September 27, 2007
Happy Birthday Libra Baby
As a rational, educated modern person, I believe that astrology is utter and complete bullshit. Except, of course, as it applies to me. Every astrology column I read somehow contains 11 horoscopes that are a total waste of time and one that is strangely illuminating.
That one is Libra, my sign and that of many of my friends. Again, it is my officially stated position that astrology is stupid. How can you be said to share an entire personality profile and predestined life path with one-twelfth of the human race, just because they were born at approximately the same time of the year as you? It’s utterly ridiculous.
And yet….
And yet I must admit that I am irresistably drawn to the symbolism of the scales, because I am driven to balance and to weigh everything—to take the contrary opinion in every situation, to double- and triple- and quadruple-think everything until I make myself crazy.
And yet the following description I lifted from Wikipedia sounds awfully familiar:
The Libra person is said to be co-operative, sees both sides, open-minded, just, urbane, partnership oriented, avoids conflict, balanced, graceful, debative, idealistic, and equalitarian. They can sometimes also rationalize, be easily deterred, indecisive and lazy, and are also thought to be flirtatious, extravagant, frivolous, impatient, envious, aloof, and quarrelsome.
…although, to be honest, I quarrel with that. I am envious of no man!
And yet this article by fellow Libran Tim Sullivan in today’s Chronicle/SF Gate really struck a chord. An excerpt:
1. Philosophy: Libra sees both sides of everything.
Libra also sees both sides of seeing both sides of everything.
Libra is unhappy about seeing both sides of seeing both sides of everything.
Libra is happy to tell you this.
2. Politics: Libra is diplomatic, well balanced and appreciative.
Libra is indecisive, immovable and uncertain.
Libra has called for a confidential, closed-door meeting between both sides of Libra.
Libra believes we can work it out.
Libra also, as is well demonstrated here, likes to see Libra’s name in print. Libra is fascinated with Libra’s own idiosyncracies and internal contradictions to a really rather embarrassing degree. And when this time of year rolls around, Libra would like to be showered with gifts and attention, all the while protesting that you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble. Because that is Libra’s idea of a good time.
Posted by bill at 12:49 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
July 31, 2007
He Is Your Slice of Life
Appropriated from Burkhart Studios
Turning 50 today: one of my musical idols, Daniel Ash of Bauhaus/Tones on Tail/Love and Rockets fame. Although not what you could call a household name, Ash has had a long and illustrious career that lifts him up high into the pantheon, just one notch below his obvious role model, David Bowie.
Bauhaus hit the scene in 1979 with “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” a nine-minute-long slice of idiot-savant strangeness from a band that barely knew how to play. For its first half, “Bela” consists of Peter Murphy’s moaning vocals riding a stuttering, bat-echo rhythm. The second half is all Daniel Ash and his effects pedals putting on a fireworks show. It’s freaky, off-kilter, borderline ridiculous, and oddly charming. “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” remains a much-beloved underground chestnut to this day; when I saw Bauhaus in 2005, they played it as an encore and people went nuts.
Bauhaus released four albums and various singles after that, developing a signature sound that was a perplexing mixture of arty effeteness and metallic aggression. Ash increasingly added acoustic guitars to their music in later years, bringing a textural richness to such lovely numbers as “All We Ever Wanted Was Everything,” “Kingdom’s Coming,” and especially “Slice of Life,” which was his first and only lead vocal on a Bauhaus song.
It’s a curious footnote to the Bauhaus saga that Daniel Ash, who except for “Slice of Life” was limited to backing vocals, turned out to have a truly great and unique singing voice, at once sweet and smoky, not as powerful as Murphy’s baritone but much more versatile. After the demise of Bauhaus he became the frontman of Tones on Tail, whose variation on the Bauhaus sound—equally dark but more electronic and less angular—blew a lot of minds in a short time. They made only one real album (Pop) before morphing into Love and Rockets with the departure of Glenn Campling and the return of Bauhaus bassist David J.
Love and Rockets, in turn, mutated into a gen-u-wine pop band, adding elements of glam, psychedelia, and Beatley melodicism to the mix. They made several albums that stand high on my all-time list, including Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven, Express, and the self-titled album that finally put them on the charts with “So Alive.” Showing an unexpected sense of humor, they sometimes appeared in costume as “The Bubblemen” (even releasing a Bubblemen EP in 1988), with Daniel Ash occasionally dressing in drag.
The last time I saw Daniel, he was looking pretty butch, playing guitar for a reconstituted Bauhaus and sporting surprising biceps. Although known to be fond of motorcycles and recreational chemicals, he apparently intends to go on living, which is good. Maybe we’ll get an L&R tour sometime before his 60th birthday.
Perhaps my favorite Daniel Ash moment comes from a show at the Berkeley Community Theater circa 1989. The Lovely Rockets—who started off shaky as a live band but improved steadily over the years—had just played a scorching set. Never exactly raconteurs, they had said barely a word during the proceedings, but after it was over, Ash put down his guitar, adopted a Preslyish sneer, said “Never be an old fart!” and exited stage left. He’s stayed true to his word, and we should all be so lucky.
Posted by bill at 11:59 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
June 26, 2007
Rock's Other Mick
Mick Jones, back when everybody
thought he was cool
Born today in 1955: Clash guitarist/vocalist Mick Jones. I feel badly for Mick, and not just because of his scarifying English teeth. Although he was co-leader of the Clash—once known as “The Only Band That Matters” and still untouchably hip 30 years after hitting the scene—history has cast him as McCartney to Joe Strummer’s John Lennon. Conventional wisdom has it that Strummer was the band’s conscience, standing firm in defense of punk-rock purity, while Jones was the sellout who craved pop success.
And certainly it’s true that “Train in Vain” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go”—two of the Clash’s least political and (not coincidentally) most popular songs—were Mick’s doing. On the other hand, when Jones was forced out after Combat Rock, Strummer’s Clash proceeded to make the laughable Cut the Crap. So while the comparison may be apt, it’s just as much a mistake to underestimate Jones’s contribution to the Clash as it is to underestimate Paul’s contribution to the Beatles.
In this schematic Big Audio Dynamite is Wings, and that seems about right. (Don Letts=Linda McCartney? Could be.) The Globe would be Band on the Run, No. 10 Upping Street would be Ram or somesuch…well, why get carried away with this thing. The point is, give Mick his propers today. A listening of London Calling wouldn’t be a bad idea; but then again, it never is.
Posted by bill at 11:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 5, 2007
O Superwoman
A rare shot of Laurie Anderson with a normal haircut.
Musician, performance artist, and all-around intimidating brainiac babe Laurie Anderson turns 60 today. That’s right, 60. I found this hard to believe, but I double-checked and found it to be true. Yet more proof that Time Is Passing at an Alarming Rate.
