Music
June 10, 2008
A Pandora's Box I Wish I'd Opened Ages Ago
Recently someone was cool enough to tell me about Pandora, a website that lets you create radio stations--as many as you want--that (attempt to) play music you like. And it's freakin' awesome.
You go to the website, create an account, and start making radio stations. You plant "seeds" of songs or bands, and some program analyzes the characteristics of those seeds to find other songs and bands that share them. Songs get played, and you can tell the program that you like the song and want to hear more like it, or you can say you don't like the song, or you can say that the song is fine but being played on the wrong station, if, for instance, you get some mellow ballad on the station you've designed to play dance music so you burn a few extra calories while you wash your dishes.
The radio station doesn't just play your favorites; it tries to introduce you to new things, and if you hear something you really like, you can buy it from itunes. So it's a little more exciting than listening to your ipod, where you pretty much know all the songs or artists you've uploaded.
I have four stations so far. The first focuses on my standard listening material: Aztec Camera, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, Elvis Costello, Joy Division, Lloyd Cole, New Order, Pink Floyd, The Real Tuesday Weld, The Smiths, Tears for Fears, The The, etc. (Yes, I like angsty British guy music, especially angsty British guy music from the 80s. I like other things too, but I really like that.)
To balance out the angsty british guy-ness of my main station, I also have a chick music station, which I am happy with because so far it has provided me with my most compelling new discovery: Jane Jensen. She's been around for years, but I managed to miss out on her, until now, and I totally dig her.
I also have a mellow station and a dance station. And the dance station provided me with my favorite, "Hey I do like this song!" moment: I seeded plenty of Prince and Madonna and New Order and random songs like "Rock Me Amadeus" and "99 Luft Balloons" and "The Politics of Dancing" and "Stacy's Mom" because they're all great to dance to. And I was jamming to some song I'd rather expected to here--Duran Duran or something--and all of a sudden, along comes "Free Ride" by Edgar Winter. I thought, I haven't heard this song in ages, but I do like it and it's pretty damn danceable!
I have a hard time turning it off--I just want to see what song will come up next. And if I am ambivalent about a song on one station--it doesn't quite fit my mood, or it's too familiar--I skip to the next song or switch to a different station.
The only thing I don't like about it is that every time I click on a button to say, "Hey, I do or don't like this song" I get a refreshed ad for Nashville Star with Billy Ray Cyrus, but I have figured out that ads are what make sites like this free, so I suck it up and deal with it.
If you haven't already played around with this, try it now--I really think you'll have fun.
Posted by Holly at 7:27 AM | Comments (2)
May 16, 2008
Yeah Whatever: My Life in Music (with video)
The meme I provided last time required you to answer questions about your life with random songs from your itunes program.... I thought, why not choose the answers, from the songs I like best? I have friends who never rate stuff, but I do--I assign one star and five stars and there are even songs I hate so much that I uncheck them from the program, though I don't delete them because I want to preserve the integrity of the album they're on.
So I took Wednesday's questions and devised a new meme. For this one, you answer the questions by going through your top-rated songs and finding ones whose titles actually help answer the question, more or less.
And because my favorites are weighted heavily in favor of 80s pop, some of it a tad obscure, I've included videos for some of the stuff that never hit the top 40.... also videos I really love. For instance, I love Robert Smith in the bear suit, but just about everyone who watched MTV in the late 80-early 90s saw the "Why Can't I Be You?" video.
Anyway. The videos do not provide the answers to the questions; the titles do.
1. How would you describe yourself?
True to Live (Roxy Music)
2. What is your motto?
Express Yourself (Madonna)
3. What do you think about often?
The Politics of Dancing (Re-Flex)
4. What do you think of your family?
Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Pink Floyd)
5. What do your parents think of you?
Not a Virgin (Poe)
6. What do you think of your friends?
Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd)
7. What do your friends think of you?
She Talks in Stereo (Gary Myrick & the Figures)
8. What do you think of your best friend?
Why Can’t I Be You? (The Cure)
9. What is your best friend’s theme song?
Don’t Feel Sorry for Lover Boy (Scritti Politti)
The song is also called "Oh Patti," but this title is funnier. One of the first conversations I had with my BFF CSV involved her explaining why she reviled the song "Everybody's Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy.
to my knowledge, Scritti Politti is the only band with a song titled "Jacques Derrida," and a band name that comes from the writings of Antonio Gramsci. That's not why I love SP: I love them for the perfect pop songs Green Gartside produces. White Bread Black Beer is one of my favorite albums, even if it does have a couple of really crappy songs on it, because the great songs are SO great.
And hey! I just noticed that in this video, someone is typing, on a TYPEWRITER! An IBM Selectric, complete with one of those rolling balls instead of daisy wheel. Truth be told, I LOVED my old selectric--they were great machines for their time, one of the best typewriters ever.
10. What do your coworkers think of you?
Blasphemous Rumours (Depeche Mode)
11. What do you like in a guy/girl?
Doot-Doot (Freur)
I'm not talking about those dreadful crimped mullets.... I'm referring to the indefinable, ineffable something expressed by a meaningless phrase.
12. What do you think when you see the person you fancy?
I Think I Love You (Voice of the Beehive, covering The Partridge Family)
13. What do you want to tell the person you fancy?
Let’s Go Crazy (Prince)
14. What is your hobby/interest?
Sound and Vision (and creativity, David Bowie)
Fashion (and textiles, David Bowie)
Life on Mars (and on earth, David Bowie)
Suffragette City (and feminism in general, David Bowie)
15. What is your biggest fear?
Love Will Tear Us Apart Again (Joy Division)
16. What is your biggest secret?
A Question of Lust (Depeche Mode)
17. If your heart could talk what would it say?
Are You Ready to Be Heartbroken? (Lloyd Cole and the Commotions)
18. What is your theme song?
There Is a Light That Never Goes Out (The Smiths)
19. What do you want to be when you grow up?
So Alive (Love and Rockets)
20. What song will they play at your wedding?
I Feel Loved (Depeche Mode)
21. What will they play at your funeral?
Young Americans (David Bowie)
22. What is your mood right now?
John Barleycorn Must Die (Traffic)
23. What will you repost this as?
Yeah Whatever (Moev)
24. What does your future look like?
God Only Knows (Beach Boys)
I tag everyone.
Posted by Holly at 9:14 AM | Comments (4)
May 14, 2008
Fifty Ten Fold
I haven't done a meme in almost a year. My favorite of the ones I've seen bouncing lately around blogs I read is a version of the last one I did, oh so long ago; even though some of the questions are different, I don't see much reason to do it again, so I'm going with the meme I like second-best.
I got this from McCutcheon's Squishy Thoughts. Here's how it works: you take the questions, get your itunes ready, and hit "next." Each song that comes up is the answer to the question before you.
I think the quiz was designed by high school students, because there is an emphasis on things like "best friends" and "the person you like." Some of the questions were so adolescent I had to change them, and I also had to put the whole thing in some coherent order--they were utterly random. I know, I know, that's really geeky of me, to revise a meme, but I can't help it.
