Girl in a Cage

Badly Driven Boy

As I've said before, I've softened my stance on "selling out" quite a bit since I started trying to feed and clothe my family with the fruits of my creative labors. I generally don't mind hearing songs I know and like on commercials, because I know that whatever the advertiser is paying the artist is probably buying braces for a kid, or that new car they really need, or whatever (yeah, there are certain artists for whom it's just buying more crap from armani or legal fees for their latest dui or whatever, but for that semi-unknown band whose song is on the cellphone or car commercial, I'm sure that money makes a big difference.)

But. I mean, really. Yesterday, I saw a Hummer commercial with that Badly Drawn Boy song from About a Boy playing. Now, I don't own any Badly Drawn Boy recordings, but I thought his brand of derivative Beatlesque acoustic pop worked very well in that movie, and I've always thought well of him. (Aside--have you ever seen this guy? I think Boy Who Still Lives In His Mom's Basement might be a more appropriate stage name. ) I mean, I'm all for whoring yourself, but Hummer? Is there a better symbol of all the stupid things we're doing to destroy the planet? And yeah, I know, this and that and the other thing is contributing to global warming more than Hummers, but we really are in a crisis, and the choices that all of us make are becoming really important, and I think the choice to sell your song to Hummer so they can make their big stupid vehicle seem more family-friendly (the ad features a young family with a boy looking charming in the backseat of the vehicle that's helping to guarantee him a storm-tossed swamp of a planet) is a really crappy one.

Hard to believe that back in the day, the Del Fuegos obliterated their career by doing a Miller commercial. Seems so innocuous now. My only hope is that the bloodthirsty British music press, which loves destroying people above all things (except trumpeting some marginally talented band as The Next Big Thing and then destroying them) will pillory him for this.

Mariah, Derek, Bernie, and Gene

You'd think that an all Christmas Music station, such as we had on the air in Boston for a month or so, or such as we've had on Sirius for a month or so, would be a great idea. But, in practice, it means a lot of 98 Degrees (?), Mannheim Cheesegrater, Trans-Siberian Orchestra, etc. (Well, okay, true confessions--I actually kinda like that Trans-Siberian Orchestra "Carol of the Bells", because that wailin' electric lead is just one of those things that's so wrong it's right. It's very Spinal Tappy, and I like it. )

And seemingly endless repetitions of Mariah Carey. "All I Want For Christmas is You" is okay, but there really need to be penalties assessed for what she does to "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)". The original is one of my favorite pop Christmas songs, and I think U2 does a credible version, but Mariah--oy. What really kills me about her is that she actually has a good voice, but she has no idea how to use it. I mean, it's one thing if you have one of these pop princesses who can't really sing and they mess up a song, but Mariah Carey really has a fantastic voice. But somewhere along the way, she got the idea that the way to really sing a song is to cram as many notes into every measure as you possibly can. In her version of "Christmas...", there are very few words that don't get three or four notes of their own. Geez, is that ever annoying.

Speaking of annoying, I have worn my Red Sox winter hat all through enemy territory for the last few days without incident. Still waiting for my chance to condescend to a Yankee fan the way they used to condescend to everybody else (you can use this too, if you want!): "Oh, no, I don't hate Yankee fans. I have a lot of respect for Yankee fans. I mean, anybody can be a fan of a team that wins, but to stick with a team that chokes every fall like that--indeed, the only team ever to be up 3-0 in a championship series and lose--well, you have to be a real baseball fan to support a team like that." Itchin' for my chance.

Speaking of the Yankees, rat-faced shortstop Derek Jeter is all over everything in the New York metro area. He has his own cologne! From Avon! And a Movado watch, apparently. I mean, I get that he's a talented player, but he is one ratty-lookin' dude. His appeal to the ladies is beyond my comprehension. But then my taste runs more to the Daniel Craig-Viggo Mortenson type.

Caught a few minutes of Bad Santa the other night. Even edited almost beyond recognition on Comedy Central, I think it's still my favorite Christmas movie. You can have your "Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings!"; I'll take Bernie Mac saying, (as rendered on Comedy Central) "Yeah, it's disturbing. Santa Claus ____in' somebody in the___." Hmm--looking at that, I think it would make a great Match Game sentence.

Vowell is incredible

I just finished Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation and just loved it. It's really a fantastic book.

