he's out to get before he's got

He's one with Xenu now.
Isaac Hayes, the legendary Zen master of soul, funk, and cinematic bad-assitude, has passed away at the age of 65. He was the man who made "You shut yo' mouth!" a household expression, and therein lies the problem with eulogizing him.

The popcult resonance of Shaft and the film's Hayes-penned soundtrack has reached Pythoneseque levels of oversaturation in the past three-and-a-half decades. What ought to be appreciated as sublime aesthetic and historical achievements has been reduced to a facile macro employed by mayo-and-white bread fanboys and comedians looking to add a little funky flava into their clumsy attempts at humor. Does anyone want to guess how many times the theme to Shaft or "Chocolate Salty Balls" have been or are going to be spotlighted on the various music blogs in the recent past or immediate future?

Before South Park, before Shaft, before Hot Buttered Soul, Hayes and David Porter teamed up to write some of the finest tracks to come out of the Stax Records stable. Stax soul duo (and perennial AT faves) Sam & Dave were major beneficiaries of their talents, with Hayes and Porter penning such powerhouse hits as "Hold On, I'm Comin'," "I Thank You," and this gem, which has retained its luster even after years of rough handling and rougher reinterpretations...

Sam & Dave - Soul Man (from Soul Men, 1967) - Socially aware Memphis soul, written by masters, sung by the best, backed by both Booker T. & the MG's and the Mar-Keys, and served sizzling hot. If that isn't a recipe for pop music perfection, such a thing simply doesn't exist.

Adios, Truck. When you were hottest, you were the coolest.


When you were baddest, you were the best.

Issac Hayes - Main Title "Truck Turner" (from the Truck Turner OST, 1974) - Whether you're busting heads in a dive bar or busting moves on the dancefloor, you couldn't ask for a finer soundtrack than this.

never mind the mammary papilla

Hey, have you heard the news?

Truly a sad day for anarchists and enthusiasts of visible nipples alike.

While Farrah-mania never recovered from the Crash of '78, gossip columnist Cindy Adams's hyperbolic pronouncement of punk's demise in the June 1978 issue of Pizzazz Magazine turned out to be somewhat exaggerated.

During the anemic days just prior to punk's commercialized resurrection in the mid-1990's, my friends and I used to joke that "punk is dead...and we're maggots feeding on its rotting corpse." Punk music and fashion may have become codified and commodified, but the underlying philosophy -- the demystification of process and rejection of authority -- remains valid despite decades of exploitation and misappropriation.

Crass - Punk Is Dead (from The Feeding of the 5000, 1978) - Representing the disgusted anarchopunk perspective.

The Exploited - Punk's Not Dead (from Punks Not Dead, 1981) - Representing the tribalist street punk perspective.

The Vandals - The Day Farrah Fawcett Died (from Fear of a Punk Planet, 1990) - I'm more of a Cheryl Ladd guy, myself.

spit on your grave

From Yahoo's featured stories box:

Awwwww... Such a shame. I feel so broken up about the news, honest. In fact, let me dig out an appropriate funeral dirge for this somber occasion...

Dave "Baby" Cortez - The Happy Organ (from The Happy Organ, 1959) - The #1 hit that helped convince scores of musicians to start twiddling with their organs.

(Seriously, though, my sense of schadenfreude doesn't extend to the poor souls getting shafted due to plant closures because the captains of fucking industry couldn't figure out the simple calculus that "economic downturn + soaring gas prices = retool the production lines towards smaller, fuel-efficient vehicles." Then again, the suits never feel the pain, so there's no motivation to think proactively.)

without feeling fine

It was around this time last year that a small, black and orange female long-haired cat began showing up each night to munch on any food left over by our usual gang of ferals.

I named her "Contessa" because she looked like a photo-negative of Princess, another of our frequent feline visitors. This was soon shortened to "Tessa," "Tess," and (my favorite pet name for her) "Tessie the Tortoise." She became a regular, showing up first by herself, then later in the company of an even smaller female calico (a sister, we think) we named "Pepi." Tess made a point of watching out for her companion. She stood guard over the driveway until her friend had her fill, then the pair would take off together to their hidden lair.

The wife and I have a pretty good track record when it comes to earning the trust of the local ferals (to the point where the wife refuses to call them such, preferring "outside" or "garage" cats), but Tess was a hard sell. She loved the idea of human companionship, but would retreat to a safe distance whenever an actual pat or scratch loomed. She did eventually come around, and in the past few weeks would do figure-eights around my legs as I stroked her fur. She never warmed to being picked up, though, and the one time I presumed to try, she tried to razor my face with her claws, then spent the rest of the afternoon trying to wash the stink of my touch from her fur.

Maura did managed to coax Tess and Pepi to take up residence in the garage for the winter. Beside the warmth and shelter the space provides, it was also supposed to give us an opportunity to keep tabs on the pair. The presence of the large, tough, and fiercely territorial neutered male Marmalade would keep away any would-be suitors until we got a chance to get the lasses seen to by the low-cost spay and neuter people. A reasonable plan, though it didn't stop Tess from getting knocked up by one of the oversexed toms who slipped through the population control net.

Tess, with Pepi in tow, left the garage's communal quarters for the privacy of their old hidden lair, though they still showed up at our house at mealtime. Once Tess gave birth to her litter, she and Pepi switched off between maternal duties, one keeping an eye on the kids while the other grabbed a bite to eat. (Poor Pepi got the shit end of the deal as Tess chose to linger and lounge on our patio for most of the day while Pepi was stuck babysitting.)

