My 80s mixtapes (8):
Cash and miscarry.

"Music! Volume 5"
A: 1. East of eden, Big Country. 2. Together in electric dreams, Giorgio Moroder with Phil Oakey. 3. The war song, Culture Club. 4. Blue jean, David Bowie. 5. No more lonely nights, Paul McCartney. 6. Freedom, Wham! 7. Missing you, John Waite.
B: 1. Live without your love, Windjammer. 2. Drive, The Cars. 3. Shout to the top, Style Council. 4. The never ending story, Limahl. 5. All cried out, Alison Moyet. 6. I'm gonna tear your playhouse down, Paul Young. 7. Out of touch, Hall and Oates. 8. On the wings of a nightingale, Everly Brothers.

In the 80s, I had a friend who had a friend who was stinkin' rich. (Specifically: Rich Boy was my friend's assistant patrol leader in a scout troop; I was in a rival, i.e., better scout troop. Yes, there are such things as rival scout troops. It was just like West Side Story, and not just because both were full of fags.)

One story about Rich Boy, as related in an awed whisper to me, that I remember well, goes like this: he heard a song on the radio, liked it. He trots off to Valentine's, a swanky import record store, to buy it the next day. On his way home, he accidentally drops and breaks the 12" in two (while getting into his limo or something -- I don't know. How do the rich travel?). So, without missing a beat, he turns right back around and buys another copy.

The record -- and it's a little disturbing that I still remember this -- was Windjammer's "Live without your love." Which is what makes the story even more appalling: not only can Rich Boy afford to buy a second 12", which in those schoolboy days of telling tales and biting nails set us back a princely sum, after owning the first copy for, oh, all of 10 minutes, but the record he forked out for was a sappy, generic ballad by a group that, even then, seemed a sure bet to never be heard from again. (Even now, I'm a little shocked to find out that Windjammer made two entire albums.) The guy was rich and had bad taste, which is always a nasty-ass combination.

Of course, maybe I shouldn't talk, since that very song appears on this compilation. But, hey: I taped it off the radio. It cost me...let's see: nothing. At this point, I guess I would be completely undercutting myself if I -- hypothetically -- admit that I...sort of...like the song. I mean...as sappy, generic ballads go, it's kind of...okay. I'm a little surprised that Westlife hasn't covered it yet.

Plus, there are arguably worse songs on this tape. Well, one. I'm not thinking of Culture Club's. Yes, that whole "War, war is stupid!/And people are stupid!" couplet is absurd, but it's so fantastically petulant. Not enough pop songs are petulant, really. Also: people are stupid. Trenchant observation, Boy George! Brava!

No, Limahl, I'm talking to you and your endless narrative. It's embarrassing how you and your female "backup" vocalist both start wailing "never ending stoooooorrreeeee...ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah," and she basically has to finish the line for you, presumably because you can't hold a note if it came packaged as a pretty handbag with a sturdy handle. No wonder you got kicked off The Comeback Show.

Those tracks aside, the rest of this tape rocks. I think this might be my favorite of all the compilations I've profiled so far, don't you think? There are a lot of songs that are ace, reasonably well-known, but not too overplayed. The exuberant "Shout to the top." The deeply aching "All cried out." Paul Young's "I'm gonna tear you playhouse down" is also fab -- more so because his backing vocalists, the hilariously-named Fabulous Wealthy Tarts are in full force ("push! push!"). I won't go as far as to say that I prefer Young's version to the Ann Peebles original, but it's certainly more campily energetic. And there's "Freedom," back when George Michael was interested in being fun. It was also a song of which I remembered thinking: "Hmm, how unusual for a man to be pleading with his girlfriend for monogamy." Ha. Apparently my gaydar was broken for a week in 1984.

Also deserving of mention: the poptastic "Together in electric dreams." I love how the chorus just builds vocally, higher and higher -- yeah, Phil Oakey can barely hit the notes by the end, but I'm glad I have this on CD. Actually, the rest of that CD is not great, so get it on the soundtrack album instead, which also has those Culture Club songs. Good movie, too. No, I'm kidding. It was about a computer, who fell in love with a woman! Please! Crap. Even if it had Maxwell Caulfield.

Even the more American songs, which oftentimes date really badly and stink up such compilations, acquit themselves well here: "Drive" is really quite beautiful, thanks in no small part to that "ah-ah-ahhh" oozing, vocalized backing, and "Out of touch," while not from Hall and Oates's imperial period, is still quite nice. And "Missing you" I've always loved. If it's not actually the first song from which I learned about dramatic irony, it's certainly one which now I still strongly associate with that genre, in which it is -- or becomes, in the course of the song -- apparent that what the singer tells us is false. That, indeed, he is merely repeating a line over and over mostly as an effort to convince himself. Awww.

Yes sir, I like this one. I have no idea why it ends with the Everly Brothers (okay, it was a Paul McCartney-penned "comeback" single for them). And it does start with Big Country (but hey, it's fun shouting "S-H-H-A!" along with them, even if you can do it to every Big Country song). I'm playing it again.

PS: Oh, you know how I was saying about an earlier tape that it felt as if everyone stuttered on a song in 1984? Watching American Idol tonight reminded me of another piece of annoying evidence: Ashford and Simpson, "The thrill is still hot-hot-hot-hot-hot!" Shut up-up-up-up-up.

Posted at 11:01 PM ||

 
So hard for her honey.

It's never a good thing to have dreams about work, but at least I know I'm not alone in doing so. Today Petal stopped by my office, in a daze, and started telling me about a dream she had. She didn't remember many details, except that she was at work, where her boss divided everyone into two teams, and then they were wandering around a sandy terrain. On their hands and knees. As one does.

Petal: And then I saw that there were clumps of cat poop everywhere. Literally a shitty dream.
Me: Wait. So you were, like, in a giant litter box?

I don't think Petal actually realized her location in the dream, and I can't say my pointing out how she thinks of her workplace as an actual dumping ground for animal feces made her feel better.

The last work-related dream I had involved smells. I was in my office, which has lots of secret cupboards which no one ever uses. Mostly because it looks like any document stored in there won't get out alive. In real life, I do stash some things in there. Extra files. A yellow carpet. A dubious-looking umbrella. A blue watering can. (Don't ask.) In the dream, there was a really, really strong stink in my office, and lots of people got called in. I realized at some point that the smell must be coming from the cupboard, but I was either too humiliated or too secretive about something or other to open the cupboard to solve the odor problem. I don't remember how it all ends. But really, can there be a happy ending?

Okay, so we could establish that I feel as if I have a skeleton in my work closet. I'll be damned if I know what it is, though. That I got this job by sleeping with someone important? That I hate 70% of my colleagues? That I'm actually not qualified for the position? That I once stole a pack of sugar from the office pantry? It's awful having a secret from yourself.

All this is also to say that this week at work looks as if it will be really insane. Blog-wise, this means one of two things will happen: one, I may not post every day, or two, in an effort at procrasination, I will post incessantly, every day, every hour on the hour.