And I have to confess that I went into this with somewhat of a chip on my shoulder, for a number of reasons. To wit:

She's part of that mysterious McSweeney's cabal, whom I loathe because, as I've mentioned before, they are the cool kids and haven't asked me to sit at their table, and also because I bear a really ugly jealousy about Dave Eggers' bestselling success. Because, I mean, I admire the whole start your own publishing house thing, and I actually really admire the whole work with urban kids on writing thing, but I just didn't think A Heartbreaking Work, etc. was that great. Or, I should say, I think there was an amazing, actually heartbreaking 200-page book in there surrounded by self-indulgent crap about interviewing for the Real World and meeting Puck and starting some hipster magazine. Not to mention the whole long, long, long thing at the beginning, in which he tells you that the book goes downhill after page 100, which is honest, but a pretty poor substitute for editing, and which ends with a drawing of a stapler captioned with "this is a drawing of a stapler." That either makes you smile and think "how delightfully insouciant!" or else it makes you roll your eyes and go "Jesus Christ, get over yourself." Count me in the latter camp. So he writes a bloated, somebody please edit this, entirely too pleased with itself book and has a runaway bestseller, whereas I write a much tighter, high-octane fear and humor cocktail of a book that is entirely too pleased with itself,(It Takes a Worried Man! Look for it on a remainder table near you!) and I'm on the way to the remainder bin. Such is life. But such is not Sarah Vowell's fault, because her book rocks.

Another reason I approached this with some distrust--she was the voice of Violet in The Incredibles. Not fair to hold that against her, because I haven't held it against Jason Lee or Holly Hunter, or That Guy From Coach Who They Obviously Got When They Somehow Couldn't Get John Goodman, or anybody else. And I actually liked The Incredibles the first time I saw it. But then we owned it and the kids watched it multiple times, and I realized that the whole thing is kinda uncomfortably Ayn Rand-y. Which is to say it kinda reminded me of The Fountainhead. Not that I ever finished The Fountainhead. I was 17 and therefore lacked the patience to wade through the turgid prose, and, being 17 and done with high school, I was already too mature for the philosophy. For those of you unfamiliar with The Fountainhead, do yourself a favor and don't read it--it's basically about how great, heroic figures are always being dragged down by the jealous herd of mediocre people that constitute most of society. (Funny how every adolescent who reads this book thinks that they are the heroic, exceptional figure and everybody else is the herd.) As far as I understand, this book, like all of Rand's books, is meant to illustrate her philosophy of "Objectivism", which holds that no one has any responsibility to anyone else, and the greatest thing to do is to indulge your own will and denounce any obligation to any other human being. Of course, Rand's big innovation was rechristening this "Objectivism." It is actually an old philosophy that had previously been known as "evil." But "Objectivism" sounds so much better. The idea that your only responsibility is to yourself dovetails nicely with the inherent egocentrism of adolescence, which is why Ayn Rand fans tend to be 16-year-olds or those with their mindset. And, the more you watch it, the more The Incredibles looks like a stealth version of The Fountainhead. The whole thing is about how the exceptional are always being dragged down by the mediocre members of the herd who are jealous of their exceptionalness. I mean, this is fundamentally why the Jason Lee character (spitfire? The Seether? Snarkyboy? Can't remember) hates Mr. Incredible in the first place. But, I mean, if Pixar wanted to pay me big bucks to voice a character, I would snap it up in a heartbeat, even if the underlying philosophy of the movie was a kind of petulant fascism. Unless it was like, you know, some kind of animated Triumph of the Will or something. I do have some standards. But none of that is Sarah Vowell's fault.

Also, Sarah Vowell is associated with This American Life. And when It Takes a Worried Man came out, This American Life flirted with me like crazy--Ira loves the book, they said, Ira's picked out an excerpt, Ira's editing your excerpt, we're just deciding which show to fit it in to. And then, suddenly, inexplicably, they lost interest. It would have been a tremendous break for me--Glass and Gross are to books what Leno and Letterman are to comedians--and it didn't pan out. But that's not Sarah Vowell's fault. Though I bet she coulda gotten my piece on the air if she'd really wanted to.

But anyway, did I mention that Assassination Vacation totally rocks? It's really a great book--like hanging out with somebody who knows a lot and is genial and funny but not in a ooo-look-at-me-I'm-Hilarious way. And she really does a great job of showing how events and conflicts in history keep echoing even into the present. And she's a really clear-eyed, unsentimental patriot.

So there you go--unlike most reviewers, I have outlined my petty, irrational grudges against a book, and I liked it anyway! I think that's a pretty strong recommendation--I mean, I was basically looking for an excuse not to like this book, and I couldn't find one. If you approach it unhindered by professional jealousy and a tendency to overanalyze children's movies, you will probably love it even more than I did.

Maybe Jack Ain't Wack

I have always held Jack Johnson in disdain. I think this can be traced to a couple of things. One is that I think I remember that there was some kind of Dave Matthews Band association, which, rightly or wrongly, made me label Jack Johnson as a stoner artist.

