Girl in a Cage

Sucks to Your Nostalgia

Driving home from the supermarket and my freakin' Sirius receiver was misplaced by the boy (Grrrr!), so I was listening to NPR. I used to be a good college-educated liberal and listen to hours of NPR every day, and now I can't freakin' stand it. I mean, it's been years since they had that talented author on All Things Considered...what was his name again? He wrote some book about his wife having cancer? And, of course, I am well aware of Terri Gross' power to move books off the shelves. (Terri! I have a new book coming out! Call me!) But, overall, I like getting my news from the newspaper and my political commentary and fart jokes from Stephanie Miller. I mean, even when I listened to Talk of the Nation every day, Ray Suarez only rarely made fart jokes. Actually, it was only once--he had Warren Christopher on and said, "Whoa! Mr. Secretary, did you just let one rip, or is somebody eating egg salad in here?"

But just now Scott Simon was chuckling warmly as Bill Bryson read from his new book about how glorious and carefree the nineteen fifties were, and something occurred to me. There are few things more annoying than other people's nostalgia. That's why I gave up on Jonathan Lethem's The Fortress of Solitude even before everybody else did. Eh, who cares about the glorious 1970's? Who cares about the glorious 1950's? Who cares about anybody else's childhood? I can't wait to see American Hardcore, but at the same time, I recognize that all these talking heads talking about "Oh the scene was really something special, and then it all went to hell" would probably be really annoying to anybody who wasn't there.

Basically, if you are lucky, you have a childhood that seems carefree in comparison to your adulthood. And, if you're lucky, you'll have a nice adolescence, and the music and movies of your adolescence will remind you of the joys of that time and the horrors will fade away. But it's dumb and inane to draw any kind of cultural conclusions based on your experience of growing up. It's not that America was more innocent--it's that you were. And while your thing you liked when you were 16 was changing and, according to you, getting bad when you were 19, maybe it was changing into something that kids a few years younger than you liked better. Or maybe they were starting their own thing across town.

It's not that the country, or the culture, or the zeigeist or anything was simpler or more innocent when you were younger, it's that you were. Duh!

Netflix Killed the Video Star

So our sucky local video store is going out of business. I intend to dance on its grave. Once upon a time it was a great video store, and then it was bought by a national chain and became a really crappy video store. (Not that independent video stores are really so great. There was one nearby that had a fantastic selection but a slightly psychotic staff--marital arguments in front of the customers, etc. One day I went in and they told me they were closing. "Wow," I said, "This is a really good store. I'm sorry."
"Yeah, so are we," the guy barked at me in an incredibly snotty tone, like it was my fault or something. )

But, anyway, they're selling to the bare walls! Even the fixtures are for sale!

So naturally I went in and perused on a couple of occasions. And I actually had a hard time finding stuff I wanted to buy--not that there weren't some things I was tempted by, but the pricing strategy--13 bucks for new releases, 8 bucks for old releases--set a pretty interesting bar. So, yeah, I'd like to see Seed of Chucky, if only to reward them for hiring John Waters and using the tag line "Get a Load of Chucky", but I'm not gonna spend 8 bucks on it. And, in fact, after a week and a half or whatever, the shelves are still pretty full of stuff. People snapped up the movies worth owning pretty quickly, and this leaves a kind of fascinating glimpse into which movies are beloved and which aren't. For example, I found a copy of It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad Etcetera World, which is a deeply flawed but still kind of enjoyable movie. I figured we could watch with the kids, and that would be worth 8 bucks. Ah--no such luck. "That's a classic," the woman behind the counter told me. "It's 13." Sadly, it wasn't a 13 dollar classic as far as I was concerned, so back it went.

On the old releases shelf, there were plenty of movies I'd never heard of, which I would have expected, and many I had heard of, which kind of surprised me. Legally Blonde 2--several copies of that one. A couple of copies of Minority Report, which was a hit, and critically acclaimed, and a decent movie as far as I was concerned, but fundamentally not loveable. Still sitting on the shelf at 8 bucks.