I’ve been a fan ever since I heard Mr. Heartbreak, released in 1984, which featured Anderson’s trademark mix of cerebral detachment with strong senses of humor and melody. It also was my first exposure to the droll voice of William S. (Uncle Bill) Burroughs, who is heard intoning lines like “The sun’s coming up like a big bald head” and “It’s driving me crazy, it’s driving me nuts.”
It was only later that I went back and listened to Anderson’s debut and probably masterpiece, Big Science. Derived from her five-LP epic United States Live—which, a quarter-century later, I’m still scared of—this album propelled Anderson from avant-garde obscurity onto the pop charts. Viewing it at this remove, it’s hard to see why. Not that Big Science isn’t great; although strongly redolent of the 80s, it has not dated over the years so much as fermented. What’s hard to understand is how it ever found a mainstream audience. “O Superman”—ethereal, arthymic, and over eight minutes long—somehow became a hit single. Could that happen today? You never know, but my inner old fogey (who sounds an awful lot like WSB) is muttering “I don’t think so.”
I have to admit to not being hep to what Laurie is up to today. I only recently acquired her 1994 album Bright Red/Tightrope, so I’m running roughly a decade behind. There’s still time to catch up, though, and hopefully time to see her live, which I regret not having done up to this point. In the meantime, please join me at 7:27 tonight for a synchronized listening of “Sharkey’s Night” as—wait for it—the sun goes down like a big bald head.
Posted by bill at 12:03 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
June 1, 2006
Happy Birthday, Norma Jean
Norma Jean Mortenson, a.k.a. Marilyn Monroe, would have been 80 today. What can I possibly say about Marilyn that would be new? That she was the living embodiment of movie star sex appeal? That 44 years after her death, her image continues to evoke desperate yearning in any man with a pulse? That her short, tragic life should serve as a cautionary tale for every woman who's ever considered making a living off her beauty? Never mind all that; the look on this guy's face says it all:
Posted by bill at 7:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
May 31, 2006
Annual Report
Now that a year has passed since I started clogging up the Internet with my words and pictures, I’ve been reviewing the work (if you want to call it that) I’ve done so far. For the record, that’s 183 entries (and 147 comments, only about a hundred of them from Cecil).
Some updates and corrections:
• Against all odds, Abe Vigoda remains alive. I know this because I have installed a Firefox status bar that keeps me continually abreast of Abe’s well-being (in the broadest possible sense, i.e. whether he is alive or dead). You can get it for yourself here: http://www.vesterman.com/FirefoxExtensions/AbeVigodaStatus.
• Last June 15, I predicted that the Lakers would trade Kobe Bryant after rehiring Phil Jackson. I could not have been more wrong. Not only did Kobe and Phil make it through the season together, they nearly upset the Phoenix Suns in the first round of this year’s playoffs. I still think it would have been a good idea, but what the hell do I know? I’m a Warriors fan.
• A Peanuts strip that I posted a while back disappeared due to whatever demons insert unwanted spaces into random HTML. It has now been restored, and you can view it here.
• In my entry of June 27, 2005, I implied that the destruction of a dryer at the local laundromat was due to negligence. A subsequent discusssion with the manager revealed that the incident was in fact caused by a customer who tried to dry a down sleeping bag in the machine, which is something that you should never, ever do. The bag had a hole in it, some feathers got into the gas flames that heat the machine, and the rest is history. I’d like to apologize to the management of Bud’s Suds, the employees, their families, and anyone else I may have offended with my ill-informed speculation.
• The mural on the side of Dave’s Coffee Shop has been painted over since I wrote about it. Which makes no goddamn sense, because the building’s still not being used for anything. I hope the parties responsible are publicly flogged.
• In one of my entries about Steve Martin, I said this: “The movie version of Shopgirl, starring the man himself, is coming out soon, and it is on this that I pin whatever slim hopes I have of Steve once again making a good film.” I only recently got around to seeing Shopgirl, and it is a good film, although in a very different way from, say, The Jerk. It is sometimes funny but often melancholy, permeated with a sense of loss. Set in a burnished-looking LA, it could conceivably be viewed as a sort of sequel to LA Story, if you imagine that Steve’s goofy weatherman character has matured and grown wealthy, but had his spirit crushed somewhere along the way—probably by the loss of Victoria Tennant. As in LA Story, Steve seems to be playing himself here, but this is a somber Steve who’s given up on happy endings, at least for himself.
• When I reviewed Martina Topley-Bird’s album Anything, I was unaware that this domestic release is a truncated version with three fewer songs than Martina’s UK album Quixotic. Why this was done is beyond me; two of the three songs are excellent, and there was plenty of room for them. Anything remains a good bang for the buck, but for the whole story it’s worth seeking out the import.
• I’m gonna have to go ahead and say that Spoon’s album Gimme Fiction is better than I gave it credit for. I’ve kept coming back to it over the last few months, which means that it’s the real thing. I’d like to apologize to Spoon, their families, Matador records, and anyone else who may have suffered because of the profound influence I wield over the record-buying public.
• In re Blue Öyster Cult’s Workshop of the Telescopes, I said this: “The first disc is a waste of time.” Further listening has caused me to reconsider this rash statement; as So-Called Jeff pointed out, songs like “Stairway to the Stars” and “Career of Evil,” while noticeably cowbell-deficient, are nothing to sneeze at.
My conscience is now clear, so I can sleep soundly tonight and start making new mistakes tomorrow.
Posted by bill at 2:10 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 31, 2006
They Had the Biggest Balls of Them All
That’s Angus out front, making a spectacle of himself as usual, as the soon-to-be-late Bon Scott peers over his shoulder. At left, Malcolm broods in the background.
Today’s birthday is AC/DC lead guitarist Angus Young, born March 31, 1955. That makes Angus 51, and as far as I know, he’s still touring the world in his school uniform with short pants. Well, more power to him. As it were.
Coincidentally, I’ve been listening this week to Highway to Hell, which is pretty much flawless from the opening chords of the title track to the final fadeout of “Night Prowler,” where Bon Scott mutters “Shazbat. Nanu-nanu.” (Anybody born too late to understand what this means: Google “Mork and Mindy.”) Highway to Hell is the best album of its kind ever made, although it’s hard to say what kind that is exactly. AC/DC is a hard band to classify; they’re undoubtedly a rock band, but what kind of rock band? They’re too rhythmically nimble to be heavy metal, too heavy to be pop. Just calling them “hard rock” seems like a cop-out. It might be more accurate to say that AC/DC is a genre unto themselves. If you have High Voltage, Highway, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, and maybe Back in Black, you have everything you need in the genre.
