Vacation 2008: Day 6 - Where were you in '92?

(The good old days; l-r: Bev, Leech, some idiot, Maura)
Some friends and I were recently discussing movies from the 1990's (hey, it happens), and someone brought up Singles, Cameron Crowe's 1992 Gen X update of the 1980's teen flick formula. "Singles is okay as a film, but as a socio-historical document it is magnificent," was my assessment, which led to the usual talk about the film's popularizing of Seattle's grunge scene.

That's true, I suppose, though I don't think it's as cut-and-dried as some Monday morning popcult quarterbacks would have you think. It's one of those "chicken or the egg" scenarios, capitalizing on emerging hot trend even as it -- or, more accurately, the film's soundtrack -- heightened the masses' interest in the same. (The film spent some time in release date limbo before the studio execs realized that there was some marketing synergy to be had with the buzz coming from the PacNorWest.) However, it wasn't Singles' relationship to the flannelmania scene that I was referring to when I gave it props as a historical document, but rather the how the movie managed to perfectly capture the spirit of the moment.

I was twenty in 1992, drifting listlessly through my sophomore year in college...or maybe my "second" freshman year....the traditional definitions don't really work with the whole seven year plan thing. Every generation feels that they occupy a place of singual importance on history's stage, but at the time it really felt as if we were on the edge of something huge and important, a fundamental break with our Boomer parents' vision of society. The fourth floor of Wheatley Hall, home to UMass Boston's student clubs and organizations, was abuzz with such sentiments, but even outside that rarfied atmosphere, the world at large seemed poised for a tectonic shift.

ACT UP, Queer Nation, PETA, Irish Northern Aid, third wave feminism, Sister Soulja, Body Count, the L.A. riots, the end of the Cold War, next-gen environmentalism, the lingering effects of the late 1980's recession, the 1992 presidental election -- a multitude of forces were in motion and the beach was just a few small paving stones away. Out with twelve years of Reaganism and Reaganism Lite and in with the new...or at least the different.

Then the DotCom boom hit, and my generational peers swapped out nose rings and Doc Martens for Gap clothes and 401k plans and fiscal conservatism and condo associations. The Soundgarden albums kept their places on the CD rack, but Dave Matthews and the Goo Goo Dolls got the heavy rotation. I don't fault them (okay, I do, but I'm trying to be charitable) but how did "I won't be like my parents" turn into "I will be exactly like my parents, only with an affected sense of irony and a thin veneer of hipness"?

Then, to add insult to injury, the Republican Revolution swept in to mock the corpse of ideals abandoned.

Watching Singles isn't just an exercise in undergrad nostalgia for me, it's a painful, poignant reminder of a world that was and could have been, had it not been tripped up by its own shallowness and solipsistic apathy. This is why I can't help but discern a familiar tune whenever I come across Gen Y or Gen Z or Gen Whatever-the-fuck-is-the-sexy-letter-demographic-now diatribes about being the "voice of change" and the fulcrum on which a new world will slide into place.

Youthful sincerity is by definition an ephemeral phenomenon, and the counter-revolution is just a glib joke and revenue-sharing plan away.

The musical annotations for this post probably should have run toward the grunge end of the spectrum, but my dislike of the genre has only grown with the passing of years. I instead offer this representative pair of tracks from my circa 1992 playlist...because some things -- such as superlative Welsh punk rock and radical Marxist postpunk -- never go out of style.

The Partisans - The Money Rolls In (from The Time Was Right, 1984)

Gang of Four - At Home He's a Tourist (from Entertainment! 1980)

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)

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...

input/output

As I mentioned in the Firestorm post, our attachment to things from our childhood tends to be predicated on personal context (i.e. simple nostalgia or other associative factors) and the sad fact our younger selves lacked the capacity to know crap when they saw, heard, or ate it. That’s not a dismissal; it’s an important part of the growing up process, empirically developing internal filters to separate sheep from goats. It leaves splinters, though, pockets of exceptionalism that get carried into our adult lives.

