My colleague Bob Mehr probably won his Sopranos bet (dead Tony) by default of David Chase’s laziness (though I’ve since decided that I like the entire episode). We’ve since switched our topic of discussion to the latest ultra-pathetic example of the faux-everything campaign supported by what some people consider the “underground.â€Â
Please, if you find Dan Deacon to be entertaining or original, please post a comment or two in his defense.
Subject: Double D. Baby
Don’t you know, man? Don’t you know that THIS is MUSIC, ART, COMEDY AND PERFORMANCE in the year 2007.
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This is the future. So forget your guitars and your songs and your rock and roll. And bow down to the future.
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Bow down to Dan Deacon (a.k.a. what happens when hipster irony, cable access worship and bad electronic music clash)
Seriously, man. Watching this I am really starting to feel my age.
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I mean, I get it (cause, like, I have seen Devo before and all).  I understand all the component parts that make up his schtick. I can even appreciate certain aspects of it (the Ian Curtis ripoff vocals, the Wonder Showzen/Adult Swim visuals) for a fleeting moment. But I just don’t get how anyone could seriously expend any real time, energy or head space on this utter one trick novelty. (not surprisingly he’s super tight with Liam Lynch).
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-B
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Response: I’ve decided to take up freshwater scuba diving. At golf courses. For golf balls. To sell back to the pro-shop. I can no longer take this cruel world.
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No, if I was 22 and this was being shoved down my throat, I’d feel 35, if that makes any sense. If one starts to grow up at age 17, than I grew up on “fucked-upâ€Â pubic access/spontaneous video footage, most of which you can find on YouTube with minimal effort. The Liam Lynch connection is no surprise; they make the perfect team for peddling the worn script of 80’s street culture (YOU OUT THERE!! ARE YOU STILL AMUSED BY GIANT JAMBOXES????), the hipster-izing of the “nerdâ€Â agenda (which I thought happened in the early-to-mid 90’s), a fraudulent “outsiderâ€Â aesthetic, and the inability to write a decent hook (that might partially redeem the unsavory mediocrity of the whole package). Still, because of the pre-Internet slowpoke environment that ruled my late teens and early 20’s, it pains me to come up with a comparable example. Let’s look at Dan Deacon like we did Candlebox or Collective Soul, as the adventurousness needed for consumption is identical
Is the hot air expended in vain (don’t answer that)? Am I totally out of touch and supposed to know that this is uninspired garbage? Is it absurd to let this soon forgotten blip irritate me?
Screemer – They’re On Bell-Lyntone –LYN 3534 (1976 UK)
This is a pretty naff flexi disc promoting Screemer’s Interplanetary Twist (Bell 1483). Anyhow it’s an opportunity to meet Adrian, Glen (is this 80’s plonker Zaine Griff?), Rob, Dave and Alan. The promotional effort didn’t work and Interplanetary Twist sank without a trace. This Phil Wainman production was also at least two years out of date, although it had a certain Rocky Horror edge; it didn’t get a chance to resonate with the public at the time. It seems that this same band had a later single on Arista (In The City), but is not to be confused with Screamer’s City Or Bust also on Arista that same year.
Click on title for the full Screemer flexi experience
I was awakened around 8 am yesterday by a call from a friend in Prague, announcing that a friend of his, from Texas originally, would be coming to Berlin later in the day. After the call was over, I went back to sleep. I had a lot of work to do, and wanted to be fresh.
By the time I had had my coffee and was checking e-mails, the friend-of-a-friend had written me, and we went back and forth until we had a meeting set up later in the evening in Friedrichshain, where he was staying. Then it was time to get to work: totally rewriting a sample page of a brochure for a school here so it wouldn’t be so stuffy and yet would appeal to the right kind of students.
This, it developed, took a couple of hours, but I figured if the school green-lighted the project I’d have made a significant score. And I’d find out: the woman in charge was leaving for vacation at the end of the day. So after I’d whipped it into shape and e-mailed it to her, I realized I’d be stupid to sit around the house waiting to hear from her, so I strapped on the trusty Nikon and went in search of the Acid Icon artist’s other work.
It was just past Rosenthaler Platz, on the south side of Torstr. but proved maddeningly difficult to photograph, as you can see:
This gives a hint of the colors, especially in the face, but it obscures the majority of the piece.
