Vacation 2008: Day 2 - The world shines for me today

While the skies above Boston's northwestern suburbs indulged in a pageant worthy of Wagner, the wife and I chanced the torrential rains and thunderbolts in order to indulge in some nerdspicuous consumption at the comic/used book shop two towns over.

I was specifically searching for copies of Twilight Zone Magazine from the early 1980's and the frustratingly elusive issues of Date With Debbi and Debbi's Dates I need to fill out my collection. Though I came up empty-handed on those fronts, I still scored a respectable trove of items of retrological importance -- the Burning Sensations' mini-LP, The Brains' eponymous 1980 album, a vinyl copy of the Xanadu OST in its gatefold cover glory, and a small stack of Dynamite and Pizzazz magazines from the 1970's.

Total price: Just a shade over twenty bucks.

When we got home from our shopping trip, BBC America was playing a block of episodes from the second season of Spaced.

This is what vacations are supposed to be like.

Mint Royale - Space Farm (from On the Ropes, 1999)

Electric Light Orchestra - I'm Alive (from the Xanadu OST, 1980)

we are the hollow men

There's a PSA that has been running on VH-1 Classic on behalf of autism awareness which features rawk icons like Roger Daltrey, Rob Halford, and Vince Neill speaking out on behalf of the cause. All of the participants came dressed down -- wrinkles, receding hairlines, and all -- for the taping; all except the dudes from Kiss, that is, who appeared in their full facepainted and overaccessorized glory.

Telling? Yes, but not suprising in the least. Kiss and any vestiges of dignity parted ways long, long ago. (See also.)

The Moog Cookbook - Rock & Roll All Night (from Ye Olde Space Band: Plays Classic Rock Hits, 1997) - See, this is a gimmick I can fully appreciate.

jam or butter

Behold the apex of human technological achievement...

THE MEAT TOASTER
I did briefly consider writing a longer piece dealing with this wonder of the modern (meaning "1971") world, and its significance in terms of consumer capitalism's twin tenets of planned obsolescence and creating demand for unnecessary products, but what more could I really add that isn't right there in the advertisement?

It's a toaster, only instead of cooking bread-related items, it cooks meat. Not Pop Tarts, but porterhouses. Not bagels, but bacon. Not scones, but sirloin. To reiterate, it is a toaster designed to cook animal flesh -- in short, a meat toaster.

That the shell-shocked consumers of the early 1970's failed to embrace the manifest greatness of a device that utilized the costly inefficiency of electric heating coils to perform in three hours what would otherwise be a twenty minute task with a conventional oven does not surprise me. Very rarely (no pun intended) is a prophet appreciated by his contemporaries, especially when he seems likely to cause accidental household fires (or is fundamentally incapable of accommodating sliced onions, mushrooms, or peppers within his sizzling, juicy message).

The Toasters - Fire in My Soul (from Don't Let the Bastards Grind You Down, 1997) - Sadly, a cool blast of ska is no substitute for a CO2-based flame suppression device.

The Meteors - Meat Is Meat (from Monkey's Breath, 1985) - From the musical meat locker comes this raw slab of 100% USDA certified psychobilly. Remember: The OTMAPP seal is a guarantee of eternal freshness.

Richard and Robert Sherman - Music To Buy Toasters By (from Retro Shopping Vol. 1, 2006) - How they rocked it out in Caldor's home appliance aisle back in the day. Muzak version of "Mahogany" not included.

Vacation: Day 2 - S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G

First up, Lowe's Garden Center for some "bandanna rose" lantana plants, then a whirlwind tour of Tar-zhay in pursuit of junk food, pet snacks, and other household sundries. Truly, we live a life of unparalled adventure and excitement...

Here's a musical double bill of lesser-known new wave tracks by artists doomed to be forever remembered as one hit wonders:

Toni Basil - Shoppin' from A to Z (from World of Mouth, 1982; collected on The Best of Toni Basil, 1994) - From the T.A.M.I. Show to Village of the Giants to Easy Rider to SNL's early seasons to "Mickey" to the video for the Talking Heads' "Once in a Lifetime," the exploits of the talented (and apparently immortal) Ms. Basil comprise a secret history of the past five decades of pop culture.

