He Spoke Not A Word, But Went Straight To His Work
Around this time of year, there’s always a pfeffernuesse scented revival of the moth-eaten classics to distract us from the glum day-to-day realities of, oh, you know, all that war’n’poverty’n’shit. Cup your hands around the mugs of warming mulled cider while you enjoy those adorably inept little dancing mice attempting the “Nutcracker” from grade school ballet class - oh, I forgot, we don’t coddle children with pointless art instruction anymore!
But it’s still Christmas! And our Stocking Stuffer this year (which always sounded like a condom, making Xmas even more subliminally arousing)? Why it’s John G. Roberts Junior! Oh- you forgot about him? That’s part of his craft - being forgettable. Like an old tweed reading chair next to the pipe rack in dad’s study. But we’ve still got to get one of these Krissmiss Pageants up to bring joy to the wee ones!
So yes, it’s going to be a Dickens Christmas! Uriah Heep wasn’t just a bad 70’s band! He was the original slime-man (very X-Files), slithering into place in the World of Law on a friction-free Kiwi Flavored body glide Wet lube coating of insinuating ingratiating smarm. And who will be bringing new life to the role traditionally monotoned into a coma by the dreary Shakespeare-lite one man readings of Patrick Stewart?
That’s our man John J. Roberts Junior! He has a smirk that’s evah-so-much more inclusive than Mister Bush’s (that’s Massah B to you!) cloven-hoofed imp sneer - it’s almost Greg Kinnear in its bland affect, although he doesn’t give off that “bossy bottom” vibe that has stalled Mr. Kinnear’s romantic lead career.
And now that the Pres has been somewhat sidelined from his own Punch’n’Judy show (which of course continues apace) by the industry moral arbiter of falling ratings, we need a family-friendly Andy Griffith face more than ever - and not the one from “A Face In The Crowd” either! George already tried that homespun style - I think we’ll have to give Larry Rhodes a momentary rest.
So it’s back to a Seasonal Disney fantasy take on olde England - Enter John “Unflamboyant , civil , and kind - a regular guy” Roberts
(except when it comes to hungry twelve-year-olds, women seeking legal abortion, or endangered
species)! In fact, he’s just plain “ ‘umble”! Even the name is
comfortably bland. Anyone whose name is actually composed of two first names puts you at “Cheers” drinking buddy ease with the guy right off the bat. Confirmation? Faster than you can say “Master Copperfield”!
Still, one’s inner nay-sayer does fear a stealth neocon at every step. John presents himself as affable, and as the
pundits say, he has kept his own reputation shrouded in the positions of his employers so he remains somewhat....inscrutable, but only
in the most comforting soft ball coach way. Those weren’t HIS views - “Oh, nevah evah Master Copperfield; I’m
far too ‘umble!” - He was just adopting the view of others. Hmm - smacks of the fabulous Lynddie English “stupid”
defense! He just seems to want to please his bosses! Could anything be more commendable? And what bosses they were! “Of course, Master Reagan!” So that’s how he became at partner at Wickfield’s...I mean a Supreme Court Justice, deserving of our deference and faith. Because he’s stupid and doesn’t have any opinions of his own.
Also, classic Heep statements like “I come with no agenda” and “I approach the law with a certain
humility”.... that’s so darn ‘umble!
But is it supposed to mollify us that this guy has no point of view, like a clone waiting to be imprinted with someone else’s dna? Or does it just smack a little bit of Eddie Haskell kiss ass and tell later? Will that work for a supreme court Justice? I think if we’re a really ratings-based society, pitching a series combining the timeless charms of a Heep (excuse me, an “ ‘eep”!) with the crowd-pleasing “Grease” stylings of a Haskell just needs a Frankie Valli sung Bros. Gibb composition to really nuke the ratings. Just wait ‘til that Busby Berkeley number with Condeleecha, called “Pussyfooting (the Torture Dance)”, with music by Men Without Hats, natch.
Already, the Heep non-agenda is sliming into place. Since being “confirmed” (did he have to wear one of those cute little white lace dresses? I missed that!) John has taken the ‘igh road. There was this little problem - school campuses are supposed to only allow employers that pledge not to discriminate to recruit on campus. But that makes it hard for the military to recruit there, because they openly and systematically disciminate against gays and lesbians. Oops!
So did ‘umble John pledge to uphold the restraints against discrimination which are written by so many precedents into the gospel of our Supreme Court? No, he picked ANOTHER law to uphold, the fancifully titled “Solomon Law” (because of Solomon’s great wisdom? or because of the salivating possibility of slicing a newborn down the middle? At least it’s got a church’n’state biblical name) which says federal funds can be withheld from schools that do not allow military recruiters, and John did it with this succinct and nuanced line:
“If you want our money, you have to let our recruiters on campus!” There’s some Christmas ‘umility before the law, and in the game of hide-the-agenda, I hear a Haskell-ish retro chortling from the distance: “Olly Olly Oxen Free-Oh!”
And the affable Mr. Roberts left plenty crumbs left on the trail to this security-hardened gingerbread house even before his jolly comfirmation, which include:
1. Upholding the notorious arrest of a 12 year old girl for eating a single french fry at a D.C. metro train
2. Co-writing a brief to overturn Roe V. Wade, calling it “wrongly decided”. Superficially “responsible” news outlets are still calling his “personal” position on Roe V. Wade “unclear”. Let’s see - as a practising Roman Catholic with a staunch Roman Catholic anti-abortion rights wife, who is a member of the ludicrously named “Feminists For Life” - apparently because she’s a “special” feminist who “cares” enough to rob other women of the right of self determination - kooky!
SIDEBAR RANT: Am I saying we should bar Roman Catholics from seats in American Halls of Justice? Well,.......duh!
I mean anyone who would actually believe (or worse, merely profess to believe) that some creepy moron in the Vatican has the direct line to God because of some naked land and power grab a few centuries ago (when the blatant forgeries of a clerk named Christophorous declared the “pope” superior to Emperor Constantine - all so Christophorous could “ride a white horse and wear white shoes like senators”? - sounds pretty glam!) mixed with some blurry implied relation to one of the apostles, whoever THEY were, has to have a pretty cheesey notion of the glory of God to begin with. That’s even stupider than REGULAR Christians! At least Jack Chick knows enough to call the red robed gilded Vatican the “Mother Whore”!