This, on the other hand, gives an idea of the scale of the piece. The only proper way to photograph this would be from inside the industrial courtyard, unfortunately. Still, there are a couple of clues here. First, it’s copyright by Super Blast, which explains the SB on the other icon’s field. Second, the idiosyncratic spelling of “Maschine” makes it pretty certain the artist is German. And the mysterious inscription “Thanks to Play Station” doesn’t, I hope, mean that Super Blast was part of that lame promotion of a few weeks back. If so, there’s nothing overt in either image that indicates it.
I grabbed another couple of shots as I headed back home — the defaced Ronald McDonald, which I added on my post about the McDonald’s closing a couple of weeks ago, and a shot for bowleserised’s all-things-pony blog, The Ponyhof. She and I then spent an amusing couple of hours trying to figure out how to download the goddam photos from Gmail.
Finally, since it was getting towards 5 and I knew just how fast Germans depart the office on Friday, I called the school, only to discover that I’d been in competition with some other writers and the school had gone for one who had a degree. Because naturally, making your living by writing for over 40 years doesn’t mean that you know a thing about language. I wasn’t even particularly surprised, since I know how much store Germans — and, I suspect, Europeans in general — put in such things. Hell, I’d have graduated from college if I’d understood the weird experimental educational project they’d put me in. Or not, I don’t know. (It doesn’t matter now: the damn place is closing).
So the next order of business was to eat some dinner and head off to the bar to meet this guy, which I did. The new tram line by my house makes it easy to get to the hip! edgy! district of Friedrichshain, where every second person is from America and nobody’s much over 30. Trouble is, the new tram line, like all the tram lines in my neighborhood, are closed for the next couple of weeks for track work. Thus, I was wedged into a bus that was loaded well beyond its legal limit with drunken teenagers and ferried most of the way across town, where we were dumped to meet the part of the tramline that was running. Then I got there and there was a sign on the bar that there was a private party going on.
This turned out to be because apparently the place is officially not open for business, so I won’t identify it further, but at any rate the Texan finally made his appearance and we talked for a while until the trust-fund hipster vibe got to me and I realized that I’d be repeating the same arduous journey back home, so I said good-bye and caught the tram.
Boy, did I feel smart: by the time the (mostly empty) bus pulled up at the terminus at Nordbahnhof, I could see lightning flashing in the sky, and by the time I was half-way down my block, tiny raindrops were intermittently hitting my skin. I opened a nightcap beer, sat and read with the windows open as gentle rain started to fall, and then went to bed.
Now, I don’t know about you, but thunderstorms, for me, are like the best sleeping-pills ever invented. I think it’s the rapid drop in air pressure that does it, and I was asleep in no time.
The beer, however, wasn’t, so after lying there listening to a really bad storm pounding down, I got up to recycle it. Although all the lights were out, I could see that the entire bathroom floor was slick with water. Worse, it was copiously studded with dark lumps. Yes, folks, the sewer had backed up, the toilet had overflowed, and my bathroom was covered with the Waste of Others.
German mop technology, I’m sorry to say, isn’t very good. All I have is a so-called Wischmop, a primitive thing with semi-absorbent cloth shreds which need to be wrung out every couple of seconds. Over the next 90 minutes, until after 3 am, I was angrily swabbing, pushing the, um, souvenirs, against the wall, and praying not to get cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A, or some other dread disease. When things were somewhat under control, I took a long, hot shower and collapsed back in bed, where I remained until 10:30.
Why the city of Berlin’s sewers are so bad, I can’t say, although you’ve got to admit that a city so broke that it’s begging other police departments for their cast-off uniforms probably can’t maintain them. This kind of thing has happened before, but it’s never escaped the toilet before, and I was genuinely glad upon rising to note that there wasn’t much of a smell. I spent my early afternoon swabbing the bathroom down with Mr. Clean (Mr. Proper over here) and a healthy dose of Clorox (DanKlorix), and, while it dried, went off to buy some coffee.
