Vacation 2008: Epilogue - Just a matter of time

RIDE TOGETHER, DIE TOGETHER.
...and just like that, it's all over.

It's not like I didn't accomplish anything during this past week or so. I built a compost bin. I finally managed to get the patio table out of the basement and onto the patio. I bought a ton of retro-junk that will almost certainly figure into upcoming posts. I got to enjoy New England's first monsoon season (not that Al Gore is right about global warming or anything) from the comfort and safety of my home in the Woburn Highlands.

As bad as playing catch-up as work will be, it's nothing I haven't handled a dozen times before, yet I still can't shake the feeling that my stay of execution is about to elapse. Does the condemned have any last requests? Yes, dispense with the last meal and bring me some fine, fine L.A. power pop to comfort me in my indolence's dying hours...

The Plimsouls - Zero Hour (from The Plimsouls, 1981)

Vacation 2008: Day 4 - The orders are in

(from Howard Chaykin's American Flagg! v1 #2, collected in this handy forthcoming omnibus)
The life of a retrologist may be spiritually rewarding, but it doesn't really pay well...or pay at all, actually. To meet my many and varied financial obligations, as well as to support my useless crap habit, I also work as a flagman for data streams at a public university.

It's a perfect job in many ways. It's unionized, pays well, and is generally low stress -- barring the occasional meltdown on the IT end of things. The only catch is that while the flow of work may slacken at off peak times, it never stops and will start to clog things up for the rest of the office without my semi-expert guidance.

This is why I'm getting ready to make the hectic commute into Dorchester to pull a half-shift during the middle of my vacation. I'm hoping by going in late and leaving early I can avoid the usual traffic hassles on I-93....which is a lot like hoping that I'll find a strongbox full of Confederate gold buried underneath the azalea bushes next to my patio.

Black Flag - Clocked In (from The First Four Years, 1984) - It's always time for classic L.A. hardcore.

Wall of Voodoo - Back in Flesh (from Dark Continent, 1981) - The anthem for Generation Avoidance, to be sullenly muttered under one's breath during the long walk from parking lot to cubicle.

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)

Vacation 2008: Day 1 - Ain't gonna gamble

Witch Baby stops the world and melts with you.
The weather has entered devil's armpit territory, so I've decided to postpone my usual roster of Saturday chores and sequester myself in the air-conditioned bedroom along with a choice selection of books, music, and DVDs.

Yes, it's a tragic situation, but I'll just have to learn to live with this meteorologically enforced leisure time.

Sly & The Family Stone - Hot Fun in the Summertime (from Greatest Hits, 1970) - Eternally cool.

Giorgio Moroder - Too Hot to Handle (from From Here to Eternity, 1977) - What the Human League dared to emulate and the basis of Daft Punk's famous discovery.

The Minds - Hot (from Plastic Girls, 2003) - In which we discover the boiling point of raucous, hooky synthpunk.

Vacation 2008: Prologue - No real reason

My vacation has officially begun, so why am I not feeling the joy?

There has been a rushed and unreal quality about the summer of 2008 so far, and isn't due to any concrete concerns or preoccupations -- just a vague but unshakeable sensation of ennui.

The Circles - Summer Nights (from a 1979 single) - The Mod Ideal.

Sex Pistols - Holidays in the Sun (from Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, 1977) - The Punk Reality.

Vacation II: Day 9 - Burn, Baby, Burn

On this, the last day of my second (and entirely unproductive) week of vacation, I'd like to introduce you to....

...Sabrina Sultress, the Satin Satan! One the Des Moines Sultresses, and sole heir to the Sam Sultress Precision Auto Body fortune. (Free estimates! Open seven days a week! On the Beltline!) While her unfortunate name might have led a weaker-willed soul to resign themself to a career in the porn industry, Sabrina bucked her peers' expectations and earned a double major in Succubi Studies and Art History at SUNY-Geneseo. She moved to Manhattan after graduation in hopes of starting up her own business merging diabolism with disco, which set the stage for this two-part epic, "The Siren Song of the Satin Satan," from Justice League of America #179-180 (June-July, 1980).

