hate myself today

I have no problems with the idea of growing older.

A certain sense of fatalism and pronounced lack of ambition have made it easy for me to accept, rather than rail against, the immutable fact that this trip through the timestream is one-way only. It is far better to negotiate the rapids on one's own terms than to be worn down and swept away in a futile fight against the current.

Besides, the concept of "youth" so many attempt to cling onto tends to be little more than a fixation on superficial trappings and cluelessness cloaked in an aura of false simplicity. The longer one attempts to hold on, the more absurd the situation becomes, and harder it becomes to let go of things that aren't really that important at all.

That said, I could do without those little reminders of mortality that my body springs on me at inopportune moments. I can live with the cosmetic stuff like gray hairs and whatnot; it's the random flare-ups of pain in my kneecaps (reminders of a 1985 scooter accident), the recurring lower back issues, and, most recently, the painful spasms in my neck and shoulders. Granted, most of these are self-inflicted wounds -- legacies of misadventures past or my flagrant disregard for all things ergonomic -- but the passing of years has only sharpened their lingering impacts.

The Modern Lovers - Dignified and Old (from The Modern Lovers, 1976) - "Dignified" is a relative term where I'm concerned.

my knees are shakin' and I hurt a lot

Ain't that the way of things -- just when you think everything is going to be all right, the fates take a carefully aimed Parthian shot just to keep things interesting. If there is a higher power, I suspect that it's a really big fan of William Sydney Porter.

Even if my present setback amounts to a inconvenient short-term prelude to better days, I'm having a hard time looking past looking past the excruciating now...mainly because it's difficult to see the grand horizon when one is bent over the bathroom sink in a state of intense pain.

Teenage Head - Bonerack (from Teenage Head, 1979) - A repost, but this masterpiece of Canadian punkabilly is always worth hearing.

gotta sit tight

I was hoping this day would see me on the other side of the whole abcessed tooth scenario, but, alas, it did not come to be. An excruciating Sunday night, followed by a Monday afternoon visit to the dentist's office, followed by a Tuesday morning consultation with the endodontist, to be followed by a Friday morning root canal therapy session...which had to be postponed until next Tuesday for a host of reasons. At least the antibiotics are keeping the infection -- and its associated pain -- in check for the time being.

If it wasn't for the alarming number of references to "septicemia" and "sinus complications" that cropped up during my Google search for "DIY second molar extraction," I'd be breaking out my handy set of locking pliers and playing McTeague the Home Game this very moment.

I just want it over and done with, so I can get back to my regularly scheduled life. It's not the procedure that bothers me, it's the waiting I can't stand. It's impossible for me to sit back and enjoy myself without being distracted by the irritating sensation that there's something hanging over my head. That applies to more than just oral surgery, too. I keep my life uncluttered for a reason.

Killing Joke - The Wait (from Killing Joke, 1981) - Down the rabbit hole of jagged postpunk nightmares we go.

when I'm over the pain

I'll be at the dentist's office today. Normal service will resume tomorrow.

Wall of Voodoo - Good Times (from Dark Continent, 1981) - Of the the Stan Ridgway kind, not the Jimmy Walker variety. I'm still waiting for a reissue of this album, one of the finest to come out of the SoCal punk/wave scene.

gotta get away

This is (hopefully) the last entry in my toothache series of posts, and I had anticipated a more upbeat conclusion to things. I even had the perfect song picked out to accompany today's entry:

The Brady Bunch - It's a Sunshine Day (from The Kids from the Brady Bunch, 1972) - I know my affection for gooey, sugary things got me into this situation in the first place, but still...

But that decision was made yesterday afternoon, while my face was numbed into quietude by a local and I was giddy with how well things had gone. And go well they did; after a morning of trying to keep the increasingly excruciating pain at arm's length, my wife and I made the trip to the endodontist's office in Quincy Center. My wife was spot on about their quality of care. Every aspect of the treatment was handled with a maximum eye toward allieviating any pain or discomfort I might have been feeling. Because of my wretched state, they cut straight to the procedure from the consulation, and it was performed skillfully, quickly -- and most importantly -- painlessly. Seriously, I've had shallow fillings done that were worse ordeals.

The source of the pain was an infection at the root, so the endodonist wrote me up prescriptions for antibiotics (to clear out the remaining infection) and Vicodin (to handle any remaining pain in the immediate aftermath). I wasn't so keen on taking the painkillers, as my experiences have shown me that there's always an unpleasant debt to be paid for the sake of prescription pain relief.

AFTER the local began to wear off and the inflamed nerves resumed their final doomed offensive, I quickly changed my mind. I forced down a small bowl of soup (so as not to drop powerful narcotics into an empty gut), took a Vicodin, and laid back on my bed, awaiting the bliss of pharmaceutically-induced sleep.

And it truly was blissful, until the last of the local wore off, at which point the neighbor of the treated tooth went supernova, a sharp, searing pain that cut through the narcotic haze like a gamma ray laser. At first I thought the Vicodin wasn't working, but as the initial dose faded the pain got even worse. My mind began coming up with horrible scenarios like "what if they got the wrong tooth?" and "the jarring of the drill must have it cracked open."

As there was nothing that could be done until the morning, I prepared myself for another sleepless night, retreating to the couch (so as to not disturb the wife) and settling in until 9:00 AM with a bowl of ice cubes and some Katamari Damacy. To keep the pain at an almost manageable state, I started upping the dose. One Vicodin every four hours became one and a half every three hours, damn the consequences. Sometime after three in the morning, I did finally nod off for a stretch, but it was a sleep haunted by nightmares which can only be described as "Tina Yothers hosting a gameshow about the apocalypse, presented Phoenix Wright-style."

I woke at seven this morning with a severe narcotic hangover, but no pain. My original assessment of the problem -- a worse than usual case of post-op jarred bone trauma -- was apparently correct. Thank Providence for that, at least. I've spent the rest of the day so far alternating between staggering nauseously around the house and passing out cold on the bed, feeling like nothing so much as a dessicated husk of my previous self. (The lack of sleep and decent nourishment these past couple days hasn't helped.)

The lack of pain in my teeth and jaw is nice, though. Hopefully I'll be a state to fully appreciate that soon.

