children of the counter-revolution

Buried somewhere in my attic archives is a copy of the January (February?) 1978 issue of Creem, which features a cover story on the Sex Pistols' disastrous American tour and subsequent break-up (wedged in at the end of the piece as a "breaking news item"). The issue also features a list of recommended punk records, with a mention of The Clash's debut LP being considered "too rough-sounding" for an American release by CBS and a review for The Jam's The Modern World.

The punky buzz was in the air at the time, with nuggets of punk news and rumors liberally sprinkled amidst the premature optimism for the Frampton/Bee Gees Sgt. Pepper movie's prospects and record labels playing both sides of the street with full page ads for The Vibrators' Pure Mania ("You've been conned! This is real rock and roll!") run back-to-back with ones for the various corporate rock gods punk was supposed to displace.

All in all, it offers an amazing glimpse at the rock'n'roll zeitgeist at a watershed time, the crossroads of millennarian rhetoric and sobering realizations. Which is why it pains me that I can't locate the damn thing after four years of searching through my boxes from the move to our house on the hillside. I suspect that I packed it, along with my Psychotronic film and video guides (which doubled as scrapbooks for the better part of a decade), into a "special" box for easy retrieval, providing yet another example of my being tripped up by my own clever thinking.

Oh, well, I guess we'll just have to settle for this unexpected find from the August 1978 issue of Pizzazz:

That's right, Mighty Marvel's mag for swingin' teens paid a visit to a Bowery dive bar in order to rake the cooling embers of the New York punk scene.

It starts off with some speculative junk food for thought...

...or will the "punk" tag be so freely and nonsensically applied that it becomes reduced to meaningless marketing jargon?

The writer then spends a while discussing club's overall ambience (i.e. dive bar chic) while unsurprisingly omitting any and all references to dirty needles and hepatitis infections. (Remember, kids: A 2% bleach solution is your friend.) As for CBGB's clientele...

Oh, so it's a downmarket version of Studio 54, then? Anyone care to wager if the dog collar and leather jacket kids mentioned in the article ever attended the venue before the media buzz began? Here's the accompanying photo of the tragically hip crowd...

One of these people is not a music critic for the Village Voice! Can you tell which one?
Tell me, Mr. Pizzazz Staff writer, how loud was it?

Loud enough to evoke a baffling Peanuts reference, apparently. Here's something I never understood about outsiders' descriptions of punk music -- music played in club venues is always too goddamn loud, unless the artist is playing an acoustic set. That's not something limited to just punk acts. If the music requires any sort of amplification, it's a given that the person in charge of the PA system will crank the volume up to "head inside a jet turbine" levels.

No vintage mass media depiction of punk rock would be complete without a taste of some representatively "punky" lyrics, and the article does not disappoint:

The members of Flip City were apparently alumni of the University of New Hampshire.
There is no entry for either Flip City in the International Discography of American New Wave. (Shrapnel, the other band cited in the article, has an entry in the listing of New Jersey acts.) By the time the article was written, most of the founding members of the Bowery scene had moved onto bigger venues, broken up, or slid into the "no wave" or "mutant disco" scenes, leaving an assortment of wannabes and bandwagon jumpers to occupy the field.

I'm kind of curious about Flip City, though, with its pair of female vocalists and the somewhat new wavey description of the band. Shrapnel, whose act centered around dressing up like Vietnam vets and engaging in mock firefights, sounds like yet another example of the novelty shock punk buffoonery that has glommed onto the scene since its inception and rarely lives up to its over-the-top promise. It's a lot easier to be loud and obnoxious than it is to be loud, obnoxious, and clever...

...which brings us to this mindboggling inset featuring one of the "really big American punk groups" of the era:

What the fuck, Pizzazz?
There's no Flip City, no Shrapnel, and definitely no goddamn Kiss in today's musical selections, just a swell pair of cuts from the golden era of the NYC punk -- off-kilter rock romanticism by Television and Suicide's sweetly sinister brand of synthpunk. I'm quite fond of a lot of the music that came out of the 1970's NYC punk scene, but I'm less charitable regarding the scene itself, which spent decades trying to distance itself from "punk" before rushing back to assert its primacy once the label had come back in vogue.

Television - See No Evil (from Marquee Moon, 1977)

Suicide - Cheree (from Suicide, 1977)

fashions by Darwin

Today we're going to take a look at the prevailing biological fashions, circa 430 million years ago. The Ordovician-Silurian extinction event cleared the way for all sorts of wild and crazy adaptive styles which make excellent mockery material from our lofty present-day perspective with its pre-distressed skinny jeans, low-rise sweatpants, and ironic t-shirts.