Anyway, despite those flaws, the meme still appealed to me, so here it is. It tells you more about my music collection that it does about me, but what the hell.
1. How would you describe yourself?
Sixty-eight Guns (The Alarm)
2. What is your motto?
Send for Henry (Trashcan Sinatras)
3. What do you think about often?
In Dulce Decorum (The Damned)
That one’s true--I do think about World War I fairly often.
4. What do you think of your family?
Big Sister’s Clothes (Elvis Costello)
Indeed!
It’s easier to say ‘I Love You
than ‘Yours Sincerely’
I suppose
All little sisters
like to try on big sister’s clothes
5. What do your parents think of you?
Shout (Tears for Fears)
Yeah, that’s pretty apt
6. What do you think of your friends?
I Wanna Be Your Lover (Prince)
Yeah, I want to sleep with ALL my friends.
7. What do your friends think of you?
Little Earthquakes (Tori Amos)
8. What do you think of your best friend?
AOKO (Freur)
GREAT song, by one of the best bands almost no one has ever heard of
9. What is your best friends theme song?
Night of the Swallow (Kate Bush)
Which of my BFF’s will claim that one? Saviour Onassis? Is this yours?
10. What do your coworkers think of you?
Just Call Me Joe (Sinead O’Connor)
11. What do you like in a guy/girl?
Pineapple Head (Crowded House)
12. What do you think when you see the person you fancy?
Take a Look (Liz Phair)
I guess.... Especially as I don’t really fancy anyone right now, aside from Richard Armitage, whom I’ve never met.
13. What do you want to say to the person you fancy?
Cars (Gary Numan)
14. What is your hobby/interest?
Glass Candle Grenades (Cocteau Twins)
15. What is your biggest fear?
Café Canada (Nick Heywood–you know, the cutey from Haircut 100)
16. What is your biggest secret?
Gratitude (Oingo Boingo)
17. If your heart could talk what would it say?
Teenage Wildlife (David Bowie)
18. What is your theme song?
Deep Honey (Goldfrapp)
19. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Keep Me in the Dark (Arcadia)
20. What song will they play at your wedding?
Madonna of the Wasps (Robin Hitchcock)
21. What will they play at your funeral?
Good Morning Britain (Aztec Camera)
Except that my sister and I decided in 1984, after we saw “The Big Chill” where “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is played at a funeral, that we both wanted “Young Americans” by David Bowie to be played at our funerals.
22. What is your mood right now?
Ocean Rain (Echo and the Bunnymen)
23. What will you repost this as?
Five Ten Fiftyfold (Cocteau Twins, again)
24. What does your future look like?
More Than a Party (Depeche Mode)
Keep telling us
we’re to have fun
then take all the ice cream
so we’ve got none
this is more than a party
Wit and wisdom like that are one reason DM is one of my favorite bands in the first place!
p.s. I admit I cheated a time or two.... If a song came up that I’d never heard (and there are plenty on my itunes, thanks to my brother, who gave me his entire library, including a lot of industrial stuff from the early 90s), I skipped it and went on to something I actually know.
Posted by Holly at 3:55 PM | Comments (1)
February 22, 2008
Fourth Album, Seventh Tree
Here's a review of an album I'm going to buy when it's released next week: Seventh Tree, by Goldfrapp.
I have all three of Goldfrapp's previous albums, courtesy of Matthew in Belgium. I like Black Cherry and Supernature, their second and third albums, respectively, just fine, I guess, though I think the cover art for BC is amateurish and Supernature is a little too poppy disco-y for me--when Ms. Goldfrapp starts channeling Olivia Newton-John a la "Physical," I can't help but grit my teeth a little.
It's the first album, Felt Mountain, that I love. Imagine if the Cocteau Twins had been asked in the early 80s to do the soundtrack for some James Bond movie set in space. FM is sultry and sexy and spacy and ethereal and just creepy enough to be intriguing and edgy rather than grating. I'm hoping that this album, which the reviewer labels "psychedelic folk" and which apparently features vocals as incomprehensible as those of Elizabeth Fraser, has some of those features. I'll let you know. In the meantime, if you haven't explored any Goldfrapp, now might be a good time.
Posted by Holly at 11:54 AM | Comments (1)
November 29, 2007
Watch for the Guy with the Pineapple
Thanks to the reader who sent me the link to this youtube clip. She thought of me when she saw it because it has to do with interpreting "Bohemian Rhapsody" on a ship (my entry on which remains one of my most popular, though I'm not sure why) and because I wrote all about the horrible Queen show I saw in June.
This clip is thoroughly amateurish but still sort of wonderful. It's a bit slow at first but picks up at the three minute mark. I liked the guy who is a table, and I found something oddly appealing as well about the bit with the guy holding a pineapple. I can't explain.
Posted by Holly at 8:57 PM | Comments (1)
September 7, 2007
A Raging River of Molten Cheese
The other day I heard that song "One Headlight" by the Wallflowers, which reminded me that I used to own whatever album it's on. (I got rid of the album because I’m not all that interested in guys who want to be Bruce Springsteen. I mean, I love the boss, but that’s because he’s him, not because he’s part of some larger musical movement.) That reminded me of Eve, this woman I knew and was sort of friends with in grad school until she dropped out to drive a school bus, because she's who gave me the album. And that reminded me how after she got tired of getting up before 5 a.m. five days a week so she could drive a bunch of eight-year-olds to school, she decided to move to Wyoming or someplace cool out west to become a forest ranger, but before she left, she had a going away party at which she divested herself of stuff she didn't feel like schlepping the better part of a thousand miles, including a few mediocre pop albums. And that reminded me of the time we had coffee a few years earlier and I was complaining about all this damage my car got in this really horrible hailstorm--there were huge, horrid pock marks all over that thing. "Oh! I loved that hailstorm!" Eve said. "It was dramatic and scary, and it put money in my pocket!"
See, Eve had thought to call her insurance company after the storm and report the damage to her car. She got close to two thousand bucks out of the business, and because the damage was merely cosmetic and her car was a piece of crap, she didn't bother to have anything repaired, just kept the cash.
And that reminded me of how I called my insurance company and did the very same thing. But first I had to talk to this stupid young woman who knew what I was going to do and didn't approve, and tried to make sure I actually took my car to a body shop and spent the $1002.50 (I remember that amount because it was a thousand bucks, plus the cost of a decent latte, which I wanted to buy for Eve because after all, she was a big reason I got the other thousand) getting the dents hammered out of my doors and hood and roof. "I just want the money so I can deal with this myself," I told the stupid young woman.
"But really, it's no problem to send a payment to a body shop and get the work done for you," she said. "Let me just find a body shop we work with." There was a pause, and then she said, "How close are you to...to...to Cheddar Rapids?"
"I am no where near a raging river of molten cheese," I said. "However, I'm only 30 miles or so from Cedar Rapids. But it really doesn't matter because I just want the cash. I can take care of this myself."
So that's how hearing a Wallflowers song reminded me of a raging river of molten cheese, which I sort of wish really did exist because it would be a sight worth seeing, and a funky way to make cheese fries.
