My 80s mixtapes (11):
Memory tricks.

"Music! Volume 8"
A: 1. The boys of summer, Don Henley. 2. Baby come back to me (The morse code of love), Manhattan Transfer. 3. Thief of hearts, Melissa Manchester. 4. Hard to say it's over, Sheena Easton. 5. Foolish heart, Steve Perry. 6. Who's that girl, The Flying Pickets. 7. I can't hold back, Survivor. 8. San damiano (Heart and soul), Sal Solo.
B: 1. All I need, Jack Wagner. 2. Do what you do, Jermaine Jackson. 3. Tenderness, General Public. 4. Run to you, Bryan Adams. 5. Sussudio, Phil Collins. 6. Seven year bitch, Slade. 7. Valotte, Julian Lennon.

After I wrote about the tapes of extended versions, my old friend Esque emailed with some typically prescient comments. I thought I would, not so much respond directly to the email (heh), but use a couple of comments as launching pads for some ramblings. So there might be rambling. Have you heard -- the following might be rambly?

"They seem to me -- and I could very well be projecting here -- to be more about collecting songs than about giving oneself the opportunity to recreate certain aesthetic moments. I'm fascinated by the way in which in your narration of assembling the tapes, you relate to the song primarily through the act of recording it." -- Esque

Where these tapes are concerned, I was indeed a collector, even a fetishist. There is something about these tapes, as tapes, that intrigue me, and my initial reaction when I rediscovered them was to marvel at their status as objects. Specifically, and most immediately, I was struck by a picture of myself, twenty years ago, sitting in front of the stereo, recording, in a rather painstaking fashion, all these songs. My first post, therefore -- which I never thought did a good enough job of capturing that feeling -- was a very specific memory of how I ended up in that position in the first place...

"[D]id the act of taping bring your relation with the song to some sort of closure/completion? Did you listen to these tapes in subsequent years? Do the compilations have a history between the act of making the tape and the recent rediscovery of them?" -- Esque

...which is why the act of taping did feel triumphant in a way. There were songs that I had heard, liked, desired to "own," and thus waited for weeks to come onto the radio. Finally managing to tape clean versions of them almost made me feel as if I didn't even need to listen to them any longer. Closure, indeed. Not only were the compilation tapes objects, therefore, but sometimes the songs felt that way too.

But the tapes and songs didn't always stay as fetish objects. I did listen to the compilations after they were finished, and I think with each listen they resumed, or assumed, their statuses as "just" songs, and became less important as objects. In a weird way, listening to the music was a process of defetishization.

Having said that: although the act of recording the music thus constitutes a large part of my relation to them, there are other affects.

As I started writing about the tapes, I also thought of each as a snapshot of the 1980s. Maybe that isn't the right metaphor, though, because most of the time the tapes have helped me recognize certain things only in retrospect, rather than recreate a moment in time. (So, "snapshots" only in the Blow-Up sense: it's like I'm seeing things in the pictures that I hadn't before.)

So, for example, I only amusingly saw, through these compilations, twenty years later, how many songs in 1984 feature speech impediments. Or, on this tape, I look at the tracks and realize that we must have been in the early months of 1985, because the beginning of every year is usually when we get a bit of a lull and the boring songs come to the forefront (why else would I have taped Survivor, Jack "General Hospital" Wagner, Bryan Adams, Phil Collins, and worst of all, Slade's heinous "Seven year bitch," or even "Hard to say it's over," which is one of Sheena Easton's meh-est singles?). Here it's also funny to notice the minor but inexplicable interest in acapella music on the pop charts at that moment (Manhattan Transfer and The Flying Pickets). But these feel less like memories, and more like some sort of belated recognition. But perhaps all memories are just belated recognitions?

In addition to thinking of these tapes as collectively capturing that period when I was a home taper, and of the 80s in general, I did also expect some songs to trigger certain memories. They have, but it's also been odd confronting the way memory works.

There have been times when a song brought up, in a relatively straightforward manner, a very specific memory, like when Windjammer reminded me of that rich friend. But oftentimes the "memory" seems retroactive: when I commented on how the songs on the first tape almost seemed like a gay narrative, it's an example of again only seeing things in hindsight. (Call it behindsight.)

Sometimes, I am finding that my memories aren't as specific as I would like. I think a lot of that has to do with how these songs don't, or can't always end up having one memory attached to them. In the twenty years since they came into existence, they've had afterlives: the more well-known and popular songs, especially, have had lots of other, sometimes conflicting sensations attached to them. This makes me a little regretful.

I'm sure that's why I've been especially interested in the rarities on each tape, as if, in having less baggage, they more purely "represent" a moment in the 80s. They don't, of course, but they seem more untainted by time. (On this tape, that would be Sal Solo's "San Damiano," a song that I liked then because it was so different-sounding, being a kind of pop choral track. I didn't know then that it was basically a devotional hymn, and that Sal Solo, formerly the lead singer of Classix Nouveau, would turn out to be all about being Catholic now. And on top of all these complications, I had completely forgotten what the song sounded like until I played the tape.)

At other moments, the memories are a little unruly and inconvenient. On this tape, say, the utterly brilliant "Tenderness" weirdly reminds me of my college roommate (because he had the General Public CD, and I hadn't brought mine to college, so I used to play his copy), even though that's a 1988 memory.

Or how I'm sort of amused to see Melissa Manchester's "Thief of hearts." It's a song from fairly late in her career, and I have no real attachment to that song. I do have a kind of embarrassing memory of her "Don't cry out loud," though, which may or may not involve being eleven years old and believing that I was going to encounter the hugest setback I had ever met in my life -- not ending up top of my class at school -- and crying in my bed before managing to calm down by singing that goddamned song to myself. "Don't cry out loud" therefore always reminds me of what a drama queen cum huge pussy I was. (Especially because, ahem, I did end up at the top of my class anyway.)

But "Thief of hearts"? Not so much. No babies cried the day the circus came to town there.

