Sleep Deprivation is a bitch!!!! I'm in show-mode this week at K-state, and have had had maybe five hours in the last three days...along with the NORMAL Sleep Dep. that comes with being a new parent...hence, I'm REALLY sleepy...but, ahead we must forge!
Sooo...here's an interesting queery I found in PASTE magazine...if you don't know PASTE, and you're a music fan, you should...it's the magazine the Rolling Stone OUGHTA be, and might be if the baby boomer-sellouts who run that mag had a shred of integrity left! Check out www.pastemagazine.com... I think that's the link. If not, just google it...I'm tired dammit!
Anyhoo, in a small section of the magazine , I noticed one of their writers made a list of TOP FIVE THINGS I'M SUPPOSED TO LIKE, BUT DON'T....
Think about that (don't EVERTHINK though- no need to analyze, just go with it!) and shoot me a response to that...it can be music,oriented, theatre, or whatever you like! Reader's choice...
28 points for the reference....BUT, I need album, year of release, artist, song title AND songwriter! (take that bee-yotches!)
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Ooops...meant OVERTHINK, not everthink...told ya I'm tired...and have I MENTIONED that Im a shitty-typist?
Dream police
Cheap Trick
Written by Rick Nielsen
Dream police Album
1979
1) THE TITANIC...what a flatulent sloppily-written piece of clap-trap this is...I'll take Gone With The Wind anyday.
In fact, I don't much care for effects-ladened, high-octane action movies with humongus, but emotionally bereft body-counts. Empty epics. They are truly, as the bard would say,"full of sound and fury signifying nothing."
And so wearying. Go slower, chew on the details, revel in the nuance. And I HATE a busy moving camera! Let my eye linger on something long enough to register it and maybe even savour it.
You hear this mantra in film these days: "The average audience member can assimilate information much faster now."
And? So? When did telling a story become a race? The point is the journey you take, not how fast you can get to the end.
2) SUSHI...yeah, right, raw fish. No thanks! In fact,no on fish of any kind, unless it's the most innocuous, bland piece of white fish you can find and its been breaded and battered and fried so that all you can taste is the grease. And I'm still going to order a hamburger.
3) RAP MUSIC...it ain't music. And they are crap rhymes which are simplistic, forced, and usually don't scan. Who in the Hell tries to rhyme "I" with "Eye"? Only an illiterate, uncultured cretin! And it all sounds drearily the same. Bring back Doo-wop, please!
4) THE BRITISH PENCHANT FOR COMEDIC CROSS-DRESSING... Rarely have I found this funny. Don't care for it when they do it on Monty Python, don't care for Damned Edna. Though Billy Wilder isn't British, he is maybe my favourite director and I've only seen Some Like It Hot Once. I'm sure it's the cross-dressing thing. A couple of the female characters the two guys play on Little Britain I DO find amusing, though I'm sure even they'll wear thin after awhile.
5)CHAIN BOOK STORES...Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc. They're interchangeable in their sameness, their selection is limited, they rarely have the stuff I'm looking for, and after a while one's eyes just blur and cross-over sleuthing the stacks.
Of course, I could say this about chain stores/restaurants of every stripe...be it Best Buy, Applebee's, Bed, Bath, and Beyond et al. You can go into any frigging mall in America (and sometimes the world...they have a K-Mart in Bratislava, Slovakia, with a Little Caesar's Pizza next to it) and they will all have the same damned stores carrying the same damned stuff...There is absolutely no individuality or creativity anymore. Soon it will be one big Super Wal-Mart coast-to-coast.
I buy most of my books over the internet anymore. I miss going into cluttered, dark bookstores that have a faintly musty smell. Give me a book dealer who knows something about books without having to go to his computer; I don't need one who has a latte machine.
Exercise.
Cel Phones.
Sunny days. (I prefer overcast.)
Bob Dylan.
Samuel Beckett.
Dishonorable mention:
Parties- I just started this in the past few years. I hope it is just a phase because I remember liking them a lot at one time. I like little get-togethers every once in a while.
It's best when it is a bunch of friends at an event of some kind where something is going on such as a play, concert, or karoke. (hanging out afterwards and such).
