Came across this while vainly searching for Trystero among the virtual ruins of the Google waste land:
"[Thomas] Pynchon supplied the liner notes to Spiked! The Music of Spike Jones. In his notes, he writes of Spike's unique blend of music as being 'like good cowbell solos, few and far between.'"
Spike Jones was the "Weird" Al Yankovic of his time, a novelty songster supreme, not to be confused with director Spike Jonze.
Thomas Pynchon writes dense, seemingly complicated books with simple messages at their core. He is a recluse, and I ascribe the attributes of 'pataphysics to him and his work.
"More Cowbell" is a catch-phrase nowadays, thanks to a hilarious sketch on Saturday Night Live, featuring guest Chrisopther Walken as the producer for the underrated rock band Blue Oyster Cult. Will Ferrell plays "Gene Frenkle", who plays the famous cowbell on "Don't Fear The Reaper".
I love this sketch because, as a fan of BOC, I know that there is no such person as Gene Frenkle. He exists in the mind of an SNL writer.
*/*
In an unrelated anecdote, I transferred an old song of mine from the 4-track cassette player to my computer last Sunday night. There was a cowbell section in the middle of one of the parts, one that I felt somewhat embarrassed by... only because the cowbell was TOO LOUD in the mix.
I reversed the section (using my Wavelab plug-ins) and came up with some weird sonic texture, but now that I've read that Pynchon quote I'm going to restore the cowbell section. After all, I wrote the fucking song ten years ago, and if anyone accuses me of jumping on the cowbell bandwagon I'll kick them in the coccyx.
*/*
I own a copy of a book that I discovered through an anthology entitled Writers In Revolt, compiled by Terry Southern, Richard Seaver and Alexander Trocchi.
This book is called The Recognitions, by William Gaddis.
Years later, I found the book at a yard sale, for one dollar. I bought it and read it. I can't say I fully understand it, but thanks to that book I was later able to tackle Ulysses and other dense masterpieces with some relative ease, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest notwithstanding.
One interesting thing about Gaddis-- like Pynchon, he was a recluse. No one ever took a photo of him, I suppose. This led many to believe that Gaddis, whose literary debut preceded Pynchon's by a considerable amount of time, was actually Pynchon writing pseudonymously.
I'd never read Pynchon before Gaddis, so when I finally read The Crying of Lot 49, I was intrigued by identity games going on.
Seems that the notion of Pynchon and Gaddis being one and the same was put forth by an obscure poet named Thomas Hawkins. Hawkins was a fan of Gaddis' The Recognitions, and so when he came across an indie San Francisco publication called newspaper, published by one "Jack Green", Hawkins couldn't help but notice the stylistic similarities between Gaddis and Green.
At the time, Hawkins was an aspiring writer who never was fully accepted by the SF Beat poets like Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Working as a postal worker to make ends meet, Hawkins suddenly became obsessed with finding out about Jack Green and William Gaddis.
Hawkins sent letters to Green loaded with traps and snares, but Green never admitted any complicity with Gaddis. And when Thomas Pynchon published his first novel in 1963, Hawkins took notice and began to actively promote the idea that Gaddis and Pynchon were the same person.
Add to all of this a strange sidenote: the tongue-in-cheek letters of one "Wanda Tinasky" were being published in Mendicino County and later in an Anderson Valley newspaper on a regular basis. No one knew who Wanda Tinasky was, so once again the names of Pynchon and Gaddis-- two notorious recluses --started to emerge above the fray. Chief among the spreaders of this train of thought was none other than Thomas Hawkins.
It got to the point where a man named Don Foster, who was successful at outing Joe Klein as the anonymous author of Primary Colors, was put on the trail to deduce whether Pynchon was indeed the author of the Tinasky letters, much to Pynchon's chagrin. Foster couldn't find any tangible proof linking Pynchon to Tinasky.
Then, in September of 1988, Thomas Hawkins killed his wife and left her rotting corpse in his home for almost a week, before torching the house and driving his car off of a cliff. By this time, his proposition (that Pynchon was in fact Tinasky) was met with near-universal agreement in the literary world.
That all changed when Don Foster uncovered the "smoking gun" behind the identity of Wanda Tinasky: Foster found much evidence pointing to Hawkins as the author of the letters, including the typewriter he wrote them on and several original drafts of content used in the letters themselves!
Eventually, William Gaddis died in 1998. Thomas Pynchon is still alive, making occasional cameos on The Simpsons, but in 1997 his privacy was almost violated when CNN, doing a feature on Pynchon, photographed him in public. Pynchon agreed to do a short sit-down with CNN provided that they didn't expose his identity.
Oh, and no one knows too much about Jack Green.
Imagine if Karl Rove had been Pynchon or Gaddis' literary agents... would I even be writing this right now?
*/*
Thomas Hawkins searched for his very own Trystero, the imaginary alternate postal system immortalized in Lot 49. That he was an actual postal worker is intriguing, given the labrynthine extremes to which this (mostly) true tale stretches.
That he didn't heed the cautionary moral of that novel is telling. Although there is no direct message in Lot 49, it can be inferred that the hero of that novel, Oedipa Maas, reads way too much into everyday things, perhaps in an attempt to transcend the mundane banality of her existence.
Either that, or there really is an alternate postal system.
All I know is, when I see or witness things that can't possibly be a mere coincidence, my tendency is to obsess over them for as long as I can milk them... then I laugh it off and let it go.
I mean, I don't think I have the smarts to uncover all the hoaxes, no matter how badly disguised they may be.
Better to keep that information inside your head... or better yet, write about it in some esoteric code. That's the smart way to approach it.
Isn't it?
Tuesday, July 26, 2005
Monday, July 25, 2005
machine broke down
I had a physical breakdown on Friday. The intense heat combined with my party-as-you-go ethic and a lack of proper hydration, coupled with lousy sleeping and eating habits, caused me to nearly collapse as I left work. I felt exhausted and lethargic, but once I got back home and relaxed everything felt better.
*/*
The consequences of my lessening blog output is that I have millions of things that I want to write about, things that have happened to me over the past month or so that are craving to be expressed somehow. I don't think, however, that I should be blogging them. They are way too personal to blog.
*/*
Because of my physical breakdown, I ended up flaking on a lot of plans that I made with various persons. I had rehearsals to attend, a trip to Magic Mountain, a visit to my family, a swimming party and a BBQ to entertain, and my little episode nixed them all. But I'm glad it happened: I've been biting off way more than I can chew lately, and it was beginning to show.
*/*
Like a bad Method actor, I wonder what my motivation is. What gets me up in the morning? Is it the promises of the new day, or the betrayal of the old ones?
*/*
One of my bands is playing in August. Finally, a live show to get me out of the rut that set in from the wasted Spring and the heat rot of the broiling Summer.
*/*
Mercury goes into Retrograde again, very soon.
*/*
I am not unhappy, but I am running away from something, what with all the rehearsals and band auditions and animation business and shows to go see and projects to revive... I think I am avoiding true intimacy, with the people around me. It's easy to schedule people in for lunch, spend some time, and move on to the next thing, because it itemizes people in my mind... I am not so much interacting with them as I am scanning them, with some imaginary price-tag scanner.
*/*
It's nice and cool inside the office today. I think I'll stay in and think about what impels me to be such a busybody.
*/*
The consequences of my lessening blog output is that I have millions of things that I want to write about, things that have happened to me over the past month or so that are craving to be expressed somehow. I don't think, however, that I should be blogging them. They are way too personal to blog.
*/*
Because of my physical breakdown, I ended up flaking on a lot of plans that I made with various persons. I had rehearsals to attend, a trip to Magic Mountain, a visit to my family, a swimming party and a BBQ to entertain, and my little episode nixed them all. But I'm glad it happened: I've been biting off way more than I can chew lately, and it was beginning to show.
*/*
Like a bad Method actor, I wonder what my motivation is. What gets me up in the morning? Is it the promises of the new day, or the betrayal of the old ones?
*/*
One of my bands is playing in August. Finally, a live show to get me out of the rut that set in from the wasted Spring and the heat rot of the broiling Summer.
*/*
Mercury goes into Retrograde again, very soon.
*/*
I am not unhappy, but I am running away from something, what with all the rehearsals and band auditions and animation business and shows to go see and projects to revive... I think I am avoiding true intimacy, with the people around me. It's easy to schedule people in for lunch, spend some time, and move on to the next thing, because it itemizes people in my mind... I am not so much interacting with them as I am scanning them, with some imaginary price-tag scanner.
*/*
It's nice and cool inside the office today. I think I'll stay in and think about what impels me to be such a busybody.
Wednesday, July 20, 2005
metamorphosis
Last night, after dinner, after company left and I was lying down on the couch, with my head tipsy from red wine and my mind reeling from THC, I had a weird thought.
For some reason, I thought about how long I'd been in my body, as "me". And then, after reminding myself that it's been 31 years, I wondered why I have never been anyone else.