The Crystal Method - Trip Like I Do (from Vegas, 1997) - Over the ottoman, over the edge of the rug, over Oscar the Pughuahua, over my own two feet...

say it ain't so

It's always darkest before dawn. I've learned this empirically, as I have been...

The Boomtown Rats - Up All Night (from V Deep, 1982)

...or to be more precise, alternating twenty minute stretches of furtive sleep with five minute sessions of cold rinses, which seem to be the only thing that can numb the pain in my jaw.

That's what I call anarchy agony.

tonight I can't hold a pen

Following up on yesterday's post:

I've scheduled a consultation visit for tomorrow afternoon, with the procedures to be performed on Wednesday. The discernible sense of urgency in my dentist's voice was a little alarming, but there's nothing I can do about it but hang in there for the next 72 hours. I never thought I'd ever type these words, but I'm actually looking forward to having a root canal.

Because I'm presently distracted by the pain-related lack of sleep and dark thoughts regarding the pair of vice grips in my tool box, I'm going into low-content mode for the next couple of days.

First up, I'm going to write up a prescription for a topical lowbrow palliative...

(from "All the World's a Stooge," 1941)
...to be followed with administration of a soothing musical balm:

The Replacements - Can't Hardly Wait (from Pleased To Meet Me, 1987) - Wester-borg speaks the truth. I'm looking forward to Wednesday like it was Christmas, only with fewer presents and more pulpy nerve tissue scraped out my pearly off-whites.

he who waits is lost

So remember I couple of days ago, when I was whining about what I thought was just a bad head cold? I think it has turned out to be something a little more complicated.

Last June, when I made my long-postponed trip to the dentist, I was told that two contiguous teeth on the upper right-hand side were candidates for root canals, due to the fact that both had been cracked open and left untreated so long before being filled. My dentist wrote me up a referral for an endodontist, and was supposed to set me up an appointment for the initial consultation.

The thing is that, for whatever reason, I never got a call back from the endodontist. I didn't pursue the matter, since I had a dozen cavities that needed filling, my dental coverage was scaled back (modestly, but still) when I switched unions, and root canals are expensive. Better to nip the numerous small problems in the bud, I thought, rather than blow the entire year's benefit on a couple big procedures that, let's face it, rank rather low on the "things we prefer to experience scale." (My wife, who has had a root canal done by the same people not too long ago, says that the process is completely different these days, and that she fell asleep in the chair while it was being done. Even so, I notice she isn't hoping to undergo the experience again any time soon.)

Besides, I figured, how bad could things get in the eleven months before the next fiscal year? The rotten chompers were already sensitive, I had lived through the white hot pain of countless canker sores, and I was not going to be intimidated by some bush league toothache. Sure, my friend recounted some over-the-top horror story about a classmate of his whose jaw abscessed due to similar neglect, which made the poor kid hallucinate and speak in tongues, but my friend has similar stories for every health issue from hangnails to cerebral hemorrhages.

Despite all my rationalizations and calculations, the answer to "how bad could it be" turned out to be "pretty damn horrible, actually." I've spent the last 48 hours distracted to the point of near madness by a throbbing, itching ache in my upper jaw, the inflamed nerve endings broadcasting all sorts of nasty sensations through my sinuses, cheek, and throat (which is why I though it was a head cold at first). As much as a canker sore feels like a blowtorch being held to the fleshy tissue inside the mouth, it's an acute pain and can be blocked out with a bit of effort. Until I finally took my wife's advice about the wonders of ibuprofen (O, glorious OTC pain reliever!) this morning, I was reduced to a state where I began to consider the merits of unconventional treatment as practiced by Bruce Willis's character in 12 Monkeys (fortunately I couldn't remember where I put my hunting knife) or by the learned triumvirate of Howard, Fine, and Howard...


Bill Haley & His Comets - (Now and Then) There's a Fool Such as I (from The Decca Years & More box set, 1991) - Tell me about it, Bill.

The Upsetters - Toothache (from The Complete UK Upsetters Singles Collection, Vol. 2, 2002) - The only kind of toothache worth having.

Friday Night Fights - Think you could make it with Frankenstein?

I wasn't about to let a little thing like a Halloween theme month get in the way of participating in the weekly Throwdown Cosmic that is Balactus's Friday Night Fights. Instead, I've used the Promethean power of MAD SCIENCE to combine the two concepts into a single horrifying hybrid. Call it FRIDAY NIGHT FRIGHT, um, FIGHTS!

So, what terrifying bit of comic book ultra-violence was fitting enough to kick things off with?

Frankenstein socking an evil gorilla henchape in the kisser.

It's comes from the acid-eaten pages of Dell's Frankenstein #2 (September 1966), a rather pitiful attempt by the publisher to grab some of that sweet superhero dollar without actually having to, y'know, really try too hard. The book, and the similarly conceived Dracula, employed the old "let's capitalize on a familiar property (preferably one in the public domain)" trick to reposit classic monsters as Space Age superheroes. The results were incredibly awful, yet utterly forgettable.

Frankenstein (okay, "Frankenstein's Monster," actually, but the comic doesn't worry about petty details, so neither will I) wakes up inside his creator's castle, which just so happens to have been relocated to the outskirts of Metropole City. (It must have occurred during the wild castle relocation craze pioneered by "Wacky" Willy Randolph Hearst. It was a huge phenomenon during the 1930's, ranking just behind "foraging in garbage cans for bread crusts" and "beating hobos with axe handles" as the popular pastime of choice.)

Still groggy from his long sleep, the creature -- who has somehow exchanged its "classic" bolts-and-scars look for a fleshtone muscleman's body, green head, and Frank Sutton Signature Style^TM flattop haircut -- slaps on a "lifelike" rubber face mask and wanders out into the brave new world as "Frank Stone." Though the magical power of "Let's just get this backstory shit over with, it's not like the brats pay attention to it anyway," Frank rescues a millionaire from a car wreck. The millionaire dies, but not before leaving his vast fortune to his not-entirely-successful savior.

He then rescues a woman from a gun-toting thug, so that she is free to become his requisite romantic interest/trouble magnet, "Miss Ann Thrope." I shit you not. (Her parents must have been huge Molière fans. Or they simply had a cruel sense of humor.) Discovering the appeal of helping people through punching things, Frank puts his mass murdering days (and Miltonian eloquence, if he is the literary -- as opposed to the film -- version of the creature) behind him and takes up the superheroic mantle.

