04.30.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 11:42 pm by Gregory
Allo, ça va? Oui, ça va.
I have just microwaved some soy mozzarella onto a previously cheeseless mini-pizza, and I’m not entirely sure that it’s food anymore — but I’m eating it anyway.
This seems, to me, far more indicative of the life I have been experiencing than hundreds of thousands of words of factual argument.
Anyway, the point is, I found those recordings from the mid-90s. I even found the masters. Everything’s been a rolling clusterfuck for so long now, I’m a bit surprised and even more delighted at how well preserved these are.
You probably won’t like them. I’m not saying that to be modest. Unless your goal is money and/or attention, the real goal of making music is self-discovery (and discovery of self within a far more grand spectrum). These mostly fit in the “Discovery” category and not at all in the “Marketable” category. The mid-90s were hellishly pop-culturally bleak for the most part, and thus the process of recording these things was much like planting daffodils in a hurricane. But, then again, I taught myself to draw (post-childhood) on a cross-country trainride. Ever ride a train? They shake and shimmy a fair bit.
I’m going to listen to “my Iron Man song” now…
{…listening to it…for the first time in twelve years…}
…
…hm!
Well, that was unexpected.
I like it.
You know how Ed Wood made movies? For a while, I was making albums in approximately the same fashion. i.e.: Almost clueless, no proper support, no budget, no real interest from anybody, and usually in the dark.
This song is from just such an experience. I was living (marginally) in Silver Lake with a roommate — not from Hell, exactly; more like, from Squishy Underpants Cackle-Land (example: When I’d announce I was about to take a bath, he’d raise his doughy, Prozac-laden, BVD-only-clad body from his up-to-twelve-hour severely-cackling video-game marathon session and release a lethal dump strong enough to annihilate Philadelphia — in the bathroom — seconds before my bath. (In other words, he had all day to let it drop, but chose the exact moment of greatest personal umbrage.) I knew a couple of fringey musicians at the time/place (they couldn’t get a gig at Spaceland, if you’re wondering exactly how fringey), and they seemed to view the world and all potential productions as some weird hallucination — thus I was left entirely to my own devices (egg-shakers; accordion; ukelele; bodhran; duet with myself) — in a rather crazy atmosphere.
The resulting song starts out plausibly — with a style not entirely unlike my first original multitrack recording from 1991 (which was recorded in the third-level corner office at Raleigh Studios, across from Paramount’s big parking lot, which is now their big cinema theatre, and on a Sunday night; details available upon written request w/postage-paid envelope) — and then it hastily — not devolves, actually — it…let us say, it “opts for Feeling over Technique”?
I do like it, though. It is, at least, honest. (And not AT ALL “roots-rock” “honest”!)
I’ll see if I can find enough open memory to digitise it. You may well hate it. Dr. Demento would probably reject it. Plus it’s no big deal. But when everybody else in the room is going, “I WANNA SOUND LIKE STUPID-ASS PEARL JAM!” — you can bet your last penny I’ll be the one going, “What could be the most exact opposite of that?…”
Pretty cool, though: This must be from Album #4…
Yes, it is.
Sounds nutty, having “albums,” but technically, these are. Including one covers album and one live album (actual performances in front of actual people), I have seven albums!
A few songs exist on more than one album, or in “variant” versions — but Morrissey is a multi-millionaire from doing that (even though “Paint a Vulgar Picture” is precisely about how vulgar indeed that process can be! — those were the days!) — so I’m certainly not going to worry my pretty big head about it.
Hm.
There is also what sort of amounts to a comedy album. I’ve only ever done stand-up comedy once, on a dare, in college (it worked; there’s a Betamax tape somewhere) — and, generally (especially these days) I don’t really like stand-up comedy. But that’s only part of it. There’s a session from back in the mid-80s with a couple of friends, and it’s pretty amusing…after a fashion. We’ll call it eight then, in terms of albums-thus-far.
Oh…wait…there’s more.
There was an album long before any of the others. Long before adolescence!
Nine, then.
Nine albums, thus far.
Hm!
Wait!
Darn it.
TEN!
There’s a collection of covers I recorded for females who didn’t care.
Which makes it ten.
Ten albums.
Go me.
However, lest this all seem hideously self-absorbed, remember, it’s nearly archaeology for me at this point. These things have gathered years of dust (and there is a LOT of dust in L.A.).
The cool thing is — and my cinema friends may approve — many of the inspirations emerged, in fact, from Pop Cinema. My first cover was from Ben E. King (guess why) — and of course two versions of that exist (one absolutely indebted to Prince; the other significantly less melodic in the vocal; but nice try; hey, I was a teenager). Early John Landis proved an early guide. The Zucker brothers have a line in their funniest movie that became the title of my first album. Peter Weir is involved.
Etc.