It's great being a superior lifeform, isn't it?

Hey, look! It's a giant sea scorpion! Talk about overcompensation! This dude will rock you like a hurricane! (Trite popcult references make the blogosphere go 'round!)

Trilobites were hot stuff for a time, but so were pogs. Seriously. The three-lobed look with a segmented thorax? What intelligent designer came up with that idea?

Nice look, dude. Is it anime cosplay season already? This pioneer of piscine fashion is rather proud of his status as a vertebrae early-adopter. Too bad he can't tell if he wants to be a fish or a horseshoe crab. Sheesh, didn't they have Urban Outfitters stores in the Paleozoic Era?

This dashing pair of cephalaspis are sporting the "bone-plated jawless" look popular with the Silurian-Devonian fishy crowd. So what if it was a reflection of environment and evolutionary trends? The important thing is that it looks really goofy by current bio-aesthetic standards and is perfectly suited for facile snarkery.

These Silurian fashions make it really hard to tell the males and females of the various species apart, which makes me wonder what other kinds of "boning" was going on behind the secluded coral reefs. HAW HAW! (Remember, kids: It's not a real half-assed retro fashion post if it doesn't contain at least one casual or thinly-veiled homophobic joke.)

If I have seen further than others, it is because I am standing on my tippity-toes, peeking over the shoulders of clueless giants.

We've got another original version/cover version pairing today -- a double shot of new (and newer) wave pop from the City of Angels, where star-fucking is always in vogue. (Not that I'm making a statement by choosing this particular tune or anything, honest....)

Felony - The Fanatic (from The Fanatic, 1983)

The Checkers - The Fanatic (from Make a Move, 2003)

dispatches from the front

Yahoo may currently be a corporation under siege, but that hasn't prevented its ever-sagacious staff from addressing the burning questions of the now...

Remember: It's not a bailout. The current administration doesn't believe in bailouts. It's a gentlemen's agreement that uses taxpayer money and a minimum of accountability in regards to the mismanagement that caused the failure in the first place, okay?

Should you lack access to the circles of crony capitalism's largess, or if you or someone else in the financial services supply chain chose to forgo the FDIC's safety net because the program smacked of dirty Bolshevism, here are some other potential courses of action to take after your assets have evaporated:

- Take a drive up to the mountains with a loaded shotgun and a bottle of whiskey in order to "meditate" upon the situation.

- Check the various blood banks to get the best quotes per pint on sales of plasma.

- Learn to appreciate the taste of uncooked ramen noodles washed down with store-brand mouthwash.

- Cash out the tattered remnants of your 401k and invest in ten-dollar scratch tickets.

- Read up on the insulative properties of newspaper and which large appliance boxes are most resistant to rain damage.

- Explain to your children that college is for effete snobs, and that "true blue Americans" sign up for unbenefitted minimum wage service jobs as soon as they drop out of high school.

Rubella Ballet - It'll Never Happen to Me (from At the End of the Rainbow, 1990) - The playful, day-glo side of anarchopunk, bouncing out with some very danceable beats and a song title that effectively serves as the mantra of the American theory of disaster capitalism.

...and when all else fails, perhaps a change of career is in order:

While the world lurches toward economic, social, and environmental collapse, it's gratifying to know that science is doing its damnedest to answer the hard questions...like whether or not it would be feasible for man to dress up as a flying rodent and throw explosive boomerangs at petty criminals.

Fuck clean drinking water or ecologically sustainable fuel sources, this is the shit that really matters -- taking discussions usually reserved for the dank stinky basement of fandom (i.e. the CBR and Newsarama forums) and elevating them to the level of infotainment in service to the current overhyped blockbuster movie of the moment.

The Selecter - Three Minute Hero (from Too Much Pressure, 1980) - Though often overlooked (in favor of The Specials or The Beat) when I'm looking for a quick fix of second-wave ska, The Selecter's Too Much Pressure and Celebrate the Bullet never fail to impress me when I do make the effort to give them a spin. That's the problem with having an extensive music collection and not a lot of free time -- I tend to gravitate to that handful of perennial favorites within arm's reach instead of keeping a representatively diverse playlist.

your chariot of the gods awaits

The Chihuahua Men of Sirius-7 walk among us! (At least the caption writer had the integrity to make appropriate use of quotation marks.)

It's one of the oldest tricks in the Handbook of Lazy Journalism: Take a current hot trend or media property, find a way to tie it back to some tangentially-related wire story, and from there stitch together a Frankenstein's monster consisting of equal parts press release and "news of the weird" item:

Joe Q. Jackson's skin has a pronounced greenish hue -- not because of gamma radiation, but because he has a rare skin disease. Few sufferers of the excruciatingly painful disease live past the age of thirty, but analysts are expecting Universal's The Incredible Hulk to break box office records when it premieres this Friday!