The first challenge he faces comes in the form of Dr. Freek, a standard-issue Bald Mad Scientist^TM with a gorilla henchman. Frank tussles with the ape for a couple panels before the creators realized that it was five minutes to quitting time amicably allowing the beast and his master to go home. The end.

To think it was all done for the sake of rooking naive waifs out of twelve cents, and it even failed dismally in that modest task. Still, I'm sure it's only a matter of time before there's a Previews solicitation for Alex Ross's Monsters, featuring superhero Frankenstein and superhero Dracula in full painted, photoreferenced glory and with enough fan reverence to make the most devout Whedonite look like a dilettante. The plot won't make a damn bit of sense, but golly darn will it be reverent.

New York Dolls - Frankenstein (from New York Dolls, 1973) - Who needs Edgar Winter, when I've got the future Buster Poindexter?

Whoever smelt it, dealt it, Frankster...

stinking to high heaven

Yesterday was supposed to be a good day.

Despite issues at work, despite the frustrating commute, despite the time lost while Maura fixed the filter for the koi tank at her parents' house, despite all the other little slings and arrows of everyday petty hassles, I went though the required motions with a gleam in my eye and a spring in my step. Why? Because it was Thursday, which per our domestic tradition, meant getting Chinese takeout and sitting down for the only block of network TV shows I actually look forward to: The Office, My Name Is Earl, and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia -- two anticipated season premieres, and three full hours of all-new episodes, through and through.

Between arriving home from work and settling down couch with a heaping plate of sweet and sour chicken, there were a handful of essential tasks to see to, mostly centering around animal care and feeding. I was eager to get my share of these obligations out of the way as soon as possible, wasted no time in leashing up Adeline, our beagle-boxer mix, for her nightly walk. It was the tail end of twilight, but I figured there was still enough light in the sky to chance a walk down to the end of the backyard, which is Addy's preferred spot for doing her business. It was one of the worst fucking mistakes I've made in a lifetime of dubious decisions.

We exited the back door in our usual fashion, Addy pulling hard on the leash and me doing my damnedest to keep my arm from getting yanked from the socket. It's something I've gone through at least a thousand times, only last night there just happened to be a fairly large and rather irritable skunk on the back steps. Skunks are pretty frequent visitors to our house on the hill, but they usually come late at night to munch on any kibble left in the feral cats' bowls. They've grown used to the our presence, skedaddling to the far side of the driveway when we step out onto the patio or take out the trash. We've even given names to some of the regular visitors: Frank Skunktone, the microencephalic Peanuthead, and Limahl (named for the huge fluffy white stripe on his head and back).

Addy caught sight of the skunk and the hound side of her family tree -- bared teeth, eager yawlps, slobbering jowls and all -- manifested in full force, while I tried in vain to being her to heel. The skunk made a brief, bold stand before turning tail and making a beeline for the safety of the bushes. At first, I thought we'd made it though the worst intact, that the skunk held off on spraying due to our longstanding relationship based on mutual tolerance and wary respect. Those hopes were soon dashed as the wave of concentrated stink washed over me.

Addy got the worst of it, sprayed square in the face and mouth. I was protected by the high ground of the back steps, but the contact stink was still strong enough to cling to my clothes and person. In the space of a few seconds, my much-anticipated plans for the evening went down the crapper. The rest of the night was spent giving Addy repeated washings with de-stink solutions and sprayings down with the garden hose. The sweet and sour chicken and crab rangoons were cold by the time I got around to eating them, and my enjoyment undercut by the lingering aroma of skunk stink.

I still laughed out loud a couple times during Sunny, though.

Pete Thomas - Funky Skunk (from Let's Boogaloo, Vol. 3, 2006) - As opposed to "Fuckin' Skunk," the subject of several freestyle acapella rants I performed yesterday evening.

Loudon Wainwright III - Dead Skunk (from Album III, 1972) - That's the problem this new-fangled modern age -- Where are this generation's Top 40 hits about roadkill?

The Panzant Brothers - Skunk Juice (from SuperFunk: Rare Funk From Deep In The Crates, 2000) - Another illustration of the unholy alliance between funk and skunks.

Y'know, even after the events of the past twenty-four hours, a warm glass of skunk juice still seems more appetizing than a cold bottle of Mountain Dew Game Fuel (brought to you by Halo 3, a Bungie Studios production presented by Microsoft).

if power's all they really understand

There was a time when I made an active effort to keep up on the various comings and goings on in my areas of interest across the world wide web, but as my free time has dwindled over the past couple years, I’ve gotten to rely more and more on a handful of trusted linkblogs to pre-separate the wheat from the chaff for me. This is especially true for comics-related blogs and websites. There are simply too many to keep track of, and even Google Reader isn’t much help in organizing and prioritizing the endless flow of posts.

One of the most useful comics-related linkblogs is When Fangirls Attack, a well-curated and regularly updated clearinghouse of links to blog posts and articles dealing with feminist and gender-issues in the comics scene. Ragnell and Kalinara do a great job in presenting an inclusive collection of views, kept free of their own personal biases (which is how topic-themed linkblogs should ideally be. I’m an avid reader of Antiwar.com, despite the paleo-conservative/libertarian ideology of its maintainers because they make the effort to include a wide range of articles and commentary on the subject from across the political spectrum).

So when Dorian, the man behind the always-entertaining Postmodernbarney, started up Comic Gays, a linkblog along the lines of WFA, but with a focus on LGBT issues and subjects in the comics scene and related areas of fandom, it was welcome news, indeed. Even if the actual reach of the comics blogosphere is far smaller than what many of its members assume, it’s great to see new avenues of discussion open up, especially in areas where they intersect with egalitarian principles. There’s a strong current of knee-jerk conservatism in fandom which needs to be roiled from its ingrained opinions. Besides, a flippancy-free discussion of homosexual subtext in Silver Age romance comics makes for far more interesting reading than yet another shrill “DC is raping my childhood (by not publishing stories mirroring my fanfic)” rant.