My first covers (apart from TV themes) came from the aforementioned Mr. E. King; The Cure; Lou Reed (it’s a snap to cover the tone-deaf) and Jane Siberry. Many more followed. A few of them are actually Listenable. Most qualify as Interesting.
Of course, my life as a musician [guffaws into hand] hasn’t been easy! Try getting friends to give two shits for the musical process! I used to give copies to friends, in hopes of feedback (I was already giving up on “hopes of collaboration”). Literally not a word. Could it all be that bad? (That little fucker from Dublin owns houses all over the world from running around yelling shit; how hard can it be?) Possibly — possibly that bad. But it’s probably a little better than that.
For one thing, recording my own songs freed me from having to worship other people doing their songs. So I got that goin’ for me — which is nice.
For another, it’s night and day, dark and light, cold and hot — the difference between listening to music and making it; that was a good enlightenment. Especially since Pop Music is the only freedom many people in this world have.
And then there are always letdowns — usually, I am finally noticing, from short people. I played my “Raleigh” song (which is ostensibly about golf; but not really) for a “rock’n'roll” New Yorker friend-of-a-friend in college — and he snickered and thought it must have been a joke. (It is intentionally very light — but just to let you know, absurdly bombastic “passion” is something I’ve usually considered embarrassing and even sickening — whereas this was a guy who went to Paris and all he wanted to see was Jim Morrison’s grave! What fun!)
Speaking of that era, I covered a massive 60s anthem for a European friend more recently (Hint: It’s in Monterey Pop), as a birthday present, and it was very hasty but much more assertively “passionate” — and she liked it a lot (apparently more than the original; which even I don’t believe, but that’s awfully nice of her) — and later I shared it with the friend who was the “of-a-friend” in the previous equation, and he called it “a funny novelty song.” Ouch! Little fucker! (Then again, he is generally dismissive of the work of his peers; an established pattern; plus: like I care at this point.)
You know, I’ve got to find that covers album. That’s the only one that’s not presently residing in the archives. It’s got a Rolling Stones cover on it that’s — well, tastes will vary — actually good. (And the Liz Phair one is even better.)
Yet, again, although you, casual reader, probably don’t care in the slightest, and in fact I lack the “OH-MY-GOD-CHECK-OUT-MY-MYSPACE!!!!!!!!!!” kind of pushiness that seems to be the driving force behind Pop (and Persona) these days, nonetheless this small, focused fulcrum is very satisfying to me, this particular evening.
I’ve done a bunch of stuff.
Now, doing a bunch more stuff will be a breeze.
With this notion, I celebrate this holiday.
May you have a very enjoyable May as well.
(And here comes the organic carrot juice chaser…)
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Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 2:42 pm by Gregory
I’m genuinely excited about IRON MAN. As a kid, of course I was as inundated by superheroes as most American kids tend to be (if perhaps not quite as much as in the past few years!) — however, my comics taste ran much, much more toward the purely fun stuff: Richie Rich, Star Wars knockoffs, and particularly Huey, Dewey and Louie: Junior Woodchucks. I never really “got” the tough-guy shenanigans in most superhero comics. But I did have Iron Man.
Iron Man also made a brief, “wire-work” cameo appearance in the teen comedy programme on which I, and several of my friends, worked. He showed up, inexplicably, in a fairy-tale-theatre type sketch. I loved it.
This movie, though — it really is superb. Bravo, Favreau! Right now the damned “gardeners” are directly outside my windows with their motherfucking NOISEMAKERS, and I have many concerns — and yet I’m really looking forward to completing the review and posting it in a timely manner. This is, quite notably, akin to cheerfulness. It’s not as if the Marvel Marketing Machine needs my help, but I genuinely dig this movie.
Also included: As the site rolls over from April to May, this represents the 3rd anniversary of ÜberCiné! Whooda thunk? Go me. A party is in order.
Also-also included: I’m going to dedicate this later-evening to finding and digitising my Iron Man-related song — which I wrote and recorded in 1995. I had just moved back to L.A., and was working at Golden Apple Comics on Melrose, and the wages were nothing about which to sing, but the inspiration level was burying the needle. It occurred to me to get out my four-track (and accordion, and ukelele) and do a song — sort of about Tony Stark, and sort of about Men, and sort of about Me. Haven’t thought of it in years, but lately I’ve been singing it in the shower (amazing how the words come back). Warning: This particular song is much twee-er (I fucking LOVE being my own editor! I don’t have to explain “respective” or “reveal” to anyone, either!) than anything on the mega-twee Juno soundtrack. Really. You know Nick Cave? Think: The absolute, exact opposite of that. Air Supply (speaking of Australians) are far ballsier than this song. The anti-”Iron Man”? Kinda. But also a sincere salute to the character’s vestiges of humanity.