The Beach Boys
80's metal- Another thing I used to like, but don't anymore. Not even Def Leppard who used to be my fave.
Rev K YOU DA MAN!!!!!!!
28 big points for you!!!!!!!!
Basketball
Fancy/exotic food
Doing it yourself
Jane Austen
Organized religion
Wow. This one has had Mike and I talking and thinking all day. But, without "everthinking" :), mine are:
1. social parties/the bar scene: whatever. I hate it. I'd rather be cuddled up at home or in a little coffee shop with the one I love or a few friends.
2. lots of jewlery and purses and all the fab female styles: screw that. I'll wear what I want when I want. I'll carry the same purse year round if I want. Give me jeans and a cool shirt with a picture or design or sarcastic saying and black boots any day. Hats are good, too. And overalls and bandanas and pigtails.
3. going to church Sunday morning: I was raised that way and I do enjoy it when I find a church I like but I hate feeling that I HAVE to go every Sunday. I don't like being told what to do by other people when it comes to my spirituality and religious beliefs. And, yes, I am a female PK. And yes all the rumors are true abouit us.
4. Whoever said Sushi - I'm with you on that one. When did it become hip to go and sit and eat raw crap? Friends tell me, "Oh try it again. You just haven't had good sushi." Listen, people, I've tried it once. I don't like it. If I ate a big turd one time I wouldn't have to try it again to know that I didn't like it - no matter how you dress it up.
5. Beer: I just don't like beer.
6. Close girlie-friends: sorry. Tried it. I'd rather hang out with guys or chicks who don't like girls, either. Though I can say I do have one girlie friend. And that's enough. Bless her.
I could go on all day. But it's rainy-cold-Sunday naptime now.
* Going and seeing plays. As the bluesman say "The thrill is gone"
** Springsteen ....im sure i will take grief for this one. Im married to the uber fan and YES ive listened to the lyrics and YES ive seen his live show. Im sorry honey i just cant get onboard.
*** The intelligencia (aka intellectual snobs).....if you have to ask you arent one of them and if you are one of them you wouldnt dare ask.
**** Feminist (and this includes the neo, the old school, the lesbo, whatever) Ive just never felt the call to arms my sisters. All the arguing about agendas and policy and blah blah blah....we still end up voting for a man for president???!!!! I dont get it.
***** Horseracing ...yeah yeah horse capital of the world and all..but ive always felt ill at ease about any sport involving animals. Why dont we just leave them be...let them frolic in the fields. It just all seems unkind and seedy. Ive never been to Keeneland and that always inlists gasps when i own up to that.
* "Waiting for Guffman" - It's just embarassing. I feel genuine discomfort in watching it.
* The "War" in Iraq - How is this helping "secure our 'way of life'" again?
* Musicals - Cookie cutter. Cookie cutter. Cookie cutter. Like rap with dancing Nazis.
* WalMart - Don't get me started.
* Morning radio shows - Let's all laugh at ourselves. Hahahahaha. We are so damn funny.
And, one bonus...
* George W. Bush - The Emperor has no clothes!
Good answers thus far...Here goes mine...
1) The DIGITAL age- anyone who can't see that it's just "too much" has a HUGE blind spot, IMHO...particularly with music and film...does anyone REALLY think that it;s a good thing that some kid with a computer can make a CD that's sounds as "good" as what you're hearing on the radio? Call me kooky, but I don't...when EVERYONE can do it, its no longer special, and usually no longer any good!...and don't get me started on all the "cellular" devices...
2) College Sports- With the exception of March Madness (which is pretty cool, I must admit) and the OCCASIONAL SEC football game, it just don't move me! I much prefer the pros, which is KY is tantamount to a deadly sin (these folks just NEVER got over the fact that the COlonels weren't merged into the NBA)- To paraphrase Bill Maher, "Gosh no, I don't like pro sports...who wants to see all that EXCELLENCE???"
3) RAP/HIP HOP- I was with it in the beginning, and really up till the CHRONIC/PREDATOR era, but the new stuff is just BAD...and it's, I'm sorry to say, bad for society...misogeny, violence, racisim, greed, chest thumping...these things are NOT GOOD and I'm just dying for SOMEONE ( other than that prick O'Riely) to take the industry to task...
