to the vanquished, the spoils

Combining historical accuracy with cultural sensitivity!
Here is the scenario:

Your side has just been decisively defeated by the opposition. While the rout can be credited in part to the superior leadership, organization, and tactics of the enemy, the unfortunate (but entirely forseeable) consequences of your side's ideological and policy decisions were also a major factor.

Even after launching every weapon in your arsenal and mobilizing your most loyal and reliable ground forces, you had to fight (and lose) on fronts that you hadn't even anticipated from the outset.

So, faced with such a colossal rebuke of your strategy, tactics, and global vision, do you:

1. Humbly reflect on the errors in judgement that caused your loss and recalibrate your focus?

2. Brazenly attempt to dictate terms to the victorious side while refusing to acknowledge the reasons for your defeat?

If you answered "2," you could have a great future ahead of you as a right-wing op-ed columnist.

Manual Scan - American Way (from a 1982 single; collected on This Is Mod v.6: The United States of Mod, 1999) - "Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness." If there's one thing I've learned as an American, it's that sociopathy and arrogance are more socially acceptable behaviors than signs of "weakness" are.

Don't let the compliation title fool you -- this cut may be mod revival by association, but the postpunk influences (Gang of Four and Pylon, specifically) are unmistakable.

Halloween Countdown: October 26 - it really happened

A Resurrection Plant, eh?

That reminds me of something that happened to a friend of a friend of mine a while back. This guy worked the late shift at a warehouse in North Reading, and used to drive home along Route 62 during the wee hours. Well, this one time he was making his way down the dark and lonely state highway when he spotted something really weird along the side of the road. It was a potted plant -- some kind of fern, he said -- just sitting there on the shoulder of 62 westbound in the middle of the sticks with no sign how it ended up there.

It was late October, when the first killer frosts come to the northwestern suburbs. This guy figured that the plant would die if he didn't do something, pulled to the side of the road, and retrieved it. He wasn't the gardening type, but thought that maybe his mom or his girlfriend at the time could do something with it. Anyhow, he put it on the passenger seat of his '86 Monte Carlo and hopped back behind the wheel.

While the plant, being a plant, didn't move or say anything, the guy said he could sense a "really creepy vibe" from the potted fern. He said the interior of his car felt colder, even though he had the heater cranked to the max. (That's not uncommon for a GM car, though.) He also claimed to sense an "aura of sadness" coming from the plant and it got stronger as he got closer to the Wilmington town line.

The sensation abruptly stopped when he pulled up to the lights at the intersection next to one of the many giant luxury condo complexes recently plunked down in the northwestern suburbs. When he looked over at the passenger seat, the plant was no longer there.

He sped the rest of the way back to his apartment in Bedford. His roommate was still up when he got there and asked the guy why he seemed so jittery. The guy told about the mysterious fern, even though he knew how crazy the story sounded. The roommate didn't laugh, for he had worked part-time with landscaping firm near the area where the guy found the plant.

He told the guy about how a couple of years previous, a local nursery had gone up in flames when the greenhouse heater exploded. The force of the blast sent the contents of the nursery flying in all directions. The owner of the business decided not to rebuild, and instead sold off the property to an out-of-state residential development firm which cleared the land for a luxury condo development -- the very same development where the plant mysteriously disappeared from the guy's passenger seat.

So if you happen to be driving along Route 62 on some chill autumn night and see a solitary potted plant by the shoulder of the road, don't worry. It's just the Resurrection Plant making another sad, doomed effort to get back home....

(A little context, maestro!)

de tian - Beyond the Autumn - (from a 1980 EP) - This piece of DIY postpunk makes pefect music to haunt arthouses by.

Halloween Countdown: October 16 - my dear the reaper

Stockard Channing was Bergman's first choice for The Seventh Seal.
I commend the Grim Reaper on her new look -- very fetching in a trailer-park chic kind of way. The large hoop earrings are a nice touch, as they offset the overwhelming aura of dread she normally radiates, though her bad perm does rule out the notion of dying with dignity.

Halloween Countdown: October 13 - shapeless in the dark again

Autumn is in full swing up here in New England. The days are getting shorter, the nights are feeling chillier, and the leaves on the trees are turning lovely shades of gold, red, and orange. Unless you count clean-up and prep work (which I don't), the home gardening season is effectively over.

The flowers in the beds which surround our house on the hillside have all gone to seed, save for a small clutch of pink impatiens determined to hang in there until the first frost and, of course, the various grouping of mums. I have nothing against mums, despite their status as harbinger for summer's demise. They're pretty enough flowers, though they lack the majesty of zinnias or sopranos, but they leave me pining for a more sophisticated late season blooming plant -- something, say, like the Evil Puritan Strangulation Vine...

An extremely hardy and aggressive hybrid of clematis and pansy, the Evil Puritan Strangulation Vine was introduced to the region in the 1600's by Prudence Carver. Goody Carver was executing by drowning in 1631 on charges of witchcraft, manifested by her unwillingness to sell her plot of land to Miles Standish for pennies on the pound.

