Girl in a Cage

Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo

So whilst in Ohio (The Heart of It All!), we dropped in to the Rock and Roll Hall of fame. It was great. There were a couple of reallly good video presentations, we liked the Tom Petty notebooks with his original lyrics, and there were a lot of really cool artifacts. I got all choked up looking at Paul Simenon's bass that he's shown smashing on the cover of London Calling. Also at the case full of Ramones artifacts, and Dee Dee's cartoony Ramones paintings, which were really realy cool. Oh, yeah, and they have the recording equipment from Sun Studios. Maybe you need to be as much of a music geek as I am to really feel this, but I mean, I'm standing there just a few feet from the equipment where the first rock and roll records were recorded (Oh, I know, I know, Ike Turner's "Rocket 88" is really the first rock and roll record, but you know what I mean). It was really amazing.

Also, they had Weezer's flying W and some big props from The Wall. Roger Waters had written this thing on The Wall about how he spit on this guy at a concert, blah blah, and how he could either keep going that way or make a big change, and The Wall was the result. Um, I mean, I feel like I missed something here. So he was freaked out about the division between artist and performer, so he made a double concept album and a big stage show with cartoons and puppets and stuff. I mean, mightn't like a solo club tour have been a more rational response to the problem? I dunno.

Anyway, the video with the inductees was cool but way too long, and there was no explanation of why anybody was in there. Like, you know, it is possible that somebody might walk through the doors of this museum who doesn't know who, for example, Ahmet Ertegun or LaVern Baker are, and it might be nice to have a little kiosk with some info there. It would also help educate ignoramuses like the guy who was there when we walked through the part where all the inductees' signatures are etched in glass, who was going "The Clash? What the hell did they ever do? Parliament/Funkadelic? Why are they in here?" Oh, I nearly killed him. Of course, I felt the same way upon seeing The Eagles and Jackson Browne on the video, but, of course, I'm actually right. I mean, Jackson Freaking Browne? Billy Joel? I think it's kinda weird that there's no real information about what the criteria are or who the voters are. Dammit, I want a vote! Actually, I want complete control (Clash reference!)! My, but it's frustrating how the rest of the world keeps refusing to fall into line with my opinions. Of course, if they did, I'd have nothing to complain about, and how fun would that be?

Sirius 14 is booming through the lobby of the hall, and the DJ sits in a little booth on the 3rd floor. The problem is that it's a regular, lame classic rock station such as you can hear anywhere--ie, one that never plays the Clash or Parliament. Why not play, for example, music by all of the inductees? I'm just saying.

Overall, a fantastic museum, money well spent. We spent 4 hours there, and the only thing that bored the kids was the Bob Dylan exhibit.

Maybe not worth a special trip to Cleveland, but fantastic nonetheless. Note about Cleveland--the next time they tell you how the new ballpark totally revitalized downtown, don't believe 'em. Ballpark, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and a bunch of empty office buildings. It was comin' like a ghost town.

I'm so full of crap

Confound that great ironist in the sky!

A few months back I wrote about how video games were an inferior form of entertainment, masturbatory, etc. And then I bought a Nintendo DS "for the kids" for our big car ride. And since I purchased this masturbatory entertainment, I'm having a hard time keeping my hands off it. Make of that what you will.

I lambasted Wolfmother (Though, as Eric points out, fantastic name) and then found myself rockin' out numerous times to "Joker and the Thief" whilst driving through some really long states.

Now I'm afraid to write about my response to my visit to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for fear it'll lead to me buying a Jackson Browne album...

Ripoff Artist

Since every artist steals from another artist, it's kind of hard to condemn anybody for ripping off anybody else. Why, I myself have been condemned as "an American version of Nick Hornby." (Not really. But I wish somebody would condemn me as such--it would probably help my sales!) But that's not going to stop me.

Apparently Jack White can only put out about an album a year, so into the void between White Stripes and Raconteurs albums comes Wolfmother, one in a long line of bands who seem to exist only to fill the spaces between records by their more talented peers. (Stone Temple Pilots, Silverchair, John Caffrey and the Beaver Brown Band, I'm lookin' at you!)

It's like these guys just put "Black Math" on repeat and decided to build a band around it. You could certainly do worse, and the heavy guitar riffs are catchy, but it still leaves me longing for a new White Stripes album. And while I have praised Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem in the past, I think everyone agrees that Animal's strengths are as a drummer rather than a songwriter, and yet he appears to be the lyricist for Wolfmother's "Woman."

The boy digs the heavy riffs, so he's downloaded the video for "Woman", which reveals perhaps this band's greatest crime: the lead singer is decked out in full Leo Sayer regalia: white fro, stripey shirt--I kept waiting for him to announce that I made him feel like dancin'.