Some time ago, I lamented the demise of the Malongo Coffee boutique at Galleries Lafayette here, where you could buy superb whole-bean coffee cheaper than at Starbucks or Einstein or Balzac or any of the other similar “quality” coffee joints. Well, in the past few weeks, they’ve returned as a presence at the bakery counter there. The prices have risen so that it’s no longer €4 for 250g, but more like €5, so they’re on par with the others (except Starbucks, which is €6), but I can once again make my famous blend and breakfasts here at the house are far more enjoyable.
Walking home, I made sure to avoid Friedrichstr., which has apparently been entered in an international competition for auto and pedestrian inaccessibility, and instead made my way over to Museum Island. At Bebelplatz, there was a book fair going on, and if I’d stayed til 4, I could have met Rolf Hochhuth and punched the old man out for awakening an interest in Germany in the teenaged me, but instead I wanted to get home. Walking up Tucholskystr. I saw yet another horror: a Hollywood Boulevard-style star, with a Vanity Fair logo, for Damien Hirst sunk in the sidewalk outside a gallery. Yet another there-goes-the-neighborhood moment — and Brangelina have yet to move in, as far as I know.
I was contemplating the messages the past 24 hours had brought when the doorbell rang. A young woman in a Deutsche Post uniform handed me a large, soft package of the sort I never get. It was postmarked Montpellier. In it was a huge towel, with Languedoc.com embroidered on one corner. I was puzzled until I realized I’d won it weeks ago in this contest, which I play when I’m bored in hopes of winning. (Yeah, I know the page doesn’t work all that well and most of the “clue” links don’t work: it’s French, for heaven’s sake!)
And it occurred to me: the students are leaving Montpellier right now. The apartments will be available all summer. Once again it’s time to strike.
Shake A Tail Suzy/ Meet Barry Sheene –Sound For Industry SF 144 (1973 UK)
Barry Blue meets Barry Sheene! This is a double sided promotional flexi disc for Suzuki that was issued in 1973 . Barry Blue produced and co-wrote Shake A Tail Suzy under the pseudonym Barry Green. The A side is simply a different edit/mix of Big Wheel’s Shake A Tail (Bell 1310) that can also to be found on Velvet Tinmine, although this version predates it. There are more cycle noises, more suggestive purrs, plus other slight variants…The B side features an interview with Barry Sheene. It is yet to be confirmed if this is the same edit of the interview as the flexi that came with the February ’73 issue of Japanese Bikes Monthly.
I ‘ll post another “flexiâ€Â review in a couple of days.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the greatest modern philosopher, Richard Rorty, passed away a couple of days ago. Slate has collected a few of his colleagues’ eulogies of the man. Please read them and think on how wonderful it is that his friends and admirers could have included not just the noxious Richard Posner and the difficult-but-angelic Stanley Fish, but also the beatific Jurgen Habermas and Brian Eno. Rorty made a better person of me, and hopefully you, too.
In our fEEDTIME post a few weeks ago, some mention was made of three tracks from the incredible late 70s Australian punk band X. I said I’d post ‘em – here they are. Here’s what I wrote about the tracks in 2003:
If you ask me, the best pre-1980 Australian punk rock ever recorded was NOT necessarily by the SAINTS. nor the PSYCHO SURGEONS, nor the LEFTOVERS, nor RADIO BIRDMAN — but by X. The Australian X, of course. The past decade has seen them garner some deserved attention, mostly for the low-profile Amphetamine Reptile reissue of their raw, spastic debut LP “X-Aspirations” (also known by some as simply “Aspirations“). I think they actually topped that monster with their amazing earliest recordings, though: the three tracks “Home Is Where The Floor Is”, “Hate City” and “TV Cabaret Roll” that were posthumously cobbled together on the Aberrant Records‘ “Why March When You Can Riot?” compilation. If these tracks had been put out as a 45, you’d be seeing it on numerous “best punk records of all time” lists, certainly on mine (note: these were put out on a 45 a couple years ago on a US label, now out of print, I’m afraid). We’re talking barreling, steamrolling punk rock, but minus the “snotty” vibe and the over-the-top antics that mark some other richly heralded Aussie punk of the era. Not particularly well recorded, mind, but you never cared about that much, right? About the closest equivalent I can think of would be a kindly US punk band like The CONTROLLERS — not too aggro, not too “punk”, but blazing nonetheless. Skip the recent “X – Live At The Civic” CD — despite looking like it should be an out of control rock and roll juggernaut, it’s — uh — a bit boring. One last thing: if you now desperately need those 3 aforementioned tracks, you’re in luck — there’s a double-CD on Small Axe Records that collects three Aberrant Records comps into one package called “Go And Do It”. You can find it here.
