10.31.07
Busy night, but…here:
Halloween Limerick
So I took myself out on a little date Tuesday night — over to sort of middle-Fairfax: First to Molly Malone’s to see/hear/experience The Cranky George Trio (Yeah!), and met some fine people and even had a couple of nice/odd moments with My Accordion Hero — then up to Canter’s where their pasta is actually pretty great, and I got to see Rodney after all these many months. He looked very, very happy. Then my cupcakes and I came “home.”
That said, it was a totally full-tilt day/night again (Cranky George went on at eight — which I discovered, miles away, at seven — and my original plan was to take it easy and roll in around ten; ha!), and my energy is required on a couple of other wordy things before I go to sleep this lovely Halloween morning.
Thus, I, Gregory, Poet, deliver unto thee this sensational
Halloween Limerick
Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!
Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!
Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!
Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!
Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo! Boo!
~Gregory
(If anybody can/wants to see The Pogues with me on Halloween night, call me NOW.)
10.30.07
Night & Catharsis
Is he up Late?
Is he up Early?
Nope!
He is up Middle!
Yeah, Monday was wickedly sleep-deprived plus I only really got one meal in there — and then every time I thought: “Okay, this is the restful moment; or at least the productive one,” the telephone would ring or somebody would need me for something, and then complexities would completely eradicate my hopes for What I Had Planned To Do In The First Place.
You probably know this feeling.
Anyway, I willingly collapsed twitching onto the futon, and then unwillingly wafted away into unconsciousness.
Most things happen for a reason (if not multiple reasons). When I awoke, everybody around here was asleep — thus Not Outrageously Loud And Irritating (for a change) — and the world was essentially mine. Thus, I went out into it.
The first thing I noticed was the sky! So beautiful! Hello, Orion! Hello, Betelgeuse! Hello, Venus! Hello, Mars! Hello, Big Pretty Waning Moon!
As I walked in the cool, quiet sweetness (looking rather stupid in running shorts and a big sweatshirt), these heavenly bodies gradually moved across the sky from south to central.
It was much, much, much better than anything on television.
Eventually a crisis occurred. I went into a convenience store for Munchos — and they had no Munchos! That is rough. I’m still getting over it, and considering therapy.
At around that point I noticed the magazine rack, and decided to investigate the latest issue of Rolling Stone — with Bruce Springsteen and his freakish vampire fang on the cover.
Backstory: Me and Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone played a major role during my youth in introducing me to Pop Culture. I started subscribing when John Belushi was still alive, and then pretty soon he was dead and on the cover again. Back then, Rolling Stone was printed on newsprint, without glossy covers. (Perhaps I’ve written this before; whatever.) I remember the day that my copy with Nastassja Aglaia Nakszynski “Kinski” on the cover showed up, and feeling a bit embarrassed about the blatant sexuality of it — but thinking that the nipple inside was generally pretty cool. How progressive! Then, a couple of weeks or a month later, they published a letter from somebody accusing them of running smut, and telling them that if they were going to do that, they should at least switch to glossy paper.
A few months later, they switched to glossy paper.
I still have all those back-issues — at least covering the decade of the ’80s (as “The Go-Gos in their underwear” and “Prince’s armpit” and “Bono’s anus — no, wait, that’s his face!” continued to…um…”push the envelope”) and generally I like that era. Shortly thereafter, however, some dolt decided that pop music had to become unbearably ugly, and I became more interested in Life (not Life, but Life) anyway and cancelled my subscription to Rolling Stone.
I never went back.
See, the thing about Rolling Stone is that it’s not bad — it keeps people abreast of some Pop things — but it has, like most rock music, become a parody of a carbon-copy of a parody of almost itself.
It sure ain’t what it started out to be!
Looking back, I only read it because it was there. Had I known about Q, for instance, I wouldn’t have bothered with Rolling Stone at all.
Anyway, I picked up this issue and flipped through it — mainly out of curiosity for how they’ve managed to keep Springsteen from looking as dilapidated (or just plain dated) as he seems to be at this point — and most of what I scanned merely bored or mildly depressed me.
It’s not that I don’t like these guys — the Michael Stipes, the Thom Yorkes, whatever — it’s simply that the sales pitch is totally exhausted. There’s Springsteen as his own barker, telling us his band is now “at their best” (severely doubting that), and there’s yet another review fellating Radiohead (I’d love it if some journalist would write, “Thom Yorke is sort of a dillweed — and what’s with that weird eye?” — oh, I guess one just did) or — egad — Mike Mills trying to tell us that R.E.M. — with their “guitar-driven” (how novel!) new album is like a new band, like it’s “1985 all over again.”
Barf.