And that's the weird thought.
Why have I never been anyone else? No matter who I tried to be or aspired to be in my life, I have always been me. No surprise, I guess-- it wasn't an epiphany or a revelation...
I thought of it as a weird thought because there is a built-in presupposition that I can be anyone else. I haven't tried to be anyone else since I was 16, when I wanted to be a disciple of the Jim Morrison & The Doors cult. And, of course, I failed miserably, but that's a good thing, because the world didn't need another Jim Morrison.
The thought, as it crossed my mind, also assumes that I have a choice in who I want to be, like I could deny my own nature and self and become something that I am not at will.
People reinvent themselves all the time, but do they really change their identities, or do they merely transmutate their core egos?
When I was 16, I was reinventing myself. I think I've reinvented myself in various ways over the years, but not radically.
Am I reinventing myself now? Or is there a part of my psyche that is expecting reinvention to come along?
For some reason, I thought about how long I'd been in my body, as "me". And then, after reminding myself that it's been 31 years, I wondered why I have never been anyone else.
And that's the weird thought.
Why have I never been anyone else? No matter who I tried to be or aspired to be in my life, I have always been me. No surprise, I guess-- it wasn't an epiphany or a revelation...
I thought of it as a weird thought because there is a built-in presupposition that I can be anyone else. I haven't tried to be anyone else since I was 16, when I wanted to be a disciple of the Jim Morrison & The Doors cult. And, of course, I failed miserably, but that's a good thing, because the world didn't need another Jim Morrison.
The thought, as it crossed my mind, also assumes that I have a choice in who I want to be, like I could deny my own nature and self and become something that I am not at will.
People reinvent themselves all the time, but do they really change their identities, or do they merely transmutate their core egos?
When I was 16, I was reinventing myself. I think I've reinvented myself in various ways over the years, but not radically.
Am I reinventing myself now? Or is there a part of my psyche that is expecting reinvention to come along?
Friday, July 15, 2005
i was a jesuit in a former life
While vainly Googling my Christian name, I decided to go past the usual entries that I find (Ambassador to Gabon, Sugar Regulatory Advisor, etc) and found a link to a site about Jesuit saints.
According to the link, my namesake lived from 1519 to 1575, and he "taught philosophy and theology before he entered the Society at some of the more celebrated universities of Europe: Salamanca, Paris and Louvain. He had studied at the universities of Alcalá, Paris, and Louvain and became one of the important architects of the educational program for the Jesuit schools..."
He also "published in Italy a catechism for the 'very ignorant' and another for the 'less ignorant.' The general structure of catechisms were influenced by the catechism of Peter Canisius. [His] work ran through many editions and translations well into the seventeenth century and were even used with the indigenous peoples in New France..."
I also did some Googling using a Spanish variation on my first name, "Diego", because apparently the Jesuit was also known by this name.
Interesting stuff. But I don't have time to go into it all.
Have a nice weekend, folks!
According to the link, my namesake lived from 1519 to 1575, and he "taught philosophy and theology before he entered the Society at some of the more celebrated universities of Europe: Salamanca, Paris and Louvain. He had studied at the universities of Alcalá, Paris, and Louvain and became one of the important architects of the educational program for the Jesuit schools..."
He also "published in Italy a catechism for the 'very ignorant' and another for the 'less ignorant.' The general structure of catechisms were influenced by the catechism of Peter Canisius. [His] work ran through many editions and translations well into the seventeenth century and were even used with the indigenous peoples in New France..."
I also did some Googling using a Spanish variation on my first name, "Diego", because apparently the Jesuit was also known by this name.
Interesting stuff. But I don't have time to go into it all.
Have a nice weekend, folks!
Thursday, July 14, 2005
heart smarts
Things are in a state of perpetual heartbreak.
These days it's easy to see it on the faces, in the eyes, emanating from the bodies of innocent bystanders that we pass on the sidewalk. No doubt they are feeling the reciprocation from us, from you, from me.
'Heartbreak' is the only word that I can ascribe to this condition that seems to permeate Los Angeles lately. I'm not going to bother to go online and find the definition and then regurgitate it here. I'm just going to go by how it sounds in my ear right now.
The heartbreak I speak of is rooted and centered right behind your eyes, below your brain and abutting the sinuses and esophagal passage. It's also in the shoulder area surrounding the neck, as well as in the small of the back and the outer ankles.
On a less tangible level, it's an emotional cocktail consisting of indiscriminate parts from different bottles, chased with an acceptance of the situation that somehow doesn't feel right. The thing you cannot ever put a finger on, whatever is on the tip of your tongue, that hunch... it gnaws and nibbles at you like the solution to a riddle veiled behind a mental event horizon, the shoji screen of your soul...
I'm not sad. I'm not depressed. I'm heartbroken, but I'm not in tears. It's not disappointment, it's not being let down... but it is a form of sorrow.
A sense of sadness, but really only a trace, a fraction. Sometimes it feels nice, like a slight buzz.
Nothing happened, nothing brought this on, it's just there. It has been there, and I can feel it in everybody else, whether they are aware of it or not.
I'm going to try and use this for my weekend, as fuel maybe to propel me onward into the unpredictability of everyday living, the way we can be doing something mundane and ordinary and yet accomplishing more than if we ran at it full bore...
My feet aren't touching the ground, but I don't have enough momentum to just fly away. I'm hovering.
These days it's easy to see it on the faces, in the eyes, emanating from the bodies of innocent bystanders that we pass on the sidewalk. No doubt they are feeling the reciprocation from us, from you, from me.
'Heartbreak' is the only word that I can ascribe to this condition that seems to permeate Los Angeles lately. I'm not going to bother to go online and find the definition and then regurgitate it here. I'm just going to go by how it sounds in my ear right now.
The heartbreak I speak of is rooted and centered right behind your eyes, below your brain and abutting the sinuses and esophagal passage. It's also in the shoulder area surrounding the neck, as well as in the small of the back and the outer ankles.
On a less tangible level, it's an emotional cocktail consisting of indiscriminate parts from different bottles, chased with an acceptance of the situation that somehow doesn't feel right. The thing you cannot ever put a finger on, whatever is on the tip of your tongue, that hunch... it gnaws and nibbles at you like the solution to a riddle veiled behind a mental event horizon, the shoji screen of your soul...
I'm not sad. I'm not depressed. I'm heartbroken, but I'm not in tears. It's not disappointment, it's not being let down... but it is a form of sorrow.
A sense of sadness, but really only a trace, a fraction. Sometimes it feels nice, like a slight buzz.
Nothing happened, nothing brought this on, it's just there. It has been there, and I can feel it in everybody else, whether they are aware of it or not.
I'm going to try and use this for my weekend, as fuel maybe to propel me onward into the unpredictability of everyday living, the way we can be doing something mundane and ordinary and yet accomplishing more than if we ran at it full bore...
My feet aren't touching the ground, but I don't have enough momentum to just fly away. I'm hovering.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
velveeta
MSN has a link to the 43 cheesiest songs of all time. And indeed, they are quite cheesy.
I know the words and melodies to 36 out of the 43 songs listed. I know every song in their Top Ten, and what's more-- I'm not ashamed.
I don't know these songs because of a love of kitsch. I'm not a very kitschy person. I like these songs because I grew up listening to them on AM radio as a kid. My parents had 45s of many of these hits.
Unlike my current taste for hair metal, a genre that I absolutely LOATHED in its heyday, I have always loved these sappy songs.
Yes, they are cheesy... but I like cheese, hold the irony. These songs, as maudlin as the can get, are finely crafted disposable pop gems that topped the charts at one time.
I would even go one further and say that there are some glaring omissions to the list.
For example:
-Leo Sayer is listed for his disco romp "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" but there's no mention of his syrupy, soggy ballad "When I Need You".
-There are no songs by Styx, Journey, or Loverboy on the list. Also conspicuously missing: Engelbert Humperdinck.
-Phil Collins' "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)" is NOT a cheesy tune. It's a great fucking song is what it is. Yes, it came from the '80's, but compared to "Sussudio" and "Two Hearts" (or even "One More Night") this song from the movie Against All Odds is a tour de force for the former Genesis drummer.
-Songs like "The Candy Man" and "The Sound Of Music" don't count-- they belong in another category, really.
-Certain songs are listed because of who performed them. Is Donna Summer's version of "MacArthur Park" cheesier than Richard Harris' mid-'60's take? Hell no. Likewise, what's the real reason why Donny Osmond's version of "Puppy Love" was chosen over Paul Anka's version? Is it because he's an Osmond? Yes. But let's face it-- Paul Anka's face should be on Kraft Singles packages all over the States.
-Chris De Burgh's "The Lady In Red" is a beautiful ballad, no matter what other people say. It does everything a love song should do: captivate your heart and make you look at the woman you are standing in front of with a renewed illumination.