This is where I'd normally provide a tongue-in-cheek plot summary, but that would happen to require that the story had an actual plot to summarize, rather than a collection of panels and captions randomly thrown together. Even by 70's JLA standards, the story is relentlessly incomprehensible. The two issues are a stark reminder of the hazards of being dedicated enough to a lower-tier character to pick up every single appearance of the same. (In this case, Firestorm, who joins the JLA in this arc.)

Let's see what I was able to decipher. Firestorm co-creator and JLA writer Gerry Conway Superman demands that Firestorm be given a place on the League's roster. Everyone is fine with this, except the perpetual ass-pain Green Arrow, whose argument against Firestorm's induction goes like this: He reminds me of myself. He's a self-centered jerk. I don't like him. Oh, to be able to so deftly combine introspection and cluelessness into a package of transferred self-loathing. It's a skill few ever manage to master.

Firestorm goes back to his NYC area of operation to hang with his high school classmates, a motley assortment of 'fro-sporting, Farrah-haired, and be-sideburned teens that truly capture that 1970's je ne se quois that all right-thinking survivors of that era have done their best to put behind them.

The brother of one of the crew has gone missing after having been seen leaving a disco with Ms. Sultress, and this being a 70's superhero comic and not reality, a weekend-long coke bender in a seedy SoHo apartment or an emergency trip to a VD clinic are ruled out in favor of his being led astray by demonic hijinx.

Firestorm pays a visit to Sabrina's apartment to get some answers, but ends up falling prey to her seductive powers in a delightfully primitive bit of fan service:

...and on that day, I became a Nuclear MAN!
He is able to reach his JLA signal device before his body completely stiffens (HAW HAW!) from the power of Sabrina's demonic liplock, and his teammates rush to the scene, only to find the apartment empty. The Leaguers split up to search the place for any clue to their whereabouts. Superman gives the place the once-over with his x-ray vision, Batman uses the micronized detective tools in his utility belt, the sorceress Zatanna sniffs around for residual traces of magic....and Black Canary does a thorough search of Sabrina's underwear drawer. (Ah, the difficulty of giving each member of a team so lopsided in individual power levels something to do.)

They manage to track the Satin Satan to her lair, the hands-down winner of 1979's Most Ludicrously Obvious Secret Headquarters award:
(INSERT LINDA BLAIR ROLLER BOOGIE/EXORCIST JOKE HERE)
Through her deus ex machina lazy plot-resolving powers that pretty much carried the JLA during this era, Zatanna (with an assist from Firestorm, who had been bound in "chains of moonlight") puts a stop to Sultress's plans to turn every lounge lizard in the Five Boroughs into metal-skinned automatons. (Points to the Satin Satan for setting up shop where the raw material was plentiful.) The unclean spirit in possession of Sultress's body is cast out, she thanks the League for setting her free, and all is well with the world again...

...OR IS IT? (It's sad how what William Paul termed the "comic beat of unending terror," the foreboding Parthian zinger, has become an even bigger cliche than the pat ending it was originally designed to usurp. We've grown so accustomed to it as an audience that when the guy who was graphically strangled with a chain doesn't show up after the climax, we feel confused.)

Angels, you're going undercover as characters in a lousy DC comic book.
Actually, I think that was the premise for one of the Shelley Hack episodes...

The Trammps - Disco Inferno (from Disco Inferno, 1976) - I used to use this song as an internal metronome to maintain a rhythm and flow for opening and date-stamping mail at my job. I didn't even realize I was doing it until I heard my boss and coworkers whispering behind my back.

Marsheaux - Dream of a Disco (from Peekaboo, 2006) - Both this and Marsheaux's debut album, eBay Queen, have been in heavy rotation at Armagideon Time HQ since Kevin Church brought the Greek electropop duo to my attention. The Amazon price for the albums is steep, but you can get both via eMusic for a song (no pun intended). New wave synth enthusiasts will notice the similarities between this track and A Flock of Seagulls "Space Age Love Song." That's a good thing in my book.

