Gregory’s Lovable Önline Gabble Garden
It’s that time: Dusk on a Halloween. A melancholy looms. Always a not-quite holiday. Always in the wrong company, or no company. Such a great celebration, I’m not sure why mine always ends up feeling a waste.
May you find some enjoyment in it.
I think I’ll go eat some potatoes.
Hey, here’s a notion: I’ll post the Day of the Dead photos on the actual Day of the Dead.
Saves me hurrying, anyway.
Meanwhile, a couple of correspondences:
From Kimberly, Winnipeg, a Gemini:
Hey Gregory,
You write a lot about old music. No offence, but don’t you like any new music? If not, I could make you a mix. Lemme know.
Why, thank you, Kimberly, for simultaneously insulting my ability to survive longer and learn more than you (presumably) have, whilst also offering me a gift.
In total honesty, I really don’t care about a lot of new music, perhaps because I don’t care enough about life these days, or something. But more accurately, I rarely hear any pop music that interests me. Lots of screechy little divas and lots of really lousy carbon-copy rock bands, then whatever “World” music is on the marketing list that week. It’s not that I don’t care, it’s that I don’t know about what exactly I should be caring.
All the same, some of the “new” people I have enjoyed lately include a very cool band out of New York City called Girls Don’t Cry, and Jesca Hoop (she’s fairly unique, “female Tom Waits” to an extent, but at least she’s doing it her own way), and Goldfrapp (not exactly “new,” I realise, but I don’t have a clue what’s Officially Cool anymore, so give me a point here), and anything Rodney Bingenheimer puts up for our consideration, plus the records by all these fresh, new acts such as The Who (a.k.a. “The Two”), Kate Bush (also gone so long it’s like she’s a new act) and a wonderful singer called Christopher Lee.
Also, you may be delighted to know that I have been told that I should like Arctic Monkeys and The Decemberists. That is a great measure of how cool I am — that people are telling me this, I mean.
Send me your mix anytime.
Now here’s Tram, a Leo born in the Year of the Ox, from Seattle, WA, USA:
“Aching Male Fantasy Wish Fulfilment, i.e.: A woman doing things no woman would ever, ever, ever do. She’s sexy, fun, smart, pretend-American-but-actually-British, looks about as goony as Molly Ringwald yet still enjoys bearing her breasts, dances and drinks like a champ, deeply desires to be supernaturally fun all the time, plus, pivotally, actually lets an interested male help her in a time of desperate need.”
I can’t speak for all women.
But for me (a female), at least, Titanic was a female fantasy. Jack was everything that a woman can hope for - he stopped her from a suicidal attempt and gave her confidence when she needed it most.
Rose was the heroine - it was completely her show. She confronted her mom, her assholish fiance, and yes, danger and death (she was swinging the hammer and breaking down doors). Jack gave her the self-esteem to do those things. Jack finally died when his job (to make her realize that life was worth livin’) was done.
btw, the nude scene was presented in an “artistic” way. Of course, you can call it objectification (everything about film is in the eye of the beholder), but Cameron showed Jack focusing intently upon his drawing.
And you can argue that her alcoholic binging (as well as her spitting is her way of rebelling against the patriarchy (Cal is presented as the villain who keeps Rose under a leash; her widowed mom insistent on playing along with the rules for privilege sake).
“The production design and costumes and dual sense of history and mystery are significant, but the core of the project’s success is that we desperately want to believe in Winslet’s character because in the real world she does not exist.”
Once again, a female fantasy. She is the ideal of what a woman (at least a lot that I know of) would want to be: vulnerable but headstrong.
“This desperate longing for a character who does not really exist also explains the enormous success of movies such as Little Nemo (a father who actually cares), the Indiana Jones movies (a professor with balls), the James Bond movies (an alcoholic who can get it up) and the Santa Clause movies (a “fun” drug-fiend).”
Well, not only those films. But movies in general. Part of the appeal of the movies is fantasy - the desire to transcend reality. Sometimes reality is too mundane and hardhitting for (most of) us to swallow.
“I felt really terrible that James Cameron and the bigwigs at Fox and Paramount felt it necessary to depict the passengers’ suffering with such apparent glee and sadism.”