For a many a kid who came of age in the Golden Era of Videogames (roughly 1977-1984), the 1982 movie Tron is something of a holy text. It’s innovative art direction, pioneering use of CGI, and excellent console and arcade game tie-ins perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the brave new world of digital entertainment.

As with other popular franchises of that period, there have been efforts -- a couple videogames, a comic book, and re-release the old toys -- to recapitalize on its magic as a means of parting nostalgic adults from their disposable income. None have been particularly successful, but the old affection still remains.

I consider myself a fan of the franchise (well, as much as a notorious stick in the mud can be a “fan” of anything), but I have a hard time getting around one bitter realization: the movie is a retread of old Christian epics, with light cycles taking the place of chariots. From the epistemological discussion of the relationship between the creator (“users”) and creations (“programs”), to Flynn’s godhood made digitally incarnate, to the mention of prophecies and portents, Tron is as much an theological delivery system as the Narnia novels are. Like my discovery of the ideology behind those C.S. Lewis books, the realization left a bad taste in my mouth.

It’s not the message so much as the oblique means of delivery. Despite being a “filthy little atheist,” I think Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments is a delightful film, even if I think the theology is a load of hokum. I’m less charitable when someone tries to slip some covert propaganda using the pretext of disposable entertainment. (This is also why I’ve never warmed up to vegetarian meat substitutes. If the food is tasty enough to justify eating it, it shouldn’t have to wear a mask.) Art is by definition manipulative, but I draw the line at being slipped an ideological roofie.

I won’t say the film has been spoiled for me (there’s that aforementioned exceptionalism in play), but it has diminished the film’s entertainment value by a noticeable degree. My love for the Wendy Carlos score remains unchanged, however. Now I just need to find a way to reconcile the film’s Christian undertones with friend Zartan’s shocking expose of Tron sex (Not a hoax! Not a slashfic!).

That article, along with the other many fine pieces he wrote for the late, lamented Zeroes Unlimited, was one of the earliest inspirations that eventually led to the creation of Armagideon Time. In honor of that, here are three obscure synth/new wave tracks that I think of as being the Tron universe equivalents to a Barry White LP.

JYL – Computer Love (from JYL, 1984)

The Metronomes – A Circuit Like Me (from a 1980 single)

The Units – Digital Stimulation (from Digital Stimulation, 1980)

I don’t want to stay in

Today’s post features music from the forgotten 1986 film, Modern Girls. My wife, who tends to be more in tune with the times than I am, has no recollection of seeing or hearing of this film when it was released. It has been heavily repeated on the lesser cable movie channels, which is where we first encountered it. Modern Girls is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination, but we’ve adopted into our “if there’s nothing else on, we’ll watch it” category of movies.

The film covers the night in the lives of three clubhopping roommates: the tough-yet-goodhearted Margo (Daphne Zuniga), impulsive sprite Cece (Cynthia Gibb, who has no upper lip, according to my wife), and the judgement-impaired Kelly (Virginia Madsen). The women are reluctantly accompanied by male viewer identification figure Clifford (Clayton Rohner, who also plays the part of Bruno X, a pouty Billy Idol-inspired rock star), a poor schmoe who Kelly has been stringing along.

The tone of the movie is what you’d expect -- insubstantial romantic comedy with some big 80’s art direction and costuming to match-- but it occasionally veers off in weird directions. There’s one scene where Kelly, off on her own and tripping out on ecstacy, passes out on a pool table in a dive bar. A crowd of skuzzy looking male patrons closes in around her, making the viewer wonder if the film’s editor hadn’t accidentally switched reels with The Accused.

That’s only one of the two times that Kelly faces sexual assault in the film. She also nearly gets raped and murdered by a clean-cut stalker dude who resembles an off-brand Billy Baldwin. This provides the agon for which the other characters must put aside their differences and reaffirm their loyalties to each other. (That’s my pretentious way of saying that things work out in the end, with all the requisite melodrama and lame comedic bits we’ve been conditioned to expect.)

