Los Angeles can be so ungrateful. Just weeks after the the city nearly burned down, the rain that usually waits until, at the earliest, Halloween arrived in amounts that anywhere else would seem innocuous.
And people were angry about it.
"How about THIS RAIN?" someone at the PTA meeting said last night. "I wonder if school will be cancelled?"
"Yes," I said. "I might have to jump in the L.A. River just to dry off."
There is some concern that mudslides off denuded hillsides will do to homes what the fires couldn't.
Still, my morning commute was often interrupted, even as my windshield wipers were on their lowest frequency, by people stopping in intersections and having no idea what to do about the rain. It's Los Angeles; can't people think of the rain as more-wet bullets?
At the gas station a team from a local NBC affiliate was getting reactions about the storm that was "battering" Southern California.
"In Massachusetts it's not considered battery until your own teeth are in your stool," I should have said, but didn't.
We need the rain. The cracked streets of the city are like Abel's blood crying from the ground. And I'm like "Well what did you expect, Abel?"
Today the surviving Beatles and the estates of John Lennon and George Harrison, as well as the financial and marketing entities that represent the interests of the former Fab Four, have reissued the Beatles catalog in remastered mono and stereo and have released a version of the videogame "Rockband" featuring the group's music.
This means that, four decades after the seminal group of the 1960s broke up, The Beatles are still raking in cash from a perpetually reimagined catalog.
Not only that, but a campaign to package the constantly evolving Liverpool lads that began when each was alive and that capitalized on their own whims - mop tops, impishness, psychedelia, Indian music, peace - has also updated the group for contemporary consumption, and created myths only vaguely connected to the source material.
Maybe because they were so iconoclastic in life, and perhaps even more so because they're dead, John Lennon and George Harrison have been the major beneficiaries of mythmaking marketing. On the new Beatles website (http://www.beatles.com), a group of travelers is seen trekking across Abbey Road, interacting with a Lennon who is beatific and Christlike.
Anyone who has watched the great anti-date movie "Let It Be," a film that documents the Beatles' unraveling, knows that Lennon at the time was more into the crucifixion downside of being bigger than Jesus. His joyful wonderment at "Rockband"'s release seems out of character.
It was Harrison's experimentation with Eastern religion in general and Indian music in particular that proved such a Godheadsend in the 60's, as the Beatles' marketing machine finally knew what to do with him. To Paul (cute), John (sarcastic), Ringo (pathetic but lovable), could now be added George (mysterious).
So in an animated "Come Together" video released in 2000, we see a cheerful, Jerry Garcia-like John, an eight-armed George, and an along-for-the-ride Paul and Ringo, waiting only for their deaths before they could be reinvented as The Walrus and Snuffleupagus, respectively.
The Beatles have been a financial sacred cash cow in each of the decades since they disbanded. In the past 15 years alone they have released their B-sides "Anthology" containing group versions of two John Lennon songs ("Free As A Bird" and "Real Love," with a posthumous Lennon lead vocal, were the "Unforgettable" of the late 90s), the Beatles' BBC sessions, a rerelease of their Number One hits that itself reached Number One, and Cirque du Soleil's "Love" soundtrack, an elegant Beatles mashup produced by Sir George Martin and his son, Giles.
Clearly there is something equally elegant about the choice of 9/09/09 for this major product launch (adding the numbers together, we get 27, and 2 + 7 is also 9; four numbers greater than the sum of their parts, much like the four individual Beatles' solo careers - it is unlikely that Ringo will issue a major retrospective on 12/12/12) but, to quote an early Lennon/McCartney song released on "Let It Be," what can we expect "after 909"?
Following resolution of Apple Corps' copyright infringement suit against Apple Computer, Beatles-branded MacBooks
Phil Spector's jailhouse remixes of "Yellow Submarine" and "Sgt. Pepper" (with Billy Preston)
Wings and Plastic Ono Band reunion on a charity cover version of "Valotte"
McCartney successfully sues for partial credit on "Pet Sounds" and "At Her Satanic Majesty's Request." Mono and stereo versions re-released
George Harrison lyrics shoehorned into "Quadrophenia." Mono and stereo versions re-released
NASA resuscitates Space Shuttle program, somehow involving payments to Yoko
Celebrity cover band versions of Beatles catalogue includes The Police ("Revolver"), "Rubber Soul Coughing," "Yo La Tengo Submarine," and "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Dave Matthews Band" (with J. Geils)
Monkees start a rumor that Peter Tork is dead to boost sales, but Peter Tork actually dies
U2 and Van Halen collaborate on "Let It BU2." Bono and stereo versions released
Corporate naming rights sold for selected properties, such as "Being for the Benefit of Bank of America," "Across the Universal Studios," and "I Want to Hold Your Spam"
And, as usual, the Kinks get nothing
It is said that the Beatles will make more money this month than they did in the year 1965. Credit counselors suggest that completists have got to hide their wallets away.
What Disney's acquisition of Marvel Comics means to you
Today the Walt Disney Company announced it had agreed to purchase Marvel Comics for $4 billion in cash and stock. Marvel's board is likely to agree, making the bold acquisition the largest media buyout since last year's economic collapse.
But fans of both cultural institutions are concerned with the purity of iconic characters and storylines. The following is a list of things that could happen should the buyout be approved.
1. Spiderman and Cinderella to marry
"With great power comes great responsibility," says Spiderman. "Yes," replies Cinderella. "Your relatives are laying their goddamn eggs all over the castle."