Isn’t that another one of the appeal of the movies? To watch disasters and other catastrophes from a safe spot (i.e. our movie theatre seats). Yes, it’s kinda twisted, but also romantic IMHO.
“Why is the old lady so callous and selfish that she discards (symbolically or otherwise) a jewel capable of bringing financial assistance to untold numbers of needy people?”
Because maybe she didn’t want Brock to get it - it’s too sentimental and precious a memento? And maybe she thinks it belongs to the ocean floor, where the rest of the Titanic relic lies.
And why have the subplot on needy people? Titantic isn’t a realistic Ken Loach film. It’s a melodrama. Besides the “needy people” aspect has already been addressed throughout the entire film - the inequalities that exist between the first and third class passengers.
Well, first of all, thank you, Tram — obviously you have given all this a lot more time and attention than I have. Now let me see if I can respond reasonably well to your points:
I find it interesting — I mean not “interesting” because I can’t think of a better word, but genuinely interesting — that you consider the character of Jack to be “everything that a woman can hope for.” Really? Is the shitty little bad-boy thief jerk archetype really as magnetic as it was when I still believed in romantic love? Because I loathe that guy. I think he sucks.
That said — and really, I am not offering a rebuttal at your expense, Tram, but merely continuing what has become a dialogue — one of the things I hated about Titanic was that Jack pussies out completely at the end. What a dipshit! All that effort poured forth — survival, survival, survival! — and then when it comes time for this little makeshift physicist to find a frickin’ table or sofa so he too can have a flo(a)tation device, he fails. On purpose. He doesn’t even try to save his own life. This, to me, makes Rose (”I’ll never let go” — Wha?) look like nothing more than some black widow, who takes and takes and takes from Jack…until he is no more. Is this love? Shit, I hope not!
Indeed, Tram, I appreciate your general philosophies (film is indeed in the eye — and don’t forget the ear! — of the beholder, though hardly, as you suggest, can “everything” about this business be said to be dependent upon the consumer) — however, given Jack’s general character, I was very surprised that he didn’t jump Rose’s bones during that iffy, insta-nude sketch-job. A totally posh suite at their disposal, and they choose the backseat of a car? What idiots!
As for Rose’s drinking and spitting, please believe me, although I have lived in parts of the world in which women feel a natural sense of empowerment and thus are quite pleasant socially, presently I inhabit an emotional wasteland in which being a terrible (and very manly) bitch is standard for most adult females (but don’t take my word for it; have a look sometime). Cal should be short for Callow, I agree, and yet Rose’s Wimp-To-Womyn empowerment story is rather tedious for me, since I’ve already seen Cameron’s thematically-identical Terminator movies, plus I pretty much slog through this scenario every day.
Bear in mind that Rose could also represent my (or Cameron’s) feminine side, and not only your particular gender. Hey…interpretation!
And thank you for telling me what women want to be. No sarcasm about that. However, to me, “vulnerable” and “headstrong” are major-league antonyms. Maybe I’ll tell you about how I want to be both “cold” and “hot,” just to make the point clear. (And besides, if she’s so strong, how come she needs all those photos and the little dog?)
Sideline: It bothered me that bearded passengers boarding the Titanic were checked for lice, while meanwhile nobody bothered to check all those dogs (and rats) for fleas.
Of course, Tram, I agree with you that escapism is a major component of going to the movies. However, I take umbrage when a movie presents itself as “reality” — then does everything in its power to bend reality in ways that reality simply does not bend. Fantasy I love. Realism I love. But something passing itself off as Realism that then jerks us around whenever it feels like it (especially without at least winking at us first) — that I don’t dig. That is when I consider a movie to be more of a drug. Most people don’t even think about this, as far as I know.
Reality being “mundane and hardhitting” — you seem quite young. Don’t worry, it all gets easier as you gradually lose your sensitivity.
As for brutality onscreen, it only bothers me when the filmmakers seem to be showing off, trying to get away with what in some cases I consider “tantrums” (David Fincher, Clive Barker, that ilk) and in other cases simply ugly lapses in good taste (the bodies in Titanic, Private Ryan, etc.). Yecchy self-indulgence without considering the impact upon the audience (a friend of mine literally puked at Private Ryan). Tram, I wouldn’t dream of robbing you of any cinematic experience you seek — particularly inoculation against fear via watching horrible things from the comfort of a safe little seat — and yet is it “romantic” to watch anybody suffer? If so, then indeed, the “Jacks” of the world are welcome to preside as the focal point of that “romance.”