Posted at 5:36 PM ||

 
Make it your bloody business.

I guess you see something new and interesting each day. I'm just alive with knowledge. On the way to work, I go past a car which had two lines of text stencilled on its passenger side window: "Florence B+," and below that, "Thomas O+." And on the left hand sides of each line, there are also miniature flags of this country.

Huuhhh. Is this a new thing? Unless I'm missing the point, I guess that sort of makes sense. When they pull your mangled bodies from the wreck, it's good that the rescuers can take a moment to piece together the shattered remains of your car windows in order to figure out the blood types -- and nationalities -- of people who may or may not be driving the car at that time.

Posted at 1:11 PM ||

 
My 80s mixtapes (7):
The shit hits the fans.

"Music! Volume 4"
A: 1. Pride (In the name of love), U2. 2. A letter to you, Shakin' Stevens. 3. Why? Bronski Beat. 4. If it happens again, UB40. 5. Love kills, Freddie Mercury. 6. Purple rain, Prince. 7. Apollo 9, Adam Ant. 8. Another silent day, The Adventures.
B: 1. Strut, Sheena Easton. 2. Hard habit to break, Chicago. 3. Strung out, Steve Perry. 4. Sunglasses at night, Corey Hart. 5. Lucky star, Madonna. 6. The warrior, Scandal. 7. Flesh for fantasy, Billy Idol.

Maybe we have further downhill to go, but I think this is the worst of the tapes I've documented thus far. What's worse, I'm not sure I have anything especially gripping to say about it. Isn't there something on TV you should be watching anyway? No? Hmm.

Well, okay, maybe it's only half a bad tape. Side B of this is undoubtedly meh to me, with an almost uninterrupted string of mediocre-to-ghastly American MOR rock numbers. (And the few interruptions, like Madonna, are too familiar to compensate.) I'm talking to you, Steve Perry, and then of course damned Chicago pops up again, since I apparently found them a hard habit to break. Ha ha -- see what I did there? Yeesh. What this tape has reduced me to.

There's also Scandal's "The warrior." God knows I like tough-chick rock songs -- where have you gone, Pat Benatar? -- but this one has a really awful lyric. "Shooting at the walls of heartache, bang bang"? And what the fuck is a "stereo jungle child"? A kid conceived on two channels? I've never seen the video for this, but I can already see Patty Smyth running through some jungle with a frightwig and warpaint on her face, her tits hanging out of a leopard-print bikini top, while carrying an especially phallic-shaped spear as she hunts some fowl. In other words, like an episode of Alias. Plus, for years I was confused about the differences between Patty Smyth and Patti Smith, so I'm not sure I can find it in my heart to forgive.

And while it's not as if I don't appreciate the occasional Sheena Easton number -- the genius tune that is "Almost over you" still brings a tear to my eye -- "Strut" is not one of her best moments. She was starting the move into her "raunchy" phrase that would culminate in her letting us inside her, eurgh, sugar walls (that and "Strut" are from the same album, A Private Heaven: if you must, here's an Easton discography, hee). For the record, I prefer Sheena during her innocent naïf days. That should be a question, alongside "50s Elvis or Vegas Elvis?": did you prefer riding Sheena's morning train, or, um, painting her sugar walls? Or would you rather, like I just did, throw up a little bit in your own mouth?

Thankfully, Side A is a little better. Well, except for Shakin' Stevens, although I guess in 1984 I felt some strange attraction to retro 50s rock. But back then, as now, I had no idea what he's shaking.

In fact, playing the tape helps me see that some songs are better than I remember. This, perhaps surprisingly, is most true of UB40. I actually bought and liked their hugely successful covers record, Labour of Love (even if they would go on to beat the horse to death), but time and the band's energizer-bunnyhood (they're still going) had dimmed my fondness. But "If it happens again," which was the first single from the follow-up album of originals, Geffery Morgan, is a sprightly little number. Nice parping horns.

Thumbs up for Bronski Beat, of course, and Adam Ant contributes one of his delightfully nonsensical ditties (I always liked his solo stuff better than Adam and the Ants material). I should like Freddie Mercury's song a little more than I actually do. After all, it's co-written by Giorgio Moroder -- it should be genius! Instead, it's just a pleasant electropop number. Maybe I'm a little uneasy about the song's lyric: given Mercury's eventual death in 1991 from AIDS, it feels like the song is almost a kind of comment about his own condition. A confused and wrongheaded comment: only unprotected love, you know, kills. And also, not "love" so much as something else. But I have no sense if I felt this about the song then, or only feel it now, or even if this was something to feel then, not knowing when Mercury was diagnosed. Tricky.

Rarity? The Adventures' "Another silent day," a slightly strange song, sung almost choir-style. One of the better known songs from an obscure group (matters: not helped by the band's generic name), although the song isn't much cop. Rare, but not much cop.

Since this tape isn't especially sterling, I should make things up to you, my dear readers -- perhaps by pointing you to a site that has some rare 80s MP3s for download? Don't say I never did anything for ya.

Posted at 7:36 PM ||

 
It was a very good ear.

Today my hairstylist told me, "You've got really soft ears."

Why, thank you. It's not that odd a comment, since I'm sure it's a relief, even a joy, to haircare professionals to be able to bend their customers' ears to their will whenever they need to trim around that area. So it might even be a compliment. And it's a true one too, although, as I told my hairdresser, he didn't know the half of it.

My ears are soft, but they were even softer when I was a kid. Back then, I could actually fold the tips of my ears down the middle, and then bend them downwards and stick them into my ear canals. And they would stay in that position too. I used to do that trick at parties all the time, and almost got elected prom queen on that ability alone.

Sadly, as I got older, I lost that pliability. Nowadays I can sort of fold the tips and bend them, but my left ear gets a kind of burning sensation when so tortured anyway. (Imagine that.) And neither will fit anymore into my canal, nor stay folded -- although I think if my ears had longer tips, like Spock, I might still be able to carry it off. But years pass, joints and ears inevitably stiffen. It's written in the stars.

Two of my favorite animals had unfortunate ears. There's Murray, Aurora's and Leo's part-German Shepherd dog who has a floppy right ear and is all the more adorable for it. And then there's Fox, the best cat in the world. He used to be well-earjusted (sorry), until one day some blood vessel burst in his ear and the vet had to do something or other that resulted in Fox's right ear being permanently flopped over. Being a cat, Fox feigned disdain for petty matters like correct ear posture, and affected not to care either way. Sometimes late at night, though, after Fox had spent a day running around the neighborhood with his buddies who I just knew laughed cruelly every chance they got at his differently-abled ear, I like to imagine that what I see in Fox's eyes is wistfulness for a bygone era.

No, not really. He was just dreaming of mice.

Posted at 10:02 PM ||

 
He's off biting his pillow as we speak.

Me and George Michael, we have a difficult relationship.