Posted at 5:37 PM ||

 
Teething problems.

Say what you will about my coworkers -- and believe me, I do -- but they do take care of their teeth. After lunch today, the three of us who work on the same floor found ourselves next to each other in the bathroom, toothbrushes and toothpaste in hand. A (sea-)bonding experience! Well, it would have been if I feel anything akin to affection for them.

I guess the stars were aligned, because I normally don't brush my teeth in that work bathroom. We probably all have or have read stories about feeling too humiliated to do certain kinds of businesses at our workplaces. Without touching my shit...ting habits, I, on the other hand, do not enjoy brushing my teeth in any place that can even remotely be considered public. Usually I head for the quieter bathroom on the next floor up, but since we're at a lull period at work, I ventured into this bathroom with higher traffic today. Obviously, a mistake.

When I was in primary school -- i.e., between first to sixth grades -- we all had to brush our teeth en masse after recess. Hundreds of schoolchildren, united in this one mission. The way to conduct this exercise was to have all of us squat and do it next to the drains. Fetching. Maybe that left a scar.

Actually, the reason why I don't enjoy brushing my teeth in "public," more simply if banally, is that I find that people have tried to talk to me while I'm massaging my gums. Again, this is not quite as bad as being yakked at while you're on the john, but still. I'm a vigorous brusher, and work up a pretty good lather. Surely I shouldn't be trying to converse while looking as if I'm foaming at the mouth?

(This is also why it bothers me to watch TV shows where some wife will wander into her bedroom to talk to her husband while brushing her teeth, which for her is an apparently dry process. As far as I'm concerned, such scenes would be more realistic if she got abducted by aliens during her oral hygiene routine. Such scenes make me squirm. Drip drip drip.)

Since we're on the subject of teeth, I feel like telling you that it was very late in my life when I realized that not all my teeth are the same. One day I was bored and used my tongue to feel around in my mouth, and only then did it dawn on me that there were different varieties of teeth. Some with flat tops, others sharp! Molars, premolars, incisors, canines! Very. Late. In. My. Life. That's all I'm saying.

Posted at 10:13 PM ||

 
Reel wild child.

So, I've found the creakiest seat in the world. L19 in the Jade theater. I found its creakiness using my ass, which the seat didn't seem to enjoy. When I budged even the slightest inch, the cinema seat squealed like a Clay Aiken fan who's also a howler monkey. (That would be all of them.) The woman sitting in front of me didn't seem especially pleased, but, lady, I gotta switch positions every now and then.

I'm in the middle of the film festival, and watching movies almost every night. The festival has been running for about a week and a half now, and heading into the final four or five days. It's also going into its 17th year, which is quite impressive in a country where there are few traditions.

I actually remember going to what must have been the very first one (in 1987; somewhere along the way they skipped a year). There were much fewer films, and -- although nowadays the festival is still being held in four or five cinemas that are pleasant enough but hardly state-of-the-art -- a shittier venue then. I have a couple of specific but slightly random memories from that first event. One was that they flew in a few celebrities, who you could meet at, like, shopping malls for autograph sessions. Stretching the definition of that term, Griffin Dunne, here for a screening of After Hours, therefore signed my festival poster. Because I'm just that much of a starfucker. The other memory I have is of the festival having some sort of mini-Peter Weir retrospective. So I decided to watch his rarest film, the cinematic debut that was The Cars That Ate Paris. It was about cars that, well, ate people. And it was completely wretched. In keeping with the spirit of that film, after the movie some man made eyes at me and offered me a ride home. Good times, good times.

This festival has been a little underwhelming. In previous years I usually find a bunch of fair to good movies, but also a number of stellar offerings (last year, The Best of Times knocked my socks off). This year, everything has been only middling to poor. Two high-profile Oscar winners were fine, but ultimately a little disappointing: The Barbarian Invasions showed what it was like to be dying while surrounded by an Algonquin round table that was trying too hard, while The Fog of War was interesting but not, I thought, as good a documentary as Capturing the Friedmans. Nathalie X was very French: a married couple get all angsty about their marriage, but the movie also has a twist that you can see coming from six miles off. X-titled movies must be the new black, for I saw a second one: Fear X, a Danish thriller that felt very Lynchian in mood and tone.

More films: Reconstruction was pretty dreadful, existing mostly to break the news to us that films are artificial but no less powerful for that. It would be news if this was 1920, I suppose. Taipei 21 was just boring and bordered on being a parody of naturalistic Taiwanese films. If only it were. Rewind was not bad, but a little inconsequential. I did see a couple of movies with Peter Mullan that were quite good: the too-sporadically moving Kiss of Life, and Young Adam, which also starred Ewan McGregor. If you're wondering if this last film keeps up Ewan's, um, streak of appearing full frontally nekkid in practically all his films, the answer is yes, yes, oh yes!

I think, in the end, what I'll associate most with this year's event is a 3-second film snippet. The festival has been running the same two trailers, for their sponsors, before every single movie. One, for a TV station here that prides itself on showing some more non-commercial movies, basically splices together scenes from a bunch of recent arty movies. It features a little subtitled boy shrieking, "I'm ashamed to wear short pants!" So I've watched it about ten fucking times, and it's gone from irritating to being completely hysterical. I have no idea what movie it's from, but my money would be on it being some Iranian flick. They are full of little children experiencing some sort of seemingly-trivial-but-heavily-symbolic domestic, oftentimes satorial drama, no? "I've lost my shoes!"? "My socks have a run in them!"? "My scrunchie is the wrong color!"? Probably Iranian, Iranian, Iranian. God bless that child and his shame-inducing shorts.

Posted at 11:05 PM ||

 
Five highlights of the weekend.

1. Finding a place that makes a mojito, and a good one -- good ones -- at that.

2. Managing, at long last, to snag a full, clean version of Can 7's safari mix of Moloko's "Forever more," one of my favorite songs from last year.