And, let's face it: people whose brains are addled by THC don't always make the best artistic decisions. They made the Grateful Dead popular. They made In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida actually sell copies as a real album, when by rights it should be a Shaggs-like cult novelty record that people threw on going, "oh my God can you believe how bad this is?" They like jam bands. Just as people who are high are not always that discriminating about what they eat, neither are they that discriminating about the music they listen to. Or, for that matter, make. How else to explain Yes' "Gates of Delirium" or about half the Sgt. Peppers album? (Yeah, yeah, it's a timeless classic--you explain "For The Benefit of Mr. Kite" then. For my money, it's all downhill after Revolver)

So there's that. And because I also remember hearing that Jack Johnson was or possibly is a surfer, I kinda categorized him as a modern-day Buffett.

But, comparing the Jack Johnson songs in "Curious George" (Top-notch family entertainment, by the way--our kids are probably too old for it and loved it anyway. Probably worth buying if your kids are little) with the Buffett songs in "Hoot," I gotta say that Jack is definitely the winner. And yesterday, I took my daughters skating at a nice outdoor rink (where we got hosed on admission because we're not Brookline residents, la-dee-da) and the staff had some Jack Johnson album on the speakers, and, you know, it wasn't bad. It was a beautiful day and we were skating along and Jack's mellow, melodic acoustic tunes were playing, and it was actually quite pleasant.

So I'm not gonna go buy an album or anything, but I officially declare a cessation of hostilities.

In Praise of Sincerity

I caught a few minutes of The Clash: Westway to the World on the documentary channel (who knew there was such a thing? Not me until I saw the Clash on the program guide). I had seen it before, but I was struck anew by a couple of things. One was that Joe Strummer seems to have been a hell of a guy. I mean, like I see interviews with other musicians, like, I dunno, Frank Black or somebody, and I think there's a guy whose music I love and who I really respect and who I do not wanna hang out with. But watching Joe Strummer, I just thought, there is a guy whose music I love and who I really respect who was probably a lot of fun to have a beer with.

Also, watching the performance footage, you can just see on their faces that they really really meant it. I mean, in some of these clips it really looks like Joe is singing not because he wants to, but because he has to.

I have in the past questioned the value of sincerity and earnestness, and certainly earnestness on its own is no guarantee of quality, but combine that earnestness with incredible talent and all the sudden you have one of the best bands ever.

And I'm startin' to rethink sincerity and earnestness. Maybe I've been unfair to them by associating them with the Indigo Girls for so long. I mean, I read this article in one of our free weekly rags in which they trashed Bono for any number of reasons, one of which was his sunglasses (fair enough) and another was his passion for African debt relief. Yeah, what a tool--using his celebrity to draw attention to an incredibly important issue that nobody else seems to care about. If only he were cool enough to sit on his ass writing about people's sunglasses for a free weekly paper. It's like what really offended this know-it-all hipster was the fact that Bono is actually enough of a sucker to actually care about something like this.

I think fundamentally this is what offends me about Lord Haden-Guest's movies. The common thread in all of them is that believing in anything sincerely--but especially your own talent, if you don't happen to be as gifted as Lord Haden-Guest, makes you a sucker. And, okay, I haven't seen Borat (no talking animals, and I can't very well justify taking the kids to it), but it kinda reminds me of this trick that the kids pull sometimes--they say something outrageous, and you go, "really?" and they look at you like you're an idiot and go, "Of course not! Oh my God, you believed that?" Wow, is that annoying. I guess it's just a kind of humor that kinda bugs me--look at these idiots, believing I am who I say I am! ha! I mean, I'm all for the humor of naked hairy men wrestling, and I do intend to see this movie, and I get that a lot of what he does is just to give idiots enough rope to demonstrate their idiocy, which I'm in favor of, but, on the other hand, we don't necessarily have to have ironic detachment from everything. Maybe it's okay to believe in things sincerely and to speak and act passionately about them sometimes. After all, if we don't start being a little sincere and earnest, we're gonna kill all those happy-footed penguins and drown all our coastal dwelling humans.

Why George Bailey is Better Than Santa

The kids recorded The Polar Express this weekend and then watched it incessantly. I found it horrifying and couldn't watch--the waxy-skinned, hollow-eyed, rarely-blinking kids just echoed Village of the Damned too much for me. It just seemed like such an incredible miscalculation: this story that's supposed to be all warm and fuzzy (from what I could gather walking in and out of the room making sure the kids weren't killing each other while soaking up CGI Christmas joy) is rendered in this cold, creepy CGI universe. Weird and wrong. And yet the children loved it, so go figure.