Just prior to her execution, Carver enjoyed a last meal of wildflower seeds with a goat's blood chaser, and from her bloated, rotting corpse sprang the first documented specimen of Clematis puritanus asphyxiata.

The plant does have a (somewhat deserved) reputation for being difficult to cultivate, mostly due to the fact that it will only germinate in the rotted corpse of an evil spellcaster.

Despite what you might have been told, this does not have to be an insurmountable obstacle. There are many occult home and garden outlets willing to supply the needed remains for quite reasonable prices. (Some experts will tell you to seed the bed with a premium 3:5 witch/warlock mix, but I've had perfectly fine results using a cheap industrial-grade hedge wizard mulch.)

One of the best things about the plant is that it requires no special fertilizer or plant food once the first shoots poke through the soil. In fact, the plant can make do with whatever material is at hand. All it needs to thrive is plenty of water, well-drained soil, and the blood of your enemies.

If there is a drawback to planting an Evil Puritan Strangulation Vine, it's that the plant does tend to get a bit leggy and can quickly turn invasive if not carefully kept in check.

To prevent this from happening, I recommend sticking to a regular schedule of deadheading and pruning, which is best done by hand or teeth.

With a little bit of time and effort, you too can have a healthy, beautiful addition to your late-season garden that will make your neighbors green with envy and your enemies regret that they ever had the temerity to cross you.

The Cure - The Hanging Garden (Studio Demo) (from the expanded rerelease of 1982's Pornography LP) - Gone are the relentless beats and claustrophobic production of the album version, leaving behind a haunting remnant that sounds like it was plucked off of Seventeen Seconds.

Friday Night Frights: Meet Elsa!

Once again the ill-omened stars have aligned, bringing together the action-packed excitement of Friday Night Fights and the spine-chilling horror of Armagideon Time's Halloween Countdown! Let the chills and thrills commence!

Elsa Haast is a groovy chick making the scene in the ruins of postwar Berlin. She's a waitress by profession, and her turn-ons include nighttime strolls, bladed objects, and unwitting victims.

(from The Witching Hour #24, October 1972)

a stray thread of memory

UMass Boston is situated on Columbia Point, an artificially-augmented peninsula jutting out into the Dorchester Bay side of Boston Harbor, which means that my alma mater offers an amazing ringside view whenever a storm rolls in off the Atlantic. During major meteorological events, the storm surge can be strong enough to swamp parts of Morrissey Boulevard, forcing a closure of the road and sometimes even the campus itself.

That's what happened on October 30, 1991, when the Halloween Nor'easter (a.k.a. the "No Name Storm" a.k.a. the "Perfect Storm") slammed into the New England coastline. Up in the windowless clubrooms and offices on the fourth floor of Wheatley Hall, my small group of friends and I had no idea of what was going down until someone stopped by to tell us that Morrissey was closed off, and that we'd better skedaddle before things got any worse.

My girlfriend at the time and I, along with two of our friends, hopped on the shuttle bus to the JFK/UMass subway station. We made it as far as the Bank of Boston offices on the corner of Mt. Vernon Street before the gridlock, which stretched up and around the Day Boulevard rotary and back through the South Boston waterfront, became so impenetrable that the bus driver opened the doors and told us to walk the rest of the way to the subway station.

The rain hadn't started yet, but the wind off the ocean had already reached gale force levels, forcing us to crab-walk the last couple of blocks to the station. The northbound Red Line train was empty, save for my group, a middle-aged townie, and a twitchy street person. At some point during the long, stop-and-go stretch between Broadway and South Station, the street person stumbled over to the doors of the car and started to pound on them with his fists.

Then he unzipped his fly and pissed on the floor of the car, howling "God forgive me" over and over as the puddle of urine spread beneath him. Eventually the townie looked up from his copy of the Herald and barked "Yer forgiven! NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

A group of yuppies got on the train when we finally arrived at South Station. They stood in a group by the doors, their designer shoes smack dab in the middle of Piss Lake. "Hey, someone must have spilled something!" one said, the the rest of the completely oblivious group chuckled at the non-joke. I suppose I could have clued them in, but it was too entertaining a spectacle to spoil.

My girlfriend lived in Jamaica Plain, so I saw her off at the southbound Orange Line platform before catching a another northbound Red Line train to Alewife. Even though it was mid-afternoon and Downtown Crossing is a major public transit hub, the place was a ghost town. Even the street musicians and the folks who sold incense and Afrocentric pamphlets by the shuttered snack bar had packed it in and called it a day.

And I thought to myself, as I attempted (and failed) to sit on one of the platform's non-functional granite seat-sculptures, that this is how the end of the world will probably feel like.

(I also had no idea that thirteen years later to the day, on another stormy afternoon, I'd be exchanging marriage vows with a girlfriend-yet-to-be.)

As for the musical annotations, here's a double shot of postpunk, my genre of choice in the autumn of 1991....and for every autumn since then. The chill in the air and the ever-lengthening evenings add the right touch of environmental synergy for appreciating coldly minimalist soundscapes, don't you think?