We'd been through a similar scenario with a mother cat and kits a few years previous. The ideal plan is to wait until the kittens have been weaned and start following the mother to the food station, then nab the lot of them. The mom gets spayed and released, and the kittens socialized for adoption. Based on information given to us by the local feral cat coalition person over the past couple weeks, Tess's kittens had started to wander and we'd begun to coordinate our plans accordingly.

Last night I got a call from the woman in charge of feral cat coalition. Some neighbors of ours had discovered a dead cat in their backyard and were too nervous about potential diseases to dispose of it, and she was wondering if we could take care of it for them. The corpse had dark fur and was located pretty close to where we figured that Tess and Pepi had their lair, which immediately had me imagining the worst. The last I'd seen Tess was Monday afternoon. She seemed well enough then, but she missed three mealtimes since.

It was late by the time Maura got home last night, so we had put off getting verification until this morning, hoping against hope that our fears would not be confirmed.

They were. In the mud of the neighbor's yard lay poor Tess's body. There weren't any signs of violence or other possible causes of death. Maura suspects she was poisoned (not intentionally) by something. I wonder if she wasn't clipped by a car (or knowing my neighborhood, some shithead speeding down the street in an SUV) and died trying to make it back to her hiding spot.

As rotten and unwelcome as the discovery was, at least we know what happened to her and aren't left to guess her whereabouts, and we were able to lay poor Tess to rest down by the back end of our yard.

A distressed and confused Pepi has since moved back into our garage, where hopefully she'll take up permanent residence. We've still got to round up Tess's litter, which will be trickier without having her around to vouch for us.

I knew on Monday that this was going to be one fuck of a week.

The Damned - I Just Can't Be Happy Today (from Machine Gun Etiquette, 1979) - No kidding.

that rises above

Actor John Phillip Law passed away last Tuesday at the age of 70.

In honor of his memory, let us pay homage to his unparalleled cinematic legacy, specifically the trio of 1968 films that cemented his place of high esteem within my personal retrological pantheon...

Danger: Diabolik
Ennio Morricone - Deep Down (from the Danger: Diabolik OST, 1968)

Barbarella
Bob Crewe and Charles Fox - The Angel Is Love (from the Barbarella OST, 1968)

...and Skidoo.
Harry Nilsson - I Will Take You There (from the Skidoo OST, 1968)

Farewell, Mr. Law, and thank you. May a flight of blind space angels sing thee to thy rest.

"It's not unlike ancient dental equipment on Earth - not that you'd know anything about that!" - John Phillip Law (as Kalgan) in Space Mutiny, 1988

he is legend times two

In honor of the late Charlton Heston, here's what may very be the greatest scene ever committed to film, at least from a purely retrological standpoint.

Heston. Vincent Price. John Derek. Flagellation. A fight to the death. If the actual scripture hewed closer to what Cecil B. DeMille presented in The Ten Commandments, I might not have discarded my faith.

"His...powers...of hammy acting...are greater...than...my own...aarggh!!!!"
Rest in peace, Chuck. Fuck Conor Oberst, you'll always be the one true Bright Eyes in my book.

Jerry Goldsmith - Main Title (from The Planet of the Apes OST, 1968) - The disconcerting minimalism of Goldsmith's score sounds downright avant-garde after decades spent listening to John Williams's signature bombast and Danny Elfman's whimsical gothica.

(See also this post.)

for fantasy and taste

Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax passed away yesterday morning at the age of 69. His pioneering work in formalizing the concept of make-believe though complex tables, graph paper, and polyhedral dice allowed generations of social misfits to directly express their power projection and other vicarious fantasies in a relatively controlled (and frequently contentious) environment.

I've already discussed my qualified affection for the hobby in this classic post, so instead of simply restating what I said last April, I thought I'd pay my respects to the man who taught me the difference between a bardiche and a glaive by spotlighting what I hold to be Mr. Gygax's greatest work, which appeared in an appendix to the 1979 first edition of the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide:


Luck be a lady of the evening tonight (but preferably a "brazen strumpet" rather than an "aged madam".)

Billy Idol - Flesh for Fantasy (from Rebel Yell, 1983) - What happens if you roll a critical fumble on a "sex attack"? (Please don't say "weapon breakage.") And into what category of the above table does Heidi Fleiss fall?

I find it kind of sad

Those among you who follow the comics internet must have heard that Steve Gerber, legendary comics writer and the creator of Howard the Duck passed away last Sunday at the age of 60. Instead of rehashing what other internet comics commentators have covered (and will cover) with more detail and eloquence (Mike Sterling has a nice rundown of the man's contributions), I figured I'd pay my respects by spotlighting a story of his that made a strong impression on a young Andrew and illustrates Gerber's particular talents.

The Guardians of the Galaxy were Marvel's answer to rival DC's Legion of Super-Heroes in the futuristic super-team stakes. Where the LSH's 30th Century setting was a populuxe sci-fi paradise, though, the Guardians' version of the future was considerably bleaker, with Earth and the rest of the solar system enslaved by the alien Brotherhood of the Badoon. The Guardians were a team of freedom fighters composed of sole survivors of various Badoon-ravaged worlds and led by Major Vance Astro, an 20th Century astronaut who had been sealed into a protective bodysuit and sent on a milllennia-long sublight trip to Alpha Centauri...only to find out that FTL travel had been discovered centuries before he arrived. (He did acquire some telekinetic powers during the trip, though that's a small consolation prize for a thousand years needlessly spent in solitude.)