While Angus gets all the attention for his flamboyant solos, stage antics, and sartorial sense, AC/DC’s real anchor is brother Malcolm’s rhythm guitar. In the band’s heyday Malcolm Young combined with bassist Cliff Williams and drummer Phil Rudd to form a three-headed rhythm monster rivalled only by Richards/Wyman/Watts or the Who. If you doubt me, just listen to the gut-hammering, surprisingly funky call-and-response riff that powers “Girl’s Got Rhythm.”
And then of course there’s Bon Scott himself, an innovator in the field of “macho guy who sings about sex while shirtless and still kind of sounds like a girl.” Scott left this Earth in 1980, drinking himself into an early grave á la Hank Williams, but not before penning the lyrics to such classics as “Big Balls”:
Some balls are held for charity and some for fancy dress
But when they’re held for pleasure they’re the balls that I like best
My balls are always bouncing to the left and to the right
It’s my belief that my big balls should be held every night
Replacement Brian Johnson took over for Back in Black, which became AC/DC’s best-selling album, and while you’ve got to love songs like “Hell’s Bells” and “Rock’n’Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution,” the band’s been in slow decline ever since. (Then again, who hasn’t?)
So go ahead and raise a toast to Angus tonight, slam one down for Malcolm and the boys, have a moment of morbid introspection in Bon’s honor, then annoy the neighbors with a top-volume midnight airing of “It’s a Long Way to the Top If You Wanna Rock’n’Roll.” You’ll be glad you did, especially once the bagpipes kick in.
Posted by bill at 4:10 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
March 20, 2006
We Love You, Mr. Perry
Lee “Scratch” Perry behind the console at the Black Ark.
Today is the 70th birthday of Rainford Hugh Perry, better known to the world as Lee Perry, a.k.a. Scratch, a.k.a. the Upsetter, a.k.a. Pipecock Jackxon…I could go on, but you get the idea.
Scratch casts a long shadow over the history of reggae music, and could be considered one of the most influential figures in the history of recorded music, period. Along with people like Brian Eno and George Martin, he was a pioneer in the use of the recording studio as an instrument. In the five years after he built the Black Ark, his Kingston studio, and before he burned it to the ground for reasons that have never been made clear, he produced a staggering body of work that was not so much ahead of its time as simply out of time. Today, if you listen to an album like Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves, The Congos’ Heart of the Congos, or the Upsetters’ Super Ape, it doesn’t sound old, it doesn’t sound new, it just sounds like nothing else in the world.
And he accomplished all this with a four-track system that was far from state of the art even in 1975, transcending the limitations of the equipment with a combination of technical ingenuity and what appears to have been some kind of voodoo. As Scratch put it himself, “It was only four tracks written on the machine, but I was picking up twenty from the extraterrestrial squad.”
Which is fairly typical of the kind of thing that has been known to come out of his mouth over the years. Always an eccentric, Perry went off the deep end in 1979, putting the torch to his own studio in an act of monumental perversity. The liner notes to the Arkology box set describe the Black Ark’s demise this way:
Perry is said to have been seen in various parts of Kingston walking backwards, striking the ground with a hammer, for two days before the Black Ark was destroyed. Some have suggested that Perry burned the Ark by accident, while others believe Perry destroyed it on purpose to foil the tactics of his enemies. Still others claim that Perry burned it in a desperate attempt to rid himself of of the unwanted attentions of a German tourist. Whatever the case, the Ark was indeed destroyed. Perry was detained for three days for suspected arson, only to be released without charge due to lack of evidence.
In the subsequent years, Perry has continued to make music, some of it quite good, much of it pretty shaky. But his legacy is secure, embracing as it does a strong influence on the career of Bob Marley, a key role in the invention of dub, and a formidable discography. No one is quite sure how many records Perry has made—some were pressed in small quantities on obscure Jamaican labels—but if you count both those released under his own name and those produced for other artists, it certainly goes well into three figures. Considering the uniform quality of his pre-1980 oeuvre, that’s an amazing amount of music.
So take a minute today to tip your hat to Mr. Perry. If you have more time, you might want to check out Mick Sleeper’s birthday Webcast at http://www.upsetter.net/scratch/.
Posted by bill at 6:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 24, 2006
Happy Birthday to Abe
Abe Vigoda shows off the
smoldering good looks that
made him an international
sex symbol.
Today is the 85th birthday of Abe Vigoda, who contrary to popular belief is still alive. Celebrate by imagining a parallel universe in which Abe played the lead role in Saturday Night Fever instead of John Travolta, and picture him strutting down the street to the tune of “Staying Alive.”
Posted by bill at 7:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 15, 2006
Let us now hail Van Vliet
Please take a minute out of your busy schedule today to salute the late Captain Beefheart.
Don’t get me wrong; the man who was Captain Beefheart, Don Van Vliet, is still with us and turns 65 today. But there’s been no Captain since 1982, when Van Vliet decided he’d had enough of the Long Plastic Hallway and gave up the music business to become a painter. Which seems to have worked out well for him; he’s been far more successful in the art world, at least in standard career terms.
But still, we miss the Captain, don’t we? From psychedelic space boogie to avant-garde art-skronk, he stomped a terra all his own. I don’t think he’d mind me sharing with you a song from his out-of-print album Lick My Decals Off, Baby:
Posted by bill at 10:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 14, 2006
Bowie Quiz Answers
I found myself listening to Young Americans yesterday, and being amazed by it. It may not be Bowie's best album - I'd give that to either Ziggy Stardust or Station to Station, although it's hard to ignore Hunky Dory, and Diamond Dogs begs to be included in the conversation - but in a way it's his most remarkable. Here is Bowie in 1975, coming off the noisy art-rock of Diamond Dogs, right in the middle of his cocaine psychosis era, and he decides he wants to make an album of Philly soul. He's out of his depth, out of his idiom, out of his country, and out of his mind; and yet somehow he pulls it off. Crazy.
Anyway, without further ado, here are the answers to the birthday quiz:
1. What was David's original last name, and why did he change it?
David Jones; to avoid being confused with the Monkees' Davy Jones.
2. Why are his eyes two different colors?
In high school, he was punched in the face by his friend George Underwood, apparently in a dispute over a girl.
3. What was the first instrument he learned to play?
Saxophone.
4. Name the author of the 1977 Melody Maker article excerpted here:
"I remember David playing me 'Space Oddity' in his room and I loved it and he said he needed a sound like The Bee Gees, who were very big then. The stylophones he used on that, I gave him. Tony Visconti turned me on to stylophones. The record was a sleeper for months before it became a hit, and I played on "The Prettiest Star," you know. I thought it was a great song, and it flopped completely.
"But I never got the feeling from David that he was ambitious. I remember he'd buy antiques if he had a hit, when he should have saved the money."
Marc Bolan.
