Enemy released It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back. That album
took the argument that rap music was nothing but random noise and threw it back in the face of the music world
with screeching police sirens, sounds of random gunfire, and the intense anger of Chuck D's Marv Albert
impression that he accurately labeled "lyrical terrorism." At its core I never really found Public Enemy to be all
that frightening because I understood where they were coming from. They might be singing about an armed
insurrection into Arizona, but they were all about letting out their violence in the rage of their music.
Then came NWA's Straight Outta Compton, and all hell broke loose. Before NWA, Tipper Gore's panties were
all in a knot about suggestive Prince songs. Like I’ve said Tipper and her cohorts used to spend all night playing
Erotic City over and over again desperately trying to see if they could figure out whether Prince was saying funk
or fuck in the chorus. Then came NWA's Fuck tha Police. Ratings stickers? Sure put ‘em on our albums we don't
care. Fuck, put two on if you like as long as I get paid. This was truly scary stuff. Tales of gangland violence,
pimping, altercations with the police, drive by shootings, drug dealing, guns galore, and the omnipresence of the
word motherfucker. Rappers use the word motherfucker more than the Beatles used love, peace and pronouns.
Of course the thing that scared the bejesus out of those soccer moms who were really paying attention was that
suburban white kids started eating this up like it was covered in sugar. Imagine how cool guys who don't listen to
the police are to kids who don't want to listen to their parents. These guys don't speak your language you have to
learn to speak theirs. Who wouldn't rather be known as Ghostface Killa or Shock G.? After all Rock and art and
stuff have a long history of middle class hipsters desperately grabbing on to lower class cool. Pretty soon rapper
replaced athlete as the best way out of the hood, and how could anyone resist these packing cowboys with street
smart style. As long as they stayed out of court and didn't get killed, rappers could seemingly get away with
anything, and rap albums were like a doorway into the life of gangster hustler cool without having to be poor.
Millions of kids said I don't want to work at Burger King either, and somewhere around Bulworth Warren Beatty
decided he agreed. Unfortunately as fascinated liberals waxed poetic about poetry from the oppressed streets and
the rest of the world increasingly swung to the dope beats that Dr. Dre and his followers were dishing out, some
truly frightening stuff started going on. Folks started shooting each other. Of course that only made things that
much more interesting.
Look how quaint those punks seem nowadays shaking their fists, spitting, swearing, maybe leaving behind a bit
of vandalism and vomit in their wake. At its worst the nihilism of punk led to a bunch of overdoses, accidental
murders, and suicides, but rappers started hanging out in packs, threatening to kill cops, and shooting each other.
Remember how bad Vanilla Ice thought he was until Suge Knight dangled him off a hotel balcony? It got to the
point where you didn't have an ounce of credibility unless you had a couple of citations for felony possession of
firearms and a murder charge hanging over your head. Jail for anything outside of drug possession or mere
racism was a commitment no one had seriously made in their prime since the badass days of Leadbelly.
The man or, in the Tipper Gore era of no sex until you get that song off of the radio, the white women, tried to
make a stand around 1989, and their choice was ingenious. In going after 2 Live Crew and their leader Luke (I
can’t finish his name because George Lucas sued him) and his hit opus Me So Horny, they were going after
perhaps the least talented and certainly the least artistic rapper in history. Why mess with a guy with brains like
Lenny Bruce, when you can mess with a guy with missing teeth, whose entire aesthetic goal seemed to be
becoming the first super successful American Black pornographer. Nevertheless, give Luther Campbell some
credit:
1) Sampling “Me so horny, me love you long time” from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket was genius.
2) I love the scene in Ice Cube’s (as in crazy motherfucker named) Players Club, where it’s announced that
Luke is in the house and all the strippers come running like Oprah’s giving away cars in the lobby.
Wow, what odds do you think I could have gotten from Tipper Gore when Straight Outta Compton came
out against Cube one day starring in successful children’s movies? Had I laid like ten bucks, she’d owe
me so much she’d have to sleep with me on demand, and Al wouldn’t have had anything to say about it
even if Florida had gone his way.
3) Dude was so completely absurd that no one could really take much of it seriously. Much as I fear
censorship even in today’s world. The rise of gangsta’ rap proves that money talks in America no matter
how offended you are. Record companies didn’t scurry to sign Garry and the Pacemakers because they
loved their music and once rap started to sell, there were a million record executives ready willing and
able to argue the merits of the art of the ghetto.
There were just two huge road blocks along the way. Fuck tha Police and Cop Killer. Cop Killer’s not on my
iPod, because after all even Ice-T probably never listened to it much, but it had white people shitting their pants
ten times harder than amazingly enough Malcolm X on his best day. I can’t even say that I objected to people’s
fears and outrage over it. Welcome to a free society, it’s not supposed to be easy. It’s the hard that makes it good
with apologies to Debbie Allen.
The argument back then even from the author himself was that he was speaking in a character. Maybe he was.
NWA wasn’t. The characters speaking in Fuck tha’ Police were listed on the record sleeve Ice Cube, Dr. Dre,
Easy-E, and the others that no one ever really cared much about. Fuck tha’ Police is a call to arms for a violent
takeover of the country, but then again last time I checked Yankee Doodle was too.
I felt really let down by a lot of my friends during the Cop Killer conflagration. My best friend’s favorite Senator
signed some sort of bill of outrage against the song, and my friend overwhelmingly agreed with his actions. It’s a
song. I can’t bear to even have to rationally defend my belief that the best myth about America is that you can
say, write, or sing anything you want. Coming out against Cop Killer is so the equivalent of burning books to me
that I wince even thinking that people don’t see it. I just don’t understand these people who argue that people
singing about guns is more dangerous than people who carry guns. Actually, I take that back because it’s true
they are right – it’s that whole the pen is mightier than the sword thing. It doesn’t matter freedom is more
important, and every day people in this country forget that.
Back to the money, like I said Cube’s doing children’s movies now and Ice, well he’s played a cop both on TV
and on the silver screen. Did they sell out? Did Cube really mean Fuck tha’ Police until I get paid and have some
shit that needs protecting? I’m hoping at least in Cube’s case that his real message was look out White America
here we come, we’re taking over and we’re going to do it on your terms, cold hard cash. I’m not willing to bet
Tipper Gore a ten spot on it, but that’s my hope anyway.
By the way, Dr. Dre is the musical genius of the last 20 years of American Pop music. We’ll talk more about
him later.
It’s a Lie – Too Much Joy
Crush Story – Too Much Joy
A lot of the early white guys who got into rap were smart aleck college kids like these guys, who found the
whole thing fairly amusing. With It’s a Lie they turned an LL Cool J song into a smug laugh of a punk song,
with hilarious asides about co-writing it in LL’s basement and a wonderful false ending.
What makes them heroes to me, though was the decision to protest 2 Live Crew’s Florida arrest by playing the
exact same club and doing the exact same songs to make sure that the police would be willing to arrest a bunch
of white guys. The police were up to it, but eventually the inanity of the whole situation because apparent and
sanity prevailed. Most of their songs are about beer and things less intellectual than that, but their gesture to me
remains a perfect example of civil disobedience.
Crush Story on the other hand is just a perfect pop song.
Everything you've ever said is brilliant
Anything you wanna do is fine by me
This is much better than love, babe
This is a crush story
Welcome to the Terrordome – Public Enemy
Heh, when I was working on the Pacific Stock Exchange in 1989, there were basically three people who were
huge into Public Enemy. A large and lovely man named Rasheed Burton, me, and another Jewish guy, who
released rap records with his own money and went by MC29. He was big enough to have a feud in Source
Magazine with one of the guys from 3rd Bass. Now that I look back it was sort of quaint how back in the day
before Eminem, the white rappers only messed with the other white rappers. Anyway, I don’t remember exactly
how he put it but 29 had this theory that certain Jews like myself worshiped black people in sort of a
sadomasochistic way. Believe what you want, but I do think it’s pretty funny that my favorite PE song is
Welcome to the Terrordome.
Terrordome was Chuck D’s less than contrite apology over the Professor Griff fiasco. Griff, more of a dancer or
entourage member than anything else, had said a ton of anti-Semitic nonsense, the highlight of which was
something along the lines of “Why do you think they call it Jew-elry?” Did that bug me? Yeah, a little, it was
depressing that such ignorance sort of came out of the same place as the genius of It Takes a Nation of Millions
to Hold Us Back. It depresses me when people with legitimate gripes about being unfairly hated, unfairly hate
people too, but in reality to me it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It wasn’t a secret to me that some blacks were
anti-Semitic, for the most part I was happy that it was out in the open and being talked about. My grandfather
was fairly anti-black, we should talk about that too.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is the most profound book I’ve read in my life, and I have all kinds of mad
respect for both of its authors. Did I sense some anti-Semitism in there? Yeah, I did. But the whole point of that
book was that its subject was constantly learning and adapting his viewpoint. The Malcolm that got shot wasn’t
fully formed, but what an amazing and inspirational transformation.
Chris Rock once said that America to African Americans was really similar to the Uncle that put you through
college, but molested you when you were a kid. I have sort of similar feelings about The Nation of Islam, both in
Malcolm’s day and today. They pulled people out of prison. They got them off drugs and onto books. Some of
the books were extremely valuable and incisive about life, race, and economic standing, some of the books were
out there stuff about spaceships, and some of the books were utter nonsense and offensive to my ideas of a
tolerant loving society.
It took Malcolm X at least ten years to weed out the nonsense from the inspiration. Griff deserves the same
chance.
So back to Terrordome, here’s Chuck D, his friend said some stupid crap, and suddenly the crusade he’s
managed and marketed perfectly is being undone. Imagine if people rejected Jesus, because unbeknownst to him
one of the Apostles turned out to be a closet pedophile? Well, Chuck did.
Crucifixion ain't no fiction
So called chosen frozen
Apology made to who ever pleases
Still they got me like Jesus
Chuck definitely went to the John Lennon School of apologies.
“Told a Rab get off the rag,” didn’t help much either. Give him a break rabbi is a damn hard word to find a cool
rhyme for.
Here’s the part that really matters though.
I got so much trouble on my mind
I refuse to lose
In Terrordome, Chuck basically says my people are being brutalized here; there are much bigger issues than
whether one of my dancers said some moronic things. Does a guy who thinks his race is superior and always
right do it by rapping –
Every brother ain't a brother
Cause a Black hand
Squeezed on Malcom X the man
The shootin' of Huey Newton
From a hand of a Nigger who pulled the trigger
Later Chuck compares his music to an intellectual Viet-Nam, which is brilliant. In Bring tha Noise he didn’t say
you had to go out and do everything Louis Farrakhan said, he just asked people to listen to him. He didn’t say he
was a terrorist, although who could blame him if he was? He said he was a “lyrical terrorist.” D fights his war
with his rhymes instead of with real weapons. I know a ton of people who do the opposite and it will always be
my belief that they always have and always will be the true public enemies.
Fight the Power – Public Enemy
I love the fact that they make constant use here of a sampling of the word I from The Wailers “I Shot the
Sheriff.” It’s a great sound and both songs have the same theme.
I Shot the Sheriff – The Wailers
God, I hate Eric Clapton’s version of this song. Was he oppressed by the man in a previous life I never read
about?
Working Class Hero – John Lennon
I have tremendous respect for John Lennon and Malcolm X, because as they aged they were willing to look back
and admit that their actions had been bad and that their opinions needed updating. The Autobiography of
Malcolm X is the most amazing book that I’ve ever read because you can actually see Malcolm’s philosophy
changing through the course of the book. The person he was when he started working with Alex Haley was not
the person in the last chapter; perfect proof that what you are doesn’t determine what you can be. Besides what
would rap samples be without him?
187 – Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dog
Deep Cover the Larry Fishburne movie that this song came from is brilliant, 187 the Sam Jackson movie that
followed – not so much.
Sweat from my Balls – CB4
Straight out of Locash – CB4
Roll with the New – Chris Rock
This is and will probably always be by far Chris Rock’s best movie, and in it’s willingness to chide it’s own
race, predicted the signature routine that would make him the most important hugely popular comic since
Richard Pryor and George Carlin.
CB4 is an amusing look at the early days of the gangsta rappers. Before Tupac and Biggie Smalls went down in
a hail of gunfire there was always the question of authenticity hanging over their heads. There was widespread
suspicion that a lot of these guys grew up a lot more innocently than their press bios claimed even the most
innocent of which largely resembled resumes for potential incarceration. CB4's best joke is that perhaps it didn't
matter. Once you went out on the streets as a gangster the streets were more than happy to reciprocate. It's
essentially Spinal Tap with guns, fat white managers, and gold chains.
Parodying rap acts is almost as old as rap. There was even a Cheers episode where Sam Malone rhymed on the
evening news. Rap was so black that it was almost impossible to truly have its own Elvis much less a Pat Boone.
Personally I like the fact that rap is so absurd that lots of CB4 almost plays like a documentary you could have
actually seen on BET or MTV. For some reason rap fashion looks good for a year or so, upon which time it
looks completely ridiculous for eight or nine years before it becomes retroactively funky. Nice threads Hammer!
John Lennon, Pete Townshend, Bob Dylan all those guys had to come home and figure out something to write
songs about, but essentially every modern rap record is either about how hard the rapper is, how much cell time
he has done, how fly he is, how bad his lawyers are, how cool his threads are, all the fine chicks he has jonesing
for his dick, all the money he is making, how everyone is dissing him, all the dope he is smoking ... and you
thought investment bankers made a lifelong commitment to the lifestyle of their profession. Additionally, as
Chris Rock and Nelson George, who co-wrote it, were only too aware any five minutes in the life of 2 Live Crew
was worth its weight in comedic gold.
CB4 is a pretty good overview of black pop culture in the early '90s. It worships hip hop music, but it isn't afraid
to lob grenades at what it has wrought. It pretty accurately sets it gaze on the absurdity of the gangstas, the newly
educated Muslims, the black middle class, and the attention seeking hype inciting alarmism of the white right. It
makes a reasonably nice state of the race message, and has what I think is the funniest love scene ever when
Chris Rock's stick thin MC Gusto attempts to get down with a heated fan with a slamming body. It's the Jimmy
Walker booty call all of America was dying to see all those years that Good Times was on the air.
Although as VH1 finally seemed to realize years later, the movie probably would have been just as funny if they
had merely left the camera on Flavor Flav of Public Enemy for two hours in that huge green hat out by the pool,
it’s a pretty nice effort.
Every other Chris Rock centered theatrical vehicle, a horrid failure, and here’s why.
Bill Hicks’ father asked him why he had to use the language he used, citing Bob Hope as a counter example.
Bill’s response was that Bob Hope never had to work the shithole’s that Hicks did. It’s a funny line but in
reality, Hicks wasn’t Hicks without that language, and neither is Chris Rock. Look at his two main starring
efforts Down to Earth and Head of State. Both are rated PG and both suffer hugely from it. My guess is that the
financing for an R rater Rock movie isn’t there. My guess is that The Toy wasn’t Richard Pryor’s first career
goal either.
Now Rock as a stand up is to me utter genius, and as Mitch Hedburg said, sometimes it’s sad that stand-ups can’t
just be stand-ups. “I got into comedy to do comedy which is weird, I know. But when you're in Hollywood and
you're a comedian everybody wants you to do other things besides comedy. They say ‘Alright you're a standup
comedian, can you act? Can you write? Write us a script.’ They want me to do things that's related to comedy
but not comedy. That's not fair. It's as though I was a cook, and I worked my ass off to become a really good
cook, and they said "Alright you're a cook... can you farm?"
My only reservation about Chris Rock the stand up comedian is the same one that makes buddies of mine like
Rasheed close their ears to him. The routine that broke Rock was “Niggas versus Black People,” which was a
hard and hilarious indictment of his own race. In some ways it was as courageous as speaking out against an
overwhelmingly popular war. You’re not supposed to chastise your own team. In that, it’s very similar to Spike
Lee’s School Daze.
Sadly, the people that are laughing don’t always get the joke, and if they do maybe they get it for the wrong
reason. Every single racist person I ever grew up with had the same slogan “I don’t mind black people it’s the
niggers that I hate.” That’s almost word for word what Rock said and for better or for worse that was part of its
popularity.
Chris Rock Interviews Al Sharpton on HBO
Without a doubt the funniest and perhaps even incisive discussion of the Pop Culture Wars of the last ten years.
Sharpton: … This decadence. You know I turn on TV late at night its unbelievable. You know, people get up,
I’m not talking about you, but stand up comics get up and say mf’er this and s this, every curse they can think of.
Talk about all kinds of perverted sex acts, and then say “I wanna say Jesus is the head of my life and good night
mom:”
Despite Sharpton’s unconvincing “I’m not talking about you.” This apparently cut too close to home for Chris,
and thankfully he was better prepared this time then when he sat stunned listening to Oprah chastise him for
getting rich on the N word’s back.
Rock: You can’t get on art. Don’t start blaming comedians. . . comedians and rappers.
Sharpton: I know of good artists that can’t get contracts because they won’t curse and say certain things.
Rock: Maybe they suck.
Sharpton: And maybe they won’t say suck.
Rock: Noooooo ……Heeeyyyyyyyyy … nobody … I’m in show business too. Clean always makes more money
than dirty. Bill Cosby has made more money than Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor combined. Will Smith made
more money than any rapper out there. Dirty gets more attention, but clean always makes more money. I wish I
was clean. I need some of that clean money. I wouldn’t be on HBO. … You think I really want to be on HBO
man? … I could be on NBC as rich as can be, but I can’t stop saying damn!
Sharpton: That’s the nicest thing you say. But no I think we really got to deal with that. And I mean look at you
as smart and as talented as you are. You don’t have to come out here and curse every Friday night.
Rock: Cursin’ don’t change nothing.
Sharpton: I’ll tell you what, you quit cursing and I’ll cut my hair!
Rock: You ain’t cuttin’ your hair! You ain’t cuttin’ your hair!
Sharpton: And you ain’t gonna stop cursin’.
Rock: We’d both be broke over that one! … Cursin’ don’t mean nothing. It’s not how you say it. It’s the
message. It’s the message that you bring. Cursin’ don’t mean nothin’.
As long as Rock got to be a Congressman, Al Sharpton should be President. People would start watching C-Span
and reading the Congressional Record.
Boyz ‘N the Hood
When Matty Rich's "Straight Out of Brooklyn" was released the same day as "Jungle Fever," the petulant little
leader of the Black New Wave struck out at his inexperience, unwillingness to go to film school, and
manipulability in dealing with his studio. When Lee saw John Singleton's "Boyz 'N' the Hood," he nodded,
congratulated the director on a job well done, and moved on to making "Malcolm X." Supposedly, Singleton
promised Larry Fishburne that he would write him a great role when he saw the great actor slumming as
Cowboy Curtis on Pee Wee's Playhouse. Whether that's true or not, Fishburne's strong and disciplining Furious
Styles is probably the screen's best father figure since Gregory Peck's Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.
After all I suppose you've got to be pretty bad to get away with a name like Furious. It was a weird year for
Black cinematic names as Jungle Fever weighed in with the improbable pair of brothers Flipper and Gator
Purify. Nevertheless, Fishburne's Furious knows the ways of South Central Los Angeles and is determined to be
the difference between his son Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr) and the innumerable young men like him that are shuttled
off to the penitentiary if they're lucky, and the cemetery if they're not.
The amazing thing about "Boyz 'N' the Hood" is how quietly effective it is. Even the film's top hell raiser Ice
Cube's Doughboy is underplayed with self realization about the impossibility of his surviving day to day in an
world characterized by violent standoffs, city wide indifference, lack of opportunity, and his own sad self
destructive impulses and loyalties. When Doughboy avenges his brother’s death, audiences widely and stupidly
applauded what was meant to be his tragic failure to escape the areas endless recycling pattern of killing and
violence. Seconds later he just slips off into oblivion another statistic.
The movies tragic pattern is established early on. When Tre's mother sends her misbehaving son off to live in
South Central with Fishburne, Tre becomes friends with half brothers Doughboy and Ricky. Ricky is their
mother's favorite because she preferred his absent father to Doughboy's. When the impulsive and less street
smart Ricky gets himself into a mess, Doughboy, perhaps convinced by his mother's preference, sacrifices
himself and often physically battles to get his brother out of trouble. Ice Cube's performance as Doughboy is a
marvel of understatement, pride, unexpected intelligence, and doomed strength. Sadly the film shows little for
him to do other than hang out on the porch with his friends drinking malt liquor.
Fishburne as the movie's moral center tries to impart responsibility and awareness in his son of the realities of
life as a Black male in America. The only thing that manages to impair his strong proud message about Compton
and gentrification is the inexplicable mid speech jolting presence of Whitman Mayo the guy that played Grady
on Sanford and Son. It's nice to see the guy work but it makes it hard to remain dead serious when Grady is
hanging out with the boys in Compton. One second you're bemoaning the fate of the African race in America
and the next you're looking out to see if you can find Bubba, Julio, Lamont or that red junk trunk. By the way
how did this movie get made without a thirty second cameo by omnipresent man of the '90s Samuel L. Jackson?
Otherwise it's a sadly optimistic and touching classic that confidently conveys a coherent solemn mood of a
modern American wasteland.
Deep Cover
Boyz 'N' the Hood had Ice Cube in it, but Dr. Dre kicks his beats all over the druggy hypnotized world of Deep
Cover. I remember seeing the trailers for this movie and thinking it was just some low budget thing a studio had
in the can for a while and thought it could toss out in the wake of Laurence Fishburne's success in the
aforementioned Singleton picture. Sort of the same thing they did with "Bachelor Party" after Tom Hanks hit it
big in Splash. That may still be true, but Bill Duke's movie is every bit as wicked as its hit soundtrack. Deep
Cover wants to get credit for being a sensitive statement about the state of drug addled Black America, and it
does pack some sentiment, but that never stops it from cashing in on the fantasy world of the big time high
rolling drug dealer and the warped personalities that surround it.
Laurence Fishburne haunts this movie with his deep set fiercely intense glaring eyes. He plays Russell Stevens
Jr., a uniformed cop, who was lucky enough to see his junky father shot dead while robbing a liquor store.
Charles Martin Smith, that geeky guy from American Graffiti, deliriously chews much scenery as a smug DEA
agent who likes to pretend he's god. He informs Fishburne that although he makes an average cop his
psychological profile indicates that he'd be an all star criminal. Fishburne isn't crazy about confronting the seedy
world of his father, which he has steadfastly avoided his entire life, but convinced that he can do some good he
goes on 24-7 duty as John Hull pretending to be a drug dealer. His goal is to eventually work his way up the drug
pyramid and bust someone big.
He moves himself into a typical slum and sets up shop. His next door neighbor is even a crack whore who offers
to sell him her kid for $3,000. Early on in his quest, he brings back more Cocaine than the DEA cares to pay for.
So Smith nonchalantly tells him "You're a drug dealer. Sell drugs." When a huge rival dealer with a Terminator
fixation kills one of Fishburne's assistants, he is forced to actually kill the guy, but not before the hopped up
psycho disrespectfully urinates all over him. His first big step up the totem pole is a creepy yuppie lawyer/dealer
played by Jeff Goldblum. Goldblum has a hot wife and nice little girl, but secretly shags Black women and
yearns to make enough money to finance a high tech designer drug scheme. When Fishburne kills for him,
Goldblum makes him a partner.
Clarence Williams III gets to hang around the periphery as the moral center who makes Fishburne feel like the
scum he's pretending to be, but once the money starts rolling in Fishburne gets to start living the high life of a
successful dealer, picks up a cocaine snorting high class girlfriend, and starts to crack under the pressure and the
ambiguity of his mission. Things get ugly fast to the point where a betrayed Fishburne wonders if maybe he'd
really be better off if he were a drug dealer, his abstinent lifestyle goes down the drain, and he goes vigilante
never quite sure whether he's going to die, go to jail, or be given a medal. The ending is probably a bit too tidy
but it's clever and unfolds in pretty entertaining fashion. I love when the good guy not only redeems himself, but
screws over his boss and waltzes away with a bunch of drug money.
Deep Cover has an atmospheric gritty and poetic Jazzy vibe and does a pretty nice job of tracing the nightmare
drug wasteland from the pathetic desolate users all the way up the chain to the warring factions of foreign policy
and the anti drug effort. Mario Van Peebles probably would have knocked off a few guys himself to make New
Jack City half this good, and yet for some reason Bill Duke felt the need to follow it up with Sister Act 2: Back
in the Habit. An optimist would try to say that he discovered Lauryn Hill, others might posit that he just screwed
up.
Menace II Society
"My grandpa asked me once if I care if I lived or died. Yeah I do. And now it's too late."
I am white. I have also often accused by more than a few people of having so much of a reverence for black
community and culture that I really wanted to be black. Their church services certainly seem to be more
entertaining, and in certain situations who wouldn't want to hang with Bird and Dizzy in the 40's, Marvin Gaye
and a couple of football players in the seventies and perhaps even a couple of days with the Black Panthers
excluding of course that day where Fred Hampton and crew got blown away by Richard Daley and the Chicago
Swat Team. I would even dig hanging out with Eddie Murphy at Bubble Hill in that Black Pack thing. There
have been many, many singers, musicians, athletes and even a few movies that made me at times want to be
Black. Menace II Society was not one of them. You could take the robe off of a Klan Grand Wizard, make him
watch Menace and even he would come out crying about the depressing as hell impossibilities of being a young
Black man in the ghetto.
Which isn't necessarily the case for all recent pieces of ghetto related culture. NWA and any number of Gangsta
rappers and their cool videos have given living in the ghetto the equivalence of the gunfire capers of the Old
West, or the anything goes of Capone country in '20s Chicago. Caine (Tyrin Turner) even watches Jimmy
Cagney movies in the Hospital after nearly being shot dead in a carjacking, much like Tupac Shakur did in
Ernest Dickerson's Juice. In Menace II Society the guys usually prefer to watch dubs of their own convenience
store murder scenes. The movie hangs out a likable character (well sort of), makes us think for a moment that he
could have a chance, and then slams the door right in our face by showing us the utterly fated certainty of his
downfall. It makes the Hood seem worse than Vietnam.
Caine lives with his Grandparents in Watts. His dad (Sam Jackson in another great thirty second appearance)
sold drugs and used to beat his wife after she sampled too much of his product. They are both dead by the time
he graduates from high school. In this world everybody is either going to or coming back from jail. In an early
scene, Sam Jackson tosses a get together for a pal returning from a five year sentence and winds up blowing the
guy away at his own party.
Caine is friends with a guy named O-Dog (Larenz Tate). Here is his description of his best friend. "Now O-Dog
was the craziest nigger alive. America's nightmare. Young, black, and didn't give a fuck." In the movies
memorable first scene they enter a Korean convenience store for a couple of 40's of Malt Liquor. The mom and
pop store owner's infuriate O-Dog by watching his every move like he's going to rob the store. "They always
think we're gonna be stealing something" he complains self righteously moments before angrily killing the
couple and looting the store. Caine, a drug seller but not all bad, looks in after his incarcerated brother's wife and
his nephew from time to time. As a high school graduation present he gets shot and nearly killed in said
carjacking, and this is all in the first twenty minutes or so.
Menace II Society sets up life in the Hood as just one long endless pattern of Black males growing up without
their fathers, reproducing and following their elders’ path straight to jail or an early grave. One drive by shooting
after another drawing endless retaliations. The film is one chillingly authentic scene after another as Caine shows
his five year old nephew his gun, expertly mixes drugs, gets beaten by cops, dumped in the wrong side of the
DMZ, and even jacks a car through a fast food drive thru. There are a few good role models around, but as Caine
says it goes in one ear and out the other. The hip hop soul soundtrack is good as can be expected, and Larenz
Tate is perhaps the most psychotically scary out of control presence in the modern cinema, but in the end it's
more of a war movie than Saving Private Ryan ever was.
Fresh
Sam Jackson seems to be more than willing to show up for any movie where there is a crew of at least three
people, but he seemed to make a special effort to let people know how cool he thought Fresh was. Fresh is a tale
of innocence lost and revenge gained, with an unreal performance by Sean Nelson as a 12 year-old drug courier
who may be the most intensely motivated and brilliant character since perhaps the comic book version of Lex
Luthor. Fresh vs. Paul Newman's Henry Gondorf from the Sting would make a cool sequel if they didn't take
place sixty years apart. It all makes for a neat final act of the '90s great young man in the ghetto trilogy with
Boyz 'N' The Hood and Menace II Society. Fresh makes Spike Lee's Clockers look silly by comparison.
Although special mention should be made to Lee's former cinematographer Ernest Dickerson's Juice, which
started the genre off with a bang and introduced Tupac Shakur to the world,
Fresh has an amazingly vital jazz flow of poetically harsh street language. It's more of a thriller than a heartfelt
rendering of life in the streets, but it still makes you want to cry at the impossibility and the strain of ghetto life
even for someone who makes a Herculean effort like Nelson does. Boaz Yakin nails the feel and glide of the
street and he manages to do it without even using hip hop. The soundtrack here is from ex-Police drummer
Stuart Copeland.
Fresh is a drug runner. He dreams about the million dollars they laughed over in Austin Powers. In the morning
he runs smack for Giancarlo Esposito's Esteban and in the afternoon he peddles crack for Ron Brice's Corky.
Both dealers tell him daily how if he wasn't so young he'd probably be the man. If everybody along the line
didn't try to cheat him he would make it to school on time every once in a while. The opening scene is chilling.
Fresh goes to an older Latino woman's house she looks like a grandma, offers him milk and cookies, tries to
cheat him out of a brick of smack, and has heroin tracks on her arm. Everyone he deals with has a volatile
dangerous temper where someone could die at even the slightest tremor. His friends are playing kid games,
flipping baseball cards, playing basketball, while he rules the streets and plays blitz chess first with his dad and
then with the world. He lives with his hard working straight aunt and twelve other cousins who barely treat him
like a real person.
Samuel L. Jackson is his father, an alcoholic chess hustler miles closer to what I've seen wallowing in the park
than the angelically soulful inspiration played by Larry Fishburne in Searching for Bobby Fischer. He somehow
has lost custody of his son, but he dotes on the kid when they meet up in the park. Jackson taunts his kid about
playing with losers for a few bucks, and talks smack about how to play emotionless and go for the jugular.
Jackson seems oblivious to the realities of his son's world other than the fact that he doesn't want to play for the
school chess team. Of course, no one cool plays for the school team. It's like the Hustler. If you’re with it, you
never play for real unless it's for big money or sheer intimidation. Jackson keeps telling his son to grow up not
even noticing the kid is practically forty already.
Fresh's sister is a heroin addict whom Esteban is obsessed with having, and about a month away from falling off
the face of the earth. One of Fresh's pals is an amazingly gifted hoops demon. One day he makes the mistake of
excessively showing up a kid about six years older and twice his size. When the shooting is done with the pal is
dead and so is accidentally the girlfriend he was about thirty seconds away from having. Fresh always watching
always thinking doesn't cry for a moment. He comes up with this amazingly complex plan to set both drug
dealers and the police up against each other so he can take his sister away without any street interference. He
gets away with it because his track record is so honest and his story is so good they want to believe his intricate
exploding web of skillful deceit. The kid sacrifices his moron pseudo street smart running mouth friend like a
second hand pawn, and menacingly eats a candy bar while he watches the killings go down like chilling
dominos. Only at the very end when his macabre plot is finished does he let out, cry and act his age. The whole
thing is so methodologically brilliant that that final cry comes out like a tempest wail and a well earned one at
that. Although to tell you the truth I've seen it three times and I still can't for the life of me figure out why he had
to kill that dog.
Party all the Time – Eddie Murphy
I’m totally frustrated with Eddie Murphy, and this song has absolutely nothing to do with it. I actually think it’s a
hundred times more credible than anything Bruce Willis, Don Johnson, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, etc,
etc, etc, etc.
Here’s why I’m enraged with Eddie. When Britney Spears sells out, really who cares? When Elton John sells
out, really who cares? Hell, even when Robert DeNiro sells out, it's all part of the ballgame I hate but
understand.
But Eddie is different to me. Saturday Night Live is still on the air because of Eddie Murphy and the absurdly
enormous amount of talent he possesses. In the early 80’s four guys watched that show for Joe Piscopo, and the
rest of the nation screamed fuck this sketch when is Eddie going to be back on? Coming to America is to me the
greatest black comedy ever made. Aside from keeping a music career afloat there is nothing he can’t do, and I
idolized him for it.
Eddie once spoke out against the Oscars at the Oscars. Eddie once considered doing August Wilson’s Fences
with James Earl Jones.
William Goldman, who wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, once said that you could tell how much a
film maker had sold out by the number of sequels they had been part of, since the sequel more often than not is
simply a way to cash in on a once promising idea. Eddie Murphy has more money than God, and as far as I
know no actor has ever appeared in more sequels, not even C3PO and R2D2. Eddie Murphy didn’t appear in a
dramatic role until Dreamgirls, just a rehash of the ol’ James Brown Hot Tub Party routine, was nominated for
an Oscar and immediately went back to making trash. How much money does he need? Like I said he can do
anything artistically, I just wish he hadn’t decided to be king of semi-naughty children’s movies.
Roxanne – The Police
To be Loved – Jackie Wilson
Greatest Love of All – Randy Watson and Sexual Chocolate
Ok, I’ve ripped into Eddie now let’s think back to how much fun we had hearing him sort of sing these songs
onscreen.
I’m not sure why we were all transformed by that awful falsetto version of Roxanne in 48 Hours, but for some
reason you couldn’t find one of my high school crowd, who didn’t revel in it. I’m guessing it was that we all had
walkmen, we all sounded this bad singing along with them, and like Eddie, for that moment we were
transcended through music. I’m not buying that Eddie
Murphy would ever buy a Sting album, but it took a
while before Hollywood let him have his way. In Another 48 Hrs, he got to sing James Brown.
His performance of To be Loved rescues a great song from obscurity. Eddie can sing, but escaping into an
African accent prevents him from the idiocy of trying to match the Wilson original. It’s Eddie’s sweetest on
screen moment.
I have a 22 year old friend that worships Dave Chappelle, which is a pretty good way to make yourself feel
pretty old. I try to tell him that the path was trail blazed by Eddie, but how could he know how revolutionary it
was to see Eddie remake Saturday Night Live into a one man In Living Color ten years ahead of that show's
premiere. He’s still relevant even if he’s hiding in his mansion, and Randy Watson to this day remains the best
and funniest Rick James parody of all time or did you forget how Charlie Murphy hooked up with him in the
first place.
48 Hrs.
Redneck: What kind of cop are you?
Reggie Hammond: You know what I am? I'm you're worst fucking nightmare, man. I'm a nigger with a badge.
That means I have permission to kick your ass whenever I feel like it.
Eddie Murphy doesn't enter 48 Hrs for at least a half an hour, but in his first thirty seconds he owned the picture,
within his first two minutes he got to say his first cinematic "Fuck You!" and by the time he gets to enter a
redneck bar in the San Francisco, Mission District, his was the standard by which everyone else had to compare
themselves.
I don't remember exactly what Blacks were getting to do on the screen at the time, but it certainly wasn't
anything like this. Murphy's Reggie Hammond takes his convict stereotype and almost instantly turns himself
into a measure of angry authority effectively throwing America's racism back in their face, and enjoying ever
minute of it with his soon to be famous catalog of whimsical chuckling laughter. That was a huge scene. It and
every other moment of 48 HRS that he is on the screen are eminently joyful and pleasurable. Eddie Murphy
exploded like a Neutron Bomb here, he became someone I could root for, and after his off key falsetto version
here, people would never again be able to hear the Police's Roxanne in the same way
The only problem I have with his coronation is this. I moved to San Francisco about eight years after 48 HRS
came out. Things might have changed in the meantime, but when I got there I couldn't find any redneck bar in
the Mission District. I mean there are like hundreds of them in that scene and the only guy I ever saw wear a
cowboy hat in San Francisco was that guy in the Village People.
48 Hrs kicked the buddy movie formula into high gear. It got its own cues from the Bill Cosby television show I
Spy, but it and Die Hard have to be the most imitated movies of the last twenty years. One of my favorite
ingredients it started was the pissed off Black Police Chief. I'm not sure how many Black Police Chiefs there are
in the world, but it sure seems like there is now one in every movie. I think it is a little bit of subtle racism. Only
the big burly white guys get to be the cops. Remember they made Eddie Murphy pair up with Nick Nolte, Dan
Ackroyd, and even Dudley Moore before they were convinced he could carry a movie on his own or with
another Black actor. You can make a Black guy Police Chief. It looks like you are giving him some authority,
but really how many movies have there been about Police Chiefs?
Except for Murphy everything about 48 Hrs' San Francisco is downcast, dingy and chilly. Nick Nolte plays
gruff, Dirty Harry wannabe Jack Cates. He's unkempt, perpetually angry and hung over. He drives a beat up blue
Cadillac convertible, and has a girlfriend who nags him night and day. James Remar is my all time favorite
movie villain, the completely lawless Albert Ganz.
Prostitute: I think he's gonna give you guys a hard time.
Cop: What makes you think so.
Prostitute: He likes shooting cops a lot more than getting laid.
In the first thirty minutes of this movie he busts out of a chain gang, kills a couple of guards, lifts some credit
cards, leaves an ex member of his gang dead on a park bench, orders some hookers, and kills a couple of cops
shooting his way out of a hotel, the last with Nolte's gun. When he gets shot by Nolte near the end of the picture,
it seems to only make him angrier.
Murphy is Reggie Hammond, another jailed member of Ganz' gang. Nolte gets him released from prison for two
days to help him track down Ganz and his huge Indian pal, Billy Bear. Hammond is trying to keep Ganz from
reclaiming a bundle of money they robbed, "the kind of money nobody reports stolen." Murphy's fast talking
Hammond is a dandy in the high priced suit they arrested him in. He's just as interested in finding a girl to spend
six minutes with as he is in protecting his money. He responds to Nolte's cranky racism by playing silly, but
shows the ability to snap back with anger and dead seriousness at any moment. If you haven't seen it for a while
and remember Nolte and Eddie as a team, you might be surprised at how surly and bigoted his Cates comes off.
48 Hrs proved that an action movie could have a serious tone and be drop dead funny at the same time, and it's
mostly because of Eddie Murphy. Perhaps the best screen debut ever.
Trading Places
"Who been putting out their Kools on my floor!"
I was a floor trader for ten years and the only positive role model I ever had was Eddie Murphy in "Trading
Places." He's the definition of joyful cool as he delicately picks among a group of hyped up white men desperate
to sell him orange juice futures after having made a fortune and gaining revenge on rich white America with an
equally dapper Dan Aykroyd in by far his best post Blues Brothers role. I was maybe seventeen when this came
out and my only real justification for majoring in Economics at Northwestern was so I could figure out how the
hell they made all that money at the end of the movie. I understood that they knew the price of orange juice was
going to plummet, but I could never figure out how they were allowed to sell the orange juice without owning it
first. I eventually learned about the concept of short selling so I suppose my educational career was in a way
successful.
This was yet another movie in which growing star Eddie Murphy was forced to pair off with a white co-star, a
situation that would reach a silly peak with Dudley Moore in Best Defense. In that classic the lazy studio made
one movie with Eddie and one with Dudley and desperately tried to piecemeal them together. According to
Eddie they paid him tons of dough and he got to do his first love scene so he felt well compensated for the sell
out. It looks pretty racist looking back, but in reality it just made his early movies that much stronger. Because
Eddie doesn't have to carry the whole movie, he is free to make every word that comes out of his mouth
infinitely appealing and bad ass hilarious. Lately, he has had to play straight man as often as not because he must
be the star of the movie. One look at his brilliance in Bowfinger shows how funny and sly he can be when he has
someone of equal stature to play against.
Trading Places is kicked into gear when the super rich Duke Brothers, Randolph (Ralph Bellamy) and Mortimer
(Don Ameche) decide to play a little god to decide which is more relevant environment or heredity. They take
their brilliant young executive Aykroyd and destroy his life. He gets disgraced as a thief and a drug dealer and
all his money, friends and women disappear. In turn, Eddie Murphy gets the biggest affirmative action assistance
of all time. The Dukes bail him out of jail and put him in charge of their commodities firm. When the two pawns
find out what happened to them, they decide to get even. Luckily for us this is after the tailspinning Aykroyd
gets to wander around smashed drunk in a Santa suit with a big Salmon stuffed under his beard.
The movie's middle third gets a little silly with its apes, costumes, trains, and Franken and Davis' stoner morons,
but its still fun and probably remains Jim Belushi's best role ever as the life of the New Year's party. Special
mention must also be made for Paul Gleason as the wonderfully evil and mysterious Clarence Beeks. Apparently
John Landis told Jamie Lee Curtis she could be in this movie if she got her breasts done and showed them off a
couple of times. The world thanks him.
Trading Places was the start of a big comeback for Ameche, which would eventually culminate in his Oscar
winning role in Cocoon as a break dancing codger. Traders love to quote the end of this movie when they have
had a bad day. Bellamy passes out and Ameche pleads to the gods of high finance with the immortal phrases
"Get those brokers back in here. Turn those machines back on! Turn those machines back on!"" Duke fans
should look carefully at the bums in the Landis-Murphy follow up Coming to America, probably Eddie's best
movie and the film where he proved once and for all that he could carry a movie alone without it taking place in
Beverly Hills. Indeed look for the dad from Beverly Hills 90210 here as a prison guard.
Coming to America
"The royal penis is clean your highness."
This movie's legacy has been filled with so much controversy that somewhere along the way the film's
magnificent heart and hilarious charm have almost been forgotten and ignored. Coming to America is of course
most famously remembered for Art Buchwald's lawsuit, which claimed authorship of the movie's story.
Buchwald won a percentage of the films profits, but that was only the beginning of the story. In one of those
cool Hollywood we have balls of steel maneuvers; Paramount sent Buchwald an accounting statement for the
film which argued that although Coming to America had grossed over 200 million dollars, it had somehow failed
to yet break into the black. We'd love to share our profits with you Art but there are none - - see ya! You've got
to love the fact that they could not only argue that with a straight face, but actually expect to get away with it. It
was sort of like claiming there isn't any gold in Fort Knox. So it's pretty obvious that there are a lot of great
lawyers around town these days and not just Robert Shapiro and Johnny Cochran.
That's unfortunate because "Coming to America" is to me the confirmation of Eddie Murphy's promise as a
creative actor, comedian, mimic, and movie star. Personally, I have never really put much credence into
Buchwald's claims. He may have come up with the story's basic idea, which is the least original thing about the
film (basically fish out of water wonders will she still love me when I tell her the truth?), but one would be pretty
hard pressed to see much of his influence on the final product. After all, Coming to America is by far Eddie
Murphy's Blackest film. There are only really two white characters in this movie and apparently Eddie Murphy's
view of the white world is that it looks a lot like him and Louis Anderson. He does an old white Jewish guy here
ten times better than Billy Crystal on his best day in a make up and personality extravaganza that would have
half the world arguing over whether it was really him or some guy that they grabbed out of a Saturday morning
temple service.
Additionally, you can see the embryo of the film's humor all over Eddie's concert film Raw from the previous
year. Coming to America is really just an inversion of Eddie's claims in Raw that in order to find a woman who
truly loved him for more than just his fame and his bank account that he would have to find some Bush Woman
from Africa.
This was really the first movie that let Eddie Murphy be Eddie Murphy without being forced to pair off with a
white co-star. The world of Coming to America is most likely the closest thing to the real world of a young
Eddie Murphy, and a magnificent comment on Murphy's status as a movie star coming back into that
community.
This is by far his best effort as a romantic leading man. There is no doubt in my mind that Eddie can do just
about anything he wants to as an actor, but his biggest problem with playing a romantic lead has always been his
amazing comic talents. Why make the funniest guy in the world into a straight man? It's sort of like using a
nuclear bomb as a paperweight. It works fine, but sort of seems like a waste of resources. Eddie solves this here
by surrounding his romantically regal Akeem, with an assortment of the best comic performances in the history
of make up. Essentially Eddie agreed to toss in any number of his improv characters into the film's side margins
in exchange for the chance to be Jimmy Stewart everywhere else.
Martin Laurence has made a fortune by picking up the ball where Eddie and his make up left off, but he has
never even approached Murphy's level of artistry. Eddie Murphy creates completely different living and
breathing people. Arsenio Hall dons a lot of make up here too, and it's actually to his credit that he more than
holds his own. In fact, a lot of people here do. Coming to America boasts great comic creations by James Earl
Jones, Frankie Faison, Madge Sinclaire, and especially John Amos, who seems overjoyed to finally be able to
chew up space in a comedy without having to toss all the good stuff to Jimmy Walker's Kid Dyn-o-mite. The
guys in the Barber Shop even refer to Murphy's Akeem as Kunta Kinte in a nod to Amos' most famous role. Just
for good measure Samuel L. Jackson shows up in yet another one of his masterful ninety second performances as
a shotgun wielding hold up man.
"Coming to America" tells the story of Murphy's Prince Akeem. His life is pretty damn good. His father is the
King of Zmunda, which is a wonderfully realized place. Essentially it's the only existence in the world likely to
be more lavish than Eddie Murphy's real life. Zmunda is apparently the last place in the world where the King
has absolute power and loads of dough. The people treat Eddie and his family as if they were religious icons.
Eddie lives in a giant palace with elephants, zebras, and giraffe's roaming outside of his bedroom window. Each
morning he is awakened by a string orchestra, he has three hot women who toss rose petals down before his
every step, brush his teeth, and coolest of all bathe him naked. There has been a woman raised for the sole
purpose of being his obedient wife. When Murphy first meets his bride to be he cowers in disgust as she agrees
to hop up on one leg and bark like a dog. James Earl Jones as the King spots this encounter and gives Eddie a
loving grin as if to say "Isn't it cool to be us!"
Akeem talks his father into a forty day trip to America. Jones wants him to "sow his royal oats," but Eddie has
seen enough Hollywood romances to want a "woman who will arouse my intellect as well as my groin” and
heads to Queens with Arsenio Hall to find her. Hall plays Semmi, Murphy's servant, as sort of a pampered,
cranky Eddie Haskell style fop. For Murphy pretending to be a poor African student is a great adventure, while
Hall's Semmi is aghast at his surroundings and longs to be rescued by his old life. Murphy finds his true love
Lisa (Shari Headley) working for her father John Amos' McDonalds clone of a restaurant. He can be found
secretly stealing from their operation manual and shooing away their lawyers every day at his family run
McDowells. Murphy decides to woo Headley as a poor man and winds up having to compete with Eriq La
Salle's creepy rich Prince of the Jheri Curl as a fast food employee who once rose goats. It's pretty hard to
believe that anybody on the bottom of the fast food chain would be able to woo a rich educated woman, but
Murphy makes it appear easy. His Akeem is so decent, regal, and loving in everything he does that he makes it
hard to believe he would ever rather be anything than what he is. Their romance is eventually topped off with
that triumphantly ecstatic accented version of Jackie Wilson's "To Be Loved.” It's a moment of such exultant
happiness that even the howling slurs of an annoyed Queens barely causes him a moment of doubt.
Alongside this very likable romantic tale is an uproarious comedy mostly filled up by Murphy and Hall. The
guys in the barber shop are amazing, but my favorite make up character is the overweight Rick James impression
Randy Watson and his band Sexual Chocolate, who stops by to sing "The Greatest Love of All" at a black
awareness rally. Other great gags include the return of Trading Place's Randolph and Mortimer Duke and Vondie
Curtis-Hall, as the Zmundan hot dog vender, whose bowing excitement at meeting the prince raises some
questions about Murphy's real identity. Check out also Elaine Kagan as an amazed telegraph employee, whose
level of the absurd doesn't seem to include Arsenio wiring James Earl Jones for half a million dollars in spending
money.
Eddie Murphy does everything in this movie successfully, which was probably a bad idea because it made him
think that he could write and direct Harlem Nights, but Coming To America remains his most personal work and
a great argument that a movie can be decent and wholesome despite having enough profanity to make Bill Cosby
lose sleep. A perfect argument for Eddie Murphy as decent guy even without the fame and fortune. Not that he's
planning on giving it back though.
Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence: Masters of Make-up
Eddie is, of course, the man. People see him dressed up like a naked, horny old woman and are saying to
themselves, Wow, that really looks like a naked, horny old woman. Martin is like the poor man’s Eddie Murphy;
Neil Diamond to Eddie’s Elvis. Eddie can only make so many movies, so we have Martin to give us the B+
version. The thing I think is weird is that when you look at Martin in make-up, you always say, God, look how
fake he looks. But for some reason it’s funnier because it looks so fake. They did a movie together called “Life,”
where they were made up by the same person, and Martin even looked faker than Eddie in that one. This is by no
means an endorsement of the movie “Life”. I love Eddie Murphy, but the world didn’t need a Black version of
“The Shawshank Redemption.”
(Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine – James Brown
How come nobody realized how fucking hilarious this dude was until Eddie Murphy. If Frank Gorshin or Rich
Little could have pulled off a credible James impression neither would have ever had to ever do anyone else.
KKK – The Bus Boys
Eddie’s favorite band declares their right to rock and join the Klan. “Bet you’ve never heard music like this
made by spades!”
The Boys are Back in Town – The Bus Boys
What mentally challenged dude ran their career? Eddie Murphy, the hottest actor alive loves the band and
makes their best song the centerpiece of his break out movie. Should we release it as a single? Nah.
Chapter 16: The Wonder of Pop
Annie Get your Gun – Squeeze
Black Coffee in Bed – Squeeze
Tempted – Squeeze
I admit it. I’m a loser. I like pop and these are my three favorite Squeeze songs. This undoubtedly means a lot of
people are smarter than me. Even the band disowned the studio version of Black Coffee, but after I stopped
being sick of the video I fell in love with it. Please don’t be offended, but I’ve heard Pulling Mussels from a
Shell 500 times and I have no fucking idea what it’s about.
I had a job in high school. On about my fifth day, I’m sort of singing along with Tempted (I’ve always loved the
“I fumble for the clock, alarmed by the seduction” line). An intimidating guy looks at me menacingly and says
“you actually like this song?” I looked around, realized I didn’t have a crush on this guy and said “Uh, yeah,
actually I do.”
I once told a girl I was in love with that I liked Hall and Oates, I’m not really proud of that though.
There She Goes – The La's
Evidence that if you write one song this good that people will be maintaining that you were a misunderstood
genius too crazy to live in the real world and predicting your return even 20 years or so later with a JD Salinger's
been writing for 40 years stockpile of insanely creative masterworks. Hurry back, Lee Mavers.
Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd
I love answer songs, and it does rock, but yes Watergate bothers me and no my conscious doesn’t.
The Ghost at Number One – Jellyfish
These guy threw everything into their music, a little Beatles, a little Queen, a little kitchen sink. They wore great
clothes sort of a combination of Muppets and Dr. Seuss. They should have been the biggest band of the ‘90’s yet
if I hadn’t been living in San Francisco at the time, I probably never would have heard them.
Spill the Wine – Eric Burden and War
I’d be more than happy to do without the hippy poetry, but the killer chorus always keeps me listening.
Him or Me, What’s It Gonna Be – Paul Revere and the Raiders
I tend to avoid ultimatums, such as this one, because I tend to already know the answer.
The Raiders, despite their namesakes Tom Foolery, were a great singles band and this is my favorite although
Just Like Me, Kicks, and OK I admit it Indian Reservation come close. When people call you a singles band they
are usually dismissing you for not having any ideas that merit longer than three minutes of attention. That’s OK,
as far as I’m concerned there isn’t three minutes of ideas in your average four hour Grateful Dead concert. Just
because Bob Dylan and the Beatles can hold our attention for seven minutes doesn’t mean that everyone should
try. Yes, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, Genesis, these were all bands that all needed a dismissive producer telling
them to keep it down to three or four minutes. Admittedly, I have a short attention span, but before you unleash
your 15 minute opus on the world make sure it isn’t In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida. Elvis Costello fit four hundred songs
onto Get Happy!, unless you’re John Coltrane follow his example.
Terry Melcher, who was Doris Day’s son, co-wrote this song. There is a lesson to be learned from Terry
Melcher, who rented out his house on Cielo Drive to Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski. If you’re going to rent
from someone, try to first inquire if they’ve recently refused to aid the career of an unwashed, illiterate,
homicidal maniac guitar player. You’ll thank me later.
Mony, Mony – Tommy James and the Shondells
Tommy James was another 60’s singles machine. Billy Idol covered this song in the 80’s. Eventually, a
mediocre columnist for the Chicago Tribune Bob Greene was informed that crowds at dance clubs had started
yelling out something during the song. He spent like 8 columns trying to figure out what this mysterious yell was
including one where he phoned a librarian to help him discover this holy grail of information. The librarian was
unable to tell him that kids were yelling out “get laid, get fucked” during the guitar break. I’m not sure if he ever
found out, but if he did I’m thinking it never got into the Tribune.
Face Dances Part Two – Pete Townshend
Was Face Dances Part One the whole album or is there another song out there somewhere, if there is it’s
probably on Scoop 12 or something. This song sounds like some worthless ditty at first but it turns out to be
charming, and I love the harmony chorus.
The video for it showed him shaving. I belong to a health club pretty much so I have a place to shave. I’m
guessing that I’m pretty unique in this fashion.
On a side note, it’s sad to me that artists like Townshend and Lennon, became convinced that they had to make
grand personal and political statements every time out, when they could have spent some of their time tossing off
the brilliant pop singles that made us love them in the first place.
Fall on Me – REM
See I’ve always considered REM to be a singles band, there’s no shame in it. Michael Stipe didn’t need a whole
album to protest acid rain and neither do you.
So. Central Rain – REM
Who knows what he’s talking about? It doesn’t matter he’s sorry and he sounds like he means it.
Remember Michael Stipe when he had hair? He just sort of draped himself around his mic stand like Jim
Morrison, and moodily let loose. Now he’s in motion and he dances around like maniac. It’s happened to me and
I can tell you that it’s true. Once you lose your hair, you really need to try harder.
Red – King Crimson
When I was in high school, I was at a party and I listened to this entire album with a friend of mine, who
described it in detail as a descent into hell. Back then I really needed to smoke some grass or work harder on
chasing girls, probably both now that I think about it.
The Humpty Dance – Digital Underground
I miss these guys, they were great fun. I’m pretty sure that George Clinton has adopted Shock G, which is pretty
likely all Shock G ever wanted out of life. When I was in San Francisco, I read about one of the members of the
group being hassled in Oakland by the police. I was more than a little outraged, since these guys were hardly
NWA. Then a few years later I found out that they had added Tupac to the group and things made a lot more
sense.
Anyway, where the hell did they get that monster bass groove? Love the line about dancing like M.C. Hammer
on crack.
The Choice is Yours – Black Sheep
One of the most brilliant videos of all time, they had this cool effect that let them grab the screen and crumple it
up like a piece of paper. I absolutely loved this album. If you’re amused by two guys talking about how long
their dicks are for 40 minutes or so I suggest that you download it immediately. If you’re more interested in
reading The New York Times, then perhaps it’s not your cup of tea. I’m guessing your choice says a lot about
your level of comfort with your endowment.
Don’t Be Cruel – Bobby Brown
Poison – Bell Biv Devoe
The most influential group of the ‘90’s wasn’t Nirvana it was New Kids on the Block. Lay off you know I’m not
happy about it. Anyway, New Edition was the test version, before Maurice Starr realized how much better it
worked with white kids. Bobby Brown has become something of a buffoon, but his first solo album is
magnificent. For better or for worse, Babyface and Teddy Riley were writing tons of songs that once I heard
them I couldn’t get out of my head for days. For one album, Bobby was like Todd Bridges with talent, whatever
that means.
Poison as in “never trust a big butt and a smile” is pretty amazing. It’s like the Chicago Bulls winning the NBA
championship after Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen broke their legs on opening day. Who starts a group made
up of the three guys in an old group that no one ever paid attention to? Although then again, I’m guessing I could
have gotten pretty long odds that the balding drummer in Genesis ever would have become a pop idol, so what
do any of us really know?
You Don’t Know Me – Ray Charles
Georgia – Ray Charles
I first discovered You Don’t Know Me after seeing Meryl Streep sings it in Postcards from the Edge. Here’s the
good news: two wonderful soulful gems. Here’s the bad news: for some reason Ray invited Perry Como’s
backup singers to participate. It’s like putting Drano in your morning coffee.
Mess Around – Ray Charles
This song starts out with just a killer piano run. The first time I heard this was actually in the ABC series Elvis,
which amazingly enough was brilliant and the only celluloid version of his life worth seeing outside of camp
value.