Of course, it was only a matter of time before the linkbaiters crawled out of the woodwork. For those not up on hip ‘net lingo, linkbaiters are the Japanese beetles of the blogosphere’s rose garden -- folks who write deliberately provocative posts in hopes of getting their site/post referenced by the relevant linkblog. If one were to create a widely-read linkblog dedicated to ham sandwiches, five will get you ten that there will suddenly be a marked increase in blogposts concerning that particular comestible. It’s a quick and dirty means of generating attention (and hits) closely related to that “NOTICE ME” fan pathology I discussed yesterday. It wouldn’t be so bad if these attention-starved voices had something to add to the discussion, but all too often their remarks tread into the realm of outright trollery, being either contrary for the sake of getting attention or just skitching behind the issue du jour. The sincerity of writer (and in too many cases, sadly, the views expressed are sincere) matters less than the ready-made opportunity for virtual face time.

The Rondelles – Pay Attention to Me (from The Fox, 1999) - Sure, as long as you're communicating though femvox indie pop, and not through incoherent rants about why "femisitim" or "guy marrige" is harmful to society.

I’ve had a few of my posts linked to on When Fangirls Attack, but never did I sit down and begin writing with that being the express purpose of the piece, although I can usually predict what will get picked up by the site. (The exception being the Satin Satan post.) I write a lot of comics-themed posts and I’m a strong exponent of egalitarian principles; it’s a given that the streams will cross every so often. That said, I’ve been trying out to figure a way to get a post linked to by Comic Gays. I don’t watch Torchwood (though the ads are intriguing), I tend to steer clear of out-of-context “OMG Batman is SOOO gay for Superman” vintage comic panel humor (because only a rare few can do it right), and the posts I have made about gay rights issues are straightforward political polemics. The trollery route is right out, as I really don’t have it in me to convincingly play the part. (I can’t even bring myself to take the Dark Side path in the Knights of the Old Republic games.)

What’s a poor aspiring link-baiter to do except discuss Carol Channing’s performance in the 1968 flop Skidoo and its lingering effect on my psyche? Skidoo was Otto Preminger’s attempt at the most failure-prone of genres, the counter-culture comedy. Many ambitious directors tried their hand at pulling off such a feat, but even the best of the lot (Head, a bizarre and confusing self-skewering of The Monkees) fall into the category of “interesting failures,” and Skidoo doesn’t even reach those modest heights with its mix of familiar character and comedic actors (Jackie Gleason, Groucho Marx, Carol Channing, Mickey Rooney, among others) and very 60’s drug culture humor.

A critical and financial bomb upon its release, Skidoo became a legend among aficionados of cinematic trash, with the lack of a VHS or DVD release boosting its allure. I managed to acquire a copy a few years back, and finally got a chance to compare the legend to the real deal. It wasn’t the worst film of its type -- an honor that goes hands-down to The Phynx, an attempt to combine The Monkees with an endless parade of celebrity cameos. Skidoo didn’t so much pain me with its incompetence as cripple me with a sense of embarrassment for everyone involved. The feeling I got watching Jackie Gleason trip out on LSD and Groucho Marx smoking reefer was the same one I felt when my mom got tipsy on port wine and sang an out of key rendition of “Smooth Operator.” (Or watching Street Fighter: The Movie and realizing that this was Raul Julia’s last film role. Or seeing Robert Vaughn in TV ads for ambulance-chasers.) It’s a painful, but not an insurmountable experience for the hardened schlock enthusiast familiar with the mortifying sensation of witnessing People Who Should Know Better doing terrible things on screen.

If that were all the film had to dish out, it would be just another seen it/survived it/bragged about it bad cinema experience, but just when you think you’ve survived the worst, it pulls out a particularly nasty shiv from the waistband of its BVD’s and proceeds to twist it repeatedly in your gut.

I don’t have an opinion of Carol Channing one way or another, except as one of the familiar popcult presences of a 1970’s childhood, but her performance of the Harry Nilsson-penned “Skidoo,” at the film’s finale is the raw stuff of which nightmares are made. Something about the way her trademark raspy voice wraps itself around the chorus unlocks a deep-seated sense of primal terror within me, especially in conjunction with the manic choreography, relentless grin, and pirate costume with which she accompanies the song. It all leads to the bedroom, where it is implied that her character and Jackie Gleason’s will bump ugiles.

Sweet Blessed Providence, I’m going to have to sleep with the lights on tonight, and I just know that won’t hold off the night terrors.

Carol Channing & Harry Nilsson – Skidoo/Goodnight Mr. Banks (from the Skidoo OST, 2003)

push it to the floor till the engine screams

I work at one of Greater Boston’s many universities, and one of the great perks of my job is the unbridled opportunities for people-watching it provides. Every trip to the restroom, vending machines, or ATM yields insightful (and often painful) glimpses into the lives of that strange breed of creature known as the “college student.”

Although nothing will ever top the time I quite literally ran into two wild turkeys out for a late afternoon stroll behind one of the lecture halls, yesterday’s sojourn in search of some decent vend-o-fare did include some interesting material for the empirical anthropologist. At the entrance to one of the college buildings, I crossed paths with a rather hirsute and odiferous individual who bore all the distinct markings of the stereotypical male sci-fi/comics/RPG fan, right down to the patchy beard and air of disdainful superiority.

Considering my well documented set of hobby-horses and other assorted interests, it may seem hypocritical for me to tag others of the tribe with labels. Fandom is not monolithic, however, and as an Algonquin from the Northeast would have been certainly puzzled by certain customs and practices of a member of the plains-dwelling Sioux -- and vice versa -- there are aspects of fan culture which remain baffling to me. I have spent too much time dwelling in the houses of the non-fan, perhaps.

That’s all beside the point, though, because there was something about this particular fanboy that set him apart from his peers: He was carrying a large, old-school boom box with him, with the Star Wars: Episode IV soundtrack blasting from its tinny speakers. In these days of listening technology, where smaller and more personal is better, projecting a full-on sonic assault in a ten-yard radius around one’s self can only be seen as a deliberate act of attention-mongering only slightly more subdued than having John Williams and the London Philharmonic follow one around and play the music live. It struck me as the ultimate realization of fanboy megalomania, the overwhelming compulsion to relentlessly inflict one’s interests upon passers-by, while the passers-by merely roll their eyes and do their best to escape.