M - That's the Way the Money Goes (from New York-London-Paris-Munich, 1979) - Before there was such a thing as Emm Tee Vee, HBO used to play music videos during the gaps between feature presentations. This was how a young Andrew was exposed to Nick Lowe's "Cruel to Be Kind," The Vapors' "Turning Japanese," The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," and this attempt by Robin "M" Scott to follow up upon the success of "Pop Musik."

jingle bells make money, everybody sing

Halloween got a full month of posts. Christmas is getting a week and change, mainly because I’m sick to death of seasonal overkill. The entertainment and retail combines don’t even wait for the candy corn and cobwebs to get cold before rolling out the balsam-scented, red and green juggernaut, whipping the public into a state of consumer debt-fueled hysteria.

Peace on earth? Good will toward men? Fuck that shit, there’s an open parking space right by Target’s entrance, and if I have to run down a family of four with my Escalade to get it, then so be it. No one stands in between me and a sale-priced portable DVD player.

(In all seriousness, I nearly got hit three times today while crossing the Target parking lot. In each case, the vehicle in question was a minivan driven by a suburban soccer mom, eyes blazing and face contorted with the terminal stages of Yuletide consumer madness. All I wanted was a bag of potato chips and some toilet paper.)

Bad News – Cashing in on Christmas (from Bad News, 1987) – A z-grade heavy metal act whose members’ ambitions far outstrip their talents, Bad News were the subject of two mockumentaries aired on The Comic Strip Presents… British TV series in 1983 and 1988. Their lineup consisted of Vim Feugo (Adrian Edmondson), Den Dennis (Nigel Planer), Colin Grigson (Rik Mayall), and ‘Spider’ Webb (Peter Richardson). Yep, that's three cast members of The Young Ones in the band, so you pretty much know what to expect.

Queen fans take note: The above track (and album it appeared on) was produced by Brian May.

I’ll fight for the latest model

So the nanny-staters turned out to be right. Videogames can cause real-world violence, just not in the way the professional killjoys had always claimed.

Contrived scarcity as a marketing tool -- it’s a surefire method of convincing wild-eyed early adopters and aspiring eBay price-gougers to line up outside the nearest Best Buy for the privilege of being fleeced out of six hundred bucks. But, hey, have you seen the Playstation 3 version of Call of Duty 3? It’s like the previous two installments, but with (cue drumroll) better graphics!

My days in the Gotta-Have-It Brothers’ Circus are long over. My deep pocketed clown pants have been packed away in the attic somewhere. My bucket for tossing disposable income at faceless corporations is now used to store bird food. I still dabble in some Situationist commedia dell'arte now and again, though. Down with the spectacle-commodity society!

Gang of Four – Return the Gift (from Entertainment! 1979) – Entertainment! is one of those rare albums for which my affection grows, rather than fades, over the years. There is so much going on – musically, lyrically, politically – that each listen brings forth new things to ponder and appreciate.

Action Pact – Consumer Madness (from The Punk Singles Collection, 1997) – While it’s a little long at three minutes and forty-two seconds, this 1984 b-side is still a pretty decent effort from a time when most other Britpunk acts were either in the process of imploding or turning into Discharge clones. I can’t decide which fate is worse.

Robert Hazard – Escalator of Life (from a 1982 EP, collected on New Wave Hits of the 80’s: Volume 8, 1994) – An excellent summation of Reagan Era attitudes by the Philly-based Hazard. He was also the man responsible for writing Cyndi Lauper’s überhit “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”.

Lene Lovich – New Toy (from the 1981 New Toy EP, collected on Flex…Plus, 1991) – Thomas Dolby penned this song for Lovich during his brief stint with her band. In one of those delightful cases of ironic licensing, this satirically anti-consumerist track ended up being used in Target’s 2005 Christmas ad campaign.