But personally, I really think Catholics are very cool as long as they stick to charity work and folk masses. They just don’t seem to nominate many of those peace activist nuns in Nyack to the top judiciary somehow. And those Reliquaries! Where would the Addams Family be without them? Collecting finger bones and putting them on display in little glass jars - it’s very Mutter Museum! Catholicism - the father of goth! Gotholocism! How else would the cruelly taunted pimpley cast-off overweight social misfit kids in High School get it into their heads to defiantly unite in black velvet capes and flakey white pancake at Echo And The Bunnymen reunion tours? It’s Heaven Up Here!
Other than that, banning Catholics from seats of justice is a no-brainer. Catholics (sorry, all you well meaning Kennedys! Maybe there can be an exemption) should even be precluded from holding any governmental office whatsoever. In fact, in the name of the truly original American concept of separation of church and state, only card carrying atheists, or at least avowed agnotistics, should be allowed to hold government office at all! But I guess that’s a battle for another day.
Back to our Mr. Heep - I mean Master John Roberts.
3. He argued against protection for the Arroyo Toad because the poor humble beast happened not to have traveled out of state. That toad should get out more! Let’s see - you can’t protect an endangered species against interstate commerce because it’s habitat has grown so small it doesn’t cross any state borders! Stupid Toad! Oh, I forgot, that slur won’t hurt its feelings - it actually IS a toad. Oh, fuck the Toad (John did, and it was HOT!) La Roberts just thinks the whole darn endangered species act is unconstitutional! Agenda, schmagenda!
4. He argued for warrantless searches to convict a bank robber - and he’s against the Playboy Channel! He also doesn’t like those icky retro tired Miranda Rights!
5. He helped Republicans with the “legal” work arising from the 2000 Florida election book-cooking, I mean “recount”.
6. He drafted a legal brief defending prayer in schools. That’s a good sign in someone who has vowed to defend the constitutional separation of church and state, but John has actually argued for the disintegration of the spearation of church and state. That way people can hold nice harmless religious ceremonies at high school graduations. Party!
Now if they’d only encourage children to pray for funding, art classes, health care, and the re-instatement of the free university system, I’d be all for it! That would be a nice, if somewhat hopeless, prayer. But I bet the answer would be, “No, darling, they have to save SOMETHING for heaven - like adequate food, and house-calls from doctors, and nice pictures - Otherwise no one would want to go there.”
But anyway, I’m sure it would just be prayer to that nasty default American in the sky, who apparently approves of Republican machinations to bring about an environmental and cultural Armageddon (at least for dem po’ folks down in de stadium). I can think of a couple of Satanic rituals that are kinder and more character building. Anyone for a game of “Naked Movie Star”?
Now John-boy (did you see that Brady Bunch college ‘do?) says he was just a good lawyer arguing the cases of his employers. Maybe so. But then why are the Republicans so happy with him? I mean there is one ultimate litmus test. If Bush nominates him, he must be evil. There’s no two ways about it. It’s really just that simple. If the forked tongue fits, he must be shit!
Senator Sessions from Alabama argued against allowing “invasive” questioning into the viewpoints of Roberts when deciding whether to uphold his nomination. And I guess it worked!
Cause now we’ve got a Supreme Court Chief Justice, who’s supposed to be an incredible legal genius, and he couldn’t handle a few questions from a bunch of lame-ass sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiightly left-leaning wimpy politicians who couldn’t even get the election back from Bush when he transparently stole it? What was there to fear from those dopes?
Besides, shouldn’t it be his job description to be able to handle the most brilliant yet hatefully partisan question with dignity, honesty, and effectiveness? What else should we base our estimation of his capabilities on? His ability to cower in the shadows and keep secrets? His ability to make demonic pacts with George Bush behind closed doors? Oh - I forgot - that plan WORKED! I bet he’s not feeling quite so ‘umble anymore!
We had our chance to employ some much needed bitter partisanship - what other ammo do we have left? But we muffed it!!! When should we be self-righteously, bitterly partisan, if not now? When was the time to ask the most rigorous invasive questions about values and personal convictions? Didn’t you want to know?
Or do you prefer a judge who is more like one of those surprise crepe paper party favors they used to hand out at birthdays, which upon unravelling reveal a pathetic assortment of cheap charms and plastic toys, and usually not many of those? Is that how you view your supreme court justices? “Goody - maybe there’ll be a plastic cross of Jesus or a li’l mini KKK symbol in here too!” “Why Master Copperfield, who COULD have put THAT in there?” knowingly smiles his ‘umble self.
But is it really too late to grind this horrible regime to a halt with a rash of pointedly liberal and unabashedly slanted arguments? Hmm... What’s Alito up to lately? Whatever arguments we espouse our “personal views” with - the very views Supreme Court Justices engage in the weird double negative double speak of A. Not having any and B. Never letting them influence a decision (do you really want a justice whose personal values will never influence a decision? Is that Orwellian? Or just Looney Tunes?) - anyway, OUR personal views can’t possibly be as slanted as the neo-con world view - we have to grant them that peculiar genius! So lambaste them with impunity, castigate them with malicious opprobrium at every turn! Better to have a hobbled government incapable of crossing a “t” or dotting an “i” than one bent on destroying the world! And it could be fun!
“Please sir, could I have some more?” In the immortal Christmas words of that proto-socialist Tiny Tim, “Tiptoe Thru’ The Tulips” no - make that “God Bless Us, Every One!”
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November 2005 Tardy Meanderings
VICTORY PARTY!
Sigh. Groan. Yawn. Oh yeah, I forgot - things are looking up. Aren’t we happy that the seemingly impregnable uber-Bush empire is under assault and his imaginary “mandate” seems to be crumbling? The short answer is Yes - hooray! And isn’t it miraculous that all of Schwarzenegger’s ballot proposals went down in flames? Bravo, me hearties!