2. Epcot Center to feature exhibit on future world in which mutants and humans coexist.
Disney vacationers will get to see Wolverine and Sabretooth sampling produce from around the world, and Magneto preventing rollercoaster deaths
3. Pluto to become Hulk's faithful sidekick
No stupider than the Silver Surfer, really
4. Stan Lee to live above Disneyland Fire Station
The creator of "Fantastic Four" will also make cameo appearances, along with Lou Ferrigno, in every new Disney movie
5. Howard the Duck and Donald Duck to peck each other to death in bloody Main Street showdown
One can only hope
6. Muppet Babies to inhabit It's A Small World
As well as Iron Man, by mistake
7. Captain America revived to battle Somali-transplant Pirates of the Caribbean
Fixed in a single point in time following an assassination attempt, Steve Rogers battles voodoo zombies and Captain Jack Sparrow on Tony Stark's drilling platform north of Haiti. Thor stops time and eliminates all Fast Passes at California Adventure while this happens. The X-Men fend off an attack by lesser-regarded 2006 acquisition Pixar characters, resulting in death of Mater
In other news, DC Comics' Batman and Superman join forces in a new movie directed by Christopher Nolan in which the cities of Orlando and Anaheim are ceded to Lex Luthor and destroyed
With a girl as fine as she was then: The Psychopathological narrative in "Raspberry Beret"
Nearly a quarter century after she "walked in through the out door (out door)," the woman wearing the title garment of Prince's 1985 song "Raspberry Beret" continues to puzzle and intrigue scholars.
But it is the narrator who has emerged as a dangerous and unstable sociopath.
"I was working part-time in a five-and-dime ," the narrator begins, telling us that his employer, a Mr. McGee, had to repeatedly tell him that the narrator's "leisurely" attitude toward work engendered feelings of dislike in his employer for not only the narrator but also the narrator's social, ethnic, racial, political, or religious group, i.e. "kind."
People with developmental disorders often need to be told several times to complete tasks such as those required in the type of retail establishments where the learning-disabled may find work.
We introduce the notion of the narrator's own mental impairment as the basis for his attraction to the beret-wearing girl. While there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that "opposites attract," it is more often the case that interpersonal relationships are founded on shared values and interests.
If the narrator is autistic, however, he is high-functioning, as demonstrated by his ability to vary his menial tasks in order to hold his own interest:
"It seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing," he says, "but different than the day before."
It is then that he sees the subject of the song, as "she walked in through the out door." Consistent with Persistent Developmental Disorder (Not Otherwise Specified), he repeats "out door."
"She wore a raspberry beret," he tells us, "The kind you’d find in a second hand store."
Researchers disagree on whether the narrator's choice to speculate where the girl might have found her beret is Asperger's Syndrome-style "Information Bombardment" or a genuine attempt to connect with the listener.
In any case, and appearing to validate PDD-NOS theorists, he compulsively, almost fetishistically repeats her headwear throughout the song, adding that, were the temperature appropriate, the probable group home resident might not "wear much more."
Up to this point in the interview, students and professionals have been inclined to agree that the narrator, whether a stroke or head trauma victim or otherwise mentally compromised, was basically an amiable and harmless person, even if he might have proven a minor management problem to his employer.
But alarm bells sound in the next set of lyrics.
The narrator, based on the girl's inappropriate entrance to the five-and-dime as well as her hat (and his opinions about whether or not she would wear nothing but the hat should the weather become "warm"), makes a compulsive and staggering logical leap:
"I think I love her," he says.
While condemnation of the narrator's premature profession of love is unanimous in university and medical circles, the following lines divide scholars:
"Built like she was, she had the nerve to ask me if I planned to do her any harm," he says.
Does this mean she was attractive to the narrator and, knowing this, that she would flout a reasonable person's fear of being harmed by him?
Or was she unattractive to the narrator ("Built like she was, she had the nerve to ask me...") and therefore unworthy of questioning his malicious intent?
Either way, it is clear that she recognized the danger; when does it come up unless someone is in danger the question of whether they are to be harmed?
The American Psychiatric Association recommends a simple Appropriateness Test, which it calls the Cocktail Metric:
"Go to a cocktail party and approach a friendly-seeming stranger with the statement in question," its literature suggests. Would you approach an amiable stranger and ask him/her if he/she planned to do you any harm?
It gets worse:
"So look here, " the narrator challenges us, "I put her on the back of my bike and we went riding down by Old Man Johnson's farm."
Not "she got on the bike willingly and of her own volition" but "I put her on the back of my bike" like a wounded or trophy animal.
Perhaps due to abuse, trauma, or the schizoid belief that he is a being that draws power from celestial bodies, the narrator then observes that his ability to perform sexually is influenced by the visibility of the sun or the moon.
"Overcast days never turned me on," he says, and then for the first time openly derides the girl by comparing her to noxious smog:
"But something about the clouds and her mixed."
The narrator then savagely beats the girl with his feet, attempting to make the listener believe that she was not only the aggressor but also that she wanted him to beat her with his feet.
"She wasn't too bright, but I could tell when she kissed me," he says, " - she knew how to get her kicks."
Having dragged her into some kind of stable, silo, or manger, the narrator feels an almost lycanthropic connection to nature.
"Rain sounds so cool when it hits the barn roof," he says, and researchers concede that he's right: Rain does sound cool that way. But we shouldn't let the sociopath charm us with his studied behaviors of normal human interaction.
Because then, as if denying his own humanity (and the responsibility of his crime) by attributing human characteristics to animals, he attempts to divert listeners' attention to his temporary stablemates.
"...And the horses wonder who you are."
As if shaking his fist at a universe only half-complicit in his offenses, the narrator goes on to accuses Nature that "thunder drowns out what the lightning sees (and) you feel like a movie star," (possibly Hannibal Lecter, the Son of Sam, Leatherface from "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," or even Satan, as depicted in several films).