I know. I missed my true calling in life, but I take comfort in the fact that when I go to sleep each night, I do so free of the shame of trying to use war orphans and progeria victims to promote Sex in the City or the latest biblioturd squeezed out by Dan Brown.

If one were to take the tried and true formula outlined above and apply it to the slow-pitch softball arena of tweener mags at a time when the collective popcult consciousness was hyper-saturated with all things paranormal, the results would most likely resemble "Space: The Final Frontier" from the April 1978 of Pizzazz Magazine.

The article is a undercooked shepherd's pie of science fact, pseudo-scientific braggadocio, and a host of facile sci-fi references designed to kickstart the atrophy of the younger crowd's critical faculties, thus preparing them for the coming Reagan years and beyond...

(I've been referred to as "the Lysenko of retrologists.")

Dr. Hynek, whose twin careers of astronomer and "ufologist" can best be described as a long quest to have one's cake and eat it too, is absolutely right. It is far easier for me to imagine having my mind blown by some childlike alien Moog-and-laser-show enthusiasts than it is for me to imagine living under a militant imperial regime built on the ashes of a great republic.

In the year 2000, you will commute to work in your own personal Death Star! (Until the Alderaan branch office gets draconically downsized, that is.)

The musical portion of today's program is the stuff that myths are made of...

"There came a time when the Old Rock Gods died! The prog set died with the boogie rockers! The coked-out corporate behemoths perished, locked in battle with the flowers of anarchy unleashed! It was the last days for them! An ancient era was passing to the polyphonic waves of synthesized sound! Thus the New Wave of Gods were born!"

Nina Hagen - Gods of Aquarius (from ...in Ekstase, 1985)

Tubeway Army - Praying to the Aliens (from Replicas, 1979)

doesn't mean it's understood

Do you hate traffic jams? Sure, we all do!

But did you know that congested highways are just one symptom of a larger problem?

Now while some would blame overdevelopment and poor civic planning, the willingness of health care providers to boost profits at the expense of patients, and the widespread reluctance to invest in public transportation and infrastructure, others see a different cause...

Yep, overpopulation is the problem, but lest one misconstrue this as advocacy of a pro-choice, pro-contraception platform, some clarification is in order...

It's not a question of too many people, but of too many of the wrong type of people. While it would be gauche to state outright the definition of such, there's a reason the Pew Hispanic Research Center is cited in the body of the text, and not relegated to an asterisked footnote like the other data cited was.

These veiled words of caution came courtesy of the following coalition....

...consisting of various interrelated "astroturf" organizations and a publishing house (whose biggest claim to fame is releasing an English-language edition of this charming piece of psuedo-literary agitprop), most of which are linked to this bunch of fun lovin' folks.

Interestly enough, this attempt to put a more socially and environmentally palatable face on nativism and xenophobia ran in the June 23, 2008 edition of The Nation, the venerable progressive periodical which claims to be "a wholly owned subsidiary of [its] own conscience." I guess the question is "at what point does the need for advertising revenue override moral integrity?" Especially when one considers that this isn't the first time the publication has cut such a deal.

The Specials - Doesn't Make It Alright (from The Specials, 1979) - At least I can depend on these purveyors of fine two-tone not to disappoint.

brace yourself with the grace of ease

As a follow up to yesterday's post, I'd like to draw your attention to this jolly individual, the gaudily-dressed wielder of the Disintegrator Glove^TM and Dr. Ojo's partner in terror:

Fear...THE CRUMBLER!
He's crumbelievable!
While I do tend to feel a little depressed whenever I discover that a cherished piece of pop music has been repurposed as an advertising jingle, I couldn't help but laugh at the shrill, hyperbolic tone of this 2005 piece lamenting the use of a cheesy pop product to sell a cheesy food product.

Despite sounding like a lobotomized Carter USM track, EMF's "Unbelievable" is a perfectly fine bit of pop fluff, with the requisite levels of blood-pumping danceability expected in a proper "party music" track. I certainly wouldn't classify it as some kind of Gen X anthem, though, or use the commerical version as a vessel onto which to project my anxieties about getting older. This...

Work like this takes songs some of us remember from when we were single, broke and idealistic, ruins the songs, and points out that many of us now live in the suburbs, sold out to corporate America, and buy Swiffers and Kraft Cheese Crumbles.