Or you can download them right here and put them on your own CD.
From his message board, more from Harlan Ellison and his interpretation of “Made in America,” Episode 86 — better known as the last episode ever — of The Sopranos:
HARLAN ELLISON
– Wednesday, June 13 2007 20:0:53
THE SOPRANOS’ ONION RING SYMBOLISM
Please understand that I despise all that pseudo-academic horse puckey feeding into “deconstructionist referential analysis and criticism.”
I am a meat’n’potatos guy when it comes to “getting the point” of entertaining story.
Nonetheless…
Ocassionally. I said OCCASIONALLY…
Something CLEARLY MEANT to catch the attention of the careful reader (or viewer, in this case) jumps out so pronouncedly, that I come up short, leave a long braking smear on the asphalt, and am thrust headlong into examining the trope beyond its straightforward narrative value.
Such was the case of Tony, AyJay and Carmella each popping a WHOLE CIRCULAR ONION RING into his,his or her mouth, in the final moments of a scene obviously building toward SOMETHING as ominous people orbit them, each of US watching the clock and seeing the last few grains of sand spill through toward denouement, realing that in five, four, three, two minutes David Chase CANNOT tie off all those character-lines.
So…I ask myself…what the hell does it mean, his stealing ultra-precious moments from his storyteller’s reserve?
And here is what I believe, because I believe with all my heart and soul and more than fifty years as a storyteller, that David Chase–as far as Serious Art is concerned–teevee or any other medium–is a Michelangelo, a Kafka, a Rodin.
And to give you my–and ONLY my–interpretation, because I believe it encapsulates everything Chase wanted us to carry away from this generational epic after years of attention, here are the steps of my epiphany:
1. EVERYONE in Tony’s family is corrupt. Including Carmella.
She knows very well what Tony does for a living, where the money for those SUVs and espresso machines and trips to Paris come from. She knows that for every velveteen bed shrug she buys, a snortful of coke was sold, an honest merchant was shylocked or intimidated or broken into and robbed. Same for Meadow, same for AyJay. They all live off the blood money of people who stood at one time before the pathological brutism of the family breadwinner. All of them.
2. They all bought into the life-style of “Our Thing,” and This Thing of Ours has a circular nature. It is the Worm Orobourus, swallowing its own tail. Once in, never out. Tony knows it, the rest of the family knows it. The attorney says to Tony, “This day we knew we would have to face,” as he pounds the bottom of the ketchup bottle and pronounces more imminent indictments.
3. It is a life-cycle. A simple circle. Like the Catholic wafer they take in the mouth. Circular. Take it in, whole and unbroken, the circle of a life with nothing at its end but (at best) Junior’s foggy emptiness, bitter and lonely, or Phil’s bullet in the brain and the brain squashed, or lying on life support, or looking over your shoulder FOREVER, as it was when the story of the Soprano family(ies) began, and as it ends.
4. There is no ending, save the ENDING. And they will all live within that unbroken circle.
They take in the wafer, the life, the endless iconography, as onion ring, whole and entirely.
That is what I–and only I–make of it.
You may pass this on to the muttonheads who complain that the ending wasn’t fulfilling enough for them. Poor stupid bastards!
They would not perceive the Second Coming if the sky split above them.
If there are other writers’ boards, such as the WGAw thing, and there is a vague chance that David Chase–whom I’ve never met–might see the preceding, please do feel free to bandy this humble analysis anywhere you please. Bearing in mind it is
Copyright 2007 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. All rights reserved.
Yr. Pal, Harlan Ellison
HARLAN ELLISON
– Wednesday, June 13 2007 20:16:4
ADDENDUM
As someone (or others) said, the onion rings are also, obviously, if you go with my little dithyramb, a symbolic way of saying “What goes around, comes around.” There is no beginning–we come to the Sopranos with their lives already in motion in episode one–and there is no end, save the end. So Tony sits there in fear everlasting at that diner Communion with his family, who have also accepted the Symbolism of the Onion Wafer, and THAT is the point of it all.