Meanwhile, I have just returned from grocery-shopping with a friend. She’s great. Kind of funny, though: On the way back, well — let us say I was afforded insight into “how the other half thinks”. This is a person who gets enraged at the notion of me occasionally tossing a nut to a squirrel (”You’re one of THEM!!!“). I love squirrels. That ain’t going anywhere. But she prefers the nocturnal-predator kinds of creatures — bats and especially cats. I don’t dislike cats — but mainly I find them to be excessively arrogant little nuisances, with occasional, vague bursts of fleeting cuteness (much like the majority of the women I end up meeting around here; rimshot — speaking of which, the last one was into that; want her number?). Back to point: I listened. We all need our comforts; if cats comfort her, that’s fine. But it was fascinating to hear her enthusiasm over some “cat-restaurants” apparently springing up in Japan: They’re for people who can’t have cats in their apartments, or simply don’t, or whatever — but desperately desire to be around the things. Basically, you’re eating, and cats mosey over and rub their fur all over you, and “some of them will even share your tea!”
Um…
Mind: I like my friend. She’s saying that, though, and my honest reflection upon the concept is: “Fucking cat’s got its fucking ass in my fucking face while I’m fucking trying to fucking eat.” No anger, no cat-hating — just: This is a really inappropriate way to run a restaurant.
I look for the silver lining, though: Since cats love to prey upon — and horrifically TORTURE — smaller, meeker creatures (and gobble up cockroaches; cat-fanciers, think of that while you’re tongue-kissing your widdle puddikins), the odds are quite good that those restaurants are, at least, vermin-free.
Apropos of not much, I add that I liked Warner Bros.’ Catwoman movie. I reviewed it under the editing agony of a totally useless, very deceitful, control-freak schmuck (”Hello, Cleveland!”), and thus it was a very unhappy time for me — but ultimately, as with Van Helsing from the same year, I unabashedly like the movie. With the caveat: It is not the Catwoman movie that Catwoman fans would want — but on its own terms, it is stylish, interesting and amusing. Here’s a little golf-clap for Pitof.
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Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 12:42 am by Gregory
Let’s see — in a perfect world, I’d like to get to reviews of Iron Man (****1/2), Roman de gare (****1/2) and Then She Found Me (*** — or **** if you watch Colin Firth’s scenes twice and skip Bette Midler’s tedious histrionics) — but we’ll see.
Shall return to Festival of Books asap, and perchance learn to see a future again.
Meanwhile, here is a warning to me, for those rare days when I feel like I have a little spare time. Beware!
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04.28.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 10:42 pm by Gregory
Rules.
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Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 9:42 am by Gregory
Hiya. How’s your Monday? It’s ugly here — too hot already. I recall sitting in school with the thermostat set at about sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit, and well below zero outside, hoping against hope that nobody (particularly a girl) would touch my hands, as they felt like those of a corpse. Those days seem kind of sweet and quaint compared to here and now (although my hands are indeed warm).
Anyway, even casual readers may note that I wasted a considerable amount of last year feeling drained by “the actress” — who is, in fact, British. British works for me — or, at least, I thought it did. When the Puritanical “rebels” drove back those evil, evil Redcoats something in the psyches of all Americans and potential Americans got lost — some complexity, some cultural appreciation — and thus has the British Woman, retaining at least some of the beauty of this complexity, always pleased me most. (Alas, I liked one most of all, but while I was away and busy she accidentally got married; and divorced; and bitter.)
The actress and I never went for it. She leapt all over me initially — much like the tiny dream-dog she desperately covets (flat-out sickening) — but when cash and car were conspicuously missing, that ploy died quickly, and I was very hastily replaced by two millionaires who constantly buy her toys and literally pay for everything in her life and don’t know about each other (shh). She only fucks one of them (who is married with a new baby). The other one must be outrageously stupid or just beaten or something. I’ve met them both; and both were nervous, as these meetings were unplanned, and my presence shocked them (clearly she had been working the “exclusivity” angle on them pretty hard). Meanwhile, she continued to change clothes in front of me, and beg massages, and walk around naked, and leave the bathroom door open, and (shit) show me the nude photos of herself that her actual gay best friend took.
(In case it seems, in this post and others, that perhaps I’m playing the Puritan — nay-nay, not at all. It’s just that I don’t want to date an exhibitionist.)
In lieu of the actress, I went off and accidentally met somebody worse — actually, yesterday was, for any purposes of intimacy or honesty, the anniversary of the last day of our acquaintance (I saw her after that, but her insanity had seized control). She was an American girl (”raised on promi–” yeah, whatever) — and she was a very, very bad choice on my part: a stupider actress! I thought: Heck, she puts on an initially-plausible show, pretends to be educated and polite, maybe I’ll give the home team a try.
Buzz! Wrong!