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
Dead End Street – The Kinks
The first time I ever tried to get into a bar while underage I wasn’t trying to get a beer or a chick. I was three
months shy of 21 and a club was having a Kinks night where they were showing all kinds of completely
unavailable videos of the band in the ‘60s. I tried to borrow another guy’s ID. I even tried wearing his glasses,
but they wouldn’t let me in no matter how hard I begged (and I did). It took me 19 years to see the amazing
video for Dead End Street, which is a sick existential mockery of being poor and dying. Ray Davies appears as
both a mourning widow and as the deceased, who gleefully pops up out of his coffin and runs away from the pall
bearers, one of which is also played by Ray. It perfectly fits the song, which to this day doesn’t get the respect it
deserves. It’s a killer exploration of poverty years before Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, but instead of just
downtrodden like Gaye’s Wasteland, Ray sees a sad world where people ask “What are we living for?” and yet
the music is insanely giddy, as if the poor were perhaps all mad or at least really entertaining. Singing with glee
as you barely get by is both really sad and really inspiring and Ray loves them as he weeps for them.
I took a writing course at Northwestern, and everyone had to identify their favorite writer. I said Ray Davies and
everyone laughed, but I was serious and it would still be my answer. As far as I’m concerned he has a huge
canon of short stories and poems. Now how many T.S. Eliot works also came with self-composed music that
underlied or gave a different meaning to the words.
On top of that. I defy you to see him on stage and not think you’ve met the most affable man who ever lived.
‘Til the End of the Day – The Kinks
You Really Got Me – The Kinks
The first riff and solo that I ever learned on the guitar, I find it all kinds of wonderful that the man who wrote
perhaps the most incisive and beautiful pop lyrics of all time started out by writing the ultimate nonsense head
banger. When my guitar teacher, a big Van Halen acolyte, who probably knew Eddie’s solo off the top of his
head set out to transcribe Dave’s work on You Really Got Me, he laughed with glee at the sloppiness and
obvious mistakes, which really is the point. Like he used to say, “Good enough for rock and roll.” Indeed.
Lola – The Kinks
For some reason I have a lot of heroes, but Ray Davies is usually at the top of my list. At the height of his
powers, either out of orneriness or aesthetic purity, he did what he felt like doing, which resulted in mass
commercial failure. So what does he do? He releases a concept album about his career, and puts Lola out as the
single that breaks the artist of the story. You guys want a hit, fine here it is, and it remains a hilarious
masterpiece even if the “corporation men upstairs” did force him to change Coca Cola to cherry cola. That’s OK,
Ray got his revenge in Apeman when he slurred out “I look out the window, but I can’t see the sky, the air
pollution is a fucking up my eyes.”
God’s Children – The Kinks
Hey Ray, we loved that song about the transvestite, how about doing a fey theme for our new film about the first
penis transplant. Ray turns in a song about how organ transplants turn people into machines. Consistent with his
world view but let’s chalk this one up to orneriness.
Pusherman – Curtis Mayfield
Another guy, whose soundtrack belied or in this case changed the message of the movie for which it was written.
Superman – The Kinks
Phenomenal Cat – The Kinks
I read that Camille Paglia said she didn’t like John Lennon’s post-Yoko Ono period, because he stopped telling
stories and became obsessed with himself. I’m sort of 50-50 on this issue. I love a lot of the personal stuff, but I
would have preferred that he would have kept writing some whimsical stuff as well. By 1975, you knew that he
wasn’t likely to ever come out with something as weird as I am the Walrus again. If he had lived, he would
probably have been a part of the Traveling Wilbury’s and it would probably have been as liberating for him as it
was for Bob Dylan.
Ray Davies had a sort of similar problem. After having been through some really frustrating periods of
commercial failure with his more artistically adventurous material, Ray decided around the time Low Budget
came out that it was time to listen to his brother Dave and go back to Rocking the House. There must have been
about a 15 year period (which totally went in line with the time I discovered and started following the band)
where the likelihood of you hearing Waterloo Sunset at a Kinks concert was pretty close to zero. Kinks Mach III
were basically a return to Kinks Mach I. You Really Got Me was a huge hit for Van Halen, and a weary Ray
decided that it was time to make some money and stop putting his heart out on the line. I don’t begrudge him
that at all. He’s always been a survivor. Besides how many other bands were worthy of a Greatest Hits album
before they even hit their artistic peak?
People get mad about the sort of disco-ish Superman, but he was having fun and so was I. I was always
disappointed that I wasn’t going to hear Waterloo Sunset or Sunny Afternoon, but for what they were those
shows were great fun. Ray was a riot on stage in those years, and if the songs weren’t minor miracles most of
them were humorous and still showed his world view. Superman was still coming from the same voice as the
guy who saw himself as a small country side hobo, it was just taking itself less seriously.
These days it almost seems like people have forgotten what a huge flop his masterwork Village Green
Preservation Society was. At one point when the Kinks were drawing huge on the road, Ray came to a show
holding a copy of the album. I’ve always sort of wondered what he meant by that. Was he saying to the flop he
loved, hey look we’ve made it? Was he saying goodbye to those days I can’t afford you anymore? Was he
reassuring himself that he was still the same guy?
I can’t be sure, but I’d bet my life savings that the band didn’t play anything off Village Green that night.
Ray hasn’t produced a ton of new music in the last 12 years or so, but he has embraced his old music thanks to
bands like Blur and Oasis showing their appreciation for his best period, which was 1966-1972. Nevertheless, it
seems ironic that the type of theatrical shows Ray took so much gruff for in the ‘70’s seem to be all the rage
these days. It never really pays to be way ahead of your time. The big bucks are made by people who are
precisely of their times.
I brought a roommate to a show, who I had turned on to the Kinks with cool stuff like Phenomenal Cat, and it
was hard to tell him that when we saw them in concert there was no way he was going to play any of that stuff,
but that it was still a worthwhile show to see. Ray at 7 for me is way higher than most bands at 10.
“A long long time ago, in the land of idiot boys”
I’m never sure if I think it would be cool to live in the land of idiot boys. Idiot Boys would be a great name for a
punk band though.
Phenomenal Cat is a beautiful philosophical nursery rhyme, about a cat who roams the world desperately
searching for the meaning of life. When he finds an answer, he sits in a tree and does nothing but eat. So either
sitting in a tree and eating is the meaning of life, or once he found out he had nothing else to conquer. (Sound
like Elvis?) To Ray the fun is in the search not the accomplishment, which if you think about it is exactly the
opposite of what Christianity tells you. I think it’s a beautiful song for children. You’ll have to decide if you
agree.
As for my cat, his name is Bailey, and while I was most heartbroken, I was apparently given him in lieu of a
wife. My holiday cards are even sent to us both as if I’m already well into my 80’s or something. I got him from
a shelter. I’m pretty sure he was named after the character in Party of Five. I’m pretty awful at naming stuff, so I
kept it. It’s if I ever have a son I sort of want to call him Press, it’s my mother’s maiden name and was Pete
Maravich’s father’s name. Me and Pete’s Grandmother are probably the only ones who have ever thought it was
a good name.
Bailey’s a pretty big cat and he has these three oddly matching characteristics:
1. He’s just lovely to adults
2. Children scare the hell out of him
3. He fears no cat alive and all cats must be made to bow down before him.
I’d let him outside for about 15 minutes at a time in Los Angeles and if another cat yielded, Bailey was cool, but
if someone stood up to him, it was on! The only cat in my little complex that would stand up to Bailey was my
friend Rich’s cat, Samuel. He’s named for Samuel L. Jackson so he has to have a little courage. Every once in a
while the two would tussle. The most memorable time started with a stare down between the two. It lasted about
a minute and a half, when Samuel backed off and started to walk away. Bailey, having won, of course took this
as a sign of weakness and attacked. “Bailey, you’re a dick!”
Anyway, my mother ruined him for me. I had never fed him wet food before and since he never really knew it
was an option never bugged me about food. Then my mother visits and the cat starts acting like Charlie Parker
after his first fix. Now our relationship is all about food, and me the enabler, hell, I can’t keep him from
something he so obviously loves.
Somewhere along the line he wound up with diabetes, which means that I, despite barely being able to take care
of myself have to inject him with insulin twice a day. My friend had once told me that his wife was still really
depressed about a dead cat after about four months and I was sort of amazed by that. Then 8 years or so later
Bailey’s sugar gets all out of whack, and I’m running into a vets office crying my eyes out as if my entire family
had just perished in a plane crash. That’s another one of my top manly moments on the planet if you’ve been
keeping track.
Days – The Kinks
I finally saw Ray sing this in Chicago. It was almost as if he was no longer singing to a girl who had left him but
to his fans.
When he talked about Village Green finally being acknowledged I swear I was so happy for him that I wanted to
cry.
The Brian Wilson Smile Documentary, it's very similar - they triumphed over their own self doubts through the
appreciation of their fans and the influence of their work.
I can never really tell if Ray has been monumentally unlucky or if it's just in his nature to screw up his career out
of orneriness. After all, you're not really a Kink if everybody loves you. Hard to be singing Misfits in front of
80,000 people but then again we're all sort of misfits aren't we?
Ray never fixed that gap in his teeth either. God bless him.
The Weird Phenomenon of My Three Favorite Novels
They all for some reason start with the letters C-A-T, and I swear I didn’t cheat to make it true. How much of a
loser would I have to be to do that? Anyway, they are Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, Catcher in the Rye by J.D.
Salinger, and Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.
Of course everyone loves Catcher in the Rye because we have all seen ourselves as know it all angst ridden teen
purists someday likely to try and assassinate someone famous.
Catch-22 is brilliant to me because time wise it’s all screwed up. It’s like a Tarantino movie with 500 randomly
mixed up acts that even Heller himself couldn’t possibly put back into cohesive order. Catch – 22 would have
gotten an F if it was turned in as a college writing final, but that’s how I write to so I love it. My favorite scene is
where Yossarian asks a priest why God if he existed would have invented pain. The priest tells him that pain is a
good thing because it tells you that something is physically wrong with you. To which, Yossarian, wonders why
if God is so damn smart he couldn’t have made a little red light come on instead. My favorite atheist argument
ever.
Vonnegut is the best, because he rambles about just like me and he got a bad grade on the paper he wrote about
himself for Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School. Basically, if writing teachers hate your work, then I want to
read it, possibly because otherwise I would have to admit that I couldn’t write. Anyway, Vonnegut has always
been convinced that science, amazing as it is, has been a disaster for society. To him scientists make Nuclear
bombs to see if they can do it, without wondering about the repercussions of what happens afterward. Personally,
I don’t know why he is so shocked by this. The only way any teacher has ever gotten a kid interested in science
is by blowing stuff up. What did he expect would happen?
Big Sky – The Kinks
“Someday, we’ll be free/ We won’t care just you wait and see.”
Ray takes on our insignificance and God and nails it in just under three minutes. There’s a great scene in The
Third Man between Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles. Welles has faked his own death to avoid being arrested
after selling watered down black market morphine that has been leaving patients deformed if not dead. Welles
and Cotton are on a Ferris wheel and there is the danger that the desperate Welles might toss Cotton to his death.
As the wheel gets to the top, Welles points out all the suddenly ant sized people walking about below. Welles
compares them to dots.
“Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving
forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me
to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old
man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays.”
I saw a quote from Ray that addressed the same issue; how we were all so small in the grand scheme of things,
but how he saw the vast hugeness of humanity within each and every one of those dots. Ray should have been on
the wheel with Orson, he might have felt some humanity.
By the way, here’s one of the coolest self rationalizations for evil straight from Welles after he gets off the Ferris
wheel.
“Don't be so gloomy. After all it's not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they
had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the
Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did
that produce? The cuckoo clock. So long Holly.”
If you’re gonna be a villain you might as well have a cool rap.
‘Til Death Do Us Part – The Kinks
An impossible to find favorite, in fact perhaps my all time favorite and the song I’ve tried to woo every girl I’ve
ever had a crush on. False modesty, or does he really feel like so small a man with such a big heart? I do.
In my little life,
I know that the world must keep on turning,
Even though it leaves me far behind
Life is like a school,
But I’m not prepared to keep on learning,
Even though it treats me like a fool.
Shangri-La – The Kinks
Ray mocks the comfort of the achievement of becoming middle class.
And all the houses in the street have got a name
’cos all the houses in the street they look the same
I grew up on Giesse Drive in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. Every house on the street is the exact same house, but I
never really noticed it until I heard this song. So, its either a really incisive point or I’m a moron who’s not very
aware of his surroundings.
The thing about Ray is he’s harsh on his people, but you get the impression that if anyone else had a bad word to
say about them that he’d fight to the death to defend their honor.
When I was a kid, my dad belonged to this really dumpy yacht club at Ceder Point, which is this amusement
park on Lake Erie. The members would get together, socialize, drink, and play music together, pretty similar to
what Ray and his family would do in their front room. They tore it down, and built a new one, which was
essentially nothing more than a corporate restaurant. The socializing was over, and that’s what Ray’s been trying
to tell us for the past 40 years or so.
Sweet Lady Genevieve – The Kinks
Once under a scarlet sky I told you never ending lies,
But they were the words of a drunken vagabond
Who knew very well he would break your heart before long
Oh forgive me Genevieve.
This is one of the songs where Ray takes on his favorite artistic persona that of a hobo or possibly a street busker
playing songs for change. He’s probably done something horrid in his past but now his heart is pure and it allows
him view to rest of society with a critical longing desperate to be healed.
Ducks on the Wall – The Kinks
I can’t really support the Davies’ trademark power chords being replaced with duck calls, but this is easily the
funniest satire of the modern home of all time, as Ray ponders being a normal guy who sits in his tacky home
watching soap operas and game shows. Personally, I resent the knock, but who wouldn’t rather be a rock star?
Mayor of Simpleton – XTC
I’m not buying Andy Partridge as a dim bulb lover, but it’s a beautiful song, and if you just looked at the lyrics
you’d be surprised it wasn’t written by Ray Davies.
Well I don’t know how to write a big hit song,
And all crossword puzzles well I just shun,
And I may be the mayor of simpleton,
But I know one thing,
And that’s I love you.
I’m guessing that Partridge is well aware that his lyrics would have to be infinitely less clever for this to be a big
hit song. Either that or he’d have to have a killer set of breasts.
Tattoo – The Who
Red Dragon Tattoo – Fountains of Wayne
I’m guessing that nobody who actually has a tattoo would be caught dead listening to either of these songs. OK, I
also have a version of Eddie Vedder doing this with Pete Townshend, but I’m guessing Eddie was drawn in by
the explosions first. I don’t really enjoy much Pearl Jam, but I have to take my hands off to them for fighting that
heroic destined to fail battle against Ticketmaster. Anyone else wonder why they get like 5 dollars to print out a
ticket? Scalpers have more integrity.
Backstage Pass – Pete Townshend
I have two semi interesting scalper stories.
The first was when I had an extra ticket to see U2 at Oakland Alemeda Stadium (or whatever corporation its
named after these days). Anyone I couldn’t give the thing away. A scalper offered me five dollars for it, but for
some stupid reason I was too proud to take it and ate the thing. I would have liked to have given it to some kid,
but I’m sure I was just being obstinate.
This one is uglier. I tagged along with some friends to attend an Arena Football Game at Staples Center in Los
Angeles. So we’re walking to meet our host, who I know to be stuck with many extra tickets, when a young
black man asks me if I have tickets to sell. I tell him that I may, but he’ll have to walk across the parking lot with
me where out friend is tailgating. At this point the couple I’m with start glaring at the guy like he’d kidnapped
the Lindbergh baby or something. The scalper got the message and took off, which left me to hear all about how
I was a horrible person for potentially bringing this animal near the host’s children, you know as if the guy
would have suddenly decided to blow off buying the tickets and grab a kid right in front of Staples Center with
3000 people and a retinue of cops hanging around, which still doesn’t explain why the guy would need the ticket
scalper cover to snatch a kid. Would it really be smart to walk with someone for 500 yards before snatching a
child that they were fond of? Anyway apparently the remotest hint of child endangerment is much worse than
casual racism.
Anyhow, Anyway, Anywhere - The Who
The pure unbridled joy of making a God awful racket.
So Sad About Us – The Who
I used to envision recording this great song and saving it from obscurity. The Breeders did it instead.
The Ox – The Who
As teens tend to do, I got red faced on any number of occasions when my unthinking brethren insisted that Neil
Peart was a better drummer than Keith Moon. Who knows Neil may be brilliant, I was never really able to get
past Geddy Lee’s voice to find out. I would change the subject and mention how much Geddy sounded like he’d
been violently castrated on Fly by Night.
I used to go to the library and read old copies of Rolling Stone. I ripped out Keith Moon’s obituary and I still
treasure it like a precious ancient artifact.
There’s a baseball player I’ve always worshiped named Rabbit Maranville. Rabbit was as much of a clown as a
baseball player, and as a result his membership in the Hall of Fame is often mocked. Should it really be his fault
that he was so good that he got bored and decided to spice things up a bit? That’s what was going through my
mind the first time I saw the movie The Kids are Alright. In the first scene, Keith is appearing with the band on
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. As the band performed My Generation, you sit there wondering what the
hell was going through this lunatics mind. Here he was the best drummer in the world, and he seems infinitely
more interesting in making faces and swatting imaginary flies. He’s flat out joyfully deranged as he invents
drumming with a limp wrist. Of course, what he had going through his mind was that he had paid the crew to
triple the explosive charges in his drum kit and was about to ruin Pete Townshend’s hearing.
The Ox is The Who laying waste to The Surfaris Wipe Out. My guess is that the Surfaris drummer would have
collapsed from exhaustion mid way through Keith’s rampage. Forget the drinking, the demolished hotels, the
outings in drag; remember the amazing genius drumming that came from God knows where. Meaty, Beaty, Big
and Bouncy, which collects all of the bands early singles really is a Keith Moon tour de force. Every song filled
with drumming that boasted of equal parts power, humor, and audacious originality.
Here’s my favorite story about the notorious insecure Moon. You can decide yourself, whether like the thousand
other tall tales that exist around the man it’s apocryphal or not. Keith Moon hears The Who’s latest single
Substitute. Enraged, and apparently so out of his mind on substances when it was recorded, he insists that his
band mates explain why they replaced him on their latest single. The other three stare at the man who inspired
Animal from the Muppets and do their best to reason with him. “Keith, we’d be more than happy to replace you,
but who else anywhere in the world plays like that?”
I Can See for Miles – The Who
John Entwistle - Keith you have no intention of ever keeping time do you?
Keith Moon: Sorry luv, I play lead in this band.
John: You know I'm the greatest Rock bass player ever right? If you weren't even better than me you wouldn't
get away with this nonsense. OK, let's go out and raise hell.
I don’t really totally understand the mechanics of the rhythm section, but I do know that if someone was
responsible for keeping time in The Who it wasn’t Keith Moon. Keith was too busy being the star of the show to
be saddled with mechanically keeping time and getting his licks in at tasteful moments. The Who started off like
most everybody else as a dance band. Motown music is like dance music for people with no rhythm, in that the
downbeat is so pronounced that you’d have to be deaf not to be able to follow the action. I dare you to dance to I
Can See for Miles. It doesn’t swing. It’s not Rock and Roll. It’s just Rock. For those who appreciate it you just
sit there and feel the power. If Keith is keeping any time in this song whatsoever, I sure as hell can’t hear it, but
nevertheless what a dynamic show of power. He just builds and builds and builds to the most violent orgasm
ever, and when you think you have him sussed out there are those stray violent rifle shots that let you know that
he is in control the whole way. Attacking in growing waves that can not possibly end with anything but complete
submission. My guess is that someone that was taught straight out of the book could never have come up with
this performance. It has to come from someone completely out of his mind with originality who has no use for
the orthodox. This is the sound of revolution.
Stacy’s Mom – Fountains of Wayne
That Thing You Do – The Wonders
When I first heard Stacy’s Mom, I had a feeling that it was going to be huge. You could immediately see the
cleavage filled video the second you heard the song. Putting aside the band’s horrid name for a second, this is a
divisive group musically. Heroes of those that love what Jon Brion has termed unpopular pop, their Beatle
obsessed songs pretty much ensure that they will always be regarded as old news and not flashy enough.
Personally, I don’t care how much something sounds like it could have been released in 1964 as long as it’s well
constructed, clever, and fun. Who doesn’t wish that McCartney and Lennon were still pumping out a gem a
week?
That Thing You Do was written by Fountains’ Schlesinger and sung by the similarly unappreciated talent behind
the Candy Butchers, Mike Viola, and its greatness lies in my ability to hear it 12 times in that movie and not be
sick of it. Maybe, I just get a kick out of seeing Steve Zahn at his best.
Tom Hanks called the band The Wonders, so the really thick among you could understand that they were
doomed to be one hit wonders (well that and the O-needers joke), but whose fault was it that they were one hit
wonders, Tom Hanks, who plays their manager as unwilling to see them as anything else. The song’s creator
Jimmy is time and time again demonized in the film for having artistic ambitions and notions of integrity. Either
this is Hank’s sly critique of the music industry or he just thinks that anyone lucky enough to have Liv Tyler,
shouldn’t be concerned with anything other than keeping her happy.
Go All The Way – The Raspberries
Overnight Sensation – The Raspberries
The Letter – The Box Tops
Cry like a Baby – The Box Tops
September Gurls – Big Star
Alex Chilton – The Replacements
I have to disagree with Paul Westerberg here. Despite the horrid crap hit records on those 80’s Soundtracks, the
true Godfather of Power Pop is Eric Carmen. Find me a song that mixes pure teen lust, sexual impropriety,
gorgeous harmonies, and Townshend strength power chords better than Go All The Way in the Big Star catalog
and maybe I’ll consider changing my mind.
Overnight Sensation is a great statement of ambition. Imagine little pop genius Carmen desperately using
millions of dollars in studio gear to achieve the sound of the stock AM radio in his Dad’s convertible; it’s so
absurd its genius. I got to see the Raspberries reunion tour recently at the House of Blues, and they honestly
sounded terrific. Maybe, they’d get more respect if they weren’t from Cleveland like me.
My biggest question about Big Star has always been what the hell happened to that deep teenage Alex Chilton
voice? Was it always just an impersonation? Did he sing it as an alto and have it slowed down electronically? I
heard that he still performs the old Box Top hits on occasion. Will someone let me know if they sound like
they’re performed by Isaac Hayes or Liam Gallager?
Hey Deanie – Eric Carmen
I don’t care if Sean Cassidy recorded it, it’s a great song.
I Think I Love You – David Cassidy
The teen idol of my youth; give him a break he could sing and most of those Partridge Family songs are pretty
charming even if he was laughing his ass off when he recorded them. Much closer to Rick Nelson than Don
Johnson than anyone wants to admit.
Cassidy deserves some props for trying to impose some sanity into Danny Bonaduce’s life. I love Bonaduce. Is
there anything funnier than seeing him routinely strumming his bass on that show? Anyone who beats up a
stripper, hides from the police naked in his closet, and refuses to blame his fucked up life on his youthful
celebrity deserves a medal.
Bonaduce is still a legitimately funny guy; just do your best not to emulate his method of buying drugs. For
years he refused to have a dealer in the same way that I don’t consider myself a heavy smoker because I refuse to
buy cigarettes by the carton. Bonaduce when looking for a fix, would turn on the news, see where the latest
mayhem was happening, and hop into a cab to investigate the area’s score potential.
I once heard him perfectly describe the difference between Oprah Winfrey and Geraldo Rivera. Bonaduce did
both shows to proclaim himself drug free. Both hosts showered his effort with on air complements. After the
shows, Oprah said “God, bless you Danny,” Rivera laughed and asked him who he thought he was kidding.
Let’s Go Get Stoned – Ray Charles
I just saw the documentary The Aristocrats, where a bunch of white comedians, talk fondly about telling an
extremely tasteless joke. The only Black comedian in the film is Chris Rock, who finds the whole thing absurd
because whereas the white comedians were playing places that wouldn’t let them be this nasty, Redd Foxx, was
being three times that blue every night of the week in 1959. I suppose this Ray Charles song is sort of similar. It
got through the cracks, while people were having nervous breakdowns over Eight Miles High and Puff the
Magic Dragon. Apparently, no one cared if Black artists discussed drug use. Instead of trying to censor Ray, they
just arrested him for possession, which probably proved to be a lot more effective.
An aside on Redd Foxx: I loved that guy. My cousin used to do a great impression of how of him ready to scrap
with someone who pissed him off on Sanford and Son. One of my favorite parts of my favorite book, the
Autobiography of Malcolm X, has Malcolm remembering washing dishes with Redd. The funniest story I ever
heard about Foxx has him offering a huge candy bowl of cocaine to Chris Rock. When Chris passes Redd says,
“More for me!”
Let’s Stay Together – Al Green
Face it Al had a much better reason to return to the church than Little Richard. Having a chick throw hot grits on
you sounds much more life changing to me than mistaking a NASA launch as a sign from God.
Hold My Hand – The Rutles
I Just Want to Touch You – Utopia
If You Want My Love – Cheap Trick
You may have noticed by now that in certain respects I’m pretty easy to please. Imitate the Beatles, do it well,
and oh please toss in that Little Richard shriek that drove the girls crazy during the climax of She Loves You. All
three of the above do so and we’re all better off for it.
Pride (In the Name of Love) – U2
I swear I’m not Apple’s bitch, despite their supposed superiority I’ve never even owned one of their PC’s. U2
was the first band that I was into while they were happening. I purchased War when it first came out, and I
probably saw one of their last small venue shows at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. When a band gets huge,
people just love to turn on them. A lot of bands deserve it. U2 doesn’t. Bono and company have always done
their best to turn out quality, original, music and tried their damnedest to do good things with their money and
fame.
When U2 made their deal with Apple, people nearly wet themselves trying to say that the band sold out. Please,
The Who, who lost their most joyful member to alcoholism, had a tour sponsored by a beer company. Eric
Clapton, who sold all of his guitars to fund a rehab clinic, ditto. The Rolling Stones had a tour sponsored by a
perfume. U2 simply hooked up with a music distributor to sell their music, and there is a big difference. There
are plenty of creeps to unload on in the world. Do your best to pick the right ones.
Now if you want to pick on Bono for fucking up the time of day when Martin Luthor King got shot in the above
song, be my guest and get it all off your chest.
New Year’s Day – U2
When I was growing up, The Cleveland Plain Dealer had one rock writer, a 60 year old or so woman named Jane
Scott, America’s oldest rock critic as she was known. God bless her and all, but what 17 year old wants to read
that? I remember she once said that U2 were interesting, but that nobody out there wanted to look and act like
Bono. Hell, Bono was the only guy around at the time my friends and I wanted to look and act like. Still do as a
matter of fact.
One Night with You – Elvis Presley
Since we’re talking unplugged, let’s tip our hats to the guy who created the format and the performance that still
has yet to be even remotely equaled. You’ve got to love a segment where Elvis mocks the tremors in his lips and
legs and points out with equal parts amazement and disgust how many movies he walked through in similar
fashion. If you ever want to see love for a former band mate, check out Elvis teasing Scotty Moore for not saying
a word for 20 years before meekly requesting a version of Lawdy Miss Clawdy that was well worth the wait.
40 – U2
An admission of guilt, when U2 closed that Aragon show with this prayer, and left the crowd alone praying for
peace singing “How long to sing this song?” I was saying to myself “Jesus, the show’s over get your asses out of
my way.
When Love Comes to Town – U2 and B.B. King
I’m sorry, it cracks me up that B.B. despite his single note monster vibrato brilliance still can’t play a chord to
save his life.
Dream on – Aerosmith
Surrender – Cheap Trick
God help us, when our favorite bands become desperate enough to record something by Dianne Warren (I Don’t
Want to Miss a Thing), or something that sounds like it was written by her (The Flame).
Chapter 17: Rock and Roll Murderers and Anti-Christs
Helter Skelter – The Beatles
Bono introduced this on Rattle and Hum by saying, “Charles Manson stole this song from the Beatles. We’re
going to steal it back.” Nevertheless, their tame disappointing version came up short and it still belongs to crazy
Charlie. Here’s my take on the original TV version of Helter Skelter followed by CBS’s more recent exploitation
follow up.
When I was eight or so, I used to check out my parent's books and look through the pictures and read the
captions. The most freaked out I've ever been was looking through the book Helter Skelter about Charles
Manson and his murders. I was looking for pictures of scenery or whatever and found graphic pictures of
randomly eviscerated bodies, where the killers seemed to have stabbed everybody about as many times as
humanly possible and then wrote a bunch of offensive words in their blood. Please God let your children watch
"Terminator 2" if they have to but keep them away from a hard back copy of "Helter Skelter."
Later when I was maybe fifteen, I woke up in the middle of the night and only managed to catch the last thirty
seconds of this movie where Charles Manson is rocking autistically in his cell and then on the beat turns his head
and gives the most frightening glare in the history of cinema. Steven Railsback looked amazingly like Manson
and again I was spooked to the core. There should be a law against showing this movie at night.
Nevertheless, every three weeks or so it’s gonna be 3 AM, I’m gonna be stoned, and I won’t be able to turn off
the Sharon Tate documentary, which means I’m scared shitless naked hiding in the closet like Danny Bonaduce
after punching a transvestite until the sun comes up. Again, parents of the world, leave your porn out if you
must, keep that copy of Helter Skelter under the mattress.
Charles Manson Superstar
Haven’t we had enough with this grubby little maggot? It’s bad enough that CBS bought 400 gallons of fake
blood to bring you yet another sweeps week rehash of the Tate-LaBianca murders, but do we really have to be
subjected to more interviews with the man on those pseudo news shows? Do
we really have anything to learn from this burned out acid casualty that we
didn’t get from the 400th time Geraldo interviewed him? This is a guy who
was so stupid that he gleaned inferences to a huge revolution from a song
about going down a slide when the album itself contained not one, but two
other songs entitled Revolution. Guess Charlie couldn’t make out the line that
said “If you want money for people with minds that hate, all I can tell you
brother is you’ll have to wait.” And that’s what he should be doing; rotting in
jail waiting for his judgment. Instead as long as there’s money to be made off
the man, who gets more fan mail than any prisoner in US History, he’ll get to
air his views on television again and again and again.
Here’s a hint for CBS. Stop asking him about his murders. He didn’t even
commit them. For the most part he had women do his dirty deeds for him.
Give Charlie a pen and have him write down his secrets for picking up
women. Tons of books come out on this subject every year and not one from
the master. This guy had been in prison most of his life. He’s barely an inch over five feet. He hasn’t bathed
since the 1950’s and somehow he had a whole squad of women willing to service his every sexual need, when
they weren’t too busy killing innocent people for him. Spare me his politics. Spare me the retelling of his
abhorrent crimes. Give me the lowdown on how to pick up chicks before he dies and puts all us sane people out
of our misery.
So as your watching him interviewed on one of those nighttime pseudo news shows ask yourself what ever
happened to the days of hard hitting investigative journalism. These shows are now nothing but train wrecks and
in house commercials. Interviewing Charlie Manson isn’t news it’s a commercial for your movie. Interviewing
the cast of Friends isn’t news, it’s a commercial for your sit-com. Interviewing the latest Survivor loser isn’t
news … well you get it. I know, I know, synergy.
Speaking of the Manson Family, how about good old Tex Watson? Here you have a guy that stabbed poor
Voityck Frykowski something like 1343 times and yet somehow he has now found God, and I’m guessing is
completely convinced that he is going to heaven. Is that how it works? Walk into a house, utter the words "I'm
the devil. I'm here to do the devil's business," kill a bunch of innocent people in the most gruesome fashion
possible, find the lord in prison and get a do over. God, I hope not. Meanwhile, in the time this guy has been in
prison, he’s gotten married and had four kids. I haven’t had a date with possibilities in years and this guy has
pumped out four kids! Give me a moment as I bash my head into the wall repeatedly.
Cry Baby Cry – The Beatles
Before MP3’s this was the great lost Beatles track, since God knows no one could sit through Revolution 9 to get
to it.
All Together Now – The Beatles
The saddest thing about the Beatles break-up (the dream is over) was probably the end of the myth that these
guys were the four best friends in the world, who had formed the world’s coolest club. Grown ups probably
recognize that all boy’s clubs break up when its members themselves grow up. Nevertheless, despite the personal
animosity between the ex-4, not even Lennon would dare utter that it hadn’t been the coolest club ever.
All You Need Is Love – The Beatles
People always talk about the complexity of Lennon’s wordplay, but his true gift was the coining of beautifully
simple slogans that were designed to instantly make you feel better. He was the propaganda minister of love.
Imagine
Give peace a chance
You can talk to me
Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright
Nothing’s gonna change my world
We all shine on
Come Together
Goo Goo Ga Joob – I’m guessing the meaning of life is in there somewhere if someone downs enough LSD to
translate.
She’s like a Rainbow – Rolling Stones
Great song – no idea what the hell Mick’s talking about. She comes in colors? Is he bragging about having
banged a chick of every race on the planet? Does he use flavored pastel condoms? Maybe, he’s just proud that
she doesn’t wear the same dress every day. It was the late 60’s and though women seemed to be willing to sleep
with anyone at the drop of a hat for a few years, I’ve seen the videos and a lot of them didn’t really pay much
attention to personal hygiene.
Going through Your Purse – Material Issue
This really depresses me. I heard this on my portable radio while biking through Cleveland one day (yes
Cleveland cops I ride my bike with my headphones on – alert the SWAT team) and wow what a perfect little pop
song it is about the guilty pleasure of covertly looking through your best girl’s purse from the guy who also
brought you Valerie Loves Me. Of course, nobody bought the thing and the song’s writer and singer Jim Ellison
offed himself to the fumes of his moped. Dude writes two perfect pop songs and can’t even afford a real
motorcycle to asphyxiate himself with. Remember that the next time you pay to download a Britney Spears
song.
Hey Jealousy – Gin Blossoms
The guy who wrote this song got kicked out of the band due to his drinking and depression. He then killed
himself. Besides being a shame, I always wonder how you can kick your main songwriter out of the band? You
never saw Roger Daltrey trying to kick Pete Townshend to the curb and I’m sure he wasn’t a ball of fun a lot of
the time. At least set the guy up in rehab and ask him to write some songs. Here’s my rule. If a guy writes you a
hit song about how he feels bad about being a drunk, you shouldn’t be able to kick him out of the band for
drinking.
Turn Me Loose – Fabian
Most hilariously naïve question of all time.
16 year old pretty boy Fabian Forte to mid thirties polio stricken Doc Pomus after hearing Pomus demo the teen
idol’s soon to be biggest hit: It’s so great, why don’t you do it?
This is about as good a song as one can expect from a complete musical incompetent, but it leads me to a much
more important topic.
I reveal the identity of the anti-Christ
I’m on record with Rock
Star Ian Hunter. He
heard me say it, and he
said that he hadn’t heard
anything quite so right
that night. Dick Clark is
the anti-Christ. He tried
to show himself as this
innocent hip guy, but he
was never really young
and never really cool.
Dick Clark would hire
Adolph Hitler to host a
game show called “Guess the Jew” if he was even somewhat
convinced that he would make money on it in the long run. He is the squarest, fakest, slimiest presence in the
world today, and he has been for over 50 years now. Here’s Dick’s story. He’s a lot like Hamlet’s murderous
Uncle.
Once there was a DJ who truly understood and loved music. His name was Alan Freed. Ian Hunter used Freed’s
voice as a tribute for the beginning of the original recording of that Drew Carey favorite, “Cleveland Rocks”.
Supposedly, Freed coined the term Rock and Roll, although my guess is that Freed just started telling people that
and nobody ever stopped to correct him. Freed wasn’t exactly Mr. Clean. He took money for playing certain
songs on his radio shows, and he drank. The first was a common practice of the day, and the second was almost
a Rock and Roll necessity. Nevertheless, he loved and supported music made by Black performers. Back in those
days they had maggots like Pat Boone and the Crew Cuts who would record really white versions of tunes by
Little Richard, Fats Domino, and many others. Most radio stations would play the sterile white version to the
detriment of the exciting talented Black creators of the day. I heartily recommend that all of you listen to Pat
Boone’s version of “Tutti Fruitti.” It remains today what it was back in the mid-50s when he recorded it: the
single funniest thing recorded since the invention of reproduced sound. Alan Freed was the ‘Jesus’ of Rock and
Roll. Dick Clark was his ‘Judas’.
Eventually, largely because of Freed, the real music started to seep through. This scared the living crap out of
‘the man’. What happened was that real Rock and Roll fought the law, and the law won. Clark did his best to
help them, and make as much money off of it as he could. You see Dick Clark was Herman from Herman’s
Hermits and Alan Freed was Keith Richards. They both went before Congress accused of taking money for
playing certain records. They called it Payola. Freed was their number one target. It was almost like they
enforced a law no one had ever enforced before just to get him. Freed stood up for himself and they crippled
him. Dick Clark smiled, assured Congress that he was the whitest man alive, and emerged as the man’s
substitute for Alan Freed.
That was only ‘the man’s’ first shot. Over the next few years or so they drafted Elvis, they killed Buddy Holly,
they tossed Chuck Berry in jail, and scared Little Richard back into the church. Dick Clark replaced them with
white teen idols like Fabian, Bobby Rydell, and Frankie Avalon. The establishment had set off a nuclear bomb
on Rock and Roll and Dick Clark was the cockroach that survived and prospered.
On the very first day of American Bandstand, Dick Clark himself demanded that all artists lip sync on his
program. He didn’t believe that the kids loved the music; he felt that the kids loved the record. The amount of
live performances he could have preserved and inspired is achingly enormous.
Dick will try to tell you that he loves Rock and Roll, but what he really likes are ways to sell a bunch of crap to
teenagers. You don’t hear him reminiscing about Chuck Berry and Little Richard. It’s always Fabian, Frankie
Avalon, Andy Gibb, and whatever other noxious thing he promoted instead of supporting talented acts with
something to say.
Dick Clark is such a piece of refuse that he will try to convince you that his game show, ”The $64,000 Pyramid”
was the intellectual equivalent and as important to broadcasting as “Masterpiece Theater”. There is no television
show Dick Clark won’t be a part of if it can glean him a little more money. He's already almost as rich as Bill
Gates but time and again he still needed to destroy and beat into the ground anything fun in modern society?
What Dick will do is just what he learned from the ‘50s. He takes interesting ideas and whitens them up so he
can ride a couple millions off the coat tails of the real thing.
Am I making this up? He followed “Who wants to be a Millionaire” seconds later with the appropriately titled
“Greed”. He was upset that his pop playthings never got awards at the Grammy’s, so he made his own show,
“The American Music Awards,” and based them not on quality but on whatever the right demographic he
wanted liked.
Dick Clark’s whole career was predicated on destroying what is holy and innovative in our culture for as much
money as he could get, and he should have be strung up for it. He didn't forever look amazingly 25. He just had
the same moral IQ.
Final proof as if I needed some – Rock and Roll History part 17
Dick Clark. You know I hate him and that you should too. Anyone else
check out the E! Show where they rank the top 25 things about Elvis?
Number one was the song Hound Dog. Now Elvis did two very famous
television performances of the song Hound Dog.
The first was just unreal. Elvis really went wild. He stretched the song out for an extra three minutes of hip
grinding madness. The girls were just going bonkers. Well, that just made the whole nation completely insane.
Elvis is lewd. Elvis is dirty. Ban Elvis. Film Elvis only from the waist up.
Elvis’ next appearance was on the Steve Allen show. Steve
Allen was very vocal about his hate for Rock and Roll back
then and he decided to strike back at Elvis. I’m not sure why
Elvis’ manager let it happen (Col. Tom Parker mistake number
#4000) but Steve Allen made Elvis dress up in a white tuxedo
and sing to a basset hound. Elvis couldn’t dance in the tails so
he did his best to laugh it off and sang to the dog despite his
likely anger and embarrassment.
So how do I know for sure that Dick Clark hates real Rock and
Roll?
“When I think of Elvis singing Hound Dog, I always remember
him on the Steve Allen show in that white tuxedo.”
Nice choice, dick.
Tutti Fruitti – Pat Boone
Here’s an unanswered E-Mail I sent to the usually fine All Music Guide web-site.
Just want to start out by saying I thank god for your site - it's wonderful - although for some reason I set out on a
search to see - is there a single artist that you just come out and say is a blight on the ears of the listening public Kenny G? Barry Manilow? John Tesh? No I guess not. (I swear I'm not a hater, if you like something then OK I
guess there is some merit there) But I just saw one entry that drove me absolutely crazy.
Pat Boone
In the years immediately prior to the British Invasion, only one performer rivaled the chart dominance of Elvis
Presley, and that was Pat Boone. With his trademark white buck shoes, perfectly combed hair and gleaming
smile, Boone was the very essence of wholesome American values, and at a time when the rise of rock & roll
was viewed as a sign of the apocalypse, he made the music appear safe and non-threatening, earning some 38
Top 40 hits in the process. It's fitting that his achievements rank closest to those of Presley; after all, both
claimed the sound of the black R&B culture for their own, in the process straddling both sides of the color line
and popularizing a form of music which otherwise might never have gained widespread acceptance. Of course,
while Elvis — with his flashy suits, swiveling hips and suggestive leer — remained persona non grata
throughout many corners of mainstream America, Boone was embraced by teens and parents alike; his music
polished rock's rough edges away, making songs like "Tutti Fruitti" and "Ain't That a Shame" palatable to white
audiences raised on the soothing pop traditions of a vanishing era.
---I have to object here. If you want to find value in John Tesh or Kenny G, well ok I guess I can live with that but
defending Pat Boone's desecration of Tutti Fruitti - that's just wrong on so many levels - Pat Boone not Elvis was
the true sign of the apocalypse - intimating that this guy had any fondness for R&B - did someone really write
that? I have Tutti Fruitti on my iPod - because it may the most absurd wrongheaded funny recording ever put to
tape. Pat Boone didn't understand this music much less understand it or have a fondness for it.
From what I've read it was more like the following.
Pat: What is this song? I don't get it - it doesn't make any sense
Producer: Don't worry about it - it's going to sell a million copies
Aside from the blight of its sheer awfulness, it was used by money grubbing race opportunists to keep the real
recordings off the air.
Elvis Presley's legacy has taken a huge assault from African American's enraged by the whitening of the race
records of the '50s and it's always depressed me - because if you listen to Elvis' versions of Little Richard’s
songs or see clips of him performing them on TV - you can see who really loved the music and understood what
was going on and who really did his best to silence a great new movement.
If you want to laud Pat Boone's middle of the road material - well God Bless You because - I admit I haven't had
the stomach to go near any of it. Hell, it could be brilliant for all I know, but to intimate that his recordings of
Tutti Fruitti and Ain't That a Shame are fun interpretations of R&B that fondly helped popularize the genre is an
embarrassment and a blight on your site.
I also sent this to my boy Dave Marsh and here is his response.
It’s prime idiocy, and in any event, not true. If you look it up, you’ll find that lots of people had as many or more
hits as Boone in that period—the period being ill-defined as “the years immediately prior to the British
Invasion,” which began in 1964. In 1960-63, Pat Boone had two top ten singles, and two more that made the top
20. In that period, for instance, seven top ten singles, one more that made the top 20. Gary Bonds, who is not a
hall of famer on merit (sad to say), had five top ten hits. The Miracles had three. So the most effective attack
would be, “This simply isn’t true.” Which it is not.
Joel Whitburn’s Top Pop Singles places Boone at #11 for total number of “points,” which you get by placing a
lot of records on the pop singles charts over time. The only person from pre-British Invasion who outpoints
Boone is Elvis, who is ahead of everyone else by a considerable margin (my edition goes up to ’02). Boone is
about 6,000 points behind Elvis. The next ‘50s artist to place is Ray Charles, at #18. Boone outpaced Ray by
about 400 points.
There remains, however, no accounting for taste, including bad taste such as what you’re responding to. Making
“popularity” the standard above quality, and ignoring the factor of the way Boone exploited race and took great
glee (it would seem) at repressing the Negro artists he stole from is unconscionable.
There is a reason why Jason Ankeny, who wrote that entry, has no byline to speak of outside AMG. But it is a
sad statement on AMG’s reliability that they continue to support such patent nonsense.
That’s what I’d say.
I’d also guess you won’t hear back.
One last thing on Pat from me. The night he revealed himself to the world in his new Heavy Metal persona was
also the same night somebody was finally giving Little Richard a lifetime achievement award. Some things
never change.
An Addendum
These guys never learn, but I suppose you have to give them credit for their gall in continuing to try to make a
buck. Boone showing up in leathers doing Crazy Train was ugly enough, but I just watched Paul Anka sing
Smells like Teen Spirit on the Jimmy Kimmel show with a full swing band. “Give me one of those cool songs
the youth dig and I’ll jazz it up real fine.” Paul apparently didn’t feel comfortable singing “load up on guns” so
he just sort of gave it that Sinatra hack “load up, load up, load up … and bring you’re friends.” You know when
he sang “here we are now entertain us,” he was thinking, “now I’ll show the kids what a consummate entertainer
sounds like!” There’s plenty of music out there that isn’t hip, but at least it’s coming from an authentic place.
Didn’t this guy make enough cash on the Tonight Show Theme to just stay away? I’m not exactly sure if Kurt
would be spinning in his grave or laughing his ass off, but it’s just the plain truth that there isn’t anything those
leeches aren’t willing to do for a buck. At this point I’d hardly be shocked if Boone’s next stab at relevance was
a touching flamenco version of Fuck the Police.
The Idolmaker
"The men don't know, but the little girls understand"
Teen idols haven't always been a pure indication of little talent. There was Elvis, the Beatles, Ricky Nelson, The
Jackson Five and on the warped and scary side I think Jim Morrison was even featured on a few covers of Tiger
Beat Magazine. Sometimes things can get a little amusing, as in the case of Fabian Forte's mangled attempt to try
and sing the laughable "Turn Me Loose". So when people try and make you think the apocalypse is near because
of the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, N' Sync et al, just remind them of the carnage of a past that includes
Frankie Avalon, Donny Osmond, the Cassidy half-brothers, Leif Garrett, Andy Gibb, and Marky Mark and the
Funky Bunch. Who thought that New Kids on the Block would turn out to be the most influential group of the
'90s? Anyone who was paying attention to history, of course. That's why "The Idolmaker" is so fascinating.
Based on the guy who gave us Fabian and Frankie, it understands the inevitable pattern that repeats itself time
and time again. Good looking kid who can possibly but not necessarily sing hits it big, buys his mother a house,
eventually feels exploited and left out of the creative process and crashes back to the Earth forever after doomed
to be touring dinner theaters in places like Branson, Missouri and Jupiter, Florida. It's your own fault. I'm sure
there are plenty of talented ugly people out there who can sing their asses off, but did you ever support them or
put their picture up on your wall?
"The Idolmaker" begins in 1959 when the Rock and Roll backlash began. Elvis was in the Army, Chuck Berry
was in Jail, Jerry Lee Lewis was disgraced, and Little Richard turned embarrassed Preacher. Ray Sharkey is
Vinny Vacarri a fast talking Italian hipster who can sing like Dion, and write songs like Carole King, but is 27
and balding. He turns a good looking local kid with a nice voice played by Tommy Land into a teen heartthrob
named Tommy Dee. He develops the songs, the moves, the clothing, and pulls a teen magazine in on the deal
with great success. This of course isn't enough for anybody so he tries to replicate his success with a meek
busboy he names Caesare (Peter Gallagher). The fact that he can't sing only makes it sweeter justice when he
figures out how to make him big before he even sings a note. Caesare gets so big he even gets to start having sex
with Marsha Brady. Sharkey's megalomania plus insurrection by his dominated stars leads to a crashing
cacophonous downfall. Luckily by this time it's the singer songwriter era so he finally feels confident enough to
go on stage himself.
Sharkey is a little like his character. He was never really good looking enough to be a star but he was amazingly
volcanic every once in a while like he is here, as Sonny Steelgrave in the early episodes of Wiseguy and as
perhaps a little older version of Vinny as a Black music loving hipster record store owning father in
"Zebrahead". The scene where he apes Tommy Dee's dance routine step for step back stage is justifiably famous
and stirringly effective.
The Idolmaker's music by period songwriter Jeff Barry is probably ten times as good as it deserves to be. Bobby
Vee, Fabian, even the estimable Pat Boone were never a hundredth as good as these guys especially Caesare who
somehow goes from being unable to carry a tune at all to becoming something of a Neil Diamond megaspectacle. Then again those guys didn't have their choreography done by Denney Terrio. Today of course the
modern King makers like Lou Perleman and Maurice Starr are more than happy to check their egos at the door
and just rake in the big time money. Artists have their ups and downs but kingpins mold and adapt with the times
better than Madonna or David Bowie ever did. After all they get to start completely over every couple of years.
Call it the Menudo strategy.
The Idolmaker does merit a few interesting questions. What would have become of Elvis Presley if he looked
like Paul Williams, and can a songwriter have any artistic self respect whatsoever trying to figure out exactly
what it is that will make a 16 year old girl scream? Lucky for us the Beatles had talent, but if the screaming girls
had vetoed the whole thing, we may never have heard another note
Rock and Roll night on PBS
Wow, there’s a bunch of Rock and Roll movies on PBS. How cool is that? No commercials! My Dad was right:
there is some good stuff every once in a while on Public Television. Wait a second… What the hell is this?
Older Black Gentleman: Hi, we’ll get all you hippies right back to Woodstock in just a moment, but first we
need to talk to you for just a moment about what it took to make tonight possible.
Older White Lady (giggling): That’s right Bill. Quality programming like this doesn’t grow on trees, y’know.
Bill (also giggling): That’s right, Margaret. We’re here tonight to make sure that PBS keeps showing you the
quality television our country’s freedom depends on. You’d love to see America remain free, wouldn’t you
Margaret?
Margaret (smiling as widely as any human in the modern history of the world): You big kidder, of course we do!
And nothing says freedom like good old-fashioned Rock and Roll music. Why, I still remember the first time I
heard Little Richard. Our Negro housekeeper Emma May would turn on these crazy radio stations that we
weren’t allowed to listen to back then.
Bill (a little put off but still smiling) – Yes, those were the days alright, but we’re so fortunate to be able to bring
you this quality television, and that is why we’re taking just a short break from all that electric excitement.
Margaret: If you want to continue to see rocking good times like Bill Haley and the Comets in “Don’t Stop the
Rock”, The Rolling Stones in “Gimme Shelter”, The Band in “The Last Waltz”, or Stevie Wonder in “Beach
Blanket Bingo”, then it’s time to hurt yourself in the pocket book just a teensy little bit.
Bill: That’s right. We at PBS don’t sell out our principals by accepting large commercial endorsements. You
won’t see barely dressed young woman, traipsing across our screens trying to sell you sun tan lotion. We depend
on you, our loyal viewers, to keep the wonder that is public television going. It is largely from your
contributions, and the wonderful charity of a few select benevolent industrial sponsors like Ford, Chrysler and
US Steel, that we keep you watching quality programming all year long.
Margaret: And like Mick Jagger said, not only will you get the “satisfaction” of keeping good TV alive, we have
a number of fine thank you gifts to offer for your one-year subscription.
Bill: Yes, for only a $50 membership contribution you will belong to PBS for one whole year, and we’ll send
you a copy of that Rock and Roll classic “The Bee Gees Live at Central Park.”
Margaret: Oh, Bill, I remember how wet I got when I first saw John Travolta dancing in that white suit.
Bill: Well that’s what Rock and Roll is all about Margaret. Rock and Roll is as indelible a part of America as
apple pie and large automobiles. Now, for a $100 membership, we will send you a copy of Dick Clark’s “Rock
Roll and Remember”. Dick Clark is, of course, the man that made the jungle rhythms palatable once and for all
to white America.
Margaret: And can you believe, he still looks just like he did when he was a teenager; but even though he’s older
he’s still Rocking and Rolling every New Year’s Eve for you kids out there who aren’t old enough to tie one on
and hit the town.
Bill: For $500, and c’mon what is $500 in these days of internet millionaires, we will send along a DVD version
of “The Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour”.
Margaret (giggling uncontrollably): I remember seeing that last year Bill. What were those guys smoking?
Bill: I don’t know Margaret, but what I do know is that we have one of our first $50 member donors on the
phone right now. Margaret, say hello to Jeff Spicoli from Manhattan Beach.
Margaret: Why hello Jeff. Welcome to pledge night on PBS.
Jeff: Yeah, hey I saw you had that cool Hendrix documentary on last night, and then I realized that the last time
you had Rock on your station was exactly a year ago, and you guys were begging for money then too.
Bill: Well yes, Jeff. Once a year we interrupt our commercial free programming to ask you, the viewer, to help
us bring you quality entertainment.
Jeff: And then I remembered that the last time you had anything good on was that Stones documentary where all
those Hell’s Angels went crazy, and that was exactly the year before that and you were asking for money then
too.
Margaret (still smiling): Just what are you trying to say there, Jeff?
Jeff: It finally occurred to me that PBS never has anything good on until they need some money, and then they
cart out all the movies with the naked hippies and the electric guitars. Every other time I turn on your station on
it’s like those radio stations shut ins listen to so they don’t (god forbid) hear anything offensive.
Margaret: Well, no one likes offensiveness, Jeff.
Jeff: I mean, every day you guys have orchestras, and boring British people trying to solve ridiculous mysteries,
and everyone babbling on and on about how brilliant Charles Dickens was, but then the middle of May comes
around and there’s Ted Nugent without his pants on. Who do you guys think you’re fooling? I turned on
“Gimme Shelter” a couple of months ago, thinking I was going to see Keith Richards wailing, and all I saw was
a bunch of white guys fixing a house. Who wants to see that crap? If you guys like these Rock and Roll movies
so much, how come every time I switch over to your station I see fat bearded guys and old people dancing
ballet?
Bill: Well, we’d love to continue to chat Jeff, but it’s time to get you back to “The History of Punk Music: Razor
Blades, Mohawks, and Spitting”!
Chapter 18: Empty Nights Echo Your Name
Kim Fowley on pop music: Music for lonely people, made be other lonely people
Bob Dylan: You can't be wise and in love at the same time
(Just Like) Romeo and Juliet – The Reflections
This song has a killer twist to it. Whenever a guy is laying out his rap to a girl and mentioning Romeo and Juliet,
you’re always thinking that he means that he and his mate will have a love so intense that it will match the
greatest lovers in history, but by the end of this number he’s talking about how he can’t find a job, and you
remember they both wound up dead before their wedding day.
I Threw It All Away – Bob Dylan
Love is all there is, it makes the world go 'round,
Love and only love, it can't be denied.
No matter what you think about it
You just won't be able to do without it.
Take a tip from one who's tried.
My life not my love. I believed all those pop songs that said that I could no longer live without her. All the best
one’s are really about being brokenhearted. I was 28. She was once rabidly in love with me. Who knows, she
may still have been when she left me. Her parents didn’t understand her affection for me. Neither did her friends.
In the end, that was too much for her to bear. We never had a single fight until she told me it was over. Her only
answer to why was “I don’t know” and “You don’t understand how I could love you and not want to be with
you.” She was right, I didn’t. To me you fell in love and married that person despite the side issues. Wealth,
status, social ease, these were secondary and irrelevant to me. She was more of a pragmatist about love, or at
least others eventually wore her down and made her that way.
It all came right when I thought my life was turning around. For the first time ever I could see the possibility of
happiness, and then when she folded on me and I fell through the trap door into an endless exile of sadness best
explored by Smokey Robinson, preferably voiced by Levi Stubbs. This is what happens when you fall in love
with love and strike out.
I had a friend when I was young. I probably haven’t seen him since I was 12. He was a natural athlete and the
most happy go lucky guy I ever met. He was the kind of joyful guy you were never bored around. Months before
I met my fate, my mother told me that he had killed his wife violently and then failed in an attempt to take his
own life right after she asked for a divorce. It shocked me to the core. I didn’t think people who grew up like me
did things like that. What had gone wrong? I could never hurt another human being. I couldn’t even bear to hurt
those around me by taking my own life, but tacitly I decided to do it slowly. I kept working out for a while, but I
could never really get into good shape again and I gave it up. I smoked my first cigarette, it was a bad habit I
always knew I could take to. I wallowed in self pity and bemoaned me fate. I gave up.
Years later, though excommunicated by my inability to deal with my grief, I selfishly let her know. After all
what is the use of giving up on your life over a woman unless you let her know what you have done? Some
would accuse me of reveling in the romance of my depression. Maybe they are right, but the way she looked at
me when she loved me was so intoxicating. It was a high that I could never replicate and one that I instantly
knew I could never live happily without.
Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow – The Rolling Stones
Is that the one they dressed in drag for on the sleeve? Who cares, it’s time to indulge myself and relate the most
heartbreaking moments of my life.
Why my Dad thinks my life is a mess
He hates the fact that I don’t want to live like a normal human being. Maybe he’s right. After all, I have a terrible
diet and I’m really picky about what I eat, and this made me look like a moron when I went to meet my
girlfriend’s parents. That whole two weeks continues to haunt me like it was yesterday. I have this girlfriend that
I’m crazy about and she is completely in love with me. I mean she is so in love with me that I find it a little bit
scary. My own mother barely digs me that much. Anyway, she asked me to go visit her parents in Connecticut
during her two-week winter break from Stanford Law School. Now isn’t that a bitch. Most guys hate having to
meet their girlfriend’s parents over dinner. I had to live with them and let them study all of my bad habits for two
whole weeks, and I wasn’t nearly up for the challenge; shocking because she swore that they were really easy to
please and that she was sure that they would just love me.