3. Reading that, during WWII, soldiers called creamed chipped beef on toast "SOS," for "Shit On A Shingle," and thinking in embarassment about how I actually enjoy that delicacy.

4. Knowing that the Red Sox will win at least two of three games from the Yankees in the current series.

5. Watching a man drink his beer by sipping it through a straw and relishing the resulting feeling of superiority.

So there's really no reason to feel the Sunday night blues, is there?

Posted at 10:04 PM ||

 
My 80s mixtapes (extended interlude):
I've got twelve inches of pleasure for you, baby.

"12" Music and More Music! Volume 1"
A: 1. All cried out (ext version), Alison Moyet. 2. Freedom (long version), Wham! 3. The war song (ultimate dance mix), Culture Club. 4. Strut (dance mix), Sheena Easton. 5. Blue jean (ext dance mix), David Bowie.
B: 1. Big in Japan (ext remix), Alphaville. 2. Apollo 9 (orbit mix), Adam Ant. 3. No more lonely nights (playout version), Paul McCartney. 4. La cancio de guerra, Culture Club. 5. Together in electric dreams (ext verison), Phil Oakey and Giorgio Moroder. 6. The wild boys (wilder than wild mix), Duran Duran.

"12" Music and More Music! Volume 2"
A: 1. The riddle (ext version), Nik Kershaw. 2. Progress, Nik Kershaw. 3. The medal song (ext version), Culture Club. 4. Don't go down that street, Culture Club. 5. The power of love (ext version), Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
B: 1. Lay your hands on me (ext version), Thompson Twins. 2. Like a virgin (US dance mix), Madonna. 3. Do they know it's Christmas? (ext remix), Band Aid. 4. Feed the world, Band Aid. 5. How to be a zillionaire (Wall Street mix), ABC.

And now, for something complet -- well, a wee bit different.

So I've been documenting all these mixtapes of songs I've mostly taped off of dedication shows on radio. At this point in the series, I find two tapes that are obviously related to this venture, but what they contain are extended versions of songs. Their titles, after all, echo the ongoing collections: not just "Music!", but "12" Music!" And then "More Music!" You gotta admire me for my consistency, however boring it is.

I can't really remember for sure, but I doubt that these long versions were taped off the radio. In 1984 I had a group of fairly like-minded musical friends, and we used to borrow each others' vinyl 12" records. (Only "fairly," since one of us liked Windjammer. Actually, I believe that the favorite artists among the four or five of us in the group were: Spandau Ballet; Bananarama; Frankie Goes to Hollywood; Big Country; and, in my case, ABC and Thompson Twins.) From these loans (and my own records), I made at least two tapes of remixes and b-sides. We were sharing the wealth, y'all.

I won't go on in an extended fashion (ha!) about the songs themselves, especially since I've commented on the 7" versions when they first appeared on other tapes. I will say that my favorite track on here is probably Frankie's "The power of love," which starts with a long instrumental bit, with an orchestral arrangement so beautiful that even now I have to stop and listen when it comes on. Over the music there's a man who teaches us how to pray; it should be tacky, but I find it weirdly moving. And the whole thing starts with a mock sample or recreation of DJ Mike Read having his on-air conniption about the obscenity of "Relax." On some level it comes across like one of the band's cheeky stunts, and makes the 12" seem dated; on another, although it's a bit of a joke, it is also a brilliant and still relevant one, since, by having the record then go into a song about the power of love, the band makes clear the ridiculousness of Read's little sex panic.

I'm quite certain that I taped this extended version off of a pretty picture disc -- it had little hearts on the vinyl! -- of "The power of love" which my friend M. owned. I coveted it. About, oh, I don't know, ten years ago M. actually gave me the record when she was moving. Awww. And then, maybe two years ago, another friend bought me an otherwise-good Frankie compilation that sadly didn't include this version (as you can see at that link, an Amazon user comments on this very omission). My friends rock! Or at least sway rhythmically from side to side.

On the other hand, the extended version that's godawful is Band Aid's "Do they know it's Christmas?" The extension comes via an instrumental breakdown in the middle, during which the various stars take turns to either chirp season's greetings, or sanctimonously lecture us about world hunger. (This bit in isolation basically also makes up the b-side, "Feed the world.") Sometimes, incongruously, they would do both. It's like: open your gifts! But think of the starving chirrun! And some do so in rhyming couplets too. David Bowie: "It's Christmas 1984/And there are more starving folk on the planet than ever before." So get yo' ass off of the floor/Just stop the roasting of the smores/And give us yo' money, more more more!

Also: shut up, Bono.

So, yeah, as I said, I won't go on about individual tracks. What is interesting, overall, about these extended versions is that they're just that: extended. It's usually the 7" version with a longer intro, a bit of a breakdown, and so on.

Remixes are very different animals nowadays. On a Pet Shop Boys mailing list that I'm on, every now and then people will bitch and moan about how the latest release finds such-and-such a remixer fucking up such-and-such a song. (The people saying this about the latest mixes -- by Tomcraft, DJ Hell, and especially Scissor Sisters -- of "Flamboyant," by the way, are especially wrong.) Frankly, the debate wearies me. A remix can be good or not, but to decide which on the basis of a perceived "fidelity to the original" seems hopeless and outmoded to me. This is especially because nowadays remixes are tailored for club play. So of course they usually have a long intro consisting of nothing but pounding beats -- it's for the DJ to mix the previous song into. It's not the 14th century any more. (I would pay to hear the extended version of "A nun's tale," though.)

In college, I took a creative writing class with a man who is reasonably famous. I won't mention any names, but his may rhyme with Maul Lauster. Man, did I come to dislike the class. Mostly because we had to sit in his little office while he smoked cigars during our meetings. Without the window opened. (I had to laugh years later when he went on to write a movie about a smoke shop.)

But it was also because Maul taught me zilch. "These characters don't seem alive." "Oh. What should I do different?" "Enliven them." It was like American Creative Writing Idol. (Speaking of which: aw, I'll miss you and your huge drag queen expressions, Jennifer Hudson!)