Anyway, if you want to put a fine point on it, I am not “successful” enough to attract a woman around here (although the seniors show way too much interest), and so both of the aforementioned, wasteful paths led to the emotional catastrophe that was last year. The lesson: Some women really are mean and stupid. You don’t have to give them any benefit of doubt. All you have to do is avoid them.
Today, however, I note this video online — and although it would be quite easy to use it for further insults, I present it simply as case study: The actress (in my unfortunate experience) couldn’t assemble a sentence with both hands, and, rather than being dead, her father (complex) is on his third or fourth marriage and hiding somewhere in Spain — but otherwise, she shares an obvious affliction with the online one.
I am very happy to be free of all that bullshit.
Smart and goodly women, respect and support to thee (wherever thou art).
Incidentally, I recall a very arrogant high school girlfriend telling me in all confidence that there would never be any community or social construct like a “global village” — uhmmm…and the noted video is available to the whole world (and their comments) because…?
Please, Powers That Be: Deliver unto me a worldly and wise woman of appropriate age and qualities and coordinates; for alone, I am not meant to be.
P.S. And here’s one for the (British) ladies! (Fished-in! Rick-rolled!)
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04.27.08
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 9:42 pm by Gregory
All right, well, so much for the LIVE BLOGGING experiment. Proved unwieldy. Under some circumstances, it would be a snap, but considering that I went to the UCLA campus four times over the week-end, and the week-end was insanely and unpleasantly hot, and there are plenty of other things presently about which to worry — let’s say that I’ll tuck the photos and scribbled bits and pieces in their proper places in a day or three; just not up for all that formatting tonight!
Speaking of tonight, right now somewhere East of here (where a camel would drop in less than an hour), Roger Waters is doing that Dark Side of the Moon extravaganza thingie. As I’ve said before, I much prefer The Wall and especially The Final Cut (it is, I believe, as close to Soul that Prog Rock can get), and basically, if I’m ever going to partake of this Concert Experience, Roger’s gonna have to bring it to me. (Nice violinist, though.)
Hey, speaking of sexy string players, can I have a girlfriend like Sigourney Weaver in Ghostbusters? I mean: the whole deal? That will do.
Speaking of–nah: I’ll note that in a moment.
Oh: Why four times to UCLA? Well, they distribute tickets to ticketed events early in the morning. Thus my nine a.m. campus arrivals both days. On a brilliant roll, I didn’t realise that the bizarre Tim Curry Interviews John Landis Plus Some European Lady Who Wrote A Book About The Latter thing would be held outside, in a tent, no tickets necessary. Oops. However! — On the otherwise-pointless (if surprisingly efficient) busride, I received an unexpected and extremely interesting ethnographic experience — which I believe was much more spiritually enlightening than anything you’d get in an International House of Worship (”IHOW”?) — shall report on that, I hope, soon.
Great week-end, but indeed, the heat is terribly daunting: Especially for April. Homeless people rarely bathe; there are many, many, many homeless people here; you (as they — “they” being extremely annoying people — say) do the math.
P.U.! And I sure don’t mean Purdue University!
Fortunately, these whiffs of sheer hell-smell have only just begun — and, thus, the illusion of a civilised environment may be maintained for at least a couple more weeks.
One thing I noticed today: There IS some sort of genetic, perchance-DNA-driven reason why Whites are (give or take a Rap Mogul granted a HUGE break by The Machine) more affluent than Blacks (in this country, and very generally): It must be in the programming, something hard-wired that makes Whites greedier. I was approached by nearly a dozen homeless people today, divided about equally between Black and White. The Black people all said, “Hey man, can you spare some change?” Meanwhile, although a couple of the White people also said this, most of them asked me for “a few dollars”. Interesting!
It really is a problem, though, and without claiming any expertise in the matter (apart from being damned close to it!), I look at this particular problem much as I regard war: What we’re doing very, very, very obviously isn’t working. In the case of war, rather than sending weapons and soldiers and assorted cannon-fodder, we need to train and send diplomats, sociologists, artists, even. In the case of the homeless, we need mental-health professionals who not only know their stuff, but who have kind, compassionate hearts, to encourage not merely the re-employment of people, but their actual reintegration. It’s the only way. You got a better way?
Anyway, they are starting to smell already, and it’s only April. In fact, today I even encountered a large, smelly fellow known by most of my movie-geek friends for his relentless, stalkery, “I Wanna Be An ACTOR!” approach to “living”. But I only heard his booming, fake-British accent and was out of there like lightning.
A bar of soap to him, though; and a bar of soap to everyone! Vegan soap! No tallow!
Here: This will jerk your brain in an unexpected direction: Speaking of the decline of American civilisation, I finally watched Back to the Future Part II last night. It was a lively, packed house, there were a couple of De Loreans parked outside, and trilogy Cinematographer Dean Cundey (who also recently lensed The Holiday — which, weirdly, I kinda liked, plus it’s a really g