Me: You know I did just have sort of a nervous breakdown and I don’t currently have a job.
Her: Don’t worry; I know without a doubt that they will love you!
She even made me buy them Christmas gifts! As a Jewish guy I don’t think that I’ve given out 5 Christmas
presents in the last 40 years, but two of them went to the couple that ruined my life!
Warning: Here’s where it gets a little adult
As soon as we got into Connecticut, we packed up the van and drove about an hour to visit with my girlfriend’s
sister for three days. So not only do I wind up grilled by the parents, but I’m getting it from her sister, her sister’s
husband, and his in-laws to boot. I have no problem saying this: the in-laws creeped me out. They were like
these really wholesome religious types whose gifts were coffee cups with some really corny, barely sexual
double entendres on them. That was like their only vice – really corny, barely dirty jokes.
This brings me to a side issue
Isn’t it weird when you see older relatives swear or tell a dirty joke? Me and my lot swear all the time, but it
even shocks me when my parents do it. My Dad never swears in front of me unless he’s really mad, and my
mom sort of swears every once in a while to make me think that she is cool, but it never fails to freak me out. I
can only remember swearing in front of my parent’s once, and it didn’t go well. I told them and two of their
friends a joke that had the word ‘fuck’ in it once. I debated with myself for a few minutes whether to tell it or
not, but they’re always telling me how upset they are that I’m too uncomfortable to sit down and have normal
conversations with them and their friends. So I figure, what the … and tell it. Wow, it was ugly. No one laughed.
There was a long uncomfortable silence and then they moved on. Oh well, at least this makes them less likely to
complain about me not talking to anyone.
I’m guessing that my mother’s mother swore all the time but it was always in Yiddish. Personally, I’m never less
than amazed at the fact that Eddie Murphy seems to know more Yiddish than I do. I guess genius is in the details
you pick up and retain, which isn’t too good for me because I’m never paying attention to anything.
My Dad’s mother really shocked me once by telling my Dad a really dirty joke with me at his side. That was the
only time I ever heard her swear, but I’m guessing that it went on all the time when she was talking amongst her
friends.
My Dad’s father didn’t have to swear. Saying the word ‘fuck’ would be like using an atomic bomb to kill a
dandelion for that guy. No one in the history of the world could be as angry and scary as that guy. That guy had
the voice of Zeus. I lived with him for a while when he was in his 80’s and he still scared the living shit out of
me.
As God is my witness, I would rather have Mike Tyson spew out the most profane, threatening invective
imaginable than have my grandfather have occasion to use the word ‘crap’ in a sentence.
What was the joke
Ok, since you forced me, I’ll relate it. As I’ve said, it has a bad word in it so brace yourself. Additionally,
although I do find this joke to be humorous, I in no way subscribe to its anti-female rhetoric. It is merely
relaying an instance of one angry husband, and does not in any way mean I think it’s ok to have angry feelings
towards your wife.
Two guys are in a bar and one says to the other, “I just made a really huge Freudian mistake. I went into an
airport, and the woman at the counter had really large breasts. Suddenly, I heard myself ask for two pickets to
tittsburgh.”
The other fellow says, “I know what you mean. The other day at breakfast I meant to tell my wife to please pass
the salt.”
”What did you say instead?” the first man asked.
“You fucking whore, you’ve ruined my life.”
Offended? C’mon that wasn’t that evil, was it? Remember that funny episode of “Andy Griffith” where they had
the goofy couple that was happiest when they were screaming and bitching back and forth at each other? They
were like the nicest people to everyone else in town but they treated each other horribly. Andy threatened to
arrest them if they didn’t act perfectly civil to each other. Sadly, when forced to be nice to each other, they were
suddenly mean and ornery to everybody else. Wasn’t that the greatest show? Was there ever a black person on
that show? Didn’t it take place in the South?
Back to the heart wrenching Christmas get together with the parents
Anyway, this trip wound up going horribly and I swear I was working like Atlas trying to get along with these
people. I sat through like twenty hours of baby videos of my girlfriend’s niece with a smile on my face and
everything.
Here was huge mistake number 1.
The parents had brought a huge mattress for us so we could sleep in her sister’s attic. On our last day at the
sister’s I grab the mattress from the attic and bring it down to their sports utility van. This would have made me
look like a real stud, except as I walked past the television set I knocked over their camcorder with the mattress
and broke it. God, I felt like such a prick. I’ve been with these people for about three days and ninety percent of
that time they have spent either filming or watching that damn baby. Now because of me they have to send the
camera in to have it fixed on its warranty, which could take forever. It’s like I had stolen a month of their child’s
life from them. I felt horrible.
Here is mistake number 2
I was talking to the parents and the in laws and suddenly realized that they had no sense of irony. It’s my fault.
I’m not the best conversationalist in the world. I tend to either perform or not say anything at all. In this case I
was performing. I was joking about how lazy I used to be. Now I meant to show them how I’d changed and
become a really hard working guy, but I’m pretty sure that they just looked at each other and said god what a
lazy jerk.
Therefore if you were ever thinking about telling people how cool you thought it was that members of the Kinks
used to have contests to see who could stay in bed and do nothing the longest…take my advice and don’t do it.
Unfathomable mistake number 3
This one I will never understand until the day I die. My girlfriend was like the most polite person in the history
of the world. (the entire world? Wow, all this guy does is moan and make fun of people, how did they not break
up in less than 30 minutes?) My mom is sort of like that too. My girlfriend told me once that because she
couldn’t afford to give to charity she felt that it was really important for her to be really nice and respectful to
everyone
Anyway here was my colossal mistake and I swear to God I am relaying it back to you exactly as it happened.
We’re at a supermarket in line at the deli counter. Because I can’t bring myself to eat most of her parent’s meals,
I have been surviving on salami for like a week and half. For some reason this deli didn’t have one of those
number dispensers. Now you must know that I swear on my parent’s lives that I thought I was next. There was
no doubt in my mind that I was next. So I begin ordering and my girlfriend interrupts and says “No I think that
this woman was next.”
I then immediately said “Oh I am so sorry, please go ahead” to the other woman.
The other woman said “No please go ahead you were probably next.”
I said “Please go. I’d hate to think that I cut you off.”
She said “No please you go”
To which I said “Ok” and ordered my damn salami.
I heard about that incident about 107 times. She was still upset about it three months later.
She would never really give me a reason for breaking up with me. The only real reasons she ever gave me were
this and that she didn’t like the way I squeezed her toothpaste.
You see it wasn’t that I was rude to the woman. It was that I was rude in not noticing that the woman was really
next. I swear there were like 15 people massed together. It’s not like there was a clear line and I body slammed
the woman out of the way. To the day I die I’ll never understand how anyone can be upset about that incident
two months after the fact.
Wait there is more … super ugly error number 4
This one was ugly. It happened right around the time Politically Incorrect that debating show with Bill Maher
first came on Comedy Central and her father just thought it was the greatest thing ever. He dug it so much that
he taped like 20 hours of it for us to watch with him. Not only did he love the show, but I soon realized that he
was just dying to debate somebody. This guy was trying to egg me into arguments for like an entire week and I
was doing my damned best to hurdle the obstacles and not cause a furor.
Finally, after he brings up how great the NRA is for about the seventh time, I get drawn into a discussion with
him, my girlfriend, and a guy friend of hers that was visiting, who immediately seemed to hate me.
Her father says that he hates these people who push for gun control because he feels that they have a tacit agenda
to ban all guns. My response was “Nah, I bet if you called the Brady’s up on the phone that they would be glad
to tell you that they support banning all guns.”
Again I swear that I meant no harm, but hell I won the State Debate Championship in high school. I am really
good at debating. I have big goofy looking trophies to prove it. Soon the four person discussion becomes a
raging two person debate. Now this was just what her father was looking for. He loved this shit. He didn’t even
own a gun. She, on the other hand started crying, and I swear I wound up apologizing for like two and a half
hours.
Mistake Number 5
I admit it I was sort of a jerk here. I’m in a room with her father and this guy friend who is visiting and seems to
hate me. The guy was probably in love with my girlfriend and yet she invited him to stay over for a couple of
days. So this guy is kissing up to her father big time. He got to see the NRA debate and he must have loved
watching me fumble the impress the parents ball big time. We’re in this side room and I’m doing my best to be
nice and keep conversation up when suddenly this guy starts kissing her father’s ass about what a great set of
tools he has, and what a great workroom he has. He then starts discussing how he is building a bookcase and
would love to work on it with him. They are discussing this for like 45 minutes straight. I sat there and listened
to 40 minutes of lively chat on building a bookcase and then I just gave up and left. What was I going to add to
the bookcase discussion? So anyway stupid me I got up and left and told my girlfriend why I had left saying
“Wow, I just had to get out of there.” She was immediately distraught over my not fitting in and was angry that I
didn’t do my best to worm my way into the fascinating bookcase discussion.
This all happened over a decade ago and it’s still all painfully etched into my head in distinct detail, but it led to:
The Nuclear Meltdown
It’s New Year’s Eve, the second to last day we’re supposed to be there and we’re supposed to all go out to a
party. At around 8 my girlfriend is in the kitchen with her mother really happy because she thinks that they like
me and that is very important to her. She asks her mother “What do you think about Brad?”
Now when the mother recreates this to me later she claims that all she said was “I don’t think that we have
connected yet.”
What she actually said according to my now totally in tears, wants to kill herself girlfriend was “You’re not
really serious about him, are you?”
I spend like two hours trying to make her stop crying. Finally I get to go downstairs and tell her parents that we
aren’t going to the big party.
This led to my horribly uncomfortable discussion with the parents. Basically, all they see is that their daughter is
crying and that since they always have such a great time together without me there, it must be my fault.
Worst thing about this situation is that the mother refuses to believe that this is why her daughter is crying. She
and her husband eloped because her parents hated him and his parents hated her. She had no idea why it
mattered so much to her daughter whether they liked me or not.
Anyway, I spent like 45 minutes desperately trying to explain
1) Why her daughter is in tears and
2) That hey, I swear, I’m a really nice guy when you get to know me!
During this conversation, I was lucky enough to hear her dad offer this word of consolation to the mother.
“We’re just going to have to come to grips with the fact that our daughter is in love with him.”
Gee, thanks Dad.
Mom, for her part, let me in on this wonderful nugget.
The actual conversation went
“What do you think about Brad?”
“You’re not really serious about him are you?”
”Yes” begins to cry and then says “I’ll never have babies.”
That felt great too.
Initially, my girlfriend was angry with her parents and not me, but it was just a matter of time. Even though she
said that she loved being with me and that I had treated her a hundred times better than anyone she had ever gone
out with, she was way insecure and she couldn’t handle being with someone that she feared her parents didn’t
like. About a month after she broke up with me, she went to dinner with me and a friend of mine. During the
whole conversation, she’s telling my friend over and over again how I’m the greatest guy in the world. Wow, she
didn’t slip in a single good thing about me to her parents in that entire two week visit. Where was all that “Brad
is Gandhi talk” when I was well into minute 40 of the bookshelf discussion?
A really immature ending
Again, for those of you who offend easily please skip past this part. This rejection by my girlfriend via her
parents has always just killed me. It’s the single worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life and it still
haunts me. One thing that drives me crazy is that with them in Connecticut I can never see them again to exact
either revenge or pity.
Driving down to the sister’s house, I was in the back of the sports utility van with my girlfriend. At one point her
father made a joke about us keeping our hands above the blanket that we were under. At that very moment my
hand was down her pants. I consider myself a moral guy and not really that vengeful, but I would give almost
anything to see those two someday and say, “I fingered your daughter in the backseat of your van!” I know it’s
beneath me, but you should hear what I’d like to say if I ever meet the guy she wound up marrying.
The point as if there is one
Like I said, my dad feels that my unwillingness to meet social convention spells doom for my life. I can’t for the
life of me see why what I eat is so important to everyone else, but I suppose I would have done a lot better if I
had just forced myself to eat whatever they had put in front of me.
We Can Work It Out – The Beatles
The moment it hits you that you’ll never be happy again: She always used to drive, and I’d sit by and ramble on
about some old story, or theory of the world, and bless her heart she used to listen. One day we’re trying to find
some travel agency so I can visit some friends for a weekend and I’m talking about how the optimistic part of the
song is by Paul and the pessimistic bridge by John, but she’s too tense to care this time. She can’t find the travel
agency, and she’s stressed because it’s there that she’ll essentially tell me I’m never coming back to her town or
bed again.
I’ve been slowly killing myself ever since.
“You shouldn’t come back to San Francisco on my account.”
That poor sap never knew what hit him.
One Nation under a Groove – Parliament
This story is a bit surreal. My chick breaks my heart and sends me home on some fucked up airline called Mark
Air. When I get to the airport it looks like a rap convention and I see a fat white dude in a warm up suit, who
must be the manager or something. Over a bit of airline pizza I meet George Clinton’s guitarist, who in response
to my query of whether he replaced the recently deceased Eddie Hazel, said “Yeah but in 1973” and then sort of
politely asked me to leave him alone so he can eat.
So me and Clinton’s massive crew are all stuck on Mark Air, which to no one's surprise has no food on it and is
way late. I’m sitting next to an older back up singer named Grady and ask him how they can possibly make
money traveling with a bigger crew than MC Hammer used to roll with. Grady laughs and says “We don’t.”
Stuck in Denver and not allowed to exit during the stopover the hungry band start yelling for fried chicken. As
we took off they treated us to some lovely a cappella versions of Little Bitty Pretty One and get this a
surprisingly funky version of America’s Horse with No Name! I kept my eye out for George, but who knows
what he looks like off stage.
Maggot Brain – Funkadelic
Play like your mother just died, indeed, Mr. Hazel.
I saw George and the crew at Bimbo’s 365 in San Francisco. I’m pretty sure Tim Hardaway of the Warriors was
there. I always liked Timmy. Great show, took me three days to get all the glitter off of me. George came out and
started the spooky introduction to Maggot Brain, when suddenly he stopped looked offstage and said, “Hey that
looks like Stevie Wonder over there!” Abandoning the intro he just left the stage as if saying “Little Stevie's here
I have better things to do.” We were all a bit confused until an hour later when Stevie walked out to sing some
back up on Knee Deep.
Graffiti Bridge
I must say this movie has aged far better than it ever had any right to, but here I am again to argue for the
brilliance of Prince's sort-of "Purple Rain" sequel "Graffiti Bridge". I first saw "Graffiti Bridge" out in the
avenues of San Francisco with my friend Rasheed, a hard core funkster if there ever was one. Neither of us really
wanted to admit that we wanted to see "Graffiti Bridge," but in the end God yes we did. I'm sure if you ask him
today why he went to see it he will come up with something hard and clever like, "I only went to show my
support for any movie that makes a place for George Clinton and the Mothership." After we saw it, I felt a little
amused but my friend virulently hated it. His words weren't proper enough to repeat or remember, but to say the
least he felt that we had been heinously cheated out of our money, and we had seen it at a half-priced matinée.
Here is my defense of the movie to him from 1990:
Graffiti Bridge as Surrealistic Melodrama
(Or how if the sound system and heat would have been halfway respectable so would the movie.)
The main difficulty facing the novice viewer of "Graffiti Bridge" is not that they take the film too seriously, for
if any film and its director deserved by earnestness and past performance alone to be taken seriously it is this
one. Rather it is taken too literally.
Almost all of the action takes place on what appears to be an unrealistic sound stage of the mind and soul. The
bridge is back lit with direct and primary colors found only in the realm of childhood fantasy. Thus establishing
(along with Aura's status as an angel, albeit one with a low tolerance for alcohol, who can disappear unless she's
being borne done upon by a speeding vehicle) the film as surrealistic melodrama in which the natural laws which
stricture reality and common sense are stripped in favor of a more spiritual setting in which a man's soul is
represented by the club he runs.
In this light it can clearly be seen that the Kid's struggle to retain his club is really his struggle to maintain his art,
religion and individual freedoms. Each of the nightclubs represents places of worship. The Club Pandemonium
worships sex, money, guile and deceit. The Kid's struggle and task upon earth is not only to conquer these
voices, but as a true savior show the way home towards true understanding. Thus when the Kid petitions his
father for strength, the same father who failed in a similar pursuit, he is really petitioning God to show him the
way not only to personal salvation, but for the way to convert even Morris Day.
The Time represent exactly that, time as a cold blooded obstruction to personal and cultural success, the one
variable that makes each wasted moment before God more likely to be irreparably destroyed. It is The Time that
threatens to take away the other clubs, leaving only the religion of guile and sin. The signing away of George
Clinton's club represents resignation in the face of the ravages of science and time, another soul not strong
enough to be true to itself. Thus when time has taken all but Pandemonium, it is the director's version of the
apocalypse hinted at in his earlier work.
As the hero the Kid is faced with visions of self doubt and self hate. His many allusions to hanging represent his
visions of either his own suicide, succumbing to the fates and the destiny of his ancestry, or more importantly his
own Crucifixion at the hands of those he was unable to save. The character of Aura is the answer to the Kid's
prayers. These prayers are shown literally in the form of his letters to his father. This father-God duality
establishes the kid deeply in the traditional role of the Christ figure. Aura teaches the kid that ever since Elvis
Presley's "Loving You" in 1956, the hero must abandon his fierce reckless style for the crossover ballad to relax
the fears of the parents and to provide the film with a safe puerile denouement. In this way the director and star
holds himself up to comparison with Elvis the true King of the Spiritual/Sexual struggle.
"Graffiti Bridge" is the director’s greatest work to date, misunderstood as it is, it is a brave challenge to our
highest concepts of art, and what it means to be an artist in modern society, not to mention the fact that as usual
the babes were hot and the soundtrack was pretty good.
Yeah! Right On! Speak soul brother speak! Now I would just say that it is this cool little musical where a whole
bunch of people live in a sort of music video land, and they are always having these cool little "battle of the
bands," which are all choreographed and costumed to kill. Did people ever really dress like this? The clothes
alone make the movie watchable. Again, these guys settle their issues with Battles of the Bands!
Face it though, this movie has some religious issues going around. Luckily for you it doesn't really make that
much sense. After all, every Rock Star should get to film himself in a crucifixion pose! Ingrid Chavez is really
cute, "Thieves in the Temple" may be the greatest song Prince has ever written and at worst, this movie is like
seven reasonably good Prince videos in a row. How bad could that be? Shame on anyone too embarrassed to
love this movie.
That kind of crap is why I got a 4 on the College AP English Placement Exam!
Thieves in the Temple – Prince
Come Around – Rhett Miller
“Am I gonna be lonely for the rest of my life?”
How these two successful guys who can score any woman they want seem to understand the lowest ebbs of my
heartache is completely beyond me.
I Need Love – Sam Phillips
I walked out of her show at The Great American Music Hall, not because she was anything less than fantastic,
but because I was so heartsick I needed to get some air.
So many artists have found God and abandoned their pop career’s, it’s nice to see someone like her who did the
exact opposite.
Which brings me to a pretty funny story; I’m in Miami for my friend’s wedding. His best man is studying to be a
priest, but somehow sucks it up and brings him to a strip club. He’s in there five minutes when Christian singer
Amy Grant’s secular hit Baby, Baby pops onto the sound system. Best man quickly needs to get some air.
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) – Marvin Gaye
Here’s what bummed Marvin Gaye out. He wanted to sing standards and be Frank Sinatra instead his voice was
aural Viagra. Here he’s singing about fish filled with mercury and women are getting wet and taking their
panties off. I would have been thrilled, but it freaked Marvin out. Having your father roll around wearing a dress
will tend to do that.
You Can Leave But It’s Going To Cost You – Marvin Gaye
Both a great story and a lost genius album, Marvin as ornery a peace and love guy as Lennon any day of the
week, uses his hard fought artistic freedom and in your face hubris to release a two disc love and hate filled
rampage through his courting, wedding and divorce called sarcastically Here My Dear.
Since Marvin was cash poor, which I’m guessing could hardly be said about his wife Anna Gordy, Motown
founder Barry’s sister; he pledged the proceeds from his next album to his wife as his divorce settlement. The
ordinary guy (and Marvin almost did it too) releases a recording of he and his buddies rambling about after a few
joints. Van Morrison did essentially that a to fulfill a contract once. I think all of Lou Reed's solo work is
explained by this phenomena.
Instead, the real artist pours himself into the project and turns it into one of those drunken letters to your ex that
you scrawl off in crayon before crying yourself to sleep.
All the glory of Marvin Gaye is on this album. If you didn’t know better you’d think there were 400 different
singers on Here My Dear, but it’s all Marvin and his voice implies at least that many different moods. Try to
listen to this track and tell me he didn’t invent Dr. Dre years before he was even conceived.
This Note’s for You – Neil Young
I don’t listen to a ton of this guy. His voice is reedy. He plays guitar more amateurishly than I do. This song isn’t
even that good, but it was a beautiful political statement. The coup de grace was this video winning MTV’s Best
Video of the Year award.
MTV Exec: Great job Neil, wonderful video
Neil: Uh, I don’t understand you guys refuse to play it
MTV Exec: Neil, we get paid for the commercials not the videos
Chapter 19: Music to Stalk by
Ruin my Day – Jon Brion
Mr. Harris – Aimee Mann
These guys are really my Beatles, and Aimee’s first two solo albums that were the pinnacle of their collaboration
Whatever and I’m with Stupid are as precious to me as Rubber Soul and Revolver are to anyone.
Mr. Harris is my favorite Aimee song. A gentle ballad accompanied mostly by Brion’s gentle piano about falling
in love with an older man.
And honestly, I might be
stupid to think love is love
but I do
and you've waited so long and
I've waited long enough for you.
That expresses everything I’ve always dreamed about finding true love. In my case I’ve been saddled with
Brion’s other side of the coin, Ruin my Day.
I know it’s today
So I guess you could say one recovers
It’s odd you should call me
But then after all we were lovers
I don’t wait by the phone like I used to
I don’t hope for kind words you might say
You don’t prey on my mind like you used to
But you can still ruin my day
I actually played that part of the song on my married true love’s answering machine. I’m a good guy, but a bit of
a stalker, besides if you somehow change their mind aren’t you seen as Mr. Romantic for not giving up? It’s
really the only means of communication I have left with her.
Boy Meets Girl
Boy Loses Girl
Boy Get Girl Back
Isn't that the format of every romantic comedy ever filmed. When do I get my fucking third act!
I was in line for a Brion gig at Largo one night and I got into a discussion about breakups with this annoying
woman, who always attended his weekly shows without her husband. She gave me the old better to have loved
and lost line. I asked her what the worst breakup she’d ever had was and she told me that she’d married her high
school sweetheart. I’d never hit a woman, but …
Here’s my rundown of my love for these two, and one of the most magical nights of my life.
Just like the Reeperbahn: A moment of pop ecstasy with Jon Brion courtesy of Ian Hunter
If you're anything like me, you probably sit and wonder where the happening people in the world are, while
you're sitting at home watching that rerun of Gilligan's Island where the castaways put on their musical
interpretation of Hamlet to get Ginger out of her "I'm no longer a movie star" funk. After all, somewhere out
there, the next Kurt Cobain is pouring his heart and soul out to 40 people, who will never forget how lucky they
were to be in the right place at the right time. Miles Davis dropped out of Julliard, because watching Charlie
Parker and Dizzy Gillespie jam all night seemed on the whole a much better use of his time. What I wouldn't
give to be able to say that I'd seen John Lennon put a toilet seat around his neck and belt out a few tunes with his
mates on the Reeperbahn during their raucous days in Hamburg. The closest I've ever come is seeing Jon Brion
perform every Friday night at Largo.
To get to Jon Brion, I had to first go through Aimee Mann. My first true love abandoned me in February of
1994. I would never say that I handled that ugly, despondent period well because I was a mess. In fact, the only
remotely productive thing I did for most of that year was to pick up an amazing pop record called Whatever by
Aimee Mann. I stumbled upon it almost accidentally, after seeing her video for "I Should Have Known" on
MTV. It had to have been like a gift from God or something, because since then I've never seen that video
played again anywhere. Whatever was just a revelation to me at the time. It's not just a perfect pop masterpiece;
it could easily have been called "Angry Prayers from a Jilted Lover." I must have listened to that album like 500
times that year. Eventually, I even put together my own Tape of Depression filled with just the saddest songs of
lost love I could find. Ray Charles singing "Crying Time," Otis Redding sounding like he was close to emotional
death belting out "These Arms of Mine," Frank Sinatra almost breaking out in tears on "Wee Small Hours in the
Morning." The tape was so pathetic and sad that upon hearing it, just about every one of my friends was
immediately concerned for my mental health. There were at least five songs from "Whatever on that tape and
they fit in perfectly. Eventually, I let go of the feelings for my girlfriend and instead fell deeply in love with
Aimee Mann.
The first time I saw the name Largo was on Aimee's web site. The very idea that she played the same small club
every Tuesday night just completely blew my mind. Around 1999 or so, the ugly combination of my losing
millions of dollars of other people's money in the stock market and the Internet boom's perilous effect on rent
prices made it unlikely that I could continue to afford life in San Francisco. Faced with nowhere else to go, I
figured "Why not go to Los Angeles?" I had no real job prospects there, but I figured that I'd at least be able to
see Aimee Mann in an intimate setting every week.
As it turned out, I soon discovered that Mann had become part of this small group of great artists that seemed to
congregate around the club. She was married to Michael Penn. They both regularly contributed music to the
films of Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of Boogie Nights and Magnolia, who I heard was dating Fiona
Apple. Amazingly enough, I soon found out that the most talented guy of them all turned out to be the guy that
held court there every Friday night, Whatever's producer, Jon Brion.
Brion is just simply the greatest pure musician I have ever seen. He plays both guitar and piano equally as well
as someone who has spent their entire life devoted to just one instrument. He plays bass, drums, and just about
every instrument ever used on a pop album in the 20th Century. I once saw him do an entire Wings medley on
the ukulele. Brion is perhaps more in touch with the magical joy of the perfect pop song than anyone in Los
Angeles since Brian Wilson disappeared into his living room sandbox, and he is well worth seeing just for his
own wistful compositions, best represented on his barely released album Meaningless but the real fun comes
when he starts asking for requests from his encyclopedic bear-trap knowledge of nearly every pop song put to
wax since Thomas Edison first recorded "Mary Had A Little Lamb." I can't even imagine memorizing just the
lyrics of the songs that he routinely tosses out off the top of his head, much less having the ability to play them
on any instrument, in any style, at a moment's notice. On a typical night, you're sure to hear impassioned
versions of perennial favorites like Ray Davies' "Waterloo Sunset," John Lennon's "Dear Prudence" or nearly
anything from Wilson's Pet Sounds, but oftentimes, things get weird. Ever heard Nirvana's "Lithium" as a Count
Basie jazz workout? AC/DC's "Back in Black" on the ukulele sung by a random somewhat drunk guy in the
front row with a surprisingly decent voice? "Ziggy Stardust" as a multi-tracked Les Paul instrumental? The
Beatle's "Birthday" as sung by Devo? "Cum On Feel the Noize," as played by Scott Joplin? Attempts to trip him
up with something outside of his usual mid ‘60s comfort zone are more than likely to produce an unexpected
surprise. A recent request for Prince's "Little Red Corvette" yielded an electrifying medley that also included
"Controversy," "Kiss," "When Doves Cry," and "1999." Just don't request Styx' "Mr. Roboto," unless you really
want to hear it, because Brion is almost never stumped and if you request it he will play it.
On one Friday, I jokingly called out for an Asia song just to see what he would do, and without pause, despite
the incredulous groans from the crowd; he was well on his way into a masterful version of that 1982 classic
"Heat of the Moment." On another odd occasion he even reveled in the fact that Britney Spears' "… Baby One
More Time" and "Oops … I did it Again" were both the exact same song.
Once, he even fulfilled a request that his opening act couldn't fulfill. Perhaps trying to match Brion, that night's
comedian Mary Lynn Rajskub had asked the crowd for requests, only to spurn them when it became apparent
that a really loud patron desperately wanted to hear some Sam Kinison. Having been brushed off by the
comedian, this man decided to continue to mouth his desires for Kinison during Brion's set.
"You realize that that is going to get less and less funny as the night goes on," Brion calmly answered before
launching into an improvised musical summary of Kinison's classic Ethiopia routine, which climaxed with a near
perfect imitation of that famous Kinison wail as he screamed out a chorus of "Give that kid an Fucking
sandwich!"
On this Friday night, I wasn't exactly sure that I was going to wake myself up and make it down there, but after
about thirty minutes of the movie Castaway, I found myself throwing things at the TV and crying out "Dude, it's
just a volleyball. Let it go." Disappointed with Helen Hunt's choice, I got myself dressed and decided to head out
and see what the night at Largo held for me. Brion's shows are always sold out, but I've found that if I head over
at around midnight enough people will have left to let me catch Brion's second set. Tonight wasn't one of those
occasions. You see, it drives the regulars crazy that it gets out, but oftentimes during Brion's gigs celebrities
happen. It seems like Brion knows nearly as many talented musicians and comedians as he does pop songs. Over
the last couple of years I've seen Elliot Smith, E from the Eels, Rhett Miller, Badly Drawn Boy, Whiskey Town,
Peter Buck from R.E.M., Heartbreaker Benmont Tench and even Jack Black, who reprised his High Fidelity
version of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" punctuated with a mid-chorus detour into the Who's "Pinball
Wizard." I've never seen Beck play there, but I did get to stand next to him and marvel at how utterly small and
unremarkable he seemed in person. Occasionally, Fiona Apple can even be coaxed out of the back corner for her
killer rendition of Julie London's "Cry Me a River." Unfortunately, when celebrities are on hand it's almost
impossible to get in for Brion's second set. After all, who's going to leave when Tom Petty is in the audience?
Just about any night is a difficult night with Largo's doorman, but tonight is especially ugly. There is a sign on
the door that says "We are sold out so please don't come through the door like you haven't seen this sign." Well,
this didn't stop me. After all, I've regularly seen this guy turn people away with a stern "We're not letting anyone
else in tonight," and then almost randomly decide to let a few lucky souls in three minutes later. Tonight seems
very different. Usually I can get into the opening hallway, but tonight he meets me at the door and basically tells
me, "We're packed, there is no way you're getting in tonight." Undeterred, I decided to hang out for a while
outside the club and see if word leaks out as to why I can't get in.
After awhile, a Largo regular came out for a smoke, and informed me that Mott the Hoople's Ian Hunter and
Crowded House's Neil Finn were inside. Ouch. Every time I get into Largo, I like to have a good request picked
out. Coming up with a clever request and having it played is this wonderful validation from an artist of Brion's
caliber. I usually try to come up with something striking to make my request stand out from the crowd. One of
my better choices was Madness' "One Step Beyond," since after all the only words in the song happen to be a
shout of "One Step Beyond." I've tried just yelling Otis, which has earned a couple chuckles from the master
with little luck, but on this night I have my heart set on hearing the Split Enz classic "I Got You." It's been going
through my head all week and I'd love to hear what Brion would do with it. Unfortunately, I now find myself
unable to get in the door because Neil Finn, the man who wrote the song I want to request, is inside.
Faced with certain defeat I was about thirty seconds away from getting back into my car and giving up when
who should happen to pop outside for a smoke but Ian Hunter himself. Ian Hunter, as it turns out, is a wonderful
guy. I offered him a light and we chatted for a bit. "You know I'm from Cleveland and every Friday night the top
radio station in the city plays the Easybeats' "Friday on My Mind," Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run," and your
"Cleveland Rocks;" Cleveland worships you! How in the world did you wind up writing a song about
Cleveland?"
"There was this period where everyone from Johnny Carson on down was really making fun of Cleveland. Well,
we always got a great reaction there and I figured that it needed someone to take its side, to take the piss out of
everybody." What a perfect Rock and Roll answer. We then discussed the merits of the angelic Alan Freed vs.
the satanic Dick Clark. Not only did he love Drew Carey's musical tribute to "Cleveland Rocks," he jokingly let
on how pleased he was with the pile of money Carey was responsible for sending his way.
Hunter told me a great story about meeting some older folks in a Cleveland airport wearing Cleveland Rocks TShirts, who were not only surprised when he informed them that he had written the song, but were equally taken
aback to find out that there was a song at all.
"Well, thanks for the fag," Hunter said. "Are you going back in?"
"No" I answered smiling "I can't get in and it's probably because you're here."
"Well do you want to follow me in like you’re with me?" he offered.
"What a great guy," I thought. I told him that I really appreciated the gesture but that I didn't want to further
upset the doorman. Who knows, if I really irk the guy he may never let me in again. To my great delight, Ian
said something to somebody because thirty seconds later, I finally was granted entrance into Mecca.
Amazing! Before I could even order a Rolling Rock I heard Jon say, "You know there is a guy here tonight by
the name of Neil Finn, who I'd sure like to hear sing a couple of songs." Having been outed, Finn climbed upon
the stage to join Brion for a wonderfully strident version of the Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows," deranged
seagulls and all perfectly simulated by Brion's Les Paul and the wonders of modern technology. Lennon would
be cursing if he could see what no longer took thousands of Popsicle sticks and tape to produce.
Finn must be a huge Lennon fan too, because he followed that up with another, The White Album's "I'm So
Tired," complete with an improvised third verse apologizing to Brion and the audience for his inability to
remember the song's actual third verse. "Don't worry about it," Brion helpfully commented after the song ended.
"There is no third verse."
By the time Finn was halfway through Goffin/King's "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," I was in pop heaven,
but things didn't end there, as Finn was followed by reticent and shy former John Mellencamp violinist Lisa
Germano, actor John C. Reilly who did a credible Phil to Brion's Don on the Everly Brother's "Walk Right
Back," and my new best friend Ian Hunter. The wool hat garbed owner of the club, Mark Flanagan, even popped
up onstage and did a song.
"This has been a great night so let's try to find something special to end it with," Brion announced. Seizing upon
the chance to garner some validation, I called out for something I knew Brion couldn't refuse. "Do some Les
Paul."
After filling the audience in on the man who invented the solid body guitar and multi-tracking, John thrilled
Hunter with a tape-loop-assisted, off the top off his head, four part, straight out of 1952 virtuoso instrumental
rendition of his biggest hit "All the Young Dudes."
It's almost criminal how underappreciated this guy is. Meaningless, a pop masterpiece of pure heart, a sonic ear
of intense restlessness, and songwriting chops to waste, which had to be repurchased by its creator after being
deemed "too uncommercial," makes one wonder if the same guy who told Brian Epstein that guitar bands were a
thing of the past is against all odds still in charge of the record industry. Meanwhile, Brion somehow seems
above chasing the plaudits of the Rolling Stone cover, remaining the guy who somehow shyly pops up next to
the latest thing in that bottom right hand corner of the Random notes section, the ace in the hole of every hip
movie magnet in need of an atmospheric "I've never heard anything like that" score (Magnolia, Punch Drunk
Love, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), and every talented underdog in need of a sympathetic
producer willing to save production costs by chipping in on 14 or so instruments and doling out the spare sounds
that flow uninterrupted from his mind like morning snowfall in Siberia.
Someday, someone will compile the fantasy 15 CD Box Set that will tell the world about the quietest pop
explosion ever launched. It will include the sounds of Aimee Mann, Rhett Miller, Badly Drawn Boy, Rufus
Wainwright, Fiona Apple, Jellyfish, The Grays, The Eels, Elliot Smith, Evan Dando, Grant Lee Phillips, and
whoever else was lucky enough to get a month of his time.
Meanwhile, keep an eye out for Apple's next album, which word has it might be his masterpiece whether it
makes an MTV ripple or not. Either way, he'll step aside let someone else garner the plaudits and continue to
make the latest pop sensations drop their jaws in awe as they covertly watch his tossed off brilliance every
Friday night a hundred or so yards away from a delicatessen. Not unlike Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton
wondering what they were going to do for a living after first seeing Jimmy Hendrix; not unlike Chet Baker as he
apologized for outselling Miles Davis; they'll sigh, return to their luxury, and promise to do better like they'd just
seen Mr. Smith Goes to Washington for the first time.
Sure, nothing is ever going to be the Beatles in Hamburg, but this is definitely the closest I'll ever come to it. Just
don't tell anyone, because Largo holds about two hundred or so lucky souls and I'd hate to never make it past the
doorman again. After all, Ian Hunter's not there every week.
No Myth – Michael Penn
The man lucky enough to wind up with Aimee, I feel sorry for quality artists who hit the charts big once. Instead
of being an underground hero, they wind up mocked on VH1’s One Hit Wonders with William Shatner. Let he
who has written a song this good cast the first stone.
Voices Carry – ‘Til Tuesday
No Myth – Michael Penn
More on one hit wonders with great catalogs. Other artists absurdly labeled as one hit wonders: Madness, T-Rex,
Thin Lizzy, Patty Smith, Nick Lowe, The Boomtown Rats, and of course Frank Stallone
They at least have a sense of humor about their hits. I have recordings of them doing both songs together. In No
Myth, Mann ends the song with a quavering Katherine Hepburn imitation. Neither seem to enjoy between song
patter so for a while they played with a comedian to do it for them, which came in handy on Voices when they
needed someone to recite the jerk boyfriends “you need to quit the punk band and cut your hair” speech from the
classic video.
Phil Seymour – Precious to Me
Wonderful, Lennonish ballad by a guy who did a lot of work with Dwayne Twilley before dying. He also played
with Moon Martin, who wrote I’ve Got a Bad Case of Loving You. My uncle by marriage, played with Moon
Martin, and I really wanted to call him up and ask him if he’d ever met Seymour, but my once favorite aunt, who
used to smoke weed in front of me when I was like 8, and I aren’t on speaking terms after she told me having
never read a word I’d written that my literary ambitions were delusional. Nothing like family who believe in
you, huh?
Ah, Leah – Donnie Iris
Failed to cash in on the Buddy Holly look quite as well as Elvis Costello did. He must have opened roughly 40%
of the shows I saw in high school. He put on some pretty humorous shows, and boasted at least one killer song.
Jimmy Jones – The Vapors
These guys were really talented and no one remembers them for anything other than Turning Japanese despite
the fact that their debut album New Clear Days (love the pun on nuclear) is wall to wall brilliant, mysterious, and
odd. Their follow up wasn’t as good, but Jimmy Jones was a great laugh at the cult leader, but by that time no
one was willing to drink the Kool-Aid and their career was apparently over.
Leader Mike Fenton had a mullet but it was at least a cool one and the one I tried to emulate for about 6 months.
His Samurai fixation would one day be big business for the Wu Tang Clan.
She’s Not There – The Zombies
It drives me crazy that they always play Tell Her No on oldies stations instead of this eerie classic. The only
significant thing about Tell Her No is the 847 times they sing the word no, which has to be some kind of record.
Everybody Wants You – Billy Squier
I don’t care what anyone says. This guy had some great tunes; he had a unique rock voice; and he wasn’t above
recording songs about masturbation.
Birth, School, Work, Death – Godfathers
It’s pathetic, but really is there anything else?
I Don’t Like Mondays – The Boomtown Rats
School's out early and soon we'll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die
Good evocation of the madness of a desperate world. The answer why is as good a reason as any I suppose.
She’s So Modern – The Boomtown Rats
Looking Out for Number One – The Boomtown Rats
Pre-Sainthood Bob Geldof was a lot more fun, kind of a snotty version of David Bowie, made all the more fun
by the bratty backing vocals and the this song could go anywhere as long as it rocks vibe.
Love Me Till the Sun Shines – The Kinks
Dave Davies gets a lot of crap. He might not have been the most talented guitarist in Britain, but he at least had
the gumption to stick knitting needles into his amp’s speaker cone and make some really cool noise. His voice is
an acquired taste, but at full volume it bespeaks rock grandeur. In a lot of ways he was the Dennis Wilson of the
Kinks. I love this song because when I first heard it I was way too young to understand he was telling a girl to do
him and then leave as quickly as possible.
My Ever Changing Moods – Style Council
Does it bother you when your punk heroes record soft rock standards? It shouldn’t if they are this good, besides I
never really bought Paul Weller as a punk anyway.
My Way – Eddie Cochran
It’s odd. I swear I haven’t the slightest ounce of chauvinist impulse in my body yet when it’s expressed in music
I love it. Maybe that’s where those impulses should remain.
A Million Miles Away – The Plimsouls
You know it’s a great song, did you know their name is slang for British Tennis shoes? How did we survive
without the Internet?
I’ve Got Spies – Dramarama
Nice one upping of The Who’s I Can See For Miles. I’m not necessarily believing that Pete Townshend can
sense every duplicitous act his girlfriend makes, but the notion that John Easdale has secret agents tracking her
moves seems both more effective and a lot scarier.
Big Red Taxi – Joni Mitchell
That’s a lie. I’ve never really enjoyed her much. Maybe it was all the dour girls with the acoustic guitars dying to
play the coffee house circuit that worshiped her that turned me away, but I do like that “They paved paradise and
put up a parking lot” line. It was something that I used to think about when I was a kid. Why do they have all
these ugly parking lots here when they could have more parks? Then I’m 35 and fruitlessly driving through my
apartment complex, when I suddenly hear myself saying “Fuck all these little parks, this place needs more
parking.” Pete Townshend was right we should all die before we get old.
Say Anything
At first, Lloyd Dobler (John Cusack) doesn't seem to have a hell of a lot going for him. Most of his friends are
girls, he lives with his bitter sister while his service parents float about overseas, and beyond a long-shot
fascination with the sport of kickboxing, he has no idea what he is going to do with his life. He is such a jittery
bundle of nerves that he merely keeps talking until his point has been made or at least been long forgotten.
Nevertheless "looking for a dare to be great situation," he shoots the works and asks out pretty valedictorian
Diane Court (Ione Skye) out on a date. She's the kind of girl who has memorized two thirds of the dictionary,
takes college classes in her spare time, doesn't realize how hot she is and is closer to her father than the
assortment of people she has barely met at school.
John Cusack is a revelation in this movie. He was entertaining in "The Sure Thing" and "Better Off Dead" as a
sort of junior Bill Murray, but his Lloyd Dobler is a wonderful unique creation. He has no direction and no plans
for the future, but after fifteen minutes you can tell that he is probably the most genuinely decent and amusing
person you have ever met. When he and Diane hit it off, he decides the only thing he really wants to do with his
life is be with her. "What I really want to do with my life, what I want to do for a living, is I want to be with your
daughter. I'm good at it."
This doesn't particularly sit right with Jim Court (John Mahoney), Diane's driven father who is used to being her
best and possibly only friend. Jim doesn't get the Lloyd Dobler fascination, doesn't want to get the Lloyd Dobler
fascination, and pressures his good-hearted daughter to break the poor kickboxing fool's heart.
I don't think there is any worse feeling in the world than finally knowing what you want to do with your life and
who you want to do it with, and having her parent slam the door in your face. The notion that you should be
happy, that you've met exactly the person you should be spending the rest of your life with and you can't be with
her because of some indistinct barrier you can't even hope to understand, that is what leads weeping men to
wander the empty night in the rain, blasting songs from better times, and hoping that their pain will make their
case seem all the more noble and legitimate. Lloyd has a disastrously funny speech in front of the Court's family
and friends, where he declares his indecision in all matters not Diane. It lands with a damning thud of silence
that can be heard for blocks. I may be biased because I've made that speech, I've heard that silence, and I've been
as unable to sort it out as the usually ever-happy Lloyd in even his darkest moment.
The relationship between Diane and her father is well-structured and everyone's motives are heartbreakingly
understandable. There is a side plot with dad and the IRS, but this movie is all about whether deserving Lloyd
gets the girl of his dreams. To me, "Say Anything" is without a shadow of a doubt the most rewarding, funny,
and likable romance of the last twenty years. It heralds the decency of romantic love against the gears of a cold,
grinding mechanical world.
Statement of Purpose: I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to
sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or
processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.
I wrote that a long time ago
It’s actually pretty amazing that Say Anythings’ Lloyd Dobler has become such a romantic ideal. I am Lloyd
Dobler and I’ve gotten nearly no play out of it. Everyone says that want Lloyd Dobler, but do they really?
The only thing Lloyd really had going for him was his utter devotion. He’s never going to have a good job and
that nervous non stop talking that you think is so cute? It’s going to begin to embarrass you in a big way. He’ll
make a great Dad, but you’ll probably have to support him, and every party you go to you’ll have to explain why
you’re with Lloyd Dobler.
You’ll have to pull out that he brushed glass from my path in front of the 7-11 story so many times that you’ll
become sick of it. Do you really want Lloyd showing up in a Clash T-Shirt when they throw you a party because
you’ve made partner?
But here’s the context of Say Anything that no one gets. It’s a stalker movie. Who was scarier Lily Taylor and
her box set of songs about ex-Joe or Lloyd showing up outside your window one night with a massive tape deck
spewing out the song you took his virginity too. It’s only romantic in retrospect because she came back.
If I showed up outside your window blaring “In Your Eyes” believe me you’d have 911 dialed before the chorus.
Beware the movies. They almost always promise happy endings. People are willing to put in 3 minutes for a pop
song about loneliness and despair, but when they invest 90 minutes of their lives they want things to work out
for the best.
I always loved Frank Capra movies, but when you get older you start to stop looking at the happy endings and
start thinking about how miserable the protagonist was in the penultimate act and how unlikely that happy
ending occuring in real life occurring.
Wow, I think I could possibly depress Gidget right now.
Chapter 20: Eric Clapton Isn't Even a Demigod
Can’t Buy Me Love - The Beatles
I Saw Her Standing There – The Beatles
All My Loving – The Beatles
A Hard Day’s Night – The Beatles
Who knows if this is true or not but I once heard a story about an, I’m sure very drugged out, George Harrison
and Eric Clapton, having a guitar solo mano a mano over Patti Boyd Harrison, whom Clapton eventually wooed
with Layla, married, divorced, and re-imagined as an acoustic cabaret number. Supposedly, as one would guess
Clapton blew the quiet Beatle away. Apocryphal or not, I could really care less as I’ve never been much of a
Clapton advocate. George to his credit almost never played a solo that I can’t sing note for note from memory
and I’m not sure I can say that about any other so called guitar god be it Clapton, Hendrix, Van Halen, or any
other virtuoso you want to add to the list. It’s about feeling and serving the song not flash, and if you take that as
a given everyone pales to George in my book and these are my best examples.
A side note on I Saw Her Standing There
She was just seventeen/you know what I mean
Greatest couplet in rock history and props to Spinal Tap’s Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight for paying
homage with:
Well you’re so young/and I’m too well hung
Also add me to the list of people who like to think Paul’s intro is “One, two, three, fuck” even if he’s obviously
saying four. You see not only did the Ramones get their name from a Paul alias. They also got the most famous
part of their live act (Dee Dee kicked off every single number with that same intro for god knows how many
years) from Paul too.
Something – The Beatles
Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles
Poor George, Sinatra says that he has written on of the most beautiful love songs and then credits it to John and
Paul. That’s OK, I always liked Here Comes the Sun better, even if I do have to admit that the first time I ever
heard it was sneaking a peak at that awful Bee Gee movie before going to see another movie as a kid.
What is Life – George Harrison
Great riff, do you think that had George have known that the font of inspiration was going to dry up that perhaps
he’d have rethought spilling it all out onto a triple album and saved some stuff for the next ten years? It cracks
me up watching George about to slit Paul’s throat in Let It Be, but I’m guessing that ten years later they both had
the feeling in the back of their minds that a little hate and competition was good for the music. If they were
happier so be it, maybe it was worth it.
All Those Years Ago- George Harrison
Possibly the only good thing that came out of Lennon’s murder, George’s tribute shows you he worshiped John
just as much as we did.
Here Today – Paul McCartney
Paul’s John tribute, possibly an attempt to atone for his less than well received “It’s a drag” response to the news
of the murder. Paul’s song is determined to avoid Harrison’s idol worship and comment on it from the point of
partner and equal. In its acknowledgment, that Lennon was difficult and that neither was willing to acknowledge
their love for each other Paul gets points for honesty.
I feel for Paul. You can’t compete with a dead man, and that became the nature of their relationship. What are
you supposed to do when the whole world wants to say it was Lennon’s band? I understand, but still I wish he’d
be the bigger man. Trying to get the credit on Yesterday changed from Lennon/McCartney to
McCartney/Lennon is petty and destroys the innocence of the original partnership agreement. Paul everyone
knows you wrote that song. Funny thing is if John were really here today, he’d be trying to take his name off of
it.
Bell Bottom Blues – Eric Clapton
This is a wonderful song. Wonderful Tonight, however, never fails to make me want to retch. Along with the
Velvet Underground, the most overrated presence in Rock and Roll History (did they really have to induct
Clapton into the Hall of Fame 47 separate times?). I Shot the Sheriff – unlistenable. Cocaine – I just don’t get it
– what’s he saying there?
I loved it when I saw Pete Townshend liveand he referred to Clapton’s mega-commercial rethinking of Layla as
“bad cabaret.” Pete saved his life, so I guess he’s allowed to say that.
Here’s what I don’t get. Layla was Clapton’s unbridled unrequited love for George Harrison’s wife seething to
the surface. What that meandering acoustic drivel means after he’s married and divorced her is anyone’s guess.
Hell, I actually enjoyed some of his work with Babyface, I’m merely stating that it doesn’t quite jibe with the
legend of the guy, who was supposedly so offended by the pop of For Your Love that he dropped out of the
Yardbirds.
Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues – Buddy Guy
I’m so glad this guy made a comeback.
Before he started selling albums again, he got to be one of the guys Eric
Clapton would trot out every now and then to tell you how great his
influences were. Nice gesture I guess, but I saw him in college and he
spent half the show bitching about how Clapton and Hendrix owed him
a summer home and a swimming pool. He doesn’t need the
condescension; dude can still play his ass off. Clapton was lucky he
only let him on stage for a song or two, because for my money he’d
eventually blow him off the stage.
I tried to see him in San Francisco at Slim’s only to find out that the
show was sold out. For the only time in my life, I just stayed outside
and listened. He must have known, because thanks to one of those
portable amp jacks that never worked for Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap,
Buddy ran out of the club and serenaded the bypassing traffic.
Race with the Devil – Jeff Beck
Race with the Devil – Gene Vincent
This could have been much more of a farce than Gus Van Sant’s reshooting of Psycho camera shot for camera shot to the original. On his Gene Vincent tribute Crazy Legs, Beck
plays every single note as identical to the original recordings as he possibly can. Nevertheless, and this won’t
endear me to snobs, due to recording quality, except for Vincent’s superior vocals I prefer to listen to the Beck
versions, because with the newfound technical clarity Beck shows just how much of a demented bad ass guitar
hero Cliff Gallup really was. What an amazing story. The guy was in my opinion the finest guitarist in the world,
and he tossed it away because he hated being away from his wife to become Director of Maintenance and
Transportation in his local area school system and play guitar on weekends. This guy never played a note aided
by distortion and still for my money I’ve never heard anyone play cleaner, faster, or more insanely tasteful.
Heart Full of Soul – The Yardbirds
Over under Sideways Down – The Yardbirds
Stroll On – The Yardbirds
The Yardbirds of course at one time featured the incendiary guitar work of gods in waiting, Eric Clapton, Jeff
Beck, and Jimmy Page. God I hate when I hear that crap. Clapton might have done some brilliant live stuff for
the band, but as far as their recorded output goes it’s all Jeff Beck and the triumvirate of guitar gods theory only
serves to diminish his greatness with the band.
Stroll On, a reworking of Train Kept a Rolling, that the band did for Michelangelo Antonioni’s otherwise
impenetrable movie classic Blow Up, is pretty much the only evidence of Page and Beck going head to head and
it’s pretty damn out there impressive. Like Beck doppelganger Nigel Tufnel said “This one goes to eleven.”
Antonioni wanted The Who to do their smash the guitar act, but somehow wound up with The Yardbirds. Beck
smashes his fake guitar at the end of the song, and tosses the fragments into the crowd. Disaffected London
swinger David Hemmings desperately fights the crowd to claim the biggest piece and promptly walks out of the
club and tosses it into the trash.
Here’s a personal story about the movie Blow Up and the kind of luck I have in life and with women in general.
I watched it on video with my roommate Dave. After about 30 minutes, we get a knock on the door. It turns out
to be two cute girls who have been paid to tuck Dave into bed for charity. They of course walk into our room
right as Hemmings is rolling around in crate paper with two naked women. Dave immediately points out that it’s
my movie choice and not his. Jesus, I'm not watching porn, isn't this a film snob classic?
The exact same thing happened to me when at 14 I played Steve Martin’s Wild and Crazy Guy Album for my
previously mentioned once favorite Aunt. My dad, not a huge fan of profanity, walked in just in time to hear the
punch line – “That cat was the best fuck I ever had.” As you can expect like Dave my Aunt immediately said
“Don’t look at me it’s his album.”
One more thing about Beck, I went to a guitar show in San Jose once. The featured attraction was the Fender
guitar Jeff recorded all of his Yarbirds hits with. Imagine 500 guitar wonks creaming their pants over a guitar
that had it not been Beck’s wouldn’t bring more than $200 dollars in trade from a reputable guitar dealer despite
its late 50’s vintage. Beck had constructed this thing from maybe 3 different guitars. The strings hadn’t been
changed in over 25 years. If I remember correctly, it had a Stratocaster neck and a Broadcaster body. Best of all,
Beck wished he had a Stratocaster body so to replicate that model’s angled arm rest he had crudely sanded one
off of the base of the Broadcaster’s body about as well as I sanded half of my high school Industrial Arts
projects. OK, I admit it; I was drooling over it too.
A Day in the Life – Jeff Beck
He’s so talented. It constantly amazes me that all in all he’d be just as happy working on his cars and never
recording another note again.
Gloria – Them
I got a guitar at maybe the age of seven and got sent to my dad’s Banjo teacher, Bob McGuire, who wrote Moon
over Parma, the original theme of the Drew Carey Show. Bob could play, but he was a Jazz guy and at seven I
didn’t listen to a shred of music. It just didn’t happen, but I wish I hadn’t quit because I think music like foreign
languages is best learned young.
When I picked it back up at 17 or so, my buddy Laird told me to go to Tony Martin, who probably wasn’t a great
fit for me but a hell of a lot of fun. I wanted to be Pete Townshend in the middle of the Eddie Van Halen era.
Tony, whose friends called him Crash due to his driving, would pick up my miniature seven year old acoustic,
tune it, play some Van Halen runs, and say “Well, it works. Good enough for Rock and Roll.”
His hair added about eight inches to his height, and he must have gone through enough hair spray to keep Clairol
in business for the next millennium. Even though he wasn’t playing my sort of music, I worshiped him, and
brought my friends to see him play usually at the Akron Agora. He got stuck playing a bunch of lame covers that
I’m sure he hated behind some less than manly lead singers (No More Words by Berlin comes to mind). The first
time my friends saw him play, they were ready to walk out until he ripped through the solo at the end of Prince’s
Let’s Go Crazy. He eventually went out to Los Angeles to try to make it, but after awhile he felt too old for the
scene and came back to Cleveland. The first time I saw him with his hair cut, I couldn’t believe how short he
was. My Rock and Roll hero looked like an accountant. That’s OK, by that time I was bald and he was at least
six years older than me.
I once had a lesson with him and when I walked in he was playing with an effects pedal. He told me how he was
drunk once and showed me how he figured out how to play Van Halen's Cathedral. Then for the next 25 minutes
he played all kinds of crazy digital delay stuff. Space invader sounds all kinds of neat stuff. Finally, he looked at
the clock and said shit - I didn't teach you anything. I guess I can't charge you. I said Fuck it - I had a ball and
paid him. Maybe that's why I can't play.
Anyway, my buddy Laird’s band got to play a short set at a punk club called The Cleveland Underground. At
this time I could barely play. Hell, I can still barely play, but for some reason unsolicited Laird taught me how to
play Gloria and let me play it at his show, which given that I’m pretty sure it was his first time playing out at a
club, was a gesture almost Christ-like in its generosity. It’s the only time I’ve ever played in front of a crowd,
and I’m eternally grateful.
Fire – Jimi Hendrix
Move over and let Jimi take over
Hell, even I can play this song. I think Jimi wrote it to give me hope. Thanks pal.
By the way, the funniest music related movie dialog of all time is when Woody Harrelson explains to the AfroCentric Wesley Snipes that Jimi’s entire rhythm section was White in White Men Can’t Jump. “You can listen to
Jimi, but you can’t hear Jimi.”
David Lee Roth and Van Halen reunite!
Dave has the best fake hair in the business, let the fun begin anew.
“Hey it’s been 22 fucking years. Give me a break - - you’re lucky I can remember any of the motherfucking
words!”
Beat It – Michael Jackson
The biggest value in music history: Eddie Van Halen tosses a solo onto a Michael Jackson song for free, Michael
crosses over. The rest is history.