The team debuted at the tail end of the Silver Age (in 1969's Marvel Super-Heroes #18), but the property remained fallow for half a decade until Gerber plucked them out of semi-obscurity to appear in his Marvel Two-In-One and The Defenders runs, which led to the team taking over the lead slot of Marvel Presents from Bloodstone, the immortal caveman monster hunter (why I love comics -- right there in five words), with issue #3 and continuing through the title's cancellation with issue #12. Gerber handled the writing duties up through issue #9, and what a short strange trip it was, replete with cosmic sex, giant space frogs, the family dynamics of male-female gestalt beings.

Which brings us to "Planet of the Absurd!" from Marvel Presents #5 (June 1976), written by Gerber with art by Al Milgrom and Howard Chaykin (more of the former than the latter is evident, unfortunately). I picked up my copy (along with the rest of the series) sometime in the early 80's from a quarter bin at one of the local flea markets, and it has stuck with me to the present day.

After freeing Earth from the Badoon (by calling the aliens' womenfolk and asking them to retrieve their wayward males), the members of the Guardians come to realize that they are tempermentally incompatible with the post-war status quo and decide to look for trouble adventure amongst the stars. An encounter with a unstoppable energy-devouring being severly damages their spaceship, and the need for replacement parts forces the team to beam down onto a nearby hellworld...a nightmarish place which bears a startling resemblance to mid-1970's Manhattan...

SPACE-PRESIDENT F'RD TO CITY: DROP DEAD
(It would take another couple of dec-phases before the megalomaniacal R'Dee G'ewlee'anee would impose order with his spiked iron fists.)

The team decides it would be more efficient if they split up in their search for the equipment they need, which provides an opportunity for each member to come face to face with some of the bizarre aspects that make up this strange yet familiar world.

Native Centauri tribesman Yondu stumbles across a curious ritual featuring a symbiotic dance between the false promises of the ringleaders and the jaded apathy of the spectators...

Yondu: Obama suporter?
Major Astro, on the other hand, get offered a chance at unspecified fuzzy consciousness-raising...

Do alien New Agers believe that the space pyramids were created by ancient human visitors?
After a fracas with the local constabulary, Jovian militiaman Charlie-27 learns that the quality of mercy on this world is not strain’d, but droppeth as the gentle plea bargain from the district attorney's office, depending on mandatory sentencing laws and prison overcrowding...

Remember kids: It's easier to reinstate the death penalty than to fix the flaws in the system. Plus, executions are great crowd pleasers.
Meanwhile, Mercury native Nikki discovers the wonders of spirituality...

Okay, who let the NARAL member into the Huckabee campaign rally?
Having pissed off every faction on the planet, the Guardians find themselves besieged by an angry mob. Surrounded and cut off, their prepare to make their final stand...only to find themselves rescued by the perfectly timed arrival of a strange shuttlecraft. The ship's pilot explains that the world the Guardians has stumbled upon is actually a mental asylum set aside for the sector's "most hopelessly neurotic specimens." That's all well and good, but Astro, who had previously wondered about the planet's Star Trek-esque parallels to 20th century Earth, is still wondering about one thing...

PWNED!
ur homeworld is teh crazee, d00d.
"Planet of the Absurd" is not especially inspired as comic stories go, and certainly nowhere near Steve Gerber's best work. The satire is wielded like a blunt instrument and the twist ending telegraphed with a tight-channel lossless signal, yet it manages to typify what I consider the essence of Marvel's non-flagship output in the 1970's -- that combination of lurid weirdness, social awareness, and tongue-in-cheek humor that Gerber was a unparalled master in delivering.

The society seems to have accepted the notion that by simply becoming oblivious to what's happening in the world outside our skins, the horror will go away. It's not going to go away. - Steve Gerber, from a 1978 Comics Journal interview

Yeah, he knew the score.

Tears For Fears - Mad World (from The Hurting, 1983) - Such a promising start, where did it all go wrong? (My answer: With the release of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World".) For some unexplained reason, everytime I hear this song I expect it to turn into The Who's "Behind Blue Eyes" halfway through.

go tell Chief Brody

Actor Roy Scheider has passed away at the age of 75.

He was of that rare breed of "regular guy" working actors (see also James Caan) that helped make 70's cinema the wonderfully unique beast that it was. Over the course of his film career, Scheider tangled with Marseillais drug smugglers, two killer sharks, a fugitive Nazi dentist, an alien monolith, and the introduction of hack sci-fi elements and the DeLuise brothers into the seaQuest DSV universe -- only to succumb to complications related to his recent struggle with myeloma.

It's a damn shame, really. You'd think that having survived a Jeannot Szwarc film and the machinations of Universal (by itself and with its tag team partner, NBC) executives, cancer of the blood plasma would have been small potatoes.

Adios, Roy. As the wife put it, "The Mayor of Shark City is dead? Summer is over."

Roy Scheider & Ben Vereen - Bye Bye Love (from the All That Jazz OST, 1979) - The coda to Bob Fosse's 1979 semi-autobiographical musical, which netted Scheider (in the role Fosse's fictionalized avatar) an Oscar for Best Actor. Using the song that launched the Everly Brothers as a springboard, the piece weaves together the complementary strains of self-indulgent excess associated with both the musical genre and the Me Decade. Clocking in at just under ten bombastic minutes, the track falls well outside the boundaries of casual listening material, but it serves as an excellent reminder (if you lived through the era) or perfect illustration (if you came of age afterward) of what set the 1970's apart from any decade before or since.