As for The Heart of the Ocean, again, I thank you for your views. I actually watched the movie with someone (a female, notably, who had seen it several times before) who believed that Old Rose dropped the rock specifically so Brock would find it. I disagreed. Especially since the crew had been sweeping that floor for a long time, it seemed unlikely to me that they would return to it, or that she would think they would (why not just hand it to him?). Thus we are left with your notion that it’s precious to her and it belongs on the bottom of the ocean with her dead shitheel tryst-boy. Um…
Do we like this person? — she who could probably use that rock to feed Somalia, but instead chooses to chuck it off the back of a boat, where nobody will ever find it?
I don’t like that person. It’s not as if it’s The One Ring or anything. The stone is basically enormous potential energy, and she’s throwing it away rather than sharing it.
That’s how I perceived it, anyway. (And the movie was, of course, made by a Boomer. Typical.)
But you’re right — indeed, no (additional) subplot about “needy people” is desired nor needed. You’re right that Titanic is, first and foremost, melodrama. And yet when I see a document like that, which is obviously so influential that nine years after its release you feel compelled to write to me about it, then I feel a need to question its motives, as well as the worldview of its creators.
And thank you again, Tram, for bringing your varying perspectives to my attention. May dozens of little Celine Dions serenade you as you slumber.
At the moment I am contemplating whether to bless or curse the supergeniuses who decided that it would be a terrific idea to adjust human clocks in order to force upon us the illusion that our sun — which already drops earlier in this hemisphere during this season — is dropping even earlier.
Curse, I think. Morons.
Then again, I like night – but I sincerely believe that whoever invented the clock in the first place was pretty much an overly ambitious moron. Whoever invented the traffic light, too.
Seeking to control that which cannot be controlled.
Mankind.
Ridiculous.
Anyway, today I ate soup. It was excellent.
The soup required much preparatory contemplation, and during this I very nearly dined at Panera Bread by mistake. Except that…I hate that place. Somewhere between the BLASTING jazz (most of which I simply can’t stand; I don’t mind if you want to like it, but I sure don’t) and all the Latter Day Yups suckling the Wi-Fi to conduct their utterly vital laptop wankery, I feel sickened.
Nay, instead I ate soup (lentils! carrots! MMM!) in a humble little place, near a bulletin board that kinda cracked me up, really: all those silly “Healing Touch” massage people and “Learn The True Power Of Love” seminar people and “I Will Teach You How To Play Guitar Because, Frankly, I Am Broke” people — I giggle openly.
Having thus giggled, I ate my soup whilst listening to C.’s generous bootleg of Shane MacGowan & The Popes’ second excellent album, The Crock of Gold (”The USA never fails to make me blue”). This is what is known as A Satisfying Experience.
And I didn’t even need to buy a new car to find this happiness!
After that I spoke with my nephew. He is amazing. We haven’t spoken in ages, owing mainly to no particular reason. He’s not only great fun and one hell of an artist, he also reminds me how far I have come, and how much further I have to go. And did I mention that he’s fun? Viva him! He bought a women’s fur coat in a secondhand store to transform himself into a barbarian for Halloween. Once the animals are brutally slain and turned into an allegedly fashionable garment, I cannot think of anything better to do with a women’s fur coat.
Speaking of which, it has become — *ahem* — “cold” here again. I am deeply amused by all the women with their yoga mats and Aspen boots, shivering, shivering! What is it, 60F out? You people are hilarious.
On the subject of mild sexism, I also note today that a toothpaste exclusively and explicitly for women has appeared on the shelves. There is no punchline to this comment, except for the fact itself.
Oh yeah, the point: Yesterday I attended the Dia de los Muertos…festivities?…at the Hollywood Forever cemetery.
This was the idea of my splendid friend, K. She’s totally into it. Me — I won’t say “not so much” because I’m very weary of that terribly overused phrase — thus, not at all, really. It’s not my thing.