Cabaret Voltaire - Premonition (from The Voice of America, 1980)

Joy Division - Shadowplay (from Unknown Pleasures, 1979)

(More Red Line inspired hijinx here.)

tell me where there's sanity

"When you get older, you'll understand." So speaks the purported voice of "realism" when cautioning on the pitfalls of youthful idealism. The underlying message is that once one has "bought in" or "sold out" or however one wants wants to spin it, logic dictates that hungry radicalism must give way to a defensive stance. Lock the doors, man the barricades, and beware the ravenous hordes that covet your treasures.

The rousing, yet polite debate in the comments of the Crass post from the other day got me to thinking about politics, specifically where I stand on the ideological spectrum these days. I've dabbled with the various -isms on the left side of the dial over the years -- flirtations both tempestuous and mild with anarchist, socialist, and communist schools of thought. I'm a registered Democrat, but voted SWP and Green in a couple of elections, and have a lasting mistrust of self-labeled "liberals" and "progressives" over the recurring lack of conviction and undercurrents of paternalism on their part.

In the end, doctrinal semantics or theories built on wishful thinking matter less to me than a core principle, namely that everyone deserves a fair shake and equal access to essential goods and services. Egalitarianism is the cornerstone, and the rest is just trivia to be endlessly debated in closed, self-defeating circles.

Dogma and abstract theory have no purpose towards this end. My idealism is rooted in pragmatism forged by years of empirical evidence. Alliances and associations are made and broken depending on how well they serve the greater objectives, and if that means participating a electoral system that is fundamentally broken for the sake of seeing that rights are extended to those who deserve them or defended from those who would subvert them, then so be it. I would rather play a short term game for tangible benefits than a dubious long term strategy that hurts many in the meantime.

I'm with the Enlightenment thinkers on this: People will be people, no matter how educated they are, and the the best we can really strive for is to encourage the better angels of our nature and mitigate the impact of the worse ones.

No revolution, no shift in the political paradigm, no amount of education will eradicate the intrinsic pettiness of the human animal. Trust in socialist revolution and you end up with Year Zero. Trust in free-market self-interest and you end up with...well, take a look around at the mess we're mired in. Trust in mutual co-operation based on shared interests, and it's likely that you've never had to sit through the collective paralysis and bickering of a union gathering or town meeting.

Education and faith mean less than a modicum of awareness and a functioning sense of empathy. The framework of modern civilization has gotten so elaborate and the threads of interdependence so convoluted that it is too easy to fall into a false sense of moral hazard, so that even when the consequences of one's actions manifest themselves it is an easy enough matter to deny, shift, or ignore the blame.

Barring some massive depopulation of the species and a return to scattered tribes of hunter-gatherers, a shift from psuedo-free market capitalism to autonomous soviets or nationalized industries will not address the real problem. Indoctrination of the abolition of currency will not prevent the emergence of would-be Dick Cheneys looking for angles to exploit.

It's a classic Catch-22: Revolutionary change without a mass awakening in civic vigilance is pointless, but if the masses possessed such a sense of vigilance, a revolution would be redundant.

Ten Years After - I'd Love to Change the World (from A Space in Time, 1971) - The sound of the 1960s counterculture collapsing in on itself.

Comsat Angels - Waiting for a Miracle (from Waiting for a Miracle, 1980) - What's the difference between a miracle and the 134 bus? The 134 bus does show up on rare occasions. The only historical inevitability is that people will do foolish things for foolish reasons.

waiting for the flash

Look at that sunavabitch go! Doesn't it just give you a tingly sensation all over, especially in the thyroid and reproductive organs? Since today happens to be the 63rd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, I though it only proper to genuflect a little upon the event and its enduring legacy.

It was the ultimate product of the American "can do" spirit, the fireworks display that kicked off the beginning of the American Century (give or take a half-dozen decades). It showed the world that we had not only developed the means to end human civilization, but were also willing to use it if meant saving "a million lives" (or is that a billion now? Retroactive justifications are not immune to inflationary forces) or intimidating our uncomfortable Soviet allies with a display of overwhelming force upon a civilian target.


That last part worked so well that Joe Stalin's bunch of merry Bolsheviks wasted no time in acquiring some transuranic party poppers of their own, which wagered the future of the human race on a staring contest to end all staring contests. Fun times, indeed, especially for a kid whose global awareness was coming into sharp focus just as Ronnie Reagan decided to escalate the stakes in the name of God, country, and sweetheart defense contracts.

Flipping through issues of Discover and coming across absurdly cheery infographics about the science of the neutron bomb. Sneaking a peek at some of my father's National Guard manuals dealing with post-event assessment and body disposal. Lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling and wondering if I'd be one of the dead or one of the living who envied them. (Knowing what I know now about the target-rich environment of Boston's suburban ring and the power-over-accuracy doctrine of Soviet warhead design, it's clear I'd have been in the dead category, as anything inside I-495 would have become part of Boston Harbor after a full-on nuclear exchange.)

