Girl in a Cage

In Which I Dis a Nine-Year-Old Movie

I'm reading Never Mind the Pollacks, by Neal Pollack, and it has me laughing out loud on just about every page, which is a rare and wonderful thing. I was trying to explain what I was laughing about to the kids, and I was like, "Well, it's a book that's kind of making fun of people who write about rock and roll." And one of them said, "But that's you!"

I thought about explaining how I'm just an opinonated loudmouth rather than an actual rock critic, but then the difference there started seeming kind of thin.

And then I started explaining how Never Mind the Pollacks is actually kind of an affectionate satire, that it's kind of--I mean, you really have to have read a lot of rock criticism to parody it as effectively as he does in this book, which means that you really have to actually kind of like it. This, kids, I said, is what separates great satires from the herd. It's what makes Spinal Tap a work of genius, and Waiting For Guffman just a mean-spirited piece of crap.

"But everybody likes Waiting for Guffman," the kids protested. "Plus it's got that guy from the Jeffersons in it!"

"Well, kids," I said, "I'm always happy to see Paul Benedict get work, but otherwise, what can I say? Spinal Tap conveys a real love of rock and roll, where as Guffman is just about how this bunch of celebrities and aristocrats--Lord Haden-Guest, yet, actual member of the House of Lords, you could look it up--" here my face was reddening, and spittle was flying from my lips, "have nothing but contempt for people from small towns who don't know their place and think that they too could be performers."

"But you're always making fun of small towns," they said.

"Yeah," I said, "but for things like closed-mindedness, insularity, and bigotry. Not for having a dream!"

"Hypocrite!" they shouted, and I guess I couldn't argue.

The King of the Divan

I used to have this theory, that was really just the kind of thing I would say to piss people off, that you pretty much had to come from an English-speaking country in order to rock credibly. Oh, sure, you could make great music if you came from a non-english speaking country--I had a phase where I was really into Cuban dance music, which is great (Though I can't, and therefore don't, dance.). But in order to really rock, you pretty much had to come from the US, Canada, Ireland, the UK, or Australia. Even New Zealand was a little suspect, since they brought us (to my knowledge) only the Finn Brothers and their various bands, whose wistful pop-folk stylings are appealing, but not exactly rockin'.

People would hem and haw and eventually offer up the Scorpions, or maybe Golden Earring. No response was necessary to this--I could just look at them with condescending pity, and I didn't even have to say, "Radar Love?" because it was clear just from the look on my face.

Fortunately, nobody ever brought up Plastic Bertrand's "Ca Plane Pour Moi", which I just downloaded and which is Francophantastic! (Aside on downloading--it's turned me into such a lazy bastard. Pretty much everything I've complained about being unable to download is easily available on CD. But that would mean leaving my house...)

Anyway, now, it seems that I can't even say that kind of thing, because Swedes totally rock! I've been listening to the Hives' "Dead Quote Olympics" over and over, but the band I really dig is the Hawaii Mud Bombers. I have heard them on satellite radio (which nobody I know will get despite my boring hectoring on the subject), but their album seems to be available only by mail order in the US. (Which I haven't done because I'm too lazy even to do something that might involve, say, two or three mouse clicks instead of one) They do this great poppy kind of Beach Boys meet the Ramones at Debbie Harry's house thing. Or something like that.

I like the Raveonettes too, but I think maybe they're Danish. Mmmmm....Danish.....

A Night at the Opera

Last night I saw the White Stripes at the Opera House. It's always way easier and more entertaining to say something mean than something nice, which is why most critics are such dicks, but this was an excellent show. It was thrilling to see a band like this-- really confident performers with great material just tearing it up. I was trying to think of the last time I saw a band at their peak like this. Maybe the Pixies in December, but though that was a fantastic show, they were doing fifteen-year-old songs. I'm thinking maybe Midnight Oil in 1986 was the last time I've really felt like I was seeing one of the best bands in the world at the top of their game. Well, that, of course, and Falling August in 1993.

Anyway, the Opera House is a great venue, but we were in the balcony, which shook really alarmingly as everybody in it stomped along to the songs. I'm sure that when they built this place, they didn't envision that kind of strain on the structure--hard to imagine a crowd stomping and dancing to "La Boheme" or whatever. The guy in front of me kept shooting me dirty looks like he thought that I personally was shaking the entire balcony. Still, the thrill of fear that we might go crashing onto the crowd below probably helped the whole thing seem a little bit more exciting.