Hot for Teacher – Van Halen
“I don’t feel tardy”
A friend and I bought 1984 on cassette and when we popped it in to play side two Alex’s drum intro made us
think the tape was being eaten. These guys are so endemic of what happens in music. Two talented guys mix
together perfectly, can’t get along, separate and become caricatures of themselves. David Lee Roth never found
a mirror he didn’t immediately fall in love with and Eddie eventually couldn’t handle it, after the fallout the
world was a lot less fun. Listen to the guitar squeal on Panama and it’s like Eddie’s matching Dave vocally. Post
Dave all the humor left his playing and I couldn’t have cared less about the band.
Who knows maybe it would have been all over anyway. After 1984 came out, one music magazine named Eddie
not only best guitarist, but best keyboardist too, which was about as silly as any Grammy ever presented. Eddie’s
infatuation with the keyboard led to one huge hit (Jump), and a complete watering down of their sound. When
you have the most perfect rocket engine ever invented there’s no need to tinker, just ask AC?DC.
Eddie ruined guitar playing for about 5 years or so. It’s hard to underestimate just how much every single person
in the world wanted to sound like him in the mid-80’s, but sadly no one else had his economy and pre-Sammy
his humor either. Guitar playing isn’t about how many scales you can rip through at top speed, call it the
Malmsteen era if you like.
Remember when the band and Dave reunited for about 30 seconds, and Eddie was angry that Dave hogged the
spotlight and he couldn’t talk about his hip replacement. Who exactly did they think they were dealing with? Do
you get angry at moths for flying straight towards light bulbs? How exactly did a band that seemed like it was
having so much fun in its prime get so dour and depressing? The world was never the same once David Lee Roth
started to lose his hair.
Chapter 21: Assorted things I’m amused by that no one else even thinks
about
Various Saturday Night Live Celebrity Jeopardy Clips
Like just about every Saturday Night Live sketch that is continually reprised this is the same joke over and over
again, but I have to admit that in this case it’s a pretty damn good joke. Will Farrell’s Alex Trebek enraged that
to compete with Celebrity Who Wants to be a Millionaire he has to suffer through endless practically retarded
celebrity contestants clueless to the dumbed down questions they toss out in these very special episodes. Of
course, the key to these things was Darrell Hammond’s out and out insane Sean Connery impersonation that
portrayed the best James Bond as a foul mouthed, sex obsessed, pain in Trebek’s ass, who couldn’t care less
about winning the game even if it is for charity.
Some of my favorite faux Connery impudent
answers included
Craven Morehead – Who’s Craven Morehead? –
Why you, you pansy!
Writing “indoors” to answer the Final Jeopardy
question “Where are you now?” Trebek shifts from
amazement to disgust when he checks for
Connery’s bet only to see that what he really wrote
was I heart boobs.
But my all time favorite is his purposeful
misreading of the category “The Pen is Mightier”
Sean Connery: I've got to ask you about the Penis Mightier.
Alex Trebek: What? No. No, no, that is The Pen is Mightier.
Sean Connery: Gussy it up however you want Trebek. What matters is does it work? Will it really mighty my
penis, man?
Alex Trebek: It's not a product, Mr. Connery.
Sean Connery: Because I've ordered devices like that before - wasted a pretty penny, I don't mind telling you.
And if The Penis Mightier works, I'll order a dozen.
Alex Trebek: It's not a Penis Mightier, Mr. Connery. There's no such thing!
Nicholas Cage: Wait, wait, wait… are you selling Penis Mightiers?
Alex Trebek: No! No, I'm not.
Sean Connery: Well, you're sitting on a gold mine, Trebek!
And how cool is Sean Connery for getting the joke and adding a scene to Finding Forrester, where his character
takes in an episode of the real show?
Nevertheless, even the best of these skits can’t hold a candle to what I once saw on VH1’s Celebrity Rock and
Roll Jeopardy. The contestants were C.C Deville, of Poison, R&B singer Brian McKnight, and Andy Summers
of the police.
Brian McKnight isn’t a rock star and thus knows nothing about Rock and Roll trivia.
Andy Summers was in the Police but he was basically a Jazz guy who knows as much relevant stuff to this show
as McKnight. They could ask him who played drums in the Police and he still would have to think about it for a
while.
C.C. Deville is well C.C. Deville
Neither Brian McKnight nor Andy Summers buzzed in more than maybe twice the entire show. C.C. Deville
buzzed in on every single question and got about half of them right and half of them wrong. Thus, with maybe a
minute to go before Final Rock and Roll Jeopardy, you have pretty much a three way tie at somewhere very
close to a big goose egg. Brilliant!
Rising Sun
Essentially, the dumbest film moment of all time. One day I'm flipping through the channels when I notice that
the movie Rising Sun is very close to revealing some nudity so naturally I decide to stick around. Harvey Keitel
and Wesley Snipes are about to pop in and bust Eddie Sakamura. Luckily for us the viewers, Eddie is eating
Sushi off of a naked woman. He pours himself some Saki and dips another naked woman's nipple into his glass
so he can lick the beverage off of said nipple. When Eddie finishes, he picks up his trusty cell phone and phones
Sean Connery to tell him that he needs to talk to him about the missing computer disk. I've
never been lucky enough to be in that situation, but if I ever am, phoning Sean Connery will be the last thing on
my mind.
Love for Tender – Elvis Costello
A lyrical masterpiece, there must be at least fifteen word plays on its monetary theme all in less than 2 minutes
as a fierce Costello accuses a woman of being more interested in money than love. If they taught this stuff in
school, maybe kids wouldn’t hate poetry so much. I’ve got nothing against Shakespeare; I just think it’d go
down easier from an angry Buddy Holly look-alike who slept with Liv Tyler’s mother. Then again, I haven’t
been to school in a long time, for all I know they parse Jay Z lyrics these days.
You won't take my love for tender
You can put your money where your mouth is
But you're so unsure
I could be a miser or a big spender
But you might get much more than you bargained for
Check in on a checkmate
Grassing on a classmate
So beautiful and fortunate
You're the one who hates to love
But he's the one who loves to hate
He can fix you all for good
Because he is the neighborhood
You can get money for blood
Blood money for doing no good
Better tell me now, have you made your selection?
Are you ready for correction?
Cause the wages of sin are an expensive infection
It'll make you bankrupt
Better pay up now, don't interrupt
So in love, I'm so sincere
Just like a well-known financier
You know I've never been corrupt
I'll pay you a compliment
And you'll think I am innocent
You can total up the balance sheet
And never know if I'm a counterfeit
You won't take my love for tender...
Brilliant Mistake – Elvis Costello
She said that she was working for the ABC News
It was as much of the alphabet as she knew how to use
Even Eminem would be advised not to get into a verbal battle with this guy.
Here’s my most brilliant mistake. There was this overweight nerdy guy who got kicked out of my fraternity,
which is a pretty huge insult seeing that my fraternity was about the worst on campus. None of the new guys in
his pledge class wanted him around. He hadn’t done anything worth expulsion, but I couldn’t really defend
letting him stick around in a place where no one liked him. Once flying back to school from Cleveland, it turned
out that this guy was on my flight and I agreed to share a cab with him back to campus. A bit later in baggage
claim a really pretty girl also offered to split a cab with me, but feeling such intense guilt for letting this guy be
banished I told her that I already had a ride and wound up stuffed into a cab with the poor sap and some other
dork friend of his. What was I thinking? Sometimes I still wonder if that girl could have been the answer to my
lovelorn prayers.
(What’s So Funny Bout) Peace Love and Understanding – Elvis Costello
Alison – Elvis Costello
Is anyone paying attention? No, I didn’t think so. You can now return to your regularly scheduled airing of the
Rush Limbaugh show.
Elvis gave both the best and the worst concerts I’ve ever seen. The worst was when he grew that beard and
decided he liked the Grateful Dead. After an hour and a half of meandering boredom he encored with Pump It
Up, which was nice but too little too late.
The best was his spinning songbook show with the Attractions in the mid-eighties. He had a big spinning wheel
and a Rip Taylor clone to pick out women to dance in a go-go booth, and people got to spin the wheel filled with
his best known material and some odd covers like Prince’s Pop Life, which sadly never came up.
Inevitably, a girl was picked out of the crowd named Alison. Despite the urging of the crowd he made her spin
the wheel anyway, and fixed or not it came up one short of the proper song. “Your song is Strict Time!” After
about five minutes of playful booing, the proper song was played.
They had a black and white television on stage. Flicking through the channels Elvis showed a surprising interest
in an episode of Cagney and Lacey. As luck would have it, Ronald Reagan had given a speech that night.
Someone put a microphone up to the small television speaker and Dutch did a duet as Declan sang:
And as I walked on
Through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So where are the strong
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.
'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding? Ohhhh,
What's so funny 'bout peace love & understanding?
Ronald’s answer had something to do with winning the peace and supply side economics.
I’m Back – Eminem
Speaking of him, here’s my nomination as his funniest stanza ever, and believe me there is a mountain of
competition.
So I just, throw up a middle finger and let it linger
longer than the rumor that I was stickin’ it to Christina
Cause if I ever stuck it to any singer in showbiz
it'd be Jennifer Lopez, and Puffy you know this!
I'm sorry Puff, but I don't give a fuck if this chick was my own mother
I still fuck her with no rubber and cum inside her
and have a son and a new brother at the same time
and just say that it ain't mine, what's my name?
Isn’t it fascinating that the Elvis of Rap can’t stand his mother?
Kim – Eminem
Wow, be scared, be really fucking scared.
Hey dad, can you sing me that song you wrote about killing mom again?
Sometimes, I almost feel for Tipper, but by the time this came out I suppose she realized that she was like a
Dutch girl sticking her finger into a small dike that needed to be the size of say the Hoover Dam.
Manic Monday – The Bangles
Prince may be three feet tall, he may be as secretive as Richard Nixon, he may be knocking on random doors
trying to convert Amish people to the ways of the Witnesses, but is there any doubt that he’s the man. Hmm, I
have a crush on a singer, I’ll write her a hit song and eventually we’ll be making sweet love on my purple sheets.
Dude didn’t mess around either. By 18 I’d seen tons of naked breasts on screen, but Purple Rain was the first
time I saw someone move their hand downstairs. He didn’t even write Kim Basinger a good song, but it got him
around the bases. Sugar Walls? It’s not on my iPod, but maybe it should be. You know he wrote that one just to
keep Tipper Gore up at night. “Isn’t that the sweet girl that sang Morning Train?”
Rap has really taken the fun out of the uptight parents of the world. Whether he was actually saying funk in
Erotic City seems so quaint these days, doesn’t it? It only took, 8 years from the Darling Nikki debacle for him
to be singing “you sexy motherfucker.” Maybe Tipper was right. I hope not, but from what I’ve read lately
Prince seems to think so.
Words of inspiration: Well, for starters, you have to purify yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka.
Chapter 22: What I Never Learned in High School
She Love You – The Beatles
As far as I’m concerned the greatest Rock lyric ever written is “She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah!” and nothing
else is even remotely close. A little romance and a huge political statement. I love the fact that Rock and Roll has
always seemingly agreed with me about the fact that grammar is fascist and punctuation should be optional. I
once read that Jim Morrison just went nuts when he heard Elvis say “alright, yeah and, uh huh” all in the same
song.
Maybe Morrison the poet’s best lyric was that alright yeah he tossed into “People are Strange. In the classroom
they tell you that ain’t isn’t really a word. In a Blues or a Rock song you mostly sound ridiculous if you don’t
use it.
Rock and Roll is all about slang. Those great words and phrases that they refused to put into the dictionary. I’m
not even talking about profanity, although that never really fails to amuse me either. As far as I’m concerned the
more proper your choice of words the more boring you are.
Poor Steve Allen. One of his famous “bits” was making fun of the lyrics to Be Bop a Lula by reading them as if
they were poetry. Of course, he’d tell you that scat singing was brilliant. It’s hard to figure out why he thought
Mel Torme going “do bob de dooby do dat” was genius, while Gene Vincent was a sign of the approaching
apocalypse. Maybe it was the way he dressed? I hate people that are forever dying for you to talk just like they
talk. “I’ve learned all these rules, I know how to talk correctly, now you people must worship and aspire to be
like me.”
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
I missed 52 days of school my senior year so I knew immediately where Ferris Bueller's Day Off was coming
from. In fact, if I could have pulled a chick like Mia Sara in high school this film would have been about me.
This is John Hughes' best teen film, and it's a call to arms to everyone in the world who doesn't want to follow
society's lame-ass rules at the expense of living a cool life. Mathew Broderick is Ferris Bueller and he knows
how the world works. He knows how far to push his parents' ignorance; he knows how to get his girlfriend
excused from school; and he knows if he doesn't give his best friend Cameron a day in the sun, he'll probably
burst out into the sort of teen violence best kept closeted over in "Heathers".
Of course, this wouldn't be an '80s teen movie if there wasn't an expensive car to parade around town in and to
destroy in the fatal final moments. Usually the car of choice was a simple Porsche, but these are especially wellto-do kids, so we get a 1961 Ferrari 250GT California.
No one can say Ferris and his crew don't know how to fill up a day of skipped school. I would usually sleep until
four in the afternoon and call my friends up to see what I had missed during school. Ferris has an expensive
lunch, leads a parade in a chorus of "Twist and Shout" and "Danke Schein," attends a Cub's game at Wrigley
Field, goes swimming, and narrowly averts a disastrous discovery by his angered Principal and well-meaning
hoodwinked parents. Meanwhile, the legend grows and Ferris becomes an inspiration to more people than a
roomful of Tony Robbins clones.
Jennifer Grey plays his unamused, rule-following sister, Jeannie. She won't bust Ferris personally, but she's been
rooting for his comeuppance for years. Why is it that people who don't have the courage or the know-how to
play the game get so damn ornery? No one really cares if Ferris misses school. The world found Nixon buddy
Ben Stein so entertaining here that they gave him a game show, and some Visine commercials. They tried to rework this magic on television, but despite Jennifer Aniston in the Grey role, it paled next to its superior Fox copy
"Parker Lewis Can't Lose".
"Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Cameron Crowe ("Say Anything") and Amy Heckerling ("Clueless") would both go on to make better movies
about the teen experience, but this old war horse is the one that essentially started it all. Apparently, there was so
much talent lying around this set that you can see young versions of Anthony Edwards, Eric Stoltz, and Nick
Cage (as Nicolas Coppola) wandering vacantly around the
edges of the screen.
You could never afford to get this cast in a movie today. It's
hard for me to believe it was made so long ago that you
could smoke inside movie theaters at the time. "Fast Times"
was based on writer Crowe's undercover experience in a
Los Angeles High School, back in the day when that meant
Valley Girls, surfers, and fast food jobs, and not guns,
gangsters, and clockers.
Essentially, it's all about sex except for an exceptional
perpetually stoned performance by once and future method
man Sean Penn. His Jeff Spicoli is an unabashed kick every
second he is on the screen. He's wasted, he's hungry, he
doesn't understand, and he very nearly causes Ray Walston
to pack up the ship and head back to Mars. Sure it was his
fault that every teen in the country's vocabulary diminished
into the phrases, "Hey Dude." and, "Awesome. Totally
Awesome." for the next five years, but sometimes art has
its price.
There's not a lot of substance here, but this is the high school I'd most like to go to in movie history. They have
neighborhood swimming pools. They live in the land of shopping malls. Their cars are pretty cool. The music
still holds up pretty good. The Go-Go's, and Oingo Boingo are heard amid fun references to Cheap Trick, Led
Zeppelin, Van Halen, and The Stones. Every male actor in this film seems like he is dancing and singing his part
in some wicked hipster attempt to be the coolest. Even Ray Walston's imperial Mr. Hand probably thinks he's the
baddest ass in two counties. The girls, even Phoebe Cate's sexual dynamo, seem so much more innocent if not
sadly ignorant of any form of birth control. Scalping, white rapping, swaggering Mike Damone can get you seats
to the Beatles (where did you go Ray Romanus?), but though he claims to be a gift to women can barely hold out
long enough to wish he had a condom on, and poor Judge Reinhold. One second he's this soulful brother and the
next second he gets dumped, caught masturbating to Phobe Cate's decade-defining topless scene, and working in
a pirate costume.
Sean Penn's scenes are still so stunning, and almost all of them are with Walston; the old-time fast talker versus
the utterly confused, completely stunned and surprised stoner. If someone called their teacher a dick in class
today, there would be undertones of aggression and violence, a threat. Spicoli doesn't even think that far ahead
he's just saying whatever manages to come into his head, and somehow Sean Penn makes it seem legitimate and
even really cool. His, "You dick!" was perhaps the most liberating feeling of relief and expression for anyone
under 18 at the time, and it actually comes off in a completely non-threatening way.
I find it hilarious hearing Walston say, "Three weeks we've been talking about the Platt Amendment!" even
before he says "What are you people on dope?" "Fast Times" reminds you what a hassle it was when you got a
really out-there, psycho teacher. In some of today's more violent high school movies it would never be
imaginable to be so in control of your class. Mr. Hand would have gotten shot in the trailer, or he wouldn't have
even made it in to class. Here he actually probably cares that Spicoli learns something. Penn is probably in the
film no more than any number of the others but the movie is still so overwhelmingly his even after 20 years. He
sets the tone of fun for the whole movie.
These kids are all reasonably nice except for Forrest Whitaker's football player, who even Spicoli is tight with.
Adam Sandler's football scenes in "The Waterboy" can't even hold a candle to the work of the enraged Mr.
Jefferson.
Post-Jerry Springer and since "American Pie" came along, it has seemed like 15-year-old girls were capable of
the entire Kama Sutra as opposed to Jennifer Jason Leigh awkwardly losing her virginity in a baseball dugout
under Surf Nazi graffiti. My appreciation that the geek turns out to be too nice to get laid makes me feel like an
oddly conservative Miniver Cheevy, but who doesn't still want to go back to high school and try to get it right
this time, besides Jeff Spicoli of course who did. Not a parent to be found anywhere.
Risky Business
John Hughes built his considerable reputation and wealth by dissecting and giving voice to the minds and hearts
of Chicago's upper class suburban youth. Risky Business, which came out the same year as Hughes' initial effort
Sixteen Candles, already knew what was in those hearts and minds and it wasn't angst and parental
misunderstandings, it was sex and money.
Tom Cruise is Joel Goodson and his parents are going out of town. There would be a time when the
requirements of the teen flick only necessitated a big party, a little romance, and a narrowly averted disaster.
Risky Business had more on its mind. The kids of Risky Business know what is expected of them. Their job is to
get into a good college and figure out some way to replicate their parents' unabashed success. Joel is a marginal
student at best hanging on to a Future Enterpriser's club as if it is his only hope for eventual survival. Cruise's
parents are filmed as if seen from his eyes, and are backed by music that could easily have been found in a fifties
training film. He is to go to school, behave and absolutely under no circumstances drive the Porsche.
Of course, he immediately pulls out the hard liquor, turns up the stereo famously dancing in his underwear, and
takes the Porsche out for a spin. Then things get interesting. He calls up Lana, the local fulfiller of dreams, and
violates almost every single room of the house with her. The backing music by Tangerine Dream and the
effective cinematography makes the whole thing seem like a dream, while Brickman juxtaposes Joel's sexual
encounter with the old snapshots hanging on the wall of a young and more innocent time. When Joel finds
himself short Lana's fee, he goes to the bank to cash a savings bond from his Grandmother. Lana doesn't wait.
She takes his mothers prized glass egg. Soon, Joel's got the Porsche out again and is racing the streets with
Lana's pimp Guido hot in pursuit (Joe Pantoliano in one of his hundreds of fabulous cinematic hairpieces).
Lana has plans of her own. She wants to open up house at the Goodson's and make some money. Joel thinks
better of the situation and refuses. Then the Porsche winds up in Lake Michigan and Joel gets a lesson in
capitalism.
Brickman has great fun staging arguments between Joel, Lana, her friends, and Guido all in front of what seem
like three ever-present watching neighborhood kids. Joel desperately and hilariously tries to complete a
Princeton interview amid the chaos of his house being turned into a suburban brothel. Great fun is had
comparing the foolish innocence of Joel and his friends to the hard-fought monetary street smarts of Lana, her
girls,and Guido, the ever-present killer pimp who isn't likely to be brushed off without a fight.
Risky Business came out when I was pretty much the exact age as Cruise's Joel, and it was the definitive film of
my youth. Kids flocked to see it, usually more than once; some even understood it. Others just fawned over the
sex, the shiny car, and the Ray Ban Wayfarers that sparked a revolution in movie tie-ins. For some reason,
Brickman never capitalized on the huge success of his first film and seemingly barely got to make another one
before being cast aside by the Hollywood money machine. His basic scenario would be remade dozens of times
with varying levels of success by talents of varying degree and motivations, but for one brief moment he took the
dynamics of American youth and made a taut, bitter, sharp and nearly flawless film -- the epitome of the Reagan
era.
The Breakfast Club
In the aftermath of the Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris Columbine disaster, a clueless news reporter desperately
trying to understand the un-understandable came forward with the shocking opinion that "apparently there were
cliques in this school." Cliques in high school? You think?
The Breakfast Club was teen-auteur John Hughes' attempt to take a step back and evaluate the large horde of
teens our schools turn out and how they desperately search for identity. It is essentially a teenage version of The
Big Chill with a then-hip but now horribly dated '80s soundtrack.
On an otherwise normal Saturday morning , a jock (Emilio Estevez), a brain (Anthony Michæl Hall), a princess
(Molly Ringwald), and a space cadet (Ally Sheedy) find themselves stuck in detention with perpetual attendee
and stoner delinquent John Bender (Judd Nelson in his finest and most nose flaring role).
Anyone who has spent a day or so in detention, and I have, can vouch for the fact that it is more than a little like
prison for adolescents, minus the gay sex and the trading of cigarettes.
"What are you in for?" "She gave you a detention for that?" "Yeah, I had that bitch last year!"
For me, detention meant that the amusing high-jinx that you brought to your very boring college prep classes
could bring you face to face with the more dangerous sorts that hung out in remedial English or the auto shop. If
you had done something really entertaining, the powers that be might give you a break, but chances are you
spent the entire time under their hateful glare as everything in life that they weren't going to have and didn't want
to be. Some would call this movie self-important and self-absorbed. None of those people remember what it was
like to be a teenager.
Paul Gleason is scary and wonderful as the
student hating teacher caught stuck babysitting
the ne'er-do-wells. In a scene that is terrifying,
menacing, and authentic, Bender staunchly
refuses to give up ground, and he doesn't care
how much detention time Gleason throws his
way. He can't back down, because his self respect
in the matter is literally all he has going for him.
At my school there would have been 12 John
Benders and they would have spent the entire day
looking for some way to make anyone who
wasn't one of them completely miserable. Bender
is a little more eloquent than most, but he
eventually forces each of the stereotypes to question their roles and re-examine who they are. This could have
been an unmitigated disaster, but Hughes' way with the material ensured it a special place in the heart of just
about everyone who happened to be in high school while Ronald Reagan was President.
Once the kids have fought, smoked, blamed their parents and bonded, the key question is raised: Are we friends
now or do we go back to our usual parts, our usual friends, and our usual ways? What are you going to do when
you're hanging with your homies and I walk by? Probably the whole thing explodes in a day and a half, but the
process is instructive and revealing. Anthony Michael Hall nicely plays a milder more innocent nerd than he did
in Sixteen Candles and Weird Science, but what planet did the Pixie Stick and Captain Crunch eating Sheedy
character come from?
Warning: Embarrassing dancing in the school library.
Heathers
"Did you hear? School's been canceled today because Kurt and Ram killed themselves in a repressed gay suicide
pact!"
I'm actually pretty truly shocked that you can still rent this film after the Columbine massacre. When kids started
lying in rows down the stretches of teeming highways in homage to a scene in The Program, Disney blinked and
edited it out of the movie. Gone. Like it never existed, even though the scene was responsibly depicted and
crucial to the tone of the piece.
Angry students kill their enemies as a result of clique warfare. That's basically the plot of both Heathers and the
Harris-Klebold suicide pact. I'm still shocked people aren't trying to lynch director Michael Lehman. Maybe it's
because Heathers is so eerily right-on-target it amounts to a fulfilled prophesy.
The Three Heathers and Veronica Sawyer (Winona Ryder) are the top of the clique hierarchy. Veronica, is
bright, attractive, caring and knows she has sold her soul for popularity and begins to not only dislike, but
despise her friends. Along comes Jack Nicholson's illegitimate son, cool walking, cool smoking JD (Christian
Slater -- read James Dean/juvenile delinquent). JD makes a big first day impression. He makes eyes at an
impressed Veronica from the back of the lunchroom, and when he gets hassled by the football team he pulls out
a loaded gun and fires...blanks.
From here on things get complicated, as JD hooks up with Veronica and tricks her into killing Heather Number
One. They pen an impressive suicide note, mix and stir. The dead Heather is more popular than ever; her death
has given her substance. Pretty soon two football players are dead. Veronica burns her hand with a cigarette
lighter, and JD uses her hand as a light. "Our way is the way. We scare them into not being assholes!"
Amazingly enough, it's hard to shed a tear. The Heathers are truly vain, cruelly sadistic and immaculately
dressed, though not particularly happy. The death of the top Heather merely induces a class struggle for
reorganization in the new world. Believe it or not, the guys are worse. They use the girls for sex, pick on their
lessers, and are generally concerned with nothing but themselves. Everyone here is stupid and crass, and they
live to prey on each other's weaknesses.
The kids petition for the homeless and the starving, but they can't even be humanly decent to each other. I dare
you to watch this and not rejoice when they start popping off. I haven't even mentioned the Hippie teacher who
uses the deaths to promulgate her odd fascination and delight at the tragedies.
This is an amazing black satire filled with vicious biting words that snap like firecrackers. You have to figure
slang like "What's your damage" and "Get crucial" are far too ingenious not to have been written by writer
Daniel Waters. Veronica's parents have the same conversation with her every day and the scenes are filmed like
a lost episode of Ozzie and Harriet. The look of the movie is beautifully colored and staged. How can you resist
a movie whose high school is named after Replacements' singer Paul Westerberg? Heathers"wants a kinder
gentler world...it just has no idea how it's going to happen. The wonder isn't that this movie might have been
imitated, it's that it's creators went on to make "Hudson Hawk" and "The Adventures of Ford Fairlane".
Massacre at Central High
Hitler had the right idea! He was just an under-achiever! Kill them all, Adolf, all of them! Jew, Mexican,
American, White, kill them all!!!! Start over, the experiment didn't work! – Bill Hicks during what he called not
“a get laid set.”
Heathers came out in 1979, and though I’ve never seen it mentioned, its author had to have seen this movie,
because it’s basically the same movie minus the late ‘80’s jaded seen everything sensibility. I just stole it off of
E Mule (don’t get mad I don’t think there is any legal way I could have found it) and watched it for the first time
in probably 20 years. It’s amazing how many scenes were still indelible in my mind. There’s probably two
reasons it stayed with me so well.
1. Despite it’s amazingly trashy low budget nature, it may be the best Animal Farm adaptation ever.
2. Unlike Heathers, this movie has tons of nudity in it. This ensured that it would be on Cinemax constantly
throughout the ‘80’s at 3 AM, which means I probably saw it like 800 times.
This movie totally needs to be remade every decade just to show us how much things have changed over the
years. The reason it wasn’t remade in the ‘90’s is that essentially Eric Klebold and Dylan Harris basically,
decided to make it happen in real life. See that’s probably a bad idea. I would suggest that in this decade we skip
the reality show and just make another movie version.
The movie is sort of maddening because due to its low budget there is some really awful acting and the theme
song, wow! This thing opens with just the worst sappy after school special song.
You’re at the crossroads of your life
Crossroads of you life
A runner chasing dreams
That could come true.
It is Paul Anka You’re Having My Baby bad. If you played the first 30 seconds of this movie at a theater today
people would break out in laughter. You almost wonder whether it was supposed to be some sickening joke.
Because I was one of those jaded ‘80’s guys, I’m not sure how to take this movie.
It reminds me of the Marlon Brando movie The Wild One, which tried to come off as a warning about youth out
of control, but did nothing but romanticize and advertise its out of control youth. Here you have basically a low
budget 70’s slasher movie with a ton of nudity in it, followed again by that sappy theme song.
This movie stars Derrel Maury. The only thing I remembered about the lead in this movie was that he reminded
me of Jughead Jones and that he limped. I can’t believe that I had ever known this but he did in fact play
Jughead on TV at some point. Now Imagine Archie at Riverdale High on Acid, that is Massacre at Central High
and the makers might have even meant it that way. All of the high school cliché characters exist in this school,
the smart geek, the dumb jocks, etc, etc. One of the mean bullies that terrorize the school looks exactly like
Moose after hearing a speech by Adolf Hitler, and the moral center of the movie is played by Andrew Stevens,
who would have been perfect casting for of course Archie, himself.
Stevens is Mark. Now Mark has apparently transferred to Central High, a mostly affluent California High School
from some Hell Hole. While he was there, upright and honorable David played by Maury apparently had kept
the bullies off of him. Now that David has also transferred to Central, Mark wants to return the favor. His only
problem is that now he is one of the bullies along with three other spoiled rich kids who run the school through a
effective reign of terror.
Teachers? There isn't one in the entire movie. When the bullies decide to rape two girls after school, there really
isn’t anyone there to stop them except David, who still really doesn’t care for bullies. This is a movie that wants
you to feel outrage at the rape, but apparently still feel OK about showing some gratuitous nudity even though
the rape itself is avoided when David stops it and beats up the three bullies that aren’t Andrew Stevens.
When the three battered bullies go looking for revenge, Stevens out of loyalty talks them into asking David one
more time nicely to be bullies with them. Unfortunately, for David, when Stevens goes off to warn him, he’s
skinny dipping and frolicking with Stevens’ totally hot girlfriend, Theresa. This of course causes Stevens to
throw his buddy to the wolves and he really feels bad about it, especially when Theresa tells him that she wanted
to sleep with David, but he was too honorable to do that to a friend. See this was apparently, innocent skinny
dipping and frolicking. Did Bill Clinton write this movie?
When the three bullies catch up with David, he’s repairing a car that said bullies had previously trashed. When
he refuses to get up from under the car, the bullies force the issue and accidentally push the car off of its jack
onto David’s leg, crippling him. Oh, did I mention that the only thing that keeps David sane is running?
When the now limping, David finally returns to school, the bullies thank him for telling the police that he had
accidentally done it to himself. Dude, you are so going to wish he had told the police the truth in like 5 seconds
because your crew is history in less than 2 days. One bully buys it after David messes with his hang glider. Just
for fun, the fall doesn’t kill him, the telephone wires fry him instead. Bully Number Two is a diver, and he didn’t
get the note from the janitor about the pool being cleaned, because David intercepted it. Here’s something you
learn from this movie. If the swimming pool lights don’t work and you want to dive anyway, make sure there is
actually water in the pool first. The evil Moose is knocked out and awakens as his van is careening down a cliff.
Stevens figures out that David is offing the bullies and he appears to be about to follow them except for an
intervention by Theresa, who David, although chastely appears to have fallen in love with.
Here’s where this movie becomes total genius social commentary. For like one hour, the school unburdened of
Nazi’s, is totally nice to each other. They are cheering when the fat kid tries to climb a rope. They are helping
each other with their homework. It’s really nice. A couple of murders have really improved everybody’s lives.
After that hour, they all start dreaming of filling the bully void. The kid, whose jalopy was trashed by the bullies,
even winds up with one of the original bullies hot rods and becomes every bit as much a jerk as it’s original
owner. This means that David has to kill all the new slime that has bubbled to the surface. The smart, but
ambitious kid, is killed by his own hearing aid. The fat kid suddenly turned physical has his locker blown up,
and of course the kid with the new hot rod dies like many a gangster before him when his car blows up upon
turning the ignition.
My favorite casualties are the stoners. Three kids have died suspicious violent deaths. There are no teachers. Do
they call the police? Do they run home and hide under their bed. No they decide to go out to the beach and have
a three way until things chill out a bit. During a break from their beach three way (much classic 70’s nudity by
the way), one of the girls finds some dynamite, but the three are apparently so stoned that they have no idea what
it is and go back to their three way, which has an exploding climax. Sorry.
Mark and Theresa finally find a spine and try to stop David, who by now has decided to just nuke the entire
school. For some reason though, instead of blowing the school up when all the students are inside, David decides
to do it at night when they are holding some kind of seniors dance or something. David is finally stopped by his
love for Theresa, who refuses to leave the about to be blown up dance. Faced with blowing up his true love,
honorable David goes back for his bomb and takes himself out. Cue: the sappy music.
A lot of the acting is pretty bad here, but Maury is psycho killer cool. Theresa is played by Kimberly Beck, who
is totally hot. She seems like a really bad actor, but by the end of the movie I’m totally in love with her too, so
who knows?
Massacre was written and directed by an associate of Russ Meyer’s named Renee Daalder, and I’m almost
willing to say that this thing is a work of genius and that the constraints of raising money for this thing forced
him to dwell on the graphic murders and gratuitous nudity (you get about a full minute of the three way), but
then I think about that opening song, and I figure he either just got lucky or was even more warped than Dylan
and Klebold were.
Rock and Roll High School – The Ramones
Rock and Roll is there so you don’t feel so bad about hating high school. High school should be this great time
of your life where older people who have learned and sampled life fill you in on all the cool stuff that’s been
written before you were around. In reality, it’s the point where the man first starts trying to break you and make
you fit into his Orwellian nightmare. “Stop complaining, get off your ass and start buying stuff.”
It’s sad but it’s pretty true. It’s pretty much impossible to like anything that’s been assigned to you. They could
have made me do book reports on Swedish Porn in High School and for some reason I still would have hated it.
I used to put off reading school-assigned books to go read something I cared about. The greatest present my
cousin ever gave to me was Voltaire’s Candide. Remember Junior high school, when you had to do a book
report? In my school there was a small section of approved books that were among those appropriate for doing a
book report on. If you were like me and my friends, you immediately looked at the thin books to find the shortest
possible approved book to do your report on. That’s how I wound up reading Hiroshima and Black like Me.
Anyway, Candide is a registered classic that any eighth grade English teacher has to approve. It is also about 87
pages long, very funny, and includes a scene where hot naked women are having sex with monkeys! It may even
have a few pictures. After my cousin pointed it out to me, I think almost every person I knew used it for a book
report at one time or another.
Here’s what kind of a prick I was in Junior High School: my English teacher spent like 30 minutes complaining
about how bad her students were at making eye contact during their oral book reports. She assured us that she
would be extra critical on this issue in her comments and grades for the next oral report. For my oral report I
read Goodbye Mr. Chips (100 pages if they use big print!). I set a brick on top of the lecture podium and then
read my entire report hidden behind a desk explaining that I was a brick from Mr. Chips’ school to relate the
happenings in the book.
In my school they had effort grades as well as letter grades. A ‘1’ meant you tried really hard. A ‘4’ meant that
you were a miscreant. I got an ‘A-4’ in that class and I couldn’t have been more proud of myself. The second
proudest I ever was in school was after a science teacher congratulated me on getting the lowest A possible in his
class. Then there was the teacher who said to me, “It’s good to see you putting your nose to the grindstone,
Brad.” I had put my head down on my desk and fallen asleep for most of the period. You know you’re a pain in
the ass when you fall asleep in class and the teacher is relieved.
Every kid should go read some Kurt Vonnegut. How entertaining was that scene in Back to School where
Rodney Dangerfield pays Kurt Vonnegut to write his essay on Kurt Vonnegut, and he flunks anyway? That’s the
pure essence of his cool. Somehow this guy got onto all of the recommended reading lists in the country. I’m
guessing that Slaughterhouse Five was the one that did it. “Wow, he was traumatized at the Dresden Bombing.
Drag. Yeah, we were kind of wrong there. OK let him on the list.”
He’s on the list! Kids across America get to actually enjoy a book they have to read for a change! That was in
1969. Four years later, he writes Breakfast of Champions just to fuck with every person who wound up selling
anything for a living ever. I mean, look at this guy go. The first twenty pages are his drawings of assholes and
vaginas and how much fun he is having bringing the list down into the gutter. “Hee hee, I’m on the list!”
Thank God he’s on the list, or else those meat-grinding, want-to-make-you-conform schools will have wreaked
their mightiest ugly impact. To hell with all of those people who want to make kids forever think that reading
isn’t fun. Personally, I don’t care if my kids are reading transcripts of the “Howard Stern Show”, as long as they
are reading something and starting to think for themselves. Think about that the next time you make your kid put
down that comic book, which he is going to memorize, to pick up some long-ass book that doesn’t get good until
page 234 like Lord Jim. I was at the top of my class and I swear that I would read four pages and have absolutely
no idea what the hell I had just read. That never happened to me when I was reading for fun.
Soma – The Strokes
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I
want sin."
I had this really arrogant friend in high school, who insisted everything you needed to know about the world was
in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Maybe, he was right.
In the book, Huxley’s Savage has to choose between being made artificially happy by being pumped up to the
gills with a drug called Soma or being miserable and knowing the true nature of the world.
For a long time I convinced myself that I had honorably chosen truth and sadness. These days I’m looking
around for a corrupt dentist who will hook me up to Nitrous Oxide for the next ten years or so.
Fat Lip – Sum 41
Pain for Pleasure – Sum 41
This is what the callowness of bratty youth sounds like and God Bless. Not sure what its worth but it sure was
fun.
Here, in a roundabout way, is how I almost didn’t get to see the Who’s 1982 farewell tour (admittedly had I
known they’d be back like 30 more times, it would have been much less traumatic).
I was a fucking terror my junior year in High School. I was just completely out of control and always in trouble.
I don’t think my parents know this, but I was in detention like twice a week and I didn’t even show up for school
two of the other three days. I had school down to a science. It took about a hundredth of my full attention to
make sure that I’d get straight A’s every quarter.
Here’s my favorite story about how I dominated that school academically. We had this really hard Algebra
teacher. A great insane guy named Lou Gmeindl. He was the teacher that would give you your first D and mock
you for not performing. He was a nightmare for everybody but me. While everyone was struggling to bring
themselves up to a C, he was betting me a quarter on every test whether I would get a perfect score or not.
Luckily people didn’t hate me, because I was getting them through their homework every night. I don’t think I
did a single homework assignment in that class all year, but then again, who had to when I explained like every
question to someone over the phone about ten times a night?
Here is the coolest thing ever written about me. My pal Doug Bank was the second smartest math student in my
grade. He wound up going to MIT. After one miserably long hard test Doug, having failed to even get through
the whole thing, writes, “I think it’s really unfair for you to make this so impossible just to win a quarter from
Brad.”
So anyway, I was a bored arrogant fuck. The worst I ever behaved was in French class. We had this teacher
named Ms. Homec, and she was like this close to senility. I swear, that class was like a Roman orgy every day. It
was a madhouse and most of it was because of me. She sat her class in a big circle and she tried moving me to
every conceivable spot. She put me between the two quietest girls in the school and I had even them practically
acting like members of the Manson family. Eventually I was excommunicated out of the circle and into the
corner.
One quarter she gave me a B. I was incredulous. How could I get a B? I missed maybe two test questions all
quarter. Here’s how she explained her grading to me: “I gave you grades on a four point scale and averaged them
all together. On tests you got a 3.9. On quizzes you got a 4.0. On attitude I gave you a 0.6.” Wow that was
almost worth getting a B. Sometimes I was so riled up from her class that I would get detentions from the teacher
in the next period before I could settle myself back down.
Here’s another classic exchange:
Vice Principal: I was told by Ms. Homec to give you a detention.
Brad: I swear I didn’t do anything.
Vice Principal (as he holds up a stack of like 40 detention slips): And what were you doing all of these other
times?
Brad: O.K., write it up. You got me.
Another teacher I clashed with during my junior year was this old angry guy named Byron Williams. He was the
most feared and hated teacher in the school. He got sick at the end of the year and was convinced that someone
in my class had poisoned him, which may have been true.
There were two Chemistry teachers; Mr. Williams was one, and the other one was this really easy-going guy
named Mr. Podojil. It was like the draft. Every single person prayed all summer long not to wind up in Williams’
class. I had this huge crush on Mr. Podojil’s daughter, Kris. She got stuck with Williams because the school
wouldn’t let her take her father’s class. What a drag.
I got stuck with that guy too. Gmeindl used to tell me that he was the best teacher in the school, but to me he was
just this big intimidating bald sourpuss who taught straight out of the textbook. The infuriating thing about him
was that sometimes he would be sort of playful and joke around with you, but that led me into my ugliest ever
encounter with a high school teacher.
Williams hadn’t been to school that day, but he showed up for the basketball game that night. I went up to him
and said “Hey Mr. Williams. Playing hooky, huh?”
The guy pulled me into the bathroom and gave me this Dead Poet Society worthy speech:
“I have had enough of you. You’re not so brave in here away from your friends, are you? From now on you do
not get to speak to me unless it is in the Chemistry office and you have an appointment. You are not to speak to
me in class. You are not to speak to me in the hall.”
What a guy, huh? Well at least he had the guts to do what about 12 other teachers dreamed about. One day
Byron gives me a detention. Only he wants me to spend it in the chemistry office instead of the detention room.
Then I got another detention in French for the same day. I’m now supposed to be in two places at once. I return
to my close friend the Vice Principal and explain my problem.
Vice Principal: Well, you are going to have to get Mr. Williams to come down here and confirm that he gave
you a detention.
Brad: He won’t do that. He hates me. I’m not allowed to talk to him.
Vice Principal: In that case, I can’t help you.
Brad: Couldn’t you go and ask him?
Vice Principal: I suppose I could but I won’t
Brad (to himself): One day, I swear to God, I’m going to blow up your fucking house!
Well, neither of them tossed me out of their class completely.
Mr. Prueter did. He was actually a pretty decent guy and would turn out to be an amazing Latin teacher whom all
the kids loved, but this was only his second year and he really kind of screwed over me and my friend John. John
and I completed two years of Latin independently in 9th grade. In 10th grade we were in a class with about five
juniors, and all was pretty peaceful, and we both got A’s.
The next year John and I re-upped for Latin, and would have been the only two people in our class. So Prueter,
not wanting to waste a whole hour every day on two goofy morons, just put us back in with all the kids our age
and promised that we’d still be learning new things.
Essentially, the guy took two of the smartest kids in the school and made them repeat a class that they had both
already gotten A’s in. How were we realistically not supposed to be bored? We, and especially me, were
completely out of control. We’d walk over and sit with different people in the middle of the class. We’d be
laughing and talking and horsing around literally every second of every single day.
Prueter was sort of a new-age type of guy, and he was new, so he pretty much did his best to ignore the whole
thing and keep most of the kids focused on learning. Here was the worst thing I ever did to him. (He’s fine now,
so I feel OK about laughing about it.)
Prueter was big on making us copy things into a notebook. He would write things on the board and expect us to
copy them in our notebooks. What my friends and I did most of the time was ignore him and copy some girl’s
entire notebook the night before we had to turn those things in.
One day my gang is goofing around, and Mr. Prueter interrupts and asks my friend Mark if he is getting all this
down in his notebook. Mark looked at him and sarcastically flashed him the OK. sign.
He probably would have gotten away with it, were it not for me walking over to him from all the way over on
the other side of the room to shake his hand and pat him on the back-- an action that was duplicated by every
single other member of the class. That was my last day of Latin for a month or so.
He called my parents in to school the day of the Who concert, which was going to be the epic event of my teens
at the time. I used to walk around pretending to be Pete Townshend doing interviews, that's how into The Who I
was back then.
He wound up making us do independent study in the library for the next month, which was fine with me,
because it mostly consisted of me copying a library translation of Julius Caesar's commentary on the Gallic
Wars.
Mr. Praeter got his revenge though. I skipped Latin my senior year. Then when I took the Latin Placement Exam
at College I got no credit. None. I went to find out how bad I did and found out that I had gotten 50% on the test.
50%, I thought that was pretty brilliant after a year off. No credit? Two more years of Latin. What a drag.
I finished it by doing independent study, where I again found myself copying the same Julius Caesar crap I had
done in high school. After a month of independent study, the head of the Latin Department gave me the
placement exam for the following year. I got the entire thing right. 100%! Naturally, I figured that this
performance should have fulfilled my language requirement. After all had I done this a month earlier, I would
have been exempted. No dice. Baffled by why, I spent two more quarters translating Caesar.
At least I wasn’t Boring
I just went back to my old high school. I’m totally bald and my face is completely different. People I knew in
college didn’t even recognize me when I went to a party last summer. Prueter recognized me. He even knew
what street I used to live on.
The greatest act of student rebellion ever
I had nothing to do with this one. We were in Geometry. Everyone had done really poorly on a test and, as we
were receiving it back, this really annoying kid started bragging about how well he had done on the test. My pal
Jeff says, “Let’s all throw our books at him!”, and everyone did.
Well, at least we weren’t shooting each other!
Chapter 23: Man is at War with his own Libido
Turning Japanese – The Vapors
Pictures of Lily – The Who
Dancing with Myself – Billy Idol
My Best Friend – Jellyfish
Darling Nikki – Prince
Pump It Up – Elvis Costello
Cool Jerk – The Capitals
The Stroke – Billy Squire
Rocks Off – The Rolling Stones
But not I Touch Myself because that chick freaks me out.
Here’s why this country is so fucked up. It’s our embarrassment over, and the suppression of, masturbation.
Since pretty much every single person on the planet does it, and needs to do it to remain somewhat sane. Isn’t it
a bad idea for religious people to tell you that you are wrong to do it? To me it’s not much different than telling
kids that they are going to hell if they keep on insisting on eating food to survive.
Personally, I’d love to never have to do it again. Who knows, if I had been lucky enough to have had a consistent
lover since the age of 15, maybe I would even agree that it’s a slothful and selfish waste of time. Personally, I’ve
always wondered why the Pro-Right never marched on young teenage boys’ bedrooms. Look at how nuts they
get over an abortion here or there. Think about the millions of potential lives that a household containing just
three teen boys would be responsible for flushing down the toilet just in just one week. Look at it this way.
According to noted profane social critic, Bill Hicks, every single time a man masturbates he is responsible for
killing 200 million sperm. I’m going to take his word as gold in this case, because even I’m afraid to search the
term “masturbation” on the Internet. Remember the scary days of the infinite porn pop up screens. Those screens
were a lot like prank birthday candles. The second you'd close one of them another Porn window would pop up.
Back in the early days of computers, the scariest thing that could happen at work would be that the amount of
time you wasted playing solitaire would be discovered. Suddenly, you were one quick mis-click away from
having twelve underage anal virgin home pages on your desktop.
So let’s take Hicks’ word that a man wastes about 200 million seeds a session as gospel. What are the odds
against an average male fathering the person who will someday cure Cancer? It’s got to be about 200 million to
one. So if you think about it, every time a man masturbates he’s killing the next Jesus, the next Jonas Salk, the
next Jerry Falwell, the next Jacques Cousteau … Now that is a bloodbath. The carnage of this holocaust barely
comes close to what’s spilled daily up at a single small Boston college.
Nevertheless, here is the ugly truth for most men in the world. Sperm must come out. It just has too. I’m not
excusing any of it, but I bet that pent up sperm is responsible for nearly every malicious act committed by a male
in the 20th Century …. Everything but the Manson killings. Luckily, the worst thing that happens most of the
time is a nocturnal emission. Is there anything more embarrassing to a 13 year old boy than a wet dream? Hell, I
was embarrassed enough just over the stuff I had been dreaming of right before it happened. Then you have to
clean up and hide all that evidence. What a nightmare.
Essentially, if you’re interested in keeping your sheets clean, masturbation is really your only option. So how
cruel is our societal discomfort with this subject? Think of all those poor 13 year olds out there. They’re not sure
if they are about to go blind. They think that they have some sick compulsion because there’s no one around
comfortable enough with the subject to tell them that it’s perfectly normal and acceptable behavior. What a
crime that is.
I used listen to that radio show Loveline all the time. Those guys were heroes. Drew Pinsky, sure for talking
directly to kids about sexually embarrassing matters and promoting day after birth control, but that goofy
comedian Adam Corolla too just for providing youth with a reasonably cool role model who claims to
masturbate constantly. I’d love to see the president give him a Congressional Medal of Honor for it just so there
would be something entertaining on C-Span for once.
Sadly enough, I’m not nearly as knowledgeable about female masturbation despite years of attempted study.
Nevertheless, every girl I’ve ever slept with asked me whether I masturbated or not, and every one followed up
my answer with “Because I do it all the time.”
So please everyone does it. Everyone has to do it. So could we just this once stop making all of young
undeveloped society feel like lepers and villains. Did we really once dismiss a Health Inspector General just for
discussing this topic? Shouldn’t we be more concerned with kids growing up with warped sexual values due to
their embarrassment over the stuff they can’t help but dream about 50% of the time more than what they semiaccidentally see on Cinemax after we go to bed at night?
When I was in high school, it would have been more popular to announce that you wanted to be serial killer than
it would be to admit to regular self abuse. Imagine the absurdity of growing up embarrassed over something
nearly as prevalent and widespread as McDonald’s franchises. The waste of time isn’t all the masturbation; it’s
the never ending embarrassment over having to cover it up. Let this be indicative of my hope that someday
Conan O’Brian’s “Masturbating Bear” starts making some school sponsored talks for teens. Then there would
finally be something entertaining going on there too.
Pee-Wee's Playhouse
Let's bemoan the death of Pee Wee's Playhouse, Paul Reubens, undeniably genius children's show, which was
taken down by a night in a X-rated movie house because he was staying with his parents and didn't want them to
catch him masturbating. Because we all know that anyone who would do something like that was well basically
a pedophile waiting to happen. So died any hope for creativity and joy in children's television, as Pee Wee was
eventually replaced by Barney, essentially the laziest and most annoying children's show in the history of
mankind. Wild Boars are likely to have better children's shows in the wild than Barney.
Bill Clinton fired Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders after she was asked whether it would be appropriate to
promote masturbation as a means of preventing young people from engaging in riskier forms of sexual activity,
and she was honest enough to answer, "I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be
taught."
Elders has a lot of other controversial ideas (they are all sane, educated, and right), but wow that was hardly a
cry to Dionysian decadence. She didn't say kids should all get in a circle at schools and together get themselves
off on a regular basis.
So Clinton fires her for that verbal hand grenade, and then later gets busted for diddling a young girl with a
Cigar. He then says that oral sex isn't really sex, which causes teens everywhere to go on a mass blowing
rampage.
Scary? Funny? I'm not so sure anymore.
H.O.T.S.
Could this movie really exist? There certainly could never have actually been a day that you could see it and its
legendary strip football finale at a legitimate movie theater. Is it really possible to be nostalgic for a movie
you've never seen much less one with a crass camera shot looking up at an all topless female huddle? Is there
such a thing as an innocent shower scene?
I grew up on the cusp of the pop media explosion. The VCR was in its nascence. Cable television much less pay
cable television was a few years away and if you really wanted to see an older movie you had to hope for a
broadcast television miracle. If that movie, was an unapologetic sex farce with tons of nudity on display then you
were flat out of luck. In my day, the first R rated movie that you managed to con your way into was almost as
big of a day as getting your driver's license. You try and tell that to today's twelve year-olds who have seen every
episode of HBO's G String Divas and they will roll their eyes at you. But back then we'd actually get out of the
house, drive to a theater, pay hard earned cash money, and sit through two hours of anything just on the offhand
chance that we'd get to see something racy.
The first deviant movie I ever made my way into was Porky's. What an achievement! Sure at 15 I could probably
make out a fairly solid argument for the satirical value of Monty Python's The Meaning of Life but you can bet
that every time I saw it, I was besides myself desperately waiting to see the scene where that guy gets chased off
the end of a cliff by a spirited crew of topless roller skating co-eds. Those were the days where you were too
young to lie about having sex so you lied about having seen the movie H.O.T.S.
I walked into a video store not sure whether I truly wanted to ruin this idyllic piece of my adolescence by
actually seeing the movie. I mean how could it possibly live up to its advance reputation especially given the fact
that I'd been exposed to so much in the meantime? And despite my best prayers and efforts to the contrary, you
are never really quite able to keep yourself wired like you were when you were 15. This video store had a huge
big screen and on this day they were showing Krush Groove, and instantly I found myself filled with this
overwhelming sense of nostalgia for The Beastie Boys. Wow. What a strange time to have grown up. Is this
what I get to reminisce to my grandchildren about: Soft core porn, real breasts and The Beastie Boys?
There were people who thought the world was coming to an end when The Beastie Boys first hit the scene and
now they are forever locked in my mind as a quaint reminder of yesteryear. Did I get gypped or should I just
revel in the non stop evolution of in your face crass entertainment?
Nowadays Johnny Rotten treats people with the same utter disdain and lack of respect that he always did, but
he's three times less scary as any rapper and people feel an almost palpable sense of glee to be fortunate enough
to be within spitting distance of him. Is nothing ever truly dangerous? Non cynical soft core porn, real breasts,
and the Beastie Boys. It's hardly Elvis or the Beatles but I suppose I have to face the fact that it's the hand I was
dealt and do my best to keep people from knowing how many times I have seen the Sensuous Nurse with Ursula
Andress.
The success of Animal House probably had a lot to do with H.O.T.S. getting made, but somehow it has a lot
more in common with those Kurt Russell, Joe Flynn collegiate Disney comedies. Are those hard to watch today?
Yes, but I have a feeling people probably remember them now as indicative of an easier more innocent time.
H.O.T.S. is essentially the same movie if all the girls wore tight t-shirts and running shorts except for the times
that they don't even wear that.
In both movies you are probably going to get to see a mascot stolen, but at least after seeing this one you can
claim to have seen 10 or 20 more topless women over the course of your life, which was huge for a 15 year-old
in the early '80s.
Ask yourself, which movie studio really thought its audience was filled with morons? Disney, who thought they
were putting together timeless youth comedy, or Great American Dream Machine who had to come up with 90
minutes of plot so they could surreptitiously make a movie where you could see girls playing topless football.
When you were 15, these guys were nothing less than heroic, and at the end of the day its clothed action, what
there is of it, is no worse than anything Alan Carr was peddling in the late '70s.
Many people may wonder over the course of the film what the acronym H.O.T.S stands for. The girls say it has
something to do with helping seals, but I like the guy who thinks it means Hung Outrageously To Satisfy. Then
again I thought it would have been cool if Kiss had really stood for Knights In Satan's Service and was even a
little amused by the notion that WASP might have stood for We Are Sexually Perverted.
It's all just sadly reminiscent of a time where the line was drawn in a slightly different place in the sand than it is
today. It's like a balloon that keeps on getting bigger and bigger despite millions of religious zealots who are
convinced that it is about to burst with disastrous consequences. Either way I find it a fascinating struggle to
watch.
H.O.T.S. is essentially a female version of Revenge of the Nerds. Only in this movie the nerd sorority girls are
well endowed, cheerful, and they put out. If you compare the two movies, it tells you a lot about the times that
they were made. The Carter Era H.O.T.S. has like a hundred times as much nudity as the struggling to stay
chaste backlashing Reagan Era Nerds.
Of course, now it's the Bill Clinton era and everything goes. I went to college in 1984, and back then that
argument never would have flown in history class, but today I have a feeling it would zing by unnoticed. God
I'm jealous that kids these days can major in Madonna, MTV, and gay role models in the straight cinema! I like
to think I helped make it happen.
H.O.T.S. takes place in a Bizarro world where everybody is stupid and Donny Bonaduce is a rock star.
Admittedly that doesn't sound promising, but I've read enough about the life and times of Bonaduce to know that
everything he was involved in was at least as fun as it was embarrassing.
Chances are it was so much fun that it made the embarrassment worthwhile.
Number One on my list to suggest it is the sorority Angle. The sorority full of hot girls fantasy is right up there
with the Catholic high school girl model in most male minds. Hanging with a hot sorority is second in the male
mind only to being able to actually be in a hot sorority. We're just wired that way.
If men and women all exchanged bodies, I have a feeling that there would be just as many wars, but that it
would be even harder to get the hundreds of millions of lesbians to pay attention. Linda Ronstadt hates Howard
Stern for his view of women, but she completely misses the fact that he is dying to be one. Revenge of the Nerds
gets points for resonating with a bit of the reality of the caste warfare that takes place in college. H.O.T.S. is
merely how every guy wanted the reality of that caste warfare to be.
Let me stress the following. There is a shower scene in the first 20 seconds of H.O.T.S. but it's not creepy like it
was in Carrie. In its wake come two keystone gangsters in search of a money stash, nude pie fights, bath tub
moonshine, car chases, nude skydiving, a fat opera chick falling in the pool, extra hot sauce in the chili, nude
bathing with seals, a token fat chick who isn't allowed to sunbathe in a bikini, a token nerd, dueling prank
sorority hi-jinx, putting out on the first date, muscle cars, jock strap raids, forty year old balding fraternity
members with hairy backs, boyfriend stealing, drunken bears, blackmailing of the frustrated Dean, a wet T-shirt
contest, disco, slapping, girl fights, beach bonfires, itching powder, jerk poisoning, hot air balloons, bald naked
chicks, lots of bad broadly-stereotyped acting, and of course the legendary strip football game, which is almost
as amazing in real life as it was in my imagination and for some reason is refereed by the Dean. Are they playing
touch or tackle? Who can tell? How about those four yard punts!