At least it all worked out in the end, right? America won the Cold War, or so I'm told. (How did you spend your promised peace dividend?) History ended, and we now live in a peaceful neo-liberal hegemony overseen by the bestest nation ever. The specter of radioactive annihilation is a thing of the past, a completely justified phase that we've put entirely behind us.

Strongarm sales of ABM equipment designed to provoke the Russians? Official efforts to make the use of tactical nuclear weapons acceptable to the American public? The same conglomerates which are responsible for spiking energy costs attempting to exploit the situation in order to build more nuclear power plants? You must be thinking of some dark alternate universe, friend.


Synch up your Doomsday Clocks, cats and kittens! We're packing a musical MIRV primed and ready to deliver megatons of melodic enjoyment, and you're standing at ground zero! The party doesn't stop until the last payload drops.

Crass - They've Got a Bomb (from The Feeding of the 5000, 1978) - When you've got a massive stockpile of hammers, everything looks like a nail.

Dr. Strangelove & The Fallouts - Love That Bomb (from a 1964 single; collected on Atomic Platters, 2005) - This peppy little track (most likely a Laurie Johnson effort) was released to promote Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece of apocalyptic comedy. Go-go until you're gone-gone.

The Cure - A Strange Day (from Pornography, 1982) - A languid waltz to the shores of the abyss. The view from the edge is fantastic, I'm told.

The Epoxies - We're So Small (from The Epoxies, 2002) - Adieu, my fair synthpunkers! While I'm saddened to see you go, you've left a fine legacy of two outstanding albums, a handful of great b-sides and compilation cuts, and a not-so-good final EP.

Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - I'm Gonna Dig Myself a Hole (from Gonna Be Some Changes: 1946-54, 2008) - A master bluesman goes underground, twenty-nine years before Paul Weller got the same idea.

the bitter redemption of an atypical fat cat

The sedentary comforts of the suburban lifestyle can take their toll on even the most ferocious predatory feline. Sure, it would be great if one could routinely stalk a wild boar and feast upon its steaming carcass, but after a long day of fighting elitist snobs or seeking out the bluebird of happiness, sometimes all one wants to do is order an extra large bacon-fetishists' pizza with a side of cheesy bread and pass out on the couch while watching a Tom Ewell retrospective on TCM.

Even if the nagging feelings that one ought to be taking better care of one's body persist, it's easy enough to resolve such concerns with a weak resolution to do a few ab crunches or take down a bull crocodile...tomorrow...for sure...maybe...once those few remaing Halo 3 achievements have been completed.

The comes a point, however, when the sad truth can no longer be ignored...

No need to fret about that spare tire (or matching set of four) or open up an account at The Fat Tiger's Shoppe, my rotund feline friend! Just place a call to the World's Mightiest Personal Trainer! Captain Marvel, the man who once bench-pressed South America, has created an intensive regimen guaranteed to transform oversized Toms into lean, mean, killing machines.

The week long course begins with copious amounts of low-grade amphetamines, purchased in bulk from Marvel's trusted suppliers in the Third World...

Side effects may include constipation, hallucinatory spiders crawling under one's skin, and a nude high-speed police chase across three state lines.
...followed by a long, intense session on Cap's personal vibrator.

To ensure complete satisfaction, Marvel tests each device personally.
Next up on the schedule comes the nutritional consultation, with plenty of emotional cruelty "tough love" on the menu...

Cap then visited a cancer ward and brushed his thick, luscious locks in front of the radiation therapy patients.
...and that approach is carried over into the gym, where what does not kill you could very likely cripple you for life.

It's great exercise for shedding those extra pounds, blood, and teeth...
And what better way to finish things off than with one of Captain Marvel's patented Bad Touch^TM massages?

Now accepting appointments for couples sessions!
Once the week is over, the bruises have healed and the bones have knitted together, you'll emerge from the experience feeling, and more importantly, looking like a television star!

"Hey, kids! Stay tuned for Uncle Pork Rind's High-Cholesterol Cartoon Hour, brought to you by the Fawcett Lard and Tallow Company."
(Panels taken from "Mr. Tawny's Diet Dangers" from Captain Marvel Adventures #121; June 1951)

Au Pairs - Diet (from the b-side of the 1980 "It's Obvious" 7"; collected on Stepping out of Line: The Anthology, 2006) - Sparse, unsettling fare, yet incredibly satisfying for those with refined palates.

Southern Death Cult - Fatman (from Southern Death Cult, 1983) - These gothic rockers shed two thirds of their name (and almost the entire original lineup) in order to woo a "Fire Woman."

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)

Vacation 2008: Interlude - Don't need a weatherman

Don't mind me, I'm just taking a few minutes to calibrate this nifty piece of equipment (copped from Chris Sims) towards the prevailing local conditions:


Pylon - Cool (from Gyrate, 1980) - A bracing blast of postpunk relief. How is it that so many current bands have been slapped with the "postpunk" tag (or have self-applied the same), yet none of them even remotely capture those certain qualities that made old school postpunk so fascinating?

the root of all evil

The above lesson on the nuances of mythological avarice is the reader's introduction into "Captain Marvel Fights the Menace of Greed" from Captain Marvel Adventures #111 (August 1950). The story is a quaint piece of agitprop crafted to evangelize on behalf of the post-WW2 "enlightened" variety of capitalism while dispelling any lingering spectres of Depression Era socialist agitation.