-Where is "Every Time You Go Away" by Paul Young? While we're at it, why is most of Hall & Oates' catalog missing from the list? (For those who don't know, Hall & Oates wrote and recorded the original version of Paul Young's hit)
-They gave Stevie Wonder's entire In Square Circle album a pass. I love Stevie but that album sucked big time, especially "I Just Called To Say I Love You".
-"She Believes In Me" made the cut but not "Through The Years"? And why no Bryan Adams? I heard "Heaven" at a Thai restaurant last night, and realized that it is so cheesy that the lactose-intolerant have to be warned prior to the song getting played on KOST 103 FM.
-They listed Lionel Ritchie when he was with The Commodores. But they ignored solo dreck like "You Are The Sun" and "Hello" and "Penny Lover" and... wait a minute, the middle-eight to "Penny Lover" is actually pretty good. But they should've at least thrown in "Dancin' On The Ceiling".
-And finally, they chose "Keep On Loving You" By REO Speedwagon, and ignored "I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore", possibly the guiltiest pleasure I have ever encountered in a pop tune. "Can't Fight" is one of those songs that makes you feel ashamed for liking it so much. It's the kind of song that I deliberately sing out of tune, because to sing it on key would be scary to everyone within earshot.
Mind you, some of the songs that made the list I cannot stand. The Celine Dion song is a good example-- that song makes me want to cough up gall stones. Billy Ray Cyrus? I need not explain that one. And Kenny G is the Anti-Christ.
But, I digress. I could do this all day long, really.
So tell me, dear Blogsters: what songs did MSN leave off the list that YOU think deserve to be there?
I'll be waiting... in the dark, naked by the phone...
I know the words and melodies to 36 out of the 43 songs listed. I know every song in their Top Ten, and what's more-- I'm not ashamed.
I don't know these songs because of a love of kitsch. I'm not a very kitschy person. I like these songs because I grew up listening to them on AM radio as a kid. My parents had 45s of many of these hits.
Unlike my current taste for hair metal, a genre that I absolutely LOATHED in its heyday, I have always loved these sappy songs.
Yes, they are cheesy... but I like cheese, hold the irony. These songs, as maudlin as the can get, are finely crafted disposable pop gems that topped the charts at one time.
I would even go one further and say that there are some glaring omissions to the list.
For example:
-Leo Sayer is listed for his disco romp "You Make Me Feel Like Dancing" but there's no mention of his syrupy, soggy ballad "When I Need You".
-There are no songs by Styx, Journey, or Loverboy on the list. Also conspicuously missing: Engelbert Humperdinck.
-Phil Collins' "Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)" is NOT a cheesy tune. It's a great fucking song is what it is. Yes, it came from the '80's, but compared to "Sussudio" and "Two Hearts" (or even "One More Night") this song from the movie Against All Odds is a tour de force for the former Genesis drummer.
-Songs like "The Candy Man" and "The Sound Of Music" don't count-- they belong in another category, really.
-Certain songs are listed because of who performed them. Is Donna Summer's version of "MacArthur Park" cheesier than Richard Harris' mid-'60's take? Hell no. Likewise, what's the real reason why Donny Osmond's version of "Puppy Love" was chosen over Paul Anka's version? Is it because he's an Osmond? Yes. But let's face it-- Paul Anka's face should be on Kraft Singles packages all over the States.
-Chris De Burgh's "The Lady In Red" is a beautiful ballad, no matter what other people say. It does everything a love song should do: captivate your heart and make you look at the woman you are standing in front of with a renewed illumination.
-Where is "Every Time You Go Away" by Paul Young? While we're at it, why is most of Hall & Oates' catalog missing from the list? (For those who don't know, Hall & Oates wrote and recorded the original version of Paul Young's hit)
-They gave Stevie Wonder's entire In Square Circle album a pass. I love Stevie but that album sucked big time, especially "I Just Called To Say I Love You".
-"She Believes In Me" made the cut but not "Through The Years"? And why no Bryan Adams? I heard "Heaven" at a Thai restaurant last night, and realized that it is so cheesy that the lactose-intolerant have to be warned prior to the song getting played on KOST 103 FM.
-They listed Lionel Ritchie when he was with The Commodores. But they ignored solo dreck like "You Are The Sun" and "Hello" and "Penny Lover" and... wait a minute, the middle-eight to "Penny Lover" is actually pretty good. But they should've at least thrown in "Dancin' On The Ceiling".
-And finally, they chose "Keep On Loving You" By REO Speedwagon, and ignored "I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore", possibly the guiltiest pleasure I have ever encountered in a pop tune. "Can't Fight" is one of those songs that makes you feel ashamed for liking it so much. It's the kind of song that I deliberately sing out of tune, because to sing it on key would be scary to everyone within earshot.
Mind you, some of the songs that made the list I cannot stand. The Celine Dion song is a good example-- that song makes me want to cough up gall stones. Billy Ray Cyrus? I need not explain that one. And Kenny G is the Anti-Christ.
But, I digress. I could do this all day long, really.
So tell me, dear Blogsters: what songs did MSN leave off the list that YOU think deserve to be there?
I'll be waiting... in the dark, naked by the phone...
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
the way i think
Over the weekend, a friend from high school whom I will call Laurie took it upon herself to help me edit and transcribe the remaining parts of my novel. Naturally, I thought she was mad to take on such a task, but then again what am I going to do about it on my own?
Laurie is a friend of Eve's, and she works at a museum and is an avid reader. I trust her editorial judgement because she has no intention of rewriting my novel for me-- rather, she truly wants to help me condense it into something accessible to the masses.
So far her notes on the novel make sense. She asked me if she could be "brutal" and "ruthless" and I allowed as much. Her brutality, however, is the kind I can accept: she is only concerned with readability and understanding, not semantics or the process of writing. In the past, I've had dear friends read my text and they all provided valuable advice and commentary, but Laurie is determined to help me shape it thematically. She recognizes the themes thanks to her knowledge of me, my life, and the way I think.
And what is "the way I think", by the way? I pondered that last night when Eve came by my apartment. She needed to use my shower because her tub was backed up. She made it worth my while by helping wash a few dishes, providing me with gas money for my car, and making me a sandwich. Then, we watched X Files on DVD and drank Newcastle, as is our tradition.
After watching two stellar episodes from the first season, the subject of conversation drifted into magic and science. I told her that I seem to have an innate dysfunction for believing in the supernatural or paranormal. My fascination for such things stems not from belief but from curiosity-- I am totally beguiled by all unexplained, irrational phenomenon.
I postulated to her that the reason I engage in creative arts is because those outlets-- writing, music, art --are the closest I will ever come to "casting spells" or invoking magic. When it comes to those outlets, I find myself reaching in and digging from inside of myself, from some unknown source within my psyche.
When I draw or paint, I rarely have it mapped out or planned ahead. It comes automatically, and I do not question its origin. I simply go with the flow. The same with my music, which owes more to chance and accidental juxtaposition than anything composed traditonally.
Writing is another activity where I seem to shut off my rational mind and draw water from a subconscious well.
But for the most part, the "way I think" is in a rational, objective mode. If it were not for arts, I might be socially conservative, ideologically right-wing, and emotionally simple. Only when I allow my mind to run free, without restriction, do I ever come up with anything worth reading or hearing or watching. The minute I begin to impose order upon my carefully-crafted chaos, I get bored. So I need help with that aspect.
Mind you, if it were someone else's work, I'd be able to edit and analyze objectively. I am an exception to myself, in other words. I am good at helping others achieve their creative goals but cannot transfer that same enthusiasm to my own works. This is why I have fun in the bands I'm in-- I am not required to be "creative" in the classical sense; I am only required to do my part and to compensate for anything lacking.
Rigbht now I am starting to read a book called The Professor And The Madman by Simon Winchester. It is about the true story of the making of the first Oxford English Dictionary, and the extraordinary circumstances from which it originated.
That's all for now. Maybe there will be more from me later.
Laurie is a friend of Eve's, and she works at a museum and is an avid reader. I trust her editorial judgement because she has no intention of rewriting my novel for me-- rather, she truly wants to help me condense it into something accessible to the masses.
So far her notes on the novel make sense. She asked me if she could be "brutal" and "ruthless" and I allowed as much. Her brutality, however, is the kind I can accept: she is only concerned with readability and understanding, not semantics or the process of writing. In the past, I've had dear friends read my text and they all provided valuable advice and commentary, but Laurie is determined to help me shape it thematically. She recognizes the themes thanks to her knowledge of me, my life, and the way I think.
And what is "the way I think", by the way? I pondered that last night when Eve came by my apartment. She needed to use my shower because her tub was backed up. She made it worth my while by helping wash a few dishes, providing me with gas money for my car, and making me a sandwich. Then, we watched X Files on DVD and drank Newcastle, as is our tradition.
After watching two stellar episodes from the first season, the subject of conversation drifted into magic and science. I told her that I seem to have an innate dysfunction for believing in the supernatural or paranormal. My fascination for such things stems not from belief but from curiosity-- I am totally beguiled by all unexplained, irrational phenomenon.
