kids those days

The voice of white Protestant middle-class suburban youth, courtesy of Pat Boone #1 (September-October 1959):

Brought to you by Lucky Strikes!
By being a "teenager for life" does J.M.G. mean "I plan on living in my parents' house, working a part-time minimum wage service job, and suffering from wild mood swings until I die of old age?"

New experiences and challenges -- such as trying to sneak into your second floor bedroom at two in the morning while blitzed on lemon gin or trying to find a decent backroom abortionist after the football captain "forgot" to disengage on time.

"You'll appreciate your time you've spent in locked Mommy's Evil Clown Closet when you have kids of your own. In fact, you'll be calling Mommy for advice on how to inflict maximum emotional trauma through greasepainted nightmares after you've been saddled with the hellish fruit of boozy, unprotected, marital sex with an emotionally distant spouse. So suck it up -- God hates weaklings and whiners."

Pet hippo-what? Were the Prexies (as Boone's fans called themselves) ahead of the subcultual curve regarding hallucinogenic drug use?

"I had the most ginchy trip last night! The world turned into a giant Leavittown with not a trace of dirt or enthicity to be seen! Things turned a bit unpleasant, though, when I saw a little speck on my fingernail, and I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed in vain to remove it. When I snapped out of it, I was covered in blood and sitting on top of the corpses of my parents and siblings."

Ah, the joys of youth.

Eddie & The Hot Rods - Teenage Depression (from Teenage Depression, 1976) - They called it pub rock. I call it punk as fuck.

The Adverts - Bored Teenagers (from Crossing the Red Sea with The Adverts, 1978) - Ever stood on the beach while a storm front came rolling in? The skies turn dark, the barometric pressure drops, and the air cools. The wind picks up, the waves turn nasty, and low rumbles of thunder can be heard in the distance. It's an awe-inspiring and occasionally terrifying experience.

That's how I feel whenever I listen to The Adverts' first album.

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.

reverts to pure female

In wake of the cultural and social upheavals of the 1960's, it became a common enough practice for popcult entertainments to acknowledge, if only grudgingly, the heightened awareness of egalitarian principles that permeated the era. Not surprisingly, this trend resulted in a number of stories where ostensibly laudable sentiments were presented (intentionally or not) in the most gratingly patronizing or condescending manner imaginable.

Which brings us to "The Powderpuff Run" from Hot Wheels #4 (September-October 1970). As the title suggests, the series was a licensed tie-in to Mattel's popular line of die-cast toy cars, which also spawned a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon series. "Short-lived" because it had the misfortune of airing at a time when the FCC actually had teeth in matters not directly related to "wardrobe failures" and has-been Irish rock stars uttering four letter words, and the cartoon was yanked when it ran afoul of the restrictions on advertising time. (Those restrictions would later be lifted during the Gipper's administration, thus paving the way for a flood of terrible, cheaply-produced toy cartoons and infomercials for questionable products. Yay, progress!)

The only thing that set the Hot Wheels comic apart from the mass of forgettable and forgotten kid's fare from that wild era when kids actually read non-manga comics was the participation of Alex Toth, whose outstanding powers of illustration were capable of elevating even the most pedestrian plot material. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) Toth was not involved in crafting "The Powderpuff Run," which was a Len Wein/Ric Estrada collaborative effort. (Talented men both, and I won't fault anyone for not bringing their A-game to a short back up feature in a licensed toy comic, but I gotta call 'em as I see 'em...)

The story begins with the member of the Hot Wheels racing team puttering around the Metro City Speedway. When team member Ardeth (no relation to Bernadeth) asks why the team isn't planning to field an entrant to the women-only "Daisy Derby" event (because there is no vocation so dangerous or skill-intensive that it cannot be diminished with a girly descriptor when women are involved), tempers begin to flare...

DO IT, SISTER!
Before Ardeth can deliver Mickey's well-deserved braining, the arrival of a mysterious driver of exceptional ability captures the attention of the team. And guess what, she's a WOMAN!

Two women participants in an overwhelmingly male-dominated sport? Won't anyone think of the patriarchy?
She's not just any woman, either. She's Alexandra, cousin of the Hot Wheels Team's hated rival, Dexter Carter. Carter's gloating (coupled with his disturbingly misaligned nostrils) is too much for Mickey to take, and changes his mind about Ardeth's participation in the Daisy Derby...