The narrator invokes this pandemonium of murderers as "They": "They say the first time ain't the greatest," he says.
Boldly addressing us again and bragging of his lack of remorse: "But I'll tell you, if I had the chance to do it all again, I wouldn't change a stroke."
The narrator's megalomania at its zenith, he taunts listeners by referring to them collectively as an infant, hinting that the girl is no longer alive:
"Baby, I'm the most," he says, "with a girl as fine as she was then."
Despite acknowledgment by Prince that the song was about ex-girlfriend Susan Moonsie and documentation that her intelligence is within normal limits, and that Prince himself is not criminally insane, I'm still hoping to use this abstract to get my license to practice Psychiatry in the State of California. Wish me luck!
Matches come in a box, tobacco in a pouch, milk in a carton or bottle. Perhaps the scariest part of "The Omen" is that knives were transported in a towel.
"State law requires I ask you a couple of questions," the guy said.
Recently I went to have knives sharpened. While hacking at a carcass with heavy, dull blades provides a satisfaction of its own, time is tight and my family needs its food cut with efficiency and precision. And we can't afford lasers.
So there I was, with a cleaver and several other knives wrapped in a dishrag, and the sharpenist was quizzing me.
"Do you now, or have you ever belonged to a religion that demands blood sacrifice?" he said.
"Yes, but only symbolically," I said.
"Do you believe you or a loved one is harboring the AntiChrist?" he said.
"Harboring is a strong word," I said. "But I'm driving by and he's waiting for the bus in the rain, I'm gonna pick him up."
"Do you intend to use these knives for any activity other than meal preparation?" he said.
"No."
"Not even opening boxes?"
"No."
"I had to ask," he said. "The End Times are coming."
So I was not surprised to see my knives returned with instructions.
As you know, Ambassador Robert Thorne, who had the misfortune of being the earthly caregiver to the AntiChrist, received the Daggers of Megiddo in similar inappropriate packaging. It's like carrying your golf clubs in an omelette.
"You want me to kill Damien with these?" he asks Bugenhagen. "Preventing the reign of Satan's son is surely worth a Coach bag."
"We give you a coupon later," Bugenhagen says.
Thorne, played by Gregory Peck, also killed Audrey Hepburn by this method in "Roman Holiday."
For centuries, the blade has been the preferred method of slaughter for sons on either side of the theological fence. Commanded by God, Abraham was to sacrifice his son, Isaac, with an axe.
"Sorry it didn't work out," Abraham tells Isaac.
Leonard Cohen uses "The Story of Isaac" as an allegorical war protest. Why "sacrifice these children" when [governments] "never have been tempted by a demon or a god"?
When my son learns to talk, he will doubtless ask me if I would ever run him through with a consecrated kitchen or garden implement on orders from the almighty.
"Jem," I'll say, tousling his hair while checking for Beast-related birthmarks, "My father once told me that I could stab all the AntiChrists I wanted, but it was a sin to kill a mockingbird."
Canonized in the sixth century, Fabiola, who in life divorced her abusive husband and started a hospital for indigent women in Rome, is recognized as the matron saint of nurses. In this exhibit at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 300 representations of her trademark look have been collected from flea markets and garage sales by Mexico City architect and artist Francis Alys.
It is one of those exhibits that is about the exhibit and not the art. The program notes are quick to point out that the pictures' "lowly status is incontestable."
But the renderings of Saint Fabiola - draped in red, facing left - are all over the map. Paint, oil, wood, even beans are used to create her likeness, which itself came from a lost 19th century painting by Jean-Jacques Henner, no relation to Marilu or to Doug Henning.
Because my artistic forte is to add .66 percent to existing collections, a discipline I call sexasectumism, I have placed two more representations of Fabiola in the collection, one made from bone and skin and the other from common McDonaldland dairy substitutes. I wonder if anyone will notice. I wonder when the grant money will come in.
Though born in the fourth century and by no means an A-List saint like Francis or Augustine, Fabiola proves through these loving outsider tributes that she is no Holla Back Girl.
As you are no doubt aware, the only thing that keeps sleeping giant Canada from descending on the United States like a massive, malignant pin setting machine, dismantling and removing each state like a dropped spare, is the calming influence of Gordon Lightfoot.
Like Lot, Lightfoot has spent years (1974-1976) looking for anything redeeming in the United States that might save it from righteous destruction, and he found two things: the "good ship and true" Edmund Fitzgerald, and Carefree Highway.
But the Edmund Fitzgerald sank, and the Carefree Highway isn't.
This weekend I made like the witch of November and visited Carefree Highway, located about fifty miles from Phoenix. And the 31-mile stretch of road leading to the artists' colony of Carefree is anything but Carefree, my friends. In fact, it is more like Fraught With Worry Highway.
For one thing, it has a 45 m.p.h. speed limit. Who can be carefree if he has to slow down? Gordon Lightfoot isn't about slowing down.
Then there's the town of Carefree. No soliciting without a permit. No shooting. No creepin' round my back stair. "You don't own me, Town of Carefree," I said.
But the worst abominations were perpetrated on the saguaro, whose blossom is the state flower of Arizona, whose removal is prohibited, whose arms take 75 years to grow, who often live 150 years.
As we headed out of town, we saw several trussed-up saguaros, loaded on trucks, along the Carefree Highway. My little daughter said, "Papa, what are they doing to the noble saguaro?"
"They're crucifying them," I said.
What is to keep Canada from destroying us with its battalions of Red Barchettas now?
When did that September 11 thing happen? Afterward, the current president notably tried to inspire confidence and stimulate the economy by authorizing two rounds of tax rebates and suggesting we all go fly somewhere. (And it's not like I refused that money, either).