I like these people, and I certainly like the ’80s (my goodness, remember how cool it was to have Reckoning on cassette?) — but: No. You guys are a not a new band. None of you are. You are nearly AARP-eligible rich guys, with houses all over the planet. Fuck you. You are not in any way whatsoever representing “rebellion” or “revolution” or “cutting-edgeness” any more. At all.
You represent cozy complacency.
That goes quadruple for Rolling Stone.
Joyless, dead, risk-free rag.
There has been some negative feedback regarding my recent insult to editors. Once again, this does not mean all editors. Some editors, for instance, are simply people who like helping other people, and are centred enough to have a clue. Most editors I have encountered, however, are neurotic freaks who need to screw up other people’s work in order to feel validated. It is to these that I issue my bitch-slap.
A metaphor leaps to mind — and although I am loath to wield a car-metaphor, here goes:
When I was a teen, one of the jobs I held was “landscaping” at a big apartment complex. It sucked. It meant getting up extremely early, having a really bad day, and then being paid poorly for it. But what do teens know? I did what I could.
One morning, I was a running a little late (surprise), and I had to drive a stretch to get to the bad job. En route was a hill. People who lived along the hill were using sprinklers to water their lawns, so water was running down the street. I needed to get my car down that street. In front of me was a large sedan. It was moving approximately two miles per day. This annoyed me. If you want to park, then park — but don’t almost park while you’re still blocking traffic (ironically, if L.A. has a central theme, this is it — why the hell did I move here again?).
Sizing up the situation, I decided to pass the slow-moving sedan. This was a fairly normal thing to do. Then something abnormal happened. The sedan zoomed to the left to block me. Then it zoomed back to the right to block me again. Fortunately, there was no oncoming traffic — but whichever lane I chose in my attempt to get around the stupid lummox, the stupid lummox would immediately block.
This was annoying beyond comprehension, so I sped up and zipped my car left and right, left and right, over and over again, in a big show of disrespect for the absolutely retarded driving habits of the idiot blocking me.
He continued to block me, all the way down the hill — and then he pulled his big fat car sideways and blocked the entire street.
I got out of my car.
He got out of his car.
Followed an altercation. He was a fat old man, ornery-lookin’, wearing a mean expression. He shouted at me. I told him to get out of my way. He told me that if I had passed him, I would have…
…get this…
…splashed his precious car!
This is where we go: FUCK YOU UP YOUR STUPID ASS FOREVER.
(Perhaps you’re seeing the editorial connection?)
(I didn’t use language like that at the time, incidentally.)
The equation is a simple one:
It is a street.
It is not a car-show.
Q.E.D.
The guy threatened me, and I just gave him a look of “Whadaya gonna do?” — and he backed down.
When he got back into his car and moved it, I sped past him, tooted my horn, and launched for him the biggest bird I could send into flight.
These days, I am a pedestrian. By choice.
However, the editorial (and otherwise) metaphor holds: If somebody is trying to get somewhere, then get the hell out of their way.
I’ll be back with some real music news, that year-end wrap-up, and some lovin’.
10.29.07
Year-End Teaser
Hey — only about a year late: I finally added a photo to the post about Tower Records closing!
(I love not caring AT ALL about “time.”)
That said, there is a mild irony in that there are only a couple of days left in this year. To heck with the other calendars (even the one eponymous with me); I say 1 November starts a New Year.
With this in mind, a few fun and largely pointless reflections on The Year Gone By (or is it Bi? how trendy!)
Well, apparently Rush is in Finland, just finishing a long tour. Why doesn’t anybody ever tell me anything? Although I only really like their work up to Signals, I’d have gone to see them at the Bowl, no question.
(Let that be on the record in case only Irredeemable Nerds are allowed to survive.)
Apparently, also this past year, the “word” “crunk” was introduced into Webster’s Dictionary. Not kidding. That sort of makes me want to kill myself three or four times — but it’s also funny enough that I kinda like it. “Crunk”! Oh, do fuck off!
As long as we’re handling the profanities, just tonight I emailed a friend and finally said something I’ve been meaning to say for years:
FUCK EDITORS UP THEIR STUPID ASSES FOREVER.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
(This means specifically editors of prose — who, in my experience, are mostly heinous control freaks [and yes, I mean heinous] — and I add the disclaimers that: A. I make no claims to perfection; and B. If somebody handles language significantly better than I do, I’ll cheerfully cooperate with them. Most editors SUCK, though.)
If you’re reading something in a magazine or newspaper or even online, it is very likely that it has been neutered, or at least has been drained of some significant percentage of essential elements. Don’t blame the writer. Blame the editor.
So that’s kind of a fun thing to say.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
(Incidentally, if I have worked with you happily and/or successfully, this does not apply to you; it applies to all the people who should be drummed out of their editorial jobs and put on highway cleanup duty.)
It feels ever so good to express oneself candidly.