4) "MODERN" rock- Can't listen to it...this pretty much encompasses everything from Nickleback to Franz Ferdinand...it's just inferior to most of what came before it. If that makes me an old fuddy duddy, so be it. There's a REASON why most old rock fans my age gravitate toward country these days...even with all the Nashville gloss, it still rocks more than most "rock" does...
5) THE SOPRANOS- Even with Little Steven, I just don't give a crap!
Er...ah...Rick? Sondheim DOES rhyme and scans, has never as far as I know rhymed "eye" with "I", and his tunes are very melodic. I was talking about rap. Tell me this is a joke. Or if you don't like him, don't like him for other reasons, not those you stated.
I have a song I'll play for you when I get back, that my pal Bruce Kimmel produced on one of his show albums called "Everybody Wants to be Sondheim But Me."
I agree with you on Spielberg. I actually think he is a competent technical film-maker who picks lousy subjects and then just overdoes the treacly, rank sentimentality. I too am glad that Shakes In Love beat out Private Ryan which after its much-talked-of "gritty, graphic" realism of the opening invasion (and who really needs to see heads blown in half to know that war is Hell) is a rather pedestrian movie. A.I. and HOOK are Spielberg at his worst...grossly sentimental, almost homo-erotic paeans to childhood.
As for baseball play-offs, though I'm a confirmed National Leaguer, I am enjoying the White Sox's presence in the series. Of course, I'm a guy who once the Reds swan somewhere before the All-star break, I don't look at the Sports Page again until Spring Training starts. But I did enjoy seeing the Legends this summer. I may make them my new team.
Actually the first three STAR WARS movies aren't really all that great. The best of the lot is EMPIRE, written by Kasdan and directed by Kerschner.
Some folk mentioned BUSH. Does he really fall into the category of "Supposed to like, but don't." I mean it's been pretty obvious from the get-go that he's been a corrupt cretin whose only concern is perserving the status quo of rich cronyism. Anyone who could vote for him after the Presidential debates (or even his first four years) should be ashamed. When he reads a speech, he's inarticulate; when he talks off-the-cuff, he's incoherent. And nobody died when Clinton lied. What happened to the Republicans much vaunted "rule of law". The corruption of this administration beats Nixon's, Harding's, & Grant's -- all put together...Hmmm, all Republicans...My first rule for a president is: he has to be smarter than me.
What IS "Modern Rock"? For me, modern rock starts a few years after the British Invasion and none of it's been any good since then.
$, I couldn't agree more re ROOTS, NAPPY ROOTS, etc....I was refering to more "mainstream" stuff that gets lots of play on my campus...
Chuck- "Modern Rock" is a corporate/Clear Channel term for late 90's to current Hard edged rock. And sorry, there's been lots of great Rock and Roll, I EVEN like some of the early to mid-90s stuff (Counting Crows, Pearl Jam, Tool, Ben Harper, etc...) but my GOd it IS Schlock these days...once again, get enough gadgets hooked up to your instruments and throw "pro tools" on your voice and viola! Instant rock star...the bands at the top today would've been BURIED by club bands 15 years ago...
I can certainly chime in on the Speilberg bashing (particularly as of late, though I thought much more of PRIVATE RYAN than you guys obviously did) but EMPIRE OF THE SUN is one of the finest films ever made- consequently, it's his most overlooked, and got glossed over mainly because of that snoozefest THE LAST EMPEROR...
Thank you, rick8, with the Democrat comment - and the Republican comment after that. I'm ashamed of both.
And I love Sondheim. :)
Tim, I have to disagree with EMPIRE OF THE SUN. The trouble with that film ( as with many other Spielberg films): When you try to make every scene in the film "A Moment", you end up with no moments and an unbalanced film. I find it a bit of a staggeringly ponderous yawner. Some scenes simply deserve more emphasis than others.