Posted by Holly at 10:26 AM | Comments (2)
September 5, 2007
He Was Morrissey's Drummer
Here's a fun little radio piece someone sent me by and about Andrew McGibbon, about his stints as Morrissey's drummer (hence the title). If you are clever enough to completely love the Smiths, you should enjoy this.
Posted by Holly at 8:36 AM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2007
Bourgeois Rap
I found the link to what is probably destined to be my all-time favorite rap song on The Egalitarian Bookworm (who also provides a pretty fabulous send-up of Becoming Jane which I haven't seen and probably won't see until it's out on dvd because it's not playing where I live because I live in a city in a ditch). Anyway, this rap song is so funny I can't believe there are references to it everywhere on the web, but there aren't. Anyone know anything about this? Not much turned up when I googled it.
Later.... a smart friend provided me with this article, which led to website for The Heist--but even there, you don't find many references to the song.
Posted by Holly at 1:10 PM | Comments (2)
June 30, 2007
We Will Mock You
I haven't watched Saturday Night Live in... a really long time. I have been assured that it's still on, and I guess I know that since every so often some new comedian shows up in some movie and I read in various news sources that this person got his/her start on SNL.
Most people in North America over the age of 11 or so have a favorite SNL skit, and most people over the age of 25 have a favorite cast. I am old enough to have watched the original cast and I know those very early episodes are classics and everything, but they're not the ones I remember most fondly. (Except for the skit about the floor wax that is also a dessert topping.) No, my favorite cast was the one about 1988, with Phil Hartman, Dana Carvey, Mike Myers, Jon Lovitz, Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, etc--you know, the era that brought us "Wayne's World," "The Church Lady"and "Sprockets."
One of my favorite skits--indeed, one of the skits most beloved by my entire family--featured guest star John Malkovich as Lord Edmund, a nobleman who accuses even the crescent moon in the day sky of mocking him. He is shown a very faithful and respectful portrait of himself, and erupts in rage because he thinks the artist mocks him with a "grotesque caricature." "You mock me!" he says to the painter. "You mock me, and I will not be mocked!"
And while all this is going on, his servants, played by Jon Lovitz and Dana Carvey, are prancing behind him, mimicking his facial expressions and gestures, and saying, in a nasal falsetto, "You mock! You mock me! You mock me, and I will not be mocked!"
I haven't managed to convey the brilliance of this skit, I know, but trust me: it's pretty fuckin' funny.
It feels cheap to mock the cast of We Will Rock You, because after all, the biggest problems with the production, namely, the plot, the characterization and the script, aren't their fault. But it's hard to resist, because the plot, the characterization and the script heap contempt and scorn on boy bands and girl bands and any band that didn't start out rehearsing original songs in someone's garage. The show mocks musical performers who 1) perform someone else's lyrics and/or music and 2) have to audition to get a role or part in a band and 3) are chosen for their looks and dance moves as much as for their ability to sing, while their ability to play a musical instrument is largely moot and 4) are given opportunity to perform as part of a larger scheme to earn money for backers and producers who do not perform as part of this group and 5) are dressed, presented and coiffed to be seem slightly edgy, but really are marketed to a mainstream audience.
In other words, the show mocks its own performers; the performers deliver lines that mock the type of performers they are. But somehow, you're not supposed to notice or care about this irony.
So anyway, as I was driving back across the border to my home (which was fine except for the driving and the crossing the border part), I couldn't resist tweaking a Queen song or two, just as had been done in the show, in order to critique the show.
Let me first establish a rhythm. It goes like this:
Thump thump BOOM
thump thump BOOM
(and now I will add a few simple lyrics, directed to the lead of the production Dale and I saw:)
Buddy, you're a short guy, French guy
singing on the stage, gonna take on the world some day
Makeup's smudged on your face
You big disgrace
Shaking your ass all over the place
Listen!
We will, we will
MOCK YOU
We're singing
We will, we will
MOCK YOU
Everybody!
We will, we will
MOCK YOU
Oh shit!
(Brief but impressive guitar solo. This next part is dedicated to the surviving members of Queen.)
We paid our fees
We stood in line
We balked at each sentence
We cringed at most rhymes
For bad mistakes
littered acts one and two
Non-sequiturs teemed
and the chorus, it screamed
till your inane pastiche was through!
And the beat was going on and on and on and on
You have become whores, my friends
and you'll keep on selling out til the end
You are complete whores
You are complete whores
No time for scruples
‘cause you are complete whores
in the music world.
Posted by Holly at 11:11 AM | Comments (2)
June 28, 2007
Spare Me My Life From this Monstrosity
Having posted an introduction to the topic, I should provide something to follow it. I am somewhat anxious about this post, because it is where Dale discovers what a blogging whore I am, in that I am going to do to him what I have done for many years to a great many others: rip off something I wrote in an email to him and use it for a wider audience. The people I have corresponded with longest or most often have gotten used to this: stuff I write to them in letters or email shows up in a blog entry or a poem or an essay all the time. A few people have reacted with indignation and told me that it's not cool of me to recycle for wider consumption something I've written in a personal letter to them; I deal with that by refraining from ever telling them anything interesting enough that I'd want to use it over.
Anyway.
The primary thing you should know about what it's like to meet Dale is this: he is slightly less interesting in blog-form than he is in real life. His blog might capture all the Passion of the Dale, but it doesn't capture the magic. (And yeah, I'm saying that both because I'm a suck-up and because it's true.)
I was very excited when he suggested we see "We Will Rock You." I am, of course, a long-time Queen fan, so much so that I would dance alone to Bohemian Rhapsody. I figured it might make such exciting News of the World that even Flash Gordon would have a Sheer Heart Attack, because capping a few days of fun in a foreign city with a night of Classic Queen would be almost as good as a Night at the Opera or a Day at the Races, and all that Jazz. I mean, I hate to make it seem like all I wanted to do was Play the Game, but there it is.
And I was wrong.
But it was terrible. I wouldn't have missed it for anything, because theatre THAT bad is hard to come by, and seldom so laughable, so I'm not saying I am sorry to have seen it--quite the contrary, in fact. It was a fascinating cultural experience. You could easily imagine these old burnt out rockers sitting around one Tuesday afternoon watching some Judy Garland/Andy Rooney film on cable, just for the hell of it. They're sullen and bored at first, but someone starts getting excited when the kids in the movie decide to put on a minstrel show, complete with offensive and outdated stereotypes, a plot so full of giant holes you could fly Flash Gordon's space ship through any one of them, a predictable romance that is supposed to create tension and drama but only underscores how vapid the characters are, all built around a bunch of songs that don't really have anything to do with each other. "Hey!" the burnt-out rockers say to one another. "We could do this! We could do this with our songs...and we could make a hell of a lot of money!"
The thing that really made me crazy is that the show didn't realize that it was exactly the thing it pretended to criticize. The basic premise is that 300 years in the future, entertainment has been thoroughly commodified and is controlled by a large corporation dedicated to A) making money and B) reinforcing the status quo by C) manipulating the emotions and thoughts of large audiences who are particularly undiscerning and indiscriminate in their musical and dramatic tastes, and will therefore consume with pleasure any old schlock the large corporate interests see fit to offer them.