What else?
I guess the iPhone was this year. Big whoop.
Zoe Cassavetes made a good movie (up until the stupid ending).
The military blasted more ancient ziggurats into powder, and caused the deaths of lots of people who don’t deserve to be dead. Nice going, military.
Prince literally played in the “Purple Rain” at the Superbowl. That lil’ guy is almost old!
North and South Korea kept trying to figure out what the hell to do. Maybe just be one country?
Oh, and it didn’t rain a darned bit in Southern California — which made it really quite miserable, environment-wise. Then again, should humans be here in huge or even moderate numbers in the first place?
Etc.
I’ll address Life This Past Year from a personal vantage sometime before the Gateway Between Worlds opens, and all that business.
Have a nice day dealing with totally insane stressed-out people. Fun, huh?
10.28.07
One Thing Leads to Another
Six p.m. and the telephone rings and it’s a good guy who wants for me to attend that Horrorthon thingie. Drat! It’s a fine gaggle, but I was planning on finally getting things into gear this week-end — and the cool-misty weather is just the ticket to soothing my weary head and letting me focus.
I went, and ended up having a fun time. It’s still going on as I type this (probably two feature films and plenty of interstitial entertainment to go!), but I’m way too sleepy. Typing this is an efgorty.
(See?)
Actually, that sparks the notion that I frequently consider: That, for instance, it’s pretty much impossible to crystalise an emotion when one is actually in the throes of that emotion. Like, for instance, being depressed. If one is actually depressed, ain’t no way in hell they’re going to be capable of going into a professional music studio and recording a song about how depressed they are. You know what actual depressed people do? They lie around like helpless babies. They don’t plan and sell bazillion-selling albums.
Likewise, typing that one is tired whilst one is still capable of typing is a bit of hypocrisy.
I had a professor in film school — most of my peers hated him or at least felt superior to him, but I liked him — and when people complained about how hard it was to keep going (believe me, writing and shooting and editing a film can be quite exhausting in its own right; doing it for a small educational fortune with professors and peers breathing down your neck much moreso), he would say this:
“Don’t tell me you are tired. If someone came after you with a knife, you’d run!”
Useful words. Funny, too!
Anyway, yeah, speaking of people attacking each other, I checked out some horror tonight after all — and it’s interesting, because whatever effect it had on me as a youngster it no longer has now. I didn’t watch anything all the way through, but I peeked in on nastiness and mayhem and murder — and mainly I only liked the parts that people found funny.
It was a large turnout, actually — nearly a full-house — and that, I think, was the most pleasing aspect: Call it a “hunting lodge for rich weirdos,” perhaps.
Gotta say, I really don’t like graphic abuse and violence. But when Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson did it, there was usually a wink involved, and the wink made it palatable: “Hey, buddy, I’m tryin’ to scare you — but look, it’s kinda amusing, too, huh?”
Anyway, my horoscope said to “go along for the ride,” so I did. In enjoyable company, the experience was not unlike a spook-house attraction or suchlike. I even came away with candy and amusing prizes. Thanks, fun friends!
(Oh, and some smashingly good Thai-spice flavoured cashews; bravo.)
The instant I strode through my own door (and we’re talking 2 a.m.) the telephone rings and it’s someone who wants to create television and feature film properties with me. We spoke. Add that to the list for tomorrow (= in a few hours).
Eek.
(Thank goodness I don’t have carpeting; I’d never find time to vacuum it.)
(Speaking of which, the mix of The Fixx’ song cited above which I most prefer is the one with the whiff-whiff-whiff-whiff start that sounds kind of like a Hoover set on “Staccato” — over which Jamie West-Oram’s guitar then makes that eerie jangle.)
(It’s kind of hard to believe that a friend and I went to see The Fixx at a steakhouse in Malibu a couple of years ago; that was pretty cool.)
Surprisingly, nobody has retaliated yet in the vital matter of slagging off all those MOR acts and then raising Thompson Twins to deity status. (Hey, search back and Alannah Currie used to be in a band called The Unfuckables — which she called less a band than a lifestyle; that’s depressing but still pretty cool.)
HAPPY FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY, ALANNAH!
I figured for sure that some quick-witted soul would hit back with “Hold Me Death” or “Death On Your Side” or “Lay Your Death On Me” — but in fact: A. I actually like the original versions of those songs; B. I really don’t worry what anybody says about Thompson Twins; and C. The entire matter nearly ushers in a whole new universe of irrelevance.
(Meanwhile, my stack of TT cassettes glows like dusty old gold.)
I never got to see The Beatles performing “Revolution” live — but I got to see Thompson Twins do it. And guess what? It was great.