But - Do we really believe it will make a much of a difference? Hmmmm...Could be! However - call me a sourpuss (you won’t be the first! and I am a cat enthusiast) but experience says no. Remember convicted liar/sometime Noriega pal Oliver North - who somehow managed to retain his status as gap-toothed queerbait Brolin look-alike best-selling national hero, even though he was proven in the public arena to be a bottom feeder criminal moron patsy who called the Iran-Contra scheme a “neat idea”? Remember the fact that Ronald “Captain Destructo” Reagan is hailed by a disturbing amount of people as the greatest president in the history of the United States?
But still, I guess it’s as good a time as any to temper our usual despair with a little sprinkling of hard-earned optimism. It’s probably good to re-boot the immune system occasionally with some orange flavored chewable children’s aspirin, even though the headache is probably a brain tumour. So party on motherfuckers! Oh, how I love that word. That’s a fun word! A freedom word! A party word!................... .....motherfuckermotherfuckermotherfuckermotherfuckermotherfuckermotherfuckermotherfuckermotherfuckermotherfucker......oops, in the middle of all this motherfuckin’ frivolity, the literalist butterfly in my brain alit on the notion of actually fucking my mother - yuck! There goes the buzz!
But yes! CELEBRATE the delightful flaming anti-Bush riots in South America that had me grinning like a lunatic - wheeee! This is better than
Burning Man! Take heart at the wonderful peace rallies; thrill to the miraculous folk-heroism of the refreshingly charm-free and stumble-tongued
but spot-on righteous Cindy Sheehan! Indulge in a clatter of merry castanets at the Scooter/Rove Turkey Trot Follies!
(And isn’t special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald a silver fox? Hot!)
Oooh, Patrick! That Counsel is Special
And, as the celebration continues, dance a lederhosen jig to the crumbling of Clay Foot Arnold!
The dust from his fall is a better special effect than anything in “End of Days”! And Toodles, Harriet Iscariot Meiers! They don’t let the help in the front door!
But just as Poe describes, there’s someone at the party that we didn’t invite - grim (is there another kind? No wonder I love the Peter Max 60’s) reality. And this red-death masqued marauder strikes back quickly, loaded with goodies! Here’s a typical party favor just for starters: federal officials propose cutting 82% of the red-legged frog’s protected habitat. That’s right - just a little number like EIGHTY-TWO PERCENT. This is about “fair and balanced” after all.
Perhaps you still scoff at the loss of a silly mini species like the li’l ol’ American beloved Mark Twain red-legged frogs. Who needs ‘em? But there is a bigger picture, and those wily Republicans see it, even if you don’t. When I was in third grade (O.K. groaners - gramps loves to tell war stories!) we learned to spell the following word: e-c-o-s-y-s-t-e-m. All these li’l critters, even the frogs, need to work together, or the whole thing collapses. Duh!
But I think the Bushmen have figured out that the contemporary “eco” in that word stands for economics: particularly the economic killing (literally!) they’ll make with the new powers of eminent domain to take away private property and give it to developers! Fun! And the clangor of possibility of all sorts of development in previously protected areas - if cash registers still had bells, they’d be ringing! No-bid contracts! Strip mining! recreational off-road vehicles! Lumber! Oil-drilling! Cattle grazing! With just a smidgin of off-season wild life hunting!
Meanwhile, back in frog country, the Ribet College assures us that this unassuming li’l critter’s losses of habitat will only be...oh, just 150 million acres. Is that a lot? It’s just a dumb frog after all. Where’s that aspirin I scoffed at five paragraphs back?
Perhaps that effective cheap over-the-counter remedy has been withdrawn by the fear mongers pushing the Avian Flu (about 62 victims worldwide so far - since 2003 - eeek!) as the new bait’n’switch distraction to enrich the coffers of the pharmaceutical companies by, oh....just about $7 billion? With the added side effect of once again distracting everyone from Bush’s original stated plan of corporate cronyism, the destruction of your standard of living, and the failure of all of his policies. I know Conan O’Brien, bless him, has done the Bush Bird Flu shell game thing to death, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t working! Americans love to buy the adrenalin rush of unfounded fear with every meal. It’s like spiritually endorsed poppers! And it’s Atkins friendly!
Plus! News of secret CIA interrogation jails in soviet era compounds in Poland and Hungary - crafty! It’s nice to discover that “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” was a documentary. Or would you believe “get Smart”? no - getting smart was never acceptable with this crowd. I saw this great show on PBS where centuries ago the Chinese emperor proclaimed that the people would only be allowed a five note musical scale, because complex music inspired complex thought. Those who dared use one of the blacklisted notes in musical compositions were beheaded. Why aren’t you laughing?
Plus! Alito - right wing idealogue or fair and balanced? I don’t know about you, because I can smell the fetid stink of his evil shit from here, but why not take a look at the salesmen who are hawking this used car? Lemon! Either way, it’s the end of YOUR liberties - civil and otherwise. Can you spell Patriot Act Renewal? I know the word “Orwellian” is tired - but so am I! Tired of all this motherfuckingmotherfucking motherfuckingmotherfuckingmotherfuckingmotherfu ckingmotherfuckinmotherfuckinmotherfuckinmotherf ucking oh you get the picture.
Besides, maybe I’ll get used to having the Republican monitoring devices in my bedroom next time I’m enjoying a little fag sex. This Forbin Project voyeurism might even be a turn-on eventually! Well, for those doing the monitoring, anyway - you know the peeps with their peepers glued to the screen will be the same Congressional figures who dabble infelicitously in a spot o' literature now and again (and again and again). Maychance it will figure in one of the sexually charged “novels” the Republicans continue to release as an outlet for their less Christian impulses. They may be repressed, but they’re sassy!