His new CD, Patience, was one of three things I bought last week. The other two being: The Magnetic Fields' soundtrack for Pieces of April, and the latest Hedkandi compilation Disco Heaven 01.04. I put off buying Pieces of April because, not only is it a very short CD, but only half of it is new material. But with the movie getting released here (and me planning to see it later this week, because, you know, it is Patricia Clarkson), the distribution company has brought in cheaper copies, so, yay, synergy! Of the five new songs, "All I want to know" is wonderful, and "One April day" has a kind of haikuesque beauty to it. Meanwhile, Disco Heaven 01.04 will continue to fuel the "Is dance music dead, or just a little lethargic?" debate. Although this is Hedkandi's most proudly cheesy series, there're still waaay too many mediocre cover versions of bad late 80s pop tunes (Whitney's "Love will save the day," Phil Collins's and Phillip Bailey's "Easy lover," while another track interpolates the Pointer Sister's "Dare me"). But every now and then there's an energetic, uplifting tune like Inaya Day's "Keep pushin'," so the debate lives.

Back to Michael. He's always been great at writing poptastic tunes: even without counting Wham!, I've always adored "Fastlove" -- a moving statement about sex as a grieving tactic, a modern day "Sexual healing" -- and this new album is being teased by the catchy single "Amazing." But Michael has always also wanted to be a serious artist, which I hate. On the new album, he seems in particular to be equating Serious Music with atonality: the slow songs like "Patience," and "My mother had a brother" fight really, really hard to be "melodically intricate," but land just north of "boring and unmemorable." I can't even get the energy up to fully review the album.

I do have some energy to hate, though. Always! And the track on the album that feels my wrath is the penultimate song called "Through." It's just so goddamned self-important. It's on the thoroughly novel subject of the tabloids, and how horribly imprisoning fame, fortune, and the demands of commercialism, especially from the audience, can be. Snooze. Yes, Georgie does acknowledge his own responsibility: "I've had enough of these chains/They're of my own making," but he also whines about how "suddenly the audience is so cruel." The song actually includes the schoolmarmish line: "People, have we no shame?" How can anyone sing that line and mean it seriously? So he's "through"; through, he tells you! To emphasize his point, the song ends abruptly, and there's even a 20 second delay before the final song (ha!), which turns out to be an instrumental (oh.) starts. He's through! Do you get it? THROUGH! No George for you!

Such. A. Drama. Queen.

Posted at 11:32 PM ||

 
Knock yourself out.

You know how, after you launder your bed linens, get them out of your dryer, and throw them on the bed, they form an undistinguishable mass because of their matching colors, so that when you are ready to put them back on your bed, you yank at what you think is the bedsheet, which of course you're expecting to be heavy, but then it turns out to be the lighter pillowcase, but you had tugged so hard you send the pillowcase flying at you and basically just whap yourself in the face with it? No, you don't? Oh, okay. Me neither.

Posted at 11:51 PM ||

 
I've got juice. Don't make me throw it in your face.

Today's post requires playbooks, three monkeys, a strip of potassium, and a dash of imagination. Are you with me? Good. Let's begin.

The sketch on your left depicts what normally happens in the cafeteria, at the stall where they sell delicious and rejuvenating libations harvested from fresh fruits. The line for the beverage is perpendicular to foot traffic. In the picture, the "O"s represent people who are standing in line; the "X"s are people who form the foot traffic. As you can see, there are five or six different points at which Xs can politely get past the queue of Os.

Let's watch what happens when I join the line. On your right, I've created a model to simulate this occurrence. I am represented by the darkened circle. Because I have black hair. Everyone else is a big old baldie. Now, as you will can see, the minute I join the queue, many of the means for getting from one side to the other mysteriously disappear. The number of access points in fact get magically reduced to one. And the remaining point is always in front of me. It doesn't matter if Dark Circle, aka me, is #1 in line, or #7. Nor does it matter if I stick like glue to the person in front of me. Wherever I am, a neon sign that says "Cut Across Here To Get To The Promised Land" apparently follows.

I have run this experiment many times, with the same invariable results. I believe this qualifies it as a law. How did this law come about? I don't know. I only describe, I don't explain.

Now that we've illustrated my exciting findings, let's talk about how we're going to breach the defense and hike the ball downfield.

Posted at 6:21 PM ||

 
My 80s mixtapes (6):
Just one psychological drama after another.

"Music! Volume 3"
A: 1. Lights out, Peter Wolf. 2. Human racing, Nik Kershaw. 3. Madam Butterfly, Malcolm McLaren. 4. Sunset now (12 inch), Heaven 17. 5. All I need is everything, Aztec Camera. 6. She bop (dance mix), Cyndi Lauper.
B: 1. Cath (remix), The Bluebells. 2. Tour de France (breakdance remix), Kraftwerk. 3. Dancing in Berlin, Berlin. 4. If you're not here (by my side), Menudo. 5. That's what friends are for, Modern Romance. 6. Tonight is what it means to be young, Fire Inc.. 7. Missing you, Diana Ross.

Maybe it's because I've been watching, for a project at work, a whole bunch of melodramas -- "My mother, a waitress!" -- but looking at this tape makes me wonder if "melodramatic music" shouldn't be an equivalent genre. Bombast! Histronics! Bombaster! Excess! Hysteria! Bombastest! Musical exclamation points! Can't you just see the compilations? The Best Melodramatic Music...Ever! I said, EVER!!! It would be exhausting. I'm exhausted right now.

But who would be Chief Songwriter of this genre? While Bono might give him a run for his money, Jim Steinman surely gets my vote. (Bat out of) hell, he would probably get his own vote, given how he labels himself the "Lord of Excess" on his own website.

I can't, or won't, say that I like him (and the website scares me), but I will admit that I think some of his song titles -- which apparently are the starting points of his compositions -- are funny. They always start off sounding rather conversational, but become weirder and weirder as phrases the more you stare at them. (Quite Pet Shop Boys.) "It's all coming back to me now": the very idea that anything could be coming to Celine Dion strikes me as hysterical. And of course, most famously: "I would do anything for love (but I won't do that)." You gotta wonder exactly which sex act Meatloaf, whose manboobs in Fight Club are still seared on my retinas, won't degrade himself by stooping to.

Steinman has continued to be prolific in recent years: writing and producing (Boyzone!), and doing musicals, which you would think is the perfect medium for his melodrama. I actually saw a pre-Broadway production of Whistle Down the Wind, his collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber, in Washington, DC in the 90s. We got free tickets, okay? It was pretty awful, although I do remember a scene of an illusory train barreling right towards the audience. Maybe it's a little hommage (eyeroll), but, really, that's more a metaphor for Steinman's music if I ever saw -- or been run over by -- one.

But Steinman probably had his biggest successes in the 80s: am I not right to think that he was the first blahblahblah unique blahblahblah to have had the US #1 and #2 singles with Bonnie Tyler's "Total eclipse of the heart" and Air Supply's "Making love out of nothing at all"? This tape has one of Steinman's lesser known numbers, but it's just as over-the-top as those hits: Fire Inc.'s "Tonight is what it means to be young". I know nothing about the group (probably just some front), nor much about the song (except that it was in the flick Streets of Fire), but it's incredibly operatic, with its vaguely apocalytic scenario and interweaved melodies and counter-melodies. It's so gloriously over the top that the top is just a dot to it.