Hard rocking pop music, however, has the power to change all that, to topple the status quo, because "the electric guitar is one of the most powerful weapons of freedom ever invented"–at least, if you're a young straight white guy. Because, as we were constantly told, the reasons REAL rockers made their own personal music was to A) express themselves and B) foster long-term monogamous unions with the bad-ass chick of their choice. (Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I somehow thought the second motive wasn't all that important to Freddie.)
At intermission I said to Dale, "What I love best about the show is its insistence on moral and artistic ambiguity, its refusal to reinforce a simplistic binary of good versus evil. I LOVED the self-critical moment, right after the Killer Queen talks about how she wants to manipulate audiences, make them feel what she wants them to feel, when the cast demanded that the audience chant along with them and wave their glow sticks [yeah, you could buy souvenir glow sticks] and the whole point was for us to refuse! I just couldn't believe that more people didn't get that."
There were other things that really bugged me.... like the fact that the rendition of "Flash" Gordon consisted only of some people undergoing some dreadful electric torture shouting "Flash!" a few times. I always adored the high-flown silliness of the Flash Gordon soundtrack and wished they'd done more with it. I was likewise upset that we didn't get more than the first few lines of "Bohemian Rhapsody."
I was annoyed that a character takes excessive pleasure from the pain of her "daily bikini wax," because the whole point of any type of waxing is that the hair doesn't grow back for a while, so you CAN'T have a painful daily bikini wax, because simply having slightly warm wax applied to hairless skin and then peeled off it doesn't hurt--in fact, it's actually quite soothing, which is why a paraffin soak is a really nice addition to a pedicure. Didn't these people have a dramaturge to say, "Hey, this part doesn't actually make the slightest bit of sense"?
I hated that "global warming" had raised sea levels drastically, but you could somehow travel from Las Vegas to Wembley Stadium in England on a Harley. Again, where the hell was the dramaturge?
I hated that the evil villain's main henchman was made up to look like Max Headroom, because Max wasn't all that evil, and that the evil villain destroyed her henchman without having a clear rationale for doing so, aside from being evil.
Most of all, I hated that although the great evil of the plot was some dreadful corporation controlling seeking to control every aspect of human life, it was personified by a middle-aged fat black lesbian. I am curious: is there a single truly powerful corporation in the world today controlled by a middle-aged fat black lesbian? (If someone can provide me with documentation of one, I will send him/her my ticket stub, a personalize note and a five dollar bill, American.) It could have been an interesting move--to make someone in one of the least powerful subject positions in contemporary society the most powerful person in a future society--but it wasn't reflected upon or analyzed; it was simply played for laughs and for the easy way it opposed and therefore underscored the heroic nature of the young, attractive (albeit too short), straight white guy.
ICK!
read the follow up We Will Mock You.
Posted by Holly at 1:01 PM | Comments (13)
January 22, 2007
Made in Sheffield
Having discussed British television in my last two entries, I figured I might as well continue the trend by telling you about something else I watched recently thanks to Netflix: a documentary called Made in Sheffield about the music that developed there in the 70s and early 80s.
As I mentioned last week, one of the things I did while visiting my family was watch youtube videos with my siblings. I insisted that both my brother and sister show their children the video to the 1984 version of Do They Know It's Christmas? and tell them about its historical and musical significance, because as I mentioned in my Christmas meme, it's one of my very favorite Christmas songs.... Anyway, my brother and I wanted to figure out who one particular singer was, and in order to do that, we had to do some internet research.
Turns out the guy in question was Paul Weller of The Jam and Style Council.... I own CDs by each band but I didn't recognize him because he looks nothing like that now, hasn't looked like that for a very long time. Anyway, in the process of finding that out, I came across a reference to said documentary.
Now, Sheffield is a place I've actually been. I doubt it's much of a tourist destination but I spent a week visiting friends there in 1984. So before I read about this documentary, I knew that Sheffield had been a steel manufacturing town, and that it supposedly produced good flatware. I knew it was the home of Def Leppard, which I tried not to hold against the place, as well as the home of Heaven 17, a band I quite enjoy.
What I didn't know until I started reading about this documentary was that two of the members of Heaven 17 (Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh) were also founding members of the Human League. This horrified me because I HATE and have always HATED the Human League, ever since the first miserable moment when I heard that dreadful single "Don't You Want Me Baby." (No. I don't. Go away.) Nor did I know that another band I really love, ABC, was from Sheffield also.
So my personal connection to the place, my interest in discovering how founding members of a band I loathed could go on to found a band I loved, and my interest in learning more about the history of ABC, meant that I had to watch the thing.
Now, as I have mentioned, I don't love punk. I don't hate it--I can be perfectly happy when a song by the Clash or the Ramones comes on the radio, but I've never felt the need to buy their albums. I can admire things about the punk aesthetic, its democratic and anti-establishment spirit, but as far as deriving pleasure from sounds and rhythms, in general I still prefer the complexity they were reacting against--Pink Floyd and Alan Parsons Project and so forth.
This documentary gave me a new perspective on the whole issue. To paraphrase one music critic interviewed in the film, a lot of people of the time were inspired by the Clash and the Sex Pistols--to go out and buy guitars, learn three chords and imitate what was already being done. But in Sheffield, they were inspired to apply the attitude of punk to the electronic music by the likes of Kraftwerk and make stuff that was "weird."
Chris Watson, of Caberet Voltaire, talks about early performances by "The Cabs" (as all the hip people in the film called the band): he and his friends would record these strange sounds, then drive around town in a van listening to the recordings they made. Eventually they decided to share it with the people of Sheffield, so they opened the doors of the van, turned the volume up, and drove around very slowly. For them, it wasn't just about music, but about an approach to all the arts--visual, auditory and written.
I was surprised to learn that at one point (long before anyone in the US had ever heard of them), the Human League was actually a very interesting band. Phil Oakey, the iconically coiffed singer for the Human League, discussed the fact that he and his band mates "thought we were the punkiest band in Sheffield. You know we were laughing at the bands that learned to play guitars ‘cause they bothered to learn their three chords. We used one finger" to play a keyboard. He also talked about how he and the record company decided to expel the two guys who founded the band and replace them with two women chosen for their looks and their dance moves--the women had never even sung when they were asked to go on tour with the Human League--so that he could create "the next Abba." (Which is how it turned into the band I so despise.)
I was also intrigued to learn that the vocalist for ABC, Martin Fry, didn't start out as a musician--he published a fanzine and was asked by Stephen Singleton and Mark White to join Vice Versa in order to play some electronic something or other he had no experience with. But then one day Stephen and Mark heard Martin sing, realized he had a better voice than Mark, their current vocalist, and reshaped the band and its material to suit Martin. The result was ABC's first album, The Lexicon of Love, the very first album in my alphabetized CD collection and one of my top favorite albums of all time.