As much as I love the whole DIY punk rock thing, it was also really fun to see a band that was theatrical--sets, costumes, etc. Even the roadies were all in black suits with red ties and black porkpie hats. I really felt like we got a show instead of just some guys playing. The set looked great, they played pretty much every song I wanted to hear (Except "little ghost"), and both of them are really charismatic, entertaining performers. My only quibble: with only 2 instruments going at once (except for "The Nurse," sort of, which was actually way better live than on the album), Jack White's voice is a really important element of the sound, and on the hardest rockin' numbers, he was yelling so much that you pretty much lost the melody.

He got this 10-year-old girl out of the audience, and she sat up on the stage for the entire show and even played tambourine (badly, but, hey, she wasn't expecting to perform) on "As Ugly as I Seem" and "We Are Going to Be Friends." It was really charming and just helped me to feel like I was not seeing some canned performance, but something spontaneous and joyful.

"Forever for Her is Over For Me" was probably the highlight of the entire show, though pretty much everything was good. It was short-ish, a little under an hour and a half, but that was okay too--they definitely left me wanting more, rather than feeling like, "okay, okay, wrap it up already."

The last encore was a song I don't know--I think it's called "Looking for a home" or something like that. It doesn't seem to be on any of the albums I can find. If you know where I can find it, please lemme know!

They Say He's Got To Go

So due to dog-related reasons, I found myself awake both late at night and early in the morning the other night, and at both times, Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla 2 was on. And since I was barely conscious either time, I can't tell whether everything I remembered happening actually happened. I think Rodan somehow gave up his life to resurrect Godzilla after the people in Mechagodzilla somehow zapped his brain, which was actually in his butt. Also, there was some mini-Godzilla creature, but he was not, unfortunately, named Godzooky. And the good guys were also the bad guys. Or something. This movie was from the 90's, and they obviously put a bunch of effort into making the effects a lot better, except for the fact that Godzilla is still a guy in a rubber suit.

I liked it because it was operatic and sort of melancholy--somehow the good guys had to try to destroy Godzilla, though they didn't want to, and then there was Rodan's selfless sacrifice, Godzilla's resurrection and mini-Godzilla's tearful goodbye to the human who'd been caring for him--and yet it was still about wrecking stuff.

I still love the Blue Oyster Cult song "Godzilla," especially the version on "Extraterrestrial Live" where E. Bloom does this long, silly intro and the whole crowd cheers when he says, "Heightening tensions between the East and the West...chance of....Nuclear Destruction!" I always kind of wondered who those people were who heard the words "nuclear destruction" and went "Wooo!" Well, I suppose history shows again and again how nature points up the folly of men. ("points up?" who says that?)

Working Men are Pissed

Another great Minutemen song unavailable for download. The other day I went on my first ever itunes binge--I bought Iggy Pop's "The Passenger", and then everything was a blur--I woke up woozy and disoriented with Kasey Chambers' "Pony" playing on my computer. Yeah, I know it was wrong, but it felt so good... No danger of any lost weekends, though, because, as I've lamented before, there are just so many gaps. No Husker Du, no Minutemen, no Black Flag, (I never really liked Black Flag, but I do like the logo, and I've always suspected I might be cooler if I actually did like Black Flag) (I do like Rollins' movie show on IFC...--he's kind of a pumped-up, vaguely hostile Roger Ebert. Does that count?)...so I decided, well, I just need to go a little more mainstream. Looked for songs I liked by The The, XTC, and the Smiths. Nothing. What the hell? Has the entire decade of the 80's fallen into a digital black hole from which no decent music can escape? I mean, whaddya wanna bet I could download "I Can't Drive 55" or "Tarzan Boy" with just one click? (Actually, I kinda like "Tarzan Boy.") (And now I must buy at least five Black Flag albums in order to get back to being as cool as I was before I typed that sentence.)

Definitely cancelling emusic. I want so badly to like this service, but the selection just kinda blows. 40 downloads a month, and it's kind of a chore to find songs I want enough to fill my quota. So I'll get the rest of that Frank Black album, the new Teenage Fanclub, and, eh...I guess I'm done.