One time he really liked a short story I wrote, and urged me to expand it into a novel. Shouldn't short stories and novels be different animals, I wondered? But Maul didn't seem at all interested in having any kind of class discussion on this point. I'm sure at that age I was an insufferable little snot, but, really, with that class I was so not getting my tuition's worth. Good thing I was there on someone else's dime. Wait, no: I'm in a way still paying off my college tuition. Good to remember, that.

Posted at 5:02 PM ||

 
Bridge and tunnel.

The big news here today of course is the collapse of a bridge, which seems to have been caused by tunneling work being done for a new subway station. Tragic.

As is the coverage on the local news stations. It's apparent that their reporters have little experience handling un-canned, live on-site reporting. I haven't seen and heard these many fumbled words and glassy-eyed stares into what they thought was a not-yet-on-air camera since Gigli. (Wow. That reference is so past its sell-by date that it's beginning to smell. I'm sorry.) Also, the stations don't quite know what kind of pictures to broadcast. They have stayed on a mostly still long shot of the collapsed bridge for hours while the anchors droned on in the background. It's like watching radio.

I like the headline that an online South African paper gave to the news item: "Highway to Hell for...Workers." Even without the sad collapse, the bridge is a highway to hell. It leads into the country.

Posted at 11:52 PM ||

 
Hold me closer, Tony.

There's a poster at work for an upcoming dance production. It's called "Viva La Danza."

Yes, I know that "danza" just means "dance." Still. I crack up each time I walk past the poster, because I picture an extravaganza of pirouettes and jazz hands, devoted to ensuring the immortality of Mr. Micelli, in the form of a fetching pas de deux performed by Alyssa Milano and Danny Pintauro (oh, you know he so would don those tights).

Posted at 5:48 PM ||

 
Does. Not. Compute.

Ooh, drama at work. I stick my head in the office of the woman who does IT and web stuff, and she's on the phone. And crying her eyes out, pretty vigorously.

Stupidly, I say, "Is something wrong?" Then, immediately: "Well, obviously something is wrong. Anything you want to talk about?" Wow. Even more stupid.

She puts down the phone and whimpers: "I (sniff) won't be working here much (sniff) longer. I...Well, I guess (sniff) I shouldn't talk to you about it." A little too quickly I concur, because I have a heart of stone and very little interest in hearing about her problems.

Not to mention that I'm thinking: well, you have been pretty incompetent since you started four or five months ago.

Also, I'm wondering: is it bad form to ask her to do something at this tragic moment?

In other work news, the woman who empties my trash has a son, and he's now temping at my workplace after recently graduating from college. He's...kind of cute. Though there's no real reason for me to, I feel like a right perv for thinking that. And though I normally dislike the word, a real "disconnect" about this fact.

Posted at 5:19 PM ||

 
More things to make me look like a fashion Nazi.

Surely you didn't think I was done complaining about the way men here dress, did you? With the end of the Fashion Festival over the weekend -- you'll have to imagine the disconsolate weeping on my part yourself -- it behooves me to mark that occasion with more bitching. It's the only kind of commemoration I know. (Note to you: don't ask me to speak at your funeral.)

Last time I moaned about pleats, and then about the way men sometimes got their belt direction wrong. Which, apparently, then sent me into some sort of heart-broken revelry. Through all that, I didn't even mention what I found most galling: the way men oftentimes wear belts that are way too long for them. You can tell because the belt wraps around them and reaches all the way to the back. Dangling, like a leash waiting for you to tug on. Do these people know that belts comes in sizes? Do they think their waists will at some point balloon up twelve sizes? Do they know that it's not like tying string around a brown paper package, where you go round and round for security? Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

I once complained about this to Sprockets, who, in her infinite wisdom, told me that there was actually a reason for this. Many of the men I found guilty of this fashion crime were from China, where goods were standard issue, and came in one size. (Here we have the real evils of communism.) Damn. A good and insane rant deflated by reason. Of course, one assumes that they have scissors in China, so surely a little snip would have saved them from looking as if they had extra appendages.

But here's another "fashion" thing I don't understand, and again it might be cultural: sandals...with socks. What's that all about? [/Seinfeld voice.] I myself have never liked sandals worn with pants, but can understand why people wear them, especially in the tropics. But sandals with socks are just all sorts of wrong. Though I will need more observation and documentation to confirm this, it seems to me that the sandals-with-socks phenomenon occurs at a certain point of a certain kind of man's stay in Zingerbore. That moment, I sometimes think, is perhaps the equivalent of Kurtz crawling away on all fours while Marlow, slightly uncomprehending, gives chase.

Posted at 12:53 PM ||

 
Sleep tight.

I'm a long suffering Red Sox fan. This morning I woke up at 8 a.m. to watch the live telecast of the Sox-MFYankees game. 8! A.m.!! On a Saturday morning!!! All Sox fans have personal battles and agonies, and that was mine. My Waterloo. My Altamont. My Everest, except without the "rest."

The stupid sports cable station isn't big on showing baseball games, probably because the sport has approximately five fans in this part of the world. Even when they do broadcast games, they never do it this early in the season. But this was the first time the Sox and the Yankees are playing this season -- only 18 more times to go! -- and the rivalry between the two teams are hyped up to the nines this year, thanks to the bitter events of October 2003 that I still can't bring myself to talk about (not least because none of you would be even vaguely interested). And there's no better marketing hook for the media than a good ol' knockdown dragout fight. One which the Sox won today. Suck it, Yanks.

Anyway, when I said that I "woke up" early to watch the live telecast, what I meant was that my alarm went off, I smashed it, and then dragged myself, two pillows in hand, from my bed to the couch, and plopped right back down. From that vantage point, I could basically go right back to dozing, only occasionally opening one eye when something good was about to happen on the basepaths. ("Basepaths" are...oh, never mind.)