No SOAP, radio

Oh, I'm in love with the theme from Snakes on a Plane. Where to begin? Perhaps at the beginning, with Samuel Jackson's cri de coeur: "That's it! I have had it with these muthafuckin snakes on this muthafuckin plane!" I mean, who among us hasn't, at one time or another, had it with our own metaphorical muthafuckin snakes on our own metaphorical muthafuckin plane?

And what's up with this band Cobra Starship? There's no way that's a real band, right? I mean, no real band would ever put the word "starship" in their name in this day and age, would they? I mean, why not call your band "Cobra Speedwagon" or "Cobra Mr. Mister"?

And then there's the song itself--sorta dance-y, sorta rock-ish, a sorta rap part....the half chanted "I'm ready for it, come on bring it", the soaring "kiss me goodbyyyyyeee" chorus--it seems like somebody cut and pasted bits of six or eight hit singles in an effort to cobble together, frankenstein-like, a number one hit. I bet they succeed.

I should hate this. I kinda want to hate it. But I can't! I love it!

Beach Reads

Whilst at the beach, I tore through Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's Peter and the Starcatchers. It was a great, action-packed read, very clever and entertaining, and I couldn't get the kids interested in it. Oh well. Normally I'm wary of things that are written in a world another author created, but the genius here is that this is a prequel to Peter Pan, which isn't very good! So it'snot like they've despoiled some beloved classic. Rather, they've given a backstory that's far more engaging and clever than the "clap for tinkerbell" crap that follows.

Not sure what it says about me that the only books I seem to be able to tear through anymore are written for those 16 and under.

Which may be why I stalled out halfway through Thomas Disch's Camp Concentration. I got it for a quarter at the church yard sale--original paperback from 1968! It's covered with quotes about how it's a modern classic of science fiction and stuff like that. I think a good rule of thumb applies here: beware of anything that was overpraised in the '60's! Everybody was high! Sgt. Pepper's, Stranger in a Strange Land--this was after all, the decade in which people were heard to remark that even I was "cute" and "adorable." Anyway, it's only 150 pages, but by halfway through I was tired of the static plot and the annoying narrator always trying to prove how erudite he is. Can't help suspecting this was Disch's attempt to show the world that science fiction can be literary. If by literary you mean wordy and dull, it's an unqualified success!

Shut Up, Already. Damn.

Like any good music geek, I've always been kind of scornful of cover bands (except for Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, and maybe Dread Zeppelin. Also Hayseed Dixie. But, you know, all those bands are ironic, so that somehow makes it okay, or possibly even cool.).

And yet, there I was last Thursday night, heading to Sunset Park in Harvey Cedars, NJ (sadly, the event wasn't in neighboring Loveladies, NJ, a town whose name I must prounounce in my best Barry White voice whenever we drive through, thus annoying my entire family). The sun is going down, we've got a picnic on the blanket, the kids are frolicking on a really great playground, and this band begins to play. Did I mention that there were four ice cream trucks servin' up the frozen confections? I had a choco taco!

They opened up with a cover of Bill Withers' "Use Me", and I thought, hey, this is great. A cool song, comptetently performed on a beautiful summer evening. Nice! I mean, it's not like Bill Withers is going to stroll in and start playing, and it's not like too many people are playing old school R&B anymore anyway, so why the hell not?

In fact, I liked the covers so much that I got sort of impatient with the originals, which, I mean, if you're covering Bill Withers, Stevie Wonder ("Signed, Sealed, Delivered") and Prince (a "Kiss"/"Housequake" medley, which I liked, though if you are playing for a crowd that probably doesn't contain a lot of people who dig the deep cuts from the Sign O' The Times album, you're going to look a little silly when you ask, "who in this house know about the quake?" and only one short guy on a blanket a hundred feet away goes "we do!"), your originals are probably going to pale in comparison. Also, there was too much extended jamming, which wasn't even redeemed by the little section of Prince's "Calhoun Square" that they snuck in there. Recognizing that pleased my inner geek, but since I'm one of only about three people who owns the "Crystal Ball" set, I couldn't even say, "hey, it's Calhoun Square!" I mean, I could have, but I could have also shouted, "I'm a dork!"

(I bought Crystal Ball after eyeing it in the used record store for a couple of months. The clerk finally said to me one day, "hey, I'll knock ten bucks off if you buy that. You're the only one who ever even looks at it.")

So maybe, under the right circumstances, earnest, unironic cover bands aren't so bad.

Pablo Picasso Was Never Called...