It may not be anything to be proud of, but it sure is amusing that it exists. Hurray for movies where you can't
remember a single character's name thirty seconds after it ends. Someday someone will make an intelligent,
biting, angry age defining teen sex romp full of gratuitous nudity. Until then all we can do is keep watching
every fruitless attempt put to celluloid in vain hope that the genre's Welles is out there somewhere comforted
only by the fact that when we die we'll at least be able to say that we saw another 10 or 20 more women topless
over the course of our hard, cold lives.
Moronic but harmless!
Chapter 24: Send the Smokers to Concentration Camp
Oasis – Cigarettes and Alcohol
The Gallagher brothers were great fun for a couple of albums. Wishing AIDS on other singers, deciding they
knew more about the Beatles than George Martin, necessitating MTV subtitles for their impenetrable scouse
accents, lead singer Liam pouting in the balcony as his brother did a televised show without him.
Props to Liam for getting with the hot chick from Lethal Weapon II. I also enjoyed Noel’s defense of Paul’s 90's
outout “If John Lennon were alive today he’d be writing crap like Biker like an Icon too.” A good line, but it’s
still no defense for the horrid Freedom single. Paul, John was the sloganeer, just sing All You Need Is Love call
it a tribute to a lost friend and be done with it.
Cigarettes and Coffee – Otis Redding
Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk – Rufus Wainwright
I’ve never had a cup of coffee in my life, but given Otis’ mood I’m guessing he needed something stronger that
chocolate milk.
By the way, what are the odds that your dad writes a song about you called Rufus is a Tit Man, and you turn out
to be completely uninterested in God’s greatest invention. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Ain’t Even Done with the Night – Johnny Cougar
His best pop effort, but that’s beside the point. Here’s how you reclaim your soul.
Johnny Cougar
John Cougar
John Cougar Mellencamp
John Mellencamp
I often wonder who smoked more cigarettes in their twenties John or Sean Penn. Remember back in the day
when people used to smoke on the Tonight Show. By 1995, the only one left with guts enough to do it was
Spicoli, and even he may have quit by now.
Last Cigarette – Dramarama
Hello avid watchers of the culture wars. It’s now time to once again play another game of “What else will the
Government not let us adults do in the name of saving the children?” To do this we unfortunately have to take
yet another look at the most controversial movie scene of the last 20 years – yes, the interrogation scene in Basic
Instinct. Don’t jump to conclusions though, because amazingly enough I’m not referring to the part where
Sharon Stone unencumbered by panties nearly causes Wayne Knight’s eyes to pop right out of their sockets by
uncrossing her legs. This time I’m going to look at something that happens about 40 seconds earlier in the scene,
where Stone’s Catherine Tramell lights up a cigarette and is told that smoking is not allowed in the police
station. Her classic line in case you don’t remember or had the will power to avoid that awful piece of trash was
“What are you going to do … arrest me for smoking?”
Well, watch out Cathy, if you ever get that sequel off the ground they might. Congress, because they apparently
aren’t tied up with foreign policy issues, are now having hearings on smoking in the movies. Some people out
there want to give any movie that contains smoking an automatic earnings killing R rating. Does this mean my
niece can no longer watch super evil Cruella De Ville puff away in the children’s classic 101 Dalmatians without
adult supervision (don’t worry folks we all know nothing like this ever applies to Disney)?
Cue South Park elementary school teacher Mr. Garrison “Mmm ok, children smoking is bad for you.” Wow, we
get it. No argument from me here. I’m more scared of the anti-smoking faction in this country than I am of the
Ku Klux Klan. Can we just make slowly puffing ourselves to death illegal already? We already tax the things so
heavily that I’ve recently turned to buying cigarettes from Russia on the internet rather than paying seven dollars
for a pack in New York City.
Advertisements on television are already verboten. You know that game of you have to choose one or the other?
How about this one? You will become one of the richest men in the world, but you must do so by becoming
either a cigarette producer or a pornographer. Egad, can any of you recommend a good deal on a camcorder? It
may be an urban myth, but I have it from good sources that 142 people died of exposure last winter while they
ducked out of restaurants and bars that wouldn’t let them smoke inside.
Before seeing Mean Girls I was treated to a trailer (why are they called trailers when they come before the
movie?) about smoking in movies. According to the trailer, 80% of movies contain some form of smoking. This
didn’t seem that bad to me considering that 100% of the time I walk down the street in New York City I see
someone smoking. Then again that’s more than likely because they have been forced onto the street by all those
restaurants and bars. When the new law passes will that trailer only be allowed to be shown before R rated
movies?
As a frequent movie attendee, all this controversy forced me to wrack my brain and remember all of the PG
movies where significant characters spent all their time making cigarette smoking look so cool to the teenage
and under crowd. Try it, it’s tougher than you think.
James Dean – Mr. Cool – in Rebel Without a Cause? Don’t remember him smoking there. Prison movies? Sure,
everyone smokes in prison movies. PG rated prison movies? Escape from Alcatraz is rated PG, but isn’t
escaping from prison worse than smoking? Face it all prison movies fall into two categories - prison movies
rated R and prison movies that show the prisoner changing his life remarkably for the better. Are those the types
of movies we don’t want children to see?
Basically, ignoring all those noir classics of the ‘40s where everyone smokes (Ban Bogie!) I could really only
think of a few memorable recent movie smoking characters. One came 20 years ago in the movie Splash, the
Opie opus that was so racy Disney had to create the Touchstone label to release it. In Splash, John Candy is
shown smoking a cigarette during a hilariously ridiculous attempt to play racquetball with his onscreen brother
Tom Hanks. Please someone protect our kids from the smut being put out there by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks!
Candy’s character is hardly portrayed as a citadel of health. In fact, given the number of scenes he is shown
dropping loose change to look up women’s dresses he is hardly portrayed as a role model in any sense. All this
and the fact that Candy lived to a ripe old age of 34 and I’m guessing not too many kids saw Splash and dreamed
of their first Marlboro. I can think of a few movies about troubled kids who smoke, but we all know every
troubled kid movie either ends up in contrition or death. The Dennis Hopper led evil crew in Waterworld were
called smokers because of their habit. Three points here.
1. I spent that movie wondering where the hell Dennis Hopper and his pals were able to conjure up cigarettes,
given that the whole planet was covered with water and they treat the one potted plant in that movie like a
chilled canteen in the middle of the Sahara.
2. Hello, they were the evil guys!
3. Maybe like three other people than me were stupid enough to actually go see that movie.
Indiana Jones didn’t smoke. Luke Skywalker didn’t smoke. If at any point Darth Vader ever smoked, you know
that’s why he was forced to wear that inhaler 24-7. Bruce Willis smoked in Die Hard, but then again that movie
was rated R and to be fair he only resorted to smoking because there were a bunch of German terrorists trying to
kill him. Johnny Depp didn’t even smoke in Pirates of the Caribbean despite the fact that he was:
A. A pirate!
B. Portrayed by the chain smoking can’t go an interview without one Johnny Depp.
The only somewhat damaging scene I could think of was Saint Julia Roberts lighting up in a hotel hallway
during a scene in My Best Friend’s Wedding, in which she was immediately admonished by a bell boy not to
smoke. Wow, it sure sounds like we have an epidemic going on out there. If you planned on making a movie
about how your favorite grandfather tragically died from emphysema due to a lifelong smoking habit, I hope you
don’t mind having it rated R.
Look, I’m going to ignore the free speech aspects of this conversation even though recent developments have
totally convinced me that our first grade teachers out there have spent too much time discussing smoking and too
little time on the Bill of Rights. You’ve heard them all before and you’re either cackling with glee or shuddering
in fear under your bed. Instead let’s just discuss the impact of an R rating on a movie. It’s significant. There isn’t
anyone out there who doesn’t understand how much money a movie forgoes by getting stuck with an R rather
than a PG. My guess is that something much funnier than any of the last 15 Ben Stiller vehicles could be made
about the hoops that filmmakers are forced to jump through already to ensure a PG. “The boyfriend can hold her
ass but he can’t cup it? Ok, I understand we’ll fix it.”
Look at Chris Rock. Chris Rock, and quite rightfully I might add named the funniest person in America by
Entertainment Weekly, despite the fact that everyone on the planet would have to agree that he has yet to make
an even somewhat amusing movie. Unfortunately, for Chris’ movie career, he’s at his best when he’s gleefully
profane, and despite what I’d hope are his best efforts, Chris Rock can’t get financing for an R rated movie. Yes,
I was forced to sit through Down to Earth and Head of State because of all you busybodies out there and I’m not
particularly happy about it.
Now if kids aren’t going to be allowed to see smoking in movies, how in the world is television going to be able
to justify those three or four episodes of Friends where Chandler not only smokes, but relishes doing so in the
process. Load up on your HBO stock because I have a feeling the only thing you’ll see on free television in
about ten years is Barney. At least, I won’t be subject to those graphically violent and depressing news
broadcasts anymore. Here’s a message for Stan Glantz, the head of this light it up rate it R movement. When I’m
forced to sift through the ten million or so articles and books that are going to come out about all the sad
nonsense that has gone on during the Bush administration, because Congress was too busy examining the
essential issue of cigarette smoking on film, I’ll be looking for you and I’ll be less than happy.
Cigarette update – if anything it’s gotten worse since I originally penned this. There was a sequel to Basic
Instinct and we’re about two weeks from all smokers being rounded up and put into concentration camps.
Luckily they don’t need gas ovens – there plan is just to stick us all in a small room and let us happily smoke
ourselves to death. It’ll be televised live in kindergarten classrooms all across the United States. “Keith Richards
is dead!! We finally got him!”
Actually, if you think about it though, cigarettes are one of the few examples of how the Government has
positively effected the economy. Presently, a pack of cigarettes costs about $8.50 in Illinois and $3.50 in Indiana.
That’s $5 in pure taxes – over 60% of the price, and that doesn’t include the $2.50 or so I’m sure they charge in
Indiana. They’ve multiplied the price of these things 8 or 9 times, and cigarette companies still have more money
than God even with a legal tab equivalent to that of sum total of Asia. Think of all the good that has been done
with all that tax money. Thanks to smokers kids learn not to smoke and even better than that, they probably
know how to read.
Any idiot who smokes in today’s climate must really enjoy it. Is a closet on the third floor in the middle of
winter too much to ask?
Chapter 25: That Ain’t My Bag, Man!
Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
"That sort of thing ain't my bag baby"
- Austin Powers on Swedish Penis Enlargers despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
In which, Mike Myers looks at 1997 and
decides it could be a lot more fun. Wow,
what was going on in people's heads in the
‘60s? Everyone was living in constant fear
that the world would end up the devastated
victim of Atomic Nihilism, and yet when you
turned on the TV you see nothing but surfing
talking horses, hillbillies swimming in
cement ponds, people who name their pigs,
and not one but two shows about women
with supernatural powers. The '90s just can't
seem to compete with that sense of absurdity,
which brings me to wonder whether
Homeboys in Outer Space would have been a
big hit twenty years ago if its lead in was My
Favorite Martian.
I'm not sure why, but it took me a while to
catch on to the warm trippy rhythms of
Austin Powers, but now that I've managed to tune in to its day-glo psychedelic colors, foppy clothing, and gentle
silly humanism, it has become one of the few things that can instantly put me back into a good mood. Every
scene in this movie is a sly reference to some remnant of '60s entertainment. It's usually funny enough to just put
Clint Howard in a movie. It's really funny when you decide he should he reprise his Apollo 13 role by alerting
the Air Force that a giant rocket shaped like Big Boy is reentering the Earth's atmosphere.
My first thought was that everything Austin Powers attempts to satirize wasn't really being taken very serious in
the first place, but then I realized that Mike Myers isn't really trying to take the air out of anything but our oh too
serious times and he does it wonderfully by channeling the innate goofy fun of everything from Goldfinger,
Help, and The Avengers to the Thomas Crown Affair, Barbarella, Lucky Charms commercials and anything else
that happened to grab his attention that day.
"And so Dr. Evil escaped and had himself cryogenically frozen to return at a time when free love no longer
reigned and greed and corruption ruled again." Of course, secret agent fashion photographer Austin Powers
volunteers to be frozen too just in case. Essentially, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery is about two
dancing pansies who battle it out over the survival of their Bizarro world. Get Smart covered just about all the
same bases by making good and evil seem like goofy clubs that certain oddballs happened to populate, but
Myers apparently felt that tossing in sex, urination, and Bert Bacharach could bring new life to the idea. Imagine
my surprise that he was right.
Mike Myers plays both the swinging lover Powers and his arch enemy Dr. Evil. Both of Myers' creations are so
pleased with themselves that they seem to be of the belief that there couldn't be anything in the world better to be
than what they are. Dr. Evil tries to take over the world and Austin Powers tries to save it. Why? Because that's
what they were put here to do, silly.
Everywhere Powers goes seems to be the place to be. He is a walking party with his mod clothes, scary teeth,
and shaggy chest hair. Life for Powers is one big dance production. He seems like he almost has a marching
band following him at all times. Dig the goofy Hullabaloo like inserts.
Personally, I prefer the bald Dr. Evil, and his equally hairless cat Mr. Bigglesworth. Nothing pleases Dr. Evil
more than sitting around complaining about his second rate help and thinking up dastardly new ways to evilly
take over the world. He rules his own little universe in huge boardroom meetings and has a control panel with a
button to kill each of his compatriots including his son Scott (Seth Green), who doesn't seem to have been clued
in to the fantasy world that Papa Evil surveys. Sure the world is at stake, but that doesn't mean we can't have a
scene where Dr. Evil and Scott attend family counseling. When Scott tells his Dad he wants to be a Veterinarian,
the poor bad man wonders desperately if he at least intends to be an evil one. "An evil petting zoo?" Of course,
he does eventually have the group liquidated for being insolent.
Scott tries to figure out why Dr. Evil leaves Austin Powers and his cohort Miss Kensington to the ill tempered
mutated sea bass, when he could just shoot them. Of course, that only explains why Dr. Evil wants to kill him
too.
I'm not really sure why I think that Myers' noodling around is brilliant and similar efforts by the rest of the cast
of Saturday Night Live aren't. Maybe it's because Mike Myers doesn't seem to have a legitimately cruel bone in
his body. Maybe it's because Dr. Evil tries to convince his son that he is hip by doing the Macarena. In the end, I
plead the same argument as that guy did about pornography. I know good silly fun when I see it. This is like the
best episode of Batman if Adam West had really been as in on the joke as he claims.
Educated people will tell you that you're not supposed to enjoy bathroom humor, but I even enjoy Tom Arnold
politely asking for a courtesy flush as poor Powers is almost strangled in the next stall. In the end, the real goal
of this movie actually has little to do with Dr. Evil. The main intention seems to be to get Elizabeth Hurley's
present day agent Kensington and everyone else to loosen up a bit. Mike Myers does everything here but sing
The Partridge Family's "C'mon Get Happy" from a multicolored school bus. You owe it to him to do your best to
be amused.
Two of Us – The Beatles
VH1 ran this interesting movie about a clandestine mid seventies meeting between John Lennon and Paul
McCartney. Supposedly, Paul showed up at the Dakota one day with a guitar and John turned him away saying
something to the effect of “it isn’t 1958 anymore.” The movie postures what would have happened had John
buzzed him in.
My favorite part of the movie is a scene where someone recognizes John, but not Paul. The reason for this was
obvious. Aiden Quinn, who was playing Paul, looks nothing like him.
Two of Us – Aimee Mann and Michael Penn
Wish I had a hot wife I could sing love duets with.
Imagine – John Lennon
People make fun of Sean Lennon for thinking that his father was assassinated by some faction of the American
Government, but really isn’t that what John would have thought?
Saltwater – Julian Lennon
Queue – Sean Lennon
I feel for both of these guys, although given that Sean seems to be getting with every hot chick in Hollywood and
is going to wind up with all the money, probably more for Julian. One of the things, I’ve always admired about
John Lennon was his ability (see Jealous Guy and the line about being cruel to his woman in Getting Better) to
see his flaws and to try to make himself a better person. He realized that he’d been a horrible father to Julian,
didn’t want to make the same mistake with Sean, and seemed like he was trying to make up for some lost time
with Julian before (I’m not going to say his name, because that’s all he ever wanted) truly ended the dream by
shooting him on December 8th, 1980. Given the trauma John had with his parents be they absent or dead, I’m
sure the last thing he ever wanted was to leave his sons awash in his shadow, but fate made it unavoidable.
Imagine being Julian. He had some musical talent, but perhaps worst of all for him in the long run his singing
voice was a perfect eerie match of his father’s leaving him in his early 20’s having to deal with being the perfect
ringer for the voice of a generation longing to be healed and comforted, an impossible situation. I’ve found his
work to generally be pretty interesting and I wish he had more support to carry on than he seems to currently.
Saltwater is a beautiful song, and to be frank as a piece of music I find it to be much more interesting than
Imagine, even though it could never have existed without Dad’s influence.
Julian and Yoko are an interesting issue. I know that Yoko helped him get out of an early exploitive record deal,
but I’m pretty sure the relationship as it stands is pretty cool, with Julian wanting a bigger slice of the pie, and
feeling that Yoko has been a lot more generous to museums with John’s possession than she has with the
relatives back in England. Either way, there was just no excuse for him to not be invited to that New York tribute
concert, but then again I’m sure you all enjoyed hearing Kevin Spacey sing Mind Games instead of the guy who
inspired Hey Jude and Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.
On a more humorous Julian note, I remember him relating a visit to John and Yoko’s and being freaked out
when they popped downstairs for Breakfast sans clothing. How very 60’s of them. “Uh, dad no one dug it on the
Two Virgins cover, the live show isn’t much better.”
The most awed I’ve ever been at a celebrity sighting, was at a movie theater on the 4th Street Promenade in Santa
Monica. I was walking out and I saw a figure looking up at the marquee, thus only seeing the bottom of his face
and his nose. “Jesus, that looks like John Lennon.” It was Sean, and he inherited that magnificent nose his father
used to glare out from behind.
Isn’t it weird how Sean seems to be musically much more influenced by Paul than his father? He’s shown some
of the experimental tastes of his mother, but he seems most impressed by the lush strains of Brian Wilson. I
thought he handled his early career perfectly, and although, his voice isn’t nearly as strong as his father’s I grew
to love his first solo album. The delay of its follow up, I originally attributed to either the need for it to be perfect
or the fact that he was having too good of a time sampling those previously mentioned actress model types (I’m
not being critical – I’d do it too).
One Headlight – Wallflowers
If singing ability is genetic, how come Jakob Dylan has such a good voice? Bob, in his prime, couldn’t hold a
note that long to save his life. No one knows it but that guitar solo is by Jon Brion.
Dream Lover – Bobby Darin
I was a big fan of Kevin Spacy’s from the second I first saw him play Mel Profit on Wiseguy, but the guy
irritates the hell out of me now and it has nothing to do with K-Pax. First, he spent an outrageous amount of
money to buy an old Oscar for the purpose of giving it back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences. Nothing like taking money that could have been given to charity to make your own awards that much
more prestigious. God help us if a normal person had an Oscar, even if it is one that was given to a composer
from the forties that no one remembers.
Then there is the Bobby Darin thing. If your point is that Darin was such a great, under appreciated artist than
exactly what is the purpose of releasing a Soundtrack of Darin’s hits sung by you. Shouldn’t you be steering
people to the originals? Is it about your love of Darin’s artistry or showing what a fabulous all around performer
you are? Let me word this a little differently. Is it about your love of Darin’s artistry or your love for yourself?
Chapter 26: Madness or Needles?
One Step Beyond - Madness
Hey you! Don’t watch that watch this!
This is the heavy heavy monster sound
The nutsiest sound around
So if you’re coming in off the streets and you’re beginning to feel the heat.
Well listen buster you’d better start to move your feet
To the rockingest rocksteady beat of Madness
One Step Beyond!
I love that. It’s got to be hands down the finest song intro ever. Sure, not many other songs with long spoken
intros are popping into my head right now, but it’s got to be the best. The rest of the song is pretty much an
instrumental, which makes sense because after you’ve said that, what more can you really say!
Here is my secret fear about that intro. It sure
sounds like he is saying “the Naziest sound
around.” Is nutsiest even a word? Madness never
really struck me as the Nazi type so I give them the
benefit of the doubt. Besides they used the word
nutty all the time. They used to do this great thing
called the nutty train where all eight of them would strut down the street back to back. Then again it sure does
sound like “Naziest.” Well, I suppose it’s still possible to sound Nazi without supporting Nazi’s sort of like that
Chuck D “lyrical terrorist” idea.
As far as I’m concerned, nothing sounds more Nazi then that Storm Trooper count in to the beginning of Never
Mind the Bollocks Here’s the Sex Pistols. There’s a doll of Sid Vicious wearing a swastika in the Rock and Roll
Hall of Fame. Most punk styles still look pretty cool to me today, but I’m thinking the swastikas were a bad
fashion choice. I get the whole “whatever you hate, we love – dress to thrill” attitude, but really just chuck those
Hitler posters.
Milkcow Blues Boogie – Elvis Presley
I was rash. This intro is right up there, although it’s really more of an interruption. Elvis mewls a couple lines of
the traditional country song and then decides he doesn’t want to be on the Grand 'ole Opry after all.
“Hold it fellas. That don’t move me. Let’s get real real gone for a change.”
Had that on my answering machine for a few years. It’s not cool not to move Elvis.
Speaking of National Socialism: Elvis or Hitler? 50,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong.
I’m really late on this but I’d like to weigh in on the issue of the man of the 20th Century, and as I see it, it really
comes down to Elvis or Hitler. Hitler is an obvious choice. Really when you see people voting for Churchill or
Roosevelt, they are really trying to put a good spin on an unfortunate situation. Churchill and Roosevelt just
reacted to Hitler’s mess. I know that people want to vote for Stalin or Pol Pot, or some other guy who
slaughtered more people than Hitler did, but for some reason those choices never got the publicity that Hitler did.
Martin Luther King is a nice choice. He stood for good things. He was maybe the good guy of the 20th Century.
He cheated on his wife but at least his sexual habits were, for the most part, relatively normal. He perhaps almost
single-handedly initiated the end of America’s inherent Constitutional hypocrisy that “All men are created
equal.” But really, he didn’t shake the world on a mass level like Hitler did. Perhaps eventually his message will
permeate and he will be the man of all time, but you have to face the fact that when you concentrate on the 20th
Century, Hitler really played havoc on a grand scale. Martin Luther King was like an ever-quickening series of
pebbles dropped into a smooth silent lake. Hitler was one big hurtled rock, which brings us to Elvis.
Elvis did really well on Time’s Man of the Century internet poll, but people acted like that was just fat old
housewives voting. They acted like they were votes for Mickey Mouse in a Presidential Election with no really
good candidates. Elvis deserves more respect.
Elvis vs. Hitler
Elvis was certainly the nicer guy. This isn’t a popularity contest, but it should certainly stand for something.
Hitler certainly would be remembered better if he had given away a few Cadillac’s from time to time.
Elvis loved his mama - Hitler hated his dad: Different paths to Freud-ville, but on the same road nevertheless.
Hitler, to his credit, never shook hands with Richard Nixon, much less took a picture of it for his buddies.
They were both common men with meager births, which is impressive. Past centuries had been all about
Royalty, with the exception of Jesus.
Elvis was much better looking than Hitler. In fact, Elvis was probably the best looking man of the century. Hitler
was among the ugliest.
Elvis had way better clothes in much larger varieties than Hitler.
If you had a poll on who was the coolest man of all time. It would be between Elvis and James Dean. A
comparable comparison for Hitler is probably rectal itch - or Soupy Sales.
Women liked Elvis more. You didn’t see films of honeys bawling at the Hitler funeral procession.
Hitler was a failed artist, whereas Elvis is perhaps the biggest popular artist of all time. Elvis was more
democratic, too. His art was easily accessed and obtained. How many people can really purchase a Picasso?
Elvis’ work is just as vital, but more importantly; it hasn’t been relegated to the sad, lonely land of museum
exhibits.
Hitler wanted his picture up on everyone’s wall. At the end of the century, he was still up on a few walls, but
only certain people were allowed in that room. Meanwhile, Elvis posters hang proudly to this day all over the
world.
Hitler had people killed. All Elvis ever did was shoot a televised image of Robert Goulet. Even Frank Sinatra
would have actually had Goulet killed.
Hitler had all kinds of assistants doing evil, nasty things. The worst Elvis’ boys had to do was get the big man a
Coke from time to time.
Both really excelled at exciting crowds. I think that we can all agree, though, that it is cooler to have young
screaming girls at your performances than stiff regimented soldiers. Additionally, Hitler hasn’t aged nearly as
well. To his credit he never had a fat period, but his shows don’t translate well anymore. People pay to see
millions of Elvis impersonators every day, but there is little call these days for ”The Hitler Experience,” even
with the mass Broadway success of “The Producers” noted. Sure, people would probably love to still see Hitler
dance, but that really wasn’t what he did at most of his live gigs, whereas Elvis was known for it.
Elvis made a lot of bad movies. Hitler actually inspired a bunch of good ones!
Elvis rose to Sergeant in the Army. Hitler was only a Corporal.
Elvis was all about loosening up the world and setting it free. Hitler was all about regimentation and order.
Elvis and Hitler were both scary in their day. People got used to Elvis. People set out to have Hitler killed.
Elvis was excited to shake hands with James Brown. Hitler wouldn’t shake hands with Jesse Owens.
Hitler made them put up the Berlin Wall. Elvis was part of the reason why it came down. Face it: The real truth
about the fall of the Soviet Union isn’t Star Wars or Reagan; it’s all about blue jeans, cars, and Rock and Roll.
Elvis was the first to embody all three, and to this day nobody has done it any better, though millions have tried.
Hitler lost. This is probably the deciding factor in the long run. Hitler’s revolution fell apart with a screeching
halt, whereas Elvis’ is only getting more and more huge. People were terrified that Elvis would corrupt the
minds and souls of future generations of youth all around the world, and they were right.
Guitars over guns in the 21st Century
Maria Bartiromo – Joey Ramone
Right before he died from lymphatic cancer, Joey Ramone recorded this ode to CNBC’s New York Stock
Exchange floor reporter, Maria Bartiromo.
1. He never really did seem like a business report kind of guy. One of the funnest things I’ve ever seen was
Joey Ramone and his mother on some daytime talk show with a bunch of Heavy Metallers and their
moms. It was something like “Wild, Crazy Rockers and the mothers that love them.” Most of the women
weren’t that familiar with their sons’ work, but Joey’s mom, God bless her heart, proudly starting
singing “Lobotomy”. My point is I never really saw the guy who sang I Want to be Sedated tuning in to
CNBC.
2. The guy is about to die. Does he really care what the stock market is doing? Can Joey Ramone really
own stock? The mind just boggles.
I’m guessing Joey was just channel surfing when he caught Maria in some hot skirt and he decided to watch for
a while. Maybe after a couple of days he treated the whole thing like incoming sports scores. Nevertheless, every
time the world starts making a bit of sense to me, I think about Joey Ramone tuning in to live broadcasts from
the New York Stock Exchange and pretty soon all bets are off.
Born to Lose – Johnny Thunders
Can we put Keith Richards in jail for this guy’s death? Dude was and is a
bad influence (unless of course you are looking for inspiration to play a
pirate based on a Disney theme park ride). Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis
Joplin, those guys weren’t a bad influence. They’re all dead. They provide a
lesson for school children everywhere. Keith is still alive. Keith is out there
everyday giving kids the impression that they can do as much heroin as they
want and come out alive and productive. Either Keith tells us how he did it
or we lock him away until he does.
I just read a book about Johnny Thunders. I’ve read a ton of books on heroin
addicts (I was going to pick the word user but really there’s no such thing).
Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Sid Vicious. Here’s
my recommendation, if you think that you are about to read a book about a
heroin addict. Don’t. Well, read the first 40 pages or so up until the part
where the artist in question starts using heroin, after that skip to the part
where they kick or die, because they are all exactly the same and it always gets pretty damn pathetic. Heroin
addicts pretty much do three things
1) Shoot Heroin
2) Run around town like madmen about 90% of their time trying to find some heroin In the course of my
vast celebrity reading about this topic, I've often wondered if their life woes were based more from
Heroin or its illegality. Sort of like the Casey Stengel quip “Being with a woman all night never hurt no
professional baseball player. It's staying up all night looking for a woman that does him in.”
3) Steadily die, hopefully before they allegedly stab their annoying girlfriend or mysterious lose all their
teeth.
If you have to read about heroin, I suggest that you read Miles by Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe. It’s by far the
best book, you’ll learn a lot about Jazz, and it’s the one with the story about Charlie Parker eating a girl out in
the back of a taxi cab while munching on a chicken leg and drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. Apart
from that do your best to figure out how in the world a clean Miles Davis could watch Charlie Parker and ten
others destroy themselves with heroin and then find himself hooked on the same ugly drug five years or so later.
If by the time Miles kicks by spending three painful days in his Dad’s shed you still want to try H. You not very
smart.
Want more evidence? How about a little Chet Baker before and after photo drill?
I Was Born to Cry – Johnny Thunders
Welcome to the mysterious world of downloading. I’m not even really sure if what I have is by Johnny
Thunders, the voice sounds way too deep and technically proficient. I’m pretty sure it’s not Dion. Whatever, it
sure is cool.
For Lovers – Wolfman and Pete Doherty
The lead singer of the Libertines has a severe problem with drugs. To paraphrase Bill Hicks talking about the
devil “At least, he rocks.”
Here’s Bill’s best take on Rock and Roll
"Oh come on, Bill, they're the New Kids, don't pick on them, they're so good and they're so clean cut and they're
such a good image for the children." Fuck that. When did mediocrity and banality become a good image for your
children? I want my children to listen to people who FUCKING ROCKED! I don't care if they died in puddles of
their own vomit. I want someone who plays from his fucking heart. "Mommy, mommy, the man that Bill told
me to listen to has a blood bubble on his nose!" Shut up and listen to him play!
The New Kids! "Hi we're the New Kids and we're so good and clean-cut...We're so clean cut!" Seig Heil! Heil!
Heil! A good clean country... Heil! Heil! Heil! Fuck that! I want my rock stars dead!!!
Patience – Guns and Roses
Speaking of patience, anyone know when Chinese Democracy is coming out?
Anyone think that during a moment of pique Axl once said to Slash, “This is my band. I could replace you with a
guy wearing a Kentucky Fried Chicken bucket on his head and no one would know the difference”?
Welcome to the Jungle – Guns and Roses
Did you know that before either of them hit big Jim Carrey lip synced this song in the Dirty Harry movie the
Dead Pool? Clint has quite an eye for talent. Additionally, ever notice that Clint’s guns got bigger in every single
sequel. By the end he was shooting people with this huge harpoon gun. Says a lot about sequels, if you think
about it, the bang has to be that much bigger the second time around.
Bird
So you saying Diz and Duke on one side and junkies on the other. So I kick [fellow musician laughs] I can kick!
[more laughter].
The sad thing about biographical films is that they are expensive, and it is assumed that once a story is told that
an audience's appetite has been whetted. Thus if someone like Clint Eastwood tries to pay tribute to one of his
heroes, it usually precludes anyone else from ever tackling the subject. I mean who can fault Clint Eastwood for
wanting to make a movie about Charlie Parker? It's cool that someone with his power got the thing done, but you
have to think that perhaps the story might have been a little better had a Black film maker like Spike Lee taken it
on. I don't particularly want to weigh in on the whole issue of Black artists having a right to Black stories, but
you have to wonder if the key to this story really resides in Parker's relationships with two White women, and
White trumpeter Red Rodney instead of with Black artists like the omitted Miles Davis and the little seen Dizzy
Gillespie. It's pretty entertaining to see Parker playing a Bar Mitzvah, but is his tour of the West Coast really that
important outside of the fact that it was when Clint got to see him play. From the movie you'd think Bird never
touched a Black woman much less was married to a couple.
The 40's Bebop scene must have been fascinating with artists like Charlie Christian, Thelonius Monk, Charles
Mingus, Max Roach and Gillespie jamming at a different club every night and inventing the future. It was so
amazing that it induced Miles Davis to leave his day gig at Julliard because he felt there was more to learn in the
New York clubs at night. According to Miles, Parker's playing when he was on was enough to make a man
believe in God. He claims seeing Parker and Gillespie play together changed his life, but there are no scenes in
Bird that really show the two giants interacting musically on the same stage. When Gillespie is shown playing,
Parker is in the back getting high.
Bird does have one killer scene First Bird is seen being played off a stage early in his career at an open mike
cutting contest by a fictional composite sax player named Buster Franklin. Then Franklin upon seeing him in a
club years later is so devastated by Parker's talent that he tosses his own instrument into the river. But it never
shows you the blood and grime of how Parker went from being a hack to an unbelievable virtuoso and that's a
shame.
II B.S. – Charles Mingus
Spike Lee named the Jazz club in his Mo Better Blues Beneath the Underdog after the title of Mingus’
autobiography. Hearing that it was a seminal work in the Jazz canon, I sought out the book only to be completely
stumped as to why people thought it so significant. In the book, Mingus spends maybe three paragraphs talking
about music. The rest is about the women he banged, racism, all the chemicals and liquors he ingested, and
madness. It could easily be mistaken for the work of Old Dirty Bastard. One scene did interest me. Going
through a period of intense stress Mingus walks up to a mental facility and begs the guard to let him in. The
guard insists that Mingus really doesn’t want any part of the place. Mingus eventually insists and to his chagrin
realizes the guard was telling nothing but the hard truth.
Despite the fact that this cut was used in a commercial (albeit a really cute one with a young kid springing his
father from a rest home), this is maybe my favorite Jazz cut ever. My biggest problem with Jazz is that so much
of it is just guys taking turns playing solos. This is a big group sizzling through something that was written out
beforehand, and it swings like a mother. To me improv is impressive as a sort of feat of mental agility, but I’ll
take something that was written out and thought through every time. My guess is that Eric Clapton would blow
Jimmy Page out of the room at a blues jam, but I’ll take Page’s recordings over Clapton’s any day. Why should I
care how well you can make up music on the spot? Would Barry Manilow’s catalog be better than the Beatles if
I told you that his average song from creation to completion was a little over six minutes? It would explain a lot
actually.
All Blues – Miles Davis
A guy I work with asked me what the best Jazz album of all time was so he could use it as a gift for someone. I
said “My favorite is Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, Mingus, but most people would probably say Kind of Blue.” He
then asks me why I would recommend something that people said “kind of blew”? He even had a list in front of
him and Kind of Blue was on the top of it. Kind of like when Tabitha Soren, supposedly heard Bill Clinton
talking about Thelonius Monk, and asked someone who the Loneliest Monk was. The Loneliest Monk would be
a good rap name though.
In a Sentimental Mood – John Coltrane and Duke Ellington
I saw a couple of really neat shows with Wynton Marsalis performing the works of Duke Ellington with the
Lincoln Center Jazz Orchastra. At first, Wynton really bothered me, mostly because he seemed extremely
arrogant and was all over his brother Branford for performing with Sting. Although, who knew at the time how
much Sting would start to resemble Kenny G? Dude, your brother enjoys Led Zeppelin. Live and let live.
Wynton’s a little like Brian Setzer in his reverence for pre-60’s Jazz. Although sonically my tastes run pretty
similar to his, it generally bothers me when people are closed minded even when they are brilliant, perhaps even
more so.
He really converted me in a lot of ways at those Ellington shows. He came out about a half hour early and gave
an extremely friendly and loving discussion about Jazz. I remember him sitting down at the piano and playing
the shuffle pattern that is contained in every Chuck Berry song and explaining how it came from the trains of the
period and their promise of a better life elsewhere. Later in the show, you could really hear how an Ellington
song was really just the hippest train in town with the horns calling out its whistles. I suddenly realized that Jazz
was all about trains and Rock and Roll was all about the cars that replaced them.
The show was fantastic. Not a museum piece at all and the crowd was constantly calling out encouragement and
cheering with joy. Sadly, when I bought a lot of the original Ellington recordings, I was really disappointed
because despite my best efforts I couldn’t get past the bad quality of the sound. What was live for me in person
was dead on CD.
Rocket 88 - Jackie Brenston, With His Delta Cats
So Jazz is trains and Rock and Roll is cars, which adds credence to the notion that this was the first rocker ever.
From what I’ve read Ike Turner wrote this and then Sam Phillips credited it Jackie Brenston. See now if Ike had
beat up Sam, who could have blamed him?
Hey, that piano intro sounds a hell of a lot like what Little Richard played on Lucille, too. No wonder Ike had so
much rage.
Blue Train – John Coltrane
Around 1992 or so, I found myself limping through the San Francisco airport after a basketball mishap, and
happened upon a group of nuns selling John Coltrane T-Shirts. What? Hell, it was so weird I had to buy one. A
few months later I saw a news piece about the church they belonged to, which didn’t see Coltrane so much as a
God but as their patron saint. It’s not as wacky as you’d think. Coltrane devoted his life to turning his love of
God into music. The priest who started the church was a saxophone player inspired by Coltrane’s example to
kick heroin. To him, the best evidence of God in the world was the beauty of Coltrane’s music. The church has
this fantastic painting of Coltrane with flames shooting out of his sax as a symbol, and their services are about as
good a three hours of Jazz as you can get these days. They admit anyone and encourage people to bring
instruments to participate or to beat on the drums and tambourines that they hand out to their visitors. They knew
that people treated them as something of an oddity typical of San Francisco weirdness, but they reminded me of
an argument between one of my favorite teachers and a friend of mine in class. He asked her for proof of God
and she said that when she looked outside and saw the beauty of nature that it showed her enough evidence. It
didn’t convert me but I found it sort of poetic. In the same way, the Coltrane Church is precious to me. I’ll
probably never join a religious group, but if I did it would be the St. John Will-I-Am Coltrane African Orthodox
Church.
Rose Room – Charlie Christian
I was once wearing a Charlie Christian T-Shirt that called him the Father of the Electric Guitar. Someone saw it
and wondered whether Les Paul was the Father of the Electric Guitar. I quickly explained to him that Les Paul
was the Father of the Solid Body Electric Guitar. I really need to get out more.
Charlie Christian died of tuberculosis at 25 right in the middle of helping to invent Be-Bop. How he came to join
up with Benny Goodman is one of my favorite music legends. John Hammond brings a young Christian to
Goodman and suggests adding him to his band. Goodman takes one look at the Black hayseed, looks back at
Hammond like he’s insane and refuses to even listen to him play. Hammond then sneaks Christian onto
Goodman’s bandstand. When an unamused Goodman sees Christian and his amp (a rarity at the time) he tells his
band to play Rose Room the whitest thing he can think of. Undaunted Christian leaps in and blows Benny’s
mind.
Sing Sing Sing – Benny Goodman
Wow, that movie with Steve Allen sure is annoying. Poor Benny, he’s as talented as the guys playing Mozart but
he loves that jungle swing.
Begin the Beguine – Artie Shaw
I somehow found myself completely lost in the Hollywood Hills one night listening to an Artie Shaw interview.
I’m guessing he wasn’t into Rock and Roll, but he had the right attitude. He was married to Ava Gardner, Lana
Turner, and six other hotties, and never found a contemporary he couldn’t dis. Here’s some people on his hit list.
Benny was a superb technician, but he had a limited vocabulary. He never understood that there were more than
a major, a minor and a diminished -- he just couldn't get with altered chords. We worked together for years in
radio, and Benny was pretty dumb. His brother Freddy managed one of my last bands, and I once asked him
what Benny was like as a kid. He said, "Stupid." I said, "How do you account for his success?" He said, "The
clarinet was the only thing he knew," and it's true. He was sort of an idiot savant -- not quite idiot, but on the
way. He didn't quite make it to idiocy.
Bing was a hell of a singer at his best. After Louis Armstrong, he was the first great jazz singer. Sure, he did
horseshit like "White Christmas" -- he had to, it's part of the lexicon. But he was a long way from square. He was
a terrible person, but so was Frank. I don't care about Sinatra. He bores the shit out of me.
“It would have been better if he’d (Glenn Miller) lived and his music had died.”
That’s Eminem worthy stuff. Bravo!
Chapter 27: My scary obsession with teen dramas
10 Things I Hate about You
"I'm surprised that you've never been told before that you're lovely and you're perfect and that somebody wants
you."
As someone who claims or pretends to have a reasonable grasp of film history, style and cool, I probably
shouldn't admit this, but my all time favorite movie is 1999's Ten Things I Hate about You. Maybe I even need
to be counseled or investigated because I have an unbelievable obsession with teen romances. Hell, I know how
that sounds. It certainly doesn't seem to fit with the pictures of John Coltrane, Muhammad Ali, Spike Lee,
Michael Jordan and Eddie Cochran I have up on my wall. I thought I would grow out of it. The first date I ever
really went out on was to go see "Pretty in Pink," which is a great example of how most guys treat these types of
affairs - as a sacrifice one has to make in order to appear sensitive and deep (as I’ve said I once told a girl in high
school that I liked Hall and Oates and I've never completely forgiven myself for it), but I had already seen it for
the first time three weeks before by myself. Then ten years go by and still all I really care about is that Mr.
Walsh give poor Dylan and Brenda a break on Beverly Hills 90210. American Pie wants you to think it's a teen
romance but the reason everyone saw it was because it was in all reality the much more respectable guilty
pleasure, the teen sex romp ... and of course because Jason Biggs puts his dick in a pie. 10 Things I Hate About
You has the much hotter women but it's one of those movies where a single kiss is treated as a much bigger deal
than all Pie's prom night sexual activity combined.
Adult romantic comedies amuse me too. When Harry Met Sally works for me. I even like You've Got Mail more
than I'd like to admit, but whereas I might check out the next Tom Hanks Meg Ryan pairing I'd still probably
rather stay home with someone I want to dazzle and watch The Sure Thing or Say Anything, and you better
believe I'm going to be in line to see whatever the next movie Julia Stiles is in. I don't like them all - you can
burn Footloose, Grease, and all the movies where someone gets dramatically pregnant except Fast Times at
Ridgemont High. Although, you have to admit watching Tarantino ultra heavyweight Christopher Penn dancing
around in Footloose is pretty damn amusing now in retrospect.
I think Grace Kelly was probably the most beautiful presence ever on a big screen, and Marilyn Monroe almost
melts the celluloid in Some Like it Hot, but who am I really hung up on? Mary Stuart Masterson in Some Kind
Of Wonderful, Samantha Mathis in Pump Up the Volume, and for some odd reason Martha Plimpton in
Samantha. I think part of the reason Larry Clark's Kids repulsed and disturbed me so much is because it is
essentially the equivalent of violently raping every teen romance I've ever been warmed and amused by. Who
really has time in this short life for such reality?
Okay, I know you have half of the phone number to the Juvenile Sex Offender Unit dialed but stick with me.
Rock and Roll has always been all about high school. Chuck Berry after all was about as old as me when he was
doing his best to simply appeal to the high school kids with School Days, Sweet Little Sixteen, and Almost
Grown. Due to their early deaths Eddie Cochran and James Dean never really got to be anything but teens, and
the Beatles and The Rolling Stones were all about making the young girls scream and cry. Jim Morrison used to
be in teen pin up magazines how scary is that? High School and College is when you decide who you are and
who you are going to be. At least it always felt that way. It was the time when you first fell in love with music
and were willing to argue all night about its relative merits. When I fall in love, I always want it to be in the teen
romance way. Perfectly innocent and mind numbingly convinced that you would never for a second be any
happier than to be with the one you love never imagining for a second that your life would ever be forced into a
moment of compromise and bitterness
There's nothing particularly original about "10 Things I Hate About You." It was made after "Clueless" and the
Leonardo DiCaprio and Clare Dane's version of "Romeo and Juliet" made adapting literary classics into high
school settings cool. The guy dates girl for money or to win a bet but really falls in love with her angle is so old
and hackneyed that it was even done by Elvis Presley and Juliet Prowse in of all things GI Blues, and Taming of
the Shrew had even been done by Moonlighting on one of those weeks they needed desperately to get a script
together. It has no eloquent Lenny Bruce inspired rants of youthful rebellion like Pump up the Volume. It's not
brilliant satire like Heathers. It's just pure of heart and perfectly executed.
Check out Julia Stiles as Kat. She's fiercely independent, she drives a cool vintage car, she loves Fender guitars,
she listens to quality music, she's way hot and she has a brain. I wouldn't trade her drunkenly angry table dance
at Bogie Lowenstein's party for the entire career of Mikhail Baryshnikov. What more could any sane man want?
10 Things has a killer soundtrack that centers on Letters to Cleo's prefect re-imagining of Nick Lowe's Cruel To
Be Kind and Cheap Trick's I Want You To Want Me as the ideal vehicles for riot girl euphoria, and give the guy
or girl who knew that Lowe's tune was nicked from Shakespeare itself a nod and some extra credit on the
cleverness scale.
The best thing that can be said of Heath Ledger is that his Patrick Verona not only wins Stile's love and melts the
fire of her hard core feminist rage, but is cool and decent enough to convince me that he deserves her. Sure he's a
pretty boy, but he and Kat make this great outsider couple with hardcore reps. He's so cool that his supposed
exploits fill the hallway chatter with Bunyonesque tales of his legend. He smokes openly on campus, hangs out
in biker bars, and would rather drill a hole in your French Book than talk to you. Sure he turns out to be the
greatest guy in the world, who thinks it inappropriate to even kiss a girl who's had too much to drink, but it's
some nice coloring. Singing Frankie Valli's Can't Take My Eyes Off of You could have been an outright
disaster, but Ledger pulls it off with genuine élan accompanied by the school's marching band, and I'm even
pretty sure that the film makers top off their show stopper with a visual reference to Jim Morrison being hauled
offstage by the cops the night he got maced in Massachusetts. How knowing and cool is that? Millions of wordy
balcony scenes pale in comparison to its joyful statement of desire and affection. It builds up so much good will
that I'm even willing to go along with the "we're falling in love" paint ball musical montage accompanied by the
frenzied fun of Semisonic's ode to feminine wiles "Fascinating New Thing."
10 Things I Hate About You doesn't try to whack you over the head with it's comedy. It just has perfect details
like the fact that the French book Joseph Gordon Levitt uses to tutor Lorisa Oleynik's Bianca, the very definition
of the perfect and vapid young beauty, still has the huge hole Ledger drilled in it when it reappears later in the
movie. It's something you barely notice, but rejoice in if you do.
Most movies would just slide on the charisma of their stars but 10 Things I Hate About You is filled with all
kinds of interesting sorts. Larry Miller, a great underrated stand up comedian, is one of my favorite film fathers.
He's not Paul Dooley in his twin tour de forces Breaking Away and Sixteen Candles, but he's pretty damn funny
as the overprotective gynecologist who lectures his daughters neurotically about the dangers of teen pregnancy.
He makes Oleynik wear a pregnancy vest while complaining about being up to his elbows in teen placenta, and
pulls off the sweetest act of letting go on film when he tells Stiles that he has sent a check to Sarah Laurence for
her.
Daryl Mitchell takes the clichéd cool rapping Black English teacher and turns him into a young ethnic version of
Ray Walston's Mr. Hand. He swears in class, bemoans the lack of Black writers in his curriculum and kicks even
the smarter kids out of his room for no reason whenever the mood strikes him. He tells Andrew Keegan's smug
rich underwear model that one day he is going to enjoy the hell out of it when he finally gets himself bitch
slapped and for good measure he does when it happens. See if you aren't doubled over when he looks at the
white teen Rastas in his class and says "Don't even get me started on you!"
If you aren't crying along with Stile's tearfully angry "I love you anyway" concluding sonnet, then I don't want to
hang with you. Admittedly though, I even teared up at Billy Crystal's "I ran here because I couldn't spend
another second without you" speech in When Harry Met Sally. Like Maynard G Krebs used to say, "Aww Dobe
I'm getting all misty, man."
It took me a while but I've even warmed to David Krumholtz, who often seems to be channeling Milton Berle as
a teen dork here. His idea of a good pickup line is "I've been thinking of buying a Toyota Torcell." Of course, he
winds up winning Kat's beautiful best friend. Why? Because smart teen love flicks are always written by us
frustrated intellectual high school losers and we want them to end that way. That's why.
TV Party – Black Flag
Who knows whether it’s an indictment of mindless television watching or a celebration of it? My doubt only
makes it that much more brilliant. The sheer inanity of the shows mentioned guarantees that generations to come
will be mocking us, then again with the rate that television gets stupider maybe people will soon long for the
days of That’s Incredible.
My favorite horrible show of all time is of course given my love of teen romantic angst Beverly Hills 90210. I
wrote this after watching the final episode.
Beverly Hills 90210
It’s 10 PM. You’ve just watched the two hour finale to the epic that was 90210. You feel dirty, like you have just
spent yourself in a lust-fueled sexual encounter that your brain kept telling you was a terrible idea from the start,
and you think back and you realize the damage that you have done to your life. Ten years. A decade of
Wednesdays you have wasted watching what might easily be described as the most shallow use of airspace in the
history of broadcast entertainment, and yet you watched. You not only watched, you looked forward to it. You
ached when they stopped showing new episodes over the summer, and now you look back and you desperately
try to figure out why. Why did I watch this, what does it all mean?
I have to admit that I tried to free myself of the fix. When Jason Priestly left the show, it seemed like continuing
would have made as much sense as watching “The Cosby Show” after the Huxtables perished in some tragic
fiery plane crash. What would be the point? Has any other show in the history of television had the audacity to
blindly move forward in the face of the absence of not one but every essential main character in the show’s
pilot? I know they tried to keep “Happy Days” going without Ron Howard, and in the back of my mind I
remember something about Archie Bunker, a bar and a little girl, but was anyone really watching then?
What? Kelly got raped? She shot her rapist and got away with it? What is Donna up to? Is that guy Noah actually
still on the show? It was like heroin. I had taken the freebie and now I was just another junky with good
intentions and a lot of excuses. Why?
Remember how it all started? Wholesome Minnesotans, the Walsh’s, move to Beverly Hills. I’m pretty sure that
Jim and Cindy, Brandon and Brenda, they were there to save the lepers. They were the American Family these
poor rich kids could only dream about. Steve, Kelly, Donna, David and Dylan, sure they had money, but did they
know true happiness? The parents were all divorced or cheating. There was plastic surgery. There would be
hairpieces. For some incredible reason, none of the gang even merited a sibling. Sure I know eventually David’s
cheating Dad would marry Kelly’s coke addled mother. Dylan somehow ended up with a whole witness
protected program family of his supposedly mob-blown-up father that he would never know. Steve’s father came
up with another son or two when Randy Spelling needed a job. Even the one seemingly saintly parent, Donna’s
Father, somehow had a mid-70's roll in the hay with his sister-in-law, that would one day blow up in
recriminations of a daughter spurned and ignored, but let’s look back at the beginning.
It was pretty apparent how this was supposed to go. The saintly Walsh family would serve as a beacon of light to
the lost generation of wealthy, beautiful, but empty Beverly Hills brats. They would grow, cry, bond, and
become better people. Dylan, the beautifully lonely dreamer, reader of Blake, survivor of Alcohol, would
someday marry Brenda. Brandon would date every hot girl in town before finally settling down with the
studiously normal Andrea Zucherman. Donna and David would get together, and the hopelessly shallow Steve
and Kelly would remain hopelessly shallow. This would have made for a perfect three-year arc for a perfectly
mediocre show we could have looked back on with some measure of good will.
Somewhere along the way the whole thing went magnificently awry. Maybe it was the sideburns. The show
caught on. Mall kids across the country went Beatlemania and shoppers across the country found themselves
amid a Who sellout of unrivaled proportions, and a funny thing happened. In the fight between good vs. evil,
shallowness vs. wholesomeness, good intentions vs rich white trash, the trash won, and a nation about to embark
on perhaps its most prosperous decade ever celebrated with glee. What better expression of the Bill Clinton
decade was there than Beverly Hills 90210? We wanted money, we wanted to be beautiful, and we wanted our
chicks for free. Brenda became a bitch, who saw that coming? And of course everyone but Donna had sex like it
was going out of style.
Remember how they tried to introduce that Black family for an episode? The dad owned a popcorn empire or
something. Hey c’mon, don’t bring us down. Someone fill out a missing persons report on the popcorn king.
Emily slipped Brandon some Uforia, whatever that was, the Yellow Mustang was trashed and she went Fatal
Attraction on the farm boy. Alcohol was consumed. Cocaine was ingested. Crystal Meth was sampled, and
heroin was smoked.
Remember how in the beginning of the show, there were the two geeks, David and Scott? Well somewhere along
the way David started getting cool, and the glorious solution was that Scott had to die. If you aren’t cool enough
to reside in the code, you accidentally shoot yourself, playing with your uncle’s revolver. Sure we’ll mourn a
little while and then on with the fun.
Kelly almost burns to death in a fire with a smitten lesbian, only to heal in about three weeks. Ray hits Donna
and cheats on her, like all of Donna’s unsatisfied lovers do. The kids all go to the same college despite Andrea’s
brilliance and Steve’s density. Andrea tells Donna that “she really enjoyed being virgins with her”, but she had
serious problems now.
I think the first big chink in the show’s armor was the Andrea pregnancy. It just didn’t make any sense. This girl
was nothing but PC in high school, and almost had a cow when West Beverly refused to install condom
dispensers with the valet parking. Unfortunately, for us purists, Gabrielle Cateris wanted to have a baby in “real
life” so Andrea got pregnant nearly fifteen minutes after the CU Freshman Mixer. Once that happened, it was
open season on plot lines. Anything goes.
Dylan’s Dad goes to jail. Kelly’s dad goes to jail. David’s Dad cheats on Kelly’s mom. Dylan ditches Brenda for
Kelly. Shannon shows up late and gets sent to London. Val shows up smoking a joint. The wholesome Jim and
Cindy Walsh disapprove? Off to Japan with those fossils. Maybe we’ll have one of them back for a wedding or
something.
Steve somehow forgets in every episode that every time he cheats or cuts a corner it blows up in his face, and yet
like a samurai he bravely pushes on. Dylan goes to re-hab. David goes to re-hab. Kelly goes to re-hab and brings
back another psycho “single white female.” Dylan’s wife gets blown away by her mob boss father. Brandon
sleeps with everyone and is elected president. In a solemn moment Brandon decides he has matured, cuts his
sideburns and trades his yellow classic Mustang for a new black one. Remember how Brandon had to work two
jobs to get that first Mustang? Well by year six or so someone decides it is just better to not think about how he
paid for the new car.
Kelly’s boyfriend, Colin, leads the LAPD on a chase to make OJ proud. Donna gets addicted to pain killers.
Donna sleeps with David because “he waited”. Kelly almost gets raped. Donna almost gets raped. Donna is
stalked. Kelly does get raped. Through it all, the only consistent element of the show was that Donna’s mother
Felice Martin would continue to be the single most evil and socially repellant character in the history of episodic
TV.
So why watch? Why the fascination with the rich and the shallow? The world where to be ugly or gain weight
means you can’t go to the prom. Where Kelly’s dad is never there for her, but throws her a great party before he
goes to jail. Why? Because, sap that I am, for some strange, eerie reason these are my characters and some
vulnerable lost soul inside of me wants to see them happy. These lovable misfits have been held captive by ten
years of plot twists and carnality. Something inside me wants to see them happy, and embarrassing though it
may be, a tear came to my eye when I saw David marry Donna, and everyone else end grown, coupled up, and
happy. Fairy tales do come true, even if we have to sift through ten years of glitz and all the drugs in the Median
cartel. As if anything can happen and somehow, in the end, we can all be redeemed like in some new wave
Shakespearean comedy. Try as I might to act like I watch out of some retro-cool vision of excellence from trash,
in the end it’s almost enough to understand why my mom called them her “stories”.
21 Jump Street
Wiseguy
Two shows I loved about undercover agents. Wiseguy was television at its finest and was one of the first non
soap operas to use long episode arcs (sort of 24 before 24), Jump Street was the kind of mind rotting show Bill
Hicks would cringe over.
Aside from this very tenuous links, they both are an example of what happens when shows go to DVD and can’t
afford to clear their music. The first season conclusion of Wiseguy climaxed with an epic scene between Ken
Wahl and Ray Sharkey, while The Moody Blues’ Knights in White Satin played on a cinema jukebox. Aside
from the fact that I’ve never seen a jukebox in a cinema, it was perhaps one of the most important uses of music
in a television show ever. When it was first released on video it was gone and the scene made almost no sense.