While popular mythology might lead one to think that the national consensus of the World War II period continued unbroken though the mid-1960's, the truth is that the immediate post-war years were a time of rampant labor unrest. There were a significant number of Americans who remembered the hardship of the Great Depression and who had given of themselves, overseas and on the homefront, during the war years who were determined not to be cut out of loop when it came to sharing the economic spoils of victory. The government's response to such agitation took the form of such draconian measures as President Truman's threat to draft striking transport workers in 1946 and the Taft-Hartley Act, which drastically curbed the power of organized labor.

The mythical and much cited prosperity of the 1950's was an artificial construct built on a foundation of Keynesian economic policies, government subsidized defense spending, a labor shortage, and the efficient application of planned obsolescence to the field of consumer goods -- a short-term balancing act which turned out to be unsustainable in the long run. To get to that point of hothoused (and unequal) prosperity, some socio-economic panel-beating had to be done, most notably through the cynically directed hysteria of the Red Scare and Cold War brinksmanship, but on a less shrill note in the pages of this comic story, as well.

When Mr. Morris, the very FDR-like owner of radio station WHIZ, embarks on a tour of Europe, he leaves the management of his business in the hands of Jason Cox, a individual whose hook nose and pencil-thin mustache came straight from central casting's "shifty character" drawer. Armed with the power of attorney, Cox implements a whole raft of workplace changes. Wages are rolled back, infrastructure and maintenance budgets are slashed, and payrolls moved to a biweekly schedule.

While the business press lauds Cox's "visionary leadership," boy reporter Bill Batson suspects something fishy behind his behavior. Hoping to get to the bottom of things, Billy transforms himself into Captain Marvel, the World's Mightiest Shop Steward, and confronts Cox...

"It's simple capitalism, Captain. You don't have anything against capitalism do you? Your costume does have a lot of red in it..."
Fear of being labeled a godless pinko who hates America and Baby Jesus forces Marvel to stay his hand, so he zips off to Pyramid Investment Corporation's various holdings to see if there really are resources to exploit, virgin wilderness to despoil, and rightfully elected governments to overthrow.

The diamonds, uranium, and oil are present at the sites though the portfoilo had the locations mixed up. A chastened Marvel returns to apologize to Cox for his lack of faith, only to be met by a hail of bullets from two of Cox's business associates. As it turns out, Cox had been moonlighting as the manager of Pyramid even as he diverted funds to the firm as financial manager of WHIZ. (Thank you, financial industry deregulation!)

Not realizing that the mineral investments were actually on the level, Cox's plan was to fleece the station for all it was worth before fleeing with his suitcase full of ill-gotten (but entirely legal, according to revised SEC rules) gains. Marvel wastes no time in giving Fortune Magazine's "Outstanding Executive of 1950" a good thrashing and a stern, yet confusing, lecture...

"'Mixed message?' Whatever do you mean?"
With Cox sent up the river (to a minimum security country club) and Mr. Morris back from Europe, WHIZ returns to its harmonious state as an ideal example of "social contract" capitalism in action...

...until the firm's stocks are downgraded due to Morris's largesse, causing the investors to depose Morris as CEO and sell the station to a national media conglomerate, who promptly lay off most of the workforce and switch the format from local programming to nationally syndicated fare. Michael Savage's show now runs in Billy's old time slot.

Heartbreaking, I know, but you have to stay competitive in today's global economy. Plutus demands it.

The O'Jays - For the Love of Money (from Ship Ahoy, 1973) - Money and I have an open relationship. It comes and goes as it pleases and I enjoy it while it's around.

Lord Sitar - If I Were a Rich Man (from Lord Sitar, 1968) - Hey! There's a sitarist on the roof! (He'd better climb down before the wife sees him. She despises sitar music.)

The Flying Lizards - Money (That's What I Want) (from The Flying Lizards, 1980) - It's a means, not an end unto itself.

comedic pyrite

HAHAHAHAHA!
HAHAHAHAHA!
HAHAHAHAHA!
Uh, I don't get it.
Killing Joke - We Have Joy (from Revelations, 1982) - Or a synthetic substitution thereof. At least the music is the authentic stuff of which postpunk nightmares are made.

(The above pun-related tragedies were plucked from the "Dr. Doom Cracks Up" feature in the January 1978 issue of Pizzazz Magazine. Terrible as they may be, they're still funnier than any given Cracked article.)

no ice in your lovers walk

This is supposed to by the final day of the heat wave that has engulfed the northeast in its suffocating blanket of haze and humidity, but part of being a Bay Stater born and bred is learning to take what the meteorologists say with a fifty-pound bag of salt. New England weather admits no master, and takes a preternatural joy in confounding expectations. I won't believe we've managed to wiggle out of the Devil's Armpit until I actually see the barometer drop and the feel the cool breeze on my face.