He will NEVER know. There are only two options for Tony and his family: blind refusal to acknowledge reality, or unending terror with the knowledge that he will NEVER have a safe moment, awake or asleep.
-he
Copyright 2007 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation. All rights reserved.
For years the only way to hear the oft-talked-about, under-heard SONIC’S RENDEZVOUS BAND was to buy an expensive original 45 or cheaper bootleg 45 of the one-song single “City Slangâ€Â (with a stereo a-side version and a mono b-side version), trade live tapes or bootleg vinyl (extremely hard to come by), or to buy a semi-legit split LP from France with Ron Asheton’s DESTROY ALL MONSTERS 45s on the a-side and various SRB material on the back, including the stereo “City Slangâ€Â. Me, I’ve heard most of what this 1975-80 Detroit-based act had to offer up, and for the most part, it’s just-above-standard-issue FM power rock, electrified significantly by the wild guitar playing of axe hero Fred “Sonicâ€Â Smith, late of the MC5. I’d position it somewhere between The Stooges and Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, except on the longer tracks where Smith gets to go ape, and then it’s “the 5â€Â all the way. You can read a lot more about them here.
In 1990 I was in a band with a fella who saw the band in Detroit many times in their heyday, and we decided to do an instrumental cover of the song “Sweet Nuthin’â€Â from that French LP. It was so easy to play that even I could do it – but the song remains, especially in this instrumental version, to be a singular moment in their catalog: a sprawling, repetitive, understated but nasty rock and roll mauler. The opening guitar riff is just filthy, as they say in baseball. No need for a 6-CD box set – all the magic’s on the “City Slangâ€Â 45 and right here!
It matters little whether or not you follow or care about golf, as we’ve got a hell of a party brewing over here with Memphis’ favorite fat-boy, sand-trap barfer. Our trash comes wrapped up special!!
(from the Commercial Appeal)
Coverup alleged by wife of Daly
Sherrie Daly
John Daly as he appeared Friday at the Stanford St. Jude Championships.
By Lawrence BuserÂÂ June 12, 2007
Golfer John Daly scratched his own face last week to cover up his sexual assault of his wife and then falsely reported that she attacked him with a knife, Sherrie Daly said in court papers filed Monday.
The popular and controversial Daly showed up for his Friday round at the Stanford St. Jude Championship at TPC Southwind sporting long red scratches on both cheeks which he blamed on a domestic assault by his wife.
No criminal charges were filed, but Daly, 41, sought a protective order against her to prohibit any contact with him or their 3-year-old son. He also refiled an earlier petition for divorce.
On Monday, Sherrie Daly fired back, seeking a restraining order, exclusive use and possession of the Southwind home, temporary custody of their child and continued financial support. She said Daly gives her a monthly cash allowance ranging from $15,000 to $30,000.
She also gave a different account of how her husband ended up with claw marks on his face.
She said Daly “spun out of controlâ€Â during heavy drinking last Thursday, verbally assaulting a security guard at Southwind and breaking the security gate to get to their home on Windgarden.
She said she went to a neighbor’s house because he was screaming and cursing and that he later called her from the East End Grill at Winchester and Hacks Cross Road.
Sherrie Daly, 31, said she went to the restaurant to bring him home and “became involved in a minor altercation with (Daly) and his ‘groupies,’â€Â who she said she scolded for encouraging him to drink alcohol.
She said that in the early morning hours Friday, she was awakened by a drunken Daly making sexually offensive gestures and remarks.
She said he then sexually assaulted her, causing unspecified injuries. She said she called 911 and then took their son and her 8-year-old son by a previous relationship to a neighbor’s house.
“Mother would show that Father inflicted injury upon himself by scratching his face,â€Â Sherrie Daly said in the Circuit Court petition. “Father accused Mother of attacking him with a knife and stabbing him in an attempt to cover up his sexual assault of Mother.â€Â
Reached Monday, John Daly said, “It’s just not true, Bub. It’s just not true. That’s all I can say.â€Â
Asked if he planned to file criminal charges, he said, “Let’s just go with that. Nah. It’s just not true. She did what she did, and that’s all I can say right now.â€Â
Sherrie Daly’s attorney, Rachael Putnam, would not comment other than to say it’s a personal matter and her client’s greatest concern is her children.
