Orange is the new hack

Borrowed from TotallyLooksLike.com

"John Boehner totally looks like an orange M&M."

Credit where credit is due--This image and the idea behind it is from the website TotallyLooksLike.com. I'm not sure when it was first created or by whom, but it seems relevant to this past week in American politics.

When I posted this to Facebook recently, my sister the Journo quickly noted that two may look alike but that they are not the same. The difference between the two? "The orange M&M has more integrity."

I would also like to add that the orange M&M has more self-awareness. At least the orange M&M is honest about being a buffoonish cartoon character.

Now orange you glad you didn't vote in the 2014 midterm elections ?

Day after day

I'm not quite sure why, but this has been my earworm for the last couple of weeks, "Day After Day" by Badfinger, a song I esteem to deserve the label "classic"--unlike so many other offerings from your local "classic rock" radio station.

This was in heavy rotation in Casa Montag circa 1971 or so, mostly because Montag's older, teenaged brothers loved this song, especially Cousin Andy, the middle son. And who can blame them or him? Like I said, classic. Lush and romantic in sound, wistful and plaintive, but with just enough rock-and-roll guitars and drums to provide some power and edge, leading no doubt to bro-bonding among the lovelorn.

I'm describing the song cheekily, I know, but I do think it is praiseworthy. Sure, it's a pop song but it's a poetic, artistic one, a song that makes you feel something, about love, loss, longing, and loneliness. Many pop songs attempt to accomplish this but often fail horribly at it, especially (in my humble opinion) those in the current era.

Usually, most pop tunes get stuck on the theme of love and run the needle into that groove, over and over and over. Longing gets its due as well, as does loss. But loneliness à la carte, let alone the bento box of all four emotions, rarely is listed on the pop menu.

I'm not sure I have any bigger point to this post, other than to say I adore this song, and it's been happily stuck in my brain for some time now. It's a good memory, a recollection of, again, the simplicity of childhood, the warmth of the family hearth, and the comfort of feeling that anything is possible--in 1971 or 2014--even love.

Piggy in the middle

Truly one of my more bizarre childhood recollections: The happy-go-lucky-all-the-way-to-the-slaughterhouse "pre-ham" pigs from the Frosty Morn commercials.

"The height of a piggy's ambition/ from the day he is born [cue stork]/ is to hope he will be good enough [cue halo]/ to be a Frosty Morn!"

I swear I had no idea what these singing pork chops were on about when I used to see this TV commercial circa 1964 or so. Not that it would have mattered so much. They were just so darn cute! Who gave much thought to the their enslaved status, their worshipping of their oppressor, or their imminent execution? Not I. Please pass the bacon.

I kid, I kid. While I think the modern meat business is a dirty one, I do, nevertheless, participate in it--although I do try to buy organic, grass-fed, free-range, small-batch, what-have-you whenever I can, and mostly succeed. But I can afford to do so. Most of the time.

While this commercial is rather macabre (Who was the intended audience? Children who were afraid to eat breakfast meat? Wouldn't the adorable, harmonizing pigs have the opposite effect and swear them off sausage for life?), I can't get as worked up about the pork underbelly of it all as some might. Do a Google search for "frosty morn commercial" and about the third or fourth result is for a blog called "Suicide Food," which, as far as I can tell, is dedicated to decrying the use of cartoon animals to sell food by having them praise themselves on how delicious they will taste.

Yes, that is a strange, strange genre of advertising, one excellently parodied by an old Saturday Night Live cartoon commercial for Cluckin' Chicken--"And then they pluck me and boil me in oil! I'm delicious!" That's how I remember it, at least. Not sure that's ever actually said, but someone obviously picked up on this subtext--animals appraising their tasteworthiness before giving themselves up to the gas oven--and dove undercover into the dark comedy.

But the Frosty Morn pigs are cartoons, not actual pigs hell-bent on self-destruction and self-loathing. Thus it's hard for me to see how they're committing suicide. Technically, others--that is to say, humans--are killing them. Wouldn't then this be more the case of "Martyred Food"? But even still: They are cartoon pigs.

Semantics aside, is there an actual subtext? "Eat meat! The pigs don't mind!" I dunno. Methinks if you're going down that path, you've had one too many literary or social theory classes in grad school--Derrida to the left of me, Gramsci to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with no job prospects and too much time on my mind. Honestly, it's not like kids had to be sold on eating meat in 1964. Pretty much everybody was doing it already, at least in the South, rural or otherwise, where these commercials aired.

Today, sure, I could see the TV ad being all about the subtext--the elfin boy leads the pigs in song signifies (not just "means" but "signifies") that the human dominates the animal and makes the animal perform for his entertainment and yield to his will. It's a form of "porcine othering." Post-colonial agriculture if you will.