Hmmm.....“Senate Passes $35 Billion QuaJillion Spending Cut”. Congressional fiduciary responsibility? That’s a familiar tune. But as usual, that faux “practical” news (cough, cough - ‘til you examine the Byzantine corporate-friendly details) has a plethora of rancid stealth measures attached. Miraculously the House had to drop (for the nth time - they’re just waiting ‘til we blink - because they can) the attached paragraph authorizing oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s Artic Wildlife Refuge - but give them points for trying! And they had to drop re-opening the coasts of for oil exploration. Take one giant step backwards, Red Rover! Let Taste of Honey come over! Back to the party! Boogie,oogie,oogie! In the immortal yuppie aspirant words of Chic, “Clams on the half shell, and roller skates!” But don’t count out the tired old “attached provision” hoodwink yet!
A quieter, less quip-ready provision was NOT dropped - to open up the sale of public lands to private developers - not just for mining, but for other development as well. Yes, this means they can sell YOUR national parks and forests to THEIR friends, the billionaire investors. Heads up, Halliburton! Oh, and just in case - the Senate retained the Artic Refuge mining clause in THEIR version of the “spending cut” for a bargaining chip in a potential house/senate compromise! Can I get the onion dip with that chip? This IS a celebration after all! Caribou flambe, zingy Peregrine Falcon fingerlings, Polar Bear Cub Sate. I didn’t know that tundra creatures could taste so Pacific Rim - Mmmm-mmm! Is that recipe on the box?
Nor is it a surprise that gas profits have hit their highest EVER margin. Oh, it was that CRISIS (read: c-a-n-a-r-d) that fueled the spike in at-the-pump prices that made this last quarter so darn profitable! Good for the stockholders - I was worried about them for a minute! Those executives deserve their 6 million dollar bonuses! Party!
But wait - what were we celebrating? Bush’s imaginary mandate, that is supposed to have evaporated, sure seems alive and well if these outrages are still happening when he is reputedly reeling, battle scarred, brow beaten, and desperately flailing about for some polarizing issue to grab back his brief “Mission Accomplished” high of a few years back. Ugh.
So time for the party entertainment - the court jester! I guess I’ll insert a neu-classic “lest we forget” quote-of-the-year bit of...well it’s not exactly levity, but it is out wildly outRAGEous! Just to keep perspective on the mindset of these gracious people: “So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this (chuckle) this is working very well for them” - Former First lady Barbarian Bushwhack, upon thoughtfully contemplating the impact of the Hurricane Katrina Distaster. Can’t wait for the musical - try sweating to THAT oldie! Don’t those rockin’ guys listen to Robert Plant: “ If it keeep awn ray-nin’, duh leveeeeeez gawna bray-ache...”? Not unless it’s on their cadillac SUV ads I guess.
Party Activity Suggestion: storm the palaces and pull these monsters from their seats of power, drag their naked disemboweled, fancifully mutilated and castrated corpses through the streets of Washington, that their tattered remains might be spat upon and ridiculed, and, finally, their heads mounted on pikes at the city gates to warn away evil-doers. Guaranteed an ice-breaker. Can be played by parties from one to whatever. Suggested prize: Laura “Poses-With-Dreadlocks and Doesn’t Wince” Bush’s (her Sioux name) freeze dried nipples, flattened and tattooed with happy face grins, ironed between sheets of wax paper and glued into the Bush family bible. That’s some good readin’!
Whew, after that I’m out of breath. But still I caught myself indulging in the grim smirk of chilly victory over Schwarzenbumbler’s embarrassing belly flop. Darn if it don’t feel a little hollow though, when the margin of victory still means that 40 - 49 percent of California voters were stupid enough to vote FOR his proposals - AND stupid enough to vote down the one good anti-corporate pharmaceutical proposal that would have helped them! That’s a darn whiskey barrel full o’ stupidity amongst people who actually BOTHER to vote! Waste of whiskey in my estimation, consarn it.
So barely squeaking by in a momentary majority doesn’t offer much comfort - this state is full of people who voted FOR the election of this darn media friendly Hitler-lite after all. Where was our celebration then? I hope the Missus (Maria Shrivelled) is the most conscience-stricken conflicted Democrat in history - the sex with the bloated steroid cadaver that is Arnie can’t be that good.
And even this marginal triumph is only in trumped up battles we should never have had to fight; these proposals should never have been entertained, and this special election should never have occurred. Tactical distractions! Even when you win, you lose! It’s the old mathematical principle that Lewis Carroll proposed. How I would love to be entranced by Einstein speed-of-light fluffy Star Trek sci-fi possibilities! But it’s the glum speed-of-dark equation we’re stuck with: it takes all the running you can do to stay in the same place. And even ol’ Chuck Dodgson had a problem with optimism - because with all the running we tired witless fogeys can do, staying in the same place is a blazing glory unattainable. Moving backwards more slowly is what passes for progress as the earth, civilization (a quaint notion!), and mankind (oh well, fine me but I can’t resist: manunkind) are losing ground inexorably, inevitably and geometrically. Give me another bite of that mushroom, or at least a toke on that hookah.
So while we celebrate our modest wins on the tetherball court of inconsequence with Trader Joe’s microwave meals and two dollar cabernet, the real battle continues taking place elsewhere in closed corporate boardrooms with further cuts in healthcare (healthcareless? health-I-don’t-care? stealthscare? wealthsnare?) and food stamps and other minor social follies (not-so-safe-ty nets) of the white picket past.
So - another darn rant. Another screed. Another harangue. Another snide aside. Just call me Hector Harrumph! Barnacle Bilgewater! No wonder I’m snooooring at my own party! But what should we do, when the glittering pedestal of your hard-won quarter gram of optimism (read: denial - and the buzz is over as quick as cheap coke) is beaten back into the adjustable time-worn Morris chair of despair?
Why, just leap into the wayback machine and talk about what’s REALLY important! Old pop psych records!
I AM A DJ - For once
So - Let’s see - I never wrote about being a guest DJ with the fabulous Stella at her Stray Pop show on KXLU Loyola. This is really just a slim excuse for me to just list some of my favorite records. Boy, I slay me!