Whenever the temperatures begin to spike 'round these parts, I find myself thinking back to the scorching summer of 1993, back when I used to work the Saturday shift at the college library. Apart from the intrinsic lousiness of having to get up early on a Saturday, it was excellent work -- a 9-to-5 shift in an air conditioned building at a commuter school during intersession.

I worked the circulation desk and the number of patrons I had to deal with during a given shift could be counted on the fingers of both my hands and two of the toes on my right foot, and all phone inquiries answered with one of three standardized responses:

1. No, this isn't the Boston Public Library.
2. No, this isn't Boston University.
3. No, this isn't Puritan Pizza.

The rest of my my time was spent doing some light shelving, surprising the occasional mastubator during a floor sweep, and reading stacks of books and periodicals on whatever subject currently had my fancy. I'm not exaggerating when I state that the bulk of what I learned in college came from my at-work reading. The amount of time I had to kill, combined with a half-dozen floors packed with available reading material, allowed me range far and wide subject-wise with minimal distractions.

History (cultural, social, military), sociology, film studies, art, literature of all stripes, biology, astronomy -- all there for the studying, with no pesky tests or essays to harsh the learning buzz. Plus, sitting under a tree and reading The Stranger and The Plague during a lunch break in triple-digit temperatures really adds to Camus's Algerian je ne sais quoi in a way that can't be imitated in a classroom environment.

(I'm not knocking formal pedagogical methods, as there are certain things, like critical thinking methods, that benefit from the insight and guidance of a skilled second party. The problem is that too many of my college classes were more about gaming the instructor's system than about the actual transfer of knowledge.)

Some of the books I spent the most time with were grabbed from the reference section, which was blessed with an oversized encyclopedia of international horror films, an annotated bibliography on nuclear war fiction, bound volumes of film reviews from 1981-83, and (astoundingly) a copy of the Who's New Wave in Music directory. Taken together, they form an excellent snapshot of my predominant interests circa 1993.

After my shift ended, I'd walk to the bus platform in the late afternoon sun and catch the shuttle to the JFK/UMass Red Line station. From there, I'd take a northbound train to (the pre-gentrified) Central Square, and hike up Mass Ave to Harvard Square on foot, stopping at the various used record stores along the way.

Though I had fallen away from buying vinyl at that point (thanks to Maura's birthday present of a CD player and the emerging flood of CD-only imports and reissues), old habits die hard. There were still plenty of deals to be had on albums that either had missed the reissue bandwagon or weren't worth spending fifteen bucks for the CD version (as opposed to two bucks for a used LP).

My musical tastes were also in flux, gravitating away from punk/hardcore/industrial exclusivity and towards the pop, wave, and postpunk (and by extension, gothic) end of the spectrum. Flipping through my record collection, it's easy to notice the split -- from Sham 69 and company to The Lexicon of Love to Sex Gang Children in a few short steps -- even if I can't remember the specific instances of purchase. (In hindsight, I wish I bought a lot more records than I did.)

When I was done dilly-dallying over yesterday's musical castoffs, I would trek up Mt. Auburn Street to meet Maura at the cafe she waitressed at, where I'd swig discounted Italian sodas and lounge in the Cantabridgian twilight as I waited for her shift to end. From there, another short jaunt on the Red Line and a longer one on the ever-unreliable 96 bus would bring us back to her place, where we'd spend the rest of the evening watching The Kids in the Hall and Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Comedy Central while her rabbits ran riot around the room.

Good times, indeed.

Here's a mini-sampler taken from the aforementioned albums I purchased and listened to back in those days:

INXS - The One Thing (from Shabooh Shoobah, 1982) - A case of partner-to-partner musical osmosis. She taught me to appreciate INXS, I taught her to appreciate the Abrasive Wheels.

Bauhaus - Dancing (from Mask, 1981) - Spasmodically gyrating around the borderlands of postpunk, pop and perentiousness.

guys and dolls

There are few things as disappointing as having a decent concept spoiled by an iffy personal agenda. Conn and Hal Iggulden's The Dangerous Book for Boys, an attempt to enlighten the Playstation generation about the "lost" wisdom of folkways of yore, is the type of book that ought to appeal to me, yet comments made by the authors regarding the intent of the omnibus have left me loath to purchase a copy.

As a dilettante retrologist, I have a keen appreciation for efforts to preserve and present the fascinating parts of our collective cultural history that have fallen by the wayside, but it's that gender-specific qualifier, "for boys," that makes me pause. In the author's Amazon Q&A section, Conn Iggulden states, "You only have to push a boy on a swing to see how much enjoys the thrill of danger. It's hard-wired." It's a statement that smacks of biological determinism, and when placed alongside his complaints about raising a risk-adverse generation, suggests that the intent behind the book was not just about preserving vanishing folk wisdom, but an attempt to resurrect a mythicized version of traditional "rugged" masculinity, "snips and snails and puppy dog tails" versus "sugar and spice."