5. Which of the following people were at one time considered for the part David played in The Man Who Fell to Earth?
a. Jack Nicholson
b. Peter Fonda
c. Michael Crichton
d. Herve Villechaize
e. Peter O'Toole
f. Marlon Brando
c and e (Michael Crichton and Peter O'Toole).
6. Which Bowie album had the working title "Planned Accidents"?
Lodger.
7. Which album had the working title "Vampires and Human Flesh?"
Let's Dance.
8. Which album did he tell a reporter was to be called "Revenge, or the Best Haircut I Ever Had?"
Diamond Dogs.
9. The Rykodisc reissue of "Heroes" contained a previously unreleased and untitled instrumental which Bowie gave the name "Abdulmajid." What is the significance of this name?
It's his wife Iman's last name.
10. Which early-period Bowie single was rereleased in the UK after the success of Ziggy Stardust and sold a surprising 250,000 copies?
a. "Love You Till Tuesday"
b. "The Laughing Gnome"
c. "London Boys"
d. "Rubber Band"
b. "The Laughing Gnome"
11. The rhythm section of Tin Machine (and on Iggy Pop's Bowie-produced Lust for Life) consisted of two brothers who were the sons of a famous comedian. Name him.
Soupy Sales.
12. Which member of Monty Python's Flying Circus is godfather to David's son Duncan (a/k/a Zowie)?
Eric Idle.
13. Name the author of the poem excerpted here:
"i listened to the record for 72 hours. day and night.
watching tv and in my sleep. like station to station and
low, heroes is a cryptic product of a high order of
intelligence. committed to survival. the rhythum tracks
are intel-disco. lysis-discos. the disintegration of
brain into lingua the pulse of rhythum. high east
coast wherein all the musicians play w/grace and taste.
"the title song is wonderful. it exposes us to our most
precious and private dilemma. he has captured in this
song that desperate moment when one will die for
love. the track is pure. i am waiting for my man.
but i love that song too and what we love we love
repeated. the lyrics are really beautiful. one falls
in love and gets lost in its swirl. one projects far
aware and across the boundaries of space and placement.
we are in dream alive. we are not planets away but
separated by a room or wall of wire. thats all.
"heroes is the theme song for every great movie.
made remade or yet to come."
Patti Smith. Who, by the way, spelled "rhythm" with a u on purpose, in case you were wondering.
Posted by bill at 5:21 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 7, 2006
The David Bowie Birthday Quiz
January 8th is a big day for rock'n'roll birthdays. Elvis Aron Presley was born on this day in 1935, and Bill Graham in 1931. There will be a big to-do at Graceland today, no doubt, and a two-day concert is planned at the Fillmore to celebrate Graham's 75th.
But to some of us, the one that really matters is David Bowie, who turns 59 today. To us, Bowie is more than just a rock star; he's the living embodiment of all we aspire to. Some people have Oprah, some have Donald Trump, some have L. Ron Hubbard, and we have Bowie. You're either on board or you're not, and if you're not, we really don't have much to talk about right now.
For the rest of you, I've come up with this Bowie birthday quiz, and just to make it interesting I've decided to award a copy of the Reality Tour DVD to whoever gets the most right answers. Just email me at bill@thephilter.com by, let's say, Saturday the 14th; and remember, even if you don't know the answers, you could still win if nobody else enters. So without further ado:
The First Annual David Bowie Birthday Quiz
1. What was David's original last name, and why did he change it?
2. Why are his eyes two different colors?
3. What was the first instrument he learned to play?
4. Name the author of the 1977 Melody Maker article excerpted here:
"I remember David playing me 'Space Oddity' in his room and I loved it and he said he needed a sound like The Bee Gees, who were very big then. The stylophones he used on that, I gave him. Tony Visconti turned me on to stylophones. The record was a sleeper for months before it became a hit, and I played on "The Prettiest Star," you know. I thought it was a great song, and it flopped completely.
"But I never got the feeling from David that he was ambitious. I remember he'd buy antiques if he had a hit, when he should have saved the money."
5. Which of the following people were at one time considered for the part David played in The Man Who Fell to Earth?
a. Jack Nicholson
b. Peter Fonda
c. Michael Crichton
d. Herve Villechaize
e. Peter O'Toole
f. Marlon Brando
6. Which Bowie album had the working title "Planned Accidents"?
7. Which album had the working title "Vampires and Human Flesh?"
8. Which album did he tell a reporter was to be called "Revenge, or the Best Haircut I Ever Had?"
9. The Rykodisc reissue of "Heroes" contained a previously unreleased and untitled instrumental which Bowie gave the name "Abdulmajid." What is the significance of this name?
10. Which early-period Bowie single was rereleased in the UK after the success of Ziggy Stardust and sold a surprising 250,000 copies?
a. "Love You Till Tuesday"
b. "The Laughing Gnome"
c. "London Boys"
d. "Rubber Band"
11. The rhythm section of Tin Machine (and on Iggy Pop's Bowie-produced Lust for Life) consisted of two brothers who were the sons of a famous comedian. Name him.
12. Which member of Monty Python's Flying Circus is godfather to David's son Duncan (a/k/a Zowie)?
13. Name the author of the poem excerpted here:
"i listened to the record for 72 hours. day and night.
watching tv and in my sleep. like station to station and
low, heroes is a cryptic product of a high order of
intelligence. committed to survival. the rhythum tracks
are intel-disco. lysis-discos. the disintegration of
brain into lingua the pulse of rhythum. high east
coast wherein all the musicians play w/grace and taste.
"the title song is wonderful. it exposes us to our most
precious and private dilemma. he has captured in this
song that desperate moment when one will die for
love. the track is pure. i am waiting for my man.
but i love that song too and what we love we love
repeated. the lyrics are really beautiful. one falls
in love and gets lost in its swirl. one projects far
aware and across the boundaries of space and placement.
we are in dream alive. we are not planets away but
separated by a room or wall of wire. thats all.
"heroes is the theme song for every great movie.
made remade or yet to come."
Posted by bill at 7:01 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
January 6, 2006
File Under "Also Noted"
According to the information I have, Syd Barrett—born January 6, 1946—turns 60 today. Much has been written about Syd, probably too much, and I don’t have anything to add. Still, I wanted to make a note of it.
Posted by bill at 5:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
October 29, 2005
Three lines about Bela Lugosi
Bela Lugosi was born on this day in 1884.
But now he’s dead.
Undead undead undead.
Posted by bill at 7:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 14, 2005
Ode to Steve, Part 5
THE STEVE MARTIN GENERATION
Steve Martin was born on this day in 1945. I was born in 1967, which means that I was about 10 when A Wild and Crazy Guy came out in 1977, placing me squarely in the middle of the Steve Martin Generation.