I postulated to her that the reason I engage in creative arts is because those outlets-- writing, music, art --are the closest I will ever come to "casting spells" or invoking magic. When it comes to those outlets, I find myself reaching in and digging from inside of myself, from some unknown source within my psyche.
When I draw or paint, I rarely have it mapped out or planned ahead. It comes automatically, and I do not question its origin. I simply go with the flow. The same with my music, which owes more to chance and accidental juxtaposition than anything composed traditonally.
Writing is another activity where I seem to shut off my rational mind and draw water from a subconscious well.
But for the most part, the "way I think" is in a rational, objective mode. If it were not for arts, I might be socially conservative, ideologically right-wing, and emotionally simple. Only when I allow my mind to run free, without restriction, do I ever come up with anything worth reading or hearing or watching. The minute I begin to impose order upon my carefully-crafted chaos, I get bored. So I need help with that aspect.
Mind you, if it were someone else's work, I'd be able to edit and analyze objectively. I am an exception to myself, in other words. I am good at helping others achieve their creative goals but cannot transfer that same enthusiasm to my own works. This is why I have fun in the bands I'm in-- I am not required to be "creative" in the classical sense; I am only required to do my part and to compensate for anything lacking.
Rigbht now I am starting to read a book called The Professor And The Madman by Simon Winchester. It is about the true story of the making of the first Oxford English Dictionary, and the extraordinary circumstances from which it originated.
That's all for now. Maybe there will be more from me later.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
danger fix
In Los Angeles, there are thousands of rock bands, and all of them need bass players.
That's where I come in. But I'm only one man-- I can only play in so many bands at one time. Luckily, band line-ups in this city shift like tectonic plates beneath the desert paradise, but most of the time these change-ups have little impact outside of the Hollywood/Sunset Strip rock epicenter.
After not playing live for seven years, 2003 saw me back in the saddle. Holly Golightly recruited me for her band and that got the ball rolling. Somewhere in the middle I ended up doing bass tracks for Holly's friend Ellen; auditioning for Holly's friend Deborah, for a band that she has yet to get off the ground; joining ICON with my buddy Buddah towards the end of my tenure with Holly; trying out for a band called Funkin Pie that I hooked up with through Mikey, Holly's guitarist and former boyfriend; joining Ellen's band full force in the wake of Holly's departure, and hesitating to join Funkin Pie because I had too much on my plate during the holiday season; watching the band with Ellen implode due to in-fighting between Katie the violinist and Ellen; playing with a hair metal cover band thanks to the recommendation of Angel, the guitarist from ICON (a band whose fate is now in limbo)...
...and yesterday, I got a 2-for-1 Special on band membership: while getting ready to audition for one, I was invited to join another!
The first band is called Ninefinger, and it was by kismet that I even met them: I went to an ICON rehearsal at Sound Arena in Reseda and ran into E, the drummer from Holly's band. He was there rehearsing with Ninefinger, who he had just joined. He had been referred by Mikey, the guitarist who referred me to Funkin Pie.
I sat in on their rehearsal for a song or two and dug their sound: a sonic mix of Fugazi and Live, two bands that radiate sincerity and earnestness in their music.
Weeks later, E called me and informed me that their bass player bailed. I was asked to fill in. I requested a CD of songs and rocked it on repeat in my car over the Fourth of July weekend. Then I got a call saying that Wednesday we were convening for a get-together, to try each other on and see what transpires.
I got off of work extra early and hung out at my boy Down Low's place. When I showed up, Low's buddy The Wolf was there. Low, The Wolf and I used to jam out years ago-- The Wolf is a drummer, and a rather good one at that.
The Wolf asked me if I was playing in any bands, because the group he was currently in was looking around for one. After I consented to give them a try, he gave me directions to their lockout and warned me that the singer, Gio (sounds like "Joe") can be a bit of a prima donna.
I am used to that, having paid my dues in plenty of bands with divas for singers.
What made this invitation so tantalizing was the prospect of covering songs that I truly love from bands like The Stooges, The New York Dolls, Kings Of Leon, Gun Club, Television, Sex Pistols, The Modern Lovers, Velvet Underground, and Sticky Fingers-era Rolling Stones. The Wolf gave me a CD of a Johnny Thunders anthology and told me stop by after the jam with Ninefinger, if I still had the energy.
I had a feeling that energy wouldn't be a problem.
*/*
What's great about being a musician is that, no matter how many band facts you know or how many album liner notes you memorize, no matter how many bootlegs and compilations and obscure one-off curios you find, there is always a gap to be filled in your personal musical canon.
There are two things that I hold dear to my heart in the rock universe:
(1) Sloppy garage rock-- I can't get enough of that messy stuff. Slightly out-of-tune guitars, barely-in-time chops, wildly out-of-control histrionics... there's plenty of hyphens to be added to the stew.
(2) Tragic rock 'n' roll burnouts-- from Jim Gordon to Roky Erikson to Syd Barrett to Arthur Lee to Bradley Nowell, I have this romantic fixation with musicians and performers whose personal demons either consumed them alive or bandied them about throughout their turbulent existences.
Johnny Thunders embodies both of those virtues... if you can call such attributes "virtues".
I knew of Johnny Thunders from The New York Dolls, one of the most influential '70's glam rock bands ever. They sounded like The Rolling Stones to the tenth power, as if Mick & Keith had decided to damn the torpedoes and go full-on lipstick-and-heels drag.
The New York Dolls are one of those handful of bands whose legacy drifts into unlikely waters. You can see why groups like Poison and Motley Crue dug The Dolls and Thunders' solo work, but it's surprising to hear that The Dolls were Morrissey's favorite group when he was growing up. Nothing in his work with The Smiths suggests this connection, and the only solo album of his that even flirts with glam is Your Arsenal, produced by the late Spiders From Mars guitarist Mick Ronson.
Imagine Guns 'N' Roses with an ounce of humility. Imagine if L.A. punk band X were a group of cross-dressing junkies (in singer Exene's case, that's not too far off the mark). Imagine if The Black Crowes had never heard of Mountain, Uriah Heep, or Bread. Imagine The Dead Boys and The Sex Pistols joining forces with The Damned to create the sleaziest rock group in history.
That's The New York Dolls, and at its center was Johnny Thunders.
Dee Dee Ramone co-wrote a song with Thunders, a tune which yielded recorded versions from the both of their respective bands. The song was titled "Chinese Rock", which inspired the name of early '80's glam superstars Hanoi Rocks; it's also slang for heroin, the drug of choice among seedy punk/glam rockers. Not surprisingly, both Dee Dee and Thunders died from drug-related overdoses-- Dee Dee OD'ed on smack, Thunders on methadone, the smack treatment drug.
After two albums that lit up the rock world but sold poorly (the prerequisite for this genre of music, it seems), Dolls singer David Johansen put down the make-up and wigs, adopted a pompadour and a tuxedo, and rechristened himself as Buster Poindexter. Remember that "Hot Hot Hot!" song from the '80's? Well, that dude used to sing songs like "Lookin' For A Kiss" and "Vietnamese Baby" while dressed in nylons and platform high-heels.
Johnny Thunders, in the wake of the demise of the Dolls, put together a band called The Heartbreakers, not to be confused with Tom Petty's classic back-up group. The band was short-lived but one of its members, Richard Hell, formed The Voidoids shortly before striking out on his own.
I know all of this stuff, and have known this stuff for a while. But much like my long-overdue discovery of Sly and The Family Stone in the late '90's, listening to Jet Boy-- The Anthology as I drove from the Ninefinger rehearsal filled an enormous hole in my musical landscape. I recognized more songs than I thought I would, and of course there were one or two Dolls standards to give me some familiarity. But the overall effect was similar to when I heard The Best of Sly Stone for the first time: I said to myself, "Why am I just finding out about this now?" and at the same time I realized that this was where some of my favorite artists stole their biggest riffs.
Johnny Thunders is the Missing Link in my rock 'n' roll evolution chart.
The true find was a song that GNR covered on their Spaghetti Incident? album, their last effort before Axl Rose went insane and the other members jumped ship. That whole album was a slew of covers, and GNR remade "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" in their own image.
They did a fine job. But I'd never heard the Thunders original until last night. And hearing it from Thunders, with his fractured voice and spare acoustic accompaniment, makes the song more powerful, more direct and personal.
If you had never heard The Dolls or Thunders before and I played "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" for you as a surprise, I doubt you would ever link the two in your mind. The Dolls and most of Thunders' oeuvre are electric and unruly; "Memory" is a ballad that sounds like the drug-addled protagonist of Neil Young's "The Needle And The Damage Done" telling his side of the story.
Recorded and released in 1978, "Memory" sounds like it was written and performed by a man on the verge of defeat, like "a man out of time", as Elvis Costello once sang. 13 years after this song was released, Thunders died on April 23, 1991.