It occurs to me that rather than waiting for the AFI or somebody to put out their best movies lists, or most beloved movies lists, or whatever, a pretty good way to judge which movies--even recent movies--have become classics is to watch what happens as all the video stores close down. The stuff that disappears when the discounts aren't really all that deep--definite classics. The stuff that's still there after a week--bound for the dustbin of history, and probably the dumpster outside.

you got your sacred texts, I got mine

So I was feeling a little stressed the other day, so I figured I'd go ahead and spend a bunch of money I don't really have on books. (I figure it's good karma--hopefully this will inspire many millions of others to spend money they do or do not have on my books). One of the things I got was a beautiful new edition of the Annotated Hunting of the Snark.

I love the poem, I love the illustrations, and I love having a beautiful edition of what is probably my favorite poem. (Others: Keats' "Eve of St. Agnes," Frost's "Out, Out" Shelley's "Ozymandias." And also Christina Rosetti's "The Goblin Market," because it's the most unintentionally pervy thing I've ever read. Go ahead--read all about repressed sexuality here. Make sure you read, or at least skip to the end where the one virginal girl is licking fruit juice off the other one. Whew! Is it hot in here?)

For me, Hunting of the Snark is a sacred text because it contains so much of life: It's hilarious, nonsensical, and terrifying. It's about friendship, fear, insanity and death. What else do you want? Well, okay, sex, but you've got Eve of St. Agnes and Goblin Market for that.

My only problem with this edition is that I'm not so sure about the annotations. I mean, they are well done and everything, and it is interesting to read all the things that have been named after Boojums, but I don't really need a note telling me that it's impossible to sail a ship to port and starboard at the same time. And, for some of the weirdest things, I don't want anybody else making sense of it for me. Like this, for example:

Down he sank in a chair--ran his hands through his hair--
And chanted in mimsiest tones
Words whose utter inanity proved his insantiy,
While he rattled a couple of bones.

Now, to me, this is one of the most horrifying stanzas of the entire poem. And here comes Note Boy to tell me that the bones thing is, according to him, some kind of reference to a minstrel show character. Even if that's true, I don't wanna know it!

A Bang on the Ear

Well, once again the knowledge of what an artist became later has tainted their early work for me. My only working CD player is in the kitchen, so when I cook and clean up, I go to my busted 300-CD changer in the living room (World's most expensive CD storage system!) and pull a CD out. Yesterday it was the Waterboys' Greatest Hits.

Now, I was never a huge fan or anything, but I did like the Fisherman's Blues album. So I cued it up and was digging "The Whole of the Moon," thinking, you know, this band had an interesting celtic-wall-of-sound thing going on, like Phil Spector drunk on Guinness, (or possibly Caledonian 80/-) or something, and then this line pops out at me: "I saw a rain-dirty valley/you saw Brigadoon." I mean, a Brigadoon reference? You have an otherwise beautiful song expressing your profound love and admiration for someone, and you throw in the name of a hokey kailyard musical? (Yeah, I said kailyard. 'Cause I studied Scottish Literature at the U of E, bitches! Put that in your Scots Quair and smoke it!)

Now, when that song first came out, and even through Fisherman's Blues, I heard that line and thought, well, there's a lyrical hiccup in an otherwise fine song. But knowing that Mike Scott went on to write the execrable "A Man is in Love," (A definite worst miss that inexplicably ends the greatest hits album) and other horrors, that line just seems like an ominous portent of cheesiness to come. It's harder to overlook the bad moments in the good songs, because they just seem like sad harbingers of decline.

Oh well. "Fisherman's Blues" is still one hell of a song, though, even with all that over-the-top whooping.

Aging Gracefully

So I'm in the hipster coffee shop the other day, the one with the service that ranges from sullen to indifferent, the one that just instituted a password that doesn't work for their wireless internet access. And I'm sitting across from a couple, but I can only see the guy. His hair is dyed a fakey red color, he's wearing little glasses, one of those blue gas-station attendant jackets with the name patch, a PiL pin on the jacket, black jeans, and black converse all stars.

Got the picture? You're thinking emaciated twenty-something hipster, right? Wrong! This guy was fifty if he was a day, and he was, shall we say, somewhat stout of frame. Now, I mean, on the one hand, just because you've hit the half-century mark doesn't mean you have to wear dockers and polo shirts every day, and the guy was probably saw Television in '77, back when, as far as I was concerned, Television was just what I watched New Zoo Revue on.