I wouldn't know from Modern Rock 'n Roll. By the time the Brit Invasion hit, I was already into the Great American Songbook. All I know is I've pretty much hated almost every band that's been featured on SNL for the last twenty-five years. Someone mentioned Franz Ferdinand. I saw on SNL last Saturday. Hello?!!! They can't carry a tune! The lyrics are crap on those rare moments they're decipherable at all. And I hate the electronic screech of instruments to the exclusion of all out. It was Acid Rock and Heavy Metal that killed Rock 'n' Roll for me a long time ago.
Rick, I guess I'll cut you some slack on the Sondheim thing...I'm not the nut about him that my wife is...Still Sweeny is, for me, the greatest musical ever, and I'm damned fond of Little Night Music and Funny Thing...others I enjoy, but less...some like Passion and Sunday in the Park, I appreciate intellectually, a lot less so emotionally.
And when you get right down to it, I can take a really slight, silly book if the music is great...Girl Crazy, Boys From Syracuse, Babes In Arms...my kind of scores.
I'll always remember my mentor at UK, Charles Dickens, who was always a proponent of the new and the daring and even avante garde, saying to me once when I was playing Dionysius in his Julian Beck/Living Theatre-ish production of THE BACCHAE, "But, of course, I'd rather be doing Noel Coward... evening dress and bon mots." Me too.
Hey, Rick...even when the rappers can actually rhyme, they're still not melodic. I want to music, not poetry (good or bad)set to a rhythm beat.
As for that pitchers and catchers thing, everything is hopeful at Spring Training.
Couldn't disagree more re: EMPIRE...the film takes it's time in places, to be sure. But Christian Bale's performance is on e of the finest from an actor of his age in the history of cinema. (and a stellar supporting cast the likes of Malkovich, Miranda Richardson and Joey Pants...)And the "big " moments in the film, I found to be epic and heartbreaking, and incredibly memorable. (If you don't get teary eyed during the last scene in that film, you don't have a friggin soul as far as I'm concerned!)
And some damned fine bands/artists have appeared on SNL over the years, from Paul Simon, the Dead, Meatloaf, and Billy Joel, to Springsteen, Nirvana, Sinead O'Connor and the Foo Fighters...Course I appreciate the GREAT AMERICAN SONGBOOK as much as the next almost 40 year old...except when Rod Stewart is doing it...what the hell is THAT all about?....But, stuff like Franz and Coldplay just don't do it for me, though I honestly hate myself and the way I sound when I say something like that. I swore I would never ever become one of those "my generation's better than yours" jackasses, but I suppose it gets us all in the end...
'kay, so perhaps one is not SOULESS if they don't like EMPIRE...that might be a mite harsh, but damn it all, I LOVE that film...and the original STAR WARS was the CITIZEN KANE of Sci Fi films...it changed the way they were looked at, made, marketed, etc...hard to not call that a great film....oh well...this is what I get for "everthinking" (;)
If you filmed Star Wars in Black & White and starred Buster Crabbe in it. It's a thirties/forties serial. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but greatest movie ever made which Time magazine proclaimed at the time?? Oh, please, come on! It wouldn't make my top 100. I was in the audience for the first screening in Dallas, Texas, at the time and enjoyed for what it was and because we hadn't had a popcorn movie like that for a long time. But by the second time I saw it, I could tell it wasn't the second coming of Christ.
And God what it spawned! Thank Messrs. Spielberg and Lucas for killing the independent interesting film-making of the seventies and bringing us into the era of empty carnival thrill rides and the wretched film-making decrees of the opening weekend, box office tally, the $100 million dollar gross, and movies made only for fourteen year old boys or those with the mentality of.
I said I didn't like most bands that have appeared on SNL in the last 25 years, not all.
Yeah, what is that thing with Rod. I give him an "A" for appreciation of a good song; "F" for execution.
As for EMPIRE, ponderous, ponderous, tedious...I guess I'm just the undead, but I've never understood Spielberg's glossy, romanticized fascination for WWII.
Star Wars continued on the great tradition of all those great Saturday matinee serials, as well as the great japenese flicks.....god i love The Seven Samuri...god bless Kurasawa.