I've been loving that vantage point a lot recently, and not just when there's a TV program on. For some reason, I've had trouble sleeping in my bed. Some nights would find me very restless; I would suddenly wake up in my bed feeling uneasy and a little freaked, and been filled with an overpowering conviction that I would be more comfy sleeping on the couch. So I get up and move in the middle of the night, and indeed manage to fall back to sleep that way. That made more sense a few months ago, when work was heinous, but now that the worse is over -- only two or three more unpleasant tasks to finish -- it's odd that I still have such nights (though maybe I just need more time for the "relaxed" period to kick in: it was only Tuesday that marked the end of a stress cycle).

I don't know why the couch has come to have that slightly reassuring effect on me. I mean, I have a nice big bed, against which the narrower and shorter couch shouldn't compare. But I suspect that may be precisely what the couch has going for it. It's a bit more snug. This is especially because the seat cushions are slightly angled upwards, so if I'm lying with my back against the back cushions, it's as if I've rolled downhill and am nestled in a little crevice. Nicely tucked in. Um, perhaps that's comforting?

(I believe that Murray used to enjoy squeezing himself into an impossibly tight corner when he went to bed. Another point of commonality between me and a dog?)

Of course, what that crevice is, is unclear. Either I am having fantasies of being back in the womb, or I need to pretend that someone -- someone that three big, soft, puffy cushions are a good simulacrum of -- is sharing the bed with me. Both options, I'm happy to point out, are equally pathetic.

Posted at 4:18 PM ||

 
My 80s mixtapes (10):
And a happy new year to all!

"Music! Volume 7"
A: 1. Forever young, Alphaville. 2. Sea of love, The Honeydrippers. 3. We belong, Pat Benatar. 4. Hello again, The Cars. 5. We are the young, Dan Hartman. 6. Everything she wants, Wham! 7. One night in Bangkok (extended version), Murray Head.
B: 1. We all stand together, Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus. 2. Last Christmas, Wham! 3. Thank God it's Christmas, Queen. 4. I would die 4 u, Prince. 5. I want to know what love is, Foreigner. 6. The wild life, Bananarama. 7. It ain't enough, Corey Hart.

It's quite amazing that ten tapes in, and we're still in 1984. I was prolific then -- prolific at depressing the record button on my stereo, that is -- but I believe the end of that year looms. Because I'm a genius, I would guess that this tape was made around December 1984.

That would explain the Christmas songs on it, don't you think? There's Wham!'s "Last Christmas," which is one of the few Christmas songs written in the last 20 years that's quite rightly considered a classic. There's Queen's "Thank God it's Christmas," which is, um, not (shouldn't Freddie be thanking Hallmark anyway?). And there's also "We all stand together," which, while not explicitly a Yuletide number, is one of those comedy/novelty records that gets unleashed during the holiday season in the UK. If you've never heard this, you shouldn't. It's a bunch of frogs croaking, loud enough to drown out Sir McCartney. (Serendipitiously enough, the track has sort of been in the news recently.) All were good clues that helped me in my deduction.

Although listening to all the jingling bells and ribetting amphibians is a little difficult in April (and the weather has been sweltering here recently), this tape is for the most part quite a good one. It's still fun listening to the lighter-waving "Forever young," the weird doo-wop retro-ness of "Sea of love," the chicks-in-prison soundtrack music that is "We belong," and what I thought was Prince's best song up to that point (the last two both have that shimmering synth backing that I like). But speaking of croaking sounds, let's talk about Bananarama. I kid! I love the 'Nans! They were the best post-60s girlpop band ever! Keren, the sexy one! Siobhan, the shirty one! Sarah, the one with the horseface! And then, later, um, Jacqui, the Shelley Hack of the group. They were great!

On this tape they're even represented by a rarity of a song. I remember how my friend PC, who was a huge fan of the girls, spent a few weeks frantically trying to lay his grubby hands on the track, which was done for a poor man's John Hughes of a movie. Hurriedly recorded and released as an American single, the track had an effect that can best described as "squat." (The song has since made it to a CD compilation, though.) For all that haste, the track is not bad: for once the Jolley and Swain overproduction serves a function (giving the track its hook). My favorite 'Nans obscure song, however, is "Ghost," a sublime ballad that was originally the b-side of the "Do not disturb" single, and since collected on a compilation called Bunch of Hits. It's "haunting"! Etc..

One of the things about the 'Nans I could never wrap my mind around is how Keren upped and married (I don't remember if this is legally or not) Andrew Ridgeley. What a meeting of 80s mid-level talent! I believe they first met on this very tape.

Wham! are represented here not just by "Last Christmas," but also by that single's double a-side, "Everything she wants" (RIP; I miss the whole concept of singles having a-sides and b-sides and double a-sides and sides of fries). I think this has always been George Michael's favorite Wham! song. Not hard to understand why: it's the most "grown-up" song they did, and George, even when prancing around in Daisy Dukes with a shuttlecock stuffed down the front (scroll down to "Badminton, Anyone?"), was always about seriousness. It's interesting how often treacherous women appear in George's lyrics, by the way -- perhaps this is where Ricky Martin gets that?

I also get a kick from hearing, once again, "One night in Bangkok" (despite how it's been a lot overplayed in the years since). The version here is extended at that, although this just means that there's an instrumental breakdown in the middle, into which they've spliced snippets of other songs from the musical (most recognizably, a bit of "Anthem"). I probably didn't know these other songs then. I first encountered the Murray Head song as a single; while I was aware that it came from Chess, I had no real desire to check out that source. It was only after my friend M. forced me to listen to her tape of the UK cast recording that I got turned on to this Tim Rice-ABBA creation. It's now one of my favorite musicals ever. Okay, since I'm not a huge musical fan, that remark doesn't mean that much, but it's really very good. To this day I still sometimes assume a Russian-inflected singing voice and roarrr out the lines, "Prrrrostituting themselves, chasing a sppppurious starlight, trrrrinkets in airports sufficient to lead them astrrrray!" (That reference made sense to, like, zero of you. Sorry, but trust me, it's funny. Make me do that impression for you in person sometime.)