...reflects more upon the insecurities and psychology of the writer than it does upon the intrusiveness of advertising in popular culture. (I can't be the only one who appreciates the irony of the Suicide Girls comment quoted at the end of the piece. Self-awareness, wha'?)

In those days when I considered writing as a craft and a potential career, I got involved in a disagreement with one of my peers, a fellow with a habit of counting his chickens before the eggs were laid, over the concepts of artistic integrity and selling out. He trotted out all the usual anecdotes about maintaining purity of vision, blah, blah, blah, and the predatory nature of entertainment biz. While I agreed that I'd never sacrifice a favored child on Mammon's altar, I also made it clear that I'd have no problem accepting a fat check for any and all of my minor pieces, even if I knew they'd be transformed from political satire into shallow RomCom pap in the hands of the purchasers.

The Clash's cover of "Pressure Drop" used to sell sport utility vehicles? Irritating.

Modern English's "I Melt With You" used in a fast food commercial? Nauseating.

The femvox cover of Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" used to pimp Big Pharma's latest chemical cocktail designed to fuck with natural hormonal bodily processes? Unconscionable.

EMF's "Unbelievable" reworked as a processed cheese jingle? A definite step up, considering that the song had already been incorporated into the "jock jams" repertoire, not to mention being prominently featured in Coyote Ugly.

While it's only natural to feel disgust and disappointment at the insidious nature of the marketing beast, it's important to remember that one's personal relationship to a song can only be ruined if one allows it to happen. A negative response is still a response, after all.

...and when all else fails, turn to Sir Tom for guidance and comfort.

Tom Jones - Unbelievable (Live) (from the "Burning Down the House" CD single, 1999) - 100% Diceman-free, for the benefit of the asshole-intolerant.

keeps us away from who we're loving

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don't believe the honeyglaze

Do you know what has a very short shelf life?

Donuts. I bought a cream-filled donut at the bakery Sunday afternoon, and by the time I got a hankering for some greasy goodness on Tuesday morning the surface of the confection was covered in little green spots of mold. The sugar sprinkles were the responsible party; their capacity for absorbing moisture created an ideal environment for rapid spore growth. I was very disappointed by--

--wait, there was someplace I wanted to go with this before I got distracted.

Right, I remembered. The other thing that has a very short shelf life and has generated countless disappointments is shameless hype, the frequently unfounded hard sell presently euphemized as "buzz." I'm not talking about instances of retrological hindsight, like "sporting a whopping 4kb or RAM" or "at thirty-five pounds, this is the PORTABLE adding machine," that offer quaint glimpses into the march of human progress (or painful reminders of reactionary backsliding). I'm talking about "they'll know you've arrived when you show up in a Edsel" or "the long anticipated smash hit follow-up to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours" -- commercial foreplay of the most relentless variety that promises the sun, moon, and stars but results in the most anti-climactic, well, consumer climax upon the unveiling of the final product.


Even the most cynical and jaded among us have been there at some point in our lives. The promises are made, complete with breathy overreaching speculations made by the relevant pundits or authorities backed up with a smattering of cautiously vetted teasers released though official PR channels. Exciting jargon is coined and spread like manure (also known as "bullshit") to better cultivate excitement -- "Featuring unprecedented pixel-deform wraparound compression algorithms" or similar media-specific seduction talk -- which eventually grows and builds to a fever pitch of "NEED NOW! WANT NOW! NO DOUBTS!"


Then the end result lands like a wet turd in one's lap, resulting in a sense of bewilderment born of atrophied critical faculties ("Is it really that bad? Or is it just me?") which eventually leads to anger and disgust when it becomes obvious that, yes, the emperor is completely starkers...and sporting an astonishing number of dingleberries. (Think the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy.)


To be fair, that's what marketing is there for -- to make our longings and anticipations override our better judgement. I'm less charitable to representatives of ostensibly independent (looking past questions of access or advertising revenue) media outlets like Entertainment Weekly, EGM, Spin and the like who relish in stoking hype's hellish fires, only to convienently forget their active collusion when the truth inevitably comes out.


The transition between "Jade Empire looks like it will be a groundbreaking videogame experience" and "Jade Empire is on track to be the unquestioned Game of the Year" to a three-out-of-five star review and a "Wow, Jade Empire was overrated bit of mediocrity" retrospective a couple years later takes place in a parallel universe where contrition simply doesn't exist. I cited that example because it was the first that came to mind. It's not exclusive to that particular medium by any stretch. (A certain comics columnist and a certain online movie "reviewer" both come to mind.)