Vacation II: Day 8 – That’s just the start

The usual drill for Saturdays, vacation or not, is that Maura goes shopping with her mother, and I stay home an complete my list of weekly chores in quiet solitude. On this Saturday, however, the alternator on Maura’s mom’s car shit the bed, and I found myself accompanying my wife to Market Basket and the Burlington Mall.

I used to visit the Mall quite a bit, as it housed the only Electronics Boutique, hobby store, and Suncoast Video in the immediate vicinity. In recent years, my trips to that one-stop temple of retail commerce dropped off to almost never, due to the shrinking level of disposable income that came with home ownership, the stores I frequented going belly up, and the ease of simply ordering what I want off the internet. My long abstention from mall-going gave today’s visit an aura of hyper-reality that I found hard to shake off.

It’s strange to see place which serves a traditionally middle class suburban demographic attempt to posit itself as “upscale.” That goes a long way toward explaining the Mall’s high turnover of rental occupants. A good third of the shops or restaurants that had been there on my previous visit were gone, either replaced by something new or obliterated by seamlessly constructed barriers sporting an Orwellian “COMING SOON: MORE CHOICES” in pastel green paint along their entire length. I suppose it’s an inevitable consequence of the fallacious “If you build it, they will come” marketing dictum, because I don’t see the chubby, balding dads wearing System of a Down t-shirts, the various soccer moms conducting fierce holding actions against the onset of middle age, or the mallrats resembling animate Bratz dolls, which together represent the majority of the mall’s clientele, rushing out to the grand opening of a store dedicated entirely to selling overpriced crystal geegaws.

...and so another dream dies in the painful throes of a defaulted small business loan, clearing space for the next contestant in the unending game of Capitalist Darwinism.

The unrealistic pretensions of class can partially be blamed on the petty tyrannies of local planning boards, who are more inclined to roll over for projects pitched as “high end.” The same folks who finger the rejection stamp during the entire duration of a proposal for a new Dunkin Donuts will fall all over themselves in offering concessions and easements for a granted-to-fail-within-a-year boutique.

Yesterday night, on the way back from dropping Maura off with a friend, I swung by a recently constructed “lifestyle shopping center” built where the Burlington Raytheon campus used to be. What, you may ask, is a “lifestyle shopping center?” It certainly isn’t a strip mall with delusions of grandeur, anchored by establishments that play off an upscale reputation while almost never frequented by the truly rich. Strip malls are crass and cater towards the proles; “lifestyle shopping centers” feature stores like Coldwater Creek and Thai restaurants.

I visited the place because there’s a Borders there, and while I’m not keen on big chain bookstores (or paying full price when I can get something cheaper on Amazon), there was a new Horus Heresy book released a couple weeks back. Amazon doesn’t discount Black Library (which publishes the series) titles, so I decided it would be just as easy to do cash and carry for the title, and should I happen to see anything else that caught my eye…

Borders is Borders, and there’s no sense at yelling at the rain for being wet, but what really threw me off about the shopping center was its design. The place is laid out like a Mediterranean villa crossed with Fort Courage, which is a bit of a mindfuck for a provincially-skewed New Englander like myself.

Malls (along with television) have long been the hammer and anvil by which American culture gets panel-beaten into a uniform flatness (which is then sprayed with a glossy Californian sheen). The only thing I came away with from my college linguistics class was that it was determined that the ubiquity of generic teenspeak was carried from the Left Coast across the country by the vector of overlapping shopping hubs. The process has usually been syncretic and gradual, though. The pastel-and-white faux Florentine arcade of the Burlington Mall is downright subtle compared to the springing up of a red-tile and stucco-bedecked monstrosity in the land of Minutemen and colonial farmhouses.