BTW, as a DJ, I’ll just say that right now, while I’m trying to search my dubiously retentive memory files for trivia even marginally worth noting, I am listening to the LP “Gordon’s Buster” by Gordon Alexander. A somewhat legendary folk/psych amalgam, side 1 is a disappointing rote attempt to posture as a breeder Dylan-lite (without the hooks - just bad meandering poetry about beer and Memphis), and the vocals have that irritatingly gruff bland jock/macho “I’m not really a singer” affect that ruins so many transitional records of the era.
But side 2 is a different story altogether - it’s a crazy patchwork of cheap effects, awkward left turn switches in beats and tones, strings, inept fuzz guitars, and even some of those “Oonka Chaka” backing vocals lifted from Jonathan King’s classic re-imagining of “Hooked on a Feeling” from his “Bubble Rock Is here To Stay” comp, so ably covered by Blue Swede. In short - magic - even with Gordon’s sub-Gary Lewis sports bar vocal. Of course, Curt Boettcher is involved - but just barely, on two songs.
Also enjoying “Karen Beth - The Joys of Life”, a weird cross between Skeeter Davis and “Goodbye and Hello” era Tim Buckley. To say nothing of the underrated “Stained Glass Crazy Horse Roads” - a more Beatle-y and less disciplined Buffalo Springfield wannabe band. In other words - Fab! The Ojays made the important qualifier motto: “I love music, just as long as it’s groovy!” Stick to that, you can never go wrong.
Anyway, back to the DJ experience. I’d been invited to do a show on Tuesday night June 28 to promote the Mumps record release party, so you know this is OLD news. Loyola Marymount Law School is a lovely if generic campus in a somewhat desolate unincorporated but beach adjacent section of West L.A. .
The neighborhood has that Cronenberg look of massive indistinguishable Navajo White stucco condominums under construction since the 80’s, to take advantage of the slo-flo middle class bump expected in L.A.’s exploding population. The campus proper has the bland well maintained atmosphere of a quietly religious retreat with just a hint of Mormon deco redux “White Castle Burger Stand” style, in keeping with their avowed “Catholic Intellectual Heritage” (contradiction in terms?) which sees a “mutually fertile relationship between faith and reason” (!). In which century are they living? In other words - creepy! Which begs the question: why they have given long time dedicated punkster extraordinaire Stella Stray Pop such a comfortable 20 year musical platform at this establishment? Because they have to, motherfuckermothefu......ooops!
But I find the building which houses the radio station without too much trouble, and Stella is there with a couple of central casting type college radio extras - young guys who are a little dumpy and studiously disheveled, but definitely cute enough for a split second cruise. So I go into the little broadcasting booth and Stella starts me off, but ultimately just lets me do whatever I want - so you can guess what THAT is - unabashedly HOLDING FORTH. Blah blah me this, blah blah me that - this is fun! Stella only interrupts to remind me to play my own music, whether it be Mumps, Swinging Madisons, Bleaker Street Incident, Klaus Nomi, or whatever - stuff that I would be too embarrassed to play otherwise.
But other than that, I just get to select from timeless favorites like:
The immortal dog triumvirate: The Almond Lettuce - “Tree Dog Song”, The Blossom Toes - “The Incredible Saga of The Frozen Dog”, and The Geranium Pond - “Dogs In Baskets”.
Wheeeee! No one told me this would be such a fucking high! Foisting my personal taste on the (maybe 2? possibly 3?) listeners to this obscure but legendary station - at least the listeners that didn’t call in to request the Dead Kennedys or ask when I’d be off the air so they could return to playing “real” music. But I think just putting these records out into the ether has a sort of spiritual quality - uh-oh, it’s catching! It IS a religious University!
So I played the Herd doing “Something Strange” - the one where the newly married husband leaves his girl in their honeymoon resort hotel to go off and have a liason with “strange” natives (“Gay voices beckon to some new delight”) - why hasn’t Morrissey covered this? The Cowsills doing their classic Armageddon blow-out “Six - Six - Six” - this was no Partridge Family! The inevitable “Lavender Popcorn” and of course “Tell It To The Laughing Man” by Russ Alquist; “We Are The Moles” - forgive the first timer for the obvious stuff I had to get out of the way because I’d never gotten to do this before. The Hullaballoo Singers doing their inimitable diet pill conga line take on “Satisfaction”. Edith Massey doing “Hey Punks Get Off The Grass”; Jack Carter’s “Jailhouse Rock” (the unattainable screaming template for all Cramps insanity); “Poisons In My Body” (a song that served a similar template purpose for the Contortions) by the International Theater Foundation; Frances Faye’s classic Vegas foghorn take on “Hard Day’s Night”- you know the drill. David McDermott doing my fully orchestrated ode to racial brotherhood, “I Do”, may have made its radio airwave debut that night!
I found out later that Kenny Scharf actually heard me on the radio and was so excited that he called Ann Magnuson to clue her in, so apparently someone was actually listening.
Anyway, by the second or third song I KNEW this was THE job for my golden years! I’m sure I have enough embarrassingly obsessively twee stuff and outre Kay Martin semi-pornographic Christmas songs to fill about 100 shows, and there’s always more coming my way through Andrew, Steve Stanley, Arthur Brennan, or the vagaries of e-bay.
So even driving home at two in the morning (while listening to Stella generously closing out with a few MORE Mumps songs than we’d already played) I was just abuzz with the certainty that there WAS meaning in music - an aphorism you can come to doubt when you’ve been attempting to eke out a creative existence in that discipline for as long as I have. And I was even invited back with Paul Rutner to do a post-Mumps re-match show that Friday!
On Friday, still glowing with post Mumps party effervescence (which is draining at my age), Paul and I made a brief pitstop at the Diddy Bops show at McCabe’s, where we talked trash with Frank Infante for a while, and then we headed back to the station for a more sustained “historical” Mumps show, which meant less Lords Of London and more appropriate context type stuff. A little Milk’n’Cookies, some Screaming Jay and Standells because Mumps covered their songs, etc. Tame.