Yes, there is such a thing—you know who you are. Those of us who listened to Steve’s records (and those are 33 1/3 revolution per minute long-playing vinyl records I’m talking about) until we committed them to memory, we tend to recognize each other right away. And not just because we often have that portrait of Steve signed “Best Fishes” in our cubicles. No, it’s because we’ve had our minds permanently bent by being exposed to existentialist meta-comedy in our formative years.
So how does a kid from Waco grow up to warp a whole generation? Well, let’s begin at the beginning.
Steve has never talked much about his childhood. In a 1980 Playboy interview, he said:
Nobody gives a shit about where I grew up and all that. That’s boring. Even I don’t give a shit. When I read an interview and it gets to the part where the person grew up, I turn the page.
About all I’ve been able to glean from my research is that Steve was born in Waco, Texas in 1945; grew up in Garden Grove, California; and had a real-estate-agent father who really had wanted to be an actor.
Starting at the age of 10, he worked at Disneyland for eight years, and then studied philosophy at Long Beach State for three years. Those two facts alone pretty much explain everything, and I feel like I could stop here; on the other hand, I’ve done all this research, so let’s keep going a little bit.
At 21 he got a job writing for “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.” This is an interesting move for a guy who has always claimed to be apolitical:
Why am I not political? One reason is purely aesthetic. There were too many political thinkers in the Sixties. The world didn’t need another political comedian. The world still doesn’t need another serious person.
Certainly “The Smothers Brothers” served as an object lesson on the dangers of being overtly political: After a long battle with CBS about political content, the show was cancelled on a flimsy pretext, and Steve was out of a job. After that he wrote for other, less edgy TV shows. Shows starring people like John Denver, Glen Campbell, Sonny, and Cher. But in the meantime he was a developing a master plan that was subversive in its own way:
We were in the midst of the Sixties when I was starting to formulate this idea. I’d say, “Someday this consciousness will grow tiresome….” I knew that someday we’d have to change, just out of boredom, and that’s what I was formulating.
As if he had been waiting for the 70s, Steve quit TV writing in 1970 to focus on performing. Since at the age of 25 he’d already been in showbiz for 15 years (if you count Disneyland as showbiz, which I do), he had a pretty good idea of what his act would be.
There were several premises. First, that I played a character onstage who assumed that everything he said was brilliant. He had total confidence, with nothing to back it up. Comedy was jokes and I thought, What if there were no jokes?
There’s a very primitive but accurate theory about comedy as a building up of tension and then a release of it…. I thought, What if you cut out the punch lines completely, and had a comedian who just announced that he was a comedian? The tension would have to break of its own accord - the audience would eventually have to break it for themselves. And that was him, me, the guy in the white suit. A professional comedian with no act and supreme confidence.
Now, I think that Steve’s being a bit disingenuous here, much as Bob Dylan is when he says he was just trying to make it rhyme. Steve was a master manipulator of audiences, and he knew where the laughs were going to come; it’s just that they would come at unusual times. Often there were delayed reactions as the audience took a moment to process what Steve had just said. Like when he used to have crowds recite the “Non-Conformist’s Oath”:
Steve: I promise to be different!
Crowd: I promise to be different!
Steve: I promise to be unique!
Crowd: I promise to be unique!
Steve: I promise not to repeat things other people say!
Crowd: I pr… (trailing off into laughter)
And he did write punch lines, but they always had some kind of reverse twist on them:
Listen to “One Way to Leave Your Lover”
But the point remains valid: What Steve was doing was not comedy but meta-comedy, and everything he did was a comment on the idea of being a comedian.
It’s not that the arrow through the head is funny, it’s that someone thinks the arrow through the head is funny. It so happens that the nose glasses are funny, but my point was, it’s gone beyond the glasses; it’s the putting on of the nose glasses that is funny.
I’m not sure that Steve invented meta-comedy—other comedians of the era, most notably Martin Mull, were working in similar areas—but he certainly crystallized it. He put it this way to Playboy:
I see myself as a success of timing, having the right act at the right time, when everybody was sort of starting to think that way. That’s why I was a phenomenon rather than just another comedian.
He was a phenomenon, alright—the first rock star comedian, complete with platinum albums, sold-out stadiums with million-dollar grosses, and a genuine hit single (see photo at top). This is what gave him the power and influence to twist young minds the way he did, and we are all the better for it.
Well, that about wraps things up for Steve Martin week. Before I go, though, I’d like to address a few words to Steve personally, just in case he ever Googles himself and stumbles across this page:
Steve:
Well, first off, thanks for the laughs. And the rest of it, too. The whole thing. The last 30 years would have been a lot less interesting without you.
I know that you’ve said you’ll never do standup comedy again. But remember on A Wild and Crazy Guy, when you were doing the financial disclosure bit and, as a joke, calculated that if you filled a 3000-seat hall at $800 a ticket, you’d make $2,400,000? Well, you could actually do that now. I would find a way to get ahold of 800 dollars to see you, and I have no doubt there are at least 2,999 others out there like me. You wouldn’t even have to put on the bunny ears or do any of the old bits—well, maybe “Cat Handcuffs.” Anyway, think about it: One show, goodbye.
Finally, I’d like to remind you that you said this in your 1980 Playboy interview: “I’d like to take LSD when I’m 60.” So if you’re looking for someone to, like, get weird with, I can be there in a few hours.
Your fan,
Bill
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August 12, 2005
Ode to Steve, Part 4
COMEDY IS NOT PRETTY
It’s a cliche that you hear over and over in various forms:
• Comedy is serious business
• There’s nothing funny about comedy
• Dying is easy; comedy is hard
But the cliche exists because it conveys an accurate point: The best comedy requires from the performer total commitment, strict self-discipline, and a willingness to go beyond the usual bounds of tact and good taste.
Consider the following, which was rejected as the Richard Brautigan Poem of the Day, and justifiably so:
Ode to My Woman (excerpt)
by Steve Martin
Every man needs a woman, and I need you
To lift me when I am sad
To comfort me when I am down
To clean me when I am drunk
To walk beside me when I want to look like I’m not gay
To walk in front of me when I need someone to act as a human windbreak
To kiss me when I’m horny
To massage me when I am tense and/or horny
To make me horny when I’m not horny,
and then to watch me fall asleep.
Now, that’s rude and disrespectful, but it’s also goddamn funny. Wait, no; it’s funny because it’s rude and disrespectful; that is the whole point of the joke. To make this kind of joke you have to turn off the part of yourself that worries about what people will think.
Which is difficult for us sensitive types. I think this is one reason that Steve eventually quit standup comedy: His onstage persona - a ridiculously overconfident, go-for-the-jugular wildman - was just too different from his real personality.