But in 1964, the only subtext wasn't even much of a subtext: Buy our brand of meat because our pigs are happy!

That's not oppression. That's capitalism.

Admittedly, the difference is hard to tell somedays.

74 is the new 24

And 53 is the new 13! At least as far as me and my mentality are concerned. Because nothing makes me feel more youthful, carefree, and positive about the future than new music by Giorgio Moroder.

The new single, "74 is the new 24," is out now with a new album--his first in 30 years--due in early 2005.

Thanks to Daft Punk and others, finally Giorgio Moroder's reputation has been rehabilitated, but I knew he was brilliant all along--despite what pseudo-intellectual hacks like Peter Shapiro may have written in Turn the Beat Around. But more about that another day when I have my claws fully sharpened and can rip that book apart in a way that it most truly deserves.

Oh, sure, there were missteps and mistakes, things I didn't particularly care for at the time or even now--for example, the music from his 1976 album, Knights in White Satin, is wonderful but his weird, poorly executed orgasmic "singing" kind of ruins the record for me. Shame that. And I admit to losing interest in some of his later '80s Phil Oakey/"Together in Electric Dreams" stuff, which oddly represents all that I eventually disliked about '80s music--the faux edginess and insincere hipness of it all. More about that another day.

But then he followed it up with the tremendous From Here to Eternity, a record I still play regularly, nearly 40 years later.

Sometimes it's funny what sticks with me all these years later. For example, remembering the first time I heard "Son of My Father" on the radio, listening to the console stereo in my parent's living room, in Eastern North Carolina circa 1972. I recall being fascinated and "funkified," if you will, by that bouncy synth riff--Bomp bomp bomp ba BOW BOW, bomp bomp bomp ba BOW BOW--played by some Euro unknown named simply Giorgio.



Move forward to 1977, and I'm blown away by Donna Summer's "I Feel Love," produced and co-written by Giorgio Moroder. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: There was music before "I Feel Love," and there was music after "I Feel Love," but after "I Feel Love," music was never the same. Hallelujah. Amen.

Who came first, Giorgio or the egg? Kraftwerk or the chicken? I have no idea, but I do know that I think Mr. Moroder was a genius, a popular musical innovator, and one with whom I'm proud to have shared an era, a mood, and some most excellent music.

And now there's even more music to look forward to in 2015.

Talkin' Mac

After a week of politically inspired gnashing of teeth and work-inspired bitterness, perhaps it's time for something musical. My go-to happy place seems to be consistently the sounds of the 1970s. Horrible fashion, dodgy color schemes, no Internet, and stuck in a small town in the back of beyond, yet I feel warm and cozy toward that era.

Pre-adulthood, pre-serious relationships, pre-money woes, pre-responsibilities. About the only things I had to worry over were getting to school on time, finishing my homework, and not looking like a fool every minute of every day in front of my classmates. Part of the foolishness was no doubt conveyed through my taste in then what was considered "not cool" (and probably gay) musical choices, such as ABBA, soul, and disco.

The best years of my life, maybe, at least if nostalgia is our benchmark. I wouldn't want to relive them, though. They were not in any sense my "glory days" in junior high and high school. Years of angst spent not knowing who I was or being able to own up to who I found attractive are not experiences I would want to relive, thanks all the same.

Instead, what I'd like to do is sink back into the "mise en scène" of the '70s, if you will--just luxuriate in the culture, the milieu, the zeitgeist. That's often what I feel nostalgic toward--not the trappings of crap style or tacky furnishings but what we were listening to at the time, what we were talking about, and what I was feeling at the time. So it's more of a me-me-me zeitgeist, but, hey, that's what you pay me for.

So this weekend's "8-track flashback" looks wistfully upon the music of Fleetwood Mac. I am by no means a "classic rock" fan and, similar to how I feel about most country music, would just as soon see it banished from the light, their aficionados forced underground, having to swap shittily recorded mixtapes of every entitled white guy and boringly middle class singer-songwriter-screamer signed to a big deal on Sunset Boulevard.

I'll see you in hell, '70s and '80s hair bands. You're in my sights, pretentious prog rockers. I'll have your heads on a platter with a sprig of parsley on the side, dear d-jays at every Middle America radio station. May the world find you stuck in a Reagan-era shame cycle, forced to just say no to anything new or fun or colorful, while your life spirit trickles down your spine and pools at your feet, in your new home: the sub-basement of a foreclosed Moral Majority McMansion, Any Suburb, USA. With liberty and Tom "Top Gun" Cruise and Melanie "Working Girl" Griffith movies for all.

In other words, welcome to the new 2014, same as the old 2004, 1994, and 1984.

Wooh. So much for steering clear of bitterness and politics. Let's move on, shall we?