Hey, if I have to live with constant reminders that I once thought Shampoo's "Trouble" was fit for an in-car mix CD, these individuals ought to have the decency to come clean about their roles in pimping House of M or Nickleback to an overly impressionable public.

Less offensive in hindsight but more amusing in shameless shilling and unadulterated hyperbole are the corporate-sanctioned organs of propaganda, publications like Nintendo Power or the late "newsmagazine" Marvel Age which radiate Glengarry-esque levels of desperation and false sincerity. Because, honestly, this...


...evokes more pity (and laughter) than anything else. We're talking about a "redshirt picked by Kirk for an away mission" level of pathos. As a nice bonus, the piece, which ran in Marvel Age #43 (October 1986), did contain what was probably the only Lene Lovich reference to appear in a Marvel publication:


Thomas Dolby did the soundtrack for Howard the Duck, and also wrote the song used as the theme for Misfits of Science? How could that film have been anything but a masterpiece? (Apart from being a completely and utterly misguided disaster right down to the sub-molecular level, that is.)

I guess the point of all the above is to remind people that, given the large array of forces out there whose life work is applying lipstick on pigs, it's in one's best interest to take a closer look at your partner before puckering up. (Also, if you don't plan on eating the donut you purchased right away, store it in a cool, dry place.)

T. Rex - Rip Off (from Electric Warrior, 1971) - Listen to Marc Bolan, for he speaks the truth.

Buzzcocks - Promises (from a 1978 single; collected on Singles Going Steady, 1979) - Even if it's personal, that doesn't mean it has to be taken personally.

Special Bonus Content:

Since I had my old issues of Marvel Age handy, I thought I'd share this little slice of sophomoric joy with you. It's from an article spotlighting the finale of the Vision and Scarlet Witch mini-series. Depending on one's world view, it features either the best or worst choice of words since Giant-Sized Man-Thing...

what a surprise

From a 1985 issue of Soldier of Fortune magazine:


The text on the shirt reads "Whatever happened to the America that used to KICK ASS! instead of kiss ass" which is a typical enough bit of PBR-and-pickup-truck jingoism in an era rife with similar sentiments.

It's interesting that the ad ran at a time when Reagan's confrontational foreign policy was at its high water mark, but not particularly surprising. A longstanding cornerstone of reactionary populist ideology has been the notion of persecution manifested as a "majority outsider" status -- even when like-minded folks happen to have their hands on the levers of power. It's easier to keep order in the ranks when one flies the banner of the persecuted underdog, after all. Nothing breeds inertia and dissent like a sense of victory.

Musings on group psychology aside, the real reason I chose to spotlight this particular ad was because of what was written in the italicized copy -- that 75 cents per shirt purchased would be donated to one of the two groups of "freedom fighters" du jour in the Reagan Era: the Nicaraguan Contras and the Afghan rebels.

I'm not going to get into the whole sad, sordid mess of Nicaragua's ongoing political struggles, which proves only that corruption and cynical opportunistic behavior is not limited to either the left or right wing, with the masses getting the shit end of the stick regardless.

The donation of funds to the Afghan rebels (if it was ever carried out), though, had me wondering about something. Given who some of those rebels fighting the Soviets were, there's a very real possibility that the funds donated were used to purchase Kalishnakovs and RPG launchers which would eventually be used against American military personnel decades later.

So the folks who ponied up the $9.25 bought more than a t-shirt, they also picked up a copy of Blowback: The Home Game.

The Flys - Love and a Molotov Cocktail (from a 1978 single; collected on 1-2-3-4 Punk & New Wave: 1976-1979, 1999) - Slightly art-damaged punk occupying a space somewhere between The Jam and Pink Flag-era Wire on the sound spectrum.

knew this was a big mistake

Today, we're going to take a musically annotated trip through some of the more interesting ads found within the pages of 1985's Legion of Substitute Heroes Special #1. The comic is a farcical romp starring the 30th Century's most famous also-rans. Most of the humor is more "funny huh" than "funny ha-ha," and presumes that the reader is familiar with LSH minutae, but it does feature some fine art by Keith Giffen (working his unmatched José Muñoz-cribbing mojo).

It's not the type of thing I'd suggest as recommended reading, as those of you who are interested in that sort of thing most likely already read it and those of you who aren't couldn't give two shits about an in-joke-heavy superhero humor comic published twenty-three years ago. Besides, it's not the actual content that we're going to take a look at today, but some lovely enticements for iffy goods and services.

First up is the 1985 Triple Crown winner of the Consumer Fraud, Violation of Animal Protection Statutes, and Personal Liability Lawsuit stakes...

Nothing brings the funny like placing a irritable venomous reptile on your algebra teacher's chair. It's all in good fun, right?