I hardly think it can be held responsible for the death of the independent film movement. Any blame in a death i dont think exists would be more appropriately placed at the feet of greedy corporate bastards who own studios...and advertisers...and hell the downward spiral into one big mass global marketplace that wants us all to think, look, and act alike.
Hmm...maybe it was all the Bush commments.....
For those of us of a certain age....going to see Star Wars (a big deal cause it was PG)..wont ever be duplicated. The popcorn was crunchier, saltier, and dripping with hot butter.
As far as rap goes....when its bad its awful but when it flows i just gotta put my hands in the air and wave them like i just dont care. Nuthin a little rump shakin cant fix.
But as Steve points out, STAR WARS changed the way movies were marketed and the definition of their success. Now all movies strive for the big opening weekend and want to be a homerun. Nothing can build slowly or find an audience anymore. Studios will only back those movies that they're banking will be instant hits. I don't think movies as purely marketing is a good thing. Corporate greed had something to do with it, but it took Lucas ( a corporation unto himself) to lift the veils for studios. It's not the independent film movement that it ruined. It's the independent muse that it destroyed. Before Lucas, filmmakers had more creative latitude to succeed or fail. Now the corps micro-mange everything and you have non-literary people who know nothing about drama nurturing literary, dramatic material. This is a direct result of the opening weekend blockbuster mentality spawned by Lucas and Spielberg. Lowest common denominator thinking. And it's only gotten worse. I know when I started out in this business, it was easier to get a script okayed. Now you don't know the amount of free work they require before they let you go off and write the script. They basically want to know every detail; you pretty much have to write the script before they'll pay you to write the script.
Spielberg's greatest fault to me is he doesn't trust his script and his actors to do the job. He has to milk everything until it's cottage cheese in an attempt to manipulate your emotions. And if that isn't enough, he then has to thickly layer it on with an obvious John Williams "soaring" score that's supposed to tell you what you're supposed to be feeling. Subtlety is all I ask.
If I ever get tired of going to the theatre, someone please kill me. But I know how it goes, when you're in the business, sometimes it kills the pleasure of the business. I have that problem with movies these days...The other night was the first time in ages I actually went out to see a movie, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK which I enthusiastically recommend.
Well, as my better half so elequently put it, STAR WARS means something to an entire generation of people. It's a touchstone in our lives. It wasn't just a movie, but an event...God knows most of us have few enough of those in our lives... The fact that corporate studio greed ruined the movie making process is hardly George Lucas's fault. He simply set out to make his little movie (which , btw, NO ONE thought would last a week at the box office, much less become a generational icon) I don't think it's fair to judge him and Speilberg, for that matter, for what would have inevitably happened anyway. Ultimately, like every other art form, it was gonna become corrupted by the bottom line...dollar signs! I think the joy that those films have given countless generations FAR outweighs any perceived negative effects that we might attach to them.
Movie novelty songs like you mention D$... I do recall one (though not a movie) called "Who Shot J.R." which rode on that Dallas cliff-hanger.
There was also "Superfly Meets Shaft", a bit older but really funny with bits of Motown songs woven into it. I still have that one somewhere.
I love that kind of crap. All the old "Black Chart" guys used to do "response songs" back in the day. (Rufus Thomas, etc). Rap has been doing it a lot for a while, too. Country has done it a lot. (All supporting arguments for my contention that much of rap and country is nothing but NOVELTY crap. Not ALL, mind you, but MUCH. I submit "Achey, Breaky..." and "F*** You Right Back" as examples.)
I've said enough.
$
The novelty song you refer to is called MR JAWS, by a gentleman named Dicky Goodman...yes, i had the 45...
GOD what a geek I am!
,...and the DISCO STAR WARS theme by MECCO....oh YEAH! HAD THAT TOO!!!!
I had the Mr. Jaws 45, too. Now I don't feel like such an dweeb. Or do I?
I remember the "Who Shot J.R.?"
song and I have The Star Wars disco on CD.
I guess Weird Al kinda corned the market on all that kind of stuff.
Who says we were SUPPOSED to like the Bush administration and their"agenda"?
Again to quote Bill Mahr:
(Speaking to Bush) "It's not an agenda; it's a random collection of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass."
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