* * *

And let's move on to Fleetwood Mac, circa 1975, with "Say You Love Me."



"Say You Love Me" was probably the first Mac song I appreciated at the ripe old age of what? 13? 14? For me, it was probably less about the lyrics (and for me it almost always is less about the lyrics) and more about the sound--the voice, the melody, and, yes, even the banjos. How can you not love the harmonies and happiness of this tune? I liked "Over My Head" and "Rhiannon" as well, but this is such a sprightly, poppy little thing, so evocative of that London-meets-Los Angeles folk/rock/pop/country sound that Mac had in the mid-1970s. I want to go back in time and hear it play on the radio of my parents' AMC Hornet once again. Those were the days, my friend, we thought that American Motors would never get bought out by Renault, of all enterprises, just a few years later.

* * *



When thinking about Stevie Nicks' role in the Mac, it's hard to pick a favorite from among songs. There is "Rhiannon," "Dreams," "Gypsy," and "Sara" to choose from. Along with "Landslide," "Gold Dust Woman," "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," or "Edge of Seventeen." The wealth is overwhelming, practically poignant.

"Sara" was on the turntable a lot during college, as was the quirky "Tusk." "Rhiannon" came out when I was still trying to figure out Stevie Nicks and whether I liked her voice or not. But "Dreams" edges out the others. It reminds me of a good era in my little hometown. I think my brother Frank owned the album (or maybe it was my brother Charlie or my sister Barbara?). It spun on the turntable a lot at our house in the spring of 1977.

At least I hope we had the album and not the 8-track tape . . . fade, beep, reprise.

* * *

Fast forward to 1979 and "Tusk."


A really bold, odd choice for a single, but a brilliant one at that. More like a soundscape, the soundtrack to some frenetic, tension-filled scene on celluloid--a chase scene or a bank heist gone wrong--than a 3-minute-and-30-second pop song. And god bless 'em for that.

I could take or leave some of the songs on which Lindsey Buckingham was featured prominently. To this day, I can't hear "Don't Stop" without thinking of how it's been abused by certain politicians wanting to appeal to (read: fleece) progressives and baby-boomers (an act that really doesn't require co-opting good music), but Lindsey really added a lot to the group. Who could imagine a group performing something as lush and radio-friendly as "Over My Head" in 1975 creating something as experimental and sonic as "Tusk" in 1979? With a marching band no less.

Plus you gotta love Stevie Nicks' expert twirling of a baton in the official video. I'm sure that's a moment when the British members of the group started to rethink the whole Southern California experiment. "My god. We're in the middle of a baseball field. There's a university marching band playing. And our little 'Welsh witch' is twirling an effin' baton! How did we get so lost?"

Faust was wrong. There are plenty of things to regret.

* * *

Lindsey has always bugged me for some reason. Perhaps in part because he was and remains a very handsome, self-assured (possibly too much so) man. He was gorgeous as a '70s hippie and luscious as an '80s hipster--and, in my warped mind, he always seemed completely aware of this, which is a major turnoff for me. Not that Mr. B. would be perturbed by this confession, of course. Not that this confession is based on anything other than gut and a few TV appearances.

But ol' Bucky was a terrific musician, writer, and singer. Just maybe not a great performer.



This is an incredibly overwrought performance by both Lindsey and Stevie. But "The Chain" is a brilliant song, so all is forgiven, Lindsey. Just don't do it again, please. Again, for Chris, John, and Mick, another bell must have rung, another penny must have dropped.

* * *

I could never stand most of the Mac's '80s videos--I remember describing them in an essay I crafted for my non-fiction writing class in college as "a fine example of the symbolic wallow that is MTV" or some such.



This is the only one that I can just barely tolerate, "Little Lies" from 1987 or so. It gives me just enough mental respite and perverse fascination that I hesitate before I kick in the screen of my 30-year-old cathode ray-tubed console TV set.

And yet, I take issue with the video, nonetheless. To me it looks as if the band just happened upon a Tweeds catalog photo shoot and decided to add the leftover clothes to their own wardrobes. Just prior to the Tweeds shoot, Duran Duran had been on set making their own video--so Stevie, Lindsey, and Christine borrowed some makeup and spackled it on hurriedly before anyone could stop them.

That or the entire video was filmed as a promo for Glamour Shots. Whatever, everyone loses.

Nonetheless, while "Everywhere" from the same album, Tango in the Night, is probably my favorite Mac song ever, "Little Lies" features a wonderful mixture of all three singers--McVie, Nicks, and Buckingham.

* * *

And, finally, this is what I mean about Fleetwood Mac's dreadful, artsy-fartsy videos--



Honestly, dude, Whiskey-Tango in the night-Foxtrot. Who thought this was a good idea? Who allowed this to happen?