*/*
April 23 is the alleged birth and death date of William Shakespeare. I find that ironically amusing, because while Johnny Thunders was far from a Shakespearean wordsmith, he is a bit of a Shakespeare in the way he detailed the squalor and joy of being young, high and rockin' in New York in the '70's. You see, for all the deranged lunacy of Daddy Rollin' Stone's antics onstage and off, there was that elegance, that charisma that drew everyone to him. Thunders had problems, with alcohol, drugs and women, but he was also a hysterically intense talent whose real gift-- lead guitar playing that possessed a heap of soul and transcended punk's minimum requirements --was overshadowed by the craziness that followed him wherever he went.
Like most addicts, Johnny Thunders was selfish and untrustworhy and stubborn. His friends couldn't save him, his family couldn't save him, and the one thing that did keep him going, the music, seemed to fail him as well. I am not romanticizing the pain that he put his loved ones through, nor am I glamorizing the descent into hard drug abuse that has claimed the lives of too many talented souls out there.
It's just that Johnny Thunders, the King of Junkie Rock, the man who made heroin chic before Calvin Klein did, lived his life the way he wanted to, which is part of the tragedy. On "Memory" his voice is haunting, wispy, almost feminine; in the Dolls, he looked good enough to fuck, with his pumps and ripped stockings and garish make-up; but he was tougher than all of that, scarred from life on the streets of Queens, messed up from a delinquent existence, a Grade A misfit from the get-go, not too smart of a guy... and yet, there he was, defying the odds, playing rock music to bored Manchunian shut-ins on TV, inspiring a wallflower like Steven Morrissey to shed his first name, start a band, and become the most unlikely rock star ever.
There was a lot of humility and self-deprecation in Johnny's songs. "Born To Lose" is a classic sing-along fist-in-the-air punk rock anthem, and the chorus goes "Baby I was born to lose"... For all the outrageousness and difficulties Thunders incurred, you never get the sense that he was an egomaniac or a demanding rocker. He just wanted to play his songs, do his thing, and also set the world on fire.
It's refreshing, in this day and age where narcissistic celebrities hog the limelight with their insipid tales of recovery and twelve-step programs, to hear from someone as unrepentant as Johnny Thunders. He was an old-school guy at heart, from the tone of his guitars to his bad habits. He never complained, he never whined, he never gave a fuck.
Usually, I wish my fallen rock heroes would've had the good sense to not die, but Johnny is the kind of rocker whose fate was determined a long time ago. Therefore, there really was nowhere else for him to go logically except for down. Normally, that depresses me, but occasionally someone rides the bomb that drops into The Abyss with such relish that you almost (for a split second) want to see what the fuss is all about.
Not that I ever want to do smack-- I've smoked opium, that's enough for me, thank you very much. I would never want to do heroin-- it just sounds like I'd dig it too much. If I ever get addicted to junk, everyone out there has my implicit permission to beat the fuck out of me until I get sober.
However, I figure, if you're going to throw your life away, if you're going to just allow drugs to overwhelm you until you cannot deal any longer, you may as well go all the way. Johnny went all the way. He would be 53 next Friday if he'd lived, which would've been 40 years longer than anyone expected him to live, and only 14 years longer than he actually did live.
I think what I like the most about him is the mix of vulnerability and unsentimentality. Johnny Thunders said it best when he sang:
You can't put your arms around a memory
You can't put your arms around a memory
You can't put your arms around a memory
Don't try
That chorus functions a a cautionary warning to me. It's the rock equivalent of the last sentence in J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye: Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. The message in both of these works is crystal clear-- they are declarations from individuals who have made up their minds as to how they are going to live the rest of their lives. There's power in that, even if the individuals self-destruct in the end.
Kurt Vonnegut once described smoking cigarettes as a "classy form of suicide". Many relatives of lung cancer victims would disagree, but then again it is difficult to understand why anyone would want to end their own lives, or hurt themselves so wantonly. A week doesn't go by when someone doesn't chastise me for my cigarette habit. I certainly don't want to die, but why is it so hard for me to stop? Is it an addictive personailty trait? Insecurity? Low self-esteem? A way to cope with stress? Or is it simply because I like it too much and now I'm hopelessly hooked?
I don't have the answers, but I do know one thing: once upon a time I had a death wish, and during those times I felt more alive than if I'd been quietly sitting at home, reading a book. My wish for death propelled me through the frying pan, the fire and the whole damn grill. Unlike Johnny Thunders, I never went too far, and yet I understand why someone would. Some people just want to cross the line that everyone else refuses to step over.
We watch them step over that line with a combination of fascination and disgust because we have an urge to live (and die) vicariously.
People like Thunders pay the dear price so that I don't have to follow suit. But lest you think I'm ascribing martyr status to a dead junk punker, keep in mind that Mr. Thunders would've found such canonization to be contrite and petty.
That probably explains my obsession with the Casualties Of Rock, the walking wounded who articulate our deepest fears and most excessive wishes. I like living on the edge but over time I have become timid, and hearing tales of legendary punk rock partying gives me my danger fix without endangering my actual self.
I'd like to keep it that way. That's the lesson I learned from Johnny Thunders last night: I can't put my arms around his tortured memories, so I shouldn't even bother to try. Even if I wanted, I wouldn't be able to, so at least I have his music and his words-- and not his actions --to go by.
Thanks, Johnny.
That's where I come in. But I'm only one man-- I can only play in so many bands at one time. Luckily, band line-ups in this city shift like tectonic plates beneath the desert paradise, but most of the time these change-ups have little impact outside of the Hollywood/Sunset Strip rock epicenter.
After not playing live for seven years, 2003 saw me back in the saddle. Holly Golightly recruited me for her band and that got the ball rolling. Somewhere in the middle I ended up doing bass tracks for Holly's friend Ellen; auditioning for Holly's friend Deborah, for a band that she has yet to get off the ground; joining ICON with my buddy Buddah towards the end of my tenure with Holly; trying out for a band called Funkin Pie that I hooked up with through Mikey, Holly's guitarist and former boyfriend; joining Ellen's band full force in the wake of Holly's departure, and hesitating to join Funkin Pie because I had too much on my plate during the holiday season; watching the band with Ellen implode due to in-fighting between Katie the violinist and Ellen; playing with a hair metal cover band thanks to the recommendation of Angel, the guitarist from ICON (a band whose fate is now in limbo)...
...and yesterday, I got a 2-for-1 Special on band membership: while getting ready to audition for one, I was invited to join another!
The first band is called Ninefinger, and it was by kismet that I even met them: I went to an ICON rehearsal at Sound Arena in Reseda and ran into E, the drummer from Holly's band. He was there rehearsing with Ninefinger, who he had just joined. He had been referred by Mikey, the guitarist who referred me to Funkin Pie.
I sat in on their rehearsal for a song or two and dug their sound: a sonic mix of Fugazi and Live, two bands that radiate sincerity and earnestness in their music.
Weeks later, E called me and informed me that their bass player bailed. I was asked to fill in. I requested a CD of songs and rocked it on repeat in my car over the Fourth of July weekend. Then I got a call saying that Wednesday we were convening for a get-together, to try each other on and see what transpires.
I got off of work extra early and hung out at my boy Down Low's place. When I showed up, Low's buddy The Wolf was there. Low, The Wolf and I used to jam out years ago-- The Wolf is a drummer, and a rather good one at that.
The Wolf asked me if I was playing in any bands, because the group he was currently in was looking around for one. After I consented to give them a try, he gave me directions to their lockout and warned me that the singer, Gio (sounds like "Joe") can be a bit of a prima donna.
I am used to that, having paid my dues in plenty of bands with divas for singers.
What made this invitation so tantalizing was the prospect of covering songs that I truly love from bands like The Stooges, The New York Dolls, Kings Of Leon, Gun Club, Television, Sex Pistols, The Modern Lovers, Velvet Underground, and Sticky Fingers-era Rolling Stones. The Wolf gave me a CD of a Johnny Thunders anthology and told me stop by after the jam with Ninefinger, if I still had the energy.
I had a feeling that energy wouldn't be a problem.
*/*
What's great about being a musician is that, no matter how many band facts you know or how many album liner notes you memorize, no matter how many bootlegs and compilations and obscure one-off curios you find, there is always a gap to be filled in your personal musical canon.
There are two things that I hold dear to my heart in the rock universe:
(1) Sloppy garage rock-- I can't get enough of that messy stuff. Slightly out-of-tune guitars, barely-in-time chops, wildly out-of-control histrionics... there's plenty of hyphens to be added to the stew.
(2) Tragic rock 'n' roll burnouts-- from Jim Gordon to Roky Erikson to Syd Barrett to Arthur Lee to Bradley Nowell, I have this romantic fixation with musicians and performers whose personal demons either consumed them alive or bandied them about throughout their turbulent existences.
Johnny Thunders embodies both of those virtues... if you can call such attributes "virtues".