One thing that struck me after the fact was “Why the Star Wars theme?” The franchise does have its share of obsessively hardcore adherents, but it has also become part of the mass popcult consciousness. Everyone knows the theme to the first film, even folks with minimal interest in the movies, books, and related ephemera. The fanboy’s choice of music flew in the face of conventional fan-behavior where there’s premium put on exclusivity, which in turn provides opportunities for condescending pedantry: “Oh, you would think that. Obviously you’ve never seen the Japanese laserdisc version.” It’s a form of (arguably) secular Calvinism that puts an emphasis on proselytizing, but only for the sake of reminding those outside the elect that they are stupid, while the proselytizer is a genius. I’d have been less surprised if he’d played the theme to some as-yet-unlicensed-for-American-release anime series, a filk remix of the Man from Atlantis theme, or Rush’s 2112.

It got me to thinking about what tracks I’d select for my own intrusively blasted theme song (though I pray that I’ll never have to face that particular demon). After careful consideration, I narrowed the field down to two worthy candidates. The final choice would depend on my mood at the time:

Mike Post & Pete Carpenter – Drive (Theme to Hardcastle & McCormick) (from Television’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 6, 1996) – The original and superior version of the show’s theme song (with vocals by David Morgan). Truly the brightest, most glorious moment in the mismatched crimefighting duo with a bitchin’ high-end car genre of TV shows. Sure it was formulaic pap, but it was formulaic pap that spoke to the hearts and souls of a generation of kids too stupid to know better.

Quincy Jones – The Streetbeater (Theme to Sanford & Son) (from Television’s Greatest Hits, Vol. 3, 1990) – I associate this track with pain, blinding white pain of the nausea-inducing variety. It’s not because I think it’s a bad piece, quite the contrary. Way back in the day when Maura and I first started dating, I was channel surfing and stopped on TV Land just as the theme began to play. I was thrilled; Maura wasn’t and she demanded I change the channel before the tune got stuck in her head. I tried playing “keep away” with the remote, at which point the woman I would eventually marry “accidentally” elbowed me square on the nose, causing me to black out for a few minutes.

My other strange encounter of that was considerably less irritating than the boom box nerd, but far more intriguing. In the courtyard outside the science building stood the most adorable pair of hipster undergrads, a gal and a guy, sharing a single pair of iPod earbuds as they made goo-goo eyes at each other. Ah, young love in bloom, free of all the complications, pregnancy scares, and drunken 2:00 AM phone calls…

As I dragged myself back to my dismal little cubicle, I found myself wondering what song exactly the little lovebirds happened to be listening to. My first guess was Sisqó’s “Thong Song,” the pinnacle of romantic sentiment in Western cultural history. Not even The Bard’s sublime Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?/Thou art more lovely and more temperate) can approach the passionate resonance of “She had dumps like a truck truck truck/Thighs like what what what/Baby move your butt butt butt.” (Ed. note: I’d sooner vote Republican than post that track here.)

After a little more reflection, I began to wonder if perhaps “Thong Song” was a little too much freak to handle in that gooey stage of their relationship. Maybe they were listening to more intellectually stimulating romantic material, like “Anthrax” from Gang of Four's 1979 LP Entertainment! It’s a heartwarming analysis of love as lensed though the Marxist concept of alienated labor and as compared to a deadly spore-borne illness. It’s one of the all time great make-out songs, too.

Then it hit me, and it was so painfully obvious that I cursed myself for not realizing it sooner. There is only one song that truly, madly, deeply captures the that sort of bliss in musical form, and that song is:

Commander Cody – Two Triple Cheese, Side Order of Fries (from Lose It Tonight, 1980) – In the days when I used to buy used vinyl by the pound, the “C – Misc.” bins in every secondhand records shop in the metro Boston area were packed to the partitions with Commander Cody (with and without The Lost Planet Airmen) LPs. I never purchased any, but it made me contemplate why these stores just didn’t create dedicated slots for Mr. Frayne and company. Was it a case of hipper-than-thou audiophile bias against blue collar “boogie woogie” rock? Or simple laziness?

(The illustration for today's post was courteously provided by the incomparable Chris Sims.)

stay just as far from me as me from you

I usually make it a point to avoid getting caught up in the entertainment industry’s orgies of self-congratulation otherwise known as award shows, but Maura, who has an inexplicable fondness for celebrity gossip, decided to watch last night’s Emmy Awards pre-show and ceremonies on the TV in our bedroom, where I was working on some projects at the computer desk. It’s been a while since I have had to bear witness to the proceedings, but I don’t remember the Emmys being as off-putting and just plain awful as they were in the largish chunk of the show I was subjected to last night.

Maura’s answer to that observation was to simply say, “Well, FOX is broadcasting them this year” and that they “must have gotten the urge to tart them up a bit.” That does make sense, I suppose, but still doesn’t explain the decision to go with a theater-in-the-round format for the presenter’s platform. Shakespearean history aside, theater-in-the-round, where the action happens on a center stage surrounded by the audience on all sides, is extremely awkward in practice (in terms of costume/set changes and blocking) and I suspect largely predicated on maximizing seating at the expense of any audience members stuck facing the wrong direction. The center stage did have a very sci-fi portal built into the floor for entrances and exits, but there was a sense of confusion among the presenters and award winners about exactly who or where they should be looking at while speaking. (The presenters, at least, had the teleprompter to focus their attention upon.) Only Lewis Black, delivering a welcome rant about small screen infoclutter, seemed to have a grasp of the logistics of a 360 degree delivery.

I did my best to concentrate on my PC monitor’s screen while my wife shouted out comments about the winners, losers, and the abundance of horrible fashion choices, but a few things did manage draw my gaze into the Emmy abyss:

- Tony Bennett – The first time the pop legend won an award for some special I didn’t remember at all, I felt a bit sad that the rest of the production staff ate up so much of the allotted “thank you” time, leaving Mr. Bennett only enough to give a brief call-out to his wife. Then the special won a second award, and I was forced to rethink my previous position, as the venerable crooner delivered an extremely awkward and gushy love letter for Target Stores (who sponsored the special) using terms best reserved for hagiographies. Hey, I appreciate the deals the superstore gives me on Dr. Pepper and toilet paper, but I wouldn’t go as far as nominating the chain for sainthood.