(Did I really just write five paragraphs about Jim Steinman?)

Moving right along, there's operatic, and then there's opera. The other song I was really amused/glad to hear on this tape is Malcolm McLaren's "Madam Butterfly." If you've never heard this, well, what are you waiting for? Part of an entire album of such tracks, the song features snippets of Puccini's opera over a hip-hop beat, and bits spoken by Pinkerton and sung by Butterfly. It's sort of funny and moving at the same time. Pinkerton has an odd hick accent, and hearing him say "Take it away, Cho-cho" is funny after all these years, while Cho-cho telling us that she's "freaking out" that her "white honky" is coming "to get [her]" is just as priceless. I've always lived in danger of having my Gay Card revoked for not liking opera, but if they ever do one with McLaren as the composer, I'm there.

The other songs on the tape are sort of meh. The British acts aren't really acquitting themselves well here. "Human racing" is supposed to be some clever comment about the ratrace, but kind of just a bland Nik Kerhsaw song; Heaven 17's "Sunset now" was a mostly disappointing follow-up to the excellent -- their only excellent -- album, The Luxury Gap; and likewise, Roddy Frame's "All I need is everything" is pleasant enough, but no patch on something like "Oblivious."

Also: Menudo. Hee. Shut up. Hee. I can't really look at that word nowdays without thinking about a No Rock and Roll Fun headline from a few weeks back that says, "It's not the men u love, it's the men u do." Hee.

The one rarity on this tape is probably Modern Romance's "That's what friends are for" (no relation to the Dionne Warwick song). Modern Romance was a fairly minor British group who made these mildly latiny records -- most famously "Best years of our lives" and "Everybody salsa," but also covers like "Cherry pink and apple blossom white" and "Walking in the rain." "That's what friends are for," a bossa novaish track that's so inoffensive as to be non-existent, is obscure even by their standards. It's so the opposite of melodrama. I was thinking that they never got credit for paving the way for bands like Matt Bianco, but then I realized that no one wants credit for that. Frighteningly, they've reformed and are coming back. Everybody hide your bongos.

Posted at 2:00 PM ||

 
For our next gag, we will replace the cream with...Boiling Water!

I gotta tell you, it's pretty weird living in a place where Allen Funt never went out of style. That he was ever in style I can almost defend, especially because, I have to confess, I enjoyed Candid Camera when I was a kid. I have vague memories of sitting down in front of the TV with my dad -- not to get all Luther Vandross on you -- and we would both belly-laugh our way through what I thought was a mostly sweet and classy show.

(It's hell trying to date your memories using this particular TV show, though, because there were so many incarnations of it. The presence of Funt himself doesn't even help, since he cohosted practically all of them -- take your bandstand and shove it, Dick Clark! -- and when he didn't, it would be his son Peter Funt. Who looks indistinguishable from his dad. Well, not anymore, I hope, since the latter is dead. But in my mind Allen is always, like, 60, and his son is about 55. Very disconcerting. But anyway, unless the station here was rerunning classic episodes or something, I probably caught the 1974-78 series -- The New Candid Camera, or Son of Candid Camera, or perhaps Candid Digital Camera with Borderless Color Printing. Who knows.)

They still run such candid reality type shows here, perhaps because of the success of Punk'd. Most of the time they serve as time-fillers, in between programs, but I think some actually have regular slots. (We don't have room for Without a Trace in primetime, but shit gag shows? Come on down!) I think Candid Camera v.789.3 might be on, but there are also derivative programs with names like "Hit Squad" and "Just for Laughs." I can't even be bothered to google them and their generic names, but judging from the credits and the fashions -- well, hello, shoulder pads my old friend -- they seem to be from the 1980s and Quebec, or some Land that Time, Taste, and Humor Forgot. So not only does this country want its Funt fix, but we get it from cheap knockoffs.

As you know, I hate the TV sets that they have on the buses here, and one reason is that they are especially infested with such "candid" programs. Tonight I was subjected to one such craptastic show -- seemingly Australian, not that that explains anything -- and I unfortunately rode the bus long enough to see one gag.

And an inexplicable one it was too. The entire set-up was this: someone pretended to be a product demonstrator in a grocery store. The product was whipped cream. When a customer showed any interest, or simply walked by, the actor would "accidentally" spray whipped cream all over the passer-by.

I mean...what the hell? This is funny? (I'm not asking you, laugh track. Nor you either, people on the bus with me.) I'm a peace-lovin' Miss Universe kind of man...okay, not really, but...anyway, if someone did that to me, in a grocery store, in the name of humor, I would so punch his lights out, and I refuse to believe that any jury would convict me.

Posted at 9:22 PM ||

 
Work it! Work it! Or: take your mama out

At the bar last night, the new bartender, for some inexplicable reason, was taking photos with a digital camera. Well, at least of one particular customer. After a first attempt, he showed the result to his subject, but said, "Would you like to try another one, with your eyes wider?" Which struck me as absolutely hysterical. Why, I practically choked on my fifth Gimlet.

Another try later, both photographer and model seemed pleased with the outcome. "Let me give you my email address, and you can send me the picture," the latter slurred. Smooth! "And I'll forward it to my mom." Because that's what all moms crave: photos of their sons, in a gay bar, pissed off their heads but struggling mightily to get their eyes open just that teeny bit more.

Posted at 4:09 PM ||

 
It's like, the universal language, man. Except the non-music readers will want to skip this entry.

I've been listening to lots and lots of music recently (and not just my 80s tapes), so I thought it was time for a round-upalooza cum link-o-nanarama. Which blog -- nay, which life -- is complete without a round-upalooza cum link-o-nanarama? (Will I ever be able to stop saying "round-upalooza cum link-o-nanarama"?) It's just a pity that this isn't explicitly the second part in a series, which would have allowed me to call it the Music Round-Upalooza Cum Link-O-Nanarama 2: Electric Boogaloo. (Apparently not.)

Not that you can tell from the above paragraph, but I've been having a chillout music moment. I'm still playing Winter Chill 06.03 -- not as good as the previous installment, but the tracks from I Am Kloot, Willis, Lamb, Kate Rogers (more on her later), and Kaskade are great -- and a regional compilation called Zero Degree has gotten me trying to find more stuff by Chungking and AM & the UV.

But there are also the artist albums. The new Zero 7 is nice, though not an unqualified gem. It's almost a little too languid: the strings, for one, space out when they should swoon. Whereas on their debut Simple Things the strings were often higher-pitched and provided a kind of dramatic counterpoint to the rolling and deep basslines, here on When It Falls they work more with, rather than against, the downtempo grooves. As a result the album sounds a little more dubby, and loses some of the edge of their debut.