I knew of Johnny Thunders from The New York Dolls, one of the most influential '70's glam rock bands ever. They sounded like The Rolling Stones to the tenth power, as if Mick & Keith had decided to damn the torpedoes and go full-on lipstick-and-heels drag.
The New York Dolls are one of those handful of bands whose legacy drifts into unlikely waters. You can see why groups like Poison and Motley Crue dug The Dolls and Thunders' solo work, but it's surprising to hear that The Dolls were Morrissey's favorite group when he was growing up. Nothing in his work with The Smiths suggests this connection, and the only solo album of his that even flirts with glam is Your Arsenal, produced by the late Spiders From Mars guitarist Mick Ronson.
Imagine Guns 'N' Roses with an ounce of humility. Imagine if L.A. punk band X were a group of cross-dressing junkies (in singer Exene's case, that's not too far off the mark). Imagine if The Black Crowes had never heard of Mountain, Uriah Heep, or Bread. Imagine The Dead Boys and The Sex Pistols joining forces with The Damned to create the sleaziest rock group in history.
That's The New York Dolls, and at its center was Johnny Thunders.
Dee Dee Ramone co-wrote a song with Thunders, a tune which yielded recorded versions from the both of their respective bands. The song was titled "Chinese Rock", which inspired the name of early '80's glam superstars Hanoi Rocks; it's also slang for heroin, the drug of choice among seedy punk/glam rockers. Not surprisingly, both Dee Dee and Thunders died from drug-related overdoses-- Dee Dee OD'ed on smack, Thunders on methadone, the smack treatment drug.
After two albums that lit up the rock world but sold poorly (the prerequisite for this genre of music, it seems), Dolls singer David Johansen put down the make-up and wigs, adopted a pompadour and a tuxedo, and rechristened himself as Buster Poindexter. Remember that "Hot Hot Hot!" song from the '80's? Well, that dude used to sing songs like "Lookin' For A Kiss" and "Vietnamese Baby" while dressed in nylons and platform high-heels.
Johnny Thunders, in the wake of the demise of the Dolls, put together a band called The Heartbreakers, not to be confused with Tom Petty's classic back-up group. The band was short-lived but one of its members, Richard Hell, formed The Voidoids shortly before striking out on his own.
I know all of this stuff, and have known this stuff for a while. But much like my long-overdue discovery of Sly and The Family Stone in the late '90's, listening to Jet Boy-- The Anthology as I drove from the Ninefinger rehearsal filled an enormous hole in my musical landscape. I recognized more songs than I thought I would, and of course there were one or two Dolls standards to give me some familiarity. But the overall effect was similar to when I heard The Best of Sly Stone for the first time: I said to myself, "Why am I just finding out about this now?" and at the same time I realized that this was where some of my favorite artists stole their biggest riffs.
Johnny Thunders is the Missing Link in my rock 'n' roll evolution chart.
The true find was a song that GNR covered on their Spaghetti Incident? album, their last effort before Axl Rose went insane and the other members jumped ship. That whole album was a slew of covers, and GNR remade "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" in their own image.
They did a fine job. But I'd never heard the Thunders original until last night. And hearing it from Thunders, with his fractured voice and spare acoustic accompaniment, makes the song more powerful, more direct and personal.
If you had never heard The Dolls or Thunders before and I played "You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory" for you as a surprise, I doubt you would ever link the two in your mind. The Dolls and most of Thunders' oeuvre are electric and unruly; "Memory" is a ballad that sounds like the drug-addled protagonist of Neil Young's "The Needle And The Damage Done" telling his side of the story.
Recorded and released in 1978, "Memory" sounds like it was written and performed by a man on the verge of defeat, like "a man out of time", as Elvis Costello once sang. 13 years after this song was released, Thunders died on April 23, 1991.
*/*
April 23 is the alleged birth and death date of William Shakespeare. I find that ironically amusing, because while Johnny Thunders was far from a Shakespearean wordsmith, he is a bit of a Shakespeare in the way he detailed the squalor and joy of being young, high and rockin' in New York in the '70's. You see, for all the deranged lunacy of Daddy Rollin' Stone's antics onstage and off, there was that elegance, that charisma that drew everyone to him. Thunders had problems, with alcohol, drugs and women, but he was also a hysterically intense talent whose real gift-- lead guitar playing that possessed a heap of soul and transcended punk's minimum requirements --was overshadowed by the craziness that followed him wherever he went.
Like most addicts, Johnny Thunders was selfish and untrustworhy and stubborn. His friends couldn't save him, his family couldn't save him, and the one thing that did keep him going, the music, seemed to fail him as well. I am not romanticizing the pain that he put his loved ones through, nor am I glamorizing the descent into hard drug abuse that has claimed the lives of too many talented souls out there.
It's just that Johnny Thunders, the King of Junkie Rock, the man who made heroin chic before Calvin Klein did, lived his life the way he wanted to, which is part of the tragedy. On "Memory" his voice is haunting, wispy, almost feminine; in the Dolls, he looked good enough to fuck, with his pumps and ripped stockings and garish make-up; but he was tougher than all of that, scarred from life on the streets of Queens, messed up from a delinquent existence, a Grade A misfit from the get-go, not too smart of a guy... and yet, there he was, defying the odds, playing rock music to bored Manchunian shut-ins on TV, inspiring a wallflower like Steven Morrissey to shed his first name, start a band, and become the most unlikely rock star ever.
There was a lot of humility and self-deprecation in Johnny's songs. "Born To Lose" is a classic sing-along fist-in-the-air punk rock anthem, and the chorus goes "Baby I was born to lose"... For all the outrageousness and difficulties Thunders incurred, you never get the sense that he was an egomaniac or a demanding rocker. He just wanted to play his songs, do his thing, and also set the world on fire.
It's refreshing, in this day and age where narcissistic celebrities hog the limelight with their insipid tales of recovery and twelve-step programs, to hear from someone as unrepentant as Johnny Thunders. He was an old-school guy at heart, from the tone of his guitars to his bad habits. He never complained, he never whined, he never gave a fuck.
Usually, I wish my fallen rock heroes would've had the good sense to not die, but Johnny is the kind of rocker whose fate was determined a long time ago. Therefore, there really was nowhere else for him to go logically except for down. Normally, that depresses me, but occasionally someone rides the bomb that drops into The Abyss with such relish that you almost (for a split second) want to see what the fuss is all about.
Not that I ever want to do smack-- I've smoked opium, that's enough for me, thank you very much. I would never want to do heroin-- it just sounds like I'd dig it too much. If I ever get addicted to junk, everyone out there has my implicit permission to beat the fuck out of me until I get sober.
However, I figure, if you're going to throw your life away, if you're going to just allow drugs to overwhelm you until you cannot deal any longer, you may as well go all the way. Johnny went all the way. He would be 53 next Friday if he'd lived, which would've been 40 years longer than anyone expected him to live, and only 14 years longer than he actually did live.
I think what I like the most about him is the mix of vulnerability and unsentimentality. Johnny Thunders said it best when he sang:
You can't put your arms around a memory
You can't put your arms around a memory
You can't put your arms around a memory
Don't try
That chorus functions a a cautionary warning to me. It's the rock equivalent of the last sentence in J.D. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye: Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody. The message in both of these works is crystal clear-- they are declarations from individuals who have made up their minds as to how they are going to live the rest of their lives. There's power in that, even if the individuals self-destruct in the end.
Kurt Vonnegut once described smoking cigarettes as a "classy form of suicide". Many relatives of lung cancer victims would disagree, but then again it is difficult to understand why anyone would want to end their own lives, or hurt themselves so wantonly. A week doesn't go by when someone doesn't chastise me for my cigarette habit. I certainly don't want to die, but why is it so hard for me to stop? Is it an addictive personailty trait? Insecurity? Low self-esteem? A way to cope with stress? Or is it simply because I like it too much and now I'm hopelessly hooked?
I don't have the answers, but I do know one thing: once upon a time I had a death wish, and during those times I felt more alive than if I'd been quietly sitting at home, reading a book. My wish for death propelled me through the frying pan, the fire and the whole damn grill. Unlike Johnny Thunders, I never went too far, and yet I understand why someone would. Some people just want to cross the line that everyone else refuses to step over.
We watch them step over that line with a combination of fascination and disgust because we have an urge to live (and die) vicariously.
People like Thunders pay the dear price so that I don't have to follow suit. But lest you think I'm ascribing martyr status to a dead junk punker, keep in mind that Mr. Thunders would've found such canonization to be contrite and petty.
That probably explains my obsession with the Casualties Of Rock, the walking wounded who articulate our deepest fears and most excessive wishes. I like living on the edge but over time I have become timid, and hearing tales of legendary punk rock partying gives me my danger fix without endangering my actual self.
I'd like to keep it that way. That's the lesson I learned from Johnny Thunders last night: I can't put my arms around his tortured memories, so I shouldn't even bother to try. Even if I wanted, I wouldn't be able to, so at least I have his music and his words-- and not his actions --to go by.