Similarly one of the legitimately good episodes of Jump Street featured the Blind Faith song Can’t Find My Way
Home to nice effect.. OK, it was basically a rip off of the Sean Penn movie Bad Boys, they did that a lot on that
show actually, in fact I think the episode where Johnny Depp gets stuck in a Drug Rehab center was even ripped
off from Wiseguy, which was like Jump Street also a Stephen J. Cannell production, and hell you gotta admire
the chutzpah they had the week they ripped off Oliver Stone’s Salvador. Anyway, that’s also sadly missing from
the DVDs. So much for art over commerce.
21 Jump Street sounded like the dumbest most offensive show when I first heard about it. Who doesn’t love a
fun show about cops posing as high school kids? Hey let’s watch the show about Narcs! Somehow, though, it
was sort of like a mini John Hughes high school movie every week, and of course Johnny Depp was about 95%
of the reason for this. This would have enraged Dick Clark, but Depp somehow wound up with artistic ambitions
and hating being a teen idol. Depp says he hated every second of the show, but he was apparently so talented that
it never showed in his acting, and the show to its credit gave him a ton of stuff to do. He essentially got to be
someone new for half of every show since he was on different undercover assignments. One week he was a dork,
the next a really religious kid, juvenile delinquent, stoner. In a scene reminiscent of Tim Roth's drug anecdote in
Reservoir Dogs, he even somehow before our eyes became a Latino gang banger.
The show started off as one of those after school special type message things, but it eventually got a little edgy.
Still, these were some of the dumbest criminals in the history of mankind. Dude, if you are in high school and
have recently committed a felony, do NOT start hanging around with the kid that just transferred into school!
I Love You Period – Dan Baird
Dan sends mash note to his English teacher. It comes back corrected. This frustration is probably what led to that
shotgun wedding in the Georgia Satellites Keep Your Hands to Yourself video.
Season of the Witch – Donovan
I always wanted to record this song. I never had much musical skill, but like everyone I came up with a bunch of
names for my prospective bands. I think the best one I ever came up with was That Stupid Club, after Kurt
Cobain’s mother acknowledged that he had died at the same time age, 27, as Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and
Janis Joplin. “I guess, he’s joined that stupid club now.”
Not that it has anything to do with Donavan, but ...
Bewitched
I used to watch “Bewitched” every single day. Maybe not enough to know that they switched Darrens half way
through, but enough to be able to discuss it intelligently. Every day Darren came home from work and his hot
Wiccan wife greeted the guy with a martini. Now to me, probably unaware of any sexual reason they might be
together, being married to Samantha is a pretty sweet deal. She’s a witch and can get you anything your heart
desires, and the only thing Darren ever seemed to require from her was a martini. I’m thinking, martinis must be
like the greatest tasting thing on the planet, better than non-addictive heroin. I had to wait maybe twelve more
years to get the chance to order a martini. I figured I’ve finally made it, I’m chilling with the homies, and we
have martinis. Nothing could be better than this, and I have to say it was probably the worst tasting drink I could
ever imagine. I just don’t get it. Maybe Darren was a more highly evolved being, like Rip Torn in “Defending
Your Life,” and food and drink tasted differently to him.
The other thing I don’t understand is that for a guy, who has a gorgeous magical witch at home to fend for his
survival, Darren sure is worried about losing his job. It seems to me that almost every episode was either about
Gladys Kravitz almost outing Samantha as a witch, or the funky things that happen around the house threaten
one of MacMahon and Tate’s accounts. Where was MacMahon? You always saw Larry Tate, but where was
MacMahon hanging? I mean, why is this guy working in the first place? HE POSSESSES A WITCH!! What is
he a woman who needs to get out of the house? He has a witch!
There have been only two guys that lucky: Darren Stevens, (well three if you count both of them), and Tony
Nelson, and both chose to continue to work. What were the odds of that happening? I sometimes consider jail
because I figure it’s a good way to avoid needing a job; and both these guys fly the straight and narrow. You’d
think they were rock stars or something. Now Tony Nelson is a little understandable, the guy is an astronaut and
back then there were maybe like 12 people in the world who could make that claim. But Darren works for a guy
so stupid he makes you wonder how he ever could start an agency in advertising. Witchcraft bad – advertising
good? That is the subtle message TV was selling back then. Witchcraft bad – advertising good.
Hugh Hefner probably doesn’t have a genie or a witch at his disposal, but look how much fun that guy has had. I
mean, it’s bad enough they have to work. Darren seems in danger of losing the account that puts the whole firm
under in every episode. He lives his entire life in utter horror at the notion that his wacked out home life might
bring down Larry Tate’s kingdom, leaving him out on the streets with the reputation as the worst ad man in
history. He is married to a witch and he seems two weeks from living in the streets. I mean, if he were worried
about money he should have just had Sam work and he could stay home. Hell, every one of MacMahon and
Tate’s ad campaigns was the quickest thing Sam could think of to explain all the funky stuff that would go down
in their house. If those were good, imagine how cool the ones she would think up at the office would be. They
would be much better off.
So there are two guys in history with the enviable position of having special help in the world, and they both
choose to not let themselves be helped at all; like life was a contest that had to be won within some wholesome
rules that prohibited them from benefiting from said magic.
Side note - There was an episode where they revealed that Hank Aaron was a warlock. Henry’s only other
sitcom appearance was in “Happy Days,” where no one noticed that the Hank Aaron of Happy Day’s 1956 looks
like he’s 50 years old.
It’s almost as if it would be bad form to actually use your witch or genie out from time to time, even when you
are in a huge jam! What a sick message, that it is better to enslave your wife with housework and cooking than it
is to utilize her greatest natural skill. What was Darren Steven’s vision of the perfect world? Working at
MacMahon and Tate as an underling? It must have been because he had everything else at his disposal. What a
huge need to be normal that guy had. It was almost as if the show was saying, He is so normal, we could
substitute him with another normal guy and no one would ever notice.
At least Tony let Genie lounge around all day. But you have to either dock him huge points for taking years to
finally have sex with her, or give him more rock star kudos for having the balls to have a Genie and then talking
her into letting him date other chicks.
Maybe the true lesson is that Larry Hagman was the coolest man alive. He lives in Cocoa Beach, Florida. That
sounds like the Garden of Eden, coming from Ohio. Life to him is some cool sport. He was so happening that he
could have a sexy genie at his disposal and choose not to use her. Like he only kept her around to make Roger
Healy jealous. How rocking is that?
I should make my own show where Roger Healy finds the bottle instead of Tony. Oh wait they had that show; it
was called “Playboy after Dark.”
Good Times
How the fuck was Jimmy Walker, this thin, tall motherfucker, supposed to be the son of John Amos and Esther
Rolle -- two short, squat thick people? I mean, Florida Evans was a house and she had three kids with not an
ounce of fat on them. How unfair is that? She was the only one doing any work in that family, and she was
gaining weight. Gosh, Florida Evans got screwed. When Benson got his own sit-com, he got promoted from like
butler to running some small Southern state, can we have some justice for Florida?
How incredibly cocky must the guys have been that pitched that show? “I have this great idea for a show. It will
all take place in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago. I’m talking the ghetto, man.”
A sit-com about how awesome it is to live in the worst place in America. For a while on “Good Times,” the
ghetto was so fun that they had to kill off the father just to bring us back down. Times in the ghetto were great
when Dad was alive. I wonder how times would be if he died and their ability to feed themselves got even more
desperate? No wonder so many people want to come to the United States. They have laughs even in the slums.
Let’s see, there are two shows about the most oppressed people in this country. On “Good Times,” they are poor,
funny, and happy. On “The Jeffersons” they are rich, funny and happy. How can you lose there? Did the Nazis
give plays about how right on it was to be Jewish?
Could Klan members make up a better joke than that? We’ll take this poor woman and make her life a living hell
all for our amusement. We’ll break her. James knew death was the easy way out. Still love life Florida? Okay,
how about if Jimmy Walker were your son? Hmm. James dies and you’re now the sole form of support. Still
chipper? Ok Janet Jackson not having to act to play an abused child. Stop! Have mercy! At least give her a pair
of comfortable shoes. If you think about it, other than the fact that they got to change their attire it was pretty
much the same show as “Gilligan’s Island.” If they ever got the castaways out of the ghetto the show would be
over.
The message of “Good Times” is essentially that if you want to be a true artist like Junior, it doesn’t hurt to be
poor and oppressed. Meanwhile, all the business and law school graduates enjoy life, laughing about how they
sold you the romanticized notion of your life on the cheap and didn’t have to share a goddamned thing. Half of
the losers we will coddle with TV; the other half we will brainwash into thinking it is sexy and artful to be poor
and unhappy. That was the ad campaign Darren Stevens should have been thinking up.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
"Who are those guys?"
William Goldman's elegiac script does a pretty good job of convincing us that Butch Cassidy (Paul Newman)
and the Sundance Kid (Robert Redford) were the original Rock stars of the old West. After all, the Hole in the
Wall Gang is at least as cool a name as the Hollies or the Crickets. Paul Newman's Butch is the lead singer,
lyricist, the brains of the outfit, and what else is Redford's pistol savvy Kid than the original bad ass ace lead
guitarist? Their lives, as portrayed here, are nothing but a romping tour of celebrity excess. Rob a bank, go to the
cathouse, rob a train, go to a cathouse. God knows neither of these guys had any intention of ever getting a real
job. A real job to Butch was when he was a rustler! They make up cool names for themselves like Bono and
Sting did, and they sort-of share a wife, Katherine Ross' Etta Place. As you'd expect Sundance, the body, sleeps
with her while the fast talking, always plotting Butch gets to wax poetic and entertain her mind. Butch and
Sundance are nothing less than the Beatles to the foreboding Rolling Stone doom of the posse that will
eventually catch up to them.
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" is actually sort of a three-in-one serial western comedy. The first act
establishes the characters. Sundance gets to show off his rapid facility with weapons, while Butch sits back and
enjoys the change of heart that comes over a man when he drops the name Sundance into the equation. We get to
see Butch and his gang when Lurch from the Addam's Family steps up to challenge his authority. Butch, always
thinking, kicks the poor bastard in the balls. We get some enjoyable train robbing scenes with an endlessly
amusing sequence between Butch and Woodcock, the most dedicated geek security guard in the history of
cinema. The whole thing comes to a glittering crescendo when the "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head"
sequence pays homage to the future of both the bicycle and the music video.
Then the real world comes crashing in. Part Two: Butch and Sundance vs. the Super Posse. Apparently fed up
with their nonsense, the law eventually forms their own Super Group to track our heroes down. When the duo
split off from the rest of their gang, and Butch asks the stunned Sundance how many members of the posse are
following them, he is told all of them. For the better part of twenty minutes, when none of Butch's tricks even
remotely work, Sundance keeps an admirable faith in his partner. "You're the brains Butch. You'll think of
something."
When they narrowly escape, the duo decide to
exploit some new territory in Part Three: Butch
and the Kid Go To Bolivia. A bad idea that just
gets worse and worse as Butch and the Kid
struggle with Spanish, get jobs as payroll
protectors(!), and walk slowly to their fate.
"Bonnie and Clyde," which came out just a couple
years earlier, also focuses on some doomed
outlaws, but in that movie fate was dark and
certain. Here the guys aren't even fazed by the sympathetic law man who scoldingly warns them that, "Your
times is over and you're gonna die bloody and all you can do is choose where!" Why spoil the fun until we get to
see the guys go up against, like, 5000 Bolivian Militia Men. The film is so sad to see its affable heroes and good
times go that it can't bear to see them shot down. The movie ends almost the same way Porgy and Bess did. It's
not likely that Porgy is going to make it across the Country on that skateboard, but if you're a true believer you
will never doubt it. After all, maybe they did somehow manage to escape, and if they didn't it sure was fun while
it lasted.
Newman and Redford seem so established as a duo it's a wonder that they only made two films together. Can
you imagine how many vehicles Danny Glover and Mel Gibson would have pumped out had they had two
movies that big? Paul Newman's Butch is probably the most genial character ever portrayed on the big screen.
He's always smiling, talking and enjoying the ride no matter where it takes them. Without the more serious
overtones of one of those John Ford westerns it's perhaps a little easier to just take in the beauty of the scenery, a
taut, well-meaning script written from legend, and a movie so gorgeously photographed that almost any shot
would look good up on a wall in your den. Possibly the most likable movie ever filmed.
Alias Smith and Jones
Butch, Sundance, and Gondorf for good measure, ride week after week for your amusement. It bespeaks the
prevalence of television in my life that I’ve seen so much of this show, that no one else my age seems to have
heard of. This is a show that was so cool, you’d literally celebrate the random luck of finding an episode every
two years or so back in the pre-cable slow days of six maybe seven channels.
Pete Duel takes on Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy persona and somehow manages to predict Newman following
it up with The Sting’s Henry Gondorf. Duel seemingly pulling off the big store wire grift here a full year so
before The Sting even came out! I’d almost like to think Newman and Redford were so impressed by Duel’s
charming con men that they stole from him for their follow up. It would be like the Beatles stealing a riff from
the Monkees.
Ok, stay with me now because this is going to be confusing.
Duel is Cassidy, but his name here is Hannibal Heyes. Heyes tells people that his name is Joshua Smith.
Ben Murphy is Sundance but his name here is Jed “Kid” Curry. Curry tells people that his name is Thaddeus
Jones.
See Heyes and Curry are the ultimate Rock Stars of the Mid-West. They are this legendary pair of outlaws,
worshiped by the rank and file for robbing trains and banks without ever killing anyone. No one respected banks
back then.
Unfortunately, Hayes and Curry saw what happened to Butch and Sundance down in Bolivia and decided to cut
a deal with Governor of Wyoming, who promises them amnesty, which like the castaways getting off the island
they never seem to earn (God knows after almost getting themselves killed like the 27th time you’d think they
deserved it.). For all I know the Governor of Wyoming was just fucking with them or something. Where the hell
is all the money they stole? They are always broke. I can never figure out if they had to give it back or spent it
like they were Elton John and Redd Foxx out on the town for too long.
Essentially to earn their pardons they have to go straight. In the meantime they are forced to shed their killer cool
rock star names for the dork names, and do their best not to get turned in or killed for the $10,000 that’s still on
their heads. Every once in a while the Governor gives them some sort of suicide assignment just to make things
interesting. By the end of every show, there are usually at least three different parties that are chasing them
ragged and onto the next town.
It’s sort of like if Elvis, instead of faking his death, just slipped out of Graceland one day and pretended to be
John Burrows from town to town until someone finally put two and two together, at which point he’d move to
the next town and do it all over again. Once they figured out who he was he’d sing a song or two and race out of
the city limits. Hey, that actually sounds like a decent show to me. He’d even still be touring. Luckily for Heyes
and Curry, they never posed for any of the 8 million photographs that Elvis did. Promotion wasn’t nearly as
important to the gig back then.
The great thing is that Hayes and Curry, who somehow are the most honest and trustworthy guys in the whole
West, still sort of get to be hustlers, thieves and con-men. They just don’t get anything out of it other than
another week out of jail. Instead of pulling the big score for loot they do it week after week for their lives. Butch
and Sundance ran for like a third of the movie. These guys did it for 34 episodes in the first season alone.
Sadly, Pete Duel got his pardon before the
second season when he took his own life. The
show continued with Roger Davis as Heyes, but
that’s really like replacing John Lennon with
Peter Tork, and I don’t really even mean that
much of a disservice to Davis. It’s just that had
Duel not been so fragile, he would have been
huge. The guy nearly dies in every single
episode, someone is black mailing him or
pointing a gun at him every thirty seconds of his
life and he never loses him immense likeability,
charm, or cool. Hayes and Curry put up with
like ten times as much diversity as Job in the
first ten episodes. Is there anything more
entertaining than two guys constantly in peril,
who refuse to let it stop them from having fun?
Hayes still gets to play poker, charm ladies, and
hustle the hustlers. Curry still gets to scare the
shit out of somebody with his gunmanship,
charm the ladies, and basically be Heyes’ wife.
I’m guessing they would have been let down if
they ever really got pardoned.
Here’s how my grandfather would describe it.
You get a little bit of story, a great theme song, some pretty women, you get to see a bunch of nice scenery and
wild animals and then at the end they have some gunfights, horse chases, and a closing joke. What could be
better?
Chapter 28: I Can’t Help it I dig Frank Capra
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town
Jean Arthur was Frank Capra's secret weapon. Gary Cooper
and Jimmy Stewart had all the bravado moves, but Arthur
was the key to convincing the audience that these
wholesome, ordinary men of truth and soul were not only
not worth mocking by the cruelly cynical and cold modern
world, they were the key to shedding off the facade of
sophistication and rediscovering the soul of what is right
and true. Which, if you're not paying attention, can sound
hokey and embarrassingly sentimental, but if the
sophisticated and cool Arthur can not only be won over by
these honest rubes, but made to fall desperately in love with
them, there must be something there worth another look.
Arthur as Babe Bennet makes her first appearance here as
not only one of the boys, but as the hippest and most streetwise of the bunch. Her chirpy voice and killer looks
aside, you can immediately tell she is the sharpest and least dupable reporter in town. Like a modern female
cowboy, she plays games with a rope as her Publisher desperately offers her a months vacation for the lowdown
on the newest rich man in town, Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper).
Deeds' playboy uncle, who he'd never met, careens off an Italian freeway and leaves him his fortune of 20
million dollars and a bevy of sycophants and hanger-ons. Longfellow's reaction? "20 million dollars is a lot of
money isn't it ... I wonder why he left me all that money? I don't need it" as the greedy New York lawyers who
are a half million dollars away from being honest choke on their hats with disbelief. Deeds has never been out of
Mandrake Falls, Vermont and is not a little bit perturbed that he has to now. Deeds is a square simple egg who
writes sentimental greeting card poetry and plays the tuba to help himself concentrate. He's back country
unsophisticated, and has a hidden dream of rescuing a damsel in distress, but he's no fool and sizes up the New
York frauds in about a second flat.
When he gets to New York he demands to see the financial books, cuts off the opera for not pulling their weight,
locks his bodyguards into a closet, and punches out a group a discourteous and laughing literati. Bennet,
however, blind sides him by pretending to be an impoverished soul in trouble. Hearing the pleas of an
impoverished farmer, Deeds decides to give away his fortune to the needy. An act so selfless that his Uncle's
New York lawyers insist that he be evaluated for mental fitness. This is complicated by New York's fascination
with his chasing after fire engines, quick temper, and a drunken escapade that culminated in his feeding donuts
to a Policeman's horse. When Deeds finds out that the girl he has fallen in love with is the same reporter, who
has dubbed him Athe Cinderella man" and made him the laughing stock of the town, he withdraws into himself
and refuses to defend himself.
Deed's mental fitness hearing brings things to a poignant head as a desperately in love Bennet begs the gentle
giant for forgiveness, and is eventually rewarded with a legal performance by Cooper equal to even the best
Clarence Darrow, Johnnie Cochran, or Ben Matlock ever had to offer. It's tough enough to film a credible
morality play without being laughed out of town. It's altogether mind boggling to do so and provide a grade A
romantic comedy to boot.
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
"Dad used to say the only causes worth fighting for were the lost
causes."
Remember back in the old days when there were only about six
television channels and you'd marvel at your middle of the night
good fortune to find a great old movie on worth watching. I could
never turn my back on a good late night view of a Frank Capra classic. Without doubt, when the four o'clock
hour rolled around, I would wipe away my tears and pledge to myself that I would take Capra's call to heart and
become a better person. Of course, the next morning I would have to wake up for work, and my lack of sleep
would make me cranky as a junkyard dog. We can't always be Jefferson Smith, but at least we know where the
high bar is.
This movie is very similar to the earlier Capra effort Mr Deeds Goes to Town, but in that movie the viewer can
tell from the first frame that Deeds is the superior citizen. Mr Smith requires its hero to overcome his naivete,
grasp on tighter to his beliefs and battle the real world. When this movie was first screened for Congress back in
the day, many of the bigwigs walked out insulted, which is as good a review as this movie will ever need.
People tend to dismiss Capra's work as corny hokum, but if you take a good look at his films they are much too
smart for that. They recognize the cynical modern world for what it is, and use the system's own myths against
itself to tear down the status quo and propose a newer more honest future. There is often nothing more radical
than a defense of one's own discarded idealism. The script by Sidney Buchman is fast paced, clever, and
carefully worded. One wrong turn with this material and you can wind up with a mopey after school special
rather than a fine tuned crackling political expose that holds its own as a top flight heart stirring romantic
comedy.
When the Senator of an unnamed state, Sam Foley, dies, it is a terribly inconvenient time for machine boss
publisher Jim Taylor. He plans on making a fortune by building a dam on Willet Crick and needs a new boy who
will play ball so his corrupt deficiency bill can go through. Jefferson Smith (Jimmy Stewart), is the Aww shucks
true believer Boy Ranger leader they send as their unwitting stooge to the Capitol. There to see that he doesn't
cause trouble is the state's other Senator, Joseph Paine, a man who has already sold his ideals to the Taylor
machine. Smith is a pleasant rube. He stumbles and stutters in the presence of women, and he quotes
Washington and Lincoln from the heart. He is a fat mackerel being sent into a den of piranhas.
When he finds little sympathy from a jaded and mocking press, he starts punching them out one by one
demanding that they write the truth. They give it to him. "You're not a Senator. You're an honorary stooge. You
deserve to be shown up. Have a drink it will taste a lot better than the truth."
Undeterred Smith tries to do his job, but makes the mistake of proposing a boy's camp where Taylor's graft dam
is scheduled to be built. When Smith refuses to be bought, learns that his idol Paine is crooked, and won't play
ball, they set out to destroy him with forged papers and nasty insinuations.
On Smith's side is the wonderful Jean Arthur, who plays his seen it all assistant. She has been one of the boys for
so long she has been robbed of her first name, and is simply referred to as Saunders. Despite herself, she falls in
love with the simpleton and his outdated ideals and lofty ambitions. Together they wage a desperate last minute
filibuster to restore honor to the Senate.
Jimmy Stewart, nervous, frayed, and exhausted. provides what for my money is the bravura performance of the
twentieth century. I'll never say a bad word about Spencer Tracy, but his Oscar win over Stewart should have
been investigated by a Congressional committee. Harry Carey, not the drunk Cub's broadcaster, provides endless
charm as the sympathetic and amused President of the Senate.
It's a key moment in one's life when they have to affront the dangerous comfort of compromise. The truly strong
never do, or at least we pray that they don't. This film, coming as it did during Hitler's and Mussolini's fascist
rise is a tribute the very best intentions of honorable men. Its dramatic conclusion never fails to bring tear to my
eye, a lump in my throat. Every citizen should be made to watch in exchange for the right to vote.
It Happened One Night
Apparently, Clark Gable didn't want to make this movie, and was loaned out to Columbia as a punishment by
MGM for being too headstrong and demanding. If Burt Reynolds had been working in 1934 he probably would
have turned it down too. The picture became the first movie ever to win all five major Academy Awards, Best
Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Best Screenplay. This film has been remade so many times
that I wouldn't be surprised a bit if its basic premise, mismatched pair bicker their way across the country and
wind up falling in love, was first used by some ancient Greek playwright. When you think about it the film is
responsible for any number of romantic comedies and perhaps the entire genre of the buddy picture.
"It Happened One Night" is the story of headstrong poor little rich girl Ellie Andrews (Claudette Colbert), who
jumps off her banker magnate father's boat and hightails it to New York to be with what she thinks is her true
love, some guy named King Westley. She's the kind of girl who has been out in the real world so infrequently
she thinks she can keep a transit bus waiting twenty minutes and have it still be there when she gets back.
Newspaper reporter Peter Warne (Clark Gable), recently fired for a drunken rant at his boss, agrees to hide her
from her father's minions in exchange for an exclusive.
All the usual conventions of the romantic comedy are here the tensions of a near kiss, the gradual defrosting of
the heart, the rueful regret and unwillingness of each party to tell the other exactly how they are feeling, and the
panic and worry that just maybe they won't get together in the end. There's nothing sadder than a girl slated to
marry the wrong guy. Most of those conventions started here and they still work over sixty years later.
It's hard to decide exactly how to judge a picture that was made this early and remade so many times with the bar
perhaps raised a couple notches, and I have to admit that I never really made the kinetic connection to this film
that I did with later Capra classics that seemed more technically advanced and more pock filled with
idiosyncratic details. It's almost like looking at an early episode of Seinfeld, where you know that at the time it
first aired you thought it was brilliant and perhaps it was, but that later
episodes in the series better fulfilled and more compactly succeeded in
its premise.
For instance, how is one supposed to look at the racy at the time scene of
Colbert hailing a ride by showing some leg, in an era where Angelina
Jolie would be half naked, tatted up and ready for danger? Nevertheless,
Gable is about as cool as a guy could be in the middle of a depression
and the film still has a tender sense of innocence that makes it perfect to
watch with the right girl on a brick wall via an old fashioned projector. It
certainly wouldn't make the picture look much worse because most of
the prints that you are likely to see are a bit dark and murky. In addition,
a film like this is always good for conveying the mysteries of a lost age.
Were they really able to smoke cigars on a bus back then? Did people
use to sing to themselves that much? See how happy you are when Gable
only wants $39.60 for his efforts, not the $10,000 reward. Who can resist
a movie where the girl's father provides his daughter with a getaway car
from her own wedding? Looking at it now the film stands as a love letter
to a time that dreamers perceive to be much more honorable and gentle.
Bronco Billy
"Kids, you should never kill a man unless it's absolutely necessary."
Everyone should get to be the hero of their very own Frank Capra movie. This is Clint Eastwood's, and it's a fine
melting pot of You Can’t Take It with You, It Happened One Night, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, with a little bit of
Rawhide mixed in to fit it to Clint's persona that ends with a gloriously touching moment in a tent made up of
American Flags sewn by the criminally insane. It's also a nice wake up call for anybody who hasn't had the guts
or the good sense to live life out as their greatest fantasy.
After my greatest love broke my heart, I wound up on a rickety obscure airline called Mark Air with George
Clinton and his P-Funk All Stars. The P-Funk All Stars are this huge band of like twenty strange and wonderful
performers and ten roadies, who put on great shows around the country in relatively small halls. I was seated
next to this older guy named Grady, who was a backup singer with the band, and I asked him how in the world
they could have such a big crew, play such little halls, and make money at the same time. He was blunt. "We
don't make any money", he said. The show was apparently the thing. Bronco Billy's crew are a lot like that.
Clint is Bronco Billy McCoy, a former shoe salesman from New Jersey, who did time for shooting his cheating
wife in the leg when he caught her sleeping with his best friend. How that makes him eligible to carry two pistols
at all times is anyone's guess; ask Charleton Heston.
Much like in the Outlaw Josey Wales, Clint's character eventually winds up playing father to an unconventional
family of outcasts most of which he found in jail for some crime they couldn't really help but commit. The roper
is a Viet Nam deserter who Billy took in. As for Scatman Cruthers, who wouldn't take that guy in? Capra would
have killed to have had a Scatman Cruthers to toss into one of his movies. It would have added some color and a
few laughs to It's a Wonderful Life. The family may grouse from time to time, but they all worship Bronco Billy
as if he were Jim Jones or something even better. Together they go around the carnival circuit putting on a truly
mediocre to bad old West show.
Bronco Billy is an odd salute to those clean hearted good guy cowboys like Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, and
Clint manages to revel in the glory of that myth despite the fact that he is probably more responsible for making
that kind of Western unworkable in modern cinema than anyone else I can think of. Bronco Billy is the type of
guy that holds open doors for old ladies, plays free shows for all the Orphanages and sappily tells kids not to
play hooky on a Saturday. The only real romantically affected shot in the film shows Bronco Billy as a huge and
impressive silhouetted hero in the eyes of his young fans. Watching the crew perform to twenty or thirty
enthusiastic fans a night makes you wonder how in the world they even make enough money to pay for the
twelve or so plates Bronco Billy shoots during each show. Early on Bronco Billy foils a bank robbery, while
stopping to cash a $3 check. It's funny because I've been in loads of banks in my day and I've yet to see a
robbery yet it seems to inevitably happen to Clint somewhere in every one of movies. I've never seen The
Bridges of Madison County but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Clint found a way to shoot a couple of lowlifes in
that one too.
Bronco Billy and the show lack just one member. Someone "who can shoot like Annie Oakley, ride like Blaze
Starr, and who ain't afraid of nothing." Mostly he wants someone who will let him blindfold himself and toss a
knife between her legs, while she spins around on one of those big wheels like they have on The Price is Right.
Sondra Locke plays Antoinette Lily, the Claudette Colbert part as the hot headed bitchy heiress who gets
abandoned mid country by the man she married to cash in on her inheritance, which stipulates that she must
marry by the age of thirty. Again does this ever really happen? If you believe movies and television it seems like
no one ever leaves money to anyone without such a restriction. Although if I died rich, I suppose I'd feel good
after I died knowing that I was forcing my loved ones to do something wacky like shave their heads and become
Buddhist Monks.
It seems like Sondra Locke never had much success outside of Clint's movies. I wonder why no one else ever
really used her. She's ballsy and strong enough to stand up next to Clint's larger than life presence, and I almost
always like her. For some reason though it seems like every one of her characters has either been raped or almost
gets raped in the course of the movies. Clint is of that old school where the man tames his lover, which probably
doesn't do much to stop date rape, but always makes for some sterling repartee as Locke is first insulted by his
advances and eventually falls for the whole package hook, line and sinker. It's sad to see movies starring a real
life couple after hearing about the nastiness of their inevitable breakups. You'd almost hope they would stay
together just so they wouldn't diminish the magic of their movies.
Anyway, Bronco Billy, unaware of her
his misfit family. He pretty much decides
eventually after a lot of brow beating she
falls for the whole warped fantasy.
millions treats her like yet another member of
that she is going to be his assistant, and
decides she likes being called Miss Lily and
"Are you for real?" she asks.
"I'm who I wanna be." he says never
any other way.
acknowledging that anyone should ever live
Like any good Capra movie the group falls on some hard times. Clint has to embarrass himself to a local Sheriff
to get the deserter out of jail, and later on Bronco Billy and his crew fail spectacularly in a desperately foolish
and hilariously fruitless attempt to rob a freight train with a horse, a few guns, and an archery bow. Chances are
nobody on the train even noticed.
In the end Clint will put up with anything except someone who tries to throw a monkey wrench into his little
fantasy life. I'm not crazy about guys trolling through the country with a bunch of guns and little more than a
shred of a sense of reality, but Bronco Billy is OK with me and God bless Scatman Cruthers wherever he may
be.
Chapter 29: Where Have You Gone Lou Bega Jr.?
Itchykoo Park – The Small Faces
30 Days in the Hole – Humble Pie
With apologies to Robert Plant, because like a friend once told me, he can sing anything. This is how a man is
supposed to sound. When the backup vocals ask Steve Marriot what’s gonna happen at the park and he says
“We’ll get high!” you know it’s the truth. Pretty similar to what Eddie Murphy said about Michael Jackson
bringing Brook Shields to the Grammy Awards.
If I took Brooke Shields to the Grammys y'all would lose your mind.
Because y'all know Brooke would get fucked that night.
Mambo No. 5 – Lou Bega
Bought the CD, it was horrible. Felt a little ripped off, but I guess it doesn’t really matter now that I haven’t
bought a CD in three years. Nevertheless, I don’t care how many times they bastardize this song in television
ads; I don’t care how much of a strike against my manhood the following represents. This song is cool.
Blank Generation – Richard Hell and The Voidoids
Girlfriend – Matthew Sweet
Richard Hell’s long term impact probably has more to do with his look than his music, but “I was saying let me
out of here before I was even born it’s such a gamble when you get a face” is as good an opening line as there is.
Doesn’t Brian Setzer owe him some money for the chord progression to Stray Cat Strut? He’ll probably get paid
when the Cobain Estate reimburses Tom Schulz for the riff from More Than a Feeling.
Robert Quine played lead guitar on both of these songs. Generation has my favorite solo ever because it sounds
like I played it. Sadly, I always sound like that, while Quine had some versatility and chops despite playing in
the early New York punk era.
Girlfriend is as good as any song released in the past 20 years. Maybe it would have been a huge hit if Sweet
looked like Justin Timberlake instead of Brian Jones after eating a bunch of Twinkees.
Speed Racer Theme – Matthew Sweet
Spiderman – The Ramones
Shaft – Bart and Lisa Simpson
Beavis and Butthead Theme - Mike Judge
In the Ghetto – Elvis Presley and Eric Cartmen
Apparently, I really like cartoons with really shitty animation budgets.
“Trixie, calling the Mach 5, Come in Speed!”
Speed Racer probably used about a 90% of its animation over and over again and that’s disregarding the fact that
half the times the figures didn’t even move, but c’mon when you have the Mach V around you can skimp on the
balance. Was there ever a cooler dude than Racer X? Have I ever felt more satisfied than when I watch it with
my niece and she says “That’s Speed’s brother,” when the masked Rex comes on the screen. I’m a good Uncle
though and do my best to always warn her never to hide in the trunk of a car like Sprydle and Chim Chim did in,
well, ever single episode. And yes I admit it; I’d marry Trixie in a second. After all, that’s probably where my
love of that Tom boy look came from in the first place.
One of the things I really dig about “Speed Racer”, aside from that cool tracking shot of Speed and the Mach 5
in the credits that the movies would go crazy over 25 or so years later, is that apparently no one ever registers for
the races. You can show up at the last minute in a canoe with wheels and the announcer will nonchalantly say,
“Driving the number 4 Red Canoe, Slick Oiler!”
“Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood Spiderman”
I admit that I am a huge geek, but Spiderman means a lot to me. The TV show was probably as absent mindedly
put together and re-used as many shots as Speed did, but they sure did have the voice of J. Jonah Jameson casted
perfectly. Parker!!! When I first got to college, I was delighted to find out that the school’s library had copies of
every issue of the Spiderman comic ever put out. So while everyone was drinking coffee and meeting women, I
was sneaking off to hold Spider-man Number 1. I’d read a couple every day in between classes and got as far as
about #200. For my money, the first #100 or so are as artful as any novel written in the 20th Century. Ok,
everyone is saying, “My, what a dork you are!”, but the cool thing was that Spiderman was too. Spider-man is an
epic tribute to every brainy geek romantic that ever breathed.
Poor Spiderman, despite eventually being a pretty amazingly good guy, always got the short end of the stick.
This skinny, brainy nerd who is constantly picked on gets these awesome powers, and his life still winds up sort
of sucking just because he had one 15 second lapse in judgment. After he accidentally gets his uncle killed, this
guy is doing penance forever. He’s constantly broke; his chick’s are always mad at him; despite his best efforts
at being a sort of crime fighting Jesus, everyone thinks he’s a public menace; and his Aunt is on the verge of
death every forty seconds or so!
Here’s one thing I always admired about Peter Parker. This huge jock named Flash Thompson was always
picking on him physically and making fun of him. Now if a radioactive spider bites me, Flash Thompson is on
his ass missing teeth like thirty seconds later, but Peter always restrains himself. In a great twist, Flash was also
Spiderman’s biggest supporter. Everyone in town could be saying that Spidey was Adolf Hitler’s son, including
his ever dying Aunt May, and Flash would be the only guy in town saying any different. I used to always wish
that Flash would find out who Spiderman was someday. Can you imagine how freaked out you would be to
suddenly find out that the scrawny guy you constantly picked on in High School and College could have torn
your head off in thirty seconds any time he felt like it?
The film was well done, but here is what really disappointed me: they eventually had Peter Parker marry Mary
Jane, and she is the love interest in the movie, but his real true love in the comic was named Gwen Stacy. Gwen
was a blonde, and she was killed by the Green Goblin. I’m guessing there wasn’t much support for an ending
that would have been grimmer than the one in “Empire Strikes Back”, but I was always a huge Gwen fan and her
death was really the logical demarcation spot of the comic’s run. The point, though, was always that Mary Jane
was in love with Spiderman while Gwen was in love with Peter Parker.
Why Spiderman is cooler than Superman and Batman
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
He is a geek – for real; Clark Kent just pretended
He is always broke
He is always misunderstood
He always has personal problems
He regularly does really cool acrobatic stunts
He always talks really cool smack while fighting a criminal!!!
Stan Lee always talks about how he always wanted to write a great novel when he was young, but to me, coming
up with as many cool super hero sagas as he did was just as impressive. Plus to my knowledge he has never had
a thing for underage girls.
“Doh!”
I don’t know that I have much to add to the universal acclaim of the Simpsons other than to point out that the
show in its prime packed more funny self-referential pop culture gags to the second than anyone ever thought
possible. I sort of stopped watching after one of the most heart breaking moments of my life. Post-breakup my
ex was laying on top of me seeming regretful over the hell she had left me behind with. Pushing my luck I
begged her to say something nice about me and her response was “You really know a lot about the Simpsons.” I
suppose that’s as good an indication of anything that it’s over. Can I crawl back under my rock now?
“Come to Butthead!”
I remember how controversial the whole Bart Simpson "Proud to be an underachiever" thing was, and then all of
sudden there was "Beavis and Butt-head" and no one ever mentioned it again. Bart Simpson was sort of
mischievously wily, happily under read, and benign. The B-twins were willfully and gleefully stupid, barely
literate, and dangerous to themselves and others. Perhaps that's why the Simpsons eventually de-emphasized
Bart in favor of the even less aware Homer. Beavis and Butthead made Bart look like Pat Boone to their Elvis.
They also potentially saved my life. I had been viciously tossed aside by who I was convinced to be my true
love. I was miserable all of the time. Luckily for me at the time, "Beavis and Butt-head" were on MTV even
more often than Sports Center was on ESPN. That show and maybe even just the inane sound of their constant
laughing became one of the three things guaranteed to raise my spirits along with the sounds of John Lennon's
voice and all-girl rock bands. "Beavis and Butt-head" were a needed substitute for my usual diet of angry,
damaged, and sullen misery. I considered myself to be in exile for as long as we were no longer together. I even
retreated to my Grandparents' for a while, and there was a time when my Grandmother would watch the show
with me every night. God knows what she thought she was watching. She called them Beavis and Buckhead, but
she did notice that it was the only time I ever smiled.
I had a friend once who really didn't care much what he was doing as long as there was beer involved. Beavis
and Butt-head would have worshiped that guy. All they need are nachos, a television set, and a couch. Somehow
they find everything they come into contact with endlessly amusing and hilarious. The boys' impulses are always
wrong, they say all the wrong things to women, and love to hurl out semi-obscenities especially Beavis. Hear the
pure orgasmic joy he shows every time he hears or says the word bunghole. The animation was beyond crude but
so were all those old Charlie Brown specials we all dug. It was hard at the time to conceive of anything cruder in
terms of both attitude or animation, but pretty soon "South Park" tapes were being passed around by George
Clooney and the boys struggled to hold on.
Parents went ape shit over the moron twins eventually forcing Beavis to stop smoking and constantly yelling the
word fire. Of course, none of them watched the show enough to know that their creator was doing a better job
articulating the decay of modern society then they were. No parents, nothing but MTV, this is what you get.
Then again, who knew being stupid could be so much fun. Kids around the world looked at the horrors of being
brain dead, and felt envious. Hell, who can blame them, being smart sucks. My cat is happier than me and all he
does is eat and sleep. If he watched television and broke things, he could hang with B&B.
Let’s take a moment to ponder the history of brain dead duos as we ponder how despite the fact that Butthead
had the IQ of a house plant he was Albert Einstein next to Beavis.
Laurel and Hardy
Abbott and Costello
Amos and Andy
Bob and Doug McKenzie
Bill and Ted
Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in Dumb and Dumber
Wayne and Garth
Did we leave anyone out? It doesn’t matter Beavis and Butthead were funnier then all of them put together. You
can purchase the cartoons now, but it isn’t the same without the impossible to clear music videos. Minus the
videos you forget that they spent all of their time watching MTV and that they were basically the top music
critics of their time. Where would Gwar be without them? Could they have had better role models than AC/DC
and Metallica? Shouldn’t Winger have sued the moment they showed up on Stuart’s T-Shirt. Who wants to see
Henry Rollins’ Liar video minus Beavis cheering him on? Could anyone sink pretentiousness quicker than a
“this is like some of that college crap” from Butthead. Were they ever less that completely irritated by videos
with words?
The classic of their catalog to me is the episode where they aren’t allowed to laugh during school and nearly
explode sitting through sex education, although Butthead on nitrous was pretty damn funny. It’s a wonder Judge
provided so many great scenarios for them, when really we all would have just sat there and listened to them
laugh for hours on end.
Poor St. Peter having to review every disgusting facet of Beavis’ life up in heaven. The poor guys never did
score, but they came close once on a television show about teens. Sadly, before Beavis could get it on he got
hooked into talking about how much he liked to break “stuff” by the host of show. There was a great scene in
their movie where dying Butthead sees his life flash before his eyes. Upon seeing that he’s basically done
nothing but watch TV sitting next to Beavis on the couch, he utters something to the effect of “Wow, my life
was pretty cool.” Stupidity was never so incisive.
“Hell yes, I want some Cheesy Puffs!”
God bless, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, in an age where people are lining up to hand over their civil liberties
they sometimes seem like the only ones around with the will power to stir things up. Don’t forget that the South
Park movie came out right after the Columbine tragedy, which of course happened in their home town. Who
knows, the genius of Cartman with a V-Chip implanted in him, might have been the only thing stopping it from
happening for real. Minus satire, I’d really mourn for the world. Stupidity is Stupidity. Insanity is Insanity. Stop
looking for people to blame, teach your kids that doing the right thing is a decent idea, and let them laugh at the
idiots on their TV sets in peace, and by idiots I mean the dudes on Fox news, the Bush family and Ann Coulter.
If I have kids and I’m forced to have them see either an hour of Beavis and Butthead, while smoking crack, or a
ten minute segment on current events by Ann …
Speedo – The Cadillacs
Back off Mr. Earl is in the room and he’s giving The Coasters a run for his money.
The Twist – Hank Ballard
Twist King Chubby Checker says that if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame doesn’t put a statue of him up that he’s
not going to let them induct him. Yo, Chubs, what in the world are you smoking? You had one hit song. You
didn’t even write it, Hank Ballard did. Be happy that Jackie Kennedy dug it, they released it twelve times, and
moron king Dick Clark thinks you matter. There isn’t a statue of Elvis. There isn’t a statue of Chuck Berry. Last
time I checked, you were eligible to be elected like ten years ago. C’mon, get some perspective. You go in way,
way after Peter Tork of the Monkees. The only one allowed to bitch constantly about how much he gets honored
is Little Richard.
Fats Domino --- Chubby Checker … heh heh heh who comes up with this brilliant Shit?
Ain’t That a Shame – Fats Domino
I used to go to this barber across the street from Cantor’s in LA. Not the sharpest tool in the shed. One day I’m
waiting to pay him 10 bucks so he can spend thirty seconds to shave my head cause I’m too lazy to do it myself
when I hear him utter the dumbest question I’ve ever heard in my life. He’s cutting this guys head, who is
talking about New Orleans and booking some shows for Fats Domino, when the barber inquires whether Fats is
still overweight.
What? He’s Fats Domino. Jesus, you idiot, of course he’s still overweight. My guess is you’ll never see Fats
Domino on Celebrity Fit Club, he’ll be too busy brewing up some gumbo.
All of Your Toys – The Monkees
I’ve always thought that it was lame when the Grammy Awards took away the ‘Best New Group’ award from
Milli Vanilli. I mean, the Grammys are for the music, right? Someone sang those songs; why not give them the
Grammy? Once you’re lame enough to give an award to such crap in the first place, you’re forever culturally
dead as far as I’m concerned. Oh no, I hope the Starland Vocal Band wasn’t lip syncing.
Speaking of people who didn’t play their own instruments, how about The Monkees? The Monkees deserve to
be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but they aren’t because people think of them as prefabricated. The truth is
that their fakeness was pretty up front, compared to some other groups. I don’t think half of the Beach Boys
played on a majority of their albums. Really, what’s the difference between The Monkees and The Temptations?
They are both vocal groups who had a bunch of hits that were chosen for them by producers who molded them
to be popular. If they can put Eric Clapton into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twelve times, they can at least let
the Monkees come to a dinner or two.
I once had a college Professor who looked exactly like George Will, and liked to describe exciting Economic
issues as “sexy”. I think everyone in that class hated my guts because I was the only one in there who seemed to
have a clue about what was going on. George Will would toss out a question every five minutes or so, and I
would look around the room for a while, looking for someone else to answer. Eventually I would raise my hand
and answer the question. George Will couldn’t tell you the name of a single other person, but after about the
third day of class he called me by my first name for the rest of the quarter. Sometimes I would just ignore the
questions, but nine times out of ten he would look over at me and say, “Brad, surely you have some thoughts on
this issue?”
About two thirds of the way through the class, George Will split us into groups and assigned us all presentation
topics. On the day of the presentations, he didn’t seem to be satisfied with anything anybody had to say. On this
particular day I was wearing a Monkees T-shirt (maybe I was dressing down so people wouldn’t think I was
such a suck up). When my group finished our presentation, George Will told us that we had done a magnificent
job and then went on a fifteen minute spiel about how when he was a kid the only thing he had ever really
wanted was a Monkees T-shirt. Even my friends in the class wanted to kick my ass.
Into the Groove – Madonna
Here’s an interesting paradox for you. I’m almost positive that I’ve never heard a single Madonna song that
didn’t also have a video. She could have wonderful album tracks for all I know, I’ve yet to hear one of them
including the one she did with Prince.
Open Your Eyes – The Nazz
Hello, It’s Me – Todd Rundgren
I hate to be mean, but wow Todd Rundgren is not a handsome man. He could be an uber-genius though. I’m not
quite sure though because much like Prince in the 90’s the guy started releasing phone books worth of diverse
material faster than rabbits reproduce. I do my best, but I just can’t keep up.
I Got You – Split Enz
Am I the only one who spent years trying to find the album that contained the song I Get Frightened on it only to
find out eventually that its real title had nothing to do with its hook?
Bathwater – No Doubt
Simple Kind of Life – No Doubt
It took a while and maybe I’ll get over it as she gets over exposed, but I have a real crush on Gwen Stefani. The
first time I saw her was in the band’s Cobwebs video, and I was totally creeped out. She was like this anorexic
contorted ghoul. Nevertheless, I gave her mad props for his love of Madness, which was probably most of the
reason they reunited and I got to see them play live. Right after my break-up, I wound up watching the Don’t
Speak video oh, let’s just say about 1500 times more than would be healthy. I didn’t really like the song much
especially the intro that they nicked from Aerosmith, but the hush hush baby cry at the end tore me apart. Yeah
she used to say that.
Typically, my favorite No Doubt songs come from the album that everyone else was disappointed with. You see
I love the crazy in love with love Gwen. The one who despite it all wants to lie in bed all day with her man,
when she could be out opening some new club. Maybe, I’m fooling myself as she did go off and marry a rock
star, but then again you could hardly call Gavin Rossdale a rock star these days.
Three Little Birds – Bob Marley
Lovely Day – Bill Withers
I saw Chris Martin of Coldplay do a short set in between Aimee Mann and Beth Orton in Los Angeles. He came
out and said that his voice was shot, but that someone he had met at the hotel was going to help him out. It
turned out to be Mos Def. The guy can act, he raps, oh and he can fucking sing too? Me and God need to have a
discussion on his method of skill distribution.
Town Called Malice – The Jam
House of Fun – Madness
Back in the day, when MTV actually played videos, I found myself stuck on that channel for hours upon hours.
Why? Because every 30 days or so they’d play something brilliant. I can’t tell you how much crap I sat through
trying to get a glimpse at these two videos. Someone at that channel owes me about three days of my life back
just from all the times I’ve seen Cory Hart’s Sunglasses at Night.
I remember going to Geauga Lake, an amusement park in Ohio, once in High School. Someone brilliant came up
with the idea of showing videos to the poor saps that spent hours upon hours waiting in line for the roller
coasters. Unfortunately, their budget apparently covered only three different songs and yes Cory’s was one of
them.
Someday, I hope to find out (from others) that the first thing you hear upon entering the gates of hell is “I wear
my ….”
At least Bryan Adams had some hot chicks in his videos.
Sledgehammer – Peter Gabriel
Every great artist needs to write a song filled with penis metaphors every once in a while.
I Won’t Stand in Your Way – The Stray Cats
Town without Pity – The Brian Setzer Orchestra
My guess is that Brian’s most heartfelt achievement, given his worship for Eddie Cochran, is having his own
signature Gretsch model guitar, but while his guitar acrobatics can’t be denied, it sadly overshadows the fact that
the guy is a fantastic singer. His orchestra shows were great fun, and it’s a wonder given the economics of
keeping a band out on the road that they ever happened.
Too Hip, Gotta Go – The Stray Cats
You’ve got to feel sorry for the guys in the rhythm section, when the big man wants to go off on his own.
Phantom, Rocker, and Slick played the bar in my campus’ student center one night. Apparently, Earl Slick
wasn’t too happy when it turned out that he had more guitars on the stage than paying customers. The show
didn’t go on.
Chapter 30: Meathead or Mel Brooks?
Spinal Tap
It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever.
They're loud, they're misogynist, they're wasted, they're extremely stupid, and they have armadillos in their
trousers. "This is Spinal Tap" was essentially the first and still the best episode of Behind the Music ever - the
good times, the mismanagement, the drug problems, the bankruptcy, and the comeback. They make Motley Crue
seem like a well-oiled machine.
Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer pulled the coolest life stunt ever. Who wouldn't rather
be a rock star? Who doesn't consider themselves the coolest man or woman without a rock catalog in the world?
Who else gets to act and dress and speak exactly how they feel all the time? They created these cleverly likable
goofy personas for themselves, wrote and played an entire musical history and defied everyone not to believe it
was true. Someone could say these guys have been playing this heavy metal superstar parody way too long, but
it isn't merely them trying to milk it. It's the fact that they get to be these stupid king of the world characters
whenever they want to. What were the Beatles if not the coolest club in the world?
It's a wonder how much the truth and legend have blurred. After all their music is as skillful, rocking and
sexually silly as anything the Rolling Stones have put out since the movie debuted in 1984, their characters are
as entertaining to hang around as David Lee Roth ever was, and in the process they decimated and ridiculed 25
years of hyper serious rockumentaries like "The Song Remains The Same," that Pink Floyd movie where the guy
keeps asking for Apple Pie without the crust, any number of Rolling Stones dramas, and U2's "Rattle and Hum"
four years before it even came out.
"This Is Spinal Tap" is a weird little love triangle over Lead Singer David St. Hubbins (Michæl McKean,
previously pretty damn cool as 50s singing guitarist Lenny Kosnowski) between his girlfriend and hard rocking
Jeff Beck look alike Lead Guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest). It's a little like if Paul McCartney
contested his divorce from John Lennon. When Nigel finds out that the Yoko-esque Jeanine is joining the tour he
looks like he is about to start crying. The rest of the movie approximates a tour film about their comeback album
Smell the Glove. Unfortunately it was filmed right at the cut off point from when they were absolutely the
coolest to them at their most immediately passé, and yet not nearly as pathetic as Kansas, Rush, or Styx got.
Need we say Ozzy Osbourne?
It's all here. The terrible heavy metal band that hung on a little too long. The bad record reviews. The open
mouth sores. The visits to Graceland. The unctuous press dinners. The empty record store openings. The all
black album cover that was so cool Metallica paid homage to it. The guitar that can't be played. The bass trio of
Big Bottom. The amps that go to 11. The fabulous Little Sandwich Tirade. The canceled gigs. The cricket
mallet. The Psychedelic period. The embryo that wouldn't open. The Cleveland concert they couldn't play
because they got lost in the stadium. The coolest 20 seconds of Ed Begley Jr.'s career. Stonehenge! The fights.
The millions of drummers. Derek's perfect description of himself as "luke warm water". The air traffic radio
signals. Jazz Odyssey. Puppet show and Spinal Tap. The smashed guitars. Their defiant anger at having to play
an air force base. The first guitar solo I could ever play. The break up. The hugely successful Japanese tour. All
supposedly ad-libbed from life.
A towering achievement in cinema, music, and life art; funnier and more prescient every time I see it. Any time
they tour I will be there.
Marty DiBergi: "This tasteless cover is a good indication of the lack of musical invention within. The musical
growth of this band cannot even be charted. They are treading water in a sea of retarded sexuality and bad
poetry."
Nigel Tufnel: That's just nitpicking, isn't it?
Gimme Some Money – Spinal Tap
Shouldn’t this entry be credited to the Thamesmen? I was at the House of Blues in Chicago to see the re-united
Raspberries, when I made a Spinal Tap reference (Jazz Odyssey?) to these two guys I had been talking to. They
told me that they had been talking about how there were cool educated Spinal Tap references, but that mine
wasn’t one of them. I wanted to know, which ones were the cool ones, but they didn’t see me as cool enough to
be told. Low brow snobs – what a concept! That’s OK, I am one too.
The Princess Bride
Inigo: Who are you?
Man in black: No one of consequence.
Inigo: I must know.
Man in black: Get used to disappointment.
Spinal Tap plays dungeons and dragons. When Christopher Guest and Rob Reiner worked together on "This Is
Spinal Tap" most of the dialogue was said to have been improvised. "The Princess Bride," although similarly
farcical, boasts a caring, touching and beautifully hip script by "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid" author
William Goldman. "The Princess Bride" still stands as an effective comedy, an interesting bedtime tale, and one
of the greatest date rentals of all time.
The humor isn't so much Austin Powers over-the-top or even Monty Python silly as much as it is street-wise
with a modern consciousness. The characters aren't so much relics of the past as much as they are contemporary
stowaways in a touching but goofy old fashioned fairy tale. In a weird way the defining role for this movie
belongs to Andre the Giant, rather than the gorgeous fated lovers who effectively espouse eternal true love. The
big guy is just too overwhelmingly friendly. To not to give in to his charming goodness seems almost
impossible. This is easily the greatest film role for a giant of all time, although to tell the truth the only others I
can think of off the top of my head are basketball players Kareem Abdul Jabbar in "Airplane" and Gheorghe
Muresan in "My Giant," and the quality of those roles were pretty similar to both's athletic careers.
"The Princess Bride" is the acting-out of a fairy tale read to a sick boy (Fred Savage) by his Grandfather (Peter
Falk). Essentially it tells the tale of two separated lovers kept apart first by circumstance and second by an evil
Prince (Chris Sarandon) and his right hand torture expert ally Count Rugen (Christopher Guest), but despite its
strong love story it is really an excuse to have fun with weird character roles and heroic situations.
I was pretty convinced at one time that Cary Elwes was in perfect position to become the next Errol Flynn. He's
almost as suave daring and impressive as Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones. His Westley out-duels a fencing expert,
takes down a giant, out-wits a genius, and returns from being "mostly dead" all in the utmost dashing fashion,
but essentially all it really got him was a bit of steady work and a chance to play Robin Hood in Mel Brook's
ninety-ninth rewrite of the legend of Sherwood Forest, "Robin Hood: Men in Tights". Brooks' parodies of old
movie genres are way way over the top. Here everyone pretty much sticks to the reality of their roles, it's just
that they all have such cool dialogue flowing from their mouths that they can afford to wink at you a couple of
times without throwing out something as silly as rapping fryers, coconut horses, or Busby Berkely chorus lines.
The narrative is never sacrificed for the show stopping gag.
Mandy Pantinkin's Inigo Montoya readily recognizes that he has wasted his entire life searching to avenge his
father's death. He admits hilariously that there seems to be little money in the revenge business, and his eventual
disposal of Christopher Guest is perhaps the most heartfelt, touching and gratifying murder ever filmed. Chances
are after watching it that you'll be happier than a hippie the day Richard Nixon resigned. It's almost enough to
make me forget his horrible singing and forgive having to see him and a bunch of other Hasidic naked guys
frolic in a wading pool in the Barbra Streisand epic that was "Yentl". Almost, but not quite. Long live the dread
pirate Roberts, whoever he is these days!
Chapter 31: What Do You Do When Your Lead Singer Dies or Won't
Talk to You?
Original Sin – INXS
I’m not sure why, but early on I always sort of rooted for INXS to have great success. Maybe I just liked Don’t
Change, but my best friend was maybe the only one who thought their poorly received sophomore album The
Swing was brilliant and who could dismiss a band outright that had members with great names like Gary Beers
and Kirk Pengilly. In the end, I was pretty sure that they were going to make it, if for no other reason than that
Michael Hutchence was clearly the closest thing on the planet to Jim Morrison at his most smoldering.
In the end, Hutchence became Jim Morrison by hanging him self and leaving his band wondering what it is you
do when you’re dynamic front man disappears from your life. These guys were talented musicians, but really
exactly how many people had INXS posters up in their dorm room, because of the beguiling beauty and cool of
the Ferris brothers?
Losing your front man is not a good thing to happen to a successful band even one like INXS that already looked
to be on the downside of their career. Unless, you are AC/DC and the true essence of your band is the Young
Brothers, I don’t recommend it as a career option.