But we did get to play Candy Johnson’s version of “Fever” which, along with Frances Faye and the Bell Notes’ Everlys-on-speed version of “Shortnin’ Bread”, were the sources for many of the Swinging Madisons’ dance/rock appropriations. The Bell Notes and Candy Johnson, along with a nice Georgie Fame LP, were impulsive gifts from one Mr. Bryan Gregory early in my obsessive relationship with the fledgling Cramps of yore - little did that future “Beast” realize the unseemly rawk gesticulations his gift would spawn.
I also got to play something by every guest singer who helped out at the Mumps party, including Carolyn Edward’s “Wrestling Match”, Andrew’s wowsville cover of Grapefruit’s “Round Going Round”, and the wonderful John Easdale had the dubious honor of me dedicating Lance’s and my seldom-heard home version of Dramarama’s “Last Cigarette” to him. Now there’s a demo that makes a disconcerting racket - I hadn’t learned about tape distortion yet, and it features my own live drumming - not for the squeamish! It sounds like a thunderstorm in a dishwasher.
Even this somewhat more staid loose-ends tying show had me flying though - especially because giddy with fatigue, I insisted on singing the chorus from “Tree Dog Song” every three minutes or so - just for continuity’s sake of course. So, Little Steven, call me - I’m ready for satellite now! Is there a distant enough orbit in the space trash equivalent of Cannery Row for me?
Speaking of DJ’s, it’s heartening to get the news that the world’s greatest DJ Steve Jones just saw fit to play “I Like To be Clean” by Mumps and yours truly AGAIN! That is heaven!
CAMEO IN PALOOKAVILLE, WITH PRETZELS
You’re probably familiar with those little oblong comics that deal with the grim retribution
that comes to everyone who does not welcome the saviour into his life. The ones forced into your hand outside of George Romero shopping plazas and cafeterias by people whose eyes you instinctively don’t want to meet because they seem to be on speed, homeless, crazed and possessed - and possibly in need of a facial. The tracts don’t actually celebrate a life of loving brotherhood attainable through the miracle of Jesus’ humanitarian teachings, so much as revel in the horrors and eternal tortures that will befall you if you invoke God’s wrath by the slightest (probably pleasurable) misstep. In short, they concentrate on the good stuff! The sin and the downfall! They make “Constantine” look like the “Polar Express”. If they came as DVDs, I’d be salivating in line for the unrated director’s cut. The one with the gore, the unexpurgated rough sex, the burning screaming torture victims, and the dancing demons.
Well, THAT version of the legendary Jack Chick “witnessing” pictorial tracts probably
won’t be available at the Cineplex any time soon. Yes, I’m talking about Jack Chick Publications of Rancho Cucamonga (!): the little gospel comics that vilify any one who thinks, studies science or evolution, cares, listens to rock music (?), is Catholic (well - on this one subject, when Jack calls the “mother church” the “great whore with a counterfeit God (the pope)” - My homie Sinead O’Connor an’ me got his back, bro) or has sex of any sort.
But, even if you can’t expect to get the CGI version on DVD, an infinitely more sassy-ass docu-drama style version is coming your way via the unique gifts of legendary outsider filmmaker Todd “New Women” Hughes. He and his friends have taken it upon themselves to film every one of the fabulous Jack Chick booklets, word for word and frame by frame, starting with the ones that Jack C. himself has seen fit, for his own inscrutable but undoubtedly spiritually evolved reasons, to discontinue.
“Wounded Children” , unfortunately for you readers and collectors,
is just such a rare and permanently discontinued issue - although I’ve spotted
it once or twice on e-bay, where they haven’t thrown the money-changers out of the temple
yet. But why bother with the book, when soon you can see the movie?
E-bay search alert!
I should know, because through the good graces of God, ‘n’ Todd, ‘n’ possibly the manipulations of one dear Justin Tanner, I was invited to be IN that movie.
“Wounded Children” is one of several “gay” themed installments, and of course
the “gays” that do not renounce their sinful ways to be reborn in Christ end up being
tortured in hell for eternity , usually after ending their miserably unhappy lives in some tragic
accident, or a well deserved gay bashing that they undoubtedly called upon themselves by their
flamboyant sexuality, or being felled by that disease that is obviously their own damn fault, AIDS.
The strange thing about these is that most of the “gays” as drawn look like admittedly cheerless
but steel-jawed all-American versions of Steve Canyon or similar 50’s comic book action heroes, usually
with manly beards. Yet the intrepid Jack almost always manages to get Nambla into the story somehow, as if
that is the logical end point of all maneuvering by the dreaded “gay lobby” that he speaks so
fearfully of in his articles on his web site. I must assume that La Chick’s conclusion that
it’s difficult for any self-identified “gay” to pass a perambulator without getting an
embarrassing erection is because Jack has been studiously keeping a close watch on baby-adjacent crotch
tumescence phenomena. Crotch-watchin’ Jack keeps his eye on the prize!
Anyway, I committed myself to my acting gig with my usual discipline: since I was busy rehearsing with
Mink’s band the day of the filming, I didn’t even look at any scenes but my own. Didn’t
read the script. Didn’t bother to get the gist of the thing. I was just like a devil-may-care
doomed classic Chick character. It was just a cameo after all!
But what a cameo: I’m a suicidal alcoholic gay (what other kind is there in a Chick publication?) who
sits at a table weeping buckets while two semi-nude lascivious demons giggle and cavort suggestively behind
me. Then I think I was to be saved by some earnest if lisping and hi-pitched Redirected Fag Neu Xtians. A
part a more dedicated actor might get something out of.
But I was too busy munching on the craft service peanut butter pretzels and chocolate malt balls, while
examining with unrepentant envy the unbelievably extensive Ebersole/Hughes collection of fanciful Italian
Designer Alessi kitchen utensils, all in blazing Sunkist orange. I have the yellow brashly outre coolie
orange squeezer which I bought in the airport in Tuscany daaaaahling, the item that looks like a
hi-style dancing mushroom from Fantasia, if that’s cross cultural enough for you - these are the dubious
totems that end up being inexcusably important to real “Wounded Children”. But this power gupple had that, and
EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE ALESSI CATALOG, and it was all tauntingly on display, making it difficult for me
to concentrate on my “craft”.