The entire time I was there I felt like a tourist in my own homeland, completely cut loose from any sense of locational context. Indeed, if I was grabbed off the street on a balmy summer evening, blindfolded, and dumped off in the parking lot, I wouldn’t be able to tell if I was in Riverside, California; Gary, Indiana; or a mile and a half from my house. It’s nothing that hasn’t been remarked upon before, but the sensation was so unsettling I felt compelled to mention it. It was as if I had stepped into the world of Richard Matheson’s “The Creeping Terror” (cited in Mike Davis’s excellent Ecology of Fear), where fungal spores turn the entire continental United States into one big Los Angeles.

In the story, Bostonians chose mass suicide over assimilation. After these past forty-eight hours, I can totally dig their reasoning.

The Freeze – This Is Boston, Not LA (from This Is Boston, Not LA, 1982) - I'm always amazed and delighted when I see this compilation get props from punk fans around the globe, even if most of the tracks are fast-rather-than-good hardcore. This brief mission statement of a title track was used (minus the final f-bomb) in TV commericals for the Newbury Comics chain of stores during the early 1980's.

Sparks – Shopping Mall of Love (from Music You Can Dance To, 1986) - Rollercoaster was on cable the other night, and that otherwise lame excuse for POV shots featured a performance by the Mael brothers. It was nice diversion from the monotony, and perhaps the filmmakers would have been better served by inverting the proportion of scenes featuring roller coasters to scenes featuring the band performing.

Friday Night Fights: Vacation Life Lessons Edition

This Very Special Episode of Friday Night Fights comes from the pages of Flash Comics #90 (December 1947) by way of a reprint in 100 Page Super-Spectacular DC-18 (July 1973), and it features the original Atom, a man whose sole superpower was an extreme case of Short Man's Syndrome. For realsies, honest.

Here the Pint-Sized Pugilist works through his body image issues by tossing a piano on top of a fleeing gunman.

I find that it's even more enjoyable to imagine the crook is actually Billy Joel. "Sing us a song, piano man...now that your spine has been pulverized and your innards smooshed into jelly." (Okay, so the Atom is not the only person here with issues. Deal with it.)

Alas the thrill of victory is short-lived, for the greater one's accomplishment, the more likely one will be coldcocked by a little old lady wielding a novelty erotic sculpture, either figuratively or literally. (In my case, it has almost always been the latter.)

You say you're even thinking about dying? Well, before you do anything rash, dig this...

The Main Ingredient - Everybody Plays the Fool (from The Best of the Main Ingredient, 2005) - I can think of no better pallative for a bruised ego and/or skull than some sweet, sweet soul music.

(Bahlactus towers over all.)

Vacation II: Day 5 - The figures don't lie

+

+

+

x 5 straight days =

I'd like to say I've learned my lesson this time, but that conclusion is not supported by the empirical evidence. For a more in-depth exploration of the subject, I refer you to my forthcoming paper, "A Differential Analysis of Junk Food's Ability to Suppress Andrew's Better Judgement," which shall be presented at the 74th Conference of Really Depressing Science this fall.

Today's dinner specials include a classic bit of British Invasion fare, served with a side of Scandanavian neo-garage cuisine. Bon appetit!

The Troggs - I Can't Control Myself (from The Singles: A's and B's, 2005)

The Hives - Here We Go Again (from Your New Favourite Band, 2002)

Vacation II: Day 4 – Bees on Pie

Since my quest for a clean-sounding mp3 of the Zit Remedy song ended up with my being in possession of an excellent freeware audio extraction program, I’ve been sifting through my video archives for any other unreleased or otherwise unavailable music worth ripping.

High up on the list was this song from the Pod People episode of MST3K…

Joel & The Bots – Idiot Control Now

…a send up of the vapid pop song and baffling recording studio sequence featured in the movie. The film is an incredibly weird and inept European attempt to cash in on both E.T. and Alien, featuring Trumpy, a lost space traveler who resembles the bastard child of Max Rebo and Alf, and who can do “magic things” through the power of stop-motion photography. The song wasn’t included on either of the MST3K music collections, presumably because of licensing issues. (The magnificent musical medley inspired by the Fugitive Alien films’ score was omitted for similar reasons, I suspect. Such a shame, too.)