Look at poor Andy Summers. One second he is in the biggest band in the world and the next he’s appearing on
Rock and Roll jeopardy, and his front man isn’t even dead (terminally boring perhaps, but not quite dead).
Summer’s other lost cohort Stuart Copeland was last seen touring with the Kings of the Lost Frontmen, Ray
Manzerek and Robbie Krieger of the doors. I always sort of laugh and shed a small tear for Ray Manzerek. He
seems like a passionate guy and he’ll point out that he was a big part of the X story, but really the only way he
remained something of a rock star the last 35 years was to trot himself out to local radio or television story, and
ramble on about the magical poetry of Jim Morrison, and how he indeed just might not be dead. Recently some
pig farmer has come out and said that he was Jim Morrison and that he left because he knew that Richard Nixon
and the CIA were out to get him. Some other guy apparently is convinced that he’s Jim’s son. Hell, if you run
into Val Kilmer on the right day, he’s probably convinced that he’s Jim too. We could dig up the old guy, but
why end the fun.
Comedian around the time Jim Morrison was rumored to close to eviction from Pére Lachaise, the cemetery
that made him once and for all a poet: How bad ass a rock star do you have to be to get kicked out of a party 30
years after your death?!!
Top two VH1 Behind the Music memories:
1. Styx is about to go on tour minus pretentious pansy lead singer Dennis De Young. Dennis phones the
boys up and says, “Guy’s I’ve finally got my head together. If you hold off for a week or two, I’ll join the
tour and you’ll easily make ten times the money.” Boys think about it and decide it’s not worth the
money.
2. Everyone in REO Speedwagon become health conscious vegetarians except guitarist Rich Richrath, who
decides instead to continue to soldier on as a drunk. One day in the studio it strikes Richrath that he’s in
a really shitty band. Everyone else had known for years, but it takes a while before drinkers have that
moment of lucidity.
The most romantic lost front man story was of course that of Ripper Owens the Judas Priest fan, who took over
for Rob Halford in Judas Priest. So romantic in fact that they made that movie Rock Star, where Mark Wahlberg
and Jennifer Aniston were every bit as credible portraying the dead end Midwestern rock youths that I grew up
as Michael J. Fox was in Light of Day. I have nothing bad to say about Joan Jett despite the absurd Scarlet Letter
subplot. Is it really that bad to use your son to steal a steak from the supermarket? Fox was looking at her like
she was Susan Smith or something.
Which is a really roundabout way of saying that I find the Mark Burnett show INXS: Rock Star sort of
fascinating. I can’t be the only person out there watching American Idol religiously, but despising the music they
laud and pump out could I? It’s not looking like a huge success right now, but amazingly Rock Star’s music is
pretty credible. If anything, the show’s holy deity seems to be none other than the “sacred” sounds of Kurt
Cobain. So much so that I immediately thought to myself, “Would a young Kurt Cobain be caught dead on a
television show like INXS: Rock Star?” I think it’s a pretty fascinating question, especially given Cobain’s
legendary duel desperate passion and self hatred about becoming a world famous “radio friendly shifting unit.”
My guess is that Kurt would have been the first in line and spent the rest of his life flagellating himself over
ruining his legacy and credibility by winning it, after all punk died when The Clash signed with CBS.
More importantly though, is it possible that the winner of one of these show’s could one day become a
significant artist. Before punk, I’d guess that the answer would be an unequivocal yes. Back in the day everyone
was looking to make it and there was no stigma to announcing that you wanted to be bigger than Elvis. Elvis
would have been in line for American Idol even if he had to hitchhike across the country to sing three bars of
Old Shep. If there was a televised Battle of the Bands, I’m pretty sure John Lennon would have been all over
Brian Epstein, if he hadn’t gotten the gig.
These days though we’re filled with social critic’s who demand purity from our rock gods. This is best
exemplified in Bill Hicks scathing indictment of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson as “demons set loose on the earth to
lower the standards for the perfect and holy children of God!” To Hicks Keith Moon and John Bonham expiring
before they were able to hawk snickers or diet Coke was a sacred act of artistic purity, as he fantasized about the
inanity of Debbie Gibson being sexually accosted by the real thing that was Jimi Hendrix. In other words, as
Hick’s would scream with the passion of a true believer “I want my rock stars dead!”
Selling out. You could fill stadiums full of snobs who would tell you they worshiped U2 and REM before they
hit it big and then lost all interest. People jumped all over U2’s alignment with Apple like jackals. “See we told
you they were nothing but career opportunists.” Personally, as long as the music doesn’t suffer, as long as you
don’t change what you believe or want to say just to sell a few more records, I really could care less. Sure, I’d
rather see U2 someplace smaller than the Grand Canyon, but as long as I never come home to see Bono hawking
Miller Lite during a commercial break from Fear Factor, I’ll continue to think of him as a well meaning artist.
Am I the only one who doesn’t prefer not to have to scour the earth to find the work of my favorites? Thank god
that Nevermind came out on Geffen instead of Sub-Pop because in all likelihood I never would have heard it,
and I adamantly don’t think the world came to an end when Elvis Presley left Sun Records.
I remain convinced that art is produced by people yearning to beat the inevitability of death. No one writes the
Great American novel to have it expire unseen on their hard drive and tossed into the trash after they die alone
and unrecognized. I’d guess that you’d have to admit this basic truth even if you’re one of the guys, who get
insane with rage when you hear Bob Dylan dismiss himself as merely a song and dance man.
At some point just about every artist I can think of had to at some point make the same decision that John
Lennon did when he acquiesced to Brian Epstien’s demand that he put on a suit and start bowing with the lads in
unison.
Oddly enough, after three years of Rick Astley and Whitney Houston wannabes American Idol wound up with
its first fairly credible Rock singer. Did that dude really just audition with Whipping Post? Simon Cowell
immediately laughed out loud at the notion that anyone could really be taken seriously in the Rock World after
emerging from his meal ticket.
My buddy, who loved The Swing used to work for this politician named Tom Campbell. One year Campbell, a
moderate, and my friend’s future ran for a California seat on the U.S. Senate in a Republican primary against
Sonny Bono and this other politician slightly to the right of G. Gordon Liddy. When I offered to him that the
notion of running against a sad clown like Sonny Bono, had to make him sleep better at night, my friend filled
me in on the awful truth. “You don’t understand. Sonny Bono’s has a 98% level of name recognition.” He was
right as Bono polled just well enough to siphon away the chances of Campbell’s candidacy. You might even
want to remember what former steroid abuser is currently running that same state. Even fourth place finishers on
Idol were adored rabidly by people on a mass level, and every single guy passing out demo tapes and begging
for club gigs had to have noticed. Chances are that any great artist to emerge from a television game show will
probably have to wait as long as Ricky Nelson to garner some credibility, but my guess is that one will
eventually emerge has to be seen as inevitable.
Just What I Needed – The Cars
Anyone ever notice that bassist Ben Orr sang all their best songs? Did he get to get down with Paulina
Porizkova? I always had the severe hots for Paulina. I’d put her in as many videos as it took. Oh well, since she’s
taken I’ll have to continue to dream of Katarina Witt, my other European fantasy.
Elliot Easton was a really tasteful guitarist. There’s just no way he should ever have been stuck playing with
Credence Clearwater Revisited.
Ever notice how many bands break up right after they release a monster album - Dire Straights, The Police, The
Cars, The Clash. OK, I’m rich beyond my wildest dreams; I guess that means I don’t have to spend 20 hours a
day with people I can’t stand anymore. The music suffers, but I can’t say that I really blame them.
Wow, I just heard the news that Elliot Easton is hooking up with Todd Rundgren and going out on tour as the
New Cars. I never make fun of rockers I like aging badly, I have enough fun making fun of rockers that I hated
aging badly. Todd cited a need for money, which makes me wonder if he needs money to put food on the table
or money to live the Todd Rundgren lifestyle whatever that means. It’s the same thing for me with Ray Davies.
I’m sure compared to most people he has a ton of money, but not the amount due to a guy with his
accomplishments and influence. Whereas it drives me crazy to see Who songs in a commercial, I almost think
it’s a sort of triumph for a song like Ray’s Picture Book off an album that was perhaps one of the biggest flops in
Rock history on television even if it has to be on a camera commercial. Who among us doesn’t wish the
Ramones had a little more cash in their day? As for Elliot, thank god he no longer is stuck playing with
Creedence Clearwater Revisited.
It also sort of raises the issue of the leader of a band’s responsibility to his band mates. Pete Townshend’s excuse
for bringing the Who out on tour was always that Entwistle and Daltrey needed the money. I think Brian Setzer
reforms the Stray Cats every once and awhile to help out the guys that stood by his side, while the world was
realizing their talent. You know Sting has to feel a little bad every time Andy Summers shows up somewhere
begging him to cash in, no matter how much he might hate the guy. Personally, if I were Rik Ocasek, I’d prefer
to stay home cuddling with Paulina Porizkova too.
The real problem is that Rock and Rock is a young man’s game. A friend of mine in high school said that Bob
Dylan was proof that everyone only has so many great ideas. This was in 1984, but it turns out that Bob Dylan,
maybe because he wasn’t really a straight ahead rocker, is maybe the only guy who has managed to age well
both stylistically and artistically. His friend Johnny Cash is the only other artist I can think of and again he was
never purely a rocker either. Jerry Lee Lewis has aged well in a psychopath then psychopath now sort of way.
It’s got to be harder to write your 100th song than it was you’re 6th or 7th. Imagine what it’s like to try and write
your 1000th. The most brilliant remark I’ve ever heard on this subject came from Noel Gallagher when he said
something to the effect of “If John Lennon were alive today he’d be writing shite like Biker like an Icon too.”
Indeed as far as rep goes Lennon’s death alongside of Buddy Holly’s were without equal in everlasting cool and
romance. How would you rather be remembered as James Dean or Marlon Brando? Hmm, always looked
beautiful or grew to be an increasingly nutty pile of goo? Tough choice. I’ve seen film of Elvis’ last couple
performances and it makes me want to cry and wish that his plane went down right after the 1969 Comeback
special. We should let the artists we admire live their lives just like us but they're bigger than that to us. It's not
fair, but it's the truth. Am I still allowed to enjoy Do You Want to Touch Me and Rock and Roll Part Two, now
that Gary Glitter is being evicted from every country on the planet for his tastes in underage children?
I saw a great bit on The Daily Show after a naked picture of Keith Richards sunbathing emerged on the Internet.
They put Jon Stewart’s head over Keith’s naked torso so Jon could make fun of how old Keith was, when he
suddenly looked at his chest and noticed how much better Keith’s body looked than his despite the fact that he
worked out three times a week. Or as Bill Hick’s said “The running guru Jim Fixx died while jogging yet Keith
Richards continues to walk the planet, I’m getting mixed messages." Don’t you wish that child star Michael
Jackson didn’t grow up to be Jacko? Do you have any doubt that there are paparazzi out there praying for the
day Madonna’s ass finally falls?. It's not exactly what Pete Townshend meant when he wrote hope I die before I
get old, but it's probably a big part of it. My hat's off to guys like Richard Pryor, Bill Hicks, and Warron
Zevonfor trying to their last day to get out all of their ideas before the fatal illnesses that they had contracted
took them out of the game. I 'm endlessly caught in the eddy of never wanting to die, yet aging badly. Imagine
how tough it must be for a pretty boy like Rod Stewart. I even feel sorry for Leif Garrett endlessly wearing a
bandana so no one will ever see that he has lost all of his hair. I nearly wanted to kill myself when my hair fell
out what must it be like for a guy like Leif who was never anything, but his hair in the first place.
I saw Dave Davies solo twice, and that could have been a huge sign of an impending car wreck, unless you love
Dave’s cockeyed Steve Marriot on helium voice as much as I do, but I thought that it was almost heroic how he
played wonderful songs like Young and Innocent Days off of Arthur and other great songs that Ray hadn’t done
in years. It was as if like us Dave was a bigger fan of Ray’s work and knew more about what made it great than
Ray himself.
So rock on Todd Rundgren and Elliot Easton. Do your best to sidestep the ravages of time. With no offense to
Todd, you were never that pretty to begin with I don’t see a young Elvis vs. fat Elvis issue in your future.
Moving in Stereo – The Cars
Good tune – not the same minus Phoebe Cates’ breasts.
Let’s Go – The Cars
Their best tune which, of course, means it was sung by Ben Orr. Who knows what the deal was, maybe it was
the synthesizers, but if you checked this band out in their prime, you’d be hard pressed to deny they were all
androids.
The Cars choose a band name
Cadillacs – taken
Eldorodos – taken
Fleetwoods – taken
Edsels – taken
GTOs - taken
Jags – taken
Fuck it let’s just call ourselves The Cars
Back of My Hand – The Jags
Elvis Costello sound alikes labeled misogynistic, when uptight rock critics decided that their lyric “I’ve got your
number written on the back of my hand” wasn’t a reference to when a girl would ink her digits to you in high
school, but to a guy who liked to smack his women around.
Sam Kinison: I’d never hit a woman, but I do know what turns Mr. Hand into Mr. Fist.
Please, Please Me – The Beatles
Those same critics will tell you he’s begging for a blow job here. They just can’t let any of us have innocent fun
can they.
The Tracks of my Tears – Smokey Robinson and The Miracles
Bob Dylan supposedly once called him America’s greatest living poet. Maybe that’s why no one ever came right
out and said that he sang and spoke more than a bit effeminately. Hey, don’t be messing with Smokey!
They started selling Smokey albums on television in the mid 80’s. The commercials were, if it’s possible, more
embarrassing than the Mr. Microphone ones. You know the ones where the dudes are driving around saying,
“Hey good looking, we’ll be back to pick you up later!” I didn’t get out much.
Video Killed the Radio Star – The Buggles
One night I was visiting a pal in Los Angeles. He kept promising me quality celebrity sightings claiming to have
seen Scott Baio at Mel’s once or something. That night we went to Jones for dinner. He points at two older
gentlemen and says, “See those two guys are celebrities.” I glanced over and quickly posited that in deed it was
original MTV VJ’s J.J. Jackson and Alan Hunter. The sad thing was that I was right. “Wouldn’t it be cool if in
30 seconds Mark Goodman walked in?” As God is my witness, 30 seconds later …
Sadly, Martha Quinn was nowhere to be found.
Do You Really Want To Hurt Me – Culture Club
You may think that the issue of Gay rights is out of control today, but you should have seen how weird it was
back when I went to high school in the early ‘80’s. We were so shielded that when Boy George came out of the
closet, we were surprised. Sure we thought he was a weirdo, but for some reason homosexual never crossed our
minds. I swear to you that according to my school homosexual and pedophile were synonyms. Oddly enough, we
knew George Michael was gay before he did.
Chapter 32: Ba ding a ding dong Blue Moon
Blue Moon – The Marcels
Wow, these guys were completely out of their minds. Roughly the equivalent of doing metal versions of Barry
Manilow hits in the 50’s.
Duke of Earl – Gene Chandler
“So, hey yeah, yeah, yeah”
I don’t care what Steve Allen thought. That’s fucking poetry.
I think he pretty much lived off this song for a ton of years, but who could blame him he was the Duke of Earl.
Is Dukedom a word?
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow – The Shirelles
Me, I’m a wonderful guy. Me and Rick Astley are gonna love you forever. I’m one of those guys who is in love
with love. The guys who get normally get laid in high school, the guy she’s singing this to? He’s going to be
talking trash about her in less than twenty minutes and sadly she seems to know it.
Sixteen Tons – Tennessee Ernie Ford
I just saw GE use this in a commercial. Is there no message the man won’t try to co-opt? It’s almost like the Klan
getting together to sing We Shall Overcome.
Mr. Blue Sky – ELO
The ultimate in ear candy; more than one listening could cause mass cavities.
I Come Off - Young MC
Mock me all you want, but back in the day I thought this was the bomb. I still do.
Mama Said Knock You Out – LL Cool J
You ever think a rapper will record an album under his own name? Hi, I’m Eldrick Woods and I’m here to rap
for you.
I’m never not amused by outlandish claims of power and cool, so how could I possibly resist the fantastically
absurd Cool J rhyme “I think I’m gonna bomb a town/Get Down!” Listen to the way he slays! It’s very nearly
enough for me to forgive him for Rollerball and Toys.
Jessie’s Girl – Rick Springfield
Bruce – Rick Springfield
Jessie’s Girl – great pop song or trash guilty pleasure? The fact that it always reminds me of John Stamos on Full
House doesn’t help, although Jessie’s wife on that show was pretty hot. Let’s say great pop song since Paul
Thomas Anderson rescued it so effectively in Boogie Nights. We’ll skip Night Ranger’s Sister Christian though.
A side note on Full House: This isn’t of much value other than I found it to be one of the funniest things I’ve
ever seen on television. Dave Coulier of Full House meets Jordan Knight of The New Kids on the Block on
VH1’s Surreal Life (What part of this sentence doesn’t make Bill Hicks happy that he’s passed on?).
Dave: Hi, Dave Coulier from Full House.
Jordan: Wow, those Olsen twins are hot. I’d love to hot tub with them.
Now admittedly Dave knew them both when they were babies, but did he really need to get so steamed? Wasn’t
this the guy getting blow jobs in movie theaters from a semi-legal Alanis Morissette?
Bruce is a funny song that Rick wrote about getting mistaken for Bruce Springsteen, although it begs the
question “What moron is mistaking Rick Springfield for Bruce Springsteen?” Additionally, “My name is Rick
I’m gonna stick it to ya!” is hardly making Johnny Rotten or Eminem quake in his boots.
Chapter 33: I Always Thought I Was Going to be Quentin Tarantino
Stuck in the Middle – Stealers Wheel
Poor guys. First everyone thinks that their biggest hit is a Dylan song and then after Reservoir Dogs not a person
on earth can think about it without picturing Michael Madsen slicing a cops’ ear off. You have to believe that
The Knack made a smart choice bypassing the sodomy scene in Pulp Fiction for Wynona Ryder and Reality
Bites.
Reservoir Dogs
"Reservoir Dogs" hit the film community like a small nuclear bomb. I can't remember a movie getting me so
excited about what you could do with a little bit of money, some fine actors, and lots of beautifully profane
rhythmic dialogue. Now that video clerk Quentin Tarantino is big shot director Quentin Tarantino, the film has
taken on even more mythic proportions. It's a little like Woodstock. Everybody wants to believe that they were
there and on board from moment one.
I saw this movie in an art house theater in San Francisco on a screen probably no bigger than Steven Speilberg's
largest TV set. Most of the movie takes place in a dingy abandoned warehouse that probably cost about thirty
cents a day to rent. There is almost no fancy camera work just the actors, the words and a lot of attitude. I
remember reading how entertained Tarantino was that some viewers couldn't stand the intensity of the film and
had to turn their eyes away. The truth is that for all the controversy there really isn't that much violence in
Reservoir Dogs. The reason people were so affected was because the film shows you the true impact of its
violence. I've probably seen millions of people iced in any number of PG rated movies. They fell to the ground
and we moved on. In the case of that big guy with the sword in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" everyone even
laughed. When Tim Roth gets shot here, he bleeds like a stuck pig and cries like a teenage girl whose leg is stuck
in a grisly bear trap.
The scene that got everyone so worked up was Michael Madsen cutting off that poor police officer's ear, but
what you may not remember is that the camera panned away from the dirty deed and you never really see it
happen. It's about a hundred times less graphic than that Nazi in Raider's who gets sliced to pieces in that
airplane propeller. The brilliance of the ear cutting scene is our interpretation of Madsen's character. Before he
cuts off the cop's ear both Harvey Keitel and Steve Buscemi tell us that he is a stone cold psycho, who has just
blown away any number of people including a twenty year old girl, but the guy is just too damn cool in an Elvis
sort of way for us to believe it. The guy has a cop in his trunk and he is calm enough to stop off at the Burger
King drive thru! We're so used to bad guys scaring the bejeezus out of their hostages just to get information out
of them that we're sure it's all just a menacing pose. Madsen tells us he couldn't care less about getting
information out of the cop, that he just likes to torture people for his own amusement, but when he starts dancing
around to Stealer's Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle" we are too much in love with Madsen's bad boy act to really
care. Then when he slices the guy's ear off, pours gasoline all over him and pulls out a lighter, we are left with
nobody to blame but ourselves. Oh my God, Michael Madsen is psychotic! The movie tried to tell us that at
every turn, but our knowledge of the ins and the outs of the Hollywood thriller wouldn't let us believe it.
Then as you sit there stunned, thinking about how horrible it would be to go through life deformed without an
ear, Tim Roth speaks up and reminds you that he is dying. The worked audience member can only sit there and
say oh my, he's right, I forgot that is worse. Instead of caving in and using violence like sugar, "Reservoir Dogs"
reminds us what it really entails.
Essentially Reservoir Dogs is just a bunch of guys in a room nattering back and forth at each other, but despite
it's megadose of profanity or maybe because of it, the film provides any number of great monologues and verbal
sparring for it's great cast. If you want to see an example of great acting paired with unbelievable dialogue, check
out Tim Roth's commode anecdote. He starts out reading it like the White boy geek he is and then eventually
transforms himself right before your eyes into a grade A believable low life. It's the best example of the
undercover cop as master thespian ever filmed. If you can't believe Roth, then Harvey Keitel's key fateful
mistake wouldn't for a moment be believable. Think how horrible this movie could have been had it been done
by hacks.
Of course all the other Tarantino stuff is here in his debut outing: the time hi-jinx, the pop culture debates, the
cool Beatle suits, and the lost gem pop songs that get transformed by their presence in his film. It is impossible
to ever hear "Stuck in the Middle", or "Little Green Bag" ever again without visualizing their presence in this
movie.. For better or for worse Reservoir Dogs is the most influential film made in the '90s, just don't blame me
when you get fooled into sitting through "2 Days in the Valley," "Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead,"
or any number of other weak kneed knock offs.
Pulp Fiction
Isn’t it funny how all these talented actors long to be inept directors, while Quentin Tarantino, would kill to be
an inept actor?
The 1995 Academy Awards were a great dividing line in pop culture. Either you were a "Pulp Fiction" man or a
"Forrest Gump" supporter. I have to admit that I still haven't ventured into Gump-land. I have this strict policy
about avoiding movies about Southerners and Retards and Gump strongly violated both planks of my standard.
Nevertheless, I find it hard to believe that even a Tom Hanks led movie about a hick idiot savant could dim my
enthusiasm for the movie going experience of the '90s. "Pulp Fiction" is the first masterwork of the post-modern
pop culture generation. If you're part of it you loved this movie. If you'd let the world pass you by you spent the
entire movie scratching your head like a past due Bob Dole. If you're with it, "Pulp Fiction" gets better with
every viewing, and like good rock n' roll, needs to be played loud!
Sam Jackson is a lot like the little actor that could. Spike Lee gave him some fleshy small roles, culminating in
his killer crack addicted Gator that overwhelmed what was supposed to be an inter-racial comedy in "Jungle
Fever." Outside of Lee's work he seemed to be willing to show up on just about any movie set that was willing to
have him. I'm still trying to figure out what his 30 second appearances in "True Romance" and "Johnny Suede"
were supposed to prove other than perhaps that he was around that day. Tarantino wrote the part of philosophical
hit man Jules specifically with the volcanic Jackson in mind and his overconfidence almost lost him the role to
Ving Rhames, who manages to get sodomized here by a hillbilly and still come out looking pretty damn cool. As
far as I'm concerned Jackson's intensely soul man preaching Jules should have won him some kind of lifetime
achievement award, as it turned out he somehow lost best supporting actor to Martin Landau's otherwise worthy
Bela Lugosi portrayal in Ed Wood. Who else could have gotten away with that Jeri curl Afro in 1994 much less
make an unforgettable impression as the archetype of thoughtful menace?
Of course, "Pulp Fiction" wound up paying for about five John Travolta jet-liners after Tarantino's need to play
the Welcome Back Kotter board game with the real Vinnie Barbarino brought the dancing Elvis man out of an
imposed hibernation of mediocrity. Travolta's Vincent Vega is of course a jabber mouthed heroin addicted hit
man. He is much more concerned with how bad he looks and the conversation he has in the meantime, than he is
with performing a successful takedown. In one of the movie's more hilarious mysteries every time Travolta goes
to the bathroom something goes awry including his out of sequence death at the hands of Pop Tart toasting boxer
Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis).
Tarantino and Avery's script is so perfectly written that I wouldn't trade all of "Armageddon" for Willis' offhand
comment to a Latino cabbie, who asks him if his name translates into anything pretty. "I'm an American honey,
our names don't mean shit." The dialog is so effective, like thrusting daggers and loud crackling gun shots that
the menace twins Harvey Keitel and Christopher Walken show up only briefly but stay with you forever
indelibly. If Jules' Ezekiel 25:17 isn't really in the bible, it should be after hearing Jackson recite it three times.
After seeing "Reservoir Dogs" in a tiny art theater I was rooting for this movie to be great from day one. The
script starts with three seedy detective type stories that could have come from the pages of some underrated slick
ten cent paperback from the '30s and '40s and drops an atom bomb of weird randomness into each one of them.
The Reservoir Dog Beatle suits are here, but due to odd and hilarious circumstances wind up covered in blood
and replaced adroitly in Travolta's case by a UC Santa Cruz Banana Slug T-shirt, imploding succinctly any
notion of long term bad ass threatening cool. In the end those who learn and grow survive, those who don't wind
up plastered all over the kitchen with their copy of "Modesty Blaise." Everyone else is encouraged to rent
"Forrest Gump" until they're forever sick of its neo-hippy post Big Chill soundtrack.
True Romance
God I wish I had written this movie. The ultimate goal of a writer is to pen something snappy and cast himself as
the hero, and Quentin Tarantino pulls it off in spades. So you're a bit of a flake. You have a huge Elvis
obsession. You love comic books, and you know how to use a plastic honey bear container as a water pipe. What
if I cast a fast talking cool actor like Christian Slater, as myself? Wouldn't it be excellent if instead of sitting
through three Sonny Chiba movies alone on my birthday a hot number like Patricia Arquette walked into the
theater, fell in my lap, immediately decided I was the coolest guy on the face of the Earth and the only man for
her?
That wouldn't be enough though. I would have to prove myself to her somehow. I would have to go on a quest. I
would have to stand up to her white Afro-American fixated psycho junkie pimp (Gary Oldman), and set her free.
I'd accidentally wind up with a couple of hundred thousand dollars in uncut coke, narrowly avoid the police, the
mob, and my own stupidity, and retire on a beach somewhere. I'd have passionate sex in a phone booth to the
sounds of Chantilly Lace. Every word I uttered would be poetry because I've been waiting all my life to grab
hold of the world and shake it. All the while Elvis (Val Kilmer) would appear like an apparition, root me on, and
assure me that my grace and style truly merit his attention. "I like you Clarence. Always have, always will!" That
would be something.
And it is. There are so many A level anti-hero stars in this movie that Sam Jackson appears for thirty seconds,
disappears and is never missed. Brad Pitt plays the most entertaining stoner since Sean Penn divorced Madonna
and decided he'd rather direct. Enjoy, as he invites a gang of mobsters in for a smoke. Christopher Walken and
Dennis Hopper face off in a beautifully written greatest psychotic actor of all time contest to the death, the sound
of their voices spurred along by the crackling burning tobacco they share. Even Bronson Pinchot makes up for
years of Balki as a pathetic hanger on personal assistant to Saul Rubinek's edgy white powder Hollywood parody
of a Francis Ford Coppola wannabe.
Tony Scott steers the movie like a rocket and it never slows down, in fact there are continuous segues to fast
moving trucks, trains, even a literal roller coaster ride. Arquette and Slater, as Alabama and Clarence Worley,
are in heavy company here and more than hold their own. Arquette survives an especially intense and violent
showdown with Soprano's star James Gandolfini, as a philosophically sadistic hit man, and Slater reminds you
once again how cool it is to sound and act like a young Jack Nicholson What's fun is that neither character has
any idea what they are doing, as they bravely keep talking, continually throw out grade A pop references, and
make things up as they go along. "Your son Fuck-head that he is, left his driver's license in a dead guys hand!"
The tense finale is another Tarantino Mexican standoff, "Reservoir Dogs" with more ammo, more shooters, and
a much happier ending. When Alabama passes Clarence a note that says "You're so cool!" seconds from the
shootout, he might as well have written it to himself. Tarantino and an uncredited Roger Avery fill this film with
so much sparkling dialogue it's a wonder they had anything left for Pulp Fiction. In essence the perfect fantasy
perfectly realized.
Chapter 34: Assembly Line Magic
My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me) – David Ruffin
I’ve heard that David Ruffin wasn’t a great guy especially when it came to how he treated Tammi Terrell. It’s
not right, but this song shows why we tend put up with horrible behavior from geniuses.
You may ask yourself though, do we really need another song about a guy who wants to blow his chops out
because his girl left him? Am I supposed to say that it gave me emotional catharsis when I was in a similar boat?
When after all am I not in that boat? Is it just an excuse to show intense passion. Is it such a good song that it
inspires stalkers around the world? Could the stalker be the last romantics in our cruel times? Either way don’t
play this on her answering machine, you’ll get 20 to life.
In My Lonely Room – The Supremes
See, this is where conventional wisdom and political correctness is a mess. I have no doubt in my mind that
Diana Ross is nothing less than the biggest bitch on the face of the planet. I have no doubt that Barry Gordy’s
reason for featuring her in the Supremes was all of the following:
1) She was the prettiest in a conventional white way
2) She sounded the whitest
3) He really wanted to get into her pants (when did that phrase come about – wasn’t it assumed that
women who word pants were lesbians before 1967 or so? Don’t get mad at me I love Katherine
Hepburn I’m just stating the truth.)
Anyway, granting all that, would you rather be hearing Flo or Mary singing on any of those sides? Anyone that
would is doing so on total conjecture and if they tell themselves differently they’re fooling themselves. I’m not
risking a bunch of great sides on speculation of what may have been. I like Mary Wilson, but she’s lucky that
Gordy didn’t just make Diana a solo act from day one.
Having said that, Diana’s just as insane to try and go out on tour as The Supremes without Mary. If Diana wants
to cash in on the name the least she could do is toss Mary some work.
How Sweet It Is – The Isley Brothers
Can I Get a Witness – Diana Ross and The Supremes
Part of an interesting opening of the Motown assembly line vaults, it’s no secret that they would have different
artists record the same song and then pick between them. Having both Marvin Gaye and Glady Knight hit with
the same song? Berry Gordy must have wet himself.
Anyway, it’s impossible to compete with Marvin Gaye. The best you can do is try to be credible by comparison.
The Isley Brother pull it off. Diana doesn’t come close.
I Want Candy – Bow Wow Wow
Why is this version superior to the original? Because, that underage chick is hot!
Stubborn Kind of Fellow – Marvin Gaye
Any dancing credibility I have is because of this cause I spent hours dancing alone to it in dorm rooms and
apartments across the country. Marvin’s first successful single. Like the Kinks going from dross to You Really
Got Me it turned from cherry bomb to weapon of mass destruction here in a hurry. See what happens when you
meld material and artist despite said artist’s wishes. Marvin of course was nothing if not stubborn and wanted to
be Frank Sinatra, everyone else voted for him to be Marvin Gaye.
Baby I Need Your Loving – The Four Tops
My Girl – The Temptations
It’s sort of sad that eventually, these guys ran out of new tunes and the only thing people knew about them was
that they’d come on television four times a year and sing each other’s songs.
I like the fact that the Four Tops were always the Four Tops. It would take a stadium to get a reunion of all the
Temps and the Drifters together.
The ultimate compliment that I can pay to David Ruffin is that I’ve never heard any one else sing My Girl that
didn’t fail horribly, and that includes amazingly enough Marvin Gaye, who came close but his version never
would have been a hit.
Trouble Man – Marvin Gaye
Haunted. He sings “I come apart” and this is what it sounds like.
My Mother the Car – Jerry Van Dyke
Who am I kidding, I saw them play this in the background of an episode of Arrested Development and I’d love
to have it. Has anyone alive even seen this show? To tell you the truth, I’d pay four or five bucks easy just to
check it out and see how bad it really was. Personally, the concept sounds pretty fun to me. Who wouldn’t want
to have a talking car? Then again, when I was in college I wrote an existential ode to “Mr. Ed.” Nevertheless, if
it were my show I would have made it something like “My Ex-Girlfriend the Car.” How about a show where
Marilyn Monroe or Elvis is reincarnated as a Cadillac convertible?
Chapter 35: Ranting up a Storm
Snuggles Dedication – Casey Kasem
“That’s the last god damn time! I want someone to use his FUCKING brain to not come out of a god damn
record that’s up-tempo and I gotta talk about a fucking dog dying! Boy this is ponderous man fucking
ponderous”
There’s really nothing more I could add here.
The Letter U and the Numeral 2 – Negativland
Sample artists try to make fun of Casey Kasem, toss in some U2 barbs and wind up getting sued into the Stone
Age. Not the brightest moment in U2’s career, and I’m guessing looking back that they know it.
Manager Elia on Cub Fans - Lee Elia
“The motherfuckers don’t even work that’s why they’re at the fucking games … 85% of the fucking world’s
working the other 15 come out here. It’s a fucking playground for those cocksuckers.”
What were they hassling this guy for he was right.
Do Wah Diddy – Manfred Mann
Inspired by Harold Ramis’ effort as an immigrant English teacher in Stripes, I had my day camp kids sing this
song at their parent picnic. Sadly, they knew the lyrics better than I did and I looked as silly as the time in 3rd
Grade Orchestra my cornet started five seconds before the rest of the band.
S.O.S. – Abba
The first palindromic title ever to hit number one by a band whose name is also a palindrome. Those guys who
dig up chart info and baseball stats really need to get a life. Then again even I was upset that Don Aardsma
supplanted Hank Aaron as the first listing in the Baseball Encyclopedia.
I don’t care how saccharine this group is you won’t catch me saying anything bad about them. I’m not going out
to see Mama Mia, but I’m a fan.
On a sadder note, one day at work someone asked who sang the 80’s hit There’s Something Going On. I knew
the answer was former Abba member Freda and immediately felt that it was time to reevaluate my life.
I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) – The Proclaimers
Mary Stuart Masterson is my biggest crush ever. I’d drop everything in a second to be her slave. She proved
she’d be a good A&R man too, when her recommendation to the makers of Benny and Joon turned two dorky
Scottish twins into unlikely momentary rock stars.
Hair of the Dog - Nazareth
Say what you will about the stupidity of 70’s hard rock and its refuse to listen to anything else fans. Sometimes
when it hits you in the right way it brings you to a higher place. I was about three years older than the Dazed and
Confused generation, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie capture the style and attitude of a time period so
well. It just goes to show that with a little marijuana even hanging out and doing absolutely nothing can be fun.
Are You Ready – Pacific Gas and Electric
“They offered me $50,000, I said, 'Keep your money.' They said, 'You're crazy.' I said, 'That's right. Crazier than
you'll ever be.'"
“You women out there…you shouldn’t wear pants, you should be behind your man, staying at home and serving
him. Sinners! The time is near now…It’s almost over…here I come, watch out, watch out!”
"The American female, they used to burn them. Not this generation. They let them live."
"That's right, drink up, smoke up because there's nothing where you're going -- except eternal hellfire."
Ever wonder what Charles Manson would have been like if he actually had some musical talent? No, I’m not
talking about Phil Spector, but you’re probably on the right track. A friend of mine took me to this small sports
bar Hoople's in Cleveland to check out Glenn Schwartz, a man whose insanity is only matched by his guitar
skills. Schwartz was the original guitarist of The James Gang, replaced by the dizzy but amusingly harmless Joe
Walsh. Jimi Hendrix tabbed him to play his last birthday party. He hit the charts with Pacific Gas and Electric,
walked away, joined a cult, was kidnapped and deprogrammed, returned to the cult, left the cult and apparently
lives in his parents’ basement.
Here’s what I saw: an old man, missing most of his teeth, wearing what amounts to a prison uniform, playing a
homemade guitar with roughly the same skill and volume as Stevie Ray Vaughan, which is pretty amazing if you
can get past the rants against women, Jews, Gays, Mexicans, and the Japanese, who he apparently hasn’t yet
forgiven for Pearl Harbor. Minus the hate you’d almost have to call his disdain for material goods heroic. It was
a weird and thoroughly scary evening.
Big Poppa – The Notorious B.I.G.
Say what you will about the Keanu Reeves coaches the ghetto little league team movie Hardball, but it has one
great scene which immortalizes this song.
The team’s pitcher throws like Dwight Gooden, but he’s too shy to pitch minus his Walkman, which like Radio
Raheem’s box in Do The Right Thing only plays one song, Poppa. After the kid starts mowing down opposing
hitters like Nolan Ryan, the opposing manager, who obviously went to the Vic Morrow school of Little League
coaching, makes the umpire take away the kid’s Walkman. The kid starts to lose it until Keanu and the rest of
the kids pick up the slack with their own rendition of B.I.G’s ode to himself.
That’s the best part of the movie so now that I’ve filled you in you can rent the real little league gem.
The Bad News Bears
I coached little league baseball for four years and the truth is, kids swear. You're not supposed to encourage it,
but it's pretty damn amusing when it happens. If this movie had a love scene lit by candlelight with Susan
Sarandon in a bathtub, it might be the best movie ever made about baseball. If you don't think there are coaches
like Vic Morrow around, just check out that videotape of Bobby Knight kicking his son on the Indiana Hoosier
bench.
Walter Matthau plays Morris Buttermaker -- a washed-up, drunk pitcher who cleans pools and may or may not
have once struck out Ted Williams in an exhibition game. Sadly but entertainingly enough, Michael Ritchie's
film makes the case that Buttermaker's probably about as good a little league coach as you can hope for in this
modern win at all costs world. Matthau's team sucks; it is filled with geeks, fat kids with psychiatric evaluations,
undersized cursing street fighters, and a couple of twins who can't even speak English, much less swing a bat.
The one kid with an athletic family and an understanding of the game's history winds up treed and disrobed after
losing a fly ball in the sun. Eventually, Buttermaker does drum up some pretty nice yellow and white uniforms,
even if the only sponsor he could find does turn out to be Chico's Bail Bonds.
You know they're going to get better. It is a movie after all, but the cool thing is that instead of coaching,
Buttermaker builds a winner by adding a couple more outcasts to his roster. The first is Amanda Whurlitzer
(Tatum O'Neal), a tomboy spitballer who was unlucky enough to have Matthau as her father figure during the
formative part of her childhood. She joins the team for some designer jeans and ballet lessons, can swear as good
as the mercurial Tanner Boyle (Chris Barnes), and absolutely refuses to wear an athletic supporter, which instills
a rebellion that will be costly to one of her more vulnerable teammates later in the season. Unfortunately, she
can't hit, so Buttermaker needs to pimp her out so she can convince the smoking, motorcycle riding, air hockeyhustling, eternally cool juvenile delinquent and milk money-stealing Kelly Leak (Jackie Earle Haley) to play ball
with a bunch of runny nosed losers.
We'll never know, but I will always be convinced that if Jackie Earle Haley had ever grown to full size he'd be
bigger than Brad Pitt right now. Unfortunately, he wound up with one more good role in another great sports
movie ("Breaking Away") and then it was "Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence" and off to the showers. I'd
definitely trade the last ten performances Daniel Stern has coughed up for a full-sized adult Kelly Leak. He
nearly causes do-gooder mom Joyce Van Patten an embolism on any number of amusing occasions. Buttermaker
even winds up doing a little bit of coaching, which is only fair since he makes the kids clean his pools and listen
to his drunken stories of youthful achievement.
Matthau should get points for allowing himself to be filmed as such an unlikable cuss, and Vic Morrow, as usual,
is just short of psychotic. In the end some dignity is spared -- a kid stands up to his unhinged father as a fat kid
lumbers around the bases, one team wins and the others wind up with a congratulatory beer. Nothing is learned,
some music from "Carmen" is enjoyed, the kid with the runny nose catches a fly ball, a history of hypocrisy and
living through one's offspring is exposed and sour tempered Tanner Boyle tosses a trophy and gears up for a
sequel in the Astrodome minus the high-priced talent. Isn't it great when a piece of classical music gets forever
redefined by a movie about a bunch of foul mouthed brats? What could be a better way to spend 102 minutes of
the truth?
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) – Darlene Love
The most talented performer in the Lethal Weapon series played Danny Glover’s cooking disabled wife.
My Brave Face – Paul McCartney
Veronica – John Lennon
The melding of sentimental and sarcastic works again as Paul replaces John with Elvis. Paul records his most
relevant song in decades, Elvis his most sentimental. Too bad it didn’t last longer.
St. Elmo’s Fire
I'm a little obsessed with this movie. It may, in fact, be everything you need to know about the '80s. Essentially,
this is "The Breakfast Club Grow Up" minus writer-director John Hughes, plus writer director Joel Schumacher;
not a good start. It is perhaps the defining moment of the Brat Pack Generation, in that anyone in this movie
would forever be referred to as a Brat Pack member. "St. Elmo's Fire" concerns seven Georgetown grads and
their traumas joining the real world. This movie is dying for James Spader and some guns. Here's an example of
what kind of movie it is.
Andrew McCarthy plays a dour, constantly smoking, bongo-playing, coffin-owning writer in search of
something meaningful to pen on, I'm not kidding, the meaning of life. McCarthy's character pretends to hate the
concept of love, all the while holding on to a secret adoration of his best friend Judd Nelson's woman, Ally
Sheedy. McCarthy spends the first half of the film trying to be clever and downbeat, all the while desperately
assuring his friends and a local prostitute that he is not gay. When Nelson, the former President of the Young
Democrats, decides Republicans pay better and is caught by his continual Bill Clinton-like devotion to strange,
Sheedy falls into McCarthy's arms and they have passionate sex in the shower. The next day McCarthy's treatise
on the meaning of life is published on the front page of the Washington Post, which means essentially that the
meaning of life is wild groping shower sex with Ally Sheedy -- the movies most logical and unarguable point,
and for my money, as good a definition as any.
Mare Winningham plays a rich, Jewish, social worker virgin with a weakness for Rob Lowe and the aching
feeling that her thighs are fat. Lowe plays Billy, a rock star minus the catalog, who gets arrested for drunk
driving and then heads out with his pals and orders a Screwdriver. When he heads back to Georgetown looking
for a job, they assure him that his old fraternity really has lacked a good drug dealer since his graduation. They
almost have sex at her parents dinner party, but Lowe can't stop laughing at Winningham's girdle long enough to
get the damn thing unhooked.
Emilio Estevez is in this movie for some reason madly stalking Andie MacDowell, and Demi Moore, looking
like a poodle in heat, has a drug problem that may or may not bring the group closer together and force them to
re-evaluate their lives. She has a really cool pink apartment with a Billy Idol mural on the wall, and lots of
money issues. The most logical argument in the movie is Nelson's belief that if Sheedy would just marry him he
would be able to stop screwing everything else in his path. MacDowell's boyfriend is nice enough to Estevez that
he snaps a photo of the two of them after the mad dog chases her up into the mountains and ruins their ski
weekend. Sheedy doesn't even take her pearls off for sex. Not much makes sense but there is a lot of smoking,
drinking, and serious chat about ending up happy and self-reliant. After many a tragedy is narrowly averted, they
decide to grow up and start attending a more mature bar. Rob Lowe's sex tape had more depth. The movie going
experience of the Reagan era
Extraordinary – Liz Phair
Hot White Cum – Liz Phair
Here’s another place where I just don’t get the reviews. According to every thing I read, I’m supposed to
worship Exile from Guyville and hate the album with these two songs on it. Supposedly, “I want to be your blow
job queen” is subtle genius and “Give me your hot white cum” is too obvious. Maybe I’m not smart enough to
get it or then again maybe Guyville is sort of unlistenable and her pop sell out rules. Extraordinary was the best
single I heard the year it was released and I loved and felt her aching call for love. Hot White Cum cracks me up
and turns me on. If I’m lowbrow here so be it.
Since, I’m not sure where else to ponder this let’s discuss porn movies and semen. Bill Hicks had a great totally
accurate routine about how hotel porn used to get edited. In some weird masochistic way, you used to be able to
rent porn in hotels, but the porn was edited so that you couldn’t see any genitals. As Hicks said you essentially
sat there and watched the guy’s hairy ass for 20 minutes. It’s like when they showed Showgirls on VH1, what
was the point? I once rented both Deep Throat and Debbie Does Dallas and their combined edited length was
like 45 minutes.
Today, hotel and indeed in home on demand porn has moved forward to the point that you are allowed to see just
about everything. Everything that is but the money shot. Can someone out there explain to me how it can
possibly be OK to watch two guys calling a woman a dirty whore while simultaneously penetrating her same
orifice, yet a little semen is totally out of the question? Better yet, can someone explain to me why 18 year olds
are allowed to be abused in the nastiest fashion thought up by men, yet are somehow still not legally old enough
to drink? If you’re old enough to do a double penetration scene, you should be old enough to have a beer.
Chapter 36: Some stuff Lorne Michaels Shouldn't be Ashamed Of
Hanukkah Song – Adam Sandler
Thanksgiving Song – Adam Sandler
I was a huge fan until he decided to tarnish Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and The Longest Yard. I used to enjoy
watching him on Saturday Night Live just to wait to see him work the word masturbation somewhere into a
sketch. I’m guessing he had a perfect record in that regard.
I Wanna Grow Old with You – Adam Sandler
Somebody Kill Me – Adam Sandler
That’s All – Rickey Nelson
It’s odd now that I used to root for this guy as a sort of little man that could, when now he’s a monolith out there
destroying my favorite classic movies. As far as his early examinations of moronity, The Wedding Singer is by
far the best, because it probably shows the real Adam Sandler and has enough heart for three movies. Forget the
‘80’s parody and concentrate on the pain in “I’ve been listening to the Cure a lot” Kill Me, and then wipe a tear
away when he’s redeemed by a never more lovable Drew Barrymore after earning her eternal love with the Billy
Idol introduced ode I Wanna Grow Old with You. Grow Old is probably as simple as any of Sandler’s other
dim-witted but lovable songs, but when you’re in love there’s often no need to really get clever. Added points
for dusting off this lovely Nelson chestnut earlier in the film, which is easily as simple as twice as heartfelt.
It wasn’t really a selling point in the movie, but my good friend Grant Taylor appears in it. He was an extra in
the first wedding scene when amateur waitress Drew accidentally banged him in the head with a serving tray.
Knowing comedy gold the director left it in the movie. Grant is an inspiration, he’s always willing to risk intense
injury for the sake of art.
As for Drew, I’ve always felt that she probably had more fun by the age of 17 than I’ll have in my entire life.
Star Wars – Bill Murray
The horrible lounge singer has become something of a Saturday Night Live staple, and it has without exception
absolutely sucked in every incarnation other than the original. Don’t try to follow Bill, it can’t be done, and it
will make me want to hurt you.
If you think about it Saturday Night Live may have at some point saved television. If you think about it Saturday
Night Live may have at some point ruined the movies. Coneheads, Doctor Detroit, Down to Earth, It’s Pat,
Wayne’s World II, Chevy Chase, The Ladies Man. It just goes on and on and it isn’t pretty.
Stripes
Anita: You sleep until noon and then you watch Rocky and Bullwinkle and then you drive your cab what a
couple hours a day and then you come home and order out food and then you play those stupid Tito Puente
albums until two in the morning.
Winger: Tito Puente is going to be dead and you're going to say "I've been listening to him for years and I think
he's fabulous!"
Tito Puente did die and all I could think about was that silly tossed off line from Bill Murray in Stripes, and I
know I'm not the only one. Back in my neighborhood if you couldn't quote nearly every one of Murray's words
from this movie, you just weren't cool. "Hey chicks in New York are paying top dollar for this garbage." Bill
Murray is as funny here as anyone has ever been funny and I can't see anyone else getting away with half the
things he says here much less have them sound so cool and inspired. "I just wish I hadn't drunk so much of that
cough syrup this morning." He was so cool that Tom Hanks did a dead on impression of him in Bachelor Party
down to the sexual kitchen utensils. His John Winger is the best part of every sad sack not ready to grow up and
get a job or put up with these authority figures impulse any guy has ever had. He even has a cool loser piano
theme that arises every time he screws up. The plot here is as old and original as any number of Lewis and
Martin mediocrities. It's practically the same thing as No Time For Sergeants, Gomer Pyle USMC, or Beetle
Bailey with a little more attitude. Two hang dog losers join the Army and the Army might not survive them.
Murray is John Winger. He has a really bad day (He is ripped off, he abandons his cab on a bridge, has his car
repossessed, and his hot model girl friend walks out on him.), sees an Army commercial and decides to be all he
can be. Because this is a buddy movie and he had nothing else better going on that day pal Russell Ziskey
(Harold Ramis) joins too. When they come to their senses, they realize the Army is actually hard and boring
work. Who knew? Bad ass Sergeant Hulka isn't amused with their attitude either. You know how it's going to go.
It's the old watch them train for half a movie and get them into battle for the rest. It's probably not a cool thing to
say Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket was just a reworking of Stripes, but there you have it. You decide which was
dumber Viet Nam or John Laroquette slipping into Czechoslovakia after the boys take out the EM50 to have it
washed.
I've seen every scene in this movie a hundred times and I'm still floored by how cool and funny it all is. John
Candy mud wrestling like ten women in a topless club, "Do Wah Diddy", "Lighten Up Francis!", the big we're
Americans rally speech, the razzle dazzle graduation ceremony, Murray and PJ Soles coming out of that chest
"Well that was interesting!", and those poor Czech border patrolmen played by Joe Flaherty and Nick Toth
spilling coffee and "repelling the Yankee horde". I wouldn't trade any of that stuff for all of Dancing With
Wolves.
Harold Ramis and John Candy, looking and acting like Curly more than ever, are pretty funny themselves, but
Murray was on another planet in comparison. It's hard to write a pretty good movie script but when you have Bill
Murray at his peak with so much attitude and cool they could have filmed the Phone Book and it would have
somehow worked out. It's all about how he grabs his girlfriend to shield her from an explosion and cops a feel at
the same time. The first R rated movie I ever snuck into and there lot's of nudity in it too. The musical score is
almost as rewarding as the movie. "Don't go! All of the plants are gonna die!"
The Blues Brothers
Jake: Well you see me and the Lord have an understanding.
Elwood: We're on a mission from God.
There are of course exceptions. I am never not amused by The Blues Brothers. Some real Rock and Roll type
people had a problem with John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd's mediocre appropriation of Black Music, but isn't the
history of Rock and Roll pretty much the story of white guys trying to be as cool as their black heroes? Look at
Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan alone. The SNL vets weren't great singers,
but the outfits were way cool, the dancing was dementedly top-notch, they got the top flight Stax musicians like
Steve Cropper and "Duck" Dunn to back them and play along, and they managed to get pretty good
performances out of legendary acts James Brown, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and John Lee Hooker. They
don't rip off Black culture -- they revel in its joy, freedom and cool. Capturing Cab Calloway's "Minnie the
Moocher" on film alone should have been enough to win someone a medal. Hell, I don't care how much money
they wasted smashing up every police car in the city of Chicago while driving maniacally through cities and
shopping malls, I'm entertained. There aren't many movies you can say this about, but if you don't like this
movie you're just not cool.
My personal favorite detail about "The Blues Brothers" is Elwood's vaunted affection for dry white toast. Along
with all the mayhem they still had time to include goofy little minutia like the scene where the boys and the band
go to Ray Charles's pawn shop to search for instruments and equipment. While the band oohs and ahhs over the
guitars, amps and drums, Elwood drools over how cool it would be if he could only afford a used toaster oven.
Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood Blues (Dan Aykroyd) are former orphans who were apparently raised by Cab
Calloway. The three of them dress in these sort of Black Beatle suits; eventually they would be associated with
another cool feature, "Reservoir Dogs". They have their names tattooed on their fingers and they even sleep with
their sunglasses on. They drive around in a beat-up old police cruiser and need to raise $5000 in eleven days to
save the orphanage and Cab's job. Eventually, due to a lot of bad driving, they are pursued by the entire Chicago
Police Force, Illinois Nazis, Jake's well armed ex-girlfriend Carrie Fisher, and a Country Western Band called
the Good Ole Boys, while they attempt to reunite their band and pull off a big benefit concert.
The boys running a group of Nazis off of a bridge might seem a little absurd unless you remember that the movie
was made right around the time of the Skokie Nazi Court Case, in which case you realize that it was a pretty nice
political statement. Do Nazis really drive station wagons?
Chicago is rendered like sort of a Black music Nirvana, a cultural Mecca to the hip. All the landmarks are hit:
Wrigley Field, the ever present L-trains, the highways and the shopping malls. The cool thing about all the
absurd stuff that goes down is that it is all underplayed. Instead of being about crazy in-your-face weirdness,
Belushi and Ackroyd act as if they see this stuff every day. Their apartment is blown up and they pick
themselves up out of the rubble and go about their own way.
The moniker Blues Brothers is a little misleading here. Jake and Elwood are all about the '60s Memphis soul of
Booker T & the MGs, Stax records, and Sam and Dave. Steve Cropper is even here in an outrageous ZZ Top
beard. Steve Cropper wrote "Dock of the Bay" for God's sake!
I'm not exactly sure where their wild goofy dance routines came from, but it sure is fun to see a tall thin guy and
a short fat guy twist in black suits.
So many scenes are so enmeshed into our cultural consciousness that they immediately unfurl at you when you
hear just one descriptor. The penguin scene, the shrimp eating scene (look for waiter Pee Wee Herman),
"Rawhide," the entire band with Murray Sline in the sauna, and enough car crashes to personally bring the
American auto industry back to life. Any future carnage from films derived from Saturday Night Live sketches
shouldn't be held against their amazing screwball innovator, not even "It's Pat" or the unnecessary sequel where
John Goodman, Joe Morton, and a little white kid try to bridge the chasm of the death of John Belushi. Belushi
only shows his eyes once here, but even with him covered in mud it's one of the more lovable shots of the
twentieth century. Chicago is forever in their debt.
My Blues Brothers Quandary
One of the groups out to off Jake and Elwood are The Good Ole Boys, whose country and western gig is stolen
by the band. I can sort of understand why The Good Ole Boys were pissed, but why exactly did this band show
up late enough for every single patron of the bar to go home, and why were they still expecting to have time to
finish their gig?
Chapter 37: Anyone Else Miss Bon Scott and Chris Farley?
Stay with Me – The Faces
So good it makes you want to forgive Rod Stewart for his countless sins against taste and sanity.
Blue Side – Rooney
Wonder if they were upset, when the guy they named their band after (the Ferris Bueller's Day Off Character
played by Jeffrey Jones) got busted for child pornography. Either way this is a great synthesis of post punk pop
and Brian Wilson harmonies.
Wonderwall – Ryan Adams
I actually can’t stand this version, but I paid for it so what am I supposed to do delete it?
Stranger Than Fiction – Bad Religion
They want to know why Hemingway cracked. Who can blame them?
Turn on the News – Husker Du
Everyone has holes in the musical vocabulary. Zen Arcade was lauded by everyone back in the day as a
masterwork and yet this is the only song that ever registered with me. It’s definitely good enough for me to want
to go back and investigate though.
I Wanna Destroy You – Soft Boys
"They tell you your opinions/And they're very good indeed"
The same holds true here. This is the only Robin Hitchcock song I can name. I remember flipping over this song,
bought the album and then he started singing about insects laying eggs and I got really confused.
Jailbreak – AC/DC
Wow, Bon Scott could sing. People shouldn’t forget that.
Radio Radio – Elvis Costello
You’ve got to be impressed when a guy can use anesthetize in a rock song.
The Good The Bad and The Ugly – Ennio Morricone
I’d kill to get that guitar sound. More music that sounds like it came from Mars, and that’s always a good thing.
Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing – Chris Isaak
Another guy who I was lucky enough to be with from album one and the eerie single Dancin’. Unfairly tossed in
with revival artists like the Stray Cats (not that I have a problem with them either), I was more than a little angry
when he dumped his great lead guitarist James Calvin Wilsey, but Stanley Kubrick’s choice of Baby for Eyes
Wide Shut was a much better decision than Cruise and Kidman.
By the way, if you’ve seen his Showtime series, Bimbo’s 365 Club is a great place, but I’ve been there a million
times and to the best of my knowledge they don’t have the rotating naked lady any more. That’s OK, there a
plethora of nudity just up the street.
Looking for an Echo – The Persuasions
Statement of purpose from the kings of A Cappella.
Banana Splits Theme – The Dickies
Our favorite band in college was 007. They had two Black Guitarists and a drummer who reminded me of Ad
Rock from the Beastie Boys. They played a neat amalgamation of Ska, Mod, Punk, and Surf, and I loved it when
they did this song. Not sure what ever happened to those guys, but I still have pictures.
Loved the TV show too, although past the elephant I have no fucking idea what the other guys were.