Reading the Globe today and decided if I had more time I would start a blog entitled "Mitt Romney is a Dick." I certainly would never want for material. I know it's bad for my health to get so worked up about a haircut who is essentially a powerless figurehead anyway, but, geez. He is a total dick. Today's dickishness was that he said the government should be wiretapping mosques. And you know when he runs for president he's going to do this big, "I'm a Mormon, be tolerant of my religion" thing. (Let me add parenthetically that all the Mormons I've ever met personally have been really lovely people, and I generally have a very positive view of Mormons as a result of the two exceptionally kind Mormon families I've met, but I guess Mitt is helping to challenge my preconceptions and prove that Mormons can be dicks too.)

Stripes, Pornographers

I love the video for "My Doorbell" which I've been watching online here: http://stream.qtv.apple.com/qtv/v2music/08122005/doorbell_ref.mov

Jack White really looks a lot like Johnny Depp.

"My Doorbell" is the best song on Get Behind Me Satan, and the video is really cool--just like some kind of demented Little Rascals episode or something. And I really love the ending.

The video inspired me to listen to Get Behind Me Satan again. I initially thought of this as a kind of disappointing album, but then when I look at the songs I like: "Blue Orchid," "My Doorbell," "Forever for Her Is Over For Me," "Little Ghost" and "As Ugly as I Seem", it turns out to have more good songs than most records. And yet the second half is kind of a morass of mediocrity. "Take Take Take" is a hate letter to fans, which might be even more obnoxious as a genre than the "Boo Hoo it's so Hard to Be a Rock Star and Tour All the Time," of which "Turn the Page" is the most famous and crappiest example. "Instinct Blues" is kind of like "Ball and Biscuit" without the face-meltin' solos, which, I mean, what's the point then? Still, I do admire the fact that they're trying to do something different than what everybody expected. (I'm using "they," even though most people only ever talk about Jack White, like Meg White is the Andrew Ridgely of the new millennium, which is not true--Big Boi is the Andrew Ridgely of the new millennium).

The New Pornographers, on the other hand, delivered exactly what I expected in their new album, and I love that too. Go download "The Bleeding Heart Show" and find yourself powerless to resist the "hey-la, hey-la" part at the end. Despite your cynical exterior, you are no match for their pop hooks! Surrender! (you can get all three of their albums at www.emusic.com, where they give you 50 free downloads for a trial membership, and getting all three New Pornographers albums for free is such a great deal that there's really no excuse not to do it, even if you decide to cancel emusic, which is actually something I'm contemplating, but that's another story...)

Downloads

I think I solved my math problem with extensive note-taking and by giving myself permission to skip around and just read sections of the math books.

So I was listening to Belle and Sebastian today while revising the book I wrote while listening to Belle and Sebastian. I know this is the kind of band I should at least feign hatred for, but the melodies are irresistable, and I just love the sensibility behind a lyric like "wondering if you should tell your folks about the case of thrush you got from licking railings." All this in the middle of a lovely song that sounds, musically anyway, kinda like Donovan wrote it.

I also got a little freaked out by the song "The Gate" which somehow has the banjo part from the Edge's "Just an Illusion" in it. Who knew they got copies of "The Banjo Single" in the UK?

I love the beautiful world of music downloading. Emusic is a better deal--10 bucks a month for 40 songs, all MP3s with no weird copy protection stuff, but Itunes has a much better selection, since emusic is mostly independent labels. Having said this, I got this great idea for downloading a bunch of stuff I loved as a teen and only own on vinyl. (I did a vinyl-to-MP3 transfer of Karl Meyer: the Cincinnati Years a couple of years ago, but it was a colossal pain in the ass and the volume was really low on a lot of tracks, which is probably fixable, but I couldn't figure it out.) So I go to look for Husker Du, and I find no Zen Arcade, no New Day Rising, not even Candy Apple Freakin' Gray. Same deal with the Minutemen. Very limited Billy Bragg--i.e., a little of his recent stuff, which is to say, none of the good stuff. And through Billy Bragg, I remembered about Kirsty MacColl, who is the perfect Itunes artist: I figure, her cover of "Days," her cover of "a New England", and a little "In These Shoes," and I'm probably done. But she is also not available to download. It's just a shame, I tellya.