Finally, I promised before that I would say something about Corey Hart. I'm sure you've been on the edge of your seats. I'm afraid that the confession is of the embarrassing "I used to think he was kind of hot" variety, so maybe it's best that we skip over that after all, eh?

Posted at 8:43 PM ||

 
He's always depended on the kindness of strangers. And other suckers.

Over the weekend I had dinner with an ex-roommate of mine, Mr. Ding-A-Ling, who was passing through town. He's made a previous appearance in these pages: he's the man who's now a life coach. Yes. At dinner I actually steered clear, for the most part, of asking Ding about his "business," and other matters that I find dubious. Because handling utensils doesn't really leave me with a free hand to place on my eyeballs to stop them from rolling back in my head.

I've known Ding for over ten years, and roomed with him for one. He means well, and, in some ways, he remains an interesting person to me. But over the years, he has just gotten more and more filled with...what's the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah, here it is: "bullshit."

Ding is the kind of person who might: go to a radical faerie meeting; enjoy beating drums in jungles with other naked gay men; have once gone to a massage gathering and thoroughly embarrassed the guy he was with because, anytime someone laid hands on him, he insisted on sighing really, really loudly and exaggeratedly; performed a ritual to change his name that may or may not have involved blood, a jade dildo, a virgin aardvark, and the drinking of ashes dissolved in water; and then wrote a serious essay about said ritual. I'm speaking hypothetically, of course. (Snort.)

Ding also has a tendency to use people. When we moved out of the apartment we shared, for instance, he "acccidentally" left behind some things. Since he moved before I did, it was a good thing that he remembered in time -- i.e., before I moved out of the flat -- to call me about the things. Thank god! He was moving cross-country, while I was just moving a few streets over. I guess, to him, that meant that I wouldn't mind keeping and storing some things for him. For a year or so. And I probably wouldn't have, although it would have been nice if he had asked rather than assumed.

Maybe I should have been heartless, and simply thrown away the stuff that Ding absent-mindedly left behind. Well, that wasn't easy to do with skis. Cross-country, in case you were wondering.

A few months later I got a call from a mutual friend of ours, who I'll call Rolf because he looked like the Nazi telegraph boy from The Sound of Music. (He was a sweetheart, though, and as far as I could tell, had no genocidal tendencies.) Rolf was going out West to visit Ding, who of course asked him if he would be so kind to bring the skis along. And why not? Skis are easy things to lug on and off planes, and Rolf, who was the kind of person who seldom said no, was just the person to ask.

I mean, all power to Ding. (Insert some sort of pagan power dance here.) That's the kind of person he is, and that's that. But that's also why I find him endlessly amusing and just a little mockable.

Posted at 11:04 PM ||

 
Take cover.

This is for me the most memorable album cover thus far this year. I haven't made up my mind on whether I actually like it, though.

On the one hand, it's an arresting visual metaphor for how music -- especially dance music -- is like a drug, and, I guess, your turntablist as your pusher. (Although, if we also believe that God is a DJ, then, dude, he's so peddling.)

On the other hand: hello, I'm squeamish. I don't need to think about a stylus in my vein. Thanks.

By the way, the album -- Junior Jack's Trust It -- is pretty good. I never expect full-length dance albums to be much cop (because they're usually not), so maybe the bar is low. And there are indeed several filler tracks on this. But the stomping singles are there, and the album is reasonably cohesive and yet varied. It helps that Junior Jack does cheesy filtered disco ("Stupidisco" [which again samples the Pointer Sister's "Dare me"]; "Da hype"; "Luv 2 u" [sampling "Feels like makin' love"]; and a song that has surprisingly been left off the album, "My feeling") alongside tougher, more sinister techny tracks ("Thrill me," and, um, others -- you can tell which I like better). Overall, not bad. Better than a needle in the eye, at any rate.

Meanwhile, here are some bad album covers. I used to have hair like Mama McKeithen. Just yesterday, in fact.

Posted at 12:22 PM ||

 
Fashion roadkill.

I'm nothing if not topical, so it would be remiss of me not to mark with a post -- nay, with a few posts -- the grand occasion that is Fashion Festival, taking place as we speak. When you think "high fashion," you think of, well, New York-Paris-London-Milan, so...nevermind. There's still a place for us on the catwalk! It's a big stage! Erm, actually, no, a catwalk is usually just a narrow strip. Yeah. Nevermind some more.

While I'm no fashion doyenne, I do have a certain number of fashion pet peeves.

Luckily, my workplace provides numerous opportunities to indulge them. There are of course a few folks who are utterly hopeless at dressing themselves, but it's the people who are always just a little off who are even more fun to contemplate. Aurora and Leo, sometime-readers of this blog who also used to work with its author, have long been fascinated by a colleague's (their former, my current) lonely battle to keep pleated pants in vogue. Logically enough, they've christened him The Pleat. He's not a terrible dresser and certainly not completely tragic, but billowy pleated pants do him no favors.

But as far as I'm concerned, he's got other problems. I'm usually a little more distracted by the way he wears his belt. A small matter, maybe, but The Pleat is one of many men who fasten their belts left over right. Which I believe is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.

Years ago I had this debate with a man who I was dating at that time. He had many flaws, but enjoying shopping at Banana Republic was not, I guess, one of them. One day I was with him when he was trying on a belt. "You're buckling it wrong," I said. "The end of the belt should end up on your left." He looked at me as if I had socked him in the gut; apparently he had done it this way all his life. "You're totally making this rule up," he said. "That's fine. Don't believe me," I shrugged. "But, you know, that's how girls wear their belts. I think there's even some historical reason for the difference."

(I didn't really know. I was just yanking his chain, so to speak.)

He was a little less certain now. "What if I were left-handed?" he countered. "Well, you're not," I said. "But you're certainly behaving like a left-handed girlie girl."