Clerks
Kevin Smith actually pulled it off. Clerks for me was kind of like the Beatles on Ed Sullivan was for so many
nascent Rock stars. You're stuck in a dead end town. You're stuck in the purgatory of a job you hate. You love
comic books, but you can't draw. You love movies, but you barely know which end of a camera the lens is on.
You squirrel away time writing a semi- autobiographical justification of your life, praying that somehow your
quick wit and pop culture spewing point of reference will someday free you from the shackles of your own
private hell. I was in the same spot. I had this novel, that I referred to as an existential cartoon. I even titled its
word processing file God, because it represented what I thought was my last prayer of a chance at living a happy
life.
Clerk's reminds me a lot of a Quentin Tarantino project minus the criminals. The great love for twisted dialogue
and linguistic attitude are certainly abundantly present and ring out like gunfire, but when Tarantino made
Reservoir Dogs he had Harvey Keitel, Tim Roth, and Michæl Madsen to work with. Kevin Smith had a couple
of buddies, a convenience store, and some black and white film.
The two sides of Smith's personality are represented by the put upon Dante (Brian O'Halloran), and the back
talking Randal (Jeff Anderson). Randal most likely represents every bit of hostility and rage Smith ever felt for
his job and the rest of the world. Randal does whatever he feels like, and says whatever he feels like saying. He's
a Rock Star minus the catalog and the talent. Some people would probably say that Jeff Anderson tends to sound
like he is reading his dialogue right off of a page, but I think his Randal is just too ornery to put out any kind of
effort into anything. Anderson, got pushed aside as soon as Smith got some money for some real actors, but his
Randal is a beautiful hostile piece of work that only could have come from America. He's the sort of guy who
never put in a quality day at the office in his life, but somehow probably winds up winning the biggest lotto
drawing ever with a ticket he stole from his loser best friend's Quickie Mart. Watch him absentmindedly sell
cigarettes to a four year-old girl in the thirty seconds he deems to help Dante watch the store. Be amazed when
he closes the video store he runs to go rent porn from a bigger and better chain outlet. When he walks into the
better store he acts like he has been delivered into heaven and seen God.
Jason Mewes and Smith make up the ever present drug dealing duo of Jay and Silent Bob, and they are also
pretty damn humorous, although probably not enough to justify their continuing presence in every movie Smith
ever makes. Sure Mall Rats needed them, and they were barely there in "Chasing Amy," but how in the world
did they wind up in "Dogma" too. Enough already.
The dismissive world will note that Smith's directorial chops did and still do need some work, but as a writer his
dialogue is sweet, taut, funny, angry and appears to have been poured over many, many times while hoping for
bigger and better things to come. His oeuvre just happens to be made up of the raunch and gutter philosophy of
the over educated under motivated TV saturated nation of ne'er do wells and never weres. Every moment he gets
to spend with the likes of Joey Lauren Adams, Linda Fiorentino, and any other women who wouldn't have given
Dante Hicks, convenience store manager, the time of day has to be gravy for him. He did it. He broke out of the
defeating rat trap of life and tunneled his way into the storied, glamorous, and wickedly fun world of Hollywood
usually reserved for guys taller, thinner and better looking than him. That guy was right. The pen is mightier than
the sword and good thing too, because otherwise he would have spent the rest of his life paying for all the candy
bars and Gatorade he fronted from his day job to get this thing made.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Tim referring to what turns out to be a rabbit: "Follow. But! Follow only if ye be men of valor, for the entrance
to this cave is guarded by a creature so foul, so cruel that no man yet has fought with it and lived! Bones of full
fifty men lie strewn about its lair. So, brave knights, if you do doubt your courage or your strength, come no
further, for death awaits you all with nasty, big, pointy teeth."
The silliest movie ever made is either about King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table searching for the
Holy Grail or a handful of mentally unbalanced people who parade around in medieval clothing and think there
are in search of the Holy Grail, although probably the latter. Of course the insanity all starts with the coconuts.
Likely in response to a budget that couldn't afford horses, all the Knights hop around the Dark Ages while their
valets make the sounds of trotting horses with a bunch of said coconuts. In true Python fashion no one is quite
sure where the coconuts came from.
The wonderful thing about Monty Python is the seemingly wasted brilliance. Aside from insane American
animator Terry Gilliam, Python is made up of five classically educated Englishman who would rather flaunt
their intelligence than use it for good. In whole they would much rather see a vicious rabbit tearing the limbs off
seemingly brave knights than take any of their inherited lore seriously for even a moment or two. They were
forced to learn it so they fully intend to tear it to pieces so no one can ever for a moment think of it in romantic
fashion ever again. Python was well aware that best way to destroy a myth is not to intellectually contradict it,
but to trash its seriousness and make it into farce. I remember laboring over an overlong British account of the
French Revolution in college until I noticed that it went down much easier if I read it like a screeching Terry
Jones dressed in drag, which incidentally I think he was in about 90% of their skits.
According to Monty Python's view of the dark ages, the few intelligent souls around spend their time wallowing
in mud, collecting it, or merely beating it with a stick. This of course does not preclude them from discussing the
true basis of legitimate classical government. You can just picture these guys learning all of this crap at Oxford
and passing notes to each other about how cool it would be to toss a few blessed hand grenades into the mix. The
most effective intellects in this movie are the French castle guards who hurl nothing but filth and naughty insults.
My poor 11th grade English teacher was forced to try cramming "The Crucible" down our throats after most of
us had memorized the entire "burn her she's a witch" routine. Her assurances that no American witches were
actually ever burned did little to preclude and avoid our squealing nonsense.
Watch out, because a little bit of logic can be more dangerous here than even the most dreadful ignorance.
Additionally, there's plenty of inspired insane characters here with little or no relevance to the traditional lore of
Arthur, King of the Britains. The Black Knight, who refuses to acknowledge that he has been beaten, the
cowardly Sir Robin and his band of minstrels, an appearance from an irritated God, a two headed monster that
argues mercilessly with itself, a castle full of randy sex starved maidens, and of course, the shrubbery loving
Knights who say Ni, but in the end Python make it clear that they could likely be equally as anarchically funny
about anything else held irritatingly sacred be it Watergate, Paul Bunyan, Jesus, or Johnny Appleseed. If it hadn't
been for their images of Communist theorists competing for chaise lounges on game shows, the German versus
Greek philosopher's world cup of soccer, and a group of singing drunken Australian professors extolling
alcohol's impact on Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Sartre, I might have never made it through college, and for that
matter neither would they. Silly, but not stupid, and as dangerous as any revolutionary ever was.
Slit Skirts – Pete Townshend
I always liked the phrase “recriminations fester.” I may have even wanted to name a band that.
Black and White – The db’s
A few college friends of mine and I helped them set up after their Lennon to Peter Holsapple’s McCartney, Chris
Stamey, had left, but they were a good time. Their roadie was a dazed kid from the South who apparently hadn’t
eaten a decent meal in months. He left all their guitar pedals on the stage and it was all I could do to stop from
stealing them. Instead I woke him up and saved his job. Also there may be no more bratty line even written than
“I guess I just don’t enjoy you anymore.”
Amplifier – The db’s
Girl leaves boy takes everything but his amplifier. At least he had a way to take out his aggression.
Oh, Cheap Chatter – Don Dixon
Why don’t I seem like a man to you? Well, if you’ve gotten this far you understand but Don deserves some
sympathy.
Crawling From The Wreckage – Dave Edmunds
I’m not much of a gear head. I always wanted a 60’s Mustang, bought one, and I drive it badly. Driving new cars
is a strange experience, you can be going 90 MPH and you feel like your drifting through a school zone. When
my Mustang is going 30 you can feel it. When it goes 60, you might as well be on one of those weight loss
vibrating belts. After I bought my Mustang, I proceeded to accidentally drive it in low gear all the way from Los
Angeles to San Francisco. Your prize possession spewing smoke from under the hood is a less than rapturous
feeling.
As for this, Graham Parker penned classic, isn’t it funny how drunk driving isn’t so funny in real life, but in
movies and music it’s a gas. All of our vices should be transferred to our creative outings. The only thing funnier
here than Graham positing smashing up his hot rod and immediately jumping into a new ride, is the notion of
“bits of me scattered in the trees and in the hedges.”
Local Girls – Graham Parker
Ever get the feeling that his career didn’t fly because vocally he sounds too much like Elvis Costello? I interpret
this song as akin to what you said about the girls in your high school. None of them interested you because none
of them were interested in you.
Get Started Start A Fire – Graham Parker
More cut to the bone sarcasm, as he pictured the Mona Lisa’s unsmiling sister sitting home with a worthless
painting of herself unhappy. Do you get the big deal about the Mona Lisa – I don’t maybe I need to take a class,
until then when I want to see an artful depiction of feminine beauty I’ll have to continue to rely on Hugh Hefner
and Larry Flynt.
Further on down the lyric sheet Graham predicts the future day when the health police start eliminating smokers
like deer hunters thinning the field. He says he’s not joking and he means it.
Joan of Arc was burning at the stake
Somebody had made a big mistake
She had lit a cigarette In an airport where you get
Your fingers taken off for smoking.
Meanwhile up the road a factory's choking
The ones who killed her work there I'm not joking
Wrong Again – Rockpile
When I Write the Book - Rockpile
Heart – Rockpile
Sometimes I think I’m like the only one my age to have totally worshiped these guys. Check that, sometimes I
think I’m the only one my age to know that they existed. Due to legal issues they wound up alternating between
albums under the names of Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe. When they finally got to acknowledge that they were
a band with Seconds of Pleasure, they sort of just mixed half an Edmunds album with half a Lowe disc and let
Billy Bremner do a couple of tunes. I know that I’m the only one here that has actually searched for the Billy
Bremner solo album.
They got a ton of crap over the fact that their much awaited album didn’t rock as hard as they did live, but I think
it’s perfect. What blows you away live doesn’t necessarily reward multiple listening, and I loved every bit of
Seconds as well as the half assed Everly Brothers acoustic covers they released as bonus tracks. “It’s in A,
Nick!”
Girl’s Talk – Dave Edmunds
The best ever Rockpile track courtesy of Elvis Costello. I loved the Stray Cats, which Edmunds had a hand in,
but they were always evoking another era. Girl’s Talk takes the Rockabilly influences and makes it into modern
hard rocking pop.
Condi Condi – Steve Earle
It’s really not that good of a song, and really it’s wrong on just so many levels, but the absurdity of writing a
love song to the most asexual woman in politics (now that Janet Reno is gone) just makes it too precious to
ignore.
Buddy Holly – Weezer
Rivers Cuomo is a strange dude. Everyone worth their salt in college is trying to be a rock star. He was a rock
star and he decided to go to college. You need to be backwards to be successful.
I read how he enjoyed going to massage parlors and receiving the requisite happy ending. Again backwards,
that’s what people do when they aren’t rock stars. Either way, I’m guessing Mary Tyler Moore wouldn’t
approve.
A New England – Billy Bragg
Levi Stubbs Tears – Billy Bragg
Billy Bragg had the genius idea of becoming a folk protest singer, but with an electric guitar. For some reason
my college buddy Dave and I went crazy over his debut EP Life’s a Riot with Spy vs. Spy. One night we were
painting our fraternity room and sang along with A New England like 400 times. Dave was drunk; I don’t know
what my excuse was. I’m not exactly sure why we dug it so much, I think it was Billy’s strong make no excuses
English accent. Dave eventually passed out on the floor and made me finish the room on my own.
Dave’s choice was Levi Stubb’s Tears, which probably remains Billy’s best and saddest song. I suppose it merits
extra points for sounding absolutely nothing like the work of its Motown namesake.
Time Bomb – Rancid
Everything we were trying to be in college 15 years after the fact - Madness (as in Suggs and the boys) with
menace.
I try to explain Ska – It’s like reggae but sped up. No wonder I don’t have a PHD in musicology.
Our House – Madness
A lot of my life’s mistakes have had to do with proximity.
Northwestern has two distinguishable sides to its campus. Pretty much all the fraternities were on the North side,
and all of the sororities were on the South. My buddy Dave, who I’d quit the debate team with days before the
school year was to start, and I were both living on the South side of campus. The first week or so at
Northwestern there are no classes. This is also the main rush period for the campus’ Greeks. Well the word
around the people I was hanging with at the time was that the fraternity’s lunches and dinners were much better
than the campus food because the frats were trying to impress their potential pledges. So if you’re me you are
thinking hmm how can I best take advantage of this information while at the same time inconveniencing myself
in the least? There were for some reason two fraternities on South Campus. Why were they there in between all
of the sororities? My current guess is that these two houses used to be up North, but were sent down to the
minors for ineptitude, or more likely that they were in such a drug and alcohol induced frenzy at the time that
they had burned their old houses down.
So I’m thinking why should I take a twenty minute walk up North when I can eat at one of the South Campus
houses? Even then I was trying to increase the potential amount of sleep I could get. So my roommate and I went
to lunch at Theta Delta Chi. Looking back I must have believed every lie and exaggeration they told me. “We’re
right by all the Sororities, chicks dig us”, “we’re a small house because we think the idea of a big house dilutes
the closeness of the brothers”, “the food here is always this good”, and although I wish I had gotten it on tape,
“we’re right by all the sororities, chicks dig us!” But hey, they did have a room with a huge monopoly board
painted on the ceiling.
Anyway I had a good time and was immediately thinking about how much time I could save by staying away
from North Campus completely. This was actually in the end not really a bad reason. When its below zero in
Evanston and the wind is blowing off Lake Michigan, the last thing you want to do is to walk twenty minutes up
North to have a bunch of drunk guys screaming and harassing you because you forgot what the house’s colors
represented.
After that first day, I hooked back up with Dave and get this. He had eaten dinner at a cool fraternity on South
Campus – Theta Delta Chi! It seemed pretty much like kismet. What we needed back then was some sort of
Better Business Bureau for frat houses.
I’m pretty sure Dave and I were both given bids by the same two fraternities. The other one was Theta Xi. As it
turned out the only cool things about Theta Xi were that their name spelled out the two word phrase “the taxi”
and the fact that it was around gave Theta Delta Chi the right to feel that they weren’t the worse house on
campus. We actually sort of liked Theta Xi but two things killed it for us. First they had offered Dave and
another friend of ours’ cocaine, which freaked us all out, and second they were the furthest fraternity away from
my dorm room in the school.
So Dave and I pledged Theta Delta Chi. They formed a big circle in the quadrangle and sung us in to the tune of
“Where There’s a Crowd of Theta Delta Men”, which seemed concerned mostly with beer and manly
friendships. Nevertheless, the next fifteen years of my life had begun to fall into stride. It’s weird how seemingly
small decisions can play huge havoc in determining the rest of your life. Luckily for both of us, Dave’s cool guy
was different from my cool guy so there were at least two of them in the house.
*
*
*
My one cool guy was Drew. Drew was a senior Chemical Engineering major from Steamboat Springs, Colorado,
who was fond of beer, and though smart as a whip way to skilled at pool and foos-ball to be a likely straight A
student. He was a tall lanky and affable guy with short blonde hair. I remember fondly the fact that he had made
a pledge to never buy or glance at a text book until the first week of classes had been completed. I would one day
provide the highlight of his Catholic wedding by perhaps becoming the first Jew to accept communion. To this
day no one has really told me what I should have done, as I had not been at the practice. Hell, I put on my tuxedo
while waiting for a train to pass through an integral intersection in the rain. As far as I was concerned, if you are
hungry and someone offers you some bread, even in the name of the body of Christ, you take it and keep quiet.
Hopefully no one will be eternally tormented for this.
Although our friendship turned out to be a long and successful one, I would have to advise ingoing pledges not
to join a Fraternity because you really enjoy the company of a Senior. In one year they are gone and you are left
to pick up the pieces and sweep up the mess.
Nevertheless., Drew was a great guy. He played guitar a little worse than me. His father ran for mayor as a
libertarian, and I never ever saw him lose his temper or his cool. He was the house’s president and looked
effortlessly regal in his black robe, official hat, and sunglasses at the weekly charge meetings.
One of the most popular pastimes at any fraternity is the after dinner argument, and Drew was always the final
word. Whereas everyone else was usually running their smack from the seat of their pants, nine times out of ten
Drew spoke calmly and actually knew what he was talking about. I’m not sure why but I’ve always been drawn
to figures of great intelligence, who never felt the urge to go along with the rules or walk the straight line, and
Drew would one day become one of those guys, who bypassed the line, ignored the commotion and understood
what was necessary to get to the top. Drew was never Bill Gates, but he and his partners were always sure that
they could grab hold of an opportunity by educating themselves, choosing their targets and hurling themselves
into the center of the storm.
My favorite story about Drew occurred during our Fraternity’s hell week. Fraternity hell weeks usually take
place during the first week of the second quarter of the school year. It is essentially the most intense part of the
hazing that supposedly does not exist at campuses across the country. One major downside to hell week for me
was that going in you need to essentially forget about getting much sleep, they expected us to sleep on the floor
of the house, wake up early, sing them the national anthem, and make them breakfast. In addition we were
required to always have cigarettes and change for a dollar on our person, which was absurd because like two
guys in the house smoked and no one ever had any money. After about four days of this I suggested to my
pledge class that we get some revenge. After all Dave and I had learned that we were part of a small rag tag
assortment of guys who could scarcely afford to lose any of their pledges. We would catch hell for acting out,
but we’d survive. In this spirit I threw out the idea that we move breakfast up about four hours from 7 AM to
3AM. About three or four of us excitedly stayed up until the agreed upon time. At about a quarter to three we
went into the kitchen and began to prepare a scrambled egg treat.
One thing about my fraternity I will never forget is that we had the smallest eggs I have ever seen in my life. I
was and am a finicky eater so I often sustained myself on eggs and cereal. Who scrimps and saves by ordering
runt eggs? Anyway, we got out a huge cooking pot and tossed in something like forty eggs, probably along with
a bunch of shell fragments and for good measure some of last night’s popcorn. I proceeding to stir under a high
flame until the mess took on the form of something approaching scrambled eggs.
At exactly 3AM a couple of guys went outside and screeched out the national anthem. Right after “the home of
the brave” was sung out the rest of us started banging on pots and pans as I carried out egg surprise up the stairs
screaming “Who wants some fucking eggs!” at the top of my lungs. We then proceeded to knock on every
active’s door to make sure that no one would miss breakfast. Ever member of the house was livid, ordered us to
end the racket and went back to sleep, every one except the president of the house.
I have never seen anyone on the receiving end of mischief ever handle themselves so well. Drew from his bed,
which also happened to contain his girlfriend and future wife, said “Great what’s for breakfast come on in! Do
you have toast?” He then calmly ate his eggs, thanked us for our efforts, turned over and went back to sleep.
I probably worked harder during my first quarter in college than I have at any time in my life. I was determined
to prove all the naysayers wrong. I was probably the most organized non-female freshman in the country. I kept
immaculate notes, bound them all into folders, and never went to sleep with an unanswered question or math
problem. Meanwhile, of course, everybody else on campus was mingling more than I did, drinking, which I had
little interest in, and enjoying the Gomorrah that was college life. I soon realized that missing class was a huge
mistake. Classes at Northwestern weren’t necessarily there to teach you things, to me they served a huge editing
function. Class gave the professors the chance to edit out the piles of reading they gave you into what they felt
was important and what could be ignored. Believe it or not attending classes was much more essential to good
grades than doing the reading. In fact, I soon learned that if the reading was outside of the textbook, you could
pretty much ignore it altogether.
My best example of this was the sad sad story of Elbe and Introduction to Philosophy.
Elbe was a huge lunkheaded member of my fraternity from the glorious state of Wisconsin. He was like many of
the Theta Delts of my era socially retarded, and completely inflexible to anyone’s views but his own. During my
senior year we were both in the same philosophy class. We didn’t sit together because we weren’t really friends,
but we were both in the same class.
After about a week of class, I asked him what he thought of the class. His response was shocking in its stupidity,
but as it turned out pure Elbe.
“This class is bullshit”, he said “all the professor does is assign readings and then tell us what it was that we
were supposed to have read, as if his opinion was more important than our own. I’m not going to class anymore.
I’ll just do the readings.”
I swear, as God is my witness that dispute my ambivalence for the guy that I tried to help him. “Look Elbe”, I
said, “you’ve got it all wrong. I’ve had this professor before and the readings are almost impossible to
understand. If you go to class and take good notes you find out what the professor thinks is important and what
he feels is the correct interpretation of the morass of words he assigns every night. The last time I had him I
didn’t do a single reading after the first week of class, I spit back everything he said in class on the final, and I
got an A minus, I swear that if you try to do the opposite you’ll not only be at a disadvantage you’ll flunk.”
“Yeah, right” he responded, “no one is gonna tell me how to interpret what I read.”
“That’s very noble of you”, I said, “I understand you’re point of view but if you do this you are going to be
retaking this class next quarter.”
Of course he didn’t listen to me. I am a very fast test taker. At the end of the quarter, I quickly wrote my final
essays, turned in my paper, and on the way out of the classroom scanned the room for Jeff Elbe. He wasn’t there.
I walked back to our house and having forgotten my keys rang the bell so someone would let me in the front
door. Elbe of course answered the door.
“Dude did you take the Philosophy Final?”
“Yeah, I went”, he uttered, “but I got there and looked at the questions and had no idea what they were asking so
I tried to make some stuff up for a while, turned it in and left.”
I didn’t gloat and who knows if he had actually even done the readings, but I got an A minus and he flunked.
I quickly found that although I wasn’t really a fast reader that I was very good at figuring out what kinds of
question the professor would ask on tests, which increased the efficiency of my studying. My first few quarters
of school I knew everything. After that I knew exactly what I needed to know to get my A.
I readily admit that my studying strategy was not in the best interest of actually learning and developing as a well
informed person, but ask yourself this question. If that is really what school is about, why do they grade you at
the end of each class? Taking a test at the end certainly doesn’t increase what you know, it just evaluates what
you know.
Dave, whose earnestness I admired, seemed to take a romantic though reckless path to his school work. He
would sign up for four classes and fall in love with two of them. The other two he would ignore. Dave once
missed a few days of his Spanish class and because the class was small was too embarrassed to go back and face
the music for something like two weeks. I once had to summarize an entire quarter of Socialist Economic Theory
for him an hour before a final. Make no mistake the classes he loved he probably learned more in than I did in all
four of my classes, but I was the one with the high grade point average. In my time at Northwestern I got an A in
every class that was tested normally, and I got an A- in all the classes that ended in essay tests. I’m not saying
that I learned or retained more information than anyone else, but I learned how to go to class so well that by the
time I was taking my last few Economics classes I had figured out the procedures and ways of thinking so well
that I could fill in my notes three steps before the Professor even got there.
Nevertheless, I still stressed over my grades. Being bright actually hurt me at times. I would often make my self
sick with worry because I could tell how hard the material we were learning truly was. My best example of this
was in the supposedly Mickey Mouse class Highlights of Astronomy. I had little interest in technology and my
liberal arts curriculum required at least two science classes. Luckily lore around campus held that there were two
really easy classes without labs in the list of acceptable science classes and Astrology was one of them.
My Highlights of Astronomy class was taught by this wonderfully bitter and sarcastic professor. He seemed to
know and despise the fact that every member of the class was there not for any interest in astronomy, but in
pursuit of a gentler, kinder, and easier to achieve grade. He was prone to commenting on how few of his students
actually showed up, and how many of the ones that did seemed to be drinking wine coolers. Once he went so far
as to state the following. “The Hubble space telescope is going into geosynchronous orbit sometime next year. It
will provide for the first time an overwhelming amount of fascinating data about the far reaches of space that we
can only guess and speculate on now, but then again none of you really care about that do you?”
And I have to admit that he was right, nobody there really did care. Anyone, who really wanted to be an
astronomer probably doesn’t start out in a class with highlights in its title. Hell I was as interested in star clusters
about as much as I had been interested in Latin, but for a few weeks this class made me sick to my stomach with
fear and despair . You see I unlike most of the class had been doing the reading, and some of the material was
impossible. Even the math, which I was an ace at was extremely theoretical and difficult. My stomach anxiety
lasted with me on and off until the first test, which as advertised was about as simple as clearing snow from
Florida driveways. I soon came to realize that in most cases if there was something I couldn’t grasp then the
likelihood of anyone else understanding it was slim. There were many times during my days in college where I
would be lost and asked a friend if he had any idea what it was that the professor was trying to say. Nine times
out of ten, my friends thought they understood the material completely, but my subsequent questioning of them
always revealed that they hadn’t grasped a fraction of what I had and were merely too ignorant to know the
difference. Nevertheless, until the first midterm I was often stressed to the gills.
One of the only times I ever cheated in college was also in Highlights of Astronomy. I had a friend on the
wrestling team who begged me to let him sit next to me during the final so he could copy my answer sheet.
When the test results came back I asked him how he had done. He told me that he had gotten a C because after
copying the first half of the test he had decided to go it alone on the back nine. Amusingly, the only other time I
did this the exact same thing happened. Hey, I did an overwhelming amount of cheating in high school, and
considered myself something of an expert on the subject, but I will go to my grave wondering why the hell
someone would cheat on half of a test. If you are going to cross that line why wouldn’t you at least do it right?
Once another wrestler offered me fifty dollars, not a small sum for a college student in the days before internet
poker, to take an Introduction to Economics final for him. It would have been easy enough as the class more than
likely contained over a hundred and fifty students, but I decided it wasn’t worth the risk, the time or the guilt. He
eventually got some other Economics major to do it for him, and my substitute wound up barely passing the test.
The other Mickey Mouse science class actually turned out to be one of my more enjoyable and educational
collegiate experiences. The class was called Nuclear Fuel Cycle and it was taught by an affable English born
professor, who was known to occasionally down a few beers with his students. His class was all about nuclear
energy, and he passionately felt that his topic was important, but that it was equally possible to teach it without
breaking his students with long complicated readings and hard to decipher exams. Essentially he said on the first
day that he was going to tell us exactly what he expected us to learn and test us on said information. If everyone
in the class got an A, the more the better. One day during a discussion section of the class our teaching assistant
was asked if the professor had ever caught anyone cheating on an exam. The TA responded that the professor
never even looked for cheaters. His attitude was that if you had to cheat on such a simple exam that it would
most likely catch up with you later in life. The classes were relaxed, anyone who put any effort into the course
learned a lot of essential information about Nuclear Energy and were rewarded for their knowledge grade wise.
Shouldn’t every class have been like that?
*
*
*
The fraternity situation proved to be a bit more perplexing. As the first quarter wound its way forward, we were
time and time again met with groans when we revealed to others that we were Theta Delts. Even freshman
somehow seemed to know almost immediately that our campus reputation lurked somewhere around absolute
zero.
The house was small not because anyone wanted it that way, but because of the twenty or so members maybe
three or four of the actives had any sort of social skills whatsoever. The house was for the most part filled with
pretty nice guys; it was just that the majority of them had no idea how to speak to a potential pledge much less a
girl. Dave was eventually voted house Social Chairman largely for his unusual success with women. The food
really wasn’t any better than the dorm food, and the fact that you had to eat with a bunch of other guys every day
was in no way an advantage. Because of the houses small population many of the Fraternity’s rooms had to be
rented to borders who were unhappy with their assigned student housing, a situation which often made the house
feel more like an all male dorm than an order of brothers. The house’s location on South Campus made it
convenient for us to get to, but also made getting anyone to come to one of our parties a chore and a half. When
Northwestern students wanted to party they went up North where they had twenty or thirty beer filled fraternities
from which to choose. Sure we were in the middle of every sorority on campus, but that only served to expose
our every flaw to our already doubting neighbors.
Around my junior year or so we acquired a dog named we named Spanky, which I think survived maybe a
month or so. The second Spanky had more endurance and virility, so much so that he once mounted and got
stuck inside a wandering female dog. In case you’re wondering sorority girls are in no way impressed or turned
on by the sight of two conjoined dogs in heat.
The biggest road block wasn’t even revealed to us until we became active members of the house. As pledges we
weren’t allowed to attend meetings of the Graduate Board or the beginning of weekly Charge meetings aka the
Treasurers report. What we didn’t learn until after our activation was that the house was in financial ruins. It
seemed that someone at some point had run up a forty thousand dollar debt with Jarvis Liquors, whose origin no
one seemed to remember.
When I went to Northwestern, Evanston was a strange town. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union had
originated there and the town was dry. The city also had ordinances outlawing both bowling alleys and fast food
restaurants. There was an all night Burger King, but they had a big sign up which explained that because of said
ordinance they were unable to bag your food. According to Evanston, food bagging equaled fast food restaurant.
Amusingly enough, during my Junior year the city let a McDonalds open up near the campus, which was
allowed to bag their food. Whoever owned the Burger King was more than likely dismayed at the competition,
but initially heartened that perhaps they too would be able to bag their own food. As it turned out the Evanston
City Council still wouldn’t let them bag their food. For all I know they probably still can’t bag their food. Jarvis
Liquors was up on Howard Street, the Chicago Evanston border and home of any number of liquor stores with
little qualms about delivering to college students.
When Dave and I were finally allowed to attend the meeting of the Graduate Board it was like a nightmare come
to life. The Graduate Board was made up of the house’s alumni, and they overlooked the operation of the
fraternity. Needless to say the Graduate Board meetings were essentially forty minutes of scolding the houses
members to get some new pledges or the whole operation would be shut down.
Dave and I were overwhelmed and justifiably a little betrayed by the entire situation. We were looked at as the
prize recruits; the one’s who would lead the house out of the gutter. Hell, I just wanted to go to school and meet
a few girls. I had no stomach for performing some Lazarus act on a dilapidated fraternity house. We almost quit
the house on a number of occasions, despite Drew’s and other upperclassmen’s assurances that we would be
treated specially and that the house was ours to mold as we wished. We could make it our own and rebuild it in
our own image. In the end, we stayed mostly because we knew that had we quit the entire house of cards would
have instantly fallen apart. Had we left it was pretty well understood that at least five or six people would go
with us and the house would instantly fold like a toppled house of cards. Neither of us wanted to deal with the
guilt or the responsibility so we did our best to resurrect the place and soldiered on.
Together Dave and I did some fairly innovative things. We hired the hippest bands for our parties, and raised
designing and passing out fliers to an art form. Nevertheless, once Drew and John, Dave’s cool guy, were gone
most of the rushing responsibilities were in our hands. I did my best not to out and out lie to any prospective
pledges, but I have to admit I had more than a few restless nights as a result of my role in bringing new blind
sheep into the fold.
One idea of Dave’s ideas that backfired on overwhelming fashion was the Maysing debacle. Maysing was an
annual show put on by the fraternities and sororities of the campus. By this time Dave was president of the house
and felt that our performing at said event would give us a little good publicity. Northwestern has an
overwhelmingly huge reputation for churning out great shows and future actors, and not just because MacLean
Stevenson went there. For the normal fraternity putting together a skit or a musical number was a simple chore.
The other houses had willing sororities to team up with and membership large enough to ensure a few stand out
talents. We, on the other hand, were so small that once Dave had harangued and berated the house into agreeing
that a Maysing performance was essential to our future, participation by each of our members was essential.
Dave and I were big fans of the English Ska band Madness. We had appropriated their silhouetted rude boy logo
as our own and we often featured them on our party flyers doing their absurd dance, the nutty train, which was
performed by the band as a straight line march with everyone’s knees bent and leaning backward. So we felt it
was a natural that we have the house perform Madness’ biggest hit “Our House.” I rewrote the lyrics to refer to
specific members of our group, and we actually had one member who could accompany us on piano. Everyone
else was required to sing and do the nutty train. We didn’t let the fact that we had not a single competent singer
among us deter our plans. A short skit was added to the beginning of our act and regular rehearsals ensued.
When the big day arrived the entire house was decked out to the nines. More than half of them had also calmed
their stage fright with plenty of beer and whatever other spirits they could find. I the lone non-drinker had to
witness and participate in the disaster with no such lubrication. We were slated to go on near the end of the
show. After the first few acts we had two problems. Every other fraternity’s segment was fantastic was the first.
The second was that Dave was nowhere to be found. This did little to calm our nerves. This whole thing was
Dave’s baby. Where the hell was he?
As it turned out, Dave had been walking to the show with his girlfriend when a large coterie of rugby players
started to harass said couple. The rugby players at Northwestern were to put it mildly a bunch of brawny,
antisocial morons. I remember being at one of our football games once and we were actually on our way to a rare
easy victory. Northwestern’s football program, as you might well know, is renowned for its year in and year out
putridity. The only reason anyone ever went to a game was the tailgating and the weekly marshmallow fights in
the stands. Since it was a rarity, it was a campus tradition that after any home victory, if one should luckily
actually occur, the goal posts be torn down and carried into nearby Lake Michigan. Well I happened to be
attending the game with a few wrestlers when the entire rugby team came by and offered my burly friends a
chance at what to the rugby players seemed like great fun. The rugby team had been recruited by security to help
defend the goal posts. The rugby team was convinced that this meant they could beat up as many of the rioting
student as they could with little or no repercussions. That’s just the kind of guys they were. For the record my
wrestling friends passed.
Back to the night of Maysing, Dave, his girlfriend and about eight or nine of these rugby ruffians. I can’t
remember if Dave had been drinking or not, but he was a proud and gallant guy, and refused to have his
girlfriend, and future wife as it turned out, hassled in any way. Dave’s solution to this little problem was to
engage the entire pack of genocidal ruffians in fisted combat, which as you can probably figure out on your own
with Dave overwhelmingly on the short end of the stick. Luckily his life was saved when a couple of campus
security officers broke the fight up. One of the officers brought Dave back to the fraternity house and ordered
him to spend the rest of the night alone in his room. To his credit, Dave then proceeded to climb out of his
second story window, shimmy down a drain pipe, and run full speed to the by now well in progress show. He
luckily showed up like a minute before we were supposed to go on, his face battered beyond belief, and too out
of breath to offer any kind of explanation.
Things actually started out pretty well. The skit was a takeoff on the beginning of the movie Animal House, and
it actually got some authentic laughs. The song, however, was an unmitigated disaster. It came off sort of like a
riot of soccer hooligans. No one could hear the piano accompaniment, and seemingly every one of us had chosen
his own key and tempo. I think we were received with equal parts of bewilderment, laughter, and derision. Dave
ended our performance by flipping off the audience both physically and verbally. It wasn’t exactly in tune with
his original vision for the performance, but he had had a tough night.
Our embarrassment having been completed, we congregated outside of the theater and listened as an enraged
Dave related his story and tried to rally his troops for a revenge mission with little luck. A couple of guys were
willing to go, but not nearly enough to take on the entire rugby squad. Disgusted our president cursed us for our
cowardice and set off alone into the night. Later in the evening, one of Dave’s best friends from high school,
Darren, called the house looking for him and I happened to answer the phone. Dave, missing in action had call
Darren an hour before. Having been away at the time, Darren was returning said phone call. I related the events
of the night and told Darren that I had not a little bit of guilt over the situation. I was no longer the runt I had
been in high school, but I was still no fighter. However, I wondered if I should have stood beside my friend and
taken a beating with him out of loyalty. Darren’s response was that he had been down the same path before and
that he could tell me from experience that it wasn’t worth it.
We somehow managed to keep the house afloat through our graduation. No small achievement and a load off of
our collective conscious, but Theta Delta Chi would fold a year later.
Rollerskate Skinny – Old 97’s
“I believe in love but it don’t believe in me”
White Lines – Duran Duran
I don’t know why this is on here, but what better way to keep off Cocaine than to stop from sounding like this.
White Lines – Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
Can somebody tell me how to react when I hear this in a strip club?
Does Motley Crue get paid every time Girls, Girls, Girls is played at a strip club? I doubt it or Bill Gates would
be the fifth wealthiest man in the world by now.
Precious – The Jam
When you consider yourself a literate music fan, how are you supposed to feel about the songs you love that you
couldn’t explain the lyrics to if your life depended on it? I always like to feel that I’ll get to it eventually and be
pleasantly surprised.
Hot Rod Lincoln – Commander Cody and his lost Planet Airmen
As good a car song as Chuck Berry ever wrote, another part of my early guitar repertoire. No one was impressed.
No Money Down – Chuck Berry
OK, maybe it’s not as good as this one, but you see what I was getting at right? Wish I could make up cool
words like motorvating and coolerater.
Hot Rod Lincoln – Johnny Cash
No he never recorded it, but thanks to illegal downloading a bunch of people now think he did.
King of the Road – Roger Miller
OK, so when a kid downloads this illegally and winds up thinking the Randy Travis version is the original
should I feel sorry for him? Who am I kidding no kids are downloading this.
Being a hobo sounds so cool. Probably until you go off and do it, I suppose.
Crazy Train – Ozzy Osbourne
I’m not much of a fan. This is probably more Randy Rhoades’ triumph than Ozzy’s. The TV show was amusing
for a while. Him dining with George W, scary, but I saw him on Howard Stern thrilled to death to meet Paul
McCartney, and I couldn’t help but be touched.
Television Drug of a Nation – The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
Fame – David Bowie
Fame is the drug of the new millennium, but television is still its syringe.
The Jerry Springer Show
This is the kind of show that gave Bill Hicks killer migraine headaches. Hicks was right. Americans sit in front
of their TV’s day after day watching the most brainless tripe imaginable, while the true power brokers laugh at a
nation getting stupider and more compliant by the second.
“Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America.
Your government is in control again. Here. Here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed,
America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their
fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are
free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!
Intellectually, I totally agree with Hicks, but boy do I love bad television. Do I have to admit to how many
episodes of Saved by the Bell I have seen? My only defense is that maybe the problem isn’t us couch potatoes.
Maybe it’s that the power brokers should stop being so Gung ho about running the world. Wouldn’t the world
have been a lot better off if Yasir Arafat and whoever was running Israel at the time had been sitting around
eating Cheetos, watching Jerry Springer interview inbred trailer trash?
TV guide at one point named the Jerry Springer show as the worst television show in history, but that doesn’t
mean it wasn’t entertaining.
Really though, what is bad TV? Is it incompetent, poorly written TV? Some people would say it was TV that
was in bad taste, but that includes just about everything I find really entertaining. Sometimes I’ll see Conan
O’Brian do a routine with the masturbating bear and I just have to laugh at such a brazen waste of technology.
Hell, half of the joy of early David Letterman was watching him laugh to himself with glee as he got away with
throwing pencils at his cameras while on a major network. To me bad TV is the stuff that you look at and say,
Gee, I could be reading some Proust or Nietzsche right now. You know something lightweight and fun. Actually,
some of the worst TV I have ever seen came from shows that used to be really good like Happy Days.
Remember the Jenny Piccolo years? Ralph Malph balding? Fonzie becoming a step-father? Now that was some
awful television.
So yeah Hicks was right it will rot your brain. The funny thing is that Hicks saw the purveyors of rotten
entertainment as soulless mediocrities that served Satan by making us stupid and lowering our standards. Like
Socrates, who claimed he was the only one honest enough to admit that he was full of shit, Springer readily
seems to admit in every interview he’s ever done that his show is sort of a pact with the devil. Decide for
yourself whether that merits applause. Nevertheless, there are a few things that are undeniable.
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Jerry is a nice guy. He shakes everyone’s hand when they leave the studio and he’s extremely gracious
about his success.
When has this show not been entertaining? When has it not been worth at least a thirty-second glimpse
just to see the freak show? People talk like PT Barnum was the greatest guy in the world and they turn
their nose up at his spawn.
There used to be a show on called the Richard Bey Show. The Richard Bey show made the Springer
show seem like “Masterpiece Theater.”
Anyone that can sit through an hour and a half of people rutting like wild animals with their blood
relatives and still give their thought of the day with a straight face deserves some well-earned respect.
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I will maintain it until the day I die. Showing this to children would be a thousand times more productive
means of decreasing teen pregnancy than all of those right-wing abstinence speeches combined.
I don’t care if I’m in a room full of foreign dignitaries, nuns, preachers, heads of state – given the choice
between this and “Meet the Press,” I’m watching Springer every damned time.
Sorry, Bill. You were right but I’m afraid I’m hooked.
The Funniest Thing I’ve ever seen on Jerry Springer
A very pretty girl was on once. She didn’t seem like the usual Springer contestant. She seemed even college
educated, which I imagine isn’t usually the case. She brings her boyfriend out and the following unwinds
Girl: Jerry, my fiancé promised me that he wouldn’t have a bachelor party. I want him to admit that he had one.
The Fiancé: Wow, you are so paranoid. I never had a bachelor party.
Girl: I know you had a bachelor party because I sent the stripper.
The Fiancé: This is getting old. Are you going to be this suspicious when we’re married? I never had a bachelor
party.
Girl: I know you had a bachelor party because I sent the stripper and she gave you a blowjob!
The Fiancé: For the last time, I never had a bachelor party. I’m getting a little angry!
Girl: I know you had a bachelor party because I sent the stripper, she blew you, and she was really a man!
The Fiancé: YOU PSYCHO BITCH!
Jerry: Let’s bring him out!!
Got to like a man who will lie to the very end, Lenny Bruce said, “Even if she catches you in the act … deny,
deny, deny!” Personally, I would never cheat but maybe that’s just because I’m lucky to be with someone in the
first place. As my ad says, “Terrible with women, so unlikely to cheat.” Of course, if I were Johnny Depp I
suppose I might think a little differently.
Lawyers, Guns, and Money – Warren Zevon
“The shit has hit the fan”
The three worst inventions ever – two killed the Beatles and then the third took out John Lennon and the dream
truly was over.
Some people read the Wall Street Journal for inspiration. I just think to myself “How much fucking money do
you really need?”
Brad Hamilton: Why don't you get a job Spicoli?
Jeff Spicoli: What for?
Brad Hamilton: You need money.
Jeff Spicoli: All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine.
If you saw that movie and thought he was the moron, maybe you need to reevaluate your life.
Have you ever seen the amount of paper lawyers waste? Maybe Dan Quayle wasn’t the moron we all thought he
was. I mean part of me is happy that we have sort of found a semi-civilized way to solve these disputes, but
really it’s all gone way too far.
I never was a big believer that Eddie Murphy ripped off Art Buchwald when he made Coming to America since I
think you can hear the genesis of the movie in Raw, but talk about balls the size of small planets and you find the
accountants who claimed the movie never made any money after Buchwald won his lawsuit. Isn’t life too short
for this bullshit?
Charity foundations that do nothing but save their founders tax money. People suing over spilled coffee.
A lot of people will tell you the problem is that the world has a lot of people in it and its resources are finite.
That’s true, but we’d be a lot better off if half the people on it didn’t want 90% of it to themselves.
Millions of years of evolution and people are still killing each other over shiny rocks.
Hallelujah I Love Her So – Ray Charles
The movie Ray came out right at the same time as the Howard Hughes bio The Aviator. If you can believe the
mythology of the filmmakers, Ray exceeded his limitations due to the inspiration of his mother, who told him to
refuse to let them bring him down, while Hughes started out with everything and lost it all to the little bits of
paranoia left to him by his mother.
Ziggy Stardust – David Bowie
David Bowie’s a talented guy and an interesting artist, but he’s never done much for me. I prefer my artists to be
about something and Bowie is usually about everything but himself.
Cradle of Love – Billy Idol
She looks underage, but wow was I in love with the girl in this video.
Why Do Fools Fall in Love – Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers
Michael Jackson Mach I didn’t turn out too happy either.
Love is all Around – Sonny Curtis
Hey lay off, this dude hung with Buddy Holly. The sweetest most appropriate TV theme ever. Lou Grant – TV
Executive – Cool as hell. Lou Grant – Newspaper editor pretentious and boring. Remember how in Roots he was
like an evil slave trader and Mr. Brady was a libidinous slave owner? That would have probably aged better
minus all the TV actors, not that they didn’t do a great job. It’s just hard to take Mr. Brady heading out to get his
freak on with the forced help, especially when it was obvious that he really had his eye on Chicken George. I
may be going to hell for that last sentence.
How about a shout out to Ted Knight and Larry Linville, Linville was brilliant on MASH and because his
character was such a slimeball loser no one ever gave him any credit. The rest of the actors on that show were
acting like they were single handed showing us the true horrors of war. By that time Loretta Swit had aged about
20 years in that two year war and she was acting like she deserved a Nobel Peace prize. Larry Linville was
keeping us entertained. Really, if you think about it that show was basically a drama the day after he left. He
deserves more credit.
Ted Knight as Ted Baxter, that was genius, and at least when he wound up on a crappy show he made sure there
were some hot chicks and a funny “we swear he’s straight” gay guy around. I’d pay 10 bucks to see a movie
about the tender relationship between Ted and Jim J Bullock. That would have been a much better show than the
one with Tammy Faye Baker.
Welcome Back – John Sebastion
When I was a kid, I used to lie in bed unable to sleep wishing that the second I closed my eyes I would be able to
constantly see Welcome Back Kotter in my head. See when I think about how my life hasn’t turned out like my
dreams, I like to think about how insanely stupid some of those dreams were.
The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis
Wow, this was a cool show. I’m not going to put down Gilligan’s Island, because I’ve seen every episode like a
1000 times including the Rashomon homage where Gilligan frees the castaways from that Japanese guy, who
never got the memo that World War II ended, but Bob Denver following Maynard G Krebs with Gilligan was
akin to Johnny Rotten leaving the Sex Pistols to join Abba.
My other favorite television odd balls – Eddie Haskell, Ernest T. Bass, and of course Mr. Ed.
I used to be so into Mr. Ed in college that I’d be five minutes late to a math class everyday so I could hang out
and see the last all is forgiven moment between Ed and Wilbur.
Here for the first time anywhere my senior year existential ode to Mr. Ed.
The Unalarming Disappearance of Wilbur Post
An Existential Cartoon
Ed picked up the pencil that he had used for nearly forty odd years to dial the telephone that was, next to Wilbur,
his only means of communication with the outside world, the same world he had publicly spurned with his
silence. Ed had given Wilbur nearly hundreds of opportunities to regret the existence of the outside line, but it
was essential to his business, and although he would never admit it, Ed’s prank intrusions into the mundane
workings of his life never failed to secretly amuse him. Ed’s attempt to raise money by selling real estate long
distance had come close, but that was a long time ago and it had been a while since Ed had actually been
reprimanded for his telephone usage.
Ed's teeth were no longer as strong as they had once been, but age had brought skill and technique enough to at
least reach the operator, the starting point of almost all of his various correspondences.
"Hello, honey!"
Ed still possessed the deep strong baritone of a western hero, at times quivering in the manner of Jimmy Stewart
or James Dean. The dogmatic glee and impetuousness of his voice replaced with a subtle edge of reflection and
doubt. The adventures of his youth outmoded, Ed spent each new day engulfed by time and boredom, yet the
feeling that it was running out became all pervasive making it almost impossible to concentrate. So many of the
pieces were just lost or never there in the first place. His world so cut off and remote, and yet that was always his
choice, his decision. Except for telephone calls and maybe a small child or two, he only spoke to Wilbur, or as
he had said mockingly many times before, "I only speak to dumb animals and you Wilbur", forcing Wilbur to
wonder aloud whether Ed drew any distinction between the two.
"Did I ever tell you about my son? He wasn't really my son, but he was the closest thing to one that I ever knew.
Not that there aren't many little Edwards running around, I just don't stay around long enough for that."
The day Wilbur moved in was the first day Ed had ever really spoken. Without Wilbur there was never any
reason to speak. Ed never knew where the words came from. He had never asked for them. He often regretted
them. Language was fine in and of itself, but speech was in no way an isolated capability. Although many people
appeared to Ed to have the incredible ability to express themselves without any signs of intelligence whatsoever,
he had not been so blessed, so often alone left with the words, thoughts, questions. There would be distractions,
comic books, rock and roll, television, but he would gladly banish his favorite show if he could just dispel those
disturbing words from his head. He'd trade them all for a ride in the park with Wilbur or an adventuresome run
from the victim of yet another practical joke. If this was color, he'd gladly take black and white and live in a
mindless sitcom, which never approached the workings of the world, the questions of time. And yet this feeling
would pass, for it was also the curse of intelligence that the appeal of mindless bliss was rationally discarded as
folly. To go through life with blinders on was a defeat he would not accept. If the words told him that in this
cruel heartless world without meaning he was only an animal, then they also told him that he was a thinking one.
"We saw him at the riding stables. He was just a little pony, cute as can be. I am quite a specimen, but even I was
never that cute. Anyway, they used him for the little kids, a dollar a ride, but he was ornery, just like me. I
begged Wilbur to buy him and you know Wilbur, he was a sucker for a little baby like that. Carol was furious, it
was one of the best days in my life, and I've had good ones, let me tell you."
Wilbur was his one true outpost in the world. He had been given the ability to talk to anyone in the world, and
yet despite Wilbur's urging, he really had no ambition to speak to anyone else. Wilbur's wife Carol clung hard
for his affections, and although he loved her as much as any man could, it was pretty clear that he was married to
his secret friendship with Ed. Nothing could change that. Conflicts, like the picnic where Ed had jealously let the
air out of Wilbur's bicycle tires right before the vicious onslaught of a rainstorm, were usually remembered in
terms of the cold the two had shared after Ed's apology. Each mess and entanglement was eventually looked on
as another great adventure, each with a happy ending which strengthened their friendship.
"True blue, buddy boy, ol' pal” Ed was fond of saying.
Carol's death was no exception. With the competition gone, Wilbur, although more quiet and reserved was able
to spend more time with Ed. In fact Wilbur hardly ever went back into the old house, almost completely living
inside of the stable with Ed, far away from the memories of his domestic existence. In fact they almost never
left. Almost completely forgotten were the rides in the park, along with the adventure, the intrigue. The sitcom of
their life had lost not only the complication but the fun.
With Carol gone, there was no challenge to the secret. Wilbur tried to bring Ed out more, if only to have one
other person tell him that he was not almost completely out of his mind, but Ed wouldn't have it. Alone, sleep
was Wilbur's only happiness; now they slept together much closer than the single beds had allowed him to sleep
with Carol. Ed on the other hand, relished the companionship, the chess games, the discussions, without Wilbur
he was left to the infuriating workings of his mind, time only reminding him of the endless duration of each and
every moment in the day.
"I loved that little rascal, of course I couldn't talk to him, but sometimes it was easier to communicate without
speaking. Addison hated him too. The bitter ol' miser loved his silly apple orchard more than his wife, or
anybody else. Told Wilbur to get rid of the little guy or else, and how could I tell him that, poor little pony."
Time was the enemy. It worked against their friendship, the more they were together the less they had to discuss,
the more they slept and watched T.V. Wilbur begged Ed to talk, not just to him, but to the whole world, let them
know the extent of their friendship, let them expand their circle, let them know he wasn't really insane. All this
confused Ed. He didn't hear the idle talk of the neighborhood, and if Ed's silence was the only source of
discussion, it was still enough to have Wilbur lay by his side, to know he was no longer alone.
"Addison hated the little guy, but he was my son, and even Wilbur found it hard to understand. He had Carol,
and I was alone. The little guy was young; he needed my help, my protection. Wilbur tried to talk to me about it,
but the little guy was so cute and Wilbur such a sucker."
Ed couldn't remember exactly why he had chosen to speak to Wilbur. He was an architect, and a clumsy, silly
one at that, but even before they had spoken, from the moment they had found each other, he had loved Ed, and
yet the spark had left Wilbur's eyes. He was thin, unshaven, old. After a while, they no longer spoke. The secret
link between them erased, to where Wilbur was no longer sure himself that Ed could talk, and too afraid to find
out. However, the initial impulse, the love Ed felt, was still there, and as long as Wilbur was around Ed was
happy.
"One day, the owner of the riding stables came to see Wilbur. He says they want the little ol' guy back for the
kids who miss him. Wilbur, of course, corrected him. The little guy was only a pony. Turns out my baby's a
miniature Mexican horse much older than me. I relinquished, and back he went to the pony rides. Nobody
wanted an old, old horse, not even me."
One day Wilbur woke realizing much clearer than ever before that the part of his life that mattered was truly
over. To this day, his weekly shopping trip had lasted for three weeks and Ed was lonely and confused. Food
was scarce, and he had thinned drastically, but nevertheless he was hardly conscious of his once proud form.
Wilbur was gone and he was left alone to himself, time, words. If only he knew what was keeping Wilbur.
Lonely, but confident, Mr. Ed waited Argus-like for his only friend as time slowly passed.
Maude Theme – Donny Hathaway
Oh, no Maude’s getting an abortion!
Closer – Nine Inch Nails
Here’s a strip club story for the kids. I met some friends in Las Vegas in the mid-90’s and we wound up in this
huge club called Crazy Horse Too. It was practically a Roman orgy in there. I’m extremely picky about my
strippers, I prefer natural breasts, and I like to avoid the ones that look like they’ve been through about 7 horrible
marriages. I eventually saw this impossibly cute girl, who couldn’t have been more than 20, and started buying
dances from her. She told me that she had driven up from San Diego with a friend for the weekend and still lived
with her parents.
My friends heard me ask her if her parents had any idea where she was and my friends haven’t stopped harassing
me about it since. About three songs in Closer was played. I’m guessing that nobody really wants to see a list of
the most turned on I’ve ever been, but this girl whispering “I want to fuck you like an animal” into my ear is way
way up there.
About ten minutes later, she starts telling me that she’s really nervous about how the bouncers have been looking
at her. Chivalrous as I could, I assured her that the bouncers were just looking out for her safety. Eventually, she
told me that she and her friend didn’t really work at the club. They’d driven into town and slipped into the club
and were doing free lance lap dances.
“Do you think they’d be real upset if they found out?”
“Uh, well, yeah probably.”
Can anyone keep someone in the moment quite like me?
About a minute and a half later, my new love was slipping away into the night. Hell, even Barney Fife would
have invited her back to his hotel for breakfast.
Major League
There is nothing wrong with grade-A prime aged Angus beef, but sometimes all you really want is a McDonald's
hamburger. "Major League" is the quarter pounder with cheese of baseball movies. There's nothing original
about it, all the characters are stolen from other books or movies, but it understands the longings of a starved
baseball town, and manages to wring out plenty of laughs from familiar situations.
Margeret Whitton plays the owner of the Cleveland Indians who isn't aware that she could make a boatload of
money if she'd only tear down Municipal Stadium and build Jacob's Field. Her brilliant scheme is to make the
team so awful (in 1989 when this film came out they hadn't made the playoffs in 45 years) that attendance will
drop to nothing and she can get Major League approval to move the team to Florida for big bucks. This means
she has to tear apart her franchise's already-killer roster and fill it with rejects, retreads, convicts, has-beens, and
midgets. The guy they hire to manage the team isn't even sure he wants to leave his job at the auto body.
You've seen all these characters before. The unbeatable high-paid New York Yankees, the crafty old catcher
who's knees are shot, the young fireballer with no control either with his arm or personally, the speedster who
can't hit, the voodoo believing power hitter who can't catch up to a curve, and the veteran spitballer with
religious hang-ups. There are the usual newspaper headline montages, the three way collisions in the outfield,
the stirring locker room speeches. Luckily, when thrown together they make up an entertainingly motley crew.
When the team finds out why they were put together, they decide to show the old lady and win it all. Amazing.
Owners that tried failed for over fifty years to get this team to win a division and a woman does it trying to lose.
Bob Uecker is pretty amusing playing basically Bob Uecker. Dennis Haysbert is menacingly scary and funny as
the voodoo hitter, and Tom Berenger is affecting enough as the catcher who is desperately trying to redeem his
way back into Rene Russo's bed. Hey, I grew up in Cleveland a die-hard tribe fan, but see if you don't get a lump
in your throat when they play X's punked-out, stadium-filled ecstatic version of "Wild Thing" when Charlie
Sheen comes in to will a few 100 mph fastballs by the best hitter in the league. The baseball action is even fairly
well done. It won't change your life but it'll feed your soul on a Friday night. If you can keep yourself from
crying when ideological enemies Eddie Harris, man of Christ, hugs Pedro Cerrano, man of voodoo, I don’t want
to know you.
See Emily Play – Pink Floyd
Bike – Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd had a pretty good career, but everyone around sits and wonders what it would have been like had
acid not fried Syd Barrett’s brains into a lifetime of insanity. The rest of the band is little different as at least two
of their best albums Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here are as obsessed with old Syd as any of the
fans. Well Syd definitely was the best looking despite reports that by the mid seventies he was bald and
overweight. I find Emily to be quite compelling Bike not so much. Shine on you crazy diamond.
The End – The Beatles
Chris Farley: Right. I think we.. I think we got time for one more question. Uh.. remember when you were in the
Beatles? And, um, you did that album Abbey Road, and at the very end of the song, it would … the song goes,
"And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make"? You.. you remember that?
Paul McCartney: Yes.
Chris Farley: Uh.. is that true?
Paul McCartney: Yes, Chris. In my experience, it is. I find, the more you give, the more you get.
Chris Farley mouths the word “Awesome!”
Chris Farley did this whole book in one three minute sketch.
Rest in peace big guy the world’s a lot less fun without you.