Actually, it wasn’t just onstage; Steve was basically playing the same guy in everything he did until 1984, from “Saturday Night Live” to Cruel Shoes to The Jerk to The Man with Two Brains. I think it just burned him out eventually, which was why he found it such a relief to play less edgy characters starting with All of Me.
Good for him. But man, we loved that Wild and Crazy Guy. The guy who wasn’t afraid to tell a joke that had as a punchline, “So I shot her.” They guy who told Iron Balls McGinty, “Sir, you are talking to a n**r!” The guy who wrote this:
You feel a little sorry for the guy who has to compete with him. The aging, mellowed novelist, playwright, and art collector. The guy who said this: “All I want now is small and perfect and beautiful pictures…. The ideal thing to own would be one of those Winslow Homer watercolors.”
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August 10, 2005
Ode to Steve, Part 3
MID-PERIOD STEVE
We, the fans, tend to fixate on Steve Martin’s early work - the albums, “Saturday Night Live,” The Jerk, Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, and so on - and why shouldn’t we? That stuff was stupendously great.
But if you asked Steve himself, I bet he’d tell you that his golden age was his middle period, from All of Me in 1984 up through L.A. Story in 1991. This was when he finally became a movie star.
It’s hard to remember now, but for a while there it looked like Steve might not make it in the movies. The Jerk was a big hit, but his next three films - Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, The Man with Two Brains, and The Lonely Guy - were all commercial failures, each one a bigger flop than the last.
You only get so many strikes in Hollywood, especially when you’re a relatively unproven commodity. Everybody in town apparently knew that if Steve’s next movie wasn’t a hit, he was finished. In a 1984 Rolling Stone article, Carl Reiner recounts the following story:
I was grocery shopping at Ralphs the other day, and a box boy came over to me and said, “I just saw All of Me, and hey, that was one good picture. And that Steve Martin, he was really terrific. He sure could use a hit, couldn’t he?” As I said to Steve, when it filters down to the box boys at Ralphs, it’s serious.
So why did All of Me become a hit when Dead Men and Two Brains - at least as good and arguably better movies with the same star and same director - had done so poorly?
The answer, I think, has to do with persona. Steve’s persona in his first three movies was an extension of his onstage persona: an intimidatingly smart guy doing aggressively dumb things for laughs, often practicing the Comedy of Cruelty(tm). The younger, hipper audiences who bought his albums, went to his shows, and watched SNL liked that character; the general audience you need to sustain a commercially viable movie career didn’t.
All of Me introduced a new Steve, one who seemed like an actual human being, albeit one caught up in bizarre circumstances. In the Rolling Stone article, Steve said this about Roger Cobb, his character in All of Me:
I never played a real guy before, a guy who could walk down the street and have someone say, “Hey, Roger, let’s have a drink.” For the first time in my life, I was playing a character who could kiss a girl, who wasn’t driven by odd madnesses.
This meant that the comedy was no longer originating with Steve; he was now the still center reacting to the insane things happening to him and around him. (This is a fundamental reversal from being a standup comic, who has no choice but to generate the comedy himself.)
Audiences loved this new persona, and he used it again in his most successful movies of the second half of the 80s: Roxanne; Planes, Trains & Automobiles; and Parenthood. In between, he mixed things up by playing a mobster (My Blue Heaven); a con man (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels); an idiot in a sombrero (Three Amigos!); and an Elvis-like, sadistic dentist (a brief, movie-stealing role in Little Shop of Horrors).
I would venture to speculate that these were the happiest years of Steve’s life. Although he was rock-star successful as a standup comic, he’s always claimed that he didn’t enjoy it, as in this quote from Rolling Stone:
When I was touring, I was bothered a lot; I really tended to withdraw. When you’re anywhere but New York or Los Angeles, you can’t go outside your room or you’re followed; you can’t have a meal without feeling self-conscious that everyone is watching. I remember photo sessions where you walk into the room, and all these people are looking at you, waiting for you to do something funny, and you get so tense you can’t do anything, you don’t feel like doing anything. People must have hated me then.
Now, with success in the movies, he was beloved by all of America, able to pick and choose his projects, raking in gazillions of dollars, and married to the fetching Victoria Tennant, whom he’d met while making All of Me (in fact, this could just as well be called the Victoria Tennant Era, because it starts when she arrives and ends when she departs). If you look back at his performances in movies made during these years, you can see that they radiate relaxed self-satisfaction.
This halcyon era culminated with 1991’s L.A. Story, where I think Steve is pretty much playing himself: a smart, funny, gentle, insecure, hopeless romantic. He also wrote the screenplay, which is a love letter both to Tennant (who co-stars) and to Los Angeles itself, which endures some mild mockery but comes out looking like a magical land of dreams. I never laughed as much at L.A. Story as I did at, say, The Jerk, but I always walked away from it feeling better about life - and that is no small accomplishment.
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August 9, 2005
Ode to Steve, Part 2
THE LATE PERIOD
In trying to break up Steve’s career into distinct phases, I realized that it was going to be much more difficult than I thought to cram it into a single week. For instance, today’s topic will be Steve’s Late Period, which in the schematic that I’ve devised includes everything after 1991’s L.A. Story. That means covering 14 quite productive years in one fell swoop, which is downright disrespectful, but I’m afraid I’m left with no alternative.
I am unabashedly stealing the concept of the Late Period from a 1993 New Yorker article by Adam Gopnik. This piece offers a lot of insight into why Steve de-emphasized his movie career in favor of other pursuits.
“Making a movie means five thousand people with opinions, two years of work, twenty-five million dollars of somebody else’s money, and then I have to go on ‘Entertainment Tonight,’” Steve told Gopnik. “I want to do something else. I want to do something that I can have more immediate control over.”
When this article was written, Steve was in the process of mounting the first production of his play Picasso at the Lapin Agile. Interestingly enough, in the two days since I started writing this, an entry for a movie version of Picasso has popped up at the top of Steve’s Internet Movie Database page. The cast includes Ryan Phillippe, Kevin Kline, and Steve himself, and I’ve been sitting here pondering who’s going to play what part. The three main characters are Picasso, Albert Einstein, and the Elvis character, who’s called “The Singer.” So is that Phillippe as Elvis, Steve as Einstein, and Kline in flamboyant mode as Picasso? Wait, Einstein is 25 years old in the play; it has to be Phillppe as Einstein…but then one of the other two has to play the young Elvis…this tangent is now officially out of control and is going to have to be terminated.
Another insight I gleaned from the Gopnik article is that the beginning of the Late Period coincides with Steve’s divorce from Victoria Tennant. This makes sense; I’ve always thought that L.A. Story is most likely the apex of Steve’s movie career in his own mind. While not as screamingly funny as some of his earlier stuff, L.A. Story is suffused with a peculiar blend of satire and sweetness that is quintessentially Steve. It is also a love letter to L.A. - his lifelong home - as well as to Tennant. You can imagine that, coming off this incredible creative high and then losing the woman he loved, he would become disillusioned with the movies.