Hearing bits and pieces of this, and having watched Year Without a Santa Claus last week ('cause I'm down with the Miser Brothers! Hell yeah!), it struck me that it's such a weird element to so many of these secular Christmas stories that kids have to believe in Santa. Indeed, the whole story may turn on this point--whether a kid believes in the absurd lies of adults. Now, I mean, I suppose I get that what's behind this is some powerful emotional need on the part of adults--you must believe so that I can remember a time when I didn't know how cold and awful the world is! But, I mean, what often comes across to me is a more disturbing, more sinister message--don't think for yourself! Go along with the program and don't question the lies being fed to you!

Admittedly, I'm a cynical bastard, but there you have it. What I like about It's a Wonderful Life, despite the supernatural element, is that the Christmas miracle in question is regular people being kind to each other, and acknowledging their importance to each other. It's not sitting on your ass and waiting for some fat guy to bring you stuff--it's getting off your ass to actually help people. The same thing is at work in the Grinch--where, remember, there actually is no Santa, just an evil green guy who uses the myth against people and is then touched by actual real kindness--as well as in the delightfully profane Bad Santa. Not that I'd show that one to the kids, but still. I'd rather have them indoctrinated into the idea that small acts of kindness are powerful than into the idea that it's really important to toss your ability to reason and think for yourself aside and believe in some patently absurd commercialized myth.

Movie review devolves into embarrassing man crush

So the boy and I went to see Casino Royale yesterday. Yeah, I took a ten-year-old to a movie with a scene of genital torture--you try seeing only talking animal movies for ten years and see how long you hold on to your ideas of what's appropriate to take the kids to!

Ahem. Anyway, it was too long (which sems to be a common movie ailment these days--I just think you should hardly ever exceed the two hour mark) but otherwise excellent. I think Daniel Craig is actually perfect for the part--because this movie's Bond is a more serious, more brutal guy than the eyebrow-raising suave superstud we've come to expect. I mean, there's actually a character arc here--Bond starts out as a tough guy with just a few shreds of humanity left, and the events of the movie strip those away until he's just kind of a hollow-eyed killing machine at the end. There's just a level of depth here that I haven't seen in another Bond movie. And it was bold of them to dispense with Q--there is only one nifty gadget that saves his life, and it's not a watch that shoots frickin' laser beams or anything.

I wonder if we have Mike Meyers to thank for this new, grittier Bond (and did I mention ripped? I mean, I know the scene where he's stripped naked and repeatedly whacked in the crown jewels was supposed to inspire horror and suspense, but all I could think was, "whoa! I gotta hit the gym!" Seriously. I am a straight man, and I was in total awe of this man's body. Gentlemen: should you convince your spouse or significant other to accompany you to this film, it will be a pyrrhic victory indeed. Go see the chick flick instead and count yourself lucky if the woman in your life never gets to see Daniel Craig naked.) Anyway, I was talking about Mike Meyers before I was distracted by Daniel Craig's rock-hard abs and dreamy blue eyes....ahem. Anyway, I kind of wonder if Austin Powers killed the whole comic book villain trying to take over the world who wants sharks with laser beams on their heads thing that has been the basis of basically every Bond movie. In this movie, there are bad guys, and a lot of money at stake, but there are no lasers from space melting the ice hotel while Bond races around in his invisible car. Reading that sentence, I can't believe I didn't make that up.

Finally--when Bond invents a new drink and says he's gonna call it a "Vesper", I had no idea that that was the name of the woman, because who pays attention to the name of the disposable babe unless it's a cheesy sex pun? And, because he's British, he sounds like he's saying that he's going to call it a "vespa," and I was actually sitting there in the the theater going, "Why the hell is he naming the drink after a scooter?"

Feet, Do Your Duty

I took the kids to see Happy Feet yesterday whilst my wife went on a tour of sumptuous homes. I was pleasantly surprised--the movie was far better than I expected. And I think it might be time to give it up for George Miller, who has directed two of the best action movies of all time as well as the Citizen Kane of talking pig movies. Add to that one of the only CGI-animated movies that seems to have a genuine heart.

My hopes were not high, initially--all the penguins sing snatches of pop songs to each other, and the movie opens with a "Kiss/Heartbreak Hotel" medley that just doesn't bode well. Our hero Mumble (voiced by Hero to the Short Man Elijah Wood) is born, and he dances instead of singing. At this point, I thought I had the whole thing figured out--he'll dance, his girlfriend will sing, and everybody will learn the value of being yourself. But that's resolved about an hour into the movie, and it then takes an environmental twist that is far better than what movies like this usually offer. (Spoiler alert!)