One thing that struck me about Modern Girls, and thus inspired this post, is the sense of historical dislocation it radiates. The overall feel is unquestionably 80’s, but in an abstract sense. The fashions, the music, and the forced manufactured slang (“Lounge out!” should have entered common usage.) don’t mesh, and it’s impossible to fix a specific moment in time to what’s shown on the screen like one could with, say, Fast Times at Ridgemont High or any given John Hughes film. It’s a fairly common occurrence in modern films that look back on a given era, but unusual to see happen in an actual period movie.

The soundtrack for the film reinforces this sense of dissonance. The club scene, circa 1986, would seem to suggest material by Madonna, Janet Jackson, and the many and varied HiNRG acts that dominated the dance charts at the time. Instead, the film’s soundtrack is a sampler of Sire Records’ then-current roster of college rock/alternative bands. Sire’s influence (see the “But Not Tonight” blurb below) aside, my wife suspects this might be due to a lag time between when the screenplay was written and when it was filmed, leading to an early 80’s script getting a cursory mid 80’s facelift.

Depeche Mode – But Not Tonight (from Black Celebration, 1986) – This song was specifically commissioned by DM’s label, Sire, for use in Modern Girls. The result, coming on the heels of their very dark Black Celebration recording sessions, is one of the most devastating songs about being happy I’ve ever heard. The song was appended to the US release of Black Celebration, and Sire went so far as to re-label the “Stripped” single to make the track the a-side, even though the band didn't care much for the song and considered it a throwaway effort. The promo video features footage from the movie, which makes me wonder who in the chain of command had that much faith in Modern Girls' success….



The Jesus and Mary Chain – Some Candy Talking (from Psychocandy, 1985) – I’ve listened to Psychocandy several times. I can unerringly ID the band’s material when it plays on the digital music channel. Yet every song of theirs sounds like college rock muzak to my ears.

The Belle Stars – Iko Iko (from The Belle Stars, 1982) – This cover of an old Dixie Cups classic started off as a single that was later included on the Belle Stars’ first and only LP. It was used in Modern Girls for a limbo dancing scene at a Coconut Grove-style night club (minus the horrible fiery death), and ended up cracking the US pop charts in 1989 after being used on the Rain Man soundtrack. Ah, the life of a catchy pop song.

Kommunity FK – Something Inside Me Has Died (from Close One Sad Eye, 1985) – This is what people who have never listened to gothic music think that it sounds like -- gloomy, theatrical, and so over the top, it parodies itself. The song title doesn't help by laying it on a bit too thick, but, hey, that’s what the target audience expects.

in theatres today

This ain’t no Chatty Cathy art film, folks. AT:TM is an overbudgeted cinematic juggernaut jampacked with gratuitously implausible CGI effects and plot holes wide enough to accommodate a fleet of tricked out Hummers.

This film has it all:

Action!

Naz Nomad and The Nightmares – Action Woman (from Give Daddy the Knife, Cindy, 1984) – This is The Damned, posing as a forgotten sixties garage rock act for a one off album of period cover songs. The Litter, a Minneapolis garage band, first recorded this track in 1967, and Vanian, Scabies and company manage to pull off their own authentic sounding version that doesn’t simply clone the original.

Danger!

Rough Cut – Danger Boy (from a 1981 single) – Pretty good femvox punk out of Detroit. Have I mentioned that I'm a pushover for this kind of stuff?

Excitement!

Le Tigre – I’m So Excited (from This Island, 2004) – I’d lump This Island in with Fischerspooner’s Odyssey as examples of how certain bands can be too slickly produced for their own good. Both albums are entirely listenable and even enjoyable to a certain degree, but the sparks of genius that originally drew me to the acts’ earlier works have been blanched out in the mix. The end results are agreeable but fairly generic. This excellent Pointer Sisters’ cover was a welcome exception.

A killer movie deserves a killer theme song, and nothing beats “Bravely Folk Song,” the Cervantes Stage BGM from the 1996 fighting game, Soul Edge (Soul Blade in the States). This track, from Namco Sound Team’s Super Battle Attack Soul Edge, would be my choice of anthem should my dreams of world domination ever come to fruition. (This would be after my global purge of any and all snarky fanboys bold enough to point out where I lifted the theme from. Absolute power has its rewards.)

Edit: I almost forgot -- every blockbuster flick needs plenty of explosions....