But belt-tightening was never a top-down directive from the current administration, the way it was in Franklin Roosevelt's time, as if the suggestion to live frugally was an admission of guilt, or as if the September 11 attacks and the wars that followed were somehow their fault, ha ha. Imagine.
A story in today's Boston Globe indicates that people who lived during the Great Depression doubt the ability of the current generation to do without.
from "Great Depression survivors uncertain of nation's mettle"
Quinlan, 92, said today's financial crisis gives him a creepy sense of déjà vu. "I don't see any resolutions coming out of it," he said. "That's the scary part."
He and other New Englanders who lived through the decade-long economic morass of the 1930s vividly recall the bank failures, bread lines, and rampant unemployment that followed the stock market crash, best remembered for Black Tuesday, which occurred 79 years ago tomorrow - Oct. 29, 1929. And they question whether a nation accustomed to getting more of everything can now make do with less. Their fears echo the results of a CNN poll released last week in which four out of 10 respondents said they believe a depression is likely within the next year.
"We couldn't have all we wanted, and certainly we didn't have what kids have today," said Irene Morris, 83, a lifelong Lowell resident. Gratification was often delayed during the Great Depression, she said, and when it did come, the payoff was modest.
Frugality became the norm for her generation, Morris said, but young people will find it difficult to cope with a prolonged economic downturn. "I really feel bad for them because they're not used to doing without and waiting like we did," she said.
At first I thought the Globe story was about old people not understanding one of Pink Floyd's most underrated albums, but that was Meddle, not mettle.
As you know, I am a much sought-after interpreter of dreams. I can often be found in rooms redolent of awful-smelling tea saying things like "The flowers? That means you're fat" and "The clown? Freud believes that is a sign that your sneakers look stupid" to people who pay me handsomely.
Throughout history men and women have claimed inspiration for all sorts of things on the basis of their dreams. Mostly these dreams result in Scientology and the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, but in select cases they have also led to Disneyland and the song "Yesterday."
I do not believe in the prophetic properties of dreams, as I am a hardbitten realist secure in the belief that there is no world but the one we have created (this is also known as despair), but I have something to share with you: Last Night I Had A Dream.
I and this guy named Ben (in real life, I know no Ben) were hanging around with John McCain. For whatever reason, Ben was a big fan of The Clash. I noted that his enjoyment of The Clash wasn't one where he imposed his tastes on anyone or even made John McCain and me listen to obscure B-sides. He just liked The Clash.
At one point Ben said, "The first time I heard the word 'Sandinista' was on a Clash record,"
(This was not true of me.)
John McCain said, "I've always liked The Clash, too."
I recall that McCain was wearing a green bathrobe and didn't smell too good, as if the effort required to look presentable on the campaign trail decompensated rapidly when he was just hanging out with Ben and me.
Ben left the room and McCain leaned over to me and said:
"You know, I hate the heck out of The Clash."
The way I interpret this dream, Ben is either Ben Jones, the man who played Cooter in the original "Dukes of Hazzard" TV series, or Ben, the good ("ben") will of the American people.
I also remember that I liked John McCain at one point, especially in the 2000 election as a worthy adversary of Al Gore and a viable presidential alternative. But lately I think he will say anything to get elected, doesn't believe what he says and, if he isn't horrified by his own decision to invite Sarah Palin to the ticket, isn't worthy of serving. I have always believed that a personal well of horror as a prerequisite for public office.
So that McCain told the American people one thing and me - his trusted advisor - another is a concern, because I just told you. And I don't even know you.
Don't get me wrong: I don't dislike McCain because of his age or his own dislike of The Clash. I am wary of him because he didn't tell the truth to our earnest friend Ben.
And I think the dream I had this morning is just as valid an influence on your voting as is the cynical choice as Vice Presidential nominee of a reflection of America's growing comfort with mediocrity and provincialism. Stranger things have happened, but I wonder what them Duke Boys'll do now?
A friend of mine from Boston, Julie Perkins, performed a show in L.A. with another friend, Jan Davidson, last night. I haven't seen either of them in eight years or more, and paying five bucks for a sketch show in a theatre with 30 other people was very familiar. Julie is thinking of moving here, and I suggested that she get used to switching her sensibilities from performing for fans to performing for peers.
"Nobody asks, 'So how do you like living here?' when you live in Boston," I said. "There's something built into living here that implies a challenge."
After the show (which was great), there was a get-together at the Beverly Hills Hotel ($18 parking), after which I drove straight down Wilshire Blvd. from Beverly Hills to my office downtown (I had to work); at 3 a.m. an eight minute coast. I had driving songs playing and I took a picture at every red light.
Driving in L.A. with no traffic makes it all worthwhile. I had time to listen to two songs. One was Bruce Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad."
Here is Johnny's Restaurant on the corner of Wilshire and Fairfax. You can't eat here but you can film here, and Biggie got shot across the street (I reenact the shooting with my improv troupe. A 14-year-old is building our MySpace page).
Below is the office of one of my freelance clients. They tend to pay later every month, yet they leave their lights on all night.
Next up was Randy Newman's "I Love L.A.," a great song for a good mood.
Western Blvd. with the Gaylord Hotel in the distance. My office is around the corner.
I found an excellent web tool for the woodshed of anyone with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: CalendarHome.com.
Among the many services this site provides is a calculator that determines the number of days between two dates, a tool that converts dates into their Islamic, Julian, and Gregorian calendar counterparts, and a database of days of the week, so you can find out the day you were born if you weren't keeping track at the time.
It was this latter tool I used to determine that only half of my family seems to be following the rules of this poem:
Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace, Wednesday's child is full of woe, Thursday's child has far to go, Friday's child is loving and giving, Saturday's child works hard for its living, But the child that's born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
Here is a latter-day David Bowie video, "Thursday's Child," from the "Heathen" album:
Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has determined that the 51-mile Los Angeles River is mostly unnavigable, leading to fears that developers will use this as an excuse to flout environmental restrictions.