Weirdly, one of Zero 7's vocalists, Sia has made a second album that is likewise more laidback than her first, but for some reason it works. Her debut Healing Is Difficult had lots of soul and funk touches (although my favorite track was still "Blow it all away," which could have fitted on a Zero 7 release). Her new one, Colour the Small One, was very disconcerting at first. Here she uses almost exclusively her lower register to sing, and sort of slurs her words more than usual, creating a very drowsy effect with her voice even when the music isn't. So, one: I'll have whatever she's on. But, two: on further listens the dreamy effect of the whole album comes through, and it really takes off in the second half, with amazing tracks like "Sweet potato" ("she cooks you sweet potato / you don't like aubergine": quite an opening line), "Natale's song," and three stunning tracks to close us out.

Another woman who first came to prominence by doing guest vocals is Kate Rogers, whose collaborations with Grand Central beat artists like Aim and Rae & Christian resulted in at least two unspeakably fantastic songs ("Sail" and "The girl who fell through the ice"). St. Eustacia is technically her debut album, although last year there was a compilation of her guest vocal work that was one of my favorite records of 2003. St. Eustacia doesn't quite reach those heights: apart from the more beat-driven and dramatic "This collective," all the other songs are more folk-rock. It's still a good album -- "Welcome," "Odyssey," "Joan," and the title track are especially ace -- but it's likely that Kate will get slapped with the "Dido" label, which is a shame.

The album which I've had some trouble getting into has been the double offering from Lambchop, Aw C'mon / No You C'mon. (By the way, in the US it's sold as two separate CDs, while the UK packages and prices them together. The hell?) I was one of those who found their previous offering Is A Woman, with its uniformly late-night-smoky-lounge sound, hynoptic rather than monotonous. These two new discs however, just haven't hooked me yet. Oh well.

Moving away from chill, I only recently got the Joss Stone album The Soul Sessions, and like it quite a bit. Although I find "Dirty man" just a cringingly-awkward metaphor of a song, and "For the love of you" would have worked better as not a 7-minute song, tracks like "The chokin' kind" (downloadable at amazon) and "I have a dream" are genuinely moving. Much, if not all the press on Joss Stone has been on that whole "can white sixteen-year-olds really sing soul?" angle, and I was going to write about that, but it would have bored even me. I am amused and intrigued by the rash of "prodigal young girls singing serious music" -- Amy Winehouse, Nellie McKay, Joss Stone -- phenomenon, though. It's like Simon Cowell's worst nightmare.

Last but not least, I'm been listening to what everyone else has been: Scissor Sisters. I have two CDs in front of me. One is the UK version of the album, with extra tracks and, thanks to home-made technology, even some b-sides ("Rock my spot," "Available for you") and mixes (by City Hi-Fi, Tiga, Fatboy Slim, Paper Faces). The other CD is a compilation of the demos that the band did:

1. Intro. 2. Electrobix. 3. Comfortably numb. 4. Someone to touch. 5. Music is the victim. 6. Backwoods part 2. 7. Step aside for the man. 8. Filthy and gorgeous. 9. Monkey baby. 10. Bicycling with the devil. 11. Laura. 12. Doctor (I'm only seeing dark). 13. Return to Oz.

As will be obvious from the fact that I've been collecting all their tracks, I'm quite addicted. I didn't much like "Electrobix" when I first heard it, though "Comfortably numb" was arresting; still, given how Next Big Thing they were, I was a little skeptical, and was half-convinced that they would be this year's Fischerspooner. Well, they might still be, but it will be fun getting there. Taken in isolation, each of their songs sound pretty strange, but hear them all in a row on a CD, and it all fits together. To create a Scissor Sisters world! Hey!

The differences between the demo and official versions of the album are interesting, though. The easiest thing to say about these differences -- which I've seen said on some boards and mailing lists -- is that the official release has gotten both de-electrocized, and de-camped and de-(homo)sexualized.

It's easy to make a case for this. Where the official version sounds more like it draws its influences from the 70s, the demos are a little more electronic 80s ("Someone to touch," "Step aside for the man," "Monkey baby" all didn't make the cut). The official release still has some very electro tracks -- "Comfortably numb" obviously (though that's more of a 70s disco sounding version of a 70s song), and "It can't come quickly enough," which is clearly a little tribute to the Pet Shop Boys' "Love comes quickly" -- but starting the album with the double-70s punch of "Laura" and "Take your mama," and ending with the prog-rock stylings of "Return to Oz" does set the tone.

Going hand-in-hand with this de-electrocization, arguably, is the idea that the official release is much less gay. To be clear, the album is still camper than a row of tents. Pitched in the Castro. During pride week. And Mardi Gras combined. But the songs that got cut from the demo sessions are even faggier. There's "Electrobix," of course, about gym bunnies and muscle marys. "Backwoods part 2," about a "discotheque" of that name, features a sample of some comedy monologue: "I walked into that goddamned club and they tried to pull my panties off, and throw me on the pool table! I saaaid, I like playing cards, but you motherfuckers better not be playing poker with my asshole! [Laughter.]" Compared to that, "Step aside for the man" almost seems banal, since it's simply about the joys of being "free as hell / to be a cornhole faggot dressing really, really well / in my big black boots and my denim Daisy Dukes / I've got my bleached blonde hair and my leather underwear." Which are, like, the best lines ever.

Even the songs that survived the transition from demo to album have been slightly toned down. The demo version of "Music is the victim" has a little exchange between Jake and Ms. "shakin' her bacon" Matronic that's equal parts B-52s and John Waters, while the demo of "Filthy/gorgeous" also has a spoken bit in which Ms. Matronic proclaims her fabulousness. Neither snippet makes it to the official album, although I guess the lack of Ms. Matronic is made up for by her solo number, "Tits on the radio." (Poor Ms. Matronic: if she's not careful, she'll become to Scissor Sisters what Maxi Jazz is to Faithless, whose bits are always the first to go anytime they need an edit.)

Anyway, I think that interpretation -- Scissor Sisters has been slightly de-fagged for their mainstream debut -- is unavoidable. However, I have to say that I'm not completely dismayed (well, especially since I get to listen to the demos anyway). Frankly, some of the demos left off the final running order make the band a little too much of this year's camp gay novelty act. A song about monkeys (um, "Monkey baby") and another about the difficulty of navigating life without an asshole (that would be "Bicycling with the devil"; seriously) are slightly one-joke songs, and the album is stronger without them. If they had replaced the rather monotonous "Tits" with "Someone to touch," and maybe "Better luck" or the bonus track "The Skins" with "Step aside," and reinstated Ms. Matronic's parts, I would be even more over the official album.

Wow. Long post. And I haven't even mentioned the MP3s on rotation on iTunes, or the great compilations Arcite sent me (highlights: the beautiful live version of Bic Runga's "Sway," the great 70s sound of Foxy's "Sss single bed," and Gramsci's "Don't"). Oh, music, I am so your bitch.

Posted at 9:34 PM ||

 
Because no good deed goes unpunished.

I'm standing in a short line at the ATM. The guy in front of me gets his turn, punches the requisite buttons, and leaves to scale a nearby flight of very steep stairs. When I step up to the machine, it is squealing like a stuck and stuffed pig. The guy has forgotten his money. I grab the $50 note and run after the mountaineer, needing to shout "Stop that man!" before I succeed in getting his attention.