Arthur B. Rubinstein - Main Title/Crook Dusting (from the Blue Thunder OST, 1983) - I'd make a witty comment about how the paranoia-laden militarization of law enforcement theme of this 1983 Scheider/assault helicopter buddy flick seems oddly prescient, given the path American society has taken in the past quarter-century, but I'm too busy massaging my temples and trying to get my jaws to unclench.

I don't know why

Having grown up in a blue collar suburban neighborhood in the early-to-mid 1980's, my pre-adolescence was strongly touched by the cheesetacular power of pop metal in its pre-glam (or, as I've come to call it, "ugly metal") incarnation. I perfected my air guitar skills. I scribbled poor reproductions of band logos in ballpoint on my book covers. I flipped through second-hand copies of Circus and Hit Parader, marveling at the full-page photos, lame efforts at mythmaking, and especially all the cool rocker gear being hawked in the backpage ads.

That was my life, that was my song. I paid no heed to the warnings that metal health will drive one mad, because -- day in, day out, all week long -- things just went better with rock.

Looking back on those times, I feel neither the rosy glow of nostalgia nor the rosy cheeks of embarrassment. It was what it was, a childhood phase shared with many other lads (and lasses) in my socio-economic demographic which I later dumped in favor of 60's soul music. Maybe it would have been cooler if I had discovered punk rock five years earlier instead, but you can't fault an eleven year old for grasping the low-hanging subcultural fruit, especially when it perfectly captured the stuff quasi-pubescent boys' dreams are made of.

All the above is just my long-winded way of explaining why I felt a touch of sadness upon discovering that Quiet Riot frontman Kevin DuBrow passed away at his Las Vegas home last Sunday.

Quiet Riot - Cum on Feel the Noize (from Metal Health, 1983) - I just wish they kept the opening "Baby, baby, BAY-BEH!" from Slade's original version...

Halloween Countdown: October 10 – I've started digging holes, my friend

My wife's elderly rabbit Jack passed away on Monday. He was a great bunny, and Maura did her utmost to make sure his twilight years were as comfortable and enjoyable as possible, but there was nothing that could be done about the seemingly unshakable recurring respiratory illness that eventually did him in.

I was home sick today fighting off a nasty head cold, but at my wife's request, made the effort to see the poor bunster off to his place of eternal rest, a small patch of ground beneath the lilac bushes next to the patio.

It was fitting day for digging a grave -- cold and damp, with dark overcast skies. As I tried to work the spade into the rocky soil of the hillside, a murder of crows circled overhead, kaw-ing madly and adding to the cacophony of the sparrows' atonal chorus coming up from the woods past the back fence. The clang of the shovel blade against unyielding stone kept irregular time for the surreal symphony, and if I was a less rational man, I'd have sworn that some unseen force was paying attention to the grim proceedings.

I laid Jack's small, cold body in the earth, commended his soul to Frith, and covered him up properly enough to discourage disinterment by any wandering scavengers.

Afterward, while washing the mud off me in the kitchen sink, I realized that there had been two songs alternately looping in my head during the course of my gravedigging experience, and I knew I had my topic and material for today's post.

David Bowie - Please, Mr. Gravedigger (from David Bowie, 1967) - Not so much a song as a bizarre bit of spoken word ghoulishness set to a beat and accompanied by some appropriate sound effects. I first heard it some twenty-five years ago, when a local radio station decided to promote an upcoming concert of Bowie's by playing his entire discography over the course of a single Saturday. It has haunted my dreams ever since.

Throwing Muses - Rabbits Dying (from the band's untitled debut LP,1986) - Unsettling in a manner that only the band's early material can be.

the passing of a factory man

Factory Records founder Tony Wilson shuffled off to the great Hacienda in the sky today.

I'm certain that the serious-minded music bloggers will have detailed obituaries, tributes, and analyses of the man's life and legacy up shortly, but given my areas of interest I'd figured I ought to post something in honor of the man...even if 24 Hour Party People the most mind-numbingly boring movie I've ever made the mistake of watching.

My ambivalence about Joy Division is well known, and any interest I had in the "Madchester" scene was because the cute art students I was attracted to in my freshman year happened to love that stuff, but I can't think poorly of a man (and label) that set loose all sorts of wonderful postpunk music on an unsuspecting world. Plus, Wilson did it with a Situationist's tongue-in-cheek elan, and I can admire that with no qualifiers whatsoever.

So, thanks, Tony, for your part in shaping and presenting a musical genre that has never lost its appeal or been shuffled to the bottom of the musical queue since I first stumbled upon it two decades ago.

Rather than take the predictable Joy Division/New Order/Happy Mondays route, I went with a selection of some other postpunk favorites from the early years of the factory label. They run the gamut from the beautifully atmospheric...

The Durutti Column - Sketch for Summer (from The Return of the Durutti Column, 1979)

...to the hauntingly sublime...

A Certain Ratio - All Night Party (from a 1979 single; collected on Early, 2002)

...to the downright terrifying...

Cabaret Voltaire - Baader-Meinhof (from A Factory Sample, 1979; collected on The Original Sound of Sheffield '78/'82, 2002)

and if you say goodbye

Chaironymus C. Chairington
(1999-2007)
You will be missed, I guess.
My computer chair gave up the ghost last night. It was not an unexpected passing; the past few months were laden with portents of chairdeath.