But anyone who has seen Grease, Terminator 2, and The Transformers knows that the L.A. River is an excellent shortcut past jammed city streets, whether for racing, apprehending Bumblebee, or tracking down a teenaged John Connor prior to his valor in The Robot Wars.
Regulators and conservationists...believe the ripple effect of the decision will make is easier to develop large areas of the Santa Susana, Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains because landowners will not be required to obtain certain federal permits. Some federal and state officials fear that the decision also may undermine rules against discharging wastewater and storm water into the river's tributaries.
Corps regional supervisor Col. Thomas H. Magness IV told the L.A. Times that, just because The Terminator was able to drive an 18-wheeler down a half-mile stretch of the concrete-surfaced waterway, doesn't mean time-traveling cyborg warriors could battle throughout the 834-sq. mile watershed.
"This decision does not in any way lessen the protections on the L.A. River itself," he said.
Why go to MacArthur Park on Memorial Day? To get a new social security number and heroin, of course! No, but seriously, I only go to Echo Park for methadone and lotuses.
While we wait to complete the instrumental tracks on the All That Jaws album, Brian Descheneaux and I decided to form a band that would be impervious to studio delays, musicians' schedules, and mountain road closures in that it would consist of ourselves.
We chose the name Fogelfoot, an abbreviation of Croce Dan and Seals Bread Fogelfoot, to pay tribute to the earnest 70's songwriting traditions of Jim Croce, Bread, Seals & Crofts, Gordon Lightfoot, Dan Fogelberg, and England Dan And John Ford Coley.
And because the name "Cormorant" was already taken, inexplicably, by a San Francisco metal band.
So each week we set ourselves a task. This week I wanted to pay homage to every 70's song that used the word "Lady" and write a story a la "Brandy" about an inaccessible love interest with a past. Because the past involved a Mexican soldier, I wanted the song to be reminiscent of Jose Feliciano's "Chico and the Man" and to incorporate as many 70's props as possible, including a creepy narrator, amulets, and cocaine. Finally, the narrator needed to solve all his love interest's problems by telling her that she was pretty.
The song is called "Lady And the Man," Brian did all the music, and it is available on the Flight of the Mavervorl podcast. Subscribe now!
Lady is a lady Long-legged sultry lady She sways her hips for the gentlemen On the lonely side of town
When it's midnight in the city I go to see my Lady And I bring her gifts of sweet white wine And spices from the East
She tells me, "I would like to make sweet love to you By the torrid Tampiquena Sea But you cannot catch The Cormorant, can you? It's only when she's dancing that she's free."
There's a sadness in my Lady So I feed her rails of cocaine But the rain it falls like honey in the snow
OK!
'twas a horseman named Felipe Not a word could she comprende But she understood his urgency 'fore he marched off to the West
And I'm dancing with my Lady And she has something to tell me She shows to me the amulet That dangles 'twixt her breasts
And when the letter came one chilly Friday Saying that he'd been et by ants She knew of nothing else to serve his mem'ry Than to love him through her dance
So if you see my Lady Just tell her that she's pretty That's all a lovely lady Needs to know
If you were to enter a conversation late on the line "...he should be dead," chances are you would assume the topic was Keith Richards.
That is why I listen when he tells me what food I should avoid; because what scares Keith Richards scares me.
The miracle of pharmacology Rolling Stones guitarist said in an interview with GQ that he will not eat cheese. He said this while guzzling a 16-oz. Solo cup filled with Ketel One at 4 in the afternoon. Therefore, I will stop eating cheese.
"Cheese is very wrong," he said. "Fermented milk is not the ideal choice for everyday eating."
He also said the story about the daily blood transfusions is an untrue rumor. But he was pretty clear about the cheese.
To keep myself from going insane, I allow 15 minutes a day for Internet goof-off time. So this morning I tracked down Jay Ferguson's "Thunder Island," which I'd been thinking of recently as a great example of 70's Southern California use of the word "Lady" in songwriting.
"Sha la la la la la My Lady," sings Ferguson. In fact, he says "M'Lady," which is even better.
"Thunder Island" is from one of Ferguson's solo albums. Prior to this, he had been in Jo Jo Gunne and Spirit, famous for the song "Nature's Way."
Not necessarily a one-hit wonder, Ferguson has instead worked steadily since the 60's. You just never knew you were listening to his work.
Ferguson's animated performance of "Thunder Island" in this video made me think of the backup singer from Sniff 'n' the Tears, whose 1978 song "Driver's Seat" is one of the most satisfying songs ever recorded.
But it appears that the powers that be didn't think lead singer Paul "Sniff" Roberts was interesting enough in the video, so the camera focused instead on backup singer Noel "'n'" McCalla, whose energy exceeded the requirements of the song.
Not knowing anything about the band, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Noel just showed up off the street that day and the band was too polite to tell him to leave.
"We were one of the first bands to tour post-Franco Spain," stated Paul Roberts on the band's website.
"I think Franco-American Spaghetti-O's smell like vomit," I stated on my website.
Recently I went out of a Saturday evening in Hollywood and returned to find my car plastered with show fliers. I wondered: Are people driving Honda products with Red Sox fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror the target demographic for Marilyn Manson's promotions organization?
Yes.
Marilyn Manson is reaching out to Honda drivers in particular. Next he will focus on RV parks, children's burn units, and the AARP. I take some comfort in knowing that Manson is growing older with me and that we are taking this journey together.
I was touring this high-end (for me, anyway) apartment complex near a golf course and had the following keyword-laden conversation with the rental agent. I mentioned I lived in Glendale.