You can watch the original version here (beginning at the 1:30 mark) and Joel and the ‘Bots superior rendition here. The full episode is also available as part of the second volume of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection box sets. Highly recommended.

I’ve previously mentioned the concept of mental mashups, how the brain takes it upon itself to blend two similarly-sounding songs into a single infuriating earworm. The examples I used before were The Cure’s “Close to Me”/George Michael’s “Faith” and The Avengers’ “We Are the One”/Heaven 17’s (We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang.” “Idiot Control Now” comprises one half of another mix and match do-si-do, with this obscure, interestingly-titled bit of power pop as its dancing partner:

The Automatics – When the Tanks Roll (over Poland Again) (from a 1978 single; collected on Shake Some Action, Vol. 5, 2003)

Vacation II – Day 2 – Dream of the perfect life

“The problem of leisure,” sang Gang of Four in 1979, is “what to do for pleasure.” Putting aside postpunk dissections of alienated labor and how the theory applies to everyday life, I find myself currently in a similar predicament. I’ve never been one for formally structured vacations, where the end result means coming away even more exhausted and deeper in debt than one was going into the adventure. Better to stay at home, relax, and indulge in some low stress, low cost pursuits, or perhaps, motivation willing, get some oft delayed project around the home taken care of.

While they are presently plenty of things that need doing, however, I’m having a difficult time coming up with things which I’d like or want to do during this break from work. My fear is that based on today’s experience, where I spent the bulk of my free time filling monster hunt quotas in Rogue Galaxy, that this vacation might devolve into an extended long weekend, with all the soul deadening emptiness such a thing entails.

Gang of Four – Natural’s Not in It (from Entertainment!, 1979)

Vacation II: Day 1 – Lazy Saturday Afternoon

My second scheduled vacation for 2007 has begun with the roar of a cantankerous lawn mower and the rumbling of thunderstorms headed this way. As the morning’s yardwork has left me feeling completely thrashed and the potential for nasty motherboard-frying surges is limiting the time spent on the computer today, I figured I’d use this opportunity to give my answers to the “Name five to ten songs that have impacted your life” meme AC tagged me with.

This was harder to compile than expected, as “significant” is a much different creature than “favorite.” Most of my favorite songs have had little impact on my life outside the enjoyment they have brought to me, whereas the songs that I can recall making an impact aren’t what one would necessarily expect, given the impression of my tastes inferred from my various posts.

First up in this roughly chronological list is a tie:

Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Come on Eileen (from Too-Rye-Ay, 1982)

…and…

Styx – Mr. Roboto (from Kilroy Was Here, 1983)

The awakening of my individual tastes in pop music came occurred somewhere between my tenth and eleventh birthdays. It’s not that I was unaware of pop music or didn’t have favorite artists prior to that, but my preferences were shaped by received wisdom, handed down by or picked up from my parents, my teenage aunt, or the older kids in the neighborhood.

Then, in 1982-1983, I made the evolutionary leap to an independent consumer of pop, aided by the plethora of local music video programs put together to cash in on MTV’s success as well as the debut of WHTT, “Boston Hit Radio,” which played the “hottest Top 40 songs” every hour on the hour. The goofy concept rock of “Mr. Roboto” and the faux Celtic soul of “Come on Eileen” struck a chord with young Andrew, and I would camp out next to the boombox waiting for both songs to crop up on ‘HTT’s extremely tight rotation cycle.

(Thank Providence I came of age when I did, while new wave pop was still in full swing. If I was born a few years later, I might have been scarred for life.)

Jumping ahead a couple of years:

Sam & Dave – Soothe Me (from The Best of Sam & Dave, 1969) – The better part of my junior high and high school years were spent as a soul boy, with a look and musical tastes akin to an independently invented version of mod revivalism. It was this track, discovered through The Blues Brothers (where it plays on the Bluesmobile’s 8-track during the fateful traffic stop), that ignited my burning passion for sweet Memphis soul and opened my eyes to a musical world outside the classic rock and heavy metal ghetto of my immediate circle of friends.