I dig electronic music--I have for a very long time--but I admit that one thing I always liked best about ABC and Heaven 17 was their use of instruments I really like: brass and saxophone and so forth. So it was fascinating to learn about their roots in this scene where a group of people who considered themselves "sonic terrorists" and who thought they "were killing off rock and roll" were exploring how to "make music without musical instruments."
The documentary itself is only 52 minutes long, but there are extra interviews that I of course watched. I recommend it all. If you've seen it, or if you watch it any time soon, I'd like to know what you think.
Posted by Holly at 5:47 PM | Comments (3)
May 31, 2006
The Best Home Teaching Story I've Ever Heard
He went out and drank a quart of peppermint schnapps.... He ripped all my clothes off, he started to beat me with the cat furniture.... And I left him. And that's when he jumped out the kitchen window.
I just heard those lines of dialogue in a movie--and not just any movie, but a documentary about a Mormon temple worker. One of the reasons I so love nonfiction is that you just can't make shit that weird up.... OK, you can, but credibility is strained. A Mormon temple worker once drank a quart of peppermint schnapps, ripped his wife's clothes off, beat her with the cat furniture (my favorite detail by far), then tried and failed to commit suicide by jumping out the kitchen window!? (The ellipses in the dialogue, I should mention, represent not anything I have deleted but editing cuts in the film itself.) To paraphrase Aristotle, the only reason something that weird can be believed is because it really happened.
The even weirder thing is, the Mormon temple worker was once a rock star, Arthur "Killer" Kane, a founding member of the New York Dolls. In 1989, as he lay recuperating in the hospital after his failed suicide attempted, Kane called a 1-800 number and requested a copy of the Book of Mormon. Two sister missionaries later showed up at his door and taught him the discussions.
Greg Whiteley, director of New York Doll, met Arthur Kane when he became his home teacher (meaning he was supposed to visit Kane once a month and make sure he was doing OK) in LA a few years ago. He started interviewing and filming Kane, but probably nothing would have come of it if Morrissey hadn't arranged a NY Dolls reunion at Morrissey's Meltdown in London 2004. This reunion was the fulfillment of a dream Kane had cherished for 30 years.
I had to stop this film right after the interview with Kane's estranged wife Barbara (be sure to click on that link for a truly bizarre coda to the whole story) because it shifted to a bunch of Mormon priesthood holders explaining what it's like to receive a witness of the Book of Mormon. I thought about not finishing the film--I was afraid there would be too much Mormon content--but curiosity got the better of me and I watched the rest.
I really liked it. It was a sweet movie, with interesting interviews from Morrissey, Bob Geldof, all kinds of people, and it was touching to see Kane's reunion with David Johansen (a.k.a. Buster Poindexter) and fascinating to watch Kane explain the Word of Wisdom.
The kicker (and this is sort of a spoiler, except that if you've read any reviews or heard anything about the movie in the news, this detail is usually mentioned) is that Kane died of leukemia a mere 22 days after returning from the festival in London--not only that, but he died two hours after he was diagnosed.
And that moved me and I thought, "Oh, how lovely that he saw the completion of this goal before his death; how tragic that he had so little time to enjoy it."
And the credit rolled and the mailman dropped my mail through the door slot and I sort of watched the credits and sorted my mail.
And then the pop song that had accompanied the credits ended and there was David Johansen singing A Poor, Wayfaring Man of Grief (Joseph Smith's favorite hymn) accompanied only by an acoustic guitar in tribute to Arthur and I simply burst into tears and sobbed until I couldn't breathe.
I never cared for that hymn--too slow and too long and too didactic in an earnest, Victorian way--but for some reason Johansen's performance of it was terribly moving, not only because it was a loving tribute to a friend but because... because it reminded me of my own loss, the loss of the church? I don't know. I'll try to figure it out. It's partly the amazing generosity of human beings...? Kane loved both the Church AND his band. And Johansen didn't seem to be judging that hymn; he let himself be moved by it as Kane would have been.
And after about half an hour I calmed down.... And then I went through the bonus material and heard Brian Koonin (I don't know who he is, I just noticed his name on the screen) playing Come, Come Ye Saints, which has always been one of my favorite hymns, and then Johansen sang the final verse, which goes
And should we die before our journey’s through,
Happy day! All is well!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
With the just we shall dwell!
But if our lives are spared again
To see the saints their rest obtain,
O how we’ll make this chorus swell,
All is well! All is well!
The hymn is about the trek to Utah, which so many of my ancestors undertook.... I couldn't even sit up at that point. I lay on the floor and cried as if my heart had just broken. I'm still crying, to be honest.
If you've seen the movie, I'd like to know what you thought. And if you haven't seen it, watch it and let me know how you react. There will be a presentation on it at Sunstone this year; I'm really looking forward to it. I think this is a movie I need to own.
Posted by Holly at 5:04 PM | Comments (19)
January 5, 2006
My New Favorite Plastic Bag
Yesterday when I picked up my mail--all twelve tons that had accumulated during the two weeks I'd had it held--there was a package mailed from Scotland by a friend. It contained a t-shirt bearing the cover art from The Queen is Dead by (of course) the Smiths. I am not much one for wearing clothing with slogans or writing on it, but I will wear this shirt.
I've blogged about my loathing of excess packaging as well as my fondness for cool plastic bags, an eccentric interest, perhaps, but one I like to think is harmless if not virtuous, given that I reuse for as long as I possibly can something a great many people throw away. Much to my delight, included in the package was the bag in which the shirt had been carried from Unknown Pleasures, the store where it was purchased. The bag bears a claim that it is "Probably the best carrier bag in Scotland," as well as a blurb from John Peel, stating, "I was talking to a guy the other day who was trying to convince me that CDs were better than vinyl because they had no surface noise. And I said ‘listen mate, life has surface noise.'"
I personally still prefer CDs to vinyl, but I am willing to believe that the carrier bag I've got now is indeed the best one ever to have come out of Scotland, and I will treasure it for a good two to three years.
Posted by Holly at 11:44 AM
December 28, 2005
Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague, I learned recently, is a French phrase meaning "new wave," not "new AND vague," as I originally guessed, or "vaguely new" as one of my friends guessed, or "new vagueness," as another surmised. (Considering my love for 80s new wave music, my interest in cinema, and that minor I earned in French, I should have known this long ago, but at least I no longer live in such profoundly blightened ignorance. And I don't know much about Portuguese, but I do know now that bossa nova is how you say "new wave" in Portuguese.)
I learned this because a few months ago, a friend introduced me to a French band called--that's right--Nouvelle Vague. They are, to my mind, one of the coolest cover bands ever to exist: they have a bevy of sultry female singers providing breathy, faintly accented vocals to lounge versions of American and British new wave and punk songs from the late 70s and early 80s. Not only do they cover the standards, like Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart Again," but they also take on less commonly heard goth numbers like "A Forest" by the Cure and "Marian" by the Sisters of Mercy.
I liked them so much I bought their album for Wayne, who claims to love French bands to begin with. I thought about buying it for my brother, who, in the late 80s, used to sing along with me to the likes of Music for the Masses as we went to concerts by Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Erasure and the Cure. But my brother has three little boys, ages 18 months to six years, and I somehow knew he would be ambivalent about owning an album that includes a hot-sounding French chick announcing over and over that she is "Too Drunk to Fuck" (as the Dead Kennedys originally proclaimed), no matter how cool the other songs on it are.