When I get back to the ATM, I insert my card only to be told that it's somehow damaged (yes, there is a slight tear in the plastic) and I can't withdraw any cash. I'm not saying I should have taken the $50. I'm just saying.

Posted at 3:01 PM ||

 
My 80s mixtapes (5):
I'll say say say it again.

"Music! Volume 2"
A: 1. Down on the street, Shakatak. 2. Like to get to know you well (12 inch), Howard Jones. 3. Careless whisper (12 inch), George Michael. 4. The more you live the more you love, A Flock of Seagulls. 5. (What) In the name of love, Naked Eyes. 6. Claudette, Robert Marlow. 7. William, it was really nothing, The Smiths.
B: 1. Agadoo, Black Lace. 2. Passengers, Elton John. 3. Master and servant, Depeche Mode. 4. I just called to say I love you, Stevie Wonder. 5. Mothers talk, Tears for Fears. 6. Big in Japan, Alphaville. 7. Doctor beat, Miami Sound Machine. 8. Sunglasses (12 inch), Tracey Ullman.

I'm sorry. Did everyone have a speech impediment in 1984? One of the intriguing things about looking back at these tapes of the 80s is retroactively recognizing -- yeah, we can also call that "inventing" -- a trend. (Like how it seemed as if way too many artists were thinking about mousy women snapping and committing murder.) My theory about this compilation is that there was something in the water back then that made people employ and enjoy the stutter effect in their songs.

Consider: Down-ow-ow! Down-ow-ow! Down on the street, down-ow-ow! Doc-doc-doc-doc-doctor beat, won't you help me doctor beat? Master and servant -- doon-doon-doon doon. And most annoying of all: A-ga-do, do, do, push pineapple shake the tree (scientifically proven to be the worst song ever in the history of sound and silence, stutter or no stutter). ("Really? I was gunning for that title myself, hoping to sir duke it out on this very tape!" -- Stevie Wonder, from the bottom of his heart]

Even when there isn't any actual stuttering, a number of songs are sung with very staccato phrasing. The way Howard Jones sings "like-tok-get-tok-know you well" (in several different languages, no less, on this 12" mix), say, or how Elton faux-reggaes his way through "Passengers," one of his worst singles, as if he has a frog sliding down his throat, and then back up.

So: the hell? There's probably a rational explanation. Maybe we can put it down to the influence of scratching, which, though usually acknowledged to have been invented in 1977 by Grandwizard Theodore, probably had some sort of zeitgeist moment in 1984. Somehow not on this tape, but an even better illustration: Duran Duran, "flex-flex-flex-flex-flex!" But I still think it was the water, or maybe a collective glass of Alka Seltzer that gave people the hic-hic-hiccups.

Biggest rarity award on this tape goes to "Claudette." Robert Marlow was the, how you say, non de plume of one Robert Allen. I guess that makes sense: when you have two first names, get rid of the boring one and leave the other...well, just as boring one. Anyway, Bob was born in Basildon, which in the early 80s must have been an amazing place (like grungy Seattle in the 90s, I guess, except with good music), home as it was to eventual synthpop heroes like Alison Moyet, Vince Clark and Martin Gore. Bob was in a punk band, The Vandals, with Moyet, and then two separate groups with Clark, one of which also included Gore. Bob's records were in fact released on Reset, that label run by Clark and Eric Radcliffe, and produced by Clark. But the "records" were few: four electronic singles, and an album The Peter Pan Effect that was never released until 1999 (by Energy Rekords, which now maintains Robert Marlow's -- now a two-man band, and with its name shortened just to Marlow -- homepage, from which I gleaned most of the above info and where you can download several tracks).

Robert Marlow's songs were nice but not very distinctive sounding. They all have the plinky plonky synth sounds pioneered by Clark, so they sounded like Yazoo, or perhaps most of all like the Assembly's "Never never." Still, you gotta love a song that has the courage to condemn the "Third Reich elite" for conspiring to keep our lovers apart.

This tape has a couple of other nice synthpop numbers, by A Flock of Seagulls and Naked Eyes (by the way, what's the point of putting one word of your song title in parenthesis?). Neither song is neither band's best-known ("I ran"; "Always something there to remind me"). Hell, it might not even either band's second, or even third-best known moment ("Wishing [If I had a photograph of you]"; "Promises, promises," "Voices in my head"). But given how overplayed those better-known moments are, it's refreshing to hear this tape's selection. I never much liked "Master and servant," though. Then there's also Alphaville's "Big in Japan." I remember that my friends and I were mildly scandalized by the line, "Pay and I'll sleep by your side." Ooh, edgy. I guess we were pretending to be Queen Victoria that week, or something.

Posted at 11:45 PM ||

 
Don't make me get the wire hangers.

My wardrobe hates me. It kicks me when I'm down, hits below the belt, knees me in the crotch, sucker punches me when I'm already reeling from the grand piano on my head.

I'm "down" because, over the past few years, I've steadily gained...a few pounds. I'm not happy about it, and I would do anything to lose the extra weight, well, except -- to steal a joke from Steve Martin -- eat right and exercise. And of course, a big drawback of weight gain is outgrowing your clothes. Temporarily outgrowing them, that is -- like most people, I sensibly put these clothes aside because I'm sure it won't be long before I'll be able to fit into them again.

But what's weird is how I've currently outgrown only certain pairs of pants in selected colors. Obviously they hold meetings at night while I'm asleep, and, in revenge for years of having to hug my groin, schemes about how best to drive me crazy by drawing lots to decide which one color will remain wearable. The result: all my green pants are a little tight now, and I can just forget about the cream. No on the dark brown, and even the old reliable black trousers feel more like a corset.

All I have left, essentially, are grey pants. Sure, they are in about five different shades of grey, but still. Given that I, like most guys, mix-and-match, I'm being forced into overly predictable outfits. All those years striving for a good balance in the color of my wardrobe, all down the drain. I think today I'll wear my red shirt with the grey pants, and tomorrow, we can go with yellow and...grey. Being fat is bad enough, but being, literally, monotonously unfashionable is way worse.

Posted at 10:01 PM ||

 
I'll make like Nomi at the start of Showgirls, so don't fuck with me.

It's with great regret and disappointment that I have to announce that the scheduled visit by the Queen has been postponed. No reason given. All that painting, and for what? Oh, the humanity. I was even going to shave my legs and everything.

But maybe the postponement is a good thing, cause Her Majesty might have arrived to find our freshly whitewashed walls splattered with blood. What? I hear you ask? Blood? Yes, BLOOD! BLOOD I TELL YOU!!!!

On Friday at work I noticed that we had several policemen and security guards hanging out in our offices. I barely batted an eye, because we've had some petty theft in the past, and I assumed that it had just occurred again. It's like Looters Central here. Well, not this time. What did happen was a "domestic disturbance." One of our staff has been having trouble at home, and over a lunch with her no-good husband an argument developed. He followed her back to work, and threatened violence. Yikes. She's fine, but we now have to have security guards hanging out with us all day. Of course, most of these guys look as if they couldn't disarm a three-toed sloth, so I'll hang on to my leg-shaving razor in case shit goes down.