I can't think of an excuse.
...or maybe I can.
So when I got called in to be filmed, I was completely unprepared for my two minimal lines, or the miraculous
facial transformation that should come with the relief of my unexpected salvation. But apparently I got the
weeping part right, even getting some compliments from more seasoned thespians who had actually graced the
legitimate stage in many of Justin’s productions. I also got invited to the screening party a few weeks
later in an imposing Beechwood Canyon Deco Streamline Moderne manse, but I was so horrified and embarrassed at
the prospect of seeing my face on the screen at all, and worse still, contorted in some uninformed approximation
of “acting”, that I sought a Jack Chick worthy spiritual outclause, with just a hint of Diva: I
thought “What would Aimee Semple McPherson do?” And I promptly took a “stress” nap on the
upstairs couch and missed the whole thing. Thank God! See Jack? I do have religion.
Typecast again!
For oodles of Jack Chick fun, go to:
http://members.aol.com/monsterwax/Tracts.htm#allah
or Google: Jack T. Chick Tract Online Archives
They have hilariously succinct synopses and reviews of every Jack Tract, and for most of them they have direct links to the actual tracts themselves - although unfortunately NOT for “Wounded Children” - which makes me feel special! Thanks again, God!
Fun Jack Fact : What a scholar! Get the obscure reference to the “vomitous” ruins in the Canaanite city of Gezor in “Gay Blade” - if you word-search Gezor you will find out simply that it is an “Ancient and forgotten kingdom destroyed by the toad people” - at least in the on-line game Elyria!
MONKEES MAYHEM!
Andrew, who besides being our local Colin Blunstone Incarnate is possibly the world’s most noted Monkees expert, was doing several gigs around town promoting the release of his shiney new book, the definitive Monkees Day To Day Diary - which exhaustively scholarly yet fun-filled tome has everything you’d ever want in a Monkees book, except glossy full color studio portraits.
Brief sidebar prayer: O Great God Taschen, Thou Lord of the Budget Vintage Ephemera Reproduction Explosion, I challenge thee: if ever there were a vacuum waiting to be filled for the target market pop nerds who faithfully buy negligibly re-imagined re-releases of their faves over and over and over for each skinflint paltry bauble unearthed and trumpeted in “special features” promo stickers, it is this: A coffee table book of the commercial promotional color portraits of all the 60’s bands that appeared in 16, Tiger Beat, Rave, Eye, and like pop tabloids, simply reproduced, sans graphic overlay, in beautiful living 60’s color.
The few times these sort of pictures have been included in releases, they are impossibly small due to the eye straining CD format, not reproduced in color due to budgetary constraints, or spoiled by the depraved graphic sensibility of delusional designers thinking they’re “improving” the photos by tired Warholesque color distortion, blaringly ugly faux “period” fonts, or “kooky” icons and montages - YUCK! BIG GLOSSY UNSPOILED SIMPLE COLOR REPRODUCTIONS - that’s what the kids want, Lord Taschen on High! At least scrillion-year-old kids like me! Even the very few issues of 16 magazine I have - fortunately for my pocketbook, that’s not one of my obsessions - have great color pictures of the Beatles in crazy get-ups that I’ve NEVER seen reproduced elsewhere. Andrew - you and me? Book proposal?
Meanwhile - back at the promo fun fair!
One of the more sensational promotional events Andrew was holding was a theatrical screening of Head at the American Film Institute right across the street from Amoeba Records in Hollywood - indefensible impulse buys AND a free movie! Andrew had managed to get Peter Tork to put in an appearance at most of the bookstore appearances around town, and La Tork was going to co-host this showing and do a Q&A as well. The pop nerd (that’s Mister Nerd to you!) a-list was all there - Brian “Moog Cookbook” Kehew, Bill Inglott, Steve Stanley - the tribe was out in force! We settled into the uncomfortable seats surrounded by film students who were disturbingly...well...young.
By cracky, I recall when I was just a stripling young’un in my knee britches and saddle oxfords, and I saw this film when it was new - YUP! I’m not jes’ joshing here! And Land o’Goshun if I weren’t purty durn confuserated.
I knew it was funny, but even at that age I already also felt bad that the Monkees were just TRYING so darn hard, trying to disown the smothering mantle of teeny-bop unhipness that had muted their achievements and turned their musical legacy into the cultural equivalent of white-washed lawn jockeys. Trying so desperately to act like even THEY knew they were fake, and they thought it was COOL to call them fake, so couldn’t they attain “cool” by calling themselves fake?
In effect, it played out my own fears of unhipness across the screen, and along with the emotional coloring that my emerging sense of that “other” sexuality which kept you uncertain of whether you would be ridiculed and shunned or just beaten to a pulp, I think it was a little too close to the bone. Add to that their nightmare of losing what was left of their audience to the lobotomized nasal affect of Bobby Sherman! So no matter how wonderfully dreamy the “Porpoise Song” sequence was, the over all effect was spiritually stultifying. But also the film was also guilty of a far more damnable sin - in their hopeless grasp for the Grateful Dead power ring of hip credibility, I thought: “Are the Monkees BORING?”
I hoped to see it in a new light - hadn’t my love of all things Monkee survived far beyond the tasteful boundaries of my pre-pubescence right into my dotage? That’s gotta count for something!
So I came and sat next to Andrew’s wife Wendy and listened while Andrew introduced quite a celebrity catch: it was one of the producers - it couldn’t have been Bob Rafelson could it ? - who unfortunately held forth in a typically (for the poor maligned Monkees) self distancing and, at the same time, self applauding fashion - it was the usual “The world thought they were crap, but it took ME to make something hip out of them!” disclaimer. That crumb is still what often passes for a compliment in their world - the absolute joyful masterstroke of “Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd.” - and so many other songs! - notwithstanding.