Personally, I think it was Stevie and Lindsey. Christine, Mick, and John on their own would never have approved this storyboard. "Let's just do it, please, so that they'll both shut up, alright?" I can hear Christine saying, while Mick and John sob silently into their sleeves.

* * *

With that, we conclude today's psychic flashback. Surprising to some that I could enjoy Fleetwood Mac so much, but it's all true.

Just be grateful I owned up to it--and opted for this nostalgia trip rather than the other one in my head this week--mid-'70s British soul with the likes of Tina Charles, Jesse Green, and Biddu on heavy rotation.

But never say never . . .

Choosy mothers choose riffs

I'm not gonna spread for no roses!

U.S. politics and elections: It's just like being on The Bachelorette! You get to choose from an all-male, mostly all-white cast, hoping against hope that you end up with the least sleazy one in the bunch.

Or at the one who is less likely to be brought up on criminal charges during your brief time together.

Better luck in 2016, y'all.

* * *

* * *

I had another odd dream last night. I dreamt I was overseas trying to call home to the U.S., but the call wouldn't go through. I kept getting the same message over and over again: "The number you have reached has been disconnected or is not in service at this time."

Funny. Just like many of our voters and elected officials.

* * *
 

How you can bring the economy back from the brink and finally get a national healthcare bill passed and yet be pilloried and shunned by your own party is something only the Democrats could manage.

Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory once again.

* * *

Everybody, at least in the American media, keeps talking about the takeaway from yesterday's election as being all about big money and its impact on democracy.

I can't really disagree with that, but for me, there's another, equally worrisome takeaway. And it's this: You lose the presidency, don't control the Senate, but own the House of Representatives until our candy-ass Democrats can bother to challenge Republican gerrymandering of congressional districts after the next census. You do not want to compromise with the party in power. You only want what you want.

Later, you lose the presidency, now control the Senate, and continue to own the House of Representatives. You now say you want to compromise, but really? How stupid do you think we are?

Yes, I know a grand portion of our electorate just proved that we're mighty mighty stupid, able to shoot ourselves in the foot and the head at the same time (gotta love our those no gun controlling ways!). But do give us a little credit: We know you are not about to compromise now.

Perhaps in the future you will win the presidency again, control the Senate, and own the House. And you still won't want to compromise.

I really don't know how you do it. It reminds me of that old slogan about the South losing the Civil War but winning the peace, being humiliated on the field of battle yet someone controlling domestic politics and race relations through, first, segregation, then later, institutionalized racism and uber-conservative, anti-social safety net policymaking.

Really, it's childish and transparent, easy to see happening yet horrible to watch. And yet you manage to do it again and again, and no one ever does a damn thing about it.

* * *

It's 9:53 p.m. Eastern the day after the election, and I've already yelled my first "STFU Mitch McConnell!" at my TV.

Courage, comrades. It is going to be a long two years until the next election.
 

Fashion crimes against humanity

All y'all know I love the '70s, for lots of reasons but especially for its politics of dancing, which for me encapsulates the decade's open and relaxed attitude, its positive vibe, and its diversity of ethnicities, sexualities, ages, income levels, social strata, body types, and more. It was OK to be gay, lesbian, straight, and bisexual. It was OK to be African-American, Latino, Anglo, a woman, a man, rich, poor, middle class. It was OK to be. At least that's how it seemed from my vantage as a boy and then a teen. There were lots of possibilities, lots of positivity. The horizon was endless, the future bright and welcoming.

And the music--such a mix! Glam, pop, rock, Southern rock, punk, new wave, soul, funk, jazz, and, yes, disco--and some or all of it coupled together in the same song.

All y'all know as well that disco is one of my favorite genres. I like it in part because of the diversity it embraced and represented but also in part because of the beat. I, for whatever reason, have always been a slave to the rhythm, even though my Anglo-Saxon culture too often seems to fear, reject, and denigrate it. Considering the beat . . . what? Too "ethnic"? Too feminine? Too gay? Too queer? Disco was about the party, sure, about self-focused dancefloor fantasies and glamorous excess. But I think there was some love and kindness there, too. Joy, happiness, and community. And sometimes even more depth than it's give credit for.

I don't think this is just my fantasy either. I'm currently reading excerpts from Vince Aletti's The Disco Files 1973-78: New York's Underground, Week by Week, a compendium of articles and charts from the '70s disco scene, along with some before-after-the-fact interviews with Aletti (a columnist, scene-chronicler, and record distributor during the era), who describes what the disco heyday was like:

There's this scene at the end of [the movie] The Last Days of Disco, one of the characters has this very idealistic speech where he says disco was a whole movement. It was funny, but it was really true and people felt that. They felt disappointed that the idealistic quality of it was being trampled over, in favor of money and celebrity. As much as disco was glitzy and certainly loved celebrity culture, there was never a sense of it being driven by that. It was much more driven by an underground idea of unity (Aletti, 1998, p. 466).