"I grew up here and Glendale used to be a lot different," she said.
"Oh yeah?"
"A certain population moved in. Really inconsiderate drivers," she said, not mentioning any names. "They wear a lot of cologne."
She said "cologne" and "drivers" with such vehemence that I'm sure a passing Amnesty International observer would have deemed the terms hate speech on the spot.
I'm not going to move there, but not because of that exchange. It's just that, before I leave Los Angeles, I want to live somewhere without beige carpeting.
She asked me what I did for a living and I told her I was the drummer for System of a Down.
While Bob Dylan has done just fine without relying on my opinion, I am worried about his legacy as reflected in a section of lyrics that has always made me want to pop an aneurysm.
Dylan's beautiful love song "Sara", from his 1976 album "Desire" (which includes "Hurricane") is his second most well known song about his ex-wife. He name-checks the first in "Sara" in a self-referential move worthy of rappers:
I can still hear the sounds of those Methodist bells, I'd taken the cure and had just gotten through, Stayin' up for days in the Chelsea Hotel, Writin' "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" for you.
Here's the line that bothers me. It comes near the end of the song:
Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp And a piece of an old ship that lies on the shore. You always responded when I needed your help, You gimme a map and a key to your door.
I think the most important lines are the last two, but he painted himself into a corner by falling in love with "when I needed your help", because what does one rhyme with help?
If I asked you who was at the restaurant, for example, and you said, "No one but the bar towels," I would punch you. Don't get cute with me, pal. Life is too short. Kelp.
When you say that something is deserted, you mean that it is devoid of humans or living things. So you could say that a house is deserted except for some mice. By mistakenly introducing kelp, Dylan became responsible to list every other non-living thing on that beach, and should have also said:
Now the beach is deserted, except for some kelp, sand, crabs, lobster parts, Pepsi cans, french fries someone forgot about, a Butterfinger wrapper, a murder of cormorants And a piece of an old ship that lies on the shore.
If Dylan could have just let go of "help", he could have been faithful to the beach imagery throughout the song and maintained the integrity of the powerful final lines of that quatrain. Here's a dazzling substitution:
Up to the sandbar, the cormorants WADE And gaze at the PEPSI CANS that lie on the shore You always responded when I needed your AID, You gimme a map and a key to your door.
or, just as powerful but not employing the kelp logical fallacy:
Out in the harbor, the musk seals doth YELP About how ST. FRANCIS would give to the POOR You always responded when I needed your help, You gimme a map and a key to your door.
Not only are these suggestions lyrically sound, but they also impress the listener with a deeper understanding of the song, as well as of the desires of cormorants. You might have an issue with "doth yelp", pointing out that it would be better to have said "yelped", but as my "All That Jaws" collaborator Brian Descheneaux has observed, there is a precedent in Dylan's lyrics for padding the verb:
Outside in the cold distance, a wildcat DID GROWL
I encourage you to submit your own versions of the kelp stanza, and I will present these worthy alternates to Dylan the next time I see him.
I traveled 55.2 miles to the wastes of Ventura this evening to see a sneak preview of "Razor", an interstitial Battlestar Galactica episode.
Why did I consume 3.5 gallons of expensive gasoline to see a TV show on a movie screen when I could have watched it on television on November 24? Because I cancelled cable after The Sopranos ended. Most days I don't regret it.
I and about 300 other educated, thoughtful people gathered for this special screening at a movie theatre. None of us was dressed as a Cylon. No one quoted BSG dialogue in line. None of us appeared to be living with our parents. Most of us were drinking.
The two-hour episode, which fills in certain gaps in the story and sets up Season Four of the Sci Fi Network show, dealt with events on the Battlestar Pegasus following the Cylon obliteration of the 12 colonies.
I am pushing my glasses up my nose.
Told with flashbacks and centered around the story of Kiwi colonist Kendra Shaw, "Razor" details the methods of the knife-wielding and ruthless Admiral Cain and how being unlucky in love is a really bad thing in space. We are reunited with the vintage Cylons familiar to people who watched the 80/20 hokey/thought-provoking 70's TV show and are treated to a significant scene featuring a being lying in a lighted tub of goop.
The episode was fantastic. People cheered. But Sci Fi has apparently sold its soul to the Xbox game "Mass Effect", and several commercials placed in and around the movie effectively torpedoed any interest this audience would have had in the game.
More than anything, "Razor" was a "Mists of Avalon" to Battlestar Galactica's Knights of the Round Table story; the actions of the lesbian battlestar commander and the sad fate of herself and the woman who loved her seemed like the producers' commentary on the perils of that lifestyle. At one point, Commander Adama mused that he might have made similarly brutal decisions as his counterpart but he "had a family".
That the treacherous Caprica Six enters the series as a network administrator also shines a light on where the producers' prejudices lie.
The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival
The American Cinematheque at Hollywood's Egyptian Theatre is a good place to see a movie. The audiences are of varied ages, and not so relentlessly young and hipsterish that I think I'm living in the land of Logan's Run.
The lady who sold me popcorn was older and sullen, rather than young and sullen, and looked a little like Janice from The Muppets. I felt like I was in Cambridge.
Recently I saw a double feature of documentaries presented by director Murray Lerner: The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan at the Newport Folk Festival, and Festival, which still spent a lot of time with Dylan but which also focused on Odetta, Johnny Cash, and dozens of other acts from the festivals of 1963-'65.
I enjoyed the first movie, released this year, because I hadn't seen a lot of the footage before. While the climax was obviously Dylan's "going electric" with "Maggie's Farm" in 1965, footage of the younger Dylan with Joan Baez tuning his guitar for him (no wonder they broke up), Dylan actually smiling, and Dylan interacting - albeit minimally - with the audience were fun to see.