But I did play the Nouvelle Vague album for my brother, who wasn't as impressed as I thought he would be. "I find it hard to be interested in a band that only does covers," he said. "If a band wants my attention and my respect, they need to record some ORIGINAL music. After they've proven they can write and arrange their own music and lyrics, THEN I'll care about hearing them perform songs someone else wrote."
I sort of understand this attitude--I like originality myself--but I sort of don't. "Frank Sinatra never wrote a song in his life, and you love Frank," I said to my brother.
"OK," my brother said. "But he recorded songs I never heard anyone else sing. He recorded songs that were written specifically for him. And they're great songs, because he's a great performer with a great voice."
But the way I see it, great performers with great voices do great versions of great songs because they 1) are great performers and 2) have great voices and 3) have a good enough musical aesthetic that they can recognize a great song when they encounter it and 4) have enough inspiration and originality that even if they can't write a song of their own, they can sing a song someone else wrote and make it inspired, inspiring and original.
I love a good cover. One of my favorites is Elvis Costello's version of "My Funny Valentine"--that song just makes me MELT. I also really love Japan's cover of "Second That Emotion" and the English Beat's cover of "Tears of a Clown." Seven or eight years ago, Wayne gave me this soundtrack to some Australian movie I've never seen called Welcome to Woop Woop which I dig because it includes all these great pop artists doing show tunes: Poe does "I'm Just a Girl Who Can't Say No" and Cake does "Perhaps" and Reel Big Fish does this great ska version of "There Is Nothing Like a Dame" and there's also this really scary dance remix of "Climb Every Mountain" featuring the vocals laid down for the soundtrack of The Sound of Music.
Then of course there is Gary Jules' haunting (and increasingly ubiquitous) cover of Tears for Fears' "Mad World," a song I listened to over and over on my mission because it pretty much summed up my life: during the last seven or eight months of my mission, I had horrific, gruesome, violent nightmares (a not-so-subtle hint from my subconscious that the experience was killing my soul and had already done plenty of damage to my body as well), and it was more sad than funny that dreams in which I was dying were the most common dreams I had. I still listen to and love the original and find it heartbreaking in so many ways, but the cover is deeply, deeply creepy and disturbing because it's so stripped down that you hear even more strongly the pathos and pain of the deeply creepy, disturbing lyrics.
Let me repeat: I LOVE A GOOD COVER. I love it when a performer or a band takes a song I already know and does something to make me appreciate in a new way. A good cover can be an homage to the person who wrote the song in the first place, and an homage to the people who first performed it. Or it can be an ironic commentary, as when Clem Snide covered "I am Beautiful," written by Linda Perry and recorded by Christina Aguliera. But whether it's intended as homage or irony, the song is larger than it used to be. It has more nuances, it has more power, it has an additional life.
Whereas a bad cover can grind away every last nuance, destroy every iota of power, can kill a song you once loved.
The way I see it, a good cover band becomes a good cover band because its members are good performers who can hear songs and recognize what makes them special to begin with, then can find enough inspiration and originality to make their renditions of the song inspired, inspiring and unique.
Whereas a lame band will do predictable, familiar versions of great songs because they can't do anything but play back what they've already heard--they lack the imagination to attempt anything but imitation. I HATE covers that strive to sound just like the original.
The covers on this album are exciting and fresh, clever and convincing. Nouvelle Vague is anything but vague; it is not mere novelty; it is a wave of reinvention! OK, it's not a brand new ocean slapping the edge of some new brand continent. But it will wash up onto the beach of your music collection a funky array of fascinating creatures, treasure long lost in the deep and intricately whorled shells, some of which contain the hypnotic sound of the ocean they sprang from, echoing mysteriously when you hold them to your ear.
Posted by Holly at 10:16 AM | Comments (2)
November 18, 2005
Confessions Best Heard on a Dance Floor
What was it Winston Churchill said about the Soviet Union? "It is a CD, encased in a plastic box, sealed with an adhesive strip along the top, wrapped tightly in cellophane, inside a superfluous plastic bag"? OK, actually he said, "It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma," but I think the first statement does a better job of describing something profoundly and lastingly inaccessible.
Did I ever mention that I HATE excessive and extraneous packaging? What about disco--did I mention that I hate disco too? What about Madonna? Did I ever mention that I have a fierce loyalty to the Material Girl, even now that she's gone and morphed into a self-righteous religious loony and one of the worst lyricists in the world? (Whatever happened to the woman who wrote "Live to Tell," a song that can still make me weep?)
All of which is to say, there are several reasons why buying Madonna's new album, Confessions on a Dance Floor, wasn't as rewarding an experience as I had hoped.
I couldn't abide American Life, the album she released in 2003 that most people had sense enough not to buy. I couldn't even listen to it, in fact. I bought it just before a long drive, put it in my car stereo, and waited to be transported to that special happy dancing place Madonna has so often taken me to.... Instead, I found myself having to push the "skip" button before the first song was even over, because I found the lyrics unforgivably trite and stupid, and the music uninteresting. And then I hit the "skip" button before the second song was even over, because I found the lyrics unforgivably trite and stupid, and the music uninteresting. And the same went for all the other songs on the album--OK, I admit I have never listened to the entire album. I took it out of the cd player after that first time and only once tried to listen to it again, after Wayne told me how great it was, how it would grow on me.
I am pretty sure Madonna's American Life will never grow on me.
Confessions on a Dance Floor might grow on me. I didn't love it instantly, like I did Ray of Light or Like a Prayer, but I don't hate it. I admit that I put it in my car stereo and skipped through several of the first songs, but it wasn't because I couldn't stand them: no, I wanted to see if Track 8, provocatively entitled "Jump," was a Van Halen cover. Alas, it was not, although it is a decent song. (Anyone else fond of Aztec Camera's languorous cover of "Jump"? Truly inspired!) But even that disappointment didn't prevent me from remaining curious.... All I am saying, is I will give Madge a chance.
The album is on in my stereo right now, and I'm letting each song play out to its end. I find some of the lyrics appallingly stupid--as evidence, I call your attention to "I Like New York" (personally, I think that referring to yourself as a "dork" in a pop song makes you one, unequivocally and eternally)--but there's a decent dance beat, a good fast one, so even with the Abba sampling, I wouldn't call this a true disco album. I find myself wanting to get out of my chair and dance--actually, I find myself dancing in my chair, snapping my fingers and shimmying with my shoulders, bopping my head so that my hair--long and unfeathered as it might be, more the hair of an 80s headbanging chick than a 70s dancing queen--billows and waves about my head. OK, OK, dancing from the waist up isn't enough.... I've got to get up and let the rest of me in on the fun.