Sherrie Daly said in court papers her husband’s erratic and violent behavior is emotionally damaging to the children and that he could live in their Arkansas residence or in the tour bus in which they travel to golf tournaments.
She also said his paranoid and aggressive behavior stemming from abuse of alcohol and diet pills has resulted in damage to their personal property that “easily exceedsâ€Â $1 million.
In addition to a protective order, Daly also is seeking the Southwind home and temporary custody of their son and his wife’s 8-year-old son from a previous relationship.
He notes in his petition that she is a convicted felon who served five months in prison last year for money laundering in a case unrelated to her husband or golf.
According to a sheriff’s report on last week’s incident, Daly told deputies he went to bed to avoid further conflict with his wife, but that he was awakened by an intoxicated Sherrie Daly, who he said stabbed and cut his face with a silver steak knife.
She shouted, “I will kill you, you piece of (expletive,)â€Â the report said. The report said Daly replied, “Go ahead and kill me.â€Â
Officers said there was blood on Daly’s shirt, but they could not find his wife or the knife used in the attack.
He said his wife is guilty of inappropriate marital conduct and that there are irreconcilable differences.
John and Sherrie Daly were married July 29, 2001, in Las Vegas, seven weeks after they met at a golf tournament. It was her first marriage and Daly’s fourth.
They both filed for divorce last October, but attempted to reconcile, according to her petition, after Daly promised to stop abusing whiskey, gambling and carousing with other women.
In her petition Monday, Sherrie Daly said her husband has continued to abuse alcohol and that he is addicted to gambling and sex.
She said that in January while they were traveling in San Diego, Daly became drunk on vodka and became so enraged at her that he pulled “a large portion of hair from her head while throwing her head against the wall.â€Â She said he also tore her shirt and bra and broke a telephone, all in the presence of her son.
Sherrie Daly said her husband continued to drink when they traveled to Arizona and that he had to be taken by ambulance to an emergency room after blacking out from alcohol.
She said that in May she fled with the children from their Arkansas residence when Daly went on an early morning “drunken rage.â€Â
She said they returned to the Southwind residence where they remained until Daly returned for last week’s tournament.
I’ve intended all week to post rhapsodic about the final episode of The Sopranos, about how creator David Chase’s “non-ending” is in fact the perfect ending, a rare example of an artistic act in the guise of a mere TV show. The only thing that even comes close is the last episode of St. Elsewhere.
As someone whose own fiction has often been criticized for lacking traditional endings (I’ve always abided by screenwriter Paul Schrader’s theory that movies should end “out on the pavement” — or something to that effect — after you leave the theatre), Sunday night’s Dadaist denouement struck just the right chord with me.
In case you haven’t seen it yet — or even if you have — take a look:
Always curious what Harlan Ellison has to say on the matters of such importance, last night I queried him over at his message board. Here’s his reply:
HARLAN ELLISON
– Tuesday, June 12 2007 21:13:29
KEVIN AVERY:
I think the final episode of THE SOPRANOS, and particularly the final scene before the blackout, is stunningly brilliant. It is Art in its purest form. David Chase did the impossible, he gifted the loyal viewer of the series a payoff at once deep, thoughtful, chilling, fraught with summation and insight … and even had the wit to add an iconographic contextual image that is magnificently resonant: the onion ring consumption.
Or did that trope escape everyone else’s perception.
I was simply knocked out by the ending of the series; and now I am given to understand that “a large part of the viewership was angry” at it. That only speaks to the fact that there is a finite amount of genuine talent in the universe, and most of the muttonheads that would complain are simply either too ignorant, or too debased by contemporary media, to know a grand thing when it’s given to them.
David Chase is in the top tier, as far as I’m concerned.
I couldn’t be more satisfied by that ending. I don’t know how he was able to outthink us all, but he knew his story better than anyone else, and he gave us the mot juste.
Yr. Pal, Harlan
Leave it to the man who wrote A Boy and His Dog to zero in on the never-ending onion rings.