Without intending any insult to the practitioners of these traditions (life is hard enough without being dogged by witch-doctors and/or forced to drink tequila), for me this was one of those Learning Experiences that are all about the Learning (however modest), and not — apart from pleasant company – particularly about enjoyment.
Thus the title of this entry. I do not for one moment mean to suggest that Disneyland is some sort of repository of sanity — however it is clean, well-ordered and generally comprehensible. The Hollywood Forever park, by contrast – and this was the first time I ever bothered to visit it (I hate hype) — smelled way funky (thick clouds of not-nice incense — to complement the smog?), looked a fright (literally), sounded generally crazy, and featured loads of people partying — on top of loads of dead people. No Circus of the Damned was it, per se, nor am I some meek Pollyanna, however there was an air (or lack thereof) of insanity about the scene.
Entertaining photos w/commentary forthcoming; not presently in mood to deal with dongly things. Check back constantly.
Well, tonight I achieved The Unthinkable:
I knew that Robyn Hitchcock was to play in town…and I didn’t go.
Allow me to put this into perspective.
You know, for instance, eating — and how much you enjoy that? Or breathing? Or shopping? Or at least watching television?
All those things put together do not add up to the concentrated joy I feel at observing a performance by Robyn Hitchcock.
Here. Here is part of a sketch I made of Robyn Hitchcock, back in 1995:
(detail, enlarged)
It is not a bad likeness, actually, if indeed the style and attitude of the subject are a better match for 1989 — around the time that the subject was, perhaps, at his peak both in terms of overall popularity and creative abandon. Naturally, this meant that he was on a major record label, and, naturally, this meant that they were screwing him.
I first became aware of Mr. Hitchcock sometime around 1987 — a long time, in human terms, after his impressive debut with The Soft Boys. My lovely Floyd-head roommate Mike suddenly conjured this CD called Globe of Frogs — prescribed by some other friend because “it sounds like Syd.” I immediately took a shine to it, and generally think that Robyn — as with anyone he emulates (and I’ve seen and heard him pretty much emulate them all) — is generally better than any artist he is aping.
Even John Lennon.
Even Bob “Dylan”.
Yes, even Syd.
(And even Carl Douglas — though this is a different story altogether!)
Time whooshed forward, and suddenly I was back from England, and there was a new Robyn Hitchcock ‘n’ The Egyptians CD: Queen Elvis.
This, this is One Of The Greatest Albums Ever.
(Although I recall Mike telling me that his brother could not abide its aggressively off-kilter closing track, “Superman.”)
But rather than writing reviews of Robyn’s impressive catalogue, here’s what happened for me:
One weird night in about 1994, I found myself in Seattle (in some grotty little natural foods store, I seem to recall), and noticed somehow that Robyn Hitchcock would be playing in some semi-nearby club called The Crocodile.
I went.
I expected — perhaps in keeping with my own abilities of the time — a guy strumming rough chords and making with the funny lyrics.
I certainly did not expect an acoustic genius bursting with passion and soul and Very Weird Shirts, who also occasionally plugged in, to knock us senseless with his own amplified material (”Freeze”) and that of esteemed others (”Cold Turkey”).
I was very, very, very wowed.
Of course, I went to the show alone, because I go to 90% of shows alone, because the idea of attending an enjoyable concert with me terrifies most people I know.
Then I got sick of the Pac NW (I truly loathe “Seattle” rock), and drove an exploding vintage Mustang through Oregon or whatever and ended up back in L.A. — where — Lo! — suddenly I noticed that Robyn Hitchcock would be playing another show.
Mind, this was well before the internet (I simply refuse to capitalise it) was widespread. I don’t even remember how I found out about the show. It was just One Of Those Things.
By this point, I had quite a lot of Robyn material — collected in the ’80s, taped off Mtv when he was a minor star there, and acquired at Penny Lane in Westwood (when it used to exist; previous location) and at the rather unpleasant but educational Cellophane Square up in Washington. Like, in the mid-’90s, Robyn and Rhino re-released Invisible Hitchcock and also gave us You and Oblivion — both of which are, frankly, Awesome. (And you guessed it: These were among the few chunks of salvation in an otherwise horrifying and wretchedly emotionally misspent decade.)