"Freightening," indeed.

Duran Duran - Union of the Snake (from Seven and the Ragged Tiger, 1983) - The end of the line as far as my interest in the band goes, with heavily qualified exception made for "View to a Kill" solely due to its unremitting cheesiness.

I bought my copy of SATRT at a used record store in the winter of 1992. The previous owner had pressed some maple leaves between the inner and outer sleeves. A sweet gesture, but by the time I had come into possession of the LP, the leaves had been pulverized into a fine dust that managed to insinuate itself into every nook and cranny of my bedroom when I went to play the record.

Hvng trbl wth yr nglsh? Mb ths dmn vwls r t blm. Lt ths flks hlp u.

I cn hz a fwnks lssn? N thy sy cmix rdrs r ltrt....

The Noble Knights - Sing a Simple Song (from the What It Is! Funky Soul And Rare Grooves:1967-1977 box set, 2006) - Sly Stone wrote it, King Curtis produced it, you need to listen to it.

You may have hear of needle exchanges, the controversial but forward-thinking programs designed to minimize health risks associated with intravenous drug use. That's all well and good if you're a heroin addict, but what about the poor souls who have been stuck with a backlog of terrible puns, knock-knock jokes, and stale one liners? What options do they have?

"I'll trade you a drag-and-drop ethnic joke for two gags about mothers-in-law." "Throw in a coarse scatalogical pun and we have a deal."

I've found that it's easier to get my jokes from the uncut, pink, sugary source.

The Beau Brummels - Laugh, Laugh (from Introducing the Beau Brummels, 1965) - From the San Francisco folk-rock act's pre-giant-waterfowl period.

Our final featured ad asks a very important question:


I guess my answer would be:

"An interesting footnote in Japanese history that has been romaticized and mythologized by westerner boy-men with leanings toward ex oriente lux attitudes and fetishes for martial arts weapons. Due to media hyper-saturation, whatever aura of coolness ninjas possessed has long-since evaporated, leaving behind just another irritating hipster/fanboy cliché."

The London Funk Allstars - How to Be a Ninja in One Easy Lesson (from Flesh Eating Disco Zombies Vs the Bionic Hookers from Mars, 1996) - Finally, a trip hop album made specifically with Chris Sims in mind.

So concludes today's journey though the comic ads of yesteryear. So, Noseless Pulsar Stargrave, having seen what goods and services were being pitched to comics readers in the mid-eighties, how do you feel about comics fans now?


That's a little harsh, though I can totally see where you're coming from.

you're just wasting my time

When I was in my middle teens, I had difficulties sleeping at night (for reasons I still don't quite comprehend). I eventually discovered that leaving the radio on when I went to bed made it easier to nod off, the background noise serving as an effective lullaby.

My initial choice of listening was the local classic rock station, as the comfortable familiarity of the playlist was tailor-made to doze off to. That changed after a fever-dream plagued night when I woke up to the rock-disco crossover nightmare known as David Bowie's "Fame," the one song capable of forcing me to reassess my otherwise high levels of respect for both The Thin White Duke and John Lennon. I eventually settled on WBZ's evening-through-morning lineup of call in talk radio programs, tuning in at night to Larry Glick and waking up to Dave Maynard.

The overall tone of these shows was light and more than a little corny -- a open community chat format peppered with novelty songs, interviews with local celebrities, trivia contests, and the "blind calls to random payphones" gimmick. The focus was heavily local, with quintessentially parochial discussions involving Bill Buckner's bow-leggedness and nostalgia for landmarks and stomping grounds past, but because WBZ's 50,000-watt signal carried far during the dark hours, there was also a good chance of hearing a caller from Appalachia engage an impromptu spoon-playing performance or demonstration of proper hog-calling techniques.

Jovial and bizarre, though still rather sedate -- the warm conversational tone of these shows made a better sleep aid than a glass of warm milk (which I've found makes for a better ipecac than narcotic). Then 1988 came and irrevocably screwed it all up. Larry Glick, the host who best personified the anarchic coziness of the format, left WBZ (to land at WHDH the following year) and was eventually replaced by the more politically-focused petit conservative snobbery of David Brudnoy. Bob Raleigh, who covered the graveyard shift between Glick's and Maynard's, shifted in style from being Glick-lite towards a more dittohead-friendly approach. It was a transition in keeping with the times, when the Lee Atwater-directed coarsening of public discourse truly came into its ugly own, but my personal reasons for tuning in each evening was not to hear an endless stream of lumpen-ignoramus rants directed at Michael Dukakis and the "libural eleet."