When I saw him again the next day, Beltboy was all accusatory. "I spent," he lamented, "the entire subway ride home yesterday looking at men's crotches." "Well, what's new?" "And you do seem to be right." He hadn't learned, back then, that that should go without saying.

For weeks after, Beltboy claimed that he couldn't get out of the habit of watching men's nether regions to see if they were wearing their belts correctly.

Weeks later was also when I could finally produce a smoking gun, to dispel any last doubts he might have still secretly harbored about how right I was. This time we were in another store -- if you think that we spent our entire doomed relationship shopping, you would be a little wrong -- and they had belts with their maker's names engraved on the buckle. As I pointed out, the "Calvin Klein," or "Donna Karan," or whatever name it was, would only be legible and right-side up on the buckle if you wore the belt the way I indicated, right over left. QED.

To (1) commemorate Fashion Festival; (2) eulogize the Belt Dust-Up from circa 2000; (3) explain better in a diagram what I probably did not do very well in words above; and, (4) as a public service, demonstrate the correct way to wear a man's belt, I hereby present you with the illustration for this post.

Posted at 7:17 PM ||

 
My 80s mixtapes (9):
Papa's got a brand new mixed bag.

"Music! Volume 6"
A: 1. Body rock, Maria Vidal. 2. Too late for goodbyes, Julian Lennon. 3. The wild boys, Duran Duran. 4. Desert moon, Dennis DeYoung. 5. How to be a millionaire, ABC. 6. Louise, Human League. 7. The riddle, Nik Kershaw.
B: 1. Love's great adventure, Ultravox. 2. All join hands, Slade. 3. I won't run away, Alvin Stardust. 4. Shooting from the heart, Cliff Richard. 5. Sexcrime (1984), Eurythmics. 6. Listen to your father, Feargal Sharkey. 7. Do the conga, Black Lace. 8. Skin deep, The Stranglers.

This is a very mixed bag. The highs are high, and the lows are low. (That's all I got by way of a theme this week. Yeaaah. Hey, I'm not a robot.)

The funniest stretch of this tape to me comes on side B, where we get Slade, Alvin Stardust, and Cliff Richard. (That's "funny ha-"...actually, that's "funny painful.") It's a triple helping of geezer rock! Actually, it may be worse than geezer rock: at least the after-their-time, mostly-American rockers that Jim Derogatis slapped with that label are trying to sound "now," even if their ideas of "now" are often dated. Slade, Alvin, and Cliff, in contrast, seem to be striving to be retro and dated, from the 50s rockabilly "stylings" of Alvin and the surf-rock of Cliff, to Slade's vaguely 70s sound. (The other act -- not on this compilation, but on another -- who, inexplicably popular back in 1984, would fit into this group is Shakin' Stevens.) Although I had forgotten all three songs till I unearthed this tape, Alvin's track is quite catchy, though not a patch on the dreamy "I feel like Buddy Holly." But its lyric, about not leaving your knocked-up girlfriend in the lurch ("I won't run away, the baby's mine too!"), is a little squicky and just so...responsible. When even Michael Jackson is more "dangerous" than you, you have very little "edge."

Feargal Sharkey just escapes being in the geezer rock category. His case isn't helped by his close proximity -- protected only by the cordon sanitaire that is the Eurythmics -- to Slade-Alvin-Cliff, and definitely not helped by that song title. "Listen to your father"? Eh. Not exactly the most rock and roll sentiment. ("Yeah, Feargal, shut up." -- Madonna.) But when Feargal released this, he was still enjoying the goodwill engendered by his guest vocals on The Assembly's synthpop classic, "Never never," so I'll absolve him from being a part of geezer rock for now.

But then again, if we push through the pain, we do have some incredible pop moments on this tape. ABC makes an appearance with "How to be a millionaire." I'm a little surprised to see this, because ABC was my favorite group in the 80s, and I bought everything they released. To this day I still have all my ABC 12"s and double-7"s-in-gatefold-sleeves. I didn't think I thus needed to tape anything of theirs, but maybe hearing "Millionaire" on the radio was just too good to pass up. How to be a Zillionaire is actually my favorite ABC album. Perhaps a surprising choice, given how widely The Lexicon of Love is acknowledged as their -- natch, as the era's -- masterpiece. But Zillionaire is just brilliant: aside from the pure pop pleasures afforded by "Be near me," there are the unsentimental-yet-devastating ballads ("Ocean blue" and "Between you and me"), and the before-its-time hip-hoppy feel of tracks like "Tower of London" and "15 storey halo." ABC: they ruled small planets!

The other great pop moment comes via The Human League's "Louise." Another great story song from the League, and one which the group have talked about as being a kind of sequel to "Don't you want me." That link takes you to a League site that talks about the song in fascinating detail, so, really, the one thing I want to add is a note on the part of the song that especially kills me. The spoken bit in the middle goes: "It's not always true that time heals all wounds / There are wounds that you don’t want to heal / The memories of something really good / Something truly real, that you never found again." It's not very often that a pop lyric expresses something that isn't too much of a cliché, that in fact overturns clichés. But here, in pointing out how we sometimes want to hang on to pain and grief because they're reminders of how we once lived so passionately, "Louise" approaches such a transcendent moment.

What else to say about this tape? I quite like Ultravox's "Love's great adventure." "Body rock" is past its sell-by date, but Maria Vidal has had an interesting career. Black Lace still sucks, although they provide more evidence of the stutter trend. As does the Eurythmics: sex-cr-cr-cr-cr-ime! (But we really don't need any more proof, do we?) Nik Kershaw caused a ruckus by claiming that his song actually was a riddle (my friend was convinced that the answer was "a vinyl record," because it "goes around and around" and, um, has a hole in it, even if that hole isn't "by a river"), before admitting years later that it was just a nonsensical lyric. Speaking of which, hello, Duran Duran!

Posted at 11:16 PM ||

 
So long, and thanks for all the fish.

Coming home late one night, I rounded the corner to my apartment, and severely startled a neighborhood cat. Skittish Kittish was on high alert and very nervous: my sudden footfall totally freaked him out, and he bolted, practically running over me in the process.