First, a couple of non-essential (as far as I could tell) bolts popped loose and were borne away by the cats. Then the threads on the adjustment knob for the backrest got stripped, forcing an improvised fix which involved a pair of locking pliers and a spare nut from a muffler installation kit. Finally and fatally, the ring which secured the base pole to the seat popped loose, and no amount of pounding, bending, or twisting could set the problem right. I even tried wadding an old sock (visible in the photo) into the docking hole to stabilize the seat platform, but to no avail.

What had previously been a functional place to park one's ass has become a personal Tilt-A-Whirl with a slightly diminished risk of accidental dismemberment posed by the large scale version. While I wish that the terminal phase of the chair's life had come on prior to my weekly trip to Target, thus eliminating the need to make an additional trip this evening, I'm astonished that it held up as long as it did.

I bought the chair eight years ago, at the equally deceased Ames store in the Redstone shopping plaza, and it set me all of twenty dollars. I was scrambling to set up a space for my new PC, and in my haste opted for cash and carry efficiency, rather than ancillary concerns like comfort or ergonomic design, in picking out a computer desk and chair. Later on, after the move into the new house, I had an opportunity to rethink the setup, but given the space limitations I was working with, I decided to keep what I had for the time being.

In those eight years, that cheapjack chair has supported the mass of bone and gristle that is my posterior though countless hours of gaming, writing, music listening, and internet browsing. In its off hours, it served ably as a bed for napping cats, a clothes rack, and nightstand. Truly, a career to be envied by its home furnishing peers, especially when one considers its humble origins.

You served well, Mr. Chairington. May a flight of ottomans escort you to the great outlet store in the sky.

Booker T & The MG's - You Can't Sit Down (from Green Onions, 1962) - Not comfortably, at least, although that can be ameliorated a little by some sweet instrumental soul.

Hagar the Womb - Armchair Observer (from Funnery in a Nunnery, 1984) - Showing a more playful side of anarchopunk.

The Merseybeats - I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (from I Think of You: The Complete Recordings, 2002) - Better than The King's version. Better than the Fab Four's version.

Memorial services will be held around 8:00 AM on Wednesday, by the front garden wall between the bin of recyclables and the bags of household trash.

Jose Chung has left the building

Not too long ago, Maura and I were discussing the sense of popcult awareness that is the blessing and curse of our generation, and where it originated from, hipster affectations of camp notwithstanding.

It’s hard to remember now, but there was a time before narrowcasting -- fueled by the rise of cable TV subscriptions and VCR’s in every home -- when one’s viewing options were limited to whatever PBS, the three networks, and the handful of local market UHF stations felt like playing. This was also before the Reagan era deregulatory policies allowing infomercials and toy cartoons came into play, and station programming execs would fill dead time slots with anything they thought would bring in advertising revenue, even if it was only a pittance.

Daytime and weekend television in the 1970’s was a colorful spectrum of the trends, personalities, and tried-and-true standards of the previous twenty-odd years of visual entertainment. Blocks of old cartoons (Warner Brothers, Popeye, Terrytoons) led into a mid-morning and early afternoon cocktail of syndicated game shows and dated sitcoms before switching back to kids’ fare in the after-school time slots. On the weekends, the Saturday morning blocks of network cartoon offerings (and the Sunday morning dumping ground of religious or cheaply produced education programming) bled into an assortment of Three Stooges shorts, Creature Double Feature cheapjack horror films, and afternoon matinee showings of anything from Five Million Years to Earth to Please Don’t Eat the Daisies.

Kids of our generation were exposed to a broader range of material than the current generation, with its easy access to dedicated children’s programming run 24/7, and as a result we gained a familiarity with, if not an appreciation for, performers and shows that existed outside the bubble of the immediate now. In the case of the Stooges and some of the old Warner’s cartoons, the jokes and references dated back to the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, which is astonishing to consider in light of the breakneck pace of modern popcult trends. How many kids of the present generation are exposed to bad puns about the Bay of Pigs Invasion on a regular basis?

The fact that many of the actors and actresses in question had moved onto cartoon voice acting or game show appearances at the same time we were watching their old material in syndication reinforced this sense of familiarity (this having been a time when “celebrity” panelists usually had some actual performance face time outside the world of reality television). Maura is quick to mention how the two most easily recognizable voices for people of our generation are those of Paul Lynde and Vincent Price, precisely for that very reason. Larry Storch, Jim Backus, Alice Ghostley, Ruth Buzzi, any of the celebrities who appeared on the Gong Show, the $10,000 Pyramid, and the original Hollywood Squares… A veritable pantheon of comedic and character actors whose presence was ingrained into the hearts and minds of a generation of impressionable children, partially because their corny appeal resonated so perfectly with seven year olds and partially because there was nothing else on during a given time slot.

Charles Nelson Reilly is dead. Long live Charles Nelson Reilly.

Gene Rayburn (Thanks, Nazz!) hands the Match Game hosting reins over to Reilly in a fit of exasperation.


The opening to Lidsville, featuring Eddie Munster and Reilly (in top flamboyant form).


The opening to the "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense" episode of Millennium. May I interest you in the mysteries of Selfosophy?

Dead Milkmen – Serrated Edge (from Big Lizard in My Backyard, 1985) – In the name of Jose Chung, Claymore Gregg, and Horatio J. Hoodoo.