Thanks, Johnny.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
stars on 45
Saturday night I spent the evening up in Los Padres National Forest. As we watched the stars in the sky, my friends and I discussed astronomy and astrology.
When I got back into town, I'd heard the news about the comet being smashed and wondered what time it had happened, and if we would have been able to see it in the sky.
I also wondered what effect it would have on astrologers.
I was joking when I wondered that, but evidently it's become a serious affair: check this link and see what I mean.
Too funny...
When I got back into town, I'd heard the news about the comet being smashed and wondered what time it had happened, and if we would have been able to see it in the sky.
I also wondered what effect it would have on astrologers.
I was joking when I wondered that, but evidently it's become a serious affair: check this link and see what I mean.
Too funny...
Monday, July 04, 2005
eternal optimism
Hung out on Friday with Sal, an old friend from the elementary school days whom I've kept in touch with over the years.
He and I went our separate ways for a spell in high school. My world view at that point in time was transforming rapidly, and it didn't have too much to do with how Sal perceived things. To break it down into simple terms: Sal was (and still is) an eternal optimist, while I was (and sometimes still am) an aspiring pessimist.
It's been in the years following high school that he and I have reconnected. Time has a way of putting the past into perspective, and I look back on the times we had together and think to myself, "Hey-- we had a lot of fun as kids!"
Of course, I don't know if he ever knew the real reasons behind my adolescent angst, but now that we're both adults, it doesn't matter. The fact is, we are both grown-up now, and those days are long gone. And in a way, it's a good thing that he and many of our friends at the time never knew the real deal about me, because it might have dimmed their budding optimism at a crucial moment in their lives.
Plus, it would've turned me into a "victim", someone who warranted pity and attention... two things that I didn't need.
Anyway, we checked out "Thai Elvis" at the Palms in Hollywood, and went to the Dresden Room afterwards for some drinks. We mostly reminisced about our youthful escapades while Sal's attorney friend from up north listened in. The combination of '50's music, coupled with good Thai dishes and nostalgic stories, had me feeling good.
The biggest difference between Sal and I is that he has always embraced sentimentality while I have avoided it. The reason is that I have always felt that I have nothing to be sentimental about, but apparently not only do I have a lot to get misty-eyed over but people like Sal are content to carry these memories for two.
In other words, I'm glad somebody was busy remembering all of that stuff, because I would've forgotten about them. Just as I consented to let Sal keep many of my old poetry notebooks back in the day rather than burn or trash them, so he also kept those memories alive.
In my drive to move forward and obliterate my past, I am finding that it is impossible to do so. And lucky for me, I have not been successful in my attempts to raze the monuments to my childhood to the ground.
Thinking back to those days, I wanted to do nothing more than die. Thus, it is fitting that I am still alive and grateful that, even in the most nihilistic period of my life, I wasn't able to go through with my plans for self-destruction.
I mean, think of all the things I'd be missing if I'd turned my own lights out.
Like Elvis Presley... I'd be missing out on Elvis...
*/*
I am an Elvis fan. No, I don't wear sideburns, and no I don't think the King is still alive...
...but I do think he's The King.
They say that you are either a Beatles fan or an Elvis fan, with no in-between. I disagree. I like both of them equally, and I see no contradiction there.
People ridicule Elvis because he died a lonely death, on the commode as his heart gave out. But his voice never gave out, like so many other rock gods who are still among us. Look at (or listen, rather) to Robert Plant, for example-- his voice is toast!
By the way: Robert Plant is a huge Elvis fan.
Elvis, despite the Jim Jones-style haircut during his Vegas years and that god-awful white rhinestone-studded jumpsuit, was a bad motherfucker until the very end. That voice... everyone can imitate it, but no one gets it right.
The original Elvis possessed a distinctive high baritone with a range from the lower E to the H over two octaves higher. He had an excellent vibrato in his voice.
Thai Elvis has performed, in the handful of times I have seen him sing, most of my favorite Elvis tunes: "Can't Help Falling In Love", "In The Ghetto", "My Way", "It's Now Or Never", "Love Me Tender", "Jailhouse Rock", "Little Sister" and a plethora of other hits.
There are also many songs that Thai Elvis sings that I was never fond of: "Return To Sender", "Teddy Bear" and "Bossa Nova" are a few.
Thai Elvis has even done songs that Elvis did by other artists, such as "Something" by... The Beatles!
But so far, he hasn't performed my all-time favorite Elvis song: "Marie's The Name (His Latest Flame)"...
A very old friend came by today
'cause he was telling everyone in town
about the love that he just found
and Marie's the name of his latest flame...
Written by the immortal songwriting duo of Doc Pomus and Mort Schumann, "Marie's The Name" has been covered by the likes of The Misfits, The Scorpions, and The Smiths, whose song "Rusholme Ruffians" is such a bite of the Elvis tune that they would cover a bit of the original in concert as an intro to their take.
I like songs that have stories, but not necesarily ballad or epic stories. A simple boy-meets-girl scenario will suffice for most pop music. But what's great about "Marie's The Name" is that the story is boy-meets-girl-who-belongs-to-another-boy-and-he-doesn't-even-know-it!
Would you believe that yesterday
This girl was in my arms and swore to me
she'd be mine eternally
and Marie's the name of his latest flame...
Elvis' voice on this song is in fine form: delicate, vulnerable, cloying... the backing instrumentation is like a hybrid mix of Bo Diddley rhythmic bounce and folksy skiffle-style acoustic guitar strumming. The melody line almost seems designed or tailored to The King's voice.
But it is the bridge (or middle-eight section) that soars, that elevates this underrated pop gem from novel footnote to a masterpiece of early rock 'n' roll artistry. A chattering piano stutter heightens the tension, the music gets a bit more upbeat, but the lyrics (along with Elvis' pristine delivery) are devastating:
Though I smiled the tears inside were a-burning
I wished him luck and then he said 'goodbye'
He was gone but still his words kept returning
What else was there for me to do but cry?
A moment of perfect heartbreak is captured and expressed, as surely as if it were photographed and printed on the front page of the biggest newspaper in the world; haven't we all been there, in that formless twilight area of the soul where our disappointment buries its face in shame as we smile and make nice on the surface?
Haven't we all wanted to crumble up in a ball as we hear the bad news, only to mask our hurt with best wishes and congratulations for those who are more fortunate than us?
Yes, we all have. I know that I have, at least.
*/*
Nowadays, a song like that would be rewritten so that the singer could get revenge on his cheatin' lover. Someone would write an extra verse, about how the guy tells his friend that his new girl was with him just yesterday, and then the two friends would conspire to humiliate the girl to teach her a lesson or something like that...
But if someone did that, then the song wouldn't mean anything. It's the pain, the sweet sweet pain, that makes the song irresistable to me. It's that aspiring pessimism that I've been hooked on since I was 14 that makes "Marie's The Name" the masterpiece that it is.
What makes the song even more haunting to me is the sunniness of the music. Like most of The Smiths' catalog, it's a happy little ditty with moribund lyrics on the top. You can dance and shimmy to it, but if your baby just dumped you then all you'll want to do is hold your head in your hands and weep. No wonder Morrissey and Johnny Marr felt the need to rip it off!
I wish Thai Elvis had played it on Friday, because for some reason it reminds me of Sal. Not that he and I ever shared girlfriends-- we did once, but it was a girl that I was already over by the time he dated her, and she treated the both of us like dirt anyway so it never came between us.
No, the song reminds me of him because of his constantly infectious attitude. Sal always acted like a man in love for the first time, and I was always feeling like a man who has been rejected for the umpteenth time. Thus, Marie could be a metaphor for our respective lives, and the song could suddenly be about young Sal telling me about his life and his happiness while I think about how my teenage years suck.
He talked and talked and I heard him say
that she had the longest blakcest hair
the prettiest green eyes anywhere
and Marie's the name of his latest flame...
Yet another reason why I'm glad to be older and wiser... now I think I get it, now I can understand certain things. Sal and I had to go different routes to end up in the same place, when you think about it.
I wouldn't say that I'm as optimistic as Sal is, but I've made progress over the past few years. I am still a danger-lover, content to lead a dissolute, unstable lifestyle for as long as I can, but the notion of growing older and settling down is friendlier to me now.
I am no longer the aspiring pessimist. Rather, I'd say that I'm an established realist. That seems to fit me now more than anything.
And that's the name of MY latest flame...
He and I went our separate ways for a spell in high school. My world view at that point in time was transforming rapidly, and it didn't have too much to do with how Sal perceived things. To break it down into simple terms: Sal was (and still is) an eternal optimist, while I was (and sometimes still am) an aspiring pessimist.
It's been in the years following high school that he and I have reconnected. Time has a way of putting the past into perspective, and I look back on the times we had together and think to myself, "Hey-- we had a lot of fun as kids!"