Anyway, suddenly I’m going to another Robyn show alone, and it is my second one, and it is at…
The Alligator Lounge.
First Crocodile.
Then Alligator.
(This from the man who wrote “He’s a Reptile.”)
Of course, The Alligator doesn’t exist anymore. Typical. Razed and rebuilt as something else.
I was really happy to see Robyn there, though. I recall him asking some employee please not to steal his watch. I recall him launching into a funky song about a trilobite. I recall him whirling round to thank the guys in the band — who were not there (it was a solo performance).
What I did not know at the time was that Robyn essentially became An Honourary Older Brother.
In a pop culture aimed at children and Americans, Robyn Hitchcock helps me to feel that things may turn out okay (however illusory this feeling may be).
There are several others of course — it makes me smile to think how Mike really didn’t like Billy Bragg (an amazing man) — and yet, after much consideration, my compass generally points Hitchcockward.
(Mike even joined me several years ago when Robyn happened to be playing in town on my birthday. That night he gave me the script of Withnail & I. I almost never see the guy anymore, but that paperback still graces my fave shelf.)
At this point, I really can’t count how many times I have attended shows by Robyn. I even called that “college” radio station, KCRW (which, way back when, I didn’t even realise was a mere prawn’s throw down Pico from The Late Alligator Lounge) and asked if I could sit in on a broadcast with Robyn. No dice. That’s okay. I hardly expected open arms.
And — although I doubt you’ll believe me — I’m really not a rabid fan. Many shows — many of them at Largo (about which I intended to write a large feature story, until pretentious little Culture Vultures shot me down — watch your backs, pop journos!), including a run of four consecutive nights a year or two ago (the fourth if you count jamming with Jon Brion on Friday). But simply to appreciate. Some people can watch more than one Nascar race.
I’d like to thank Flanagan, the manager of Largo. He not only hosts much fine entertainment, he also made it possible for me to interview Robyn for that aborted story.
When I sat down with Robyn in the tiny, funky greenroom, he asked me, “Gregory, would you like water…or wine?”
I told him I’d enjoy it if he’d turn one into the other.
You know what I think it is? I think it’s a Time Warp. It’s late 2006, and here’s Robyn with yet another glistening pop-rock album (Ole Tarantula), and it sounds essentially like 1989 again, and as I look around, not only are many Things ’80s coming back (see: Devo, Flock of Seagulls, Bow Wow Wow; Greek Theatre; Halloween Night), but it seems that really (from my limited perspective) almost nothing has changed. Almost nothing!
We’ve just gotten older, and our bodies aren’t quite as good as they were before.
Whoah.
I guess maybe that’s why I didn’t go tonight. I can rationalise the omission with: I need to save money; or, Getting across town totally sucks; or, I listened to samples of all the new tracks via Amazon and did not feel that the material wowed me as much as, say, Moss Elixir or Spooked — but the real reason had much more to do with this:
Not going allowed me to reflect. To reconsider the current (mostly hellishly mediocre) paradigm.
Also — it was as if going would have been too obvious!
Cult leaders and/or former employers will probably eat this up — but I totally hate doing the obvious.
So I watched Robyn and Peter Buck and whoever else play “Eight Miles High” during their recent antipodean leg instead (those luckies!), via YouTube.
I’m not quite sure if that’s sad or not, but the conservative little choice definitely made the evening far less stressful.
And the evening? Owen “Silly Putty-Nose” Wilson was shooting a scene nearby, for some movie called Drillbit Taylor. Yawn. (How does that Johnny One-Note keep getting paid?) Kids were dashing about and screaming and playing carnival. Vampire movies. I just stayed in. A bit weird since one of those movies was The Lost Boys — for my younger self, a not-insignificant pull toward California — but it’s okay. I remember the maggots and the Coreys just fine.
And Robyn? He’ll be back.
Sorry to miss him not once but twice this year at Key Club, where at least I did manage a springtime Thomas Dolby show (a little “Keith” parallelism would have been nice, but one can’t have everything).
And he’ll be back.
Let’s see — just so this obtuse entry has some substance, uh, here:
Help the environment! Educate children! Live in peace! Make, like, love! Oh, and a very speedy recovery to Terry Jones!