Beef Jerky

This has to be my favorite Matt Gaetz photo so far.

With sincerest apologies to The Beverly Hillbillies, to me Gaetz always looks like Jethro Bodine all growed up--but having taken all his life lessons from Milburn Drysdale instead of Jed Clampett.

* Beef Jerky was Jethro's "tough guy" movie star name, his counterpoint to Dash Riprock.
 

By the time we got to Woodstock ...

And this is why the Berlin Wall fell

Ever since I made those two homage mixtapes to the movie Call Me by Your Name (poor, murderous, cannibalistic Armie Hammer, we hardly knew ye), I have been in a '80s Europop groove. I have done my damnedest to avoid '80s nostalgia even when it surrounded me, overwhelmed me, and dismayed me. The 1980s holds such an exalted place in the memory and imagination of so many. And yet I still prefer the 1970s.

Oh don't get me wrong: Even as ridiculous and ultimately predictable as '80s style was (I had an artist friend who once described all '80s visuals as being based on the shape of a triangle), it was infinitely less ugly than 1970s style--both early '70s earth-toned dirty hippie style and late '70s disco extravaganza coke-and-polyester style, neither of which have not aged well. Much like yours truly. Baddabing!

New Wave and electropop can be just as predictable, riddled with sound effect and vocal cliches. (Paul Young's "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down" comes to mind as does Corey Hart's "Sunglasses at Night.") Although it sounds so much more modern than '70s pop, ultimately so much of what we view as uniquely '80s and modern had its origins in the dodgy old '70s, especially the 4-to-the-floor disco beat, punk energy and rap esthetic, and the clackity-clack of Kraftwerk's, Giorgio Moroder's, and Telex's old-skool synthesizers.

Maybe it's that the '80s distilled the '70s sound, jelled it, and, for better, for worse, commercialized it, making it come together in a highly palatable, addictive form (all sugar and salt and sensory overload) without that '70s stigma.

But for me the beauty of the '70s is that, in retrospect, it seems more like a time or harmony, unity, and acceptance. Perhaps that's teenage me talking--perhaps it realy wasn't that way at all. However, after the intensity of the U.S. civil rights era, the violence of Vietnam, and the feet-of-clay politics of Nixon, the mid- to late '70s seems so much more relaxed. Or exhausted. Or sans souçi. Hard for me to say. And maybe too much of a North American perspective.

And having said all that, it's hard to resist a song as buoyant and simultaneously dark as German group Punch's 1985-ish hit, "Love Me." Honestly I can tell if the lyric is "You just have to touch me" "You don't have to touch me." Either way, coupled with that blazing beat and those blaring synthesizers, it fits, it works.

Nonetheless, my '80s nostalgia is quirky to the core: Living in Washington, D.C., at the time, I had never heard of Punch until recently. Nor had I heard of other oddities on my current '80s hitlist, such as "Don Quichotte" by Magazine 60, "Last Summer" by Wish Key, "Gloria" (the Italian original) by Umberto Tozzi, "Run for Love" by Winder, and many others. All Continental European takes on then-contemporary pop, some in English, some not, sounds that rarely registered a blip on the English-speaking world's musical radar. And now I am compelled to find each and everyone of them, cherish them, and fall in love with them, the unwanted bastard children of a bad relationship between '80s pop and broken English.

What a difference a couple of decades make. By the 2000s, the Swedes had figured out the manufacturing process and now seem to write all the hits. Like Legos with rounded corners, they fit together neatly and yet still seem reasonably cool and clever. Much like the Nordic countries themselves.

Anyway, sideswipes at Social Democratic paradises aside, I will continue to listen but only for so long. The formula will wear thin in time, the copy of the copy of the copy getting blurrier and grainier all the time. But today we dance.

Let the sunshine in

 

Here's hoping for a new "Age of Aquarius," an opportunity to once again "Let the Sunshine In," and the beginning of an era of mellow trippyness and happiness--but better wardrobe choices.

Two types of hats

 

I'll always stick with Real Jamiroquai (see left) and never support Cheap Exhibitionist Trash Jamiroquai (see right)

The Russian Bearcat

Last night, I dreamed that my Mom, my sister, my brother, and my (late) Dad and I went to Russia for vacation.

Apparently, my Dad was friends with Vladimir Putin, so we were treated like visiting heads of state. On the first day of our trip, Vlad met us at breakfast to present us with a vehicle to drive around the country on our tour--a vintage Stutz Bearcat. (It sort of looked like this but was somehow a more modern version, more of a Stutz Bearcat with Studebaker Avanti stylings.)

My Mom insisted on driving it, even though I wasn't sure she could drive a stick. (She can.) However, Vlad was trying to find a replacement. He was embarrassed that this was a one-seater when we clearly needed space for five. Six if other (late) brother was going to join later, as planned.