But, I mean, I know the guy was trying to send a message like, "You youngsters don't know squat about music, and you damn sure don't have a monopoly on cool! I was cool before you were born!" But the message he was actually sending was, "I can't admit that I'm aging! I think I'm still in my twenties! And these jeans don't exactly flatter the pear-shaped man!"

Now, I hope to have to deal with this dilemma, but how does one reach a certain age and neither succumb to fuddy-duddyness nor pathetically try to hang on to a style best left to the youngsters? I suppose one answer is to become a dapper, sharp-dressed man, but, sadly, I don't think that option's open to me...

He's still got it!

So the kids have discovered Google video, which means that they have been watching two parodies several times daily. One is a fat guy in a wig lip-synching Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie." Not sure why this merits more than one viewing, but, then again, I'm not ten. If you do happen to click over, consider the fact that at least one of the kids cues this up every day and goes, "no, no, please, please, you really have to watch it!"

"Aw, I've seen it a hundred times," I say.
"I know, but watch it again!" This goes on, but it eventually becomes easier to submit. Know this, and pity me.

The other is Weird Al doing a parody of that Ridin' Dirty song that they played so much on Today's Hottest Hip Hop and R&B Station that I heard it several times even though I never listen to that station. Anyway, so Weird Al's version is "White and Nerdy," and I have to say it's kinda brilliant. Because, of course, Weird Al and his fan base actually are white and nerdy, so it's kind of like this affectionate self-parody, and you have to be white and nerdy, or at least nerdy, to get the jokes. So, for example, when Weird Al hands a wad of cash to a guy in an alley and gets a brown paper bag containing...The Star Wars Holiday Special, I am the only one in the house who gets the joke. And I'm damn sure not going to explain it to everybody, because then they'll know exactly what a dork I am.

Having said all this, they discovered this one two days after the Shakira one, so I will probably be ready to kill Weird Al in another day or two.

On St. Swithin's Day He Was Born

As Halloween approacheth, I'd like to make a little plea for a break from the steady musical diet of Ministry's "Every Day is Halloween" and Bauhaus's "Bela Lugosi's Dead" that radio stations serve up on my favorite holiday. The Ministry song is kinda okay, but not that creepy, and I think that somewhere in the 9 (!) minutes of Bela Lugosi's dead is a good four-minute song.

But, I mean, what the hell. Why don't we hear more Roky Erikson on Halloween? Enough of your black-clad, mascara wearing goth posers--bring on the hard-rockin' Texan who sounds like he's really haunted!

Now, given Roky Erikson's history of mental illness, there is a kind of voyeuristic quality to listening to his music--it's great because he sings with such passion and conviction about vampires and demons and two-headed dogs. But, of course, he's able to sing about such things with passion and conviction at least party because of his illness. (There are also the songs like "Starry Eyes" and "Nothing in Return" that sound kind of like ZZ Top covering Buddy Holly. Also great, but not Halloweeny)

Still, the guy's getting on in years, and he certainly needs the cash, so this Halloween, may I suggest the following cursed playlist of 13 songs for your creepy enjoyment:

1.Bermuda.

2.I Walked With a Zombie

3.White Faces

4. I Think of Demons

5. Burn the Flames

6.Night of the Vampire

7.If You Have Ghosts

8.Creature With the Atom Brain

9.Bloody Hammer

10.Click Your Fingers Applauding the Play

11.Two Headed Dog

12. I Am

13. The Damn Thing

...And Roger Daltrey as Clive

So I was sick on the couch today. That is to say, I was on the couch with a cold, not, I puked on the couch. So I decided, it being October and all, I'd check out some horror programs I had recorded off the Free Showtime weekend a couple weeks ago. First I watched a "Masters of Horror" episode in which a woman is chased by a knife-wielding maniac (and taunted by a goofy old man who won't stop singing) whom she eventually defeats because of the survival stuff she learned from her psycho survivalist husband whom....she murdered after he raped her! I guess...I know that torture is the new horror vogue, but I mean, here we have a screaming woman whose eyes are removed via drill press. Ick, ick, ick. The part where our heroine (...or IS she? We ask ourselves when she drills the eyes out of her dead hubby's head at the end) is running through the woods and inexplicably finding time to build a tiger pit while the maniac has stumbled or whatever was very cool, but the whole "trapped in a basement with icky stuff happening" part--eh, who needs it. Gross, but not scary. And if you've seen three horror movies,(especially if one of them is texas chainsaw massacre), you pretty much know what's coming all the time. If this was made by a master of horror, what do the lowly journeymen do?