Which is bullshit, quite frankly. Bullshit which stems from reactionary discontent with modern liberal society and the gradual erosion of traditional gender roles. It's the same impulse that launched countless self-indulgent whines about "Daddy issues" and has created a thriving industry purposed to sell synthetic -- and quite depressing -- iterations of manliness to rubes convinced that they're missing out on something vital. I can empathize with those feeling a hunger of wholeness, but the idea that gender roles or a sense of personal identity can be purchased like a tin of shoe polish is wrongheaded for so many reasons.

While I've made an active effort to forget most of what I learned from my father on the subject of "what it is to be a man," there is one thing that has stuck with me. In reference to the manly-man gastronomic polemic Real Men Don't Eat Quiche, my father stated "Real men eat whatever the fuck they feel like." It's similar in sentiment to the Bard's "to thy own self be true," though with the additional benefit of some casual profanity, and if one changes "real men" to the gender-neutral "real individuals" it still applies in force.

You only have to push a child on a swing to see how much he or she enjoys the thrill of danger. It's hard-wired into children, period. Or not. Some kids are thrillseekers and others are cautious. It's a matter of temperament, not of sex, though the encouragement or discouragement of such traits is often shaped by the semi-transparent hand of gender role socialization (which is a damn shame). Rather than thinking that something has been lost because of the socio-cultural shifts regarding gender, it's more productive -- not to mention better for the theoretical child in question -- to embrace the wider vistas of self-expression and opportunity that have been opened.

So I think I'll pass on picking up The Dangerous Book for Boys. It would be a redundant purchase, anyhow, considering that I already have a few volumes of this, handed down to me by my mother, at my disposal:

(click for maximum edification)
That's the first half of the contents page for the third volume of The Book of Knowledge, 1951 edition. Part encyclopedia, part almanac, part DIY handbook -- it's the real deal, as opposed to a post-facto nostalgic recreation. Check out the range of subjects covered, all targeted toward the eight-to-twelve year olds of six decades ago. Something has been lost in the past half-century, but it has fuck all to do with presence of absence of a Y chromosome.

Mechanical Servants - Study Up! (from the Min X Match 12", 1980; collected on several bootleg minimal synth compilations) - A little bit of digging about the Mechanical Servants reveals that they were a female minimal synth duo that hailed from New York and their 1980 EP was released as a private pressing, though copies of the record can be found for quite reasonable prices (under $20) on eBay and elsewhere.

London Underground - Train of Thought (from a 1981 single; collected on the Atomic Shockwaves v. 13 compilation) - This one sounds a little like an early Killing Joke track...if said track was being broadcast by a failing automated low-power transmitter half a decade after a global thermonuclear exchange.

Yeah, I'm in a minimal synth/postpunk mood tonight. What of it?

and pay our fees

Here's another item from The Colonial Cookbook -- an advertisement for the finest feminine footwear fashions 1909 had to offer:

Remember, ladies: Only the most shameless of harlots would be so brazen as to bare their ankles to strange men. It is but the shortest of slippery slopes leading from exposed calves to the catastophic folly of universal suffrage.

(On a more serious socio-linguistic note, the use of "Patrician" for a line of Edwardian Era women's footwear is quite fascinating. The term itself describes a postion of privilege, while its etymology is rooted in the Latin word for "father," pater, from which the word "patriarchy" is also derived.)

Girls At Our Best! - Too Big for Your Boots (from Pleasure, 1981) - The treacle masks the taste of the venom.

the choice is made with a fresh resolve

It's a beautiful spring day up here on Mt. Misery. Even though I still have a little ways to go before I reach full functionality again, it's time I put aside the emo-rbidity of the past couple of weeks and carpe the diem.

Besides, I can think no better way to facilitate the healing process than with some fresh air and some infectious grooves. The windows have been opened and the playlist has been finalized, arbitrary standards of quality be damned.

Catch you on the dance floor, cats and kittens -- this party is just beginning.

David Naughton - Makin' It (from a 1979 single; collected on Super Hits of the '70s: Vol. 24, 1996) - An American werewolf at the disco! This was actually the theme song to the identically titled and short-lived sitcom (starring Naughton) made to cash in on the Saturday Night Fever craze. The series tanked, but the song was a hit, coming in at #14 on the Billboard Top 100 songs for 1979 and even finding its way into Meatballs, the 1979 summer camp comedy film starring Bill Murray and Chris Makepeace.

Looking back, I kind of regret that I didn't use "I've got looks/I've got brains/and I'm breaking these chains" as my high school yearbook quote.

MiniVIP - Miss Augusta (from Let's Boogaloo: Vol. 3, 2006) - One of the contemporary numbers from the third -- and best -- volume of this excellent series of "lost" and retro-leaning soul, dance, and funk compliations, and it's an absolute stunner, with organ-driven hooks that catch hold of the listener and refuse to let go. (Not that any right-thinking person would want to escape its aural snare.)