- The Jersey Boys’ tribute to The Sopranos – The big WTF moment of the night, and the most disturbing, as cast members of the Broadway show badly lip-synched to overproduced renditions of “Walk Like a Man” and “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You” while clips from The Sopranos played on the arena’s monitors. The desperate stink of contrived irony was thick in the air as the pretty boys mimed along to a sappy pop ballad while the footage from the series showed Drea de Matteo’s character being executed by mobsters. Classy, indeed.

The whole fascination with mobster/Mafia mythos leaves my cold, quite frankly. The Aislin Silva case and having seen (from a window of a southbound subway train) forensic investigators unearth corpses of the Winter Hill Gang’s victims from the shores of the Neponset River tell me all I need to know about the type of people who make a living though organized crime.

- TEK-NAU-LOW-GEE – “What did the last Neanderthal say to the first Cro-Magnon?” The various academies that award the Emmy’s decided to acknowledge the march of technological progress in a most goofy manner by having Masi Oka from Heroes teleconference with the MySpace dude in order to present an award for “Interactivity in Television” or other buzzword-laden nonsense. The award was given to Joel Hyatt and a very puffy-looking Al Gore for their Current TV venture, which is like being the only person in the world who makes robotic hamsters being given an award for excellence in making robot hamsters. Shit, I’d have given the award to the creator(s) of Comcast ON DEMAND. There’s some interactivity with a purpose.

Also on the “token nods to tech” front, who came up with the idea of showing clips of the nominees on iPods, high-end cell phones, and other “hot” media playing devices via over the shoulder POV shots? The video may have been indecipherable, but the brands and makes of the devices were clearly discernable.

- Your Best Interests at Heart – I’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more effective ipecac than last night’s speech by the outgoing president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, which (with accompanying montage of Bob Hope entertaining the troops and Live Aid footage) praises all the Good Work^TM done by folks in the industry, in particularly American Idol's use of poor African children as a self-serving empathy sink and the voyeurism-posing-as-a-cause of yet another made-for-cable documentary about junkies.

Good deeds are good deeds, regardless of ulterior motives, but I’m not inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the same industry that gave us Kid Nation, According to Jim, and Past-His-Prime Rocker Ogles Attention-Hungry Women Rock of Love. Feel free to assuage whatever vestiges of a conscience you’ve got left, folks. Just don’t expect me to feel all warm and fuzzy over your onanistic back-patting sessions. I’ve seen your real face, TV industry, and it looks like a meth addict’s after a week of withdrawal pains. Who do these people think they are? Target?

Judging from today’s post-mortems of the Emmys, the FOX-i-fied version of the award show landed with a sickly wet thump ratings-wise, which I’m sure the firms who bought advertising time must be really thrilled to hear. Given the state of the ads shown, I’d say it’s a case of poetic justice, with extra scorn heaped on Macy’s, whose marketing message was “We sell loads of overpriced celebrity-licensed crap.” (Usher has a fragrance for sale? Seriously? WTF, buying public.) McDonald’s also rolled out the big guns of adorability with an ad featuring a poppin’ and lockin’ moppet munching on the new healthy not as unhealthy Happy Meal. However, its effectiveness was completely undermined by its length, which came in a just a hair over the total runtime of the uncut version of von Stroheim’s Greed. (First Law of Marketing: A little breakdancing kid goes a long way.)

FOX took the opportunity to aggressively pimp its properties, both current and forthcoming (and based on what was shown they must have received a federal grant to provide work to unemployed alums of Everybody Loves Raymond), but the net effect was just another annual session of the “which one of these dozen shows will survive past mid-season” game. (Inside tip: Bet on the one with the most appeal to the lowest common denominator. That might be tricky, given that it’s FOX, but it should narrow the field a little.)

Mission of Burma - Academy Fight Song (from a 1980 single; collected on the Signals, Calls, and Marches CD reissue, 1996) - Not the Academy of Television Arts and Science's fight song, which is still being hashed out as the composers try to think of more words that rhyme with "pander." It's just as well, since few tracks can touch this lovely bit of locally grown post-punk.

Brenda Lee - Nobody Wins (from The Definitive Collection, 2006) - Certainly not the viewing public in the case of last night's Emmys, but Miss Brenda Lee is here to ease your pain.

Orbital - Pay Per View (from The Altogether, 2001) - Sometimes it's the wisest viewing (or listening) choice.

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)

do you hear some outside air

A couple of Fridays back, Maura and I were coming out of the pet store when she noticed that Super Lumina’s passenger side rear tire was looking a bit sickly. I’m inclined as a general habit to pooh-pooh such observations, as Super Lumina has a heavy frame and a heavy engine, and there’s a noticeable give where the rubber hits the road even on a new set of properly inflated tires. This time was the real deal, though, and explained why the car’s stability while cornering had been getting progressively wonkier over the previous month or so.

I gave the tire in question a thorough going over to see if I could find any visible punctures or damage, but came up empty. Suspecting the awful truth, but hoping for the best, I stopped at the Citgo station down the block and got the tire back to its proper PSI level. The next two weeks were a waiting game; nothing seemed to happen at first, and I was ready to chalk it up to “one of those things” that come with car ownership. Then, last Sunday, I did a spot check and the tire was looking as bad, if not worse, than it did two weeks previous.

Again hoping against reality, I went back to the Citgo air pump. The leak appeared to be a slow one, and I figured that I could play for time until my next scheduled vacation. It was not to be. I just took a quick look out the living room window and the tire is about as flat as it can get while still being drivable on.

Damn it. I knew I was due for a new set of tires, and I’m always up for a day off work, but I hate having the issue decided for me, with a massive last minute shuffling of priorities (not to mention the not-insignificant cash outlay involved).

Johnny London – Flat Tire (from The Complete Sun Singles, Vol. 1, 1994) – I think we can make it to the juke joint on the bare rim if we all lean to one side.

Albert King – Flat Tire (from I Wanna Get Funky, 1974) – In which a veteran bluesman feels my pain, and knows how to make it dissipate.