Yeah, the dance floor might be the right place to hear these Confessions.
p.s. The link Wayne tried to provide to Madonnalicious didn't work, so I'm providing it myself.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (9)
September 15, 2005
Venus Pandemos
In 1987, when I was finishing up my bachelor's degree in creative writing at the University of Arizona (at that point I was still primarily a poet), a beloved teacher and friend loaned me a copy of Little Star, Mark Halliday's first book. I loved it. It was one of my major influences. The title poem is about wondering who sang lead on some 1950s pop song. Halliday acknowledges that the poem
is not the first time I've tried to
get a rock-&-roll song into a poem and it won't be
the last; it is my need to call out
This counts too!
After reading Halliday, I began writing all kinds of poems with rock & roll songs in them, or inspired by rock & roll songs; I wrote a poem about the video to Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" and I wrote a bunch of poems about death by hanging inspired largely by "Gallows Pole" by Zeppelin and I wrote a poem called "1812 Overture" but despite the reference to Tchaikovsky the poem is really about how much I love the song "Close to Me" by the Cure, how sad I always was when the song ended, how it was over far too quickly.
Because I was poor, I never bought Little Star; I just returned my teacher's copy after reading it once, then got a copy from the library and kept it until I finished my master's degree four years later. And then it went out of print and I didn't think much about it, aside from the poem "Why the HG is Holy," which is one of my all-time favorite poems.
But a few months ago, I mentioned to Tom how much I loved that book, and as he had a copy, he loaned it to me. And I got to reread a few of the poems I had rather forgotten about, including the longest poem (seven pages) in the collection, which is called "Venus Pandemos."
When I first read that poem, I thought it was funny, mostly because I didn't have much personal reference for what it was talking about. I was an incredibly naive Mormon virgin who had little experience with dating and had never been in love, and though at that point I quit riding the bus to campus because I found enduring the catcalls and whistles I got while I waited at the bus stop on a busy street too upsetting, I still laughed at this poem, thought he was saying something clever. In fact, I once read much of it aloud to one of my friends who ran the women's center before she stopped me, almost heaving with distress. The poem begins
What am I going to do with my desire
for women?To be more specific, what am I going to do
with my interest in women's bodies?
and continues its exploration of this
energy–-
I am a little excited just to describe it–-
the quick expert evaluation of
face
breasts
ass
and then the instant summary judgment:
"I crave her"
"I'd take her"
"Maybe if I was a little drunk and she threw herself on me"
or, more often:
"Forget it, honey."
Then he spends a stanza discussing breasts, and another discussing ass, and then wonders "if any intelligent feminists will ever read this poem." Then we get
"Ass" . . . "Shoving home"–the fantasy here
is of seizing the woman's buttocks, holding them and
entering her vagina from behind;
why from behind? Bestial mastery. I guess.
He says it's not about conquest; rather,
it's
to do something about
her beauty.To do something about her beauty!
Is it a defining quality of beauty
that it won't leave us alone?
He also states that
of course what I'm talking about
has nothing to do with rape. (Nothing?)
So I'm left to rely on my technique of
covert ogling-in-passing–-
I eat them with my eyes.
–-Is it like eating? It's a job of
disposing of them, one by one:All right, I see that body,
I have seen it.–-Which means, that body is taken care of now,
that body is disarmed, normalized,
brought under control, it is forgivable now:
I have disposed of it through ritual,
the ritual of snapshot glancing, and now
its power is dead.
ah. So is it, then, a kind of murder fantasy?
And ultimately, he acknowledges,
Yes. I guess that's what I'm saying.
–-But it's your fault, baby,
for being so GOD DAMN BEAUTIFUL.
As for why he is writing this, it's because
every day
I think about strange women, for quick seconds,
in ways I consider dehumanizing.
Should I be ashamed?
I suspect my sexual fantasies are
among the tamest (most repressed?) anywhere;
and I can claim that my relations with the women I know
are relatively
nonsexist . . .
and he goes on for another page and a half before writing
In 1973 and ‘74 I worked in a feminist theatre group;
my awareness of the women's anger reached the point where
it seemed a crime for men to whistle at women on the street.
Now I'm not going to say it isn't.
But I'm admitting to an enduring energy in me that says
an attractive woman is not simply one more comrade on earth,
nor is she just another nice thing about life;an ATTRACTIVE WOMAN is a PROBLEM.
And that's the real end of the poem, despite one final throwaway stanza.
Now, I'm not trying to dismiss Halliday or his work. I still admire a lot of the poems in Little Star and I was very inspired by his most recent book, Jab. I like how straight-forward and energetic his voice is. But when I reread "Venus Pandemon" for the first time in a long time a few months ago, I didn't react to it the way I did at 23. Eighteen years after first reading it, after enduring several incidences of sexual violence, after hearing a boyfriend say to me, "Look, I'm sorry I date-raped you" (which isn't really all that comforting), after being sexually demeaned by men who claimed simultaneously to care about my welfare and to be feminists, I don't find that poem funny any more. And I feel entitled to assert that a man who finds an attractive woman a PROBLEM, is something of a PROBLEM himself.
And as I listened to that panel on male Mormon feminists, I thought about the fact that any discussion of feminism needed to include a discussion of this issue.
Posted by Holly at 7:14 AM | Comments (3)
August 17, 2005
Madge and the Beast
I sometimes say that Madonna saved my life while I was a missionary in Taiwan, because it's really kind of true. I hadn't much cared for her before my mission--I loved the song "Material Girl," because it was so witty, but so much of her other stuff just seemed like the silliest, shallowest dance music, and I liked my dance music rife with complexity and angst. But as a clinically depressed missionary given to long bouts of crying, I guess I felt that since the whole God thing wasn't working for me, I might consider looking to other things to offer me happiness.
I got transferred to Taichung, one of the larger cities in my mission (which covered the lower half of the island) at the beginning of June. It was monstrously hot, and spending all day riding a bike when it's 100 degrees and 100% humidity really takes something out of you, even if you're not being treated for depression. To escape the heat, my companion (an assigned working partner, not my lover) and I would do something we called "shopping first-contacting," which meant that we would go to some department store with air-conditioning, then wander around passing out flyers advertising the church until we at least felt human again.
Our favorite department store was called LaiLai's. It offered many attractions, including a restaurant in the basement that served barely edible pizza (as opposed to the inedible kind of you found everywhere else--Pizza Hut had not made it to Taiwan in 1986) and an electronics department featuring a big-screen TV that constantly played Madonna videos. We would often position ourselves right at the top of the escalator, which was also midway between an air-conditioning vent and the television, thrusting flyers at people without saying a word as the escalator crested. They almost always took them, looked at them, looked at us, and shrugged.
OK, OK, it was a lousy way to do missionary work. In my defense I'll say that there were other ways in which I worked really hard. But missions don't cut you much slack--you're supposed to work 63 and a half hours every single week--and sometimes you had to find creative ways to survive.
Anyway, the point is, watching those videos over and over and over again, I began to appreciate Madonna's genius. It seemed clear to me that she respected her religion without feeling bound by it. She was able to incorporate accouterments and ideas from Christianity into her own creative vision. She demonstrated something I suspected: dance music could be as inspirational as religious liturgy. About that time her third album, True Blue, was released, and she changed her hairstyle from the golden ringlets she'd sported for her first two albums to a close-cropped platinum do. She provided me with an example I needed: a woman who could reinvent herself.