Circle Jerks – When the Shit Hits the Fan (from Golden Shower of Hits, 1983) – The first punk album I purchased was the Repo Man soundtrack, and so impressed was I by the Circle Jerks’ tracks on that LP, the second punk album I purchased was Golden Shower of Hits. My affection for California-brand hardcore (and hardcore in general) has waned over the years, but upon listening to this track again I found myself flashing back to junior year, staring into the bathroom mirror, preparing to make a personal paradigm shift by spiking my hair up with glob of petroleum jelly.

Crass – Sheep Farming in the Falklands (from a 1983 single, collected on Best Before...1984, 1986) – I came to the anarchopunk party late in my punk career. (Indeed, the music and message played a big part in my ditching the rigid fashion-punk template and making the Great Leap Forward.) More than anything else the band ever recorded, this blistering howl of righteous indignation and anger (for a war that had been over for nearly a decade at the time I first listened to the song) struck a chord with me, and echoes of the profanity-laced rant that closes out the piece can be observed in many of my political posts at Armagideon Time.

…and finally:

Rubber City Rebels – Brainwave (from a 1979 single) – In the spring of 2006, I was reading the copy of Simon Reynolds’s Rip It Up and Start Again that Maura had given me for my birthday. I got to the bit about Cleveland/Akron scenes of the late 1970’s, which provided a list of some of the lesser known participants. Most of the acts were known to me, if only through individual tracks on obscure punk and new wave compilations, but one act, the Rubber City Rebels, I’d never heard of before.

My curiosity led to a Google search, which in turn led me to this post at Something I Learned Today featuring a representative selection of the band’s material. Prior to my stumbling across the site, I was almost completely ignorant of the concept of mp3 blogs apart from Fluxblog and a couple others dedicated to more recent material (which really didn’t interest me that much). I spent the better part of a weekend exploring all Something I Learned Today had to offer, then embarking on a whirlwind linkjumping tour of similar sites.

At the time, I had been mulling over the idea of starting a blog, but my initial choice of focus -- comic books -- was already overserved with clever folks doing what I was thinking of doing, and better than I ever could. The discovery of the mp3 blog scene was a major revelation to me, and I discovered what my true calling was. Thus was Armagideon Time born.

I'm not big on tagging folks, so anyone who wants to take up the meme-baton and run with should feel free to do so.

Vacation: Day 9 – It’s over, it’s over

On this, the last day of my vacation, I’d like to take a moment and reflect on the lessons learned over the past week or so.

1. Toilets may be cleaned, but the stain on one’s soul lingers.

2. Target brand junk food can make me just as ill as the name brand variety, and at half the price.

3. There is a little bit of Xanadu in all of us.

4. Cosmic Cubes do not ask for a gratuity, nor do they rub smelly fixatives into one’s scalp.

5. It’s important to place a “fee payments shall not be made in rodent and/or bird carcasses” clause into a cat condo association charter.

6a. When dating a guy like Buddy, it’s important to have the burn trauma unit on speed dial.

6b. There’s a reason so many superheroes are millionaires or friends of millionaires.

7. I could always nap at work.

8. Are we having fun yet? No? I guess it’s time to break out the thumbscrews and vial of hydrochloric acid then.

The Insane – Last Day (from Punk and Disorderly, 1982) - UK82 punk and nuclear dread -- like Rogers and Astaire.

The Byrds - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (from the 1996 reissue of 1965's Turn! Turn! Turn! LP) - Some may find this heretical, but I enjoy The Byrds' covers of Bob Dylan's songs more than I enjoy the originals.

Vacation: Day 7 - Too tired to rock

The whole point of this stay-at-home vacation was to relax and recharge, so why do I feel more tired today than I did a week ago?