The Adverts – On Wheels (from Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts, 1978) – “On Borrowed Wheels” in my case, as my grandma has lent me her rather boxy Olds Cutlass until I can get my car out of the shop. It’s not a bad car, but it’s two weight classes below Super Lumina, and despite sporting only a four-cylinder engine, its mass-to-power ratio makes it feel like it’s going to leap out from under me every time I feather the gas pedal.

Vacation: Interlude - Art Imitates Life

In the latest installment of the trainwreck that is the Justice Society of America relaunch, writer Geoff "Off the Rails" Johns gives us a rare insight into what it means to be a superhero in these kooky modern times....

Super-strength and x-ray vision are fine and all, but nothing can top the power of some judiciously applied hush money. I'd like to point out that the incident referred to in the above panel occured in a pediatric ward. Because when you're dealing with a disoriented individual (the crotch-pondering Citizen Steel) with post-traumatic stress and uncontrollable strength, it makes perfect sense to bring him within arm's reach of sick children...

(Then again, this is the team that includes a whimsically wacky mential patient with the cosmic ability to manipulate mass on its roster... The comic's depiction of mental health institutions is, how you say, "completely fucked up.")

With great power comes great responsibility...unless you're rich, then all bets are off.

Rubella Ballet - Money Talks (from At the End of the Rainbow, 1990)

we regret to inform you

A few minutes ago I brushed the back of my hand up against a stinging nettle plant by the patio, and my fingers are starting to swell up like balloons. I feel as if I dipped my left hand in molten lead.

As soon as I can fit my hands into my pair of work gloves again, that treacherous little excuse for a plant is going to die. Painfully and slowly.

The Alleycats - Give Me a Little Pain (from a 1978 single; collected on Dangerhouse Singles: Volume 2, 1992) - Oh, I've got plenty at the moment, but I like to share. This was on the flipside to the "Nothing Means Nothing Anymore" single, but I think it's a far superior track that should have been the rightful a-side. A very nice bit of early L.A. punk rawk.

Harajuku Antichrist

The things we do for love. The other day I got a opportunity to get my hands on some import anime soundtracks. There wasn’t anything in the assortment that interested my personally, but there was a nice selection of music from the anime series and live action movie adapted from Ai Yazawa’s Nana, which Maura happens to be a fan of. Shojo (manga aimed at younger females) tends to leave me cold, although I do find the occasional flip through the wife’s copies of Shojo Beat an enlightening experience, not for the comics content but for the fashion and lifestyle features, which read like something out of Seventeen after a crash infusion of facile ex oriente lux exoticism. (The habit western anime fans have of appropriating decontextualized and poorly understood chunks of Japanese culture deserves a book in itself.)

Based on my above stated biases, I’d normally just have kicked the soundtracks over to Maura and left it at that, but seeing as Nana has a punk rawk connection, with one of the two identically named women who give the manga its title being an aspiring punk musician, I was a little curious whether the music would have a bit more kick than the customary j-pop/idol singer material one usually finds on these sorts of albums.

Going over the track listings, I came across this lovely gem of a cover on the Nana Best album and decided to give it a spin. I’m not sure what I expected, but in my wildest dreams did not anticipate what came over my headphones. Here’s a pictorial reenactment of my reaction (French Foreign Legion hat optional):

I think it was in an old issue of the “adult” manga anthology Pulp that I read an interview with Chynna Clugston where she mentions encountering some Japanese youths in Quadrophrenia-perfect mod gear. When she asked them what bands they liked, they responded with “Poison.” (What, you didn’t know that “Unskinny Bop” is a masterpiece of Northern Soul?) The dissonance between fashion and music styles in Japanese pop culture is nothing new, as I have learned though many viewings of 80’s sci-fi anime series where nearly all roads lead to terrible jazz rock or Pink Lady clonage.

I didn’t for a minute think that a series targeting young Japanese women would feature a soundtrack composed of the terrifyingly atonal and extreme sounds I associate with the radical wing of the Japanese punk rock scene, but something a little less Avril and little more Polysics would have been nice. I warned everyone about allowing Hot Topic to spread unchecked, but did they listen to me? Now look what’s happened…

Need something to blot out the pain? How about a speed metal version of the Uchuu Senkan Yamato (aka Space Battleship Yamato, aka Star Blazers) theme?

Animetal - Uchuu Senkan Yamato (from Marathon, 1997) – I’ve been watching the uncut Japanese version of the first Yamato series recently. One difference between the original and the edited for the American market Star Blazers? R2D2-analog IQ-9 didn’t try to peek under Nova’s skirt in Star Blazers. I guess western audiences weren’t into sexual harassment scenes featuring squat comic relief robots in the late 70’s.

and kept my mind from wandering

I’m not sure what to make of this announcement. As a studio album, it would have been the pinnacle of conceited folly, but as a radio special, it’s a matter of fatuous inevitability. What has been revealed of the line up so far doesn’t instill me with a lot of confidence, just the anticipation that the end results will be overly reverent takes garnished with a side of ego tripping. (Travis’ major claim to fame, at least as far as I’ve seen referenced outside the rarified realm of the music press, was their mimeographed copy of “Getting Better” that was used in a Phillips commercial.)

If the producers really wanted to pay homage to the legacy of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, they should have gone wild when selecting the artists. For example, I’d love to hear Neko Case’s take on “A Day in the Life,” or have Underworld or the Chemical Brothers rework George Harrison’s self-indulgent boat anchor “Within You Without You” into something spectacular and different.

This sentence:

The BBC reports that Geoff Emerick, the engineer in charge of the original sessions, will use the same equipment to record the new versions.

…is a fine example of how gimmickry passes as relevance these days. It’s a level of hucksterism on par with a carnival barker’s patter (“The Great Wheredini will now attempt to escape from the same guillotine used to decapitate Marie Antoinette!”) or the sales pitch of Chaucer’s Pardoner when hawking his phony relics. (Speaking of which, who knew that Joan of Arc was an Egyptian human-feline hybrid? I need to get a revised prayer card for her featuring this image.) It’s a marketing ploy masquerading as significance, substance through association.

It’s not like this sort of nonsense hasn’t been tried before. The Beatles cast such a massive shadow over the realms of pop music and popular culture that it’s a given that those threads would be repeatedly picked up and pursued for reasons both noble and exploitive. Nothing can match the 1978 musical, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, in terms of sheer crapulent audacity.