His filmography since then includes only one performance that I would call truly noteworthy, and that is a non-comedy - if not exactly “straight” - role in David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner. Although he in onscreen far less than Campbell Scott, he plays the con man who is at the center of the events, and the movie depends entirely on his performance. Which is a strange and disorienting one; understated, dignified, vaguely (then openly) sinister, and always threatening to bust out of the frame and become something else altogether. In playing the con man he also plays the character the con man is playing, while at the same time suggesting Steve Martin, movie star, and somewhere buried deep underneath, Steve Martin, human being. I have seen The Spanish Prisoner five or six times now, and it still befuddles me. I hope that someday before I die I will get it.
Aside from that, Steve’s starring roles in the Late Period have mainly been in middle-of-the-road, not unpleasant, family-friendly fare like the Father of the Bride movies and The Out-of-Towners. There have also been a few outright disasters like Leap of Faith. In Bowfinger, both Steve and Eddie Murphy showed flashes of their old form, but the movie ended up being not especially memorable. I couldn’t bring myself to see Bringing Down the House, and I feel the same way about the upcoming Pink Panther remake. Watching the preview for it, I was treated to the sight of one of my favorite movies and one of my favorite comedians combined to produce a series of painfully unfunny gags.
But all that doesn’t mean the Late Period has been a waste of time; it just means that, instead of being in a few easily identifiable places, the great stuff has been dispersed into smaller bits in a wider variety of media.
TV
IMDB lists 27 TV appearances since 1991, and while I haven’t seen all of them, those that I have seen are universally excellent (he was the best Oscar host since Johnny Carson). And that doesn’t include all the times he’s been on The Late Show with David Letterman, which are never ordinary talk show appearances but genuine events that Steve puts a great deal of effort into. I particularly remember one that included a short film called “Dave and Steve’s Gay Vacation,” where the two comedy legends frolicked on the beach hand-in-hand.
PLAYS
Cecil and I were fortunate enough to catch a performance of Picasso at the Lapin Agile in San Francisco a few years back, and found it to be smart, funny, thought-provoking, and altogether worthwhile. I am less familiar with Steve’s other plays, which include WASP and The Underpants; I pledge to devote some future period of time to educating myself about them.
BOOKS/RECORDINGS
Steve has published three books in the Late Period, each of which is also available in an audio version in Steve’s own voice.
I’ll admit to being not completely sold on 2003’s The Pleasure of My Company and 2000’s Shopgirl. They are both carefully crafted, compassionate books about modern people with modern problems, written in an old-fashioned prose style laced with dry wit and elegant turns of phrase. But there is a persistent lightness about them, and not the good kind; the comedy seems too gentle, the drama lacking in tension. Listening to them read by Steve makes for a more pleasant experience, although his voice is sometimes so soothing as to border on the narcotic. I’m not sure how I’d feel about these books if they’d been written by somebody else; I might expect less and so enjoy them more, or I might not bother with them at all.
Much more fun is 1999’s Pure Drivel, a collection of short pieces, most of which originally appeared in The New Yorker. Some of them are hysterically funny, such as “A Public Apology”; some are funny in a gentler, more whimsical way, such as “Mars Probe Finds Kittens”; and one, “Michael Jacksons’s Old Face,” is weirdly, genuinely, powerfully poignant.
In fact, as Steve has grown older, the undercurrent of melancholy in his work has come more and more to the fore. I attribute this partly to developments in his personal life; partly to the natural effects of aging; and partly to the depressive streak that runs through all great comedians. The latter has always been there, and you could argue that its increasing presence is his work makes it that much more an expression of his true self - which is, after all, what we’re all trying for, isn’t it?
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August 8, 2005
Ode to Steve, Part 1
Steve Martin—actor, screenwriter, novelist, playwright, poet, philosopher, comedian, and number-one role model for the prematurely gray—will turn 60 on Sunday, August 14.
Steve ranks very high on the list of my personal deities. He was the funniest man on Earth for roughly a decade (by my estimation from approximately 1975 to 1987). But Steve is so much more than a comedian; he is a true polymath for whom comedy is the gateway into an exploration of all existence.
I use the word “is” advisedly here. It is a sad but true fact that, at least in terms of his movie career, Steve has been in a slow but steady decline for about fifteen years. This year he will be appearing in the Pink Panther remake—a colossal train wreck in the making—and in…I can barely bring myself to type these words…Cheaper by the Dozen 2.
But I am willing to forgive Steve these indiscretions, because he appears to have given up on the idea of making good movies, choosing instead to appear in whatever crap Hollywood is making this year, collect the large paycheck, and add to his art collection. I find this kind of sad, because I still believe that he could be making good movies if he really wanted to, but he appears to have made a strategic decision to put as little effort as possible into films so he can concentrate on writing instead.
There’s something very noble about that in an age where the trend is so completely away from everything literary. Every writer wants to be a movie star, whether secretly or openly; here’s a movie star who wants to be a writer. Is a writer. In addition to the seminal Cruel Shoes, Steve is the author of Pure Drivel, a second book of short comedy pieces; a novel called The Pleasure of My Company; two plays, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and WASP; and the novella Shopgirl.
The movie version of Shopgirl, starring the man himself, is coming out soon, and it is on this that I pin whatever slim hopes I have of Steve once again making a good film. Since it is based on his own book, and he took the time to write the screenplay himself, it seems possible that Steve will actually try in Shopgirl, and that it will not suck.
But no matter; Steve can keep churning out lame movies for the next three hundred years, and that won’t make him any less of a god. My plan is to devote this week’s entries to an appreciation of all the good things Steve has done over the years, and in order to save the beloved early stuff for last, I’m going to start with the most recent and move backwards.
Here’s a piece that Steve wrote earlier this year for the Washington Post. It shows that he can still be effortlessly, fantastically funny when he wants to be:
A Few Words on the Passing of Dave Barry’s Column
By Steve Martin
January 2, 2005
Dave Barry is going on an “indefinite hiatus” only to attract attention to himself. Not famous enough, Dave? Why don’t you go on hiatus! Oh, and make it indefinite. That’ll grab some headlines.
Dave says he wants to spend more time with his family. But I hesitate to tell you that Dave’s family is a hash pipe and some old Playboy magazines. Yes, Dave has written many funny essays that have appeared in our nation’s newspapers. However, most of his material is plagiarized from his own mind. Often, a funny idea will come to Dave, and then he will use that idea in one of his columns. Also, he will sometimes have a perfectly legitimate sentence, and then twist that sentence all out of shape so it will read funny. Another device that he uses is the old trick of putting the punch line at the end of the sentence or paragraph. These tactics are abhorrent.