All to the good, and all to the sad and the bad that that feeling was lost due to the "disco sucks" backlash, Anita Bryant, the Reagan and neo-con era, HIV/AIDS, and the fierce, sometimes hate-filled reaction to the culture of the '60s and '70s. Those were "Good Times," and I'm so sorry that they disappeared in a huff of money-grubbing, wowserism, and not-in-my-backyard bitterness.

Nevertheless, despite my love for the era, there's one thing I cannot abide about the '70s: The absolute vileness of the clothes. The colors, the fabrics, the cut, and the style. Profoundly horrid, incredibly tragic, viscerally repulsive.

Oh sure, you could slap a Gucci-Pucci-Fiarucci label on it, but there was nothing flattering about it, except maybe that the clothes did allow for a diversity of body types more so than today's lines. You could be heavier in a caftan or hairier in a leisure suit, but if that's your only saving grace, you probably need to go back to design studio and the catwalk and try, try again.

I hate to go there because it is so so easy, such a cheap laugh, the ugliness of '70s fashion. Mind you, I don't think the '80s, in retrospect, were any prettier. Edgier and sleeker perhaps but still, ultimately, hollow and very dated-looking nowadays--that "triangle" design motif with the broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist pervaded every piece, all of which were shaded in equally decade-giveaway colors.

I favor a lot of '50s and '60s design. It must be the MadMan in me, but that era looks so much classier and classic (albeit preppy-conservative at times), even if the experimentation of the late '60s often looks clownish and tawdry nowadays, an odd mix of Dacron and denim, in organic shapes and lurid colors.

A couple of cases in point--the dancers in the video above by Spanish pop-rock-disco combo Barrabás and this one below by the oddly named Spanish/French band Bimbojet.



Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Fugly foxtrot at that. Nothing you'd ever want to wear yourself, let alone see on anyone you know, except maybe on someone who dumped you for a Solid Gold dancer.

But, again, no cheap shots: Rather than blaming disco, the '70s, hedonism, the Gay Agenda, a mass outbreak of vision and taste impairment, or any other easy-ways-out, let's call out the real culprit: Tacky couture and fascist glamor, courtesy of one Generalísimo Francisco Franco.

I'm (mostly) not making this up and only being slightly ridiculous: Dictatorships do seem to have a certain (horrid) fashion sense. Rarely is it good, with the possible exception of you-know-who. More often it is simply, cruelly vulgar. Really, how often do you need to look at photos of Eva Braun and Marlene Dietrich side-by-side to see that La Dietrich not only left behind a genocidal maniac with a really stupid mustache but also lots of treacly, frilly Berliner Alexander-plotz hausfrau drag? And how many times do you have see a certain V. Putin shirtless on the back of the people's long-suffering horse to long for the days when horse-drawn carriages pulled up to balls and banquets and gentleman sauntered about the manor house in well-cut Eugene Onegin-inspired shirts, trousers, and suits?

It's bad enough that these anal retentive mass murderers abuse their citizens' basic human rights--must they also destroy their nations' innate sense of style? The Italian working class had it going on with its headscarves, neck kerchiefs, and wrap dresses. Bendito Benito "Muscles" Mussolini, with that lampshade pull on the end of his modified fez, so did not.

During a fashion war, intervention and action are vital now, not later. Where is the UN General Council when you need it? No doubt helping victims of famine, conflict, disease, and the like. Yet while the UN dithers, miserable wretches must dance around in jewel-toned Arabian Nights' fantasies and mustard-yellow-and-sage-green baby poop-striped travesties, with no one caring, no one coming to their rescue, not even Couturiers-sans-Frontières.

Clams on the half-shell and roller skates? A rumor has it that it's getting late. Time marches on, just can't wait. There's not a moment to waste when the survival of humankind's fashion sense is at stake!

If your sex toy lasts for more than 4 hours . . .

Before the fall

Let's just call it "failure to raunch."

Apparently, some in Paris have been a-quiver over the last few days due to the fact that a gigantic, kelly green, um, "Christmas tree" has been erected in the the posh Place Vendôme area of the city.

After a couple of days of outrage--including the issuance of some very public slaps to the artist's face--someone has taken the matter into his own hands (ahem) and purposefully deflated the Jolly Green Giant Sex Toy of Paris.

Quelle tragique. Or not.

Personally, I think the Butt Plug Assassins (and wouldn't that make a great name for a punk band?) missed a wonderful opportunity. The artist notes that indeed his alleged work of art was designed to resemble a giant sex toy but also could be interpreted to resemble a Christmas tree. Ho ho ho.