Brak – I Like Hubcaps (from Brak Presents The Brak Album Starring Brak, 2000) – Brak knows the score.

tiny bubbles float toward the grand horizon

Another ubiquitous figure from my television-saturated childhood passed away on Saturday. Don Ho was more than a musician. He was the de facto cultural ambassador to the Hawaiian islands to generations of Americans in the continental US (a role later assumed with considerably less aplomb by Jack Lord’s hair and Tom Selleck’s mustache) whose window to the paradise islands was a cathode ray tube.

When my mother flew out to meet my father in Honolulu during a leave from his service in Vietnam, Don Ho was a passenger on the flight. It didn’t surprise me in the least when she told me. Whether you were a member of the Brady family, Fred Sanford, or an eighteen year old war bride, visiting Hawaii in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s meant a special guest appearance by Don Ho.

Aloha, Don.

Don Ho – Shock the Monkey (from When Pigs Fly, 2002) – When Pigs Fly is a very odd compilation of covers, and not in the way the label presumably intended. Legitimately strange song renditions, such as this track or Lesley Gore’s version of “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap,” share the disc with less idiosyncratic selections (Roy Clark’s “What a Wonderful World,” or The Oak Ridge Boys’ take on Kansas’ “Carry on Wayward Son”).

My wife likes this version better than the Peter Gabriel original, and I’m inclined to agree with her.

I should be jumpin' shoutin' that I made it all this way

Guess which reclusive music and pop culture blogger turned 35 today?

Funny, I don’t feel older. A few of my peers have a pathological fear of aging and fight tooth and nail with the process, leading to a series of increasingly ludicrous gestures calculated to fend off the encroachment of the long, gray twilight minute by precious minute. It seems kind of futile to me, this massive expenditure of energy in order to delay the inevitable. My mother spent her thirties engaged in such a struggle, and it killed her in the end. She was 37 when she passed away, two years older than I am now.

It’s a cliché, but true nonetheless: You are only as old as you feel. (High cheekbones do help, though.) Andrew at 35 isn’t much different than Andrew at 25, or even Andrew at 19. I’m a bit wiser…I think. My responsibilities have increased, but they are less a burden than a price willingly paid for achieving certain aspirations. I don’t begrudge the growing cluster of gray hairs in my buzzcut’s little forelock; I’m too busy enjoying what I have while I have it.

The Clash – Gates of the West (from a 1979 single, collected on Super Black Market Clash, 1994) – Equivocation in the face of success, something I’m well acquainted with. “But just like them we walk on and we can't escape our fate.” Perfect.

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Today also happens to be Mike “Mikester” Sterling’s birthday as well. Progressive Ruin has long been one of my favorite comics blogs, an always interesting glimpse into the world of funnybooks from the perspective of a fan and retailer blessed a great sense of humor and ample common sense. Poor Mike has been buffeted about lately by the comics internet peanut gallery over his assertions that basing orders on intangibles like Marvel’s capricious marketing methods and unforeseeable media factors is very a risky business. Seeing as Mike has some affection for Swamp Thing, and Chris Sims has seen fit to resurrect this old meme, I put together this little birthday .jpg for the poor guy:

The Chameleons UK – Swamp Thing (from Strange Times, 1986) – Is it just me, or does that guitar lick at the opening sound like it was cribbed from Jerry Reed’s “Amos Moses’? Next up, Hoyt Axton’s “Jealous Man” and its influence on Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.”

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I saw that comics legend Arnold Drake has passed away at age 83. He was most famous for his work on the original Doom Patrol, the ending of which became the source code for subsequent superheroic Götterdämmerungs. It’s a shame that the gravitas of tragic heroism Drake bought to the team’s demise seems to have eluded the current generation of imitators, who focus more on shock value than substance. (Grant Morrison being the exception, as Seven Soldiers #0 has shown.)

Drake was also the writer behind one of my all-time favorite series, Stanley and His Monster, a deceptively sophisticated “kiddie” humor strip published by DC in the mid-to-late 60’s, begun as a back-up feature in The Fox & The Crow before taking over the title with issue #109. The series is in dire need of the Showcase black and white “phonebook” reprint treatment.

Here’s Drake’s “ought-to biography” from the letters page of Stanley and His Monster #109, in which reveals he was a man after my own heart, and here’s one of my favorite comics panels of all time, showing that good food and friendship can overcome the differences between a boy, a giant purple monster, and Napoleon’s ghost (not a giant spectral penis, as a certain woman I live with seems to think he resembles) :

Life should be like that panel, don’t you think?

Queen – You’re My Best Friend (from A Night at the Opera, 1975)

never worry ‘bout the things we were missing

Brad Delp, the lead singer of the band Boston has passed away at age 55.

It may seem at odds with the musical tastes I’ve exhibited here previously, but I have an insane fondness for Boston’s 1976 debut. It’s one of those rare albums that I can listen to from beginning to end without ever feeling the urge to skip a track, alongside The Clash’s London Calling, UK Decay’s For Madmen Only, and The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds.

My love for the band came, like my interest in Captain America, from my younger brother who developed a taste for seventies rock while he was attending college out at UMass-Amherst. He’d make occasional trips back to Woburn on weekends and breaks, and we’d spend the time playing Perfect Dark and discussing (and arguing) comics trivia. We also made a lot of trips to area comics stores in search of back issues, and it was on one of those trips that my enduring love for Boston was sealed.