M'n'M's - I'm Tired (from a 1980 single) - I could have sworn I've posted this track already, yet a quick search of the archives turned up no evidence that I had. It's a rather nice, if slight, bit of new wave girl pop that all the cool kids seem to be into.

Eddie Cochran - Twenty Flight Rock (from Somethin' Else: The Fine Lookin' Hits of Eddie Cochran, 1998) - As featured in the 1956 sex comedy, The Girl Can't Help It. Jayne Mansfield and a roster of early rock and rollers? That's cinematic perfection in my book.

(Although the film snob in me would argue that Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? is the apex of Frank Tashlin's work in the genre, it's hard to top a movie that, while a retread of Born Yesterday, captures Little Richard, Fats Domino, Gene Vincent, and Eddie Cochran in top form and in glorious Cinemascope.)

Vacation: Day 5 - Fish don't fry in the kitchen

Well, we're movin' on up...

To the east side...

To a dee-luxe apartment in the sky...
The kids are loving their new digs. (Skillfully assembled by yours truly, I might add.) Their moms might have been homeless beggar cats, but now the whole extended family is living the domesticated high life.

Only in America, I tell you...

Squeeze - Cool for Cats (from Singles - 45's and Under, 1982) - Sadly, Catside Estates does not offer central air in its condominiums. The motion was taken up at the last tenants' association meeting, but the members got distracted by a stray moth flying by and nothing was ever resolved.

Ja'net Du Bois - Movin' on Up (Theme from The Jeffersons) (from Television's Greatest Hits, Vol. 3: 70's & 80's, 1990) - Sing it, Willona!

Vacation: Day 4 - With Great Power...

My brother swung by the house on Sunday and dropped off a couple of boxes full of things he thought I might want: My copy of Bully for the PS2 and the Comics Journal Library: The Writers book I lent him, a Deathlok sticker card from 1976, two bags of Science Diet cat food (his cat has diabetes and is on a special diet now), and a bona fide Cosmic Cube he managed to acquire through his work.

While I was well and truly flattered that my younger sibling chose to entrust me with a device capable of reshaping reality at whim, I found myself at a loss regarding what what I exactly wanted to use it for. I pride myself on being something of an underachiever with few ambitions to complicate my easygoing way of life. Plus, I have read enough low-grade sci fi stories, seen enough episodes of The Twilight Zone, and am familiar enough with radical political movements to be wary about the Faustian pitfalls of limitless power.

The last thing I wanted to do was to wish for "world peace" and have a previously undetected asteroid trigger an extinction event, which is usually how this type of thing goes down.

So, with the Cube resting securely on my computer desk, I gazed upon its psychedelic swirl of Kirby crackles and composed a list of things I could possibly wish for. Here's what I came up with:

- a complete run of Captain Marvel Adventures in deluxe hardcover format
- a pristine set of SSP Smash Up Derby cars with all the parts and T-sticks
- a midnight blue 1970 Plymouth Barracuda that was immune to the New England elements
- an addition onto the house (two more bedrooms, a sun room, another full bath, and a computer room)
- that the Democrats would get their shit together and be an effective political force

Armed with this to-do list, I set out to make my (modest) dreams come through. Unfortunately, my brother failed to include a manual, or even a quick start guide for the device, and I was unable to accomplish anything except crash the Cube's OS and force a reboot. (Something about that last item on my list was to blame. Everytime I tried to make it happen, the Cube would lock up for a minute, then display the following message: Intractable Paradox Flaw has been detected in Planar Sector 000x3D3. Would you like to report this error? Irritating, but not surprising in the least...)

Figuring that I should scale back my ambitions until I had a better grasp of the learning curve, I attempted a more modest use of the Cube's abilities:

KRAK-A-BOOM!

"Not bad," indeed, especially considering how hard it has been lately to set up an appointment with my usual hair stylist. The sudden transition from night to day and the transfomation of my Revolutionary Ireland t-shirt into a Polysics one were a little jarring, but minor side effects are to be expected when one dabbles in warping the very fabric of reality. (Maura has grown quite fond of the tribe of telepathic pygmy brontosaurians I accidentally summoned while attempting to will a can of Dr. Pepper from the fridge to the living room endtable...)