Back to the horror thing (genuinely sleepy now), I think that the programmer did a good job from a freaky (literally) point of view, and also his efforts have inspired me (fleetingly) to create my own programme, were I to schedule my own all-night horror spectacular. Some of the titles might be a bit obvious, but this is what I’d do:
1. The Rocky Horror Picture Show (start things off right)
2. Alien (formula achieves perfection)
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (not my fave, but very well made and prolly the most horrific of the series)
4. Suspiria (it’s a bit stupid, but the colours are excellent, as is Jessica Harper)
5. The Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf (indescribable; just see it)
6. The Monster Club (because Luke and I did the commentary track for it, during a state of semi-delirium [I was pretty tired, anyway] — plus it’s the only movie where you’ll get Vincent Price, John Carradine and UB40 all at once).
7. Wall Street (the scariest movie I’ve ever seen)
Sorry if that leaves out anybody’s faves; it’s just seven I’d choose for the occasion.
I’m gonna go dream about bouncy things now.
10.27.07
Death and Thompson Twins
I was in the shower this morning, and it occurred to me to consider what I know about Death. It is that time of year, after all — y’know, if you’re a Druid, it’s, like, the end of the year and all symbolic about the end of one Life and beginning of the Next and all — and I was considering how rampantly Death-obsessed yet Death-denying is the culture I currently inhabit.
Know-It-All White Guys are supposed to be obsessed with Death (or at least with that little comic-book-mad Goth chick looming weirdly at the fringes of the party), and thus, in this sense, I may not be a card-carrying Know-It-All White Guy after all. Whatever. Living things don’t last forever; it’s pretty simple, really — and it doesn’t seem to me to be anything over which to obsess.
A-Booga-Booga-Booga!!!
The only thing that really bothers me about Death (in caps just because it’s cooler) is when it’s stupid. Like people shooting other people. What stupid Death! Pointless! Or people habitually putting carcinogens into their own bodies. Stoo-pid!
Suicide doesn’t strike me as stupid, but rather terribly self-absorbed — far less an issue of Life and Death than one of agonising loneliness and/or hopelessness. And Death probably does “cure” that — unless, y’know, you’re a Hindu.
In which case — why the hell be all lonely and hopeless? Have you ever seen a Bollywood musical? Genius!
Back to the point, though, I look around and observe the media, and it seems to me that most of the Death upon which the populace fixates is of the Very, Very Stupid variety. People Shooting Each Other — both in real life and in moving pictures (and in “popular music”) – seems to be the most common form of Very, Very Stupid Death. (*Note: As perceived by the brain and nervous system, there may be very little difference between “real” shootings and “fictional” shootings; I say: Why foment such ugliness throughout what could be a beautiful world?!?!? QUIT IT!!!!)
Thus, that’s one form of Stupid Death. Filling the body with poisons is certainly another form meriting at least the Very Stupid (in some cases, add another “Very”) label. Retarded! Love the human, but loathe the habit that is killing the human. You’re beautiful! C’mon!
Same thing with countless “accidents” — physical, metaphysical, sexual, etc. — why not just be a little more careful?
Helpful phrases:
“Oh, here comes a big boat. I suppose I should get my skull out of the way of its huge propeller.”
“Sucking these heavily chemically-treated burning leaves tastes bad and stinks up at least two hundred cubic feet, actually — plus it’s making my living tissues stop living. Hm…think I’ll eat a carrot.”
“Hey…before I put my thing in there, or have that person’s thing in me, perhaps it’s best to get to know each other a bit, or at least Wrap That Rascal.”
Etc.
Anyway, although there’s Death all around all the time, it just seems meritorious to keep its percentage of Stupidity to a bare, bare minimum. If there’s gotta be Death, do we all have to be embarrassed, too?
My experiences with Death are memorable but limited. First of all, my grandma died, when I was about thirteen, and she was the only grandparent I ever met. I’m quite sorry that we didn’t get to talk together as adults, because I’m sure that would have been interesting. She went from top floor to ground floor to nursing home to hospital. I visited her several times. I think I was puzzling to her, but she was a nice lady — and a profound advocate for Peace (and Civility).
(Lump. Throat.)
I’ve already appraised some of the other humans I used to know who are no longer alive in their bodies. Three friends, at various stages — and I met their respective families. Those memories are kind of sealed in a crypt now — but I am at peace with them, as the memories themselves are good ones.
I wasn’t in New York when those buildings got slammed, and, fortunately, I don’t have a direct personal connection with anyone involved. (Some friends who used to live in Brooklyn caught soot and debris on their doorstep — and I’ve stepped on that doorstep; but that’s it.) Thus, many thousands of people know more about that than I do.
Going back, when I was a young teen I recall some friends gathering to watch those videos of actual people dying. I didn’t see the point. I think I glanced into the room while a bear was mauling a kid or something, but that’s just no