Dexter Carter: The bastard child of Henry Mitchell and Oswald Cobblepot?
Supporting a colleague's dreams and career aspirations? Whatever. Winning a dick-waving contest by proxy? COUNT ME IN!

With little time to waste, the team members commence burning the midnight oil to kit out a suitable ride for Ardeth to use. Because they're aiming for performance over aesthetic appeal, the final product ends up looking a bit rough around the edges, so Ardeth and Janet, the Daphne Blake to Ardeth's Velma Dinkley, take it upon themselves to do a little impromptu customization...

Yeah, because there's an inherent sense of dignity in turning one's car into a rolling billboard for Viagra or chewing tobacco.
Is it an attempt to subvert traditional perceptions regarding gender? Or to unironically embrace them? The text is ambiguous on this point.

Race day arrives, and Ardeth discovers that winning might be a harder proposition than she had previously anticipated. Not only is Alexandra a skilled and aggressive driver, but she has also had her car outfitted by the same firm that does automotive customization work for Matt Helm and Penelope Pitstop. Even though she is in full view of thousands of (granted, mostly shitfaced) spectators, she doesn't think twice about employing these non-street legal modifications...

The principles of fluid dynamics worked differently back in the late 1960's.
As Ardeth struggles to regain the lead, Janet hatches a little scheme of her own to neutralize Alexandra's decisive advantages on the asphalt...

..and so the Anderson Family's weekend outing to the races ended in an explosion of flame and sheet metal. In lieu of flowers, the family has requested donations be made to the local Waffle House.
Other signs Janet had considered using included "Your attitude scares potential mates," "Work or family? You can't have it all," and "Your biological clock is ticking!"

Alexandra's fall to the inexorable forces of biological determinism leaves a clear path to the checkered flag for Ardeth, who nets the Daisy Derby Cup (which is just like the Metro City 500 Cup, but decorated with plastic flowers and pink ribbon and stuffed with a $25 certificate for a pedicure instead of a check for $5000) with no further complications.

Feeling empowered? I know I am. (Wait, I meant "confused and slightly queasy." I confuse those all the time.)

Nobody fucking cares what you think, Mickey.
The Bodysnatchers - Ruder Than You (from a 1980 single; collected on The 2-Tone Collection: A Checkered Past, 1993) - We named one of the local feral cats (the mother of Lil' Baby Setz and Nubby, and therefore the grandmother of our kittens) "Rude Girl," in reference to this song and The Clash's "Rudie Can't Fail." How's that for insular personal trivia?

As for the song, it's a swell bit of all-female 2-Tone ska. Singer Rhoda Dakar later went on to work with The Specials and other members of the band eventually formed the Belle Stars.

The Dictators - (I Live for) Cars and Girls (from The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! 1975) - An admirable philosophy, I suppose, providing the car in question isn't a 1985 AMC Eagle and the girl isn't Sally Kern.

what did I do but miss my home

Though geopolitical follies led to my entering this sad world south of the Mason-Dixon line, I've always considered myself to be a Bay Stater born and bred, and I take no small pride in that fact. It's a harsh region and it generates a harsh breed of people -- impatient, irritable, and fiercely devoted to the only religion that matters. Well, that and the First Church of Aggressive Driving Habits. (I recite the liturgy during every morning's and evening's commute: OHFORFUCKSAKE-WHATTHEHELLAREYOUDOING-HOWABOUTATURNSIGNAL-FUCKWAD. Amen.)

Among the many other aspects of this willful parochialism is my longstanding fascination-slash-repulsion regarding how the region is portrayed in television, movies, and other popcultural diversions -- fascination due to the "Hey, they're talking about us!" factor, with the repulsive flipside over how frequently the entertainment business screws up the various regionalisms. The only reason I could be bothered to watch A Civil Action (set in my dysfunctionally beloved Woburn) is to see Stephen Fry putter around the bank of an Aberjona River far wider and more picturesque than the muddy creek that flows through my fair city. (Woburn itself is depicted as a stock Hollywoodized "New England town," rather than appearing as the industrialized mid-ring residential suburb it was back then.)

By far, the biggest stumbling block in popular portrayals of the Land of Bean and Cod comes when non-natives try to imitate the region's distinctive accent. Tim Robbins nailed it perfectly in Mystic River, but most actors are content to retrofit a broad Brooklynesque accent with exaggeratedly dropped R's and liberal use of "wicked" as a modifier. Or, even worse, they imitate how the Kennedys speak, even though no one but the Kennedys talks that way. Seriously.