Well, as it turns out, they make crap like Vampirella. Now, I will admit to having read a few issues of the comic in my day, so I was expecting some enjoyable cheese. And it was cheesy, but, sadly, not that enjoyable. The first thing I noticed was that the actress playing Vampirella was not weilding the D-Cup assets that the comic book character did. "I betcha the fanboys got all mad about that!" I thought to myself, and sure enough, you can find their complaints about the size of Talisa Soto's boobs here. Mostly it's a movie too lazy to be as bad as it needs to be, but Roger Daltrey as the bad guy Vlad does his best to camp it up, chewing necks and scenery and delivering his bad guy lines with appropriate cheesy gusto.

Which got me wondering--what the hell is it with Roger Daltrey and his B-Movie acting career, anyway? I mean, leaving out the Who-based projects, you've got McVicar, which is a real-ish movie that's not that good, and Lisztomania, which I've never seen, (but, I mean, you see one Ken Russell movie, you've pretty much seen 'em all. ), and then you've got a pretty sizeable body of b-movie and tv crapola. Por que? I mean, could he really need the money? (Maybe--how else to explain the incessant Who farewell tours?) Or does he just have such a love of the greasepaint that he'll take any role that comes down the pike?

Too Old To Rock and Roll

So tomorrow night Joan Jett is playing with the Eagles of Death Metal and some other band. 3 bands! Boston has a smoking ban, and the show starts at 6:30, so I wouldn't have to worry about getting home at 1:30 in the morning with stinging eyes and smoke-ruined clothing. So why can't I go? I mean, hey, the wife likes Joan Jett too--we could make an evening of it!

But, I mean, the hurdles are just a little too high. Find a babysitter, pay a babysitter, deal with kids being beastly for at least a full day afterwards because they wouldn't go to sleep with a babysitter and so are sleep-deprived demons from hell...I mean, we could do it. But it's a high price to pay.

Of course, it is an all-ages show, so I suppose the other option is taking them along. The boy likes the Eagles of Death Metal, and Joan Jett is a fine role model for the girls (Well, except for the dropping out of high school to join a pre-fab band put together by a creepy svengali part). But, all ages or not, I can't really see taking an 8, 9, and 10 year old to a club show.

Yeah, I know, we took them to watch the fruits of horrific animal abuse last week (see below), but somehow taking them out to get their little asses kicked with some fine fine rock and roll doesn't seem like a wholesome family activity. Dammit!

When the Circus Comes To Town

So last week, a friend gave us tickets to the circus, and each of the kids got to bring a friend. Now, I knew in a vague way that the circus was icky to the animals, and I've never liked seeing wild animals perform. I just feel like it's dumb and ridiculous to watch tigers hop around or elephants stand on something tiny.

And PETA is so shrill and annoying that I tend to tune them out. Just so you know where I'm coming from, having had a loved one die of cancer, I can say that I would have personally injected a roomful of monkeys with just about anything in order to test some promising anti-cancer drug, so I can't really get behind the no animal research people.

But, I mean, Jesus, check this out. Eccch. So now, armed with the knowledge that the circus is not just slightly cruel but actually horribly abusive to the animals, what do I do with this knowledge? Do I share it with the kids and make them feel guilty for enjoying a nice night out with their friends? I know for a fact that both my daughters would cry if they saw the video on that web page. Which is not really something I want to happen. But, at the same time, if our ignorance and purchase of ten dollar bags of cotton candy help continue something we all find repugnant, shouldn't we all know this?

All considerations of animal cruelty aside, the animal acts are without question the lamest part of the circus. This is what I don't get--they fight like hell to continue with the part of their show that has the lowest entertainment value. I mean, you've got people getting shot out of cannons, you've got amazing acrobatics, you've got people spinning around in the air, and then you've got a tiger hopping. It just sucks.

For all that, we had a really nice night out. I suppose it would be easier if I was one of those people who didn't think at all. Or else one of those humorless activists with rock-solid convictions about everything. Here in the middle, it's squishy and uncomfortable.