I then told Vlad about my trip to the then Soviet Union in 1984 [author's note: which actually happened]. Somehow we bonded. "You know, [Montag]"--he spoke English with a nearly perfect American accent--"When you were visiting my country in 1984, I was working as a [mumble] in a factory in [mumble]," he said. "I used to hide in a closet in the bathroom and listen to the conversations that people had. This is how I first became interested in spying."

And then I woke up, unfortunately. If I'd managed to stay asleep longer, I might have information that could foster world peace.

Congressional wisdom no. 2

Congressional wisdom no. 1

 

You say you want an insurrection

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany before January 6, 2021 (left), and on "Insurrection Day," January 6, 2021

Apparently, insurrection will fuck you up.

We don't do squat

Author's note: I'm having a devil of a time with the new Blogger layout/platform, especially when trying to upload multiple images in order to tell a story. And because of that, I'm frustrated in trying to write this post. But let's try anyway.

These are scenes from the December 15, 2020, episode of 7de Laan, an Afrikaans-language "soapie" broadcast on SABC 2 in South Africa and available on delay via YouTube. (Currently, episodes posted to YouTube are two weeks behind those shown on South African TV screens. Episodes are generally only available for one week.)

I have watched 7de Laan off and on (but mostly on) since it first started appearing on YouTube, which I believe was aboout 5+ years ago, before I moved to Canada. While I love my soaps, sometimes I get annoyed with the storylines on 7de Laan and will stop watching for a period of time, in favor of a soap with more guts (the late, lamented South African soap Isidingo, which was canceled in March 2020) or with more pizazz and humor (Viudas e hijos de rock and roll on Telefe Internacional).  7de Laan can be "safe" and comfortable sometimes. It doesn't always challenge its audience, and when it does, it does so for only a short time and can wrap things up a little too neatly. 

Even though South Africa has a progressive constitutional government, 7de Laan (and likely other South African soaps) have had challenges integrating Black and White and same-sex relationships into its storylines. Controversies have erupted when it has done so. 

Then again, as I've noted before, it's hardly like the American soaps were quick to adopt similar storylines, and there were also controversies when they did. We may be a few years ahead in telling such stories, but we are likely behind others. And I still stand behind the idea that other countries and cultures do TV better--with more emotion, intelligence, passion, and compassion--than we do. (See Viudas e hijos above, an Argentine novela, which featured a very complex, forward-thinking gay love story through the course of its run in 2014 and 2015. I hope to write about that at a future date.)

Which is a very long intro to relating a recent storyline on 7de Laan about a squatter camp under attack by a property developer. Storylines involving the squatter camp have been told on 7de Laan for at least a couple of years now, which was a welcome, more realistic contrast to the idealized inner city suburban view of Johannesburg that the show often conveys. While at first we "dropped into" the squatter camp from time to time for special stories, more recently the camp and its residents have been featured more prominently, not just as part of a short-term or sensational storyline but with characters who live in the camps featured front and center as part of the full-time cast and front-burner stories.

The three images included here don't feature regular characters. (I hope to make a second post soon that show those.)  However, these do a good job of illustrating the storyline and its impact on the squatter community--the fear, the panic, the immediacy. I appreciate the images because they have a certain Depression-era quality, like a Dorothea Lange photograph.

Squatter camps are not necessarily something we have in the US and Canada, at least on a scale as large as those in many countries. Nevertheless, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I've witnessed a growth in homeless encampments--squatter camps with less permanence--in city parks here in Toronto. And I've seen those camps cleared out overnight. Perhaps not as dramatically as on 7de Laan but I imagine not without a negative, perhaps even traumatic, impact on the residents either.

During this storyline, some of the non-squatting characters, including the property developer, commented that the squatters "can always go to a shelter." True enough, but I'm fairly certain that the rise of park squatters in Toronto is directly related to people steering clear of shelters as a way to avoid exposure to the coronavirus. 

So you can always offer a "simple solution" to the problem, but usually the problem is far more complicated and requires a more nuanced solution. Even if that solution is just to leave everyone alone in place and monitor the community to make sure everyone is safe and healthy.

Anyway, my point in posting these images is perhaps more pedestrian and self-centered: This serves as a good reminder of how fortunate I've been in 2020, despite its challenges (not all of which were related to the pandemic). This also serves as a good reminder that I need to do what I can in 2021 to make sure others are taken care of, not abused, and have the opportunities that we all deserve and yet often take for granted.

Happy new year.

Come on baby, do that conga

New Year's Eve at Mar-a-Shithole with US Representative, Matt Gaetz (Right-Wing Douchebag - Florida) and two unnamed blow-up dolls. 

It's just like those recent Match.com commercials, "A Match Made in Hell," where Satan and the Year 2020 share their amazing year as a couple, then 2020 talks about meeting the Year 2021 and how boring, predictable, and "not into politics" she is.

(For those unable or unwilling to keep score: Matt Gaetz = Satan; Mannequin #1 = Year 2020; Mannequin #2 = 2021, although I'm sure she has a lovely personality.)

Happy New Year! Here's hoping this ilk joins a COVID conga line into prison or purgatory in 2021.