So, conservative Parisians, why not make it a Christmas tree? Form a fashionably ensemble'd guerrilla group and decorate that gros garçon kamikaze style--guns at the ready to blast balls of paint in colors that look like ornaments and lights, maybe get a ladder and string some veiny garland around the circumference, and then climb to the top and plant at the tip a rather splashy-looking star, something with an effervescent spray of glitter, that erupts or perhaps smokes.

Really, art critics, use your imagination. You'll be far ahead of the artist if you do.

I don't know that I think Paris was "humiliated" by this vision/derision in polyurethane, as Printemps Paris claims. At the same time, is the work really worth the outrage? It just seems like another lazy conceptual art piece, something the artist conjured up to provoke easy shame and cheap indignation. Like the Big Rubber Ducky that inhabited the Pittsburgh waterfront a year ago--but with an outsized erection. In other words, not much more than a smutty joke told between work colleagues but accidentally overheard by your clients when you thought you'd disconnected the conference call but, oops, no, you hadn't.

Not that that's ever happened to anyone I know.

So wow, Monsieur Artiste. Vous êtes such a vrai trailblazer. [Insert sarcastic tone.]

Essentially, Madonna trod the same ground with her Sex book way back in the last century--and that was hardly an original idea then. It was all designed to provoke, to challenge, to engorge public opinion, and have it spew forth all over proper society--oh, and sell records and un-stall a career, too.

So let's not pretend we're noble, Painter Man, that we're doing this all as an ironic public service to the perpetually pinched. I've been to the Tate Modern. I know bullshit when I see it in an art gallery and read about in an exhibition catalog.

Thus, one of my reactions to this sort of thing is, meh, how boring, how childish. It's the same reaction I have whenever I watch The Colbert Report or The Daily Show and the Colorado legalization of marijuana gets a mention. A certain element in the crowd always whoops it up, shouts, celebrates, sounding like thirsty frat boys at a Rush Week kegger. Beer! Dope! Sex! Human behavior reduced to the most thuddingly dull and monosyllabic of advertising campaigns!

Despite promises by skin creams and surgeons to the contrary, you simply cannot be 16 forever, dudes. More to the point, why would you want to? What's missing from your life that makes you idealize your youth and infantilize your joy?

My other reaction is--if I must be honest--a small amount of embarrassment. It's not because I'm shocked by the sight of a sex toy--trust me on this. While seeing one out of context, in public, is provocative and makes a vague point (and hence the term conceptual art), it also seems . . . immodest--akin to too much sharing about your bodily functions, too many sloppy tongue kisses on the TV screen, too great a knowledge about what turns you on and turns you off when you're just an acquaintance, and I really don't want or need to know.

Yes, you can share everything with everyone. But do you really need to? Shocking the easily shocked is hardly a bold maneuver. About all it does is draw attention to yourself, which I suspect is mostly the point anyway.

And yet, I'm blogging about this, finding it amusing, the reactions from the quickly enraged as well as the staff writers tripping and dripping all over themselves to find the best penis pun in the mix. As a Facebook friend of mine suggested earlier today, The Guardian did a nice job, but I still don't think there's a clear winner in The Chronicles of Wangia just yet.

* * *

Even though I'm definitely a Westerner and that's unlikely to change anytime soon, the West in general seems incredibly, unnecessarily immodest, prurient, and frivolous to me these days, this being an excellent example of the anything-goes-just-add-nipple-clamps approach to popular culture. I don't know that I think we should live our lives cloistered, concealed, and chastened, too frightened, too ashamed to be our real selves, beat down by the wowsers among us. I benefit in many ways from a more liberal, laissez-faire culture, and I have no desire to step back in time--at least not too far back. Nothing before the Second World War in the U.S., please, or possibly during the interwar years in Europe, thank you.

I also don't want us to live our lives as if the whole world were watching. But the fact remains that the whole world is watching and judging and dismissing or despising us for our "freedom"--or maybe it's just because we're tacky fools who have an it's-all-just-one-big-dirty-joke take on life.

I feel the same sort of embarrassment when I am reminded of some of the street festivals in San Francisco, particularly the Folsom Street Fair, in which bodily functions are eroticized, S&M peccadilloes are put on display--and then immediately photographed and filmed by religious conservatives and shared with their converts to further "prove" that gays are "dirty," "disgusting," and "perverted."

No thank you, not even a cigarette

Of course we're not all like that and some of us are bothered by the behavior of our brethren and the resulting undue pressure that we need to "get with it" in order to be hip, cool, hot, or radically out there. Alternately, that doesn't mean we all want a spouse, 2.5 kids, and a mortgage in the 'burbs either. There's a lot to be said for living between the extremes, one foot on this red dot, a hand on the blue one, an elbow on yellow, a knee on green, Twister-style.