Posted at 4:05 PM ||

 
Getting gussied up like the cheap hookers we are.

How well I remember that all of Antigua turned out to see this Princess person, how every building that she would enter was repaired and painted so that it looked brand-new, how every beach she would sun herself on had to look as if no one had ever sunned there before (I wonder now what they did about the poor sea? I mean, can a sea be made to look brand-new?). -- Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place

Coming in to work this morning, I practically tripped and fell into a bucket of paint. A man was whitewashing the walls. Ah. We have a Very Important Person visiting us next week. If everything goes according to plan, he will bestow his regal and ministerial presence upon us. For 30 whole minutes. So of course the walls need to be painted, and then we will do penance for the fact that this is a space that real people live and work in. Flagellation at 12.

On the plus side, the paint fumes are getting me high. Wheee!

Posted at 1:30 PM ||

 
I hate you and your stupid assface. No, wait. No reason.

Irrational Hatred is a beautiful thing. You know what I'm talking about. There are some people in this life, celebrities especially, who you just hate for no good reason, and it feels great.

My list is long, and currently heading it is Miss Charlize Theron. I detest her. Just because. See? The great thing about Irrational Hatred is that you don't have to explain why you hate. By definition, you can't. In fact, you sort of have to explain how and why there is no rational reason for the hatred.

In the case of Charlize, I don't even remember when she crept her hateful way into my consciousness. Looking at her credits on imdb, I see that she had a small role in That Thing You Do!, which I liked but don't remember her in. Then I sort of watched The Devil's Advocate and The Cider House Rules, probably on some flights, so there wasn't even enough concentration involved for me to be rational in the hating.

Even if there is no rhyme or reason to the genesis of the hatred, the challenging thing is that you have to keep it irrational. The game is over otherwise. If I actually found a reason at some point to hate Charlize, then it would no longer be irrational. I could of course then hate her for turning my hatred of her from irrational to rational, but that would also be a rational reason, if you see what I'm saying. Irrationally hating can be hard work. (Although you have to not consciously feel as if it is, because then the subject of your Irrational Hatred is making you sweat, which could give you a rational reason to hate. You see how it's a minefield.)

There have been a couple of occasions in recent years when Charlize has come close to breaching my irrationality. The first happened in 2001, when she starred in the by all accounts horrendous Sweet November with, snort, Keanu Reeves. This was a remake of a 1968 movie that starred Sandy Dennis and Anthony Newley -- one of Leafhead's favorite movies, mostly because he has a soft spot for Sandy (yeah, I don't know either). For years I heard him carry on about what a good movie this was, so when it was finally reissued on video and DVD, he bought a copy and made me watch it. I was ready to. I wanted to love the 1968 version and discover the joys of Sandy. However, that would mean that my hatred of Charlize was about to turn from irrational to rational, because I could then claim to hate her for ruining an obscure but sacred flick and besmirching Sandy's good name. Unfortunately, or fortunately -- because I have thoroughly confused myself and don't know which -- I ended up snoozing through the original Sweet November, so I didn't acquire a good reason then to hate Charlize.

We are living in the second moment. These past few weeks, Charlize has of course been riding the wave of winning a fuckin' Oscar for Monster, and I went to see the film yesterday. I had to, because...well, you know. Killer lesbians. Also, Christina "Fivehead" Ricci is in the film, and I like her. But the viewing, I knew, was going to be a test. It could have gone several ways. There was a chance that Charlize would turn out to be bad, and the movie good. Then I would hate her for sucking in a good movie, which would make the hatred, yikes, rational. Or Charlize could have been good. I mean, I could actually have ended up liking Charlize. Then not only would the "irrational" part have vanished, but so would the whole "hatred" thing.

Instead, Charlize was bad: it was not so much a performance as it was a collection of mannerisms and tics. You can just about see her script notes: "bug out eyes; turn down corner of mouth; toss hair back; bug; bug; sniffle; turn down; toss; toss; bug." But the movie was just as awful: no narrative shape (watch her kill one john...then another...and one more), and even less compelling psychology (I had no real idea how I was supposed to feel towards Aileen Wuornos). Bad performance, bad movie: Miss Precious Little Best Actress didn't ruin a good thing.

So, I still have no good reason to hate Charlize Theron, but I still do. Irrational Hatred lives!

By the way, I did see a couple of movies last week: Mystic River and Irreversible. I would have blogged about, or at least mentioned them, but I was too busy, after that depressing doublebill, trying to slit my wrists. You understand.

Posted at 11:41 PM ||

 
My 80s mixtapes (4):
Suddenly I fancied myself a regular Richard Branson.

"Music! Volume 1"
A: 1. You're the inspiration, Chicago. 2. The lucky one, Laura Branigan. 3. What's love got to do with it? Tina Turner. 4. Closest thing to heaven, The Kane Gang. 5. State of shock, The Jacksons. 6. Ghostbusters, Ray Parker, Jr.. 7. Whatever I do (wherever I go), Hazell Dean. 8. Black station/white station, M+M.
B: 1. It's a hard life, Queen. 2. Love resurrection, Alison Moyet. 3. If this is it, Huey Lewis and the News. 4. You're the best thing, The Style Council. 5. Come back, The Mighty Wah! 6. Two tribes, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. 7. Seven seas, Echo and the Bunnymen. 8. Stuck on you, Trevor Walters.

Four tapes into my venture, and I started thinking I'm an institution. Perhaps tired of thinking up a new title for each mixtape, I introduce at this point the debut of a series title. And I settle on..."Music!" What may look like a meh title -- albeit one that Madonna would obviously rip off from me later, that bitch -- was actually an act of complete hubris, because it was really a little hommage to the "Now that's what I call music" series, which started in 1983. In fact, I even copied the typographic style of the word "music" from the third volume of the real series. I was going to give them a run for their money, dammit!

I may have taken my own injunction too seriously, because just as the real "Now that's what I etc Volume 1" started with crap (Phil Collins), so does my tape, with the worst Chicago song ever. Which is saying something. "Hard habit to break": complete bollocks, but still better. "Hard to say I'm sorry": almost good. "If you leave me now": even cool, especially after Lemon Jelly's sampling. But "You're the inspiration" has no redeeming feature whatsoever, gah. Just as awful on this tape is "Ghostbusters" (when do you think Ray Parker Jr. will show up on The Surreal Life, by the way?), and, proving that bad music doesn't only come from the USA, the treacly reggae stylings of "Stuck on you" (a cover of Lionel Richie, no less: how sickly is that?) and Queen's wretched "It's a hard life."