The problem with sensationalistic confrontation as a means of grabbing market share is that the process feeds on itself and pushes the practitioners to escalate the rhetoric to sate the symbiotic hunger of the audience. This hunger, in turn, only grows greater with each successive escalation, causing a perpetual feedback loop of faux populist rage, in nearly every case directed at a conveniently demonized other -- gays, minorities, feminists, liberals, Democrats, and so forth -- to a point where the crassness of the dialogue exceeds anything that would be countenanced otherwise. It reaches, or rather has long since reached, a point where the ringmasters of this pathetic circus feel emboldened enough to indulge in sub-sophomoric jests about hate crimes and "nappy headed ho's", or engage in this sort of inexcusably disgusting behavior without any prior notion of consequence or contrition...until the outrage affects their employer's revenue stream, that is.

Even then, odds are more likely than not that the offending party will blame "political correctness" for the backlash, and not, say, their own persistent disregard for basic concepts of respect and common courtesy in favor of antics that would make a junior high school student blush in shame.

I prefer to sleep in complete silence these days.

Talk Talk - Talk Talk (from The Party's Over, 1982) - I know the critical consensus is that the band's later work represents some revolutionary leap forward in the development of the so-called "post-rock" genre, but I still prefer Talk Talk's earlier, overtly Duranist output.

coffeehousin' by proxy syndrome

This is just the beginning. Expect Playskool's My First Piercing playset and Pabst Blue Ribbon-flavored baby formula to hit the shelves sometime in Q3 2008.

There is something really creepy and troublesome about the "hipster kids" trend. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see why parents just can't let children be children, and not vessels upon which to impose their aspirations for the sake of basking in reflected vanity. If a child is raised to be a confident and independently-minded person, then the odds are he or she will gravitate to the cool stuff on their own volition, which is how it ought to be, rather than exploiting a child's desire for parental approval just so you can brag that your six year old knows who Bob Mould is.

Parents have always exterted their influence on their children's tastes, though the process in most cases has been subtle and unpredictable. Case in point: My aversion to 70's singer-songwriter performers and Prince, and affinity for Roger McGuinn and The Doors, all of which were commonly enough heard in the house during my formative years. The transmission time between exposure and appreciation can span decades, as numerous other personal factors can affect the metabolization process.

Attempting to hothouse it with a Misfits onesie or repeat plays of the KidzBop: Shoegazer Edition CD during naptime just feels crass, and uncomfortably similar to the methods employed by those parents who start crowing about "my little Harvard grad" or "my little all-star quarterback" even before the umbilical cord is cut. Besides, if historical trends are anything to go by, the end result of this tastemaking-by-fiat will be a generation of buttoned-collar AOR enthusiasts who worship at the altar of the Dave Matthews Band.

bis - Tell It to the Kids (from The New Transistor Heroes, 1997) - The only thing I have to say to the kids is GET OFF MY DAMN LAWN. Oh, and BUY SOME PANTS THAT FIT, DAMMIT.

all our yesterdays

My brother and I were discussing the controversial "One More Day" story arc, in which Spider-Man has had his marital status reset via diabolic intervention, the other night. Both of us are far past the point where we're capable of feeling outrage over the state of current superhero comics, so our focus was mostly on the blatant editorial-driven plothammering, the overall sloppiness of the plot reset, and the wave of self-righteous fan-ger that has followed in its wake.

That in turn led to a side discussion about how disproportionate outrage and stark raving lunacy have become the default settings for fan behavior in this internet age, especially (as a friend recently pointed out to me) since the ever-contracting audience for superhero fare means that the ratio between the hardcore lunatic fringe and the silent majority is closer to parity than it has ever been. And they're noiser. And they have access to all the opportunities "Web 2.0" provides as a wide-reaching soapbox from which to screech their rage.

I brought up the example of the old time letters page, the pre-internet delivery method for comics-related bile, adoration, and pedantry. While I acknowledged the heavily vetted nature of the venue, it still seemed to me that the individual responses tended to be on the sedate side. Even in something like the Detroit incarnation of the Justice League, an arc long considered synonymous with "failed relaunch," the negativity was mostly limited to quibbles and minor reservations, whereas a similar change to the status quo today would generate a digital lynch mob before the book even hit the stands. That's when my brother asked if I had ever read the letters pages in any 1960's issue of Amazing Spider-Man.

I hadn't, because my experience with those Silver Age stories came from the Marvel Tales reprint series or Essential collected editions, neither of which included ancillary material. "You ought to check them out," he told me. "They're crazy. Not crazy in today's sense, but still really bizarre." Since he's the one with the actual original issues, I asked him to send me some representative scans.