It was a weekday afternoon in the spring of 2000, and my brother decided out of the blue that we should pay a visit to a store we frequented in Waltham (two towns over, but still a hike). After calling and checking that the place would be still open when we got there, we hopped into his car and made our way down Route 128. He had Boston’s debut album in the car’s CD player, and made a remark that he had recently gotten into the band. It was nostalgia candy to my ears, but I’d be hard pressed to pick out a better soundtrack for a late afternoon drive with the windows rolled down and zero personal obligations for the immediate future.

We cleared the rise overlooking the cluster of hills around the Route 20 exit just as “More Than a Feeling” kicked into full rocking mode. The staid outcrops of New England granite in the distance stood silhouetted against the bruised violet and apricot tapestry of the sunset, and it felt so perfect, that synergy of classic rock, brotherhood, and the glories of a warm spring afternoon.

So thanks, Brad, for the part you played in making it happen.

Boston – Rock and Roll Band (from Boston, 1976)

when it was over, where did you go

Poor Captain America, if only he was more familiar with MySpace, all this could have been avoided.

Unless you’ve been locked in a Faraday cage stuffed under a large boulder, you’ve probably heard the news that Captain America has been killed off in a grand PR gesture by Marvel. Mike Sterling has an excellent tongue-in-cheek summation of the meta/media circus over at Progressive Ruin. My favorite part:

Remember the 'Death of Superman' all those years ago? And all the hype around it? To this day, I encounter people who see the Superman comics on the rack and ask me, 'Superman comics are still around? I thought he was dead.' I just don't see the advantage to convincing a public that's barely aware of comics in the first place that your most recognizable, marketable characters are no longer being published, all for the sake of a storyline that'll be resolved in, at most, a few months!

I understand Marvel’s pragmatism in how they announced Cap’s death to the media (on the day the issue shipped, before most comic readers had even picked up the title), but it’s pretty telling about where superhero comics actually stand in relation to other, more popular and ubiquitous forms of media. You don’t see ABC promoting upcoming episodes of Lost or studio PR flacks hyping M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film by giving away plot twists in the headers of their press releases. It may have been a wise move on Marvel’s part, but it screams, “Yes, we still publish those things” to a public unaware (or apathetic) about superhero comics. It’s only a spoiler when someone cares.

Even though I’m well aware that this is “Comicstown, Jake,” Cap’s death – as impermanent as it will likely turn out to be – has still left me feeling a little wistful, because his title was technically the first comics series I ever followed. I say “technically” because it was a matter of fandom by proxy. My little brother was a fan of the character from a very young age, and while my nine year old self was pulling random bits of Bronze Age DC and Marvel silliness from the three-for-a-buck bins at a local flea market, my tow-headed five year old sibling sought out old issues of Captain America with a laser-like intensity.

Later, back in the room we shared, when I finished reading my short stack of Metal Men, Brave and the Bold, and From Beyond The Unknown, I’d turn my attention to my brother’s new finds, and read those as well. As I got older and more independently mobile, I’d pick up the current issue of Cap for him when it hit the racks at the local direct market shop (three miles away, on the other side of the Aberjona River valley, whose topography resembles an inverse parabola and made for one hell of a bike ride). I’d also, when finances permitted, also seek out some of the back issues that tied into whatever story was currently running in the title.

So even though I wasn’t a big fan of Captain America, I ended up having a better grasp on the character and his history than I did on many titles I was actually enthusiastic about.

My brother’s collection eventually ballooned over the years, and included complete collections of Cap’s own title and its precursor run in Tales of Suspense, nearly every crossover and guest appearance of the character in other series, and a huge collection of Captain America merchandise from lead painted drinking glasses to toy cars to (his personal favorite) a disturbing-looking Kewpie Doll wearing Cap’s costume. He even made the effort to track down the actor who played Captain America in the 70’s made-for-TV movies to get him to sign a publicity still taken from the first film.

It was the Marvel Knights relaunch of the series, a sprawling mess of nonsensical plots spun by a rapidly cycling series of creative teams, which finally led my brother to quit keeping up with Captain America, and new comics in general. (That says a lot considering he stuck with the title even through previous story arcs involving Cap becoming a werewolf or doing the chicken dance while under the influence of crystal meth.) He sold or auctioned off most of the Cap collectibles, along with large chunks of his post-Silver Age inventory of comics, and began concentrating on acquiring complete runs of Marvel’s 1961-1973 comics output. His reasoning was that if he was going to buy crappy comics, he might as well buy ones that are interesting and of some value rather that waste his money on a five minute read that would end up in a trade paperback or quarter bin in a few months’ time.

Ah, to be a sane Marvel fan during this particular era. It’s like being Roy Batty at the end of Blade Runner, sticking rusty nails through one’s hand in hopes of feeling something, anything. My advice is not to fight it; the apathy is a defense mechanism.

Vixen – Fallen Hero (from Rev It Up, 1990) – I suppose I should be ashamed, but I’m actually thrilled about posting this track.

The Business – Blind Justice (from Suburban Rebels, 1981) – I used to get shit from some folks over my largish collection of Oi records. In the late 80’s and early 90’s, Oi compilations were the easiest way to get one’s hands on a lot of out of print UK82 punk material (mislabeled and used as filler on many of the comps).