Little Buddy

I was sad to see that Bob Denver died, and I imagined that all the flags I saw at half-staff today were for him and not Rhenquist. The obituary mentioned Gilligan's Island, of course, and Dobie Gillis, but there was no mention of his work on The Far Out Space Nuts, which was a show I used to really enjoy on Saturday mornings. See, they were loading the food onto the space ship, and instead of pressing "Lunch," he pressed "Launch!"

Now, here's something that must just be an artifact of growing up in a 4-channel universe: I used to watch Gilligan's Island religiously, even though I hated it. Hours of my life that I could have spent doing something else...

Like reading! Though I am humbled to realize as I look back at this summer that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was the only book I actually finished. Though I did read about two-thirds of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which is like the same as reading two regular books. That book started out so good, and suddenly ran completely out of narrative momentum. All of the sudden we were at war again, they'd had their big falling out, and nobody seemed particularly concerned about rescuing the wife from the fairies. Feh. I also read big chunks of several books about math, but, as I noted earlier, I've forgotten most of the cool stuff I learned from those. Right now I'm reading and enjoying a book called Gil's All-Fright Diner. Oh, yeah, I guess I finished Codex, too, though that was pretty disappointing. It's covered in adoring blurbs from other authors, which makes no sense until you read about the author and find that he's the book critic for Time. And hopefully he doesn't google his books as much as I do mine, so he'll never know that I thought his book was mediocre, and so he won't punish me with a bad review.... though I suppose he could just laugh at me from his perch high on the bestseller list, taunting me with his Amazon number, which is currently about 41 thousand places lower than Donorboy's....

God Bows To Math

I was listening to my old vinyl copy of the Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime, which is just as fantastic as I remember it, and I think they had the best song titles ever: "God Bows to Math", "Shit From an Old Notebook", "Political Song For Michael Jackson to Sing," etc. etc. etc.

But right now I'm thinking about "God Bows To Math" because math is important in the project I've just started, and I've been reading all these popular math books so that my characters can talk knowledgeably about math, but I'm running into a problem. I can, with some effort, wrap my brain around some pretty tough mathematical ideas, but as soon as I put the book down, it's gone. I just can't make this stuff stick in my brain. It's frustrating. I know who Meeno Peluce is, I know all kinds of trivial crap about pop culture, but I can't even hold a concept from Algebra 2 in my brain for more than about five seconds.

Just reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire with Rowen, and we've just gotten to the part where Dumbledore shows him the penseive and explains how he can draw out pesky memories and examine them at leisure later. I wonder if I could draw out stuff like the cast of The Facts of Life or all the lyrics I remember from Dee Dee King: Standing in the Spotlight if I would then have room for stuff like basics of trigonometry.

Why'd I Do That?

So in February 2003, when I was feeling worse than I'd felt in a long time (but not as bad as I was going to feel just a few months later), I went to see Frank Black and the Catholics with Petey. I'd been obsessively listening to Black Letter Days and Devil's Workshop, and let me just add parenthetically that I really think ol' Frank's songwriting has improved a lot since the Pixies. I mean, maybe his best solo songs are not quite at the level of his best Pixies songs, but the average solo song is just light years ahead of something like "Crackity Jones."

Anyway, so there we were in February 2003, and Frank Black and the Catholics played what was then a new song called "Manitoba," and it literally brought tears to my eyes, which as everyone knows is not much of a feat even at the best of times (Indeed, I was crying at "The Wild Thornberrys Movie" just this morning), but even still--that song just seemed to contain all the sadness I was feeling at the time, and it was one of those transcendent musical moments when a song and a performance just take you out of yourself.

Flash forward to just a few days ago, when I was getting to the "use it or lose it" deadline for my emusic downloads for the month of August, and I thought, "Hey, I never got that Frank Black album--I'll download that fantastic "Manitoba" song!" So I did, and I listened to it for the first time yesterday. While the studio version sounds really small compared to the sublime thing I heard two-and-a-half years ago, it completely brought me back to all the sadness and dread I was feeling at the time. And I thought, I know how music can unlock all kinds of emotions, and yet I downloaded and then listened to a song that summed up a lot of awful things I was feeling years ago.

Why'd I do that?