At the same time, I can't spend a lot of time worrying about what other consenting adults get up to in their spare time, in their private or semi-private rooms, with whom, and with which household objects.

However, conversely, I don't like being tarred with the same brush or having my hide tanned by the same bullwhip. Yes, it would be great if the world would just lighten up a tad and let people be. But that's unlikely to happen--and even if it did, would we be prepared for the Libertarian-styled, don't-tread-on-me-but-don't-mind-if-I-do-tread-on-you lengths such a world would be likely to extend to?

Maybe it's because I grew up in the South and in a small town that I'm particularly attuned to this dis-ease over showing too much of your private self to the world. The goal growing up was for everyone to not know your business, any of your business, or even to know what the inside of your house looked like. Because you knew those who found out anything would talk about you in the most unflattering (and inaccurate) terms behind your back while smiling sweetly and insincerely to your face. You might get lucky and catch them in their hypocrisy--overhear them dissing and deriding you or read about them getting caught (literally) with their pants down or dress up with someone else's spouse. But you couldn't bank on that--although their sanctimony had a life-time guarantee.

Thus, sometimes I think it might not be a bad idea to cover up just a little, to tone it down a notch, to share that thought when we're among friends but maybe not shout it so loud while we're seated next to a family of four at Red Lobster. Use our inside kink, as it were.

And keep that sex toy in the drawer of the bedside table--or if we feel impelled to share it in public, try San Francisco or Amsterdam where it's likely to be more appreciated.

Evenings in Moscow

Nostalgia time: This is the version of "Moscow Nights" or "Evenings in Moscow" (in Russian: "Подмосковные Вечера") by Soviet-era jazz great, George (aka Georgiy) Garanian and the Melodiya Ensemble. As noted in the description for the YouTube video, this version of "Moscow Nights" was played as a sort of interval signal or signature tune--a signal or piece of music that identifies a radio station and helps the listener fine tune the radio, especially a shortwave radio, to the broadcast--for the old Radio Moscow. According to the comments section for the video--for once, not as vile, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, and sexist as most of the comments sections on the 'Tube--this was a specially commissioned version of the Russian standard by the broadcaster.

The question for me is whether this version was ever available on vinyl, CD, or as a high-quality mp3. So far, no luck on this one. I can find other versions by Garanian and the Melodiya Ensemble, but I would love to find a copy of this one--the sleek, jazzy, summer-in-the-city version.

This version makes me nostalgic for a number of reasons. In the 1970s and even into the early 1980s, I used to listen to Radio Moscow on shortwave. I don't think it was for the programming, other than Moscow's take on the news, somewhat skewed reports on life in America, and the occasional cultural moment, like Soviet jazz recordings. But listen I did, just as I did to Radio RSA: The Voice of (Apartheid-Era) South Africa, the BBC, the Voice of America, Paris Calling Africa, Radio Australia, Deutsche Welle, Radio Prague, Berlin Radio International, and hundreds of other stations--sometimes for the news, the music, and the cultural programming, sometimes just for the exoticism of the broadcast location. Iceland! Cameroon! Radio Sutatenza in Colombia! ORTF in Papeete, Tahiti! And, yes, even the exoticism of Soviet-style communism intoned--politely, firmly, humorlessly--by quasi-American-sounding voices.

There is nostalgia, too, for my trip to the Soviet Union, one of the highlights of my life (so far). Washington, Helsinki, Leningrad, Tallinn, Moscow, Helsinki, Stockholm, New York, Washington, May into June 1985--a journey that still makes my heart hum, moan, and ache, with the sights, sounds, voices, aromas, and thoughts almost tangible 30 years later.

It was my first time overseas and led to some other overseas trips, such as Australia in 1987, because of friends I made in my travels. I got to use my very limited Russian (often badly). I made a fool out of myself on more than one occasion (I was all of 23 at the time; in theory, I'm allowed to be immature, even though I won't allow myself that excuse in my memories). I was tired by the end of it, sick of dealing with American jerks (and the occasional Russian one), a little homesick, a little hungover, and needing some downtime and solitude, being the introvert that I am. As a result, Helsinki and Stockholm are somewhat of a blur.

Yet I was homesick for Russia, for Europe, after I got home to Washington. I felt I should be elsewhere, anywhere but here, a feeling I still experience regularly, though less painfully nowadays. I don't think it's so much that I thought I should be European; it's more the case that I just was ready to travel, learn, experience the universe, and meet people who had a larger worldview and more knowledge about life, culture, history, and the now than I--a little hayseed/hipster wannabe from rural North Carolina--had at the time (or even today). But I only had so much money to do so, and no real guidance from family and friends on how to go about it.