In the split second before he did, he had a really guilty look on his face. I knew that look. Back when I was the adopted daddy of Fox, the adorable floppy-eared cat, I came upon him in the backyard while he was...busy. He had had his back to me, and jumpily turned around when I approached. I wondered why he looked so busted, and then noticed the feathers all around. And something sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Nuff said. I took my leave politely and left him to his own devices. Hey, I wouldn't want anyone coming upon me as I demolished the last of an entire cheesecake, either.

So the look on Skittish Kittish's face was familiar, although in this instance, I believe the plan had not been executed yet. Maybe I arrived just in time. The target of the plan? Fish.

My next-door neighbor and I share a common corridor. Apparently, he considers, more than I do, his portion of the corridor as really an organic extension of his apartment. So, logically, he has fish there. A number of them live in a small tank; several others live individually in jars and bottles (I think they're fighting fish). All of these habitats sit on a "Ernest & Julio Gallo" trolley. I can't even begin to explain that. It's like a whole little ecosystem, right outside my door. Not to mention a huge school of temptation for the neighborhood cats.

This week, however, the fish are gone. No, I don't think the cat got them, unless Skittish Kittish has opposable thumbs. I mean, all the tanks and bottles and jars are gone. I guess my neighbor took apart the entire aquarium set-up, and the corner where the fish once lived is now home instead to five slightly forlorn looking plants. I don't know why this happened. I'll ask him when I next see him (casually; I'll try to keep the pain out of my voice). I even wondered for a second if he was moving out, but there are no other signs of that. I guess he simply moved the fish into his apartment proper. Well, I hope he did. I would hate to think there was a massive flushing.

For those people who know me in real life and who have even visited me, you will however be happy to know that the neighbor's underwear -- including those trippy boxers with the Chinese calligraphy on it -- is still very much present. Let's hope, for everybody's sake, no cat ever gets that.

In other news, someone got here by googling "cornhole faggot" (surprisingly, only four results -- the Internet needs to be filthier, if you ask me). I hope whoever it was was looking for info on the Scissor Sisters song, but you never know.

Posted at 9:55 PM ||

 
Paperback rider.

Hello. I'm back after what was a hellish week. A hellish week, and a weekend devoted to the getting over of said hellish week, that is. I'm not saying that the "getting over" bit involved copious amounts of alcohol, but it may have.

Work has indeed been a little rough the past few months, but over the weekend I bought a book, and it gave me hope. This has very little to do with the content of the book itself. I didn't go out and buy some inspirational crap. I'm not that smurfy.

The book I got was Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. I've been meaning to read this for a while -- I even pointed it out to Arcite last summer, for his research -- and now it's out in paperback. It's intriguing, though maybe it'll turn out to be bad, and/or a terrible representation of Asperger's. But that's fine. As I said, my satisfaction about my purchase has little to do with the book's content.

No. I'm thankfully at the end of a work cycle, so I'm hoping to travel quite a bit over May/June. Buying Haddon's book was great, because I could instantly decide that it was going to be my Designated Airplane Book.

The Designated Airplane Book is a tricky proposition. First, let's be frank: on planes I'm mostly a magazine person. Despite my best intentions -- "yes, a 20-hour transatlantic flight does seem like the best time to tackle Finnegan's Wake!" -- I frequently end up stocking up on disposable mags right before I get on the plane anyway. This is especially true the minute I hit an American airport, where I grab EWs, New Yorkers, and Vanity Fairs like nobody's business. Even the inflight magazines become inordinately fascinating. A 30-page article about 80-year-old stonecarvers who moonlight as sheep shearers in the masonry off-season? Gripping! So the book -- or books, if I'm an especially huge fool -- I lug on board can end up unread.

Still, you have to bring something, right? Maybe the crossword in the inflight magazine will have already been completed, or, who knows, the Vanity Fair will just happen to be one of those "special issues" devoted to, say, the plight of accountants in Hollywood. Plus, a book on a flight is an accessory. I look more interesting and approachable with the right book. (Also, I suspect that I get more peanuts.) And god knows, given how much a long flight fucks with my system, I need help to not look too much like seven miles of bad road.

So, the requirement is: bring a book on board, but one that you may possibly not even crack the spine of. It should thus be reasonably light: both weight-wise, and in terms of tone. Not too obscure: not only will I actually not read Joyce, but I may not want to appear like someone who might read Joyce. With the artificial air pressure, dumb = sexy.

It's no wonder that the DAB is not always easy to find. Curious Incident seems perfect. It's a good old paperback that can fit in a pocket. It's a little mainstream, and a little quirky. It says: "My reader doesn't stoop to Grisham, but he also is not too pretentious; if you would like to chat with him on this long flight, go right ahead, especially if you are a handsome man, because my reader is not too intimidating."

Currently I'm reading Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake. It's good, and I've been eager to read it since I encountered the first few chapters in a New Yorker. But even the paperback version is a little too bulky to risk taking on a flight, especially if I don't actually, you know, read it. I'm also about to finish Pulp Friction, an anthology of gay male pulp novels. A good read, but not the kind of thing you want to be purusing in public. The seatbelts on planes can be pretty constricting, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Neither book would have been a good candidate for plane reading, so I'm glad Curious Incident is here. One problem is that I'm still almost two months from embarking on my trip, so I'll have to resist the Haddon book till then. But that's okay -- I'll finish the Lahiri in the meantime, and I can always just watch more brain-rotting reality TV till then.

Conquering the difficulties of finding a good DAB aside, I was cheered by buying the Haddon because, most importantly, it makes my summer plans seem concrete. They aren't. I haven't blocked out dates, planned an itinerary, booked tickets, made reservations, or taken leave. But I have my airplane book, and that helps me visualize actually getting out of here for a few months. At this point, that's all that matters.

Posted at 4:01 PM ||

 
No joke.

No, really.

Posted at 11:57 PM ||