Fatboy Slim - Ya Mama (from Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, 2000) - Not to be confused with "Yo-Yo Ma," though considering the Boston Symphony Orchestra's sad attempts to keep up with the trendiness curve (Ben Folds? Seriously?), I cannot rule out the eventual possibility of seeing a bunch of highbrow culture vultures tripping on E and waving glowsticks in time to a Norman Cook performance at Symphony Hall.

Shriekback - My Spine (Is the Bassline) (from a 1982 single; collected on Priests & Kanibals: Best of Shriekback, 1999) - At the present moment, it is my jaw that is pulsing out the beats and acting as my own internal rhythm section, but why quibble over details? Those peripheral axons lead to the same central trunk line, after all.

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.

it's never changing

Last October, I attended a Temple sale with my wife, who lives for such events and the opportunities they provide to fill our little house with even more bizarre knickknacks. The only reason I attend these sales with her (apart from that "loving and supporting husband" jazz) is in the vain hope that one of the vendors has a set of SSP Smash Up Derby cars to sell at a reasonable price.

While I didn't find that particular personal Holy Grail, there was something that caught my interest -- a small crate of 7" singles being sold by a middle-aged woman whose other offered wares consisted of the finest non-essential kitchen furnishings 1975 had to offer. (Think avocado and earth tones.)

I always make a point of checking out the used vinyl I run across in these places, even though usually consists of Top 40 pap from the late 70's or the usual Ray Conniff/Herb Alpert/Al Hirt easy listening material. On this occasion, I was glad I made the effort as a quick flip through the singles turned up some surprises -- Depeche Mode's "Dreaming of Me," Devo's "Be Stiff," the UK release of the Clash's "Complete Control," and many other punk/postpunk/wave gems.

"They belonged to my son," said the woman behind the table. "He went to Emerson. He was going to be a dee-jay, but he ended up marrying some holy roller chippie. I was cleaning out his room the other day and found those. I asked him if he wanted them, but he said he didn't listen to the 'devil's music' anymore."

I gave the standard non-committal nod I usually use when small talk takes an uncomfortable direction and asked "how much?"

"I dunno. I don't know much about records. How about fifteen for the lot?"

I didn't even bother haggling. I forked over the dough and carted the box away.

It wasn't until after Maura gave me a turntable for Christmas that I sat down and did a proper assessment of the crate's contents. Most of the singles were easily placed, but there was one that defied identification -- while sleeve, blank label, with some curious etching, "JD-42680," on the edge of the vinyl. After a long bout of Googling and consultation with Kevin Church, whose knowledge of such matters rivals my own, I finally managed to determine exactly what it was I had lucked onto.

My jaw fairly well dropped at the revelation. I had come into possession of a bootleg release of a rumored, but unconfirmed Joy Division track recorded shortly before Ian Curtis's suicide. The unofficial title of the song is "Eternity" and it hints at the new direction the band was heading towards even as Curtis's personal demons bore down upon him with irresistible force.

A remarkable track and an incredible find, though I'd still have preferred finding a complete set of Smash Up Derby cars. Providence works in mysterious ways.

Joy Division - Eternity (?)

goalposts moved while u wait

(from The Flash #145, June 1964; by Fox, Infantino, & Giella)
So Basra and Sadr City have become the latest theaters in Iraq's inevitable slide into civil war. This current wave of violence is between factions within the country's Shiite community, demonstrating the continuing fractalization of internal strife in the country.

It's the Pandora's Box scenario envisioned by the foreign policy realists prior to the invasion of Iraq and dismissed out of hand by the neoconservative contingent. The present situation is exactly what the "surge" strategy was supposed to forestall, boosting troop levels as a means of generating a level of security in which political reconciliation and stability could take root. Yet even as events once again prove the limitations of conventional military superiority in dealing with counter-insurgency scenarios, the "success" of the surge approach continues to be trumpeted by the powers that be and the mainstream media's host of enablers.

If what we're seeing is supposed to be viewed as a success, then I clearly need to reassess my own life, as under those metrics it can only be an unending series of laudable accomplishments.

That incident a few days ago with the staplegun and my thumb? A triumph for Andrew-ocracy!

When I slipped on the pile of magazines the other night and nearly dislocated my shoulder? Mission accomplished!

My first semester in college where I tried my hand at majoring in physics? A series of victories, despite what the anti-Andrew biased report card might have said!

The time I deliberately provoked my wife and she mashed wet cat food onto my face? A resounding achievement!

When I was a kid and stuck a nail under the tire of my dad's car? A remarkable accomplishment, ruined only by my father's hectoring negativity!

I'm beginning to understand the allure of adhering to neoconservative ideology...

The Ankh - Before Success (from a 1982 single) - Female vocals and a minimalist gothy feel? Yes, please. I make no attempt to conceal my biases.

Iggy Pop - Success (from Lust for Life, 1977) - Mr. Pop wrote the lyrics but the sound bears the unmistakable influence of co-writer David Bowie. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, mind you...