With those stinkers out of the way, this tape actually is pretty listenable today. We have some tracks that today are recognized as 80s classics: Alison Moyet, Style Council, Frankie, Echo. And then there are a couple of high energy numbers for the gay disco queen who was at this point just itching to burst forth, like, um, the alien out of John Hurt's stomach: Hazell Dean and Laura Branigan. (I'm sorry, I could never knock Laura: even though she's sometimes just a poor man's Pat Benatar, she made the melodramatic choons. Who among us did not shed a tear during that scene from Flashdance when Alex's friend skates her doomed routine to Branigan's "Gloria"? Who? The only way that scene could have been more effective is if they used "The lucky one," although the irony would have just killed me dead.)

But the real gems on this tape are the three rare songs that would otherwise have been lost to time. (After glancing at this tracklisting over the weekend, I went looking for digital versions of these songs, though I only succeeded with the first two.) I think of them as little 80s moments: each a perfect pop song (and minor hit), by a band I don't really care about otherwise and who, while not exactly flaming out immediately like a one-hit wonder, was never quite as good as the song it is here captured in.

First, there is the Mighty Wah!'s "Come back," a song I love for how nakedly imploring it seems (it's apparently John Peel's favorite Liverpool song, whatever that means). The Kane Gang's "Closest thing to heaven," a slice of British soul that doesn't sound too derivative, is as cool as "Come back" is urgent. And then perhaps the most obscure song, even of these three: "Black station/white station." "M+M" was, for seven years, the name of Martha and the Muffins. I never liked them that much in either incarnation -- not even their big hit "Echo beach" -- but "Black station/white station" is a catchy little ditty about racial segregation on radio. (Seriously.) And it has a shout-out to 1984! I love it whenever someone sings a year in a song.

I've saved the most embarrassing confession for last. You might have noticed that, when talking about the bad songs on this tape, I didn't mention "If this is it." This faux doo-wop number is not a bad...oh, fine. I had a teensy weensy crush on Huey Lewis when I was young. Shut up. I have no idea why, and god knows I grew out of it very quickly. Or at least by...now (proof: I didn't rush off to see Duets. Of course, maybe that's because it also starred Winsome Paltrow). I hadn't even heard the rumors of Huey's big dick (hello, googlers!) then. Having a crush on him for that reason would actually have been less embarrassing. It's not everyday that you can up your humiliation level by refusing to use size queendom as an excuse, so let's mark this moment.

Posted at 11:41 PM ||

 
Release.

A few days ago Miss Z. was talking shit. She was warmly reminiscing about a former teacher of hers, who "could not make a distinction between long and short vowels in the English language, which resulted in the following opening line at one of my oral exams: 'Good morning Miss Z., please take a look at this shit of paper.' And a shit of a paper it was -- I probably had no fuckin idea what the right answer was to the question on it." (Don't tell her I'm quoting her, by the way.)

People here have something like the opposite problem. "Shit" is not considered an especially shocking cuss word here, but people also have trouble with the length of the vowels. As a consequence, demure girls walk around yelling, "Shet!", which never ceases to amuse me.

And then we have this. The local paper today brings news of a theatah piece:

[Incriminating theater company's name removed]'s new play, Constant Constipation, draws parallels between bodily functions and the aftermath of Sept 11, 2001.

For all I know, this may be the greatest play ever written. But come on. A title like that is the equivalent of a "kick me" sign for any review headline writer ("This Play's Shit"? "A Waste of Time"? "Runs: Away from This Production"? "Not Worth the Toilet Paper It's Written On"? Hmm. Maybe it's harder than I thought). Also, as you can see, the newspaper here doesn't indicate titles in any typographic way. This will turn out to be a splendid policy later. But let's read on, shall we?

The hijacked planes and collapse of the World Trade Center in New York triggered a war against terrorism, which is still ongoing; economic instability and disruption of normality as many people know it.

[The] playwright-director...says this is akin to constipation, a disruption of normal bowel movements in the body.

Drawing from his own history of constipation and the confusion he sensed in the people around him after the terrorist attacks, he took three months -- between November and early February this year -- to write the play.

Okay, first of all, that last sentence ("he took three months to...") totally didn't end the way I was almost anticipating. Which is a relief. For me. Second: really? Do you really want to compare a terrorist attack ("akin"?) to your little biological backlog? Especially when it turns out that the story is ultimately about how...

[Two] characters start an anonymous SMS relationship after Sept 11 when the former sends her a message by mistake....Ultimately, the play explores if communication between people is more honest through SMS.

That, by the way, is SM-S. "Short Message Service." I know we're all disappointed. More so now that the whole 911 thing is just a backdrop for some silly love story. Excellent!

The Social Development Unit (SDU) is also supportive of [the director's] creative direction.

As one of the play's supporters, it is promoting Constant Constipation on its website and is planning a group outing to catch it.

I'm sorry. There are no words for that last sentence.

"Perhaps its objective is to tell people to let go of past relationships," [the director] says of the SDU, which organizes activities to bring singles together.

I'm certainly ready to flush this turd.

Posted at 11:41 PM ||

 
Diagnose this.

Looking back, it's quite surprising that I made it through my teenage years without an aneurysm. (Well, I assume I did.)

A few days ago I read that Freddy Garcia, the pitcher for the Seattle Mariners, had surgery to correct a problem he's had for the past two years. The problem being ruptured eardrums, which apparently befell him because he sneezed as his plane was in descent over Texas. Jeez. As freak accidents go, that's pretty...freaky.

What the story reminded me of is a bizarre tendency I had when I was younger. I can't, or maybe don't want to, remember how old I was, or how long it went on for. But for a certain period, I kept stifling my sneezes. I'm not talking about daintily achooing into a lace handkerchief, either. I would forcefully pinch my nose hard each and every time I needed to sneeze. Of course I would still sneeze, so "stifling" isn't even the right word -- it's more like I made my sneezes explode back into my head, the better, presumably, to give myself nosebleeds and popped blood vessels.

My parents were rightfully apoplectic about this phase I was going through, and tried to get me to stop, but I didn't for a long time. I honestly have no idea why I did it. Since it happened in private and public, it's not as if I had some misplaced sense of politeness and propriety. I don't believe I was ashamed about being human either. And while each pinched sneeze probably did produce the mother of all eyerolls, I had yet to appreciate what a vital postmodern gesture the latter would turn out to be. I think it was in "Fetishism" that Freud suggested that the nose is -- try not to wet yourself with surprise -- a displaced penis (there's some Teutonic pun about a "shine on the nose" that I could never follow), but I definitely don't want to think about what that means. Although I guess if you had a dick on your face -- "on," I said "on" -- you have bigger problems than the stifling of sneezes.

In other nose-related news, part 1: this morning I stood about four feet away from a dead rat for seven full minutes without knowing it. Oddly enough, it was only after I moved to another spot that I saw the carcass, and started to smell it. Maybe the repressed sneezing did do some damage after all.

In other nose-related news, part 2: over the weekend I re-watched Polyester, which happens to be a film shot in Odorama. (Coincidence? You decide. Yeah, it is. Or is it? No, it totally is.) They really ought to do that with more movies, although of course the stench from something like Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights would be unbearable.

Posted at 10:07 PM ||