As a result I have always loved her, and always will, even if I don't care for some of the stuff she's done lately: I bought American Life but couldn't even finish listening to it. I put it in my cd player once, took it out before it ended, and have never tried listening to it again.
Yesterday was her 47th birthday. I thought about making yesterday's blog entry a happy birthday shout-out to her, but that just seemed silly. Instead, I sent this email message to my friend Wayne:
You have probably already baked a cake and bought the party favors, but in case you forget, thought I'd remind you that today is Madonna's 47th birthday. I realized that this day is more important to me and requires more recognition than something like the summer solstice. She's crazy now, isn't she, really truly crazy? But I still have to be grateful for what she has meant to me.
Last night we were talking on the phone and he suddenly interrupted me to say, "Holly, Holly-- Oh, oh my god. Oh my god." And then he read me a news story about the fact that she had celebrated her birthday by going riding on her country estate in England, fallen from a horse, broken her collar bone and three ribs, and fractured her hand.
That's some pretty heavy karmic shit. Madonna's whole kabbalah thing requires her to believe that everything happens for a reason, that we draw energy and events to ourselves, and drawing to you the kind of energy that makes you fall off a horse and sustain several fractures on your birthday, two months before your album comes out, so that you'll be laid up in bed and unable to film any dance videos any time soon, is serious stuff.
But I still hope she recovers quickly. I've never had a broken collar bone or a fractured hand, but I have had a broken rib--it happened on my mission--and I can say that ONE is excruciatingly painful, so having THREE has to really suck. I can only guess about how bad the other stuff feels.
This morning when I got up, turned on my computer, and checked my email, I found this message from Wayne:
Good morning!Repeat after me: Today I am going to be a ray of fucking sunshine!
So be it.
I am so freaked out about Madge and the beast. I have never really liked horses that much. Some things should not be domesticated. And some people, I suppose. Madonna's self imposed "English country wife" thing makes we wonder if I am fulfilling my true purpose or just deluding myself? Am I supposed to be wild and free or good and trustworthy or dumb and f*ckable?
One thing I like about Wayne is that, aside from the two times he did something so awful to me that we didn't speak for months until he worked up the nerve to apologize, it's really easy to be his friend. He claims he is hard to be friends with. But I think it's not at all hard to be amused and enlightened and captivated by brilliance and inspired to be a better person, all of which are things that happen when being friends with Wayne.
Or at least, I guess it's not hard for people who want those things. For people who want to be bored most of the time, and stupid most of the time, and content with the drivel the world has to offer, and given permission never to learn or grow, well, yeah, it might be hard to be friends with him.
So today I will take his advice and be a fucking ray of sunshine–a ray of sunshine who is also thinking about Madge and the beast. Am I fulfilling my life's purpose? I don't know.
I am also a ray of sunshine with a very sore neck. I injured it somehow helped SBJ move. It hurts to look anywhere but straight ahead of me. Perhaps that is also a message from the universe? I don't know.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)
August 16, 2005
Mellencamp
My friend and colleague Sweet Baby Jesus is roughly the same age as my younger brother, and I am chagrined to say that something about SBJ brings out the bitchy big sister in me. A fairly common sequence of events is this: a bunch of us go out for beers; mocking SBJ occupies a good portion of the evening; I go home, think about how I teased him, and feel bad; I stop by his office the next day, and apologize for tormenting him so, saying it seems out of character for me, since I don't treat my other friends that way; he says he doesn't mind at all--in fact, he insists, he enjoys being the center of attention and finds it all good clean fun as long as it's a gentle mocking rather than malicious bullying; I go away reassured, but full of resolve not to tease him so very much next time.
I'm still working to identify the reasons why this happens. So far I've come up with two: 1) he's telling the truth about enjoying it; he plays along and laughs good-naturedly, and even after the conversation has moved on to something other than his most charming foibles, he provides us with information that almost seems designed to provoke more teasing, which means that 2) he deserves it.
In some ways, Sweet Baby Jesus is one of the oddest people I know. Don't get me wrong; I like him, quite a lot, actually. But he has some of the strangest ideas, opinions and behaviors.
Last December a dozen of us went out on the last day of classes to celebrate having survived the semester. At one point, apropos of nothing, SBJ asked, "Do you ever play that game where you take two things that are basically equal, and make people choose which one they like better? For instance, like with Bruce Springsteen on one hand, and John Cougar Mellencamp on the other."
We were in the middle of a crowded bar and the din was terrific, but at that moment it was like the entire world went silent. Everyone looked around the table. "You're kidding, right?" someone asked.
"Of course not," SBJ said. "Mellencamp is like the Midwestern Springsteen."
We stared at each other again. "You're really saying that John Cougar Mellencamp is ‘basically equal' with Bruce Springsteen?" someone asked.
"Yeah."
"You're saying that ‘Hurts So Good' is on a par with ‘Thunder Road' or ‘Blinded by the Light,'" I began.
"Or ‘Jack and Diane' is the same as ‘Born to Run' or anything off Nebraska," someone else said.
"Yeah," SBJ said. Everyone looked around the table again, and burst out laughing.
"You're forgetting songs like ‘Little Pink Houses' and ‘Blood on the Plow,'" he cried.
"That's ‘cause they're forgettable," someone said.
"Mellencamp is an authentic voice of middle America,"SBJ said, his voice rising even more. "You're all just a bunch of east coast snobs."
THAT pissed me off. "I am not going to let some guy who grew up in Connecticut and went to school in New York call ME an east coast snob," I said, jabbing at him with my forefinger. "I'm from Arizona, remember?"
"Yeah, but I lived in Indiana for six years, and I really grew to appreciate how Mellencamp speaks for the Midwest," he said.
"I lived in Iowa for eight years, and I'm sure that even in that bastion of Midwesterness, people have the sense to prefer the Boss to a guy who named himself after a mountain cat," I said.
"And let's not forget cover art," some said. "Mellencamp looks pretty stupid on his album covers."
"Or hair," I said. "John Cougar Mellencamp's hair was so poufy and feathered, he could have been one of the girls in a White Snake video."
SBJ seemed genuinely astonished that no one--not a single person there--thought Mellencamp was the artistic equal of the Boss. You'd think he'd learn that this is not a question designed to arouse a lot of respect for his taste in music. But no, months later, he still brings it up when someone new comes along, so he still gets to hear people guffaw in disbelief as they finally realize he is serious about the comparison.
The game–-which we now call Mellencamp--can make for fun bar banter when you play it with things that are actually comparable. Coke or Pepsi? East Coast or West Coast? Cats or dogs? Window or aisle? Mac or PC? Q or A? T or A? Ginger or Mary Ann? Aiden or Mr. Big?
And I'm probably going to have to apologize to him for posting this--or maybe delete it, if it really hurts his feelings--but I want to say this: SBJ, let it go. You can like John Cougar Mellencamp as much as you want, but you can compare apples to oranges more easily than you can compare Mellencamp to the Boss.
Posted by Holly at 12:16 AM | Comments (0)