Ashley MacIsaac – Captain America (from Ashley MacIsaac, 2003) – Dorian pointed this track out to me. “Sarcastic gay Canadian fiddler” (Wikipedia adds "controversial" to the mix): one of the most effective descriptions of a musician I’ve ever read, a string of words guaranteed to grab my attention and demand a listen. It’s a dig at American arrogance, so it would probably be more appropriate in reference to Ultimate Captain America.

“Surrender? You think this A on my forehead stands for France?”

“No, but given the sorry state of America’s public education system, I can understand why you might be confused about it.”

another dumb casualty

I’ve long been fascinated with the concept of celebrity as it ties into the American Dream. The life and death of Elvis Presley serves as an ur-text in this regard – a poor kid makes it big, only to be destroyed by the currents stirred up by his own success. Fame and fortune come at a cost.

The idea that the unknown and the poor are intrinsically happier than the rich and famous may be a romantic fallacy, but money’s ability to buy happiness is limited. Some voids cannot be filled via the massive expenditure of cash, no matter what the legions of consultants, personal assistants, advisors, and other types of hangers-on may whisper in one’s ear.

A couple posts back I referred to Sid Vicious’s life as being “the Elvis Presley story as written by Charles Bukowski.” I suppose that would make Anna Nicole Smith’s life the Grace Kelly story as directed by John Waters, a tragic farce of a Cinderella story with equal measures of pathos and absurdity.

I really pity that poor baby she left behind. That kid is going to be part of the largest dynastic struggle since the Lancasters and Yorks threw down in the 15th Century.

INXS – Suicide Blonde (from X, 1990) - This track was supposedly inspired by singer Michael Hutchence’s ex-girlfriend, the talented and lovely Kylie Minogue.

Julie Brown – ‘Cause I’m a Blonde (from the Goddess In Progress EP, 1984) – Two LPs I regret not picking up in the early 90’s salad years of cheap vinyl are the Earth Girls Are Easy OST (which featured this track) and the Bachelor Party OST. I don’t care much for either film, but both featured a lot of interesting and otherwise unavailable songs.

Kim Wilde – Love Blonde (from a 1983 single, collected on The Singles Collection 1981-1993) – From “Kids in America” and “Chequered Love” to this soulless wannabe torch song? So depressing. So, so, depressing.

The song did get me wondering about the existence of “hate blondes.” I’ve narrowed the candidates down to this fellow and this gal.

jump blues and flamboyant fingering

Since my last two posts have been tributes to dead musicians, I figured I might as well close out the weekend with more of the same, dealing with two legendary figures who both happened to depart this mortal coil on February 4.

In one corner we have Louis Jordan, the master of jump blues and one of the godfathers of rock and roll. While I’ve seen it argued in various history books and documentaries that Jordan was the first rock and roller, I think that’s reaching a bit, and another example of the tendency to praise by overstating. (Histories of punk rock are rife with this sort of thing. “Mozart was the first punk rocker” or some similar hyperbolic statement.)

This is by no means a dig at Jordan or his musical legacy. His revved up mix of jazz and blues was a direct and highly influential predecessor of rock and roll, but where rock and roll was largely dominated by a strong lead guitar, jump blues mostly relegated the guitarist to the rhythm section and let the horns do the heavy lifting. The issue is further complicated by the fact that Jordan recorded rock and roll versions of a number of his old hits in the mid-50’s, adding the genre’s customary wild guitar licks to the mix. Here’s the rock and roll-savvy version of Jordan’s classic, Caldonia:

Louis Jordan – Caldonia (from Rock ‘N’ Roll, 1956)

In the other corner we have…Liberace. Sure, mock away, but the man was a masterful entertainer who knew how to give his audience exactly what they wanted – classical pieces presented in a pop style and pop pieces gussied up with classical flourishes, accompanied by Liberace’s charismatic (if somewhat smarmy) persona and over-the-top sense of style.

It’s not so much Liberace’s music that fascinates me as much as the bizarre popcult paradox that surrounded his celebrity. Entertainers like Liberace and Paul Lynde achieved great success through playing up traits – campiness, flamboyance, and/or acidic snarkiness - that their generally staid, conservative audiences would otherwise associate with homosexuality. The acceptance was predicated on an unspoken “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that differs from the “Stepin Fetchit” tradition. While “Stepin Fetchit” antics are rooted in playing toward the audience’s assumptions and prejudices about the performer’s race, performers like Lynde and Liberace were able to exhibit traits popularly associated with gayness (which is a broad generalization, to be sure, but I’m talking audience perceptions, not the infinitely more nuanced reality) as long as it reamined unstated.

A more recent example of what happens when that line gets crossed can be found in the change in attitude toward Ellen DeGeneres and her sitcom, Ellen, when she made the decision to have her character on the show come out of the closet. There was a sudden hue and cry made about how she had politicized the show and was “rubbing her lifestyle in people’s faces,” even though her character on the sitcom retained the same comedic traits she possessed before coming out of the closet. The only difference being that her romantic interests changed from men to women. (The “rubbing it in our faces” argument regarding alternative lifestyles is an obnoxiously sly method of roundabout intolerance and in practice translates to “how dare they have the temerity to be unashamed about themselves.” No one – well, maybe some fundies – ever makes the same complaint whenever a straight actor/writer/comedian/miscellaneous creative type discusses or interacts with a member of the opposite sex.)

Shit, I went all heavy again, didn’t I? Here’s something guaranteed to lighten the mood…

Liberace – Beer Barrel Polka (from 16 Biggest Hits, 2000)