The devil is in the details, and the Hollywood Bahston accent overlooks numerous but significant linguistic tics that characterise the real deal. Just one example is the dropping of middle double consonants. (I've had two linguistically-minded friends tell me what the correct scientific term for it is, but it seems incapable of sticking in my memory.) "Button" becomes "buh-un" and "kitten" becomes "kih-en." It's a small detail, but one that makes it easy to pick out the pretenders from the genuine article.

And so, with my grumpy, hyper-specific pedantic mindset firmly in place, I would like to direct your attention to Ms. Marvel v1 #13-14 (January & Feburary 1978), a two-part non-arc set in Boston area. The actual stories are no big deal. Carol Danvers (a.k.a. Ms. Marvel) returns home to her parents' house in the upscale North Shore suburb of Beverly (which, oddly enough, borders on the town of Danvers. "Hi, I'm Joe Brooklyn from Queens!"). She deals with some Daddy issues, gets caught in a struggle between two alien beings, and fights the rivet gun-wielding Steeplejack. Oh, she also has a two page non-encounter with Dracula, whose only purpose was to remind readers that Marvel was publishing the Tomb of Dracula comic at the time.

Instances of local color in the two issues are pretty thin on the ground. As drawn by Jim Mooney and Carmine Infantino, Boston looks like pretty much any comic book big city. Writer Chris Claremont does get his geography straight...kind of. He correctly mentions Lynn (Lynn, the city of sin/you'll never come out the way you came in) as a midpoint on the Boston-Beverly commute, but inexcusably drops the ball in this sequence....

...in which the Kittery, Maine naval base has mysteriously migrated sixty miles south to occupy the previous location of the Charlestown Navy Yard. Thank goodness Old Ironsides wasn't harmed in the massive geographic upheaval.

Claremont made no effort to capture the Boston accent in the characters' dialogue, which is surprising considering how much he reveled in such antics in the X-titles he wrote. Och, the wee bairn, tovarisch! Mein gott! Mon dieu! Ah'm invulnerable, sugah! It's probably for the best, actually. Besides, having been made aware of Ms. Danver's Bay State roots, I've found myself subconsciously applying a Boston accent when I read her dialogue...

Rather pissah, I dare say.

Speech patterns and geographical accuracy aside, there is one panel where Carol does show her Beantown bona fides in big way...

...following a high-intensity superheroic workout with a lahge coffee regulah (from Dunkin Donuts, of course). Way to represent, Ms. Danvers!

(What the hell is up with the "even in Boston" caption, anyway? A sixty story building collapsing is big news where ever it happens. Hell, this incident caused a local panic and made the national news. We may be jaded around here, but we're not completely insensate.)

Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers - New England (from The Beserkley Years, 1987) - There's nothing I can add that Mr. Richman & Company haven't already got covered here.

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...

quivers down my thigh bones

My brother, 60's Marvel Comics collector extraordinaire, sent me an email regarding yesterday's post in which he reminded me about the lovely wares spotlighted in 1968's Spectacular Spider-Man magazine. A short-lived attempt by Marvel at cracking the magazine market (presumably due to the company's awareness of a strong college-age readership in its regular comics fare), each of the two issues aimed for a more "adult" sensibility -- not in the stories themselves, which were standard template Stan Lee/John Romita fare done in a longer form, but rather in the class (and I use that term loosely) of items and services being hawked in the advertisements.

After all, what use are banana seat bikes or Hot Wheels playsets to a grown-up? They have anti-hemorrhoid suppositories to think about. (The only ass ointment endorsed by the Incredible Hulk! Ask for it by name!)

Those quotes I slapped around "adult?" Well, I wasn't just indulging in Kirby-speak, as this ad demonstrates:
Dig the Chaykinesque fellow's sly expression, and the "fly under the Comstock wire" phrasing of the ad copy. "Exciting and stimulating," "for ultra satisfying relaxation," "deep, gentle penetrating massage," "women will find it invaluable" (a truth for many then as well as now) -- the oblique coyness is a fascinating peek into a time before similar devices were sold sans euphemisms in catalogs from trashier competitors to Lillian Vernon or Miles Kimball (and before fading pop stars trying to cling to edgy relevance had themselves photographed leaving a sex shop with a strap-on visible in their bag). Hey, check out who's selling the oddly-shaped "neck massager": Frederick's of Hollywood, which has since gone onto to occupy the lucrative niche between Spencer Gifts and Victoria's Secret in fine malls across this great nation of ours.