And, by the way, you know how he often says, “And I’m not making this up?” Well, he made that up.
Dave Barry, and I am not making this up, loves Satan.
Yes, he’s really going on hiatus to give himself more time to worship Satan. When you think of all the Daves in the Bible, most of them are Satan worshipers. The snake, if you recall, was named Dave. And who is it who often takes a hiatus? Satan. Remember the movie, “Satan Takes a Hiatus”?
Also, Dave Barry plays in a band with Stephen King. Stephen King does not play music with people unless they’re able to shine beams of light from their eyes that can set fire to wastebaskets. And I’ve seen Dave at dinner parties light people’s cigarettes just by glaring at them, or sometimes he’ll just reheat fondue.
But I will miss Dave. I’m going to miss every Sunday morning when I would run outside and get the paper and read his column and laugh out loud and feel sick with envy because he’s so funny. Now I’m just going to have to settle for knowing that he’s still there, in Florida, being funnier than all of us put together, but that the rat is keeping it to himself.
Ane here’s Steve’s heartfelt tribute to Johnny Carson, which I stole from the New York Times:
The Man in Front of the Curtain
By Steve Martin
January 25, 2005
DEAR JOHNNY,
This letter comes a little late.
I remember seeing the tape of my first appearance on your show, on a home recording, a reel-to-reel Sony prototype video recorder, probably around 1972. What my friends and I ended up watching was not me, but you. It’s almost impossible to look away from oneself onscreen, but you made it possible, because there were lessons in what you did. You and Jack Benny taught me about generosity toward other comedians, about the appreciation of the plight of the pro, as valuable as any lessons I ever learned.
Your gift—though I’m sure you wouldn’t have called it a gift—was, as I see it, a blend of modesty and confidence. You wanted to do the job and do it well. You allowed the spirit of your idols, Stan Laurel and Jonathan Winters among them, to creep into you, and you found a way to twist their inspiration and make it new. In you I saw simplicity, joy, politeness, sympathy. Your death reminds me of the loss of America’s innocence, the distance we have come from your sly, boyish leers to our flagrant, overstated embarrassments for parents and children.
If I could wake you up for a minute, I would ask you to tell me how good you thought you were. “Between you and me,” I think you would whisper, “I know I was great in a subtle, secret way.” I think you would also say: “I enjoyed and understood the delights of split-second timing, of watching a comedian squirm and then rescue himself, of the surprises that arise from the fractional seconds of desperation when the comedian senses that the end of his sentence might fall to silence.”
Your Nebraskan pragmatism—and knowledge of the magician’s tricks—tilted you toward the sciences, especially astronomy. (Maybe this is why the occultists, future predictors, spoon-benders or mind readers on your show never left without having been challenged.) You knew how to treat everyone, from the pompous actor to the nervous actress, and which to give the appropriate kindness. You enjoyed the unflappable grannies who knitted log-cabin quilts, as well as the Vegas pros who machine-gunned the audience into hysterical fits. You were host to writers, children, intellectuals and nitwits and served them all well, and served the audience by your curiosity and tolerance. You gave each guest the benefit of the doubt, and in this way you exemplified an American ideal: you’re nuts but you’re welcome here.
We loved watching baby tigers paw you and koalas relieve themselves on you and seeing you in your swami hat or Tarzan loincloth, and we loved hearing Ed’s ripostes and watching you glare at him as though you were going to fire him, but we knew you weren’t.
We, the millions whom you affected, will weep inside when we see the reruns, the clips of you walking out from behind the curtain, the moment in the monologue when a joke bombed; we’ll recall your deep appreciation of both genuine and struggling talent.
Because you retreated into retirement so completely, let me thank you, in death, for the things I couldn’t quite say to you in life. Thank you for the opportunity you gave me and others, and thank you—despite divisive wars and undulating political strife—for the one hour a night across 30 years of American life when we were entertained purely, delightfully and wisely.
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June 7, 2005
So tell me honestly...
How do you feel about this whole astrology thing? I myself don't believe in it. Mostly. But every once in a while something leads me to wonder.
Like today, for instance, is the birthday of both Tom Jones and Prince. So I started looking around the Web to see if somewhere it said "Your Birthday Today: You are a sex machine to all the chicks."
Which it didn't. But I did find out that today is also the birthday of two showbiz types who are known to have very large penises--Dave Navarro (Jane's Addiction guitarist) and Liam Neeson (Jedi Knight)--as well as Dean Martin. Was Dino well-hung? I can't remember ever hearing one way or the other. But he certainly had a lot of self-confidence.
And just to add to the picture, also born today: Anna Kournikova. You can insert your own joke here. I mean literally, you can click on "Comment" and insert your own joke.
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May 15, 2005
It's Eno's world; the rest of us just live in it
Brian Eno (full name: Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno) turns 58 today. This should probably be a national holiday. No, wait, a world holiday.
Those of us of a certain bent feel about Eno much as Catholics feel about the Pope. Why do we love Eno so much?
- He has a cool name. Try saying it. “Eno.” Doesn’t it sound cool?
- He was a founding member of Roxy Music; during this period, David Bowie says, he was “an alarmingly glamorous young man.”
- He produced the following albums, among others: Bowie’s Low, “Heroes,” and Lodger; Talking Heads’ More Songs About Buildings and Food, Fear of Music, and Remain in Light; Devo’s Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo; Ultravox’s Ultravox; and a bunch of albums by U2 (but we forgive him for that).
- Between 1974 and 1977 he recorded four experimental pop albums—Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), Another Green World, and Before and After Science—that remain crucial discoveries for every hipster egghead college kid.
- He invented ambient music.
- With David Byrne, he recorded My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, using African rhythms and found sound to create one of the all-time stoner masterpieces.
- He uses a set of cards called “Oblique Strategies” to help generate ideas.
- Did I mention that he has a cool name?
So if you own any Eno, I recommend pulling it out and listening to it today. If you don’t, I recommend you get some immediately.
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May 14, 2005
And speaking of baseball...
…the aptly named Yogi Berra turned 80 this week.
Yogi is one of our greatest living zen masters. He may not be aware that he is a zen master, but that just proves how totally zen he is.
He originally gained renown as a baseball player, but his greatest achievements have been in the field of the zen koan. A koan is a saying, riddle, or parable that disorients the logical mind, allowing us freedom of thought and giving us a glimpse of the ineffable.
Here are just a few of the mind-bending things that have passed Yogi’s lips over the years:
“You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
“If you don’t know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.”
Q: “Yogi, what time is it?” A: “Do you mean now?”
“If you come to a fork in the road, take it.”
This last one contains more wisdom than the collected works of Dr. Phil put together.
For more Yogi quotes: http://rinkworks.com/said/yogiberra.shtml
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