Of course, I don't know if he ever knew the real reasons behind my adolescent angst, but now that we're both adults, it doesn't matter. The fact is, we are both grown-up now, and those days are long gone. And in a way, it's a good thing that he and many of our friends at the time never knew the real deal about me, because it might have dimmed their budding optimism at a crucial moment in their lives.
Plus, it would've turned me into a "victim", someone who warranted pity and attention... two things that I didn't need.
Anyway, we checked out "Thai Elvis" at the Palms in Hollywood, and went to the Dresden Room afterwards for some drinks. We mostly reminisced about our youthful escapades while Sal's attorney friend from up north listened in. The combination of '50's music, coupled with good Thai dishes and nostalgic stories, had me feeling good.
The biggest difference between Sal and I is that he has always embraced sentimentality while I have avoided it. The reason is that I have always felt that I have nothing to be sentimental about, but apparently not only do I have a lot to get misty-eyed over but people like Sal are content to carry these memories for two.
In other words, I'm glad somebody was busy remembering all of that stuff, because I would've forgotten about them. Just as I consented to let Sal keep many of my old poetry notebooks back in the day rather than burn or trash them, so he also kept those memories alive.
In my drive to move forward and obliterate my past, I am finding that it is impossible to do so. And lucky for me, I have not been successful in my attempts to raze the monuments to my childhood to the ground.
Thinking back to those days, I wanted to do nothing more than die. Thus, it is fitting that I am still alive and grateful that, even in the most nihilistic period of my life, I wasn't able to go through with my plans for self-destruction.
I mean, think of all the things I'd be missing if I'd turned my own lights out.
Like Elvis Presley... I'd be missing out on Elvis...
*/*
I am an Elvis fan. No, I don't wear sideburns, and no I don't think the King is still alive...
...but I do think he's The King.
They say that you are either a Beatles fan or an Elvis fan, with no in-between. I disagree. I like both of them equally, and I see no contradiction there.
People ridicule Elvis because he died a lonely death, on the commode as his heart gave out. But his voice never gave out, like so many other rock gods who are still among us. Look at (or listen, rather) to Robert Plant, for example-- his voice is toast!
By the way: Robert Plant is a huge Elvis fan.
Elvis, despite the Jim Jones-style haircut during his Vegas years and that god-awful white rhinestone-studded jumpsuit, was a bad motherfucker until the very end. That voice... everyone can imitate it, but no one gets it right.
The original Elvis possessed a distinctive high baritone with a range from the lower E to the H over two octaves higher. He had an excellent vibrato in his voice.
Thai Elvis has performed, in the handful of times I have seen him sing, most of my favorite Elvis tunes: "Can't Help Falling In Love", "In The Ghetto", "My Way", "It's Now Or Never", "Love Me Tender", "Jailhouse Rock", "Little Sister" and a plethora of other hits.
There are also many songs that Thai Elvis sings that I was never fond of: "Return To Sender", "Teddy Bear" and "Bossa Nova" are a few.
Thai Elvis has even done songs that Elvis did by other artists, such as "Something" by... The Beatles!
But so far, he hasn't performed my all-time favorite Elvis song: "Marie's The Name (His Latest Flame)"...
A very old friend came by today
'cause he was telling everyone in town
about the love that he just found
and Marie's the name of his latest flame...
Written by the immortal songwriting duo of Doc Pomus and Mort Schumann, "Marie's The Name" has been covered by the likes of The Misfits, The Scorpions, and The Smiths, whose song "Rusholme Ruffians" is such a bite of the Elvis tune that they would cover a bit of the original in concert as an intro to their take.
I like songs that have stories, but not necesarily ballad or epic stories. A simple boy-meets-girl scenario will suffice for most pop music. But what's great about "Marie's The Name" is that the story is boy-meets-girl-who-belongs-to-another-boy-and-he-doesn't-even-know-it!
Would you believe that yesterday
This girl was in my arms and swore to me
she'd be mine eternally
and Marie's the name of his latest flame...
Elvis' voice on this song is in fine form: delicate, vulnerable, cloying... the backing instrumentation is like a hybrid mix of Bo Diddley rhythmic bounce and folksy skiffle-style acoustic guitar strumming. The melody line almost seems designed or tailored to The King's voice.
But it is the bridge (or middle-eight section) that soars, that elevates this underrated pop gem from novel footnote to a masterpiece of early rock 'n' roll artistry. A chattering piano stutter heightens the tension, the music gets a bit more upbeat, but the lyrics (along with Elvis' pristine delivery) are devastating:
Though I smiled the tears inside were a-burning
I wished him luck and then he said 'goodbye'
He was gone but still his words kept returning
What else was there for me to do but cry?
A moment of perfect heartbreak is captured and expressed, as surely as if it were photographed and printed on the front page of the biggest newspaper in the world; haven't we all been there, in that formless twilight area of the soul where our disappointment buries its face in shame as we smile and make nice on the surface?
Haven't we all wanted to crumble up in a ball as we hear the bad news, only to mask our hurt with best wishes and congratulations for those who are more fortunate than us?
Yes, we all have. I know that I have, at least.
*/*
Nowadays, a song like that would be rewritten so that the singer could get revenge on his cheatin' lover. Someone would write an extra verse, about how the guy tells his friend that his new girl was with him just yesterday, and then the two friends would conspire to humiliate the girl to teach her a lesson or something like that...
But if someone did that, then the song wouldn't mean anything. It's the pain, the sweet sweet pain, that makes the song irresistable to me. It's that aspiring pessimism that I've been hooked on since I was 14 that makes "Marie's The Name" the masterpiece that it is.
What makes the song even more haunting to me is the sunniness of the music. Like most of The Smiths' catalog, it's a happy little ditty with moribund lyrics on the top. You can dance and shimmy to it, but if your baby just dumped you then all you'll want to do is hold your head in your hands and weep. No wonder Morrissey and Johnny Marr felt the need to rip it off!
I wish Thai Elvis had played it on Friday, because for some reason it reminds me of Sal. Not that he and I ever shared girlfriends-- we did once, but it was a girl that I was already over by the time he dated her, and she treated the both of us like dirt anyway so it never came between us.
No, the song reminds me of him because of his constantly infectious attitude. Sal always acted like a man in love for the first time, and I was always feeling like a man who has been rejected for the umpteenth time. Thus, Marie could be a metaphor for our respective lives, and the song could suddenly be about young Sal telling me about his life and his happiness while I think about how my teenage years suck.
He talked and talked and I heard him say
that she had the longest blakcest hair
the prettiest green eyes anywhere
and Marie's the name of his latest flame...
Yet another reason why I'm glad to be older and wiser... now I think I get it, now I can understand certain things. Sal and I had to go different routes to end up in the same place, when you think about it.
I wouldn't say that I'm as optimistic as Sal is, but I've made progress over the past few years. I am still a danger-lover, content to lead a dissolute, unstable lifestyle for as long as I can, but the notion of growing older and settling down is friendlier to me now.
I am no longer the aspiring pessimist. Rather, I'd say that I'm an established realist. That seems to fit me now more than anything.
And that's the name of MY latest flame...
Friday, July 01, 2005
politics
I posted yesterday on one of my other blogs. I might not have time today to blog on this one, so I have linked the other for your convenience.
We're swamped with work for the next week because so many people here at the radio network have decided to go on vacation at the same time.
I might just take one myself, after everything settles down. It'd be nice to not have to come in. I like work, but if everyone else is taking time off, so should I.
Let me just say one thing before I go: people are talking about how Time magazine turning over internal documents to the Feds for an investigation into the outing of a CIA operative's cover is a bad thing for journalism and the First Amendment.
However, I say this: journalists gave up their impartiality long ago, before 9/11... hell, even before the first attempt to blow up the WTC!
The past five years have seen the rise of journalism so yellow that it should be listed on the Terror Alert Color Chart. The cover-ups, the buried stories, the accusations of 'bias' from either side...
Newsweek, Dan Rather, the Swift Boaters, the 2004 Presidential debates... all of this and more...
Read my post from my other blog and tell me if you agree or disagree with my assertion.
If I don't find my way back here before the 4th, have a happy Independence Day.
We're swamped with work for the next week because so many people here at the radio network have decided to go on vacation at the same time.
I might just take one myself, after everything settles down. It'd be nice to not have to come in. I like work, but if everyone else is taking time off, so should I.
Let me just say one thing before I go: people are talking about how Time magazine turning over internal documents to the Feds for an investigation into the outing of a CIA operative's cover is a bad thing for journalism and the First Amendment.
However, I say this: journalists gave up their impartiality long ago, before 9/11... hell, even before the first attempt to blow up the WTC!
The past five years have seen the rise of journalism so yellow that it should be listed on the Terror Alert Color Chart. The cover-ups, the buried stories, the accusations of 'bias' from either side...
Newsweek, Dan Rather, the Swift Boaters, the 2004 Presidential debates... all of this and more...
Read my post from my other blog and tell me if you agree or disagree with my assertion.
If I don't find my way back here before the 4th, have a happy Independence Day.
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