But then the film started and I was so wonderfully surprised! Of course I was comforted by the expected light show mottled Peter Max colored party
sequences, the de rigeur faux Indian stylings, the Cost Plus love beads and Penney’s Nehru jackets and the buckskin boots, the incense, the playfully non sequitur Beatle-besotted hi-jinks, the campy Victoriana, the lounging beach bunnies, the aging teen idols and mild corporate product satires, the Zabriskie Point Lite politicizing - I knew that would happen. This is my nostalgia comfort zone, so I know I have no perspective - I’m Austin Powerless. But what I was unprepared for was that it was actually so...outrageous ? It was so willfully saturated with casual violence that it was actually disturbing! Isn’t that - could it be - is that actually......um, HIP?
Omigod, their use of the famed Eddie Adams 1968 photo of the execution of a Viet Cong by Lt. Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan over and over again - it was just wild and unsettling. And the Monkees themselves were always carrying guns and dressing as soldiers - they seemed to have a queerly ambivalent attitude toward violence. It really made me remember what it was like to be raised in the first truly televised war, where images of disorienting violence were everywhere, so unfiltered, not yet photo-shopped into religious sloganeering. There was a distant confusing war, with its graphic images burning, taunting on television screens and the pages of Life. There were your classmates carted off - some clueless brutes eager to go, and some not returning. And you might be next, in the thing called the lottery! Shirley Jackson for sure! Facing the draft board at 17! There were riots and civl rights murders. It was the babyhood of domestic information control, and our society was sick to its very children on a feast of blood. We bathed in it. It polluted our Betty Crocker meals with a sour after taste of iron and sand. Mad cow disease of the soul. And it was IN that movie - it was the sound stage the movie was made on. In between the poorly timed jokes, kooky shenanigans, the mop-top song fests, there was the flavor of burnt flesh and grim accountability. No wonder we were confused. The W-A-R chant - that wasn’t just posing to please the hip - that confusion was legitimate. The Love Generation wilting on a soggy battleground. I had forgotten. The Volkswagen “soft sell” Ads. Slicker by Yardley. Twiggy. Hogan’s Heroes! No wonder the Nazis seemed like comedy, Colonel Klink! They dressed in uniforms so you could tell them apart, declared their intentions, were transparently bad, and they lost! What did we have now? Oh yeah. Napalm. Add to that the horrific discussion of actually using The Bomb - boy it sure was different then.
After the movie was over Peter Tork got up and engaged in a surprisingly erudite question and answer session, peppered with literate wisecracks and astute observations. I was surprised - the one public performance I had seen him at was years before, circa 1978, when the punks dragged him out of the woodwork to perform at CBGBs - the Monkees were commonly hailed and loved as Punks’ forbears for being unrepentantly crass, bubblegum was the preferred punk single format, and “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone” had been given the seal of approval by no less than the Sex Pistols.
At that point Peter still seemed somewhat hobbled by his Monkees experience - he was a little ground down, still apparently giving some shame-faced credence to the loudmouth detractors, doing a gruff little apologist act of “I really knew we weren’t hip” - “If we’d only stuck together and played some REAL music it might not have been so bad” - that sort of thing. Trying to distance himself from the very reason we had all come to see him. He resisted playing much Monkees music at all, instead rather poignantly trying to prove himself by playing the “real” stuff - he did some indifferent clumsy simplistic Bach on the piano, a little blue grass banjo - he was just spotty and all over the place. Worse still, he seemed like a dazed stoner who was inarticulate and vague, and had no idea what this CBGBs scene was about, or why we would care, and wasn’t interested. He had a rather condescending paternal air, as if we were the know-nothings and he could show us what good music was. It was a peculiar evening.
This was completely different. I had been excited by the movie, and was inspired by Peter’s ready intelligence, and held up my hand a little timidly - almost hoping he wouldn’t pick me. He was all the way across on the other side of the theater, across three long rows of chairs. I thought almost hopefully, “Maybe he didn’t see my hand.” I wasn’t really sure how to pose my question. But he DID call on me - after all the cute girls in the audience had been exhausted, to be sure - so I bumbled: “Well, you’ve probably seen this more recently that I have but..after all these years....isn’t it a little surprising how...um....violent....this movie is...?”
The response was immediate and shocking. Peter leapt up and over the first line of chairs, rushing toward me in a mad indecipherable blur, pushing people out of the way until he found a clear aisle, and then he barrelled straight up to me - and he stuck his face right into mine, and screamed “FUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOU!”
There was a silence - for maybe a second. It seemed longer. Then he pulled back - he had been so very close I could smell his breath, see the craggy lines in his fair skin and the discolored parts of his teeth - and then he laughed. “Ha ha”. The crowd laughed a little too. I got it. It was a play on the question - which he never actually addressed, just casually moving on to the next riposte. Ha ha. In a way it was very punky - almost...um....hip! In another way it was quite stand-up comic. But I had to be motherfucking proud of him. He toyed with my expectations. He fooled me. And he made me uncomfortable. That in itself is an accomplishment! And sometimes that can be very rewarding.
Still, the vulnerable part of me - the Monkee part of me that had always been afraid to be outed and ridiculed - felt used. There was never really an acknowledgement that it was a long depleteing unsung WAR for those of us who stood up for the Monkees, at least until they became retro trivia. The same war that made us feel “outside” in so many other areas. In art, in love, at the game, at work. The nerd war. The not-beautiful war. The unhip war. The loser war. The artist war. That little tender spot was bruised again, just like old times. I wasn’t really WITH Peter in his moment of comic triumph. I was outside him. I knew he’d get some milage with it with the hippie chick he was trying to pick up after the show. We were adults now, and it was cool. I got it. But I was reminded about “outside”.
Even as a little kid, I knew Peter was the least talented Monkee. But he was my crush - maybe my FIRST crush. He was the cute one. I always hoped he’d be in the episodes more. When they put “In This Generation” on for the closing theme song, I defensively thought my love for Peter had finally been proven right all along. “Look - he wrote a cool song!” When my little brother and sister and I wrote our fan letters, mine was to him. We didn’t get a reply. It’s funny, but I don’t want to kiss him anymore. We’re old and icky! But I’d probably never get closer to being able to do it than that night when he breathed into my mouth and said “Fuck You!”.
Signed: CBGBs 1978 Appended: AFI 2005