So I've just been reading Roald Dahl's Boy with the kids. It ends with this thing about how it's so hard to be a writer, that's why writers drink too much, blah blah. Which is self-indulgent crap. Having taught high school for ten years, I can tell you that writing is much, much easier. And Dahl talks about how office work is way easier than writing, and from the few years I spent working in offices, I can say that working in a flourescent-lit cubicle having your soul sucked out bit by bit doing work that doesn't matter for unpleasant people is incredibly difficult, and people who manage to do it for decades in order to support their families are pretty heroic.

Anyway, this got me thinking about how my pal Daniel told me that when he was living in Ireland, Roald Dahl used to write these bizarre anti-semitic rants in the paper. Becacuse, you know, there are so many Jews in Ireland. (I actually think I met them all--Daniel once dragged me to Dublin's Jewish "quarter", which was really more like a sixteenth. But I digress.) Anyway, so Roald Dahl, who is one of the writers whose work I most admire and enjoy, was a jerk. Despite what Jonathan Richman thinks about what Pablo Picasso was called, the evidence suggests he was an asshole. A friend recently told me that Too Much Joy, whose music I enjoy, were not just pretending to be arrogant sexist jerks.

What do we do with this? I think, in a way I haven't puzzled out yet, this connects to my previous post about Ozzy. If we connect with someone's art, we expect them to be somebody we'd like to be our friends. But what if they're an asshole? I was never a huge Mel Gibson fan--all downhill after The Road Warrior as far as I'm concerned--but should people now refuse to see his movies because he's an unhinged anti-semitic drunk? (I refuse to see them because they suck. Different story.)

Can we enjoy without guilt the art of people who are awful? I'm gonna go listen to my Sinatra CD and think about it...

Of Ants and Oz

We needed to rent some air conditioning today, so we shelled out to take the kids to The Ant Bully. It was so beautifully, wonderfully cold and dark, and the kids didn't bicker for an hour and forty minutes, so I felt like my money was well spent.

And I have to say, the movie was better than I expected. I thought I'd have to suffer through it in order to get the beautiful, wonderful air conditioning, but in the end it was mildly entertaining, which was a pleasant surprise. I mean, I can't really recommend it too strongly, but if the kids are bored and hot, you could do a lot worse. (Chicken Little, I'm looking at you...)

Coming out of the movie theater, we saw a big tour bus pulling up to the Ritz Carlton towers, while the doorman put up a little barrier to keep the slack-jawed gawkers at bay. We soon determined that the slack-jawed gawkers were waiting for Ozzy Osbourne to emerge from the hotel, so, having nothing else to do, we joined the crowd of slack-jawed gawkers and waited a half hour for a glimpse of His Ozzness.

It was hot, but we were in the shade, and the boy in particular was excited to get a glimpse of the guy who sang "Iron Man." So there we stood. The most painful part was enduring the quiet scorn of the rich people who live at the Ritz Carlton towers, who are, of course, way too cool to be excited about seeing Ozzy. (Some kid with tennis gear on was heard to say, "yeah, when U2 was here, that was kind of cool, but...")

Eventually Ozzy emerged from the hotel, lapdog under his arm (really!) and walked right into the bus, ignoring the dozen or so fans who'd been standing there waiting to see him, a couple of whom were kids with CDs they wanted autographed. Sharon came out with the Pomeranian on a leash and graciously waved at the fans before boarding the bus.

Now, we were standing farther away and opposite the rest of the gawkers (so we could gawk while still maintaining the pose that we were too cool to gawk), and we were there to see The Ant Bully, not The Guy Who Snorted a Line Of Ants, Shocking Even Motley Crue, so we were content with our two-second glimpse of Ozzy and four-second glimpse of Sharon.

But what about those kids with the CDs? (inexplicably attired in matching Pink Floyd shirts) Did they get what they deserved for camping out in front of the guy's hotel? Doesn't he deserve some privacy? At the same time, would it have killed him to take ten seconds to say hi, shake a hand or two, maybe sign a CD? I mean, he's on his way to play a concert, so isn't he technically at the beginning of his work day? I've been puzzling over this stuff ever since. What does he owe us? I mean, what with the show and the songs and everything, don't we have enough of Ozzy? If we have in some way been moved by his art, isn't that enough? Why do we want more?

History Repeats

Once there was a teeny-bopper pop band. Oh, sure, they had some kind of inexplicable alternative street cred at the beginning, but really they were a pop band, as their eventual top-40 success proved. Though they seemed to have only a couple of irresistible pop songs in them, they kept putting out album after album, and they remained pretty popular.

Finally, something happened, and the lead singer formed a new band that put out mediocre pop that sounded just like the mediocre pop he'd been putting out with his old band.

This band was called Arcadia. It is also called Angels and Airwaves. Weird.