Mumble takes off in search of the "aliens" (that's us)who have been stealing all the penguins' fish. Once he locates the gigantic fishing ships, he follows them and winds up in a zoo. After months of despair, he tap dances in captivity, becoming a celebrity and earning his release. Scientists follow him home, where the entire penguin community does a big dance number, thus sparking world opinion that we should stop killing the penguins with overfishing. I liked the way that the dancing became important not just as a symbol for being yourself, but as a key to cross-species communication, and I liked the very subversive environmental/animal rights message. It did kinda depress me though--because penguins can't tap dance, nor can any of the other species we're busy destroying. It almost seems to be saying that they have to perform some anthropomorphic tricks before we'll consider treating the planet and its other inhabitants with any modicum of respect.

So it was a movie that left me thinking, which almost never happens, especially with kids' movies. And even Robin Williams voicing an inexplicably hispanic penguin couldn't wreck it. I think this is just a way better movie than most of the kids' product out there. Having said that, I liked it way more than the kids, who felt kinda ripped off that the movie wasn't the nonstop laff-fest that the ubiquitous commercials had led them to believe.

Hank, Man, What the Hell?

So I picked up the latest Hank III album, Straight To Hell. Sadly, the title track is not a cover of the Clash classic, but it is still damn good. For my money, Hank III is just the best country artist around right now. Disc one of Straight to Hell is consistently good--"Pills I Took" is especially good. I've only listened to it once, and I'd say there's nothing quite on the level of "5 Shots of Whiskey", but it's more consistent than Broke, Lovesick, and Drifting. "My Country Heroes" is also really good.

Here's the thing, though: Disc 2. It starts with a Johnny Cash pastiche/tribute called "Louisiana Stripes" which I like a lot. And then we get 42 minutes(!) (and may I add, !) of weird soundscape stuff--it starts out with a slowed-down vocal thing that is unlistenably awful--this seems designed to get a people to say "what the hell is this shit?" and hit the forward button. After this we get sounds of trains going by, babies crying, and this kind of stuff, interspersed with...wait for it....amazingly good acoustic songs that are better even than the fine material on disc one! What the hell! I mean, the only way you can get to these great songs is to listen to the whole 42-minute coutnrified Revolution #9, 'cause it's only one track on the CD.

I really gotta wonder just exactly what the hell Hank is up to here. I mean, okay, the whole soundscape thing is interesting once, but now I'd like to be able to pull out the listenable parts and, say, enjoy them on my ipod. But no can do! It certainly seems like he's trying to punish his fans. But, uh, why? Like, what did we ever do to him?

Get those award plaques ready

Well, writing earlier today about how to earn respectability writing comic books led me to thinking about how I can earn me both some respectability and some big sales. (If I had to pick, I'd rather have the latter, but why not aim high?) I've been thinking I can do this all in one brilliant novel. Here's the pitch:

New York City. A writer named Brendan Halpin(is he me, or is he just a character I've created? Spend lots of column inches and blog space speculating on what exactly I mean by this! And never mention that I ripped it off of something Philip K. Dick wrote in '74!) tries desperately, unsuccesssfully to write, and also to connect with other human beings. (Because what's more entertaining than interior artistic struggles? Except maybe curling, or pro bowling?) He realizes that, although he was not affected personally, everything is different after 9/11. His head is so far up his ass that he conflates his romantic and creative problems with a terrorist attack.

Meanwhile, in the heartland of America, (no, there's no explicit connection between the multiple storylines. Only stupid plebes seek out such conventions in their fiction), a troubled teenage girl spends a lonely summer in the company of a cranky old woman. Slowly, and cautiously, they warm to each other, and the old woman turns out to have a tragic past and imparts some wisdom and stuff.

Sometime in America's past, an Italian immigrant inexplicably named Brendan Halpin plots an anarchist bombing. Or does he? He may actually be dying on a primitive hospital table, lost in the fog of ether.

Meanwhile, back in present day New York, a young-at-heart woman with biological clock ticking shops a lot, can't find a suitable man, is not sure she wants a suitable man, and has her head so far up her ass that she conflates her romantic and career difficulties with a terrorist attack.

None of the storylines resolve(see above about plebes and their expectations for fiction) --the ending is both 200 pages too late and shockingly abrupt.

Finally, the whole thing is peppered with obscure references to the sciences, arcane sexual practices, archaic inventions, and political movements of the nineteenth century, which are explicated in lots of witty footnotes that reveal both the soaring heights of my wit and the shocking depth of my erudition.

Oh yeah, baby. Something's cooking in my kitchen, and it smells like that rarest and headiest of brews, a critically acclaimed bestseller.