The myth is that Dylan surprised the crowd with electrification in '65, and that he was booed. While we can hear boos from the audience, and while his acoustic encore is greeted with almost palpable relief, there were no cries of "Judas!" like he got when he took the act to England.
Director Lerner spoke between the movies.
"Remember, I was there," he said in response to the mythology that has been generated by Dylan's final performance at Newport, "and people swear to me that it was the audience booing or the journalists booing or people behind the stage booing. There were selected people booing, and it came mostly from the journalists."
Festival, released in 1967, was by comparison a much better movie. It was edited with audience and band interviews, and was more reminiscent of the Maysles Brothers' later Woodstock film than the raw presentation of chronological Dylan footage that made up Other Side of the Mirror.
My favorite parts of Festival were Odetta's performances. She brought the house down. And Peter, Paul, and Mary (especially Mary Travers) put on a great show, while Peter Yarrow seemed a little toolish and Joan Baez seemed in love with her voice to the detriment of the music. When I am an old man, I want to dress like Son House and Mississippi John Hurt, on alternate days.
Festival also featured cloggers, a jug band, and the Georgia Island Sea Singers. I can imagine that none of them knew what to make of Dylan, and Donovan, and Baez. Still, everyone seemed clean cut.
The biggest letdown for me was that Phil Ochs was not included. He was a Newport mainstay but was always overshadowed by Dylan. Very little footage of him exists.
I am looking forward to the release of Roy Karch's "Underground Tonight Show", a New York City cable access show from the 70's. It featured a drunken performance by Ochs in his decline that was still very good. The rights are still up in the air, so I am not holding my breath.
Researchers have determined that infants who view "Baby Einstein" and "Brainy Baby"-type videos are less verbally adept than their peers whose parents substituted TV time for actually talking with them.
I believe watching these videos, with their vivid colors, morphing shapes, and absence of words are the equivalent of cats watching an aquarium. Can my cat talk? No she cannot.
More than 1,000 parents took part in an assessment of their children's skills as judged by the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventory (CDI).
Among infants (age 8 to 16 months), each hour per day of viewing baby DVDs/videos was associated with a 16.99-point decrement in CDI score...
...some children could not identify the word "cookie", indicating that parents hoarded all the sweets while they parked their children in front of the TV.
This is why we only let our daughter watch Baby Geddy videos. I asked Marisol what she thought of this.
"One likes to believe in the freedom of music," she said. "But glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity, yeah."
"That doesn't make any goddamn sense," I said, enunciating each word clearly so she understood. "You are a horrible disappointment."
Sooner or Later, We All Make the Little Flowers Grow: Lee Hazlewood
Lee Hazlewood died this weekend at age 78. Like Roger Miller and Harry Nillson, he was a singer-songwriter who couldn't easily be categorized.
Most famous for the songs he wrote for Nancy Sinatra, like "These Boots Are Made for Walking" and "Some Velvet Morning", Hazlewood was reluctant to be in the spotlight until Sinatra insisted. After that, his solo work became even harder to define, but was always striking.
His music began to attract renewed interest after his career slowed down in the 70's and 80's, and he released an acclaimed album, "Cake or Death?" last year, after discovering he had kidney cancer. He was a cool dude.
Not to take anything away from Joe Walsh, founder of the James Gang, replacement guitarist in the Eagles, solo act, road warrior, Cleveland booster, but I was still surprised to see someone with a Joe Walsh bumper sticker.
I called my friend Brian, the only person other than you who would've cared.
"Who has a Joe Walsh bumper sticker?" I asked, noting that there was no "Hotel California" or "Ordinary Average Guy" iconography (though the driver also had Twinkies and Devo stickers).
"Maybe it's Joe Walsh," he said.
Joe Walsh doesn't seeem to be a sticker-inspiring person, despite his talent and many contributions, such as "Funk #49". I would be just as surprised to see a Bryan Ferry, Blossom Dearie, Sarah Brightman, John Entwistle, or Duff McKagan bumper sticker.
The Sentra turned on Silverlake Blvd. and was gone. I probably spooked him. No doubt he locked the doors in case of attack.
Spam constitutes 83 percent of my incoming mail (and nearly all of my outgoing mail, as I earn my living from manufacturing college diplomas and cooking up male enhancement pills in my lab) and I am usually adept at spotting it.
I have always been impressed and interested by new forms of spam. First were things like mass e-mailed Neiman Marcus cookie recipes, followed by messages disseminated in the days before people knew how to use Blind Carbon Copy, necessitating the invention of opt-in lists and the word "netiquette", that dictated not swiping someone's e-mail list and writing in all caps.
Now, while I still get nostalgia-inducing spams that begin this way:
This is an urgent and very confidential I am MICKY BULO, Investment Manager of Safe Deposit Bank Zambia currently on a short Banking programme here in United Kingdom (UK).On March 6,1998, a Foreign Oil consultant/contractor with the National Petroleum Corporation, Mr.Gerald Welsh made a numbered time(Fixed) Deposit for twelve calendar months, valued at US$5,500,000.00,(Five Million, five hundred thousand Dollars)in my branch. Upon maturity,I sent a routine notification to his forwarding address but got no reply. After a month,we sent a reminder and finally we discovered from his contract employers, the National Petroleum Corporation that Mr.Gerald Welsh died in a plane crash along with his wife on the 31st October 1999 in an Egyptian airline 990 with other passenger on board. On further investigation,I found out that he died without making a WILL, and all attempts to trace his next of kin was fruitless. I therefore made further investigation and discovered that Mr.Gerald Welsh did not declare any kin or relations in all his official documents,including his Bank Deposit paperwork in my Bank. This sum of US$5,500,000.00 has carefully been fixed in my bank for safekeeping.No one will ever come forward to claim it.
and:
I am a staff of NatWest Bank London. I am writing following an oppurtunity in my office that will be of benefit to both of us and the needy. In my department we discovered a floating account with twenty Six million,five hundred thousand British Pounds in an account belonging to one of our customers,Mr. Morris Thompson(now late),an American who died in the plane crash of Alaska Airline Flight 261 which crashed on January 31st,2000 with both his wife and only daughter.