For a while, a friend and I were engaged in an intense game of “can you top this” involving terrible movies. While a cheapo Turkish ripoff of Star Wars took the grand prize for all-around ineptitude, its incoherent mix of Islamic platitudes and shag-carpeted sasquatches is still more watchable than Sgt. Pepper’s is. Even as camp, it’s nigh unbearable, and this is from someone who will sit through Xanadu whenever it pops up on cable TV. It makes Skidoo look like Casablanca.

The film is, at its core, a paradox. It’s a celebration of the power of music against the corruption of the music business, but the film itself is as cynical, bloated, and venal as any of the villainous forces depicted onscreen. Each frame oozes pure, uncut 1970’s unctuousness as it attempts to ingratiate itself with the audience through a litany of overproduced and poorly contextualized renditions of The Beatles’ songs. It’s all presented with a migraine-inducing degree of literalness (It’s Maxwell and his Silver Hammer! It’s Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds! Hey, have you met Mr. Mustard yet? The Egg Man and the Walrus apparently walked out due to a contract dispute) that completely misses what made the original songs so damn interesting.

It also doesn’t help that the film features no dialogue, only the songs and narration (provided by George Burns). As a result, much of the characters’ emoting is done via broad pantomime. It’s a bold directorial move, and one that gives the viewer the impression that one is watching a grade school play performed by a gaggle of hyperactive (retarded?) schoolchildren. Poor Peter “Billy Shears” Frampton fares especially badly on this score, as he chews the scenery with clueless gusto. The Bee Gees just seem kind of confused and sad in comparison.

I’d love to see a deluxe DVD release of the film with an audio track of the director’s instructions during filming: “Happy, Peter, happy! Now sad! Sad! Now drugged! ‘Drugged’, I said, not ‘having an orgasm!’”

So, yeah, the bar has been set pretty low for not creating the worst Beatles tribute ever, but anything’s possible when the Gallagher brothers are involved.

From the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band OST (1978):

Steve Martin – Maxwell’s Silver Hammer

George Burns – Fixing a Hole

broo broo skies

Years ago, before we were married, my wife and I used to kill time on Saturdays nights by watching Medford public access television. In the mid-to-late 1990’s, Medford Channel 3’s offerings were pretty unique compared to what was coming out of its neighboring communities. Where Woburn’s public access programming largely consisted of taped city council meetings and last Sunday’s First Congregational Church services, Medford provided a wide open platform for local auteurs to strut their stuff in interesting, if not always successful, ways.

One could tune in at any given hour and be treated to homebrew martial arts and horror films, sketch comedy of varying quality, a local scenester’s answer to Howard Stern’s and David Letterman’s shows, and my personal favorite, hour-long blocks of karaoke performances taped a local bar the previous weekend.

I have nothing against karaoke, per se, but I’m inflexible in my conviction that it depends on its environs to function properly. Performances that would be perfectly acceptable in the smoky, alcoholic haze of a dive bar or wedding reception become uncomfortably intimate glimpses into the soul when viewed via cathode ray tube in the comfort of one’s bedroom. The clips were presented without any context, which begged all sorts of questions about the folks onstage and goaded us into forensically reconstructing their lives based on their interpretations of popular songs.

What was the story behind the thick-necked, sunburned contractor-type who delivered a pitch-perfect rendition of Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer”? Was the overly cosmeticized thirty-something who slurred her was through Madonna’s “Holiday” a former Saugus club queen, trying to grasp a bit of the cocaine-and-vodka-fueled magic of her life before marriage, three kids, and mortgage payments brought her crashing back to earth?

We once caught someone my wife and I knew from college strutting her stuff in front of the camera. She was a nerdy, fantasy aficionado, and her choice of song, Joan Osborne’s “One of Us,” sent the pathos meter crashing into the red zone, an unforgettable bit of spiritual voyeurism to which a long painful wince is the only logical response.

That brings us to today’s featured track, one I’ve been waiting to spring on you folks for a while now, but I couldn't come up with the proper context to do so. The song is “Sky High” from Takenobu Mitsuyoshi’s soundtrack for Sega’s 1993 hit videogame, Daytona USA. Although it’s my policy to shy away from describing music in the entirely subjective terms of “best” or “worst,” this song is, without a doubt, one of the most pernicious little earworms I’ve had the misfortune to encounter.

It starts off innocently enough; light, energetic jazz rock of the type familiar to even the most casual j-pop/anime/videogame fan. Then the vocals kick in, and the nightmare begins in earnest. I don’t want to seem ethnocentric here. My studies of the Japanese language were cut short when I realized I had a specific sort of tone deafness that prevented me from grasping the correct intonations and inflections necessary to master it. I knew I was over my head, and chose to bow out rather than to reach for something that would forever exceed my grasp. It’s not just linguistic either, if one’s vocal range is limited, the wisest course is to avoid ever singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” If only the singer on “Sky High” had been as conscious of his own limitations. A singer with shaky grasp of tricky English consonants and lyrics that go out of their way to showcase said consonants is a recipe for aural damnation. “Frying high” and “broo broo skies,” indeed.

He gives it his best shot, however, apparently unaware of the horrors being unleashed by his vocal cords, and feels confident enough to toss in the obligatory “hey, ay, yo” soulful flourishes. I can’t help imagining Osaka’s reigning karaoke champion -- with punch-permed hair, a pencil thin mustache, and the finest fashions 1978 has to offer -- his hands pressed against his headphones and his eyes screwed tightly shut in emotive rapture pouring out his soul in the recording booth.

Wow. Now I feel a bit ashamed for making fun of the song…

All this obloquy might seem a bit much for something created as sonic wallpaper for a racing game, and if the experience ended with the “Game Over” screen I’d agree, but the song lingers, having used the game as a effective delivery system by which to permanently imprint itself upon one’s neurons. Hours, days, weeks later something will inescapably trigger the hard-coded mnemonic sequence, and you’ll find yourself softly humming and muttering “I want to fry, sky high” to yourself as you wait in line at the ATM or local Dunkin Donuts.

Or not. It might just be me.

Takenobu Mitsuyoshi – Sky High (from the Daytona USA OST, 1994)