Snap! - The Power (from World Power, 1990) - OK, so it's just a polished cube of plexiglass that my brother thought I'd get a kick out of having. The only power it possesses is the ability to inspire today's exceptionally nerdy and goofy post.

The Horrorpops - Kool Flattop (from Hell Yeah!, 2004) - My preference for buzzcut and flattop hairstyles is rooted in both a residual sense of punk rockitude and my traumatic memories of a childhood spent sporting a John Denver 'do.

(Thanks to Dave Lartigue, for providing the Barber of Worlds image, and to Chris Sims, who made with the Kirby crackles and inspiration.)

Vacation: Day 3 - A place where nobody dared to go

Some couples spend their vacations sipping cocktails and dancing until dawn in exotic tropical locales. Others retreat to the comfort of the air conditioned bedroom of their modest suburban house and watch the 1980 musical bomb Xanadu via Comcast On Demand. I know which option Maura and I prefer...

Considering how unrelentingly harsh I was on the Sgt. Pepper's musical, it might seem odd that I think Xanadu, universally panned in its day, is the bee's knees. What can I say? It's a wonderful and rare experience, being able to witness a gory head-on collision between the 70's and 80's and to gawk at the art-directed carnage of excess.

Maura loves it for the cheesy colorfulness, its peek into old school roller culture, and Olivia Newton John's voice. I love it for its clueless enthusiasm, dated-yet-fascinating special effects work, and the Electric Light Orchestra's and The Tubes' contributions to the soundtrack.

(The Tubes' participation was a nod to cutting edge punk and new wave sounds that "the kidz" were into at the time. I've long considered The Tubes to be the 70's punk scene's John the Baptist figure, but based on the film's "new wave" costume designs and hair styles, it's clear the filmmakers didn't have clue one about the scene. Yet another reason to love the film, as far as I'm concerned.)

Actor Michael Beck blamed Xanadu for dissipating his post-Warriors career momentum. (For all the talk about what a dud the film was at the box office, Maura remembers going to the neighborhood theater to see the film when it premiered and finding that the show had sold out.) As a consequence, Beck fell irrevocably behind in the actors who might be Mark Metcalf but aren't stakes, thus allowing Craig Wasson to claim a decisive lead. (Beck went on to appear in Hal Needham's 1982 classic waste of celluloid, Megaforce, which should have wiped clean any karmic debts in a just universe.)

(from the Xanadu OST, 1980)

Olivia Newton John & Electric Light Orchestra - Xanadu

Electric Light Orchestra - The Fall

Who knew Polyhymnia had such a wild side?

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."

Vacation: Day 1 - Tidying Up the House

Echo and the Bunnymen - Do It Clean (from Crocodiles, 1980) - Here's a mindblowing concept: Imagine if every band that was described as "sounding like Echo and the Bunnymen" actually did?

I'm slipping into low-content mode for the duration of my vacation (or "holiday" as those wacky folks from the UK call it). The next week or so will feature posts in a format similar to this one (what I'm doing, with an associated comic panel and song). That way I can take some time to recharge without worrying about losing whatever momentum the site has.

Bonus content in commemoration of 7/7/07:

Culture - When Two Sevens Clash (from When Two Sevens Clash, 1977) - Lo, the trumpet was blown and the Four Horsemen descended from the skies on that prophecied day of July 7, 1977. But upon seeing the puke green and burnt orange polyester nightmare that the world had become, the Horsemen said "Fuck it, how much worse could we make things?" and instead decided to get shitfaced on Annie Green Springs while listening to Out of the Blue on 8-track.

Love - Seven and Seven Is (from Da Capo, 1967) - Fourteen, right? I took Intro to Sentential Logic to fulfill my college math requirement, so my 'rithmetic might be a little off.