I also get spams that evade filters by having so much discontiguous information in them that they are fun to read just so I can feel what it must be like to have had a stroke, like:
my father served on the uss nevada during the pearl harbor attack unfortunately he is blind but loved to hear of this it brought back many memories thank you. the vast majority of material that are just initials- eva edpm etc are all synthetic rubber latex foam products - no natural rubber. was another member of the figaro family who played football at notre dame and was a football head coach at vermillion catholic church in abbeville. hey my whole english class came to this site lots of info nice job and ill catch u on the flip side. you are a great person and a great friend i am very glad that i have gotten the chance to talk to you i hope that your guestbook finally likes me.
and:
it was and still is the custom of spanish speaking countries to keep the surname of the father as the middle name and the surname of the mother as the last name in marriage.
In fact, it seems my friend Gaby might have a future in writing spam, as her stories are often indistinguishable from it.
Here are some recent spam subject lines that avoid problem words by just being weird:
But cordele be calipatria
Is turgid whichever mach
Be my vestal
by to lordsburg
There are also baiting subject lines, leading one to believe the sender is someone you know:
What Karen said about you
Sorry about last night
She's thinking of leaving
Don't worry about it - this time (I clicked on this immediately. It was about mortgages)
The file I promised
Today I got:
You like entice fishwife with big? (I misread this as "You like big Entwife with fish?" because I am dyslexic. I suppose I do.)
My favorite new spam pops up on YouTube. It hearkens back to snail-mail chain letters. I found the following when I was searching for "Cult of Snap":
PLEASE DON'T READ THIS. You will get kissed on the nearest possible Friday by the love of your life. Tomorrow will be the best day of your life. However, if you don't post this comment to at least 3 videos, you will die within 2 days. Copy and paste this, to be saved.
I suppose I could invest in a better spam filter, but spam really seems to be the way literature is headed, and how am I going to cash in if I'm not up on it?
Some day I will write the Great American Novel and it will consist entirely of spam, because books are only what we know already. I will call it "Base easy my cumquat".
The Grand Funk Railroad (on Naboo, Grand Moff Railroad) song "We're an American Band" has once again fallen under the white-hot laser focus of critical scrutiny.
The song details the band's exploits on the road, particularly in hotels in Little Rock and Omaha.
"These fine ladies," GFR drummer Don Brewer sings, "They had a plan. They was out to meet the boys in the band."
Two vocal camps have different interpretations of the following line, describing revels after a performance.
"Feelin' good, feelin' right; it's Saturday night. The hotel detective - he was outta sight!"
Theory One is that the hotel detective was "outta sight", meaning good, exceeding expectations, or of particular usefulness to the band. Adherents believe that the hotel detective might have chosen to look the other way while debauchery ensued in the Railroad's lodgings, perhaps because of a bribe of money, substances, groupie services, or a promise to thank him on later albums.
Theory Two is that the hotel detective was literally nowhere to be found, thus "out of sight."
Some conflict-avoidant scholars argue that the results would be the same either way. Whether the hotel detective was complicit in the shenanigans or was physically absent is meaningless since drummer Brewer, guitarist Mark Farmer, bassist Mel Schacher, and keyboard player Craig Frost all got to join in on the hotel tearing-down proceedings.
Proponents of the first theory contend that if the detective were actually not visible then the band could have substituted the line "The hotel dick was nowhere in sight", a line that would have scanned nicely.
Theory Two fans say that listeners might naturally wonder where the hotel detective was during the rendezvous with the "chiquitas from Omaha" and that the line explains he was gone.
Brewer himself is no help, but he does explain the line about Freddie King ("I've got to tell you, poker's his thing"):
"Freddie King was the opening act for us, the great Blues guitar player from Texas. It always struck me as funny that he would make his band play poker with him every night. We used to sit in on some of the poker games, and that's where that line came from. His band, he'd pay them, and then he'd go win all the money back so they were broke and they'd have to keep playing for him - it was a great deal. A lot of people don't understand the Freddie King part because they don't know who Freddie King is. Anybody who knows about Freddie King immediately picks it up. People who don't say, 'What are you saying, that Focus can't sing?'"
One thing that can't be argued is "American Band"'s rightful place, along with Mountain's "Mississippi Queen", in the Cowbell Pantheon.
A Google search for "Yoko hatred" returned with 133,000 results ("Linda hatred" resulted in three, with none of those referring to Linda McCartney. Both "Linda Eastman hatred" and "Linda McCartney hatred" netted zero, which surprised me).
If anti-Yoko sentiment took hold shortly after John Lennon met her in November, 1966, reached a fever pitch when the Beatles broke up in 1970, and tapered off to the tune of 133,000 Google hits today, what would 1FABFAN make of the fact that gas prices have gone up over 700 percent since their November, 1966 average of .32?
Los Angeles can be so ungrateful. Just weeks after the the city nearly burned down, the rain that usually waits until, at the earliest, Halloween arrived in amounts that anywhere else would seem innocuous.
There is some concern that mudslides off denuded hillsides will do to homes what the fires couldn't.
At the gas station a team from a local NBC affiliate was getting reactions about the storm that was "battering" Southern California.