Here's a sample of what I received, from the back pages of Amazing Spider-Man #76 (September 1969). The old saying is true, there really is nothing new under the sun.

Above we have an early example of the "realist" school of the superheroic genre, a group of folks who think that frothy escapist fantasy should painstakingly reflect the dour and depressing state of the non-fictional world. Y'know, the world that folks read fantasy to get a little distance from in the first place. I'm not saying that there's no place for verisimilitude in escapist literature, or that books like Watchmen shouldn't exist. It's that the superheroic genre is predicated on healthy doses of suspension of disbelief and that cranking up the "realism" (which isn't that "real" at all, actually, in most cases) tends to bring the whole facade crashing down. Works like Watchmen succeed as occasional counterpoints and commentaries to the standard genre tropes, and I can count the number of creators talented enough to pull it off on a regular basis on the fingers of my right hand.

I have to wonder, though, what would have happened if there had been a massive fan demand for a Spidey 'Nam Stories series...

NEXT ISSUE: THE SWIFT-BOATING OF SPIDEY!
Some people find it surprising, but there has always been a conservative streak within sci-fi/fantasy, which is reflected in fandom. The original Buck Rogers stories were racist polemics against the "Yellow Peril." H.P. Lovecraft was an elitist bigot. I've mentioned those Sociology of Science Fiction books from the 60's I found in the college library, in which stories by progressive-minded "New Wave" writers were juxtaposed against the works of their socially conservative forebears. Norman Spinrad's satire on the fascistic nature of traditional sci-fi power fantasies in The Iron Dream was lost on a substantial number or readers, who took the tongue-in-cheek (if heavy-handed) story of racial purity as a straight-up adventure yarn.

So a member of the John Birch Society digging Spider-Man? No shock there. Considering the crude red-baiting content (which I assume is what the letter writer was referring to as "patriotism") in much of Marvel's early output, it's even less of a surprise. The question is, how did Marvel editorial react to a complaint that the SNCC (the group which gave us the Freedom Riders and played a part in organizing the March on Washington, two massive contributions to the Civil Rights movement) and CORE (another major player in the Civil Rights struggle, long since turned into a conservative front group) were being portrayed more favorably than a group that believes the United Nations is plotting a communist takeover of America and that the Civil Rights movement was a pretext for proletarian revolution organized by Walter Reuther and Bobby Kennedy?

With dissembling conciliation, of course. I know, I know -- the purpose of a publisher is to shift books, not engage in political debate, but still, the "in your corner/go USA!" part of the response is laid on rather thick.

Come to think of it, there is a link between paleo-conservatism and Spider-Man. Artist Steve Ditko, who co-created the character and drew the comic for the first thirty-eight issues, is a staunch proponent of Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivist thought, strains of which run though the kindred ideologies of right-libertarianism and paleo-conservativism to this very day.

Again, to quote the Zep, it makes me wonder....

NEXT ISH: A EQUALS A -- BUT THE KANGAROO EQUALS TROUBLE!
Fun Boy Three - The Lunatics (Have Taken over the Asylum) (from Fun Boy Three, 1982) - I liked Terry Hall better when he wasn't trying to be Robert Smith.

the name of the game

I'm going to be busy today picking up the threads of workaday life I left dangling during my recent ordeal, so pardon me if I resort to a cheap, decontextualized gag for today's post...

...say, for instance, the "lost" Hulk clip from VH-1's I Love the 80's: Uncalled Four?
I don't know why the producers didn't use it it the show. It's light-years more insightful than Loni Love's ("This was a CUBE named RUBIK and EVERYONE was just CRAZY about it.") or Henry Rollins's (insert overreaching attempt at too-cool-for-school edginess here) segments.

All that's missing is a tangentially-related 80's track used as background music.

Kim Wilde - Chequered Love (from Kim Wilde, 1981)

There you go.

(The sequence actually comes from the final issue of Blip, Marvel's short-lived attempt at cashing in on the early 80's videogame craze. It's a subject that I'd like to mock examine in depth eventually, but not today.)

left alone and blue

...and here I was feeling all self-conscious about what I write for public consumption.

Clair Obscur - Smurf in the Goulag (from a 1986 12" single) - Papa Smurf always says that traitors to the Smurfolution should be forced to work the smurf mines in Outer Smurfberia. Or stripped naked, forced to kneel in a roadside ditch, and smurfed in the back of the head by an agent of the SGB.

Ann-Margret - It's Not So Funny (from the Ann-Margret: 1961-1966 box set, 1999) - Fierce retro-crushes seldom are.