Overall, the quality of advertisers in Spectacular Spider-Man fits squarely in the depressing ghetto of vintage "lads' mag" territory, a greasy rung or two above (and occasionally below) what would see in a typical comic, and the logical extension of ads hawking fake dog poop, stamps or coins on approval, or better living through rigged schemes selling seeds or greeting cards. There are also ads for the Kawasaki Avenger motocycle (field-tested by burly dudes in executioner hoods: apparently quality control was different in the late 60's, I guess), and an unexpected yet nifty full page plug for the We're Only in it for the Money album by The Mothers of Invention. The back covers of both issues are graced by ads for Jade East aftershave, which I assume was the comic buyer's equivalent to Hai Karate. ("All the ex oriente lux assault on good taste, but at only a fraction of the price!")

Distributed by SWANK, Inc., purveyor of fine fragrances and even finer beaver shots. (Do a Wikipedia search for "swank" if you're unclear about the reference. I would avoid trying a Google search, especially if you're at work.)

...and so we conclude our tour of the seedy underbelly of the comics and magazine business of yesteryear. I shall return tomorrow, after a nice long bath in strong disinfectant, with a fresh topic for your perusal.

The Vibrators - Automatic Lover (from V2, 1978) - Another instance where the band name and song title both sync perfectly with the post topic. Excellent track, too.

The Flamin Groovies - Shakin' All Over (from Teenage Head, 1971) - Who hasn't covered this 1960's classic by Johnny Kidd and The Pirates? Billy Idol, The Who, The Guess Who (my personal favorite rendition), The Smithereens, about a zillion British Invasion groups... Here's a longer, sloppier cover by San Francisco proto-punk pioneers The Flamin Groovies.

THE END--? But this is where most stories just start to get interesting!

a church of my own

I was looking for some mustard, but instead discovered a profound ontological dilemma wedged in behind a rusty head of lettuce.

The electric eels - Refrigerator (from God Says Fuck You, 1992) - Raw, ragged proto-punk out of early 1970's Cleveland. The song kept repeating in my head as I was cleaning the fridge this morning (see how sparkly it is inside!), thus spawning this exercise in inspired laziness.

just to be alive, just a’one more day

Today’s post is about immortality, of a sort.

When my mother was a teenager she dug up a clump of the little blue wildflowers that grew on nearby Bucky’s Hill and transplanted them at the edge on my grandparents’ yard.

My mother is gone, a victim of an untied shoelace and the balance-inhibiting affects of port wine. Bucky’s Hill is gone, a victim of real estate developers who bulldozed the land flat and filled in the neighboring peat bog in order to drop down a rather prison-like condo complex on the site.

The little blue flowers in my grandmother’s yard have thrived and spread over the past four decades. From mid to late April, the side of the yard by the driveway becomes a cerulean carpet of tiny blossoms, a memorial far more suitable for my mother than any inscription on a slab of cold granite could ever be.

When my wife and I moved into the new house in 2004, I brought some of the plants with me, as a sentimental gesture in honor of my mom. I tried planting them in several locations around the yard, but with no success. I assumed that the soil up here on the hill just wasn’t suitable for that type of plant, and gave up trying after the fourth or fifth round of failures.

Yesterday, my wife and I were out on the patio surveying the storm damage and how our perennials were faring in the cold, wet weather, and my wife called for me to check out something in the bed where the lilies and bleeding hearts are planted. It was a solitary little blue flower, peeping up through the mud and the husks of last year’s annuals. I certainly didn’t plant it there, yet there it was – a random wonder in a random universe.

electric eels – Cards and Fleurs (from God Says Fuck You, 1992) – A swell bit of Cleveland proto-punk that begins like a fever dream and ends like a punch in the nose.

Los Abandoned – Como la Flor (from the Los Abandoned EP, 2004) – My wife has a cluster of friends in LA who keep her abreast of the local pop and punk scenes, and occasionally send her CD’s of bands she might enjoy, which is where I first came across Los Abandoned’s excellent brand of bilingual punk pop.

Here’s the video for their equally outstanding “Van Nuys Es Very Nice”:



100 Flowers – 100 Flowers (from 100 Years of Pulchritude, 1990) – Originally LA punk pranksters The Urinals, following a Maoist-inspired name change and a switch to an art punk sound reminiscent of Wire, The Fall, and/or The Minutemen.