Afternoons in Leningrad, circa May 1985

So in some ways that first trip abroad was wonderful, revelatory, sublime. But in other ways, it was painful, harsh, and frustrating--it just made me want more.

I still feel that way today, often frustrated by my limited vantage from Pittsburgh and the insularity around me. I'm impatient for change and hopeful that the next change, the next move, the next job, the next trip, will salve my restlessness just a bit.

But maybe that wouldn't be such a good thing. Perhaps it's better for me to stay restless and hungry for something more, something better. Frustrating, yes, but it is ultimately oddly enjoyable.

Well, maybe not enjoyable, nor satisfying. It's just who I am. And it's past time to accept that, be a little proud of it, and celebrate it now and into an uncertain, opportunity-filled future.

This weekend's read--And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records

I'm going to try something new with this blog--start writing more about what I'm reading.

It's not that you've been missing much. Simply stated, I've lost that reading feeling over the last couple of years. My normal explanation is that it's an occupational hazard--for me, as a librarian, information, words, text, are just so much "product" and so much noise at the end of a long day. Books are a commodity. Information = work. I get tired of seeing text all day

No, I don't read books at work, despite the idealized stereotype of the librarian at work. (I have shushed a couple of people in my time--and been shushed myself by library patrons for being a little too loud and boisterous.) However, I do read screens, memos, articles, websites, reports, e-mails, what have you. The thought of doing this even more when I get home, especially on a device like a Kindle or a Nook, is rather horrifying--or maybe just depressing. Or possibly both.

Couple this with the vague concept of ownership surrounding e-books (do you really own that book or are you just renting and borrowing it for a period of time?), preservation issues (will you be able to read that book in the same e-format 20 years from now? 10 years from now? Probably not), and not having a lot of room for books/wanting to travel light on any future moves, and I just find myself feeling indifferent to the printed word. Shocking, I know.

Nevertheless, I'm trying to get the feeling again. Last month I devoured Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, with 600 pages flying by during a week away from work. I will try to write up my thoughts on that book soon; while it probably is not perfect, I really enjoyed it, more than anything I've read in a long while--which may not be saying much as I really haven't read anything substantial in a long while. The novel Triomf by Marlene Van Niekerk was the last hefty tome I took on--a book I bought at The Strand in New York in 2005 and finally finished in . . . 2011? And I still haven't written up my thoughts about that one, which has left a heavy impression on me.

I may even do something radical and finally move past page 25 in Le Libraire by Gérard Bessette, my first (short) novel in French or at least try to finish A Spy in the House of Love by Anaïs Nin, another short novel and one that is testing my new-found interest in and patience for reading.

In the meantime, I'm turning my eye to my first love and the original intent of this blog, pop culture, by reading And Party Every Day: The Inside Story of Casablanca Records by Larry Harris, an executive at Casablanca during the mid- to late 1970s (co-written with Curt Gooch and Jeff Suhs). So far, so good--it's been an enjoyable read, although not one that I've read sequentially. Instead, I've skipped around to find and savor the parts of most interest--how Casablanca founder Neil Bogart started the label, the arrival of Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer on the scene, and bits and pieces about Alec R. Constandinos, Jacques Morali, and Henri Belolo, the latter two of Village People fame.

Along the way, I've been reminded that Casablanca Records was also the home of KISS and Parliament/Funkadelic, something I've mostly forgotten, and two groups that have had amazing staying power over the decades, KISS for its image and Parliament/Funkadelic for its wild, innovative, influential, and highly sampled sound.

Casablanca, too, had a "filmworks," having produced not just the lamentable (or maybe just lame) Thank God Its Friday, but also the summer of '77 blockbuster, The Deep, among others.

What I've enjoyed most, of course, is gaining some insights into the personality and work ethic of Donna Summer. Harris writes that, based on her early recordings with Giorgio Moroder, Neil and he weren't that impressed with Summer on initial listen. Later, once that realized how talented (and invaluable) both were, Harris describes Summer as having a certain amount of drama surrounding her. Later, he notes that her marriage to Bruce Sudano settled things down and made her very happy. The author also seems to bear no ill will toward her for jumping to Geffen Records, which, along with the (alleged) death of disco, was the beginning of the end for the label. Rather, he seems to have facilitated her leaving for (according to him) altruistic reasons.

I also like his positive takes on Paul Jabara and Jacques Morali and his not-unexpected takedown of Village bully Victor Willis, the one straight member of the group (other than producer Belolo) who by numerous accounts, here and elsewhere, seems like an asshole of the first order.

There are some surprises along the way--Harris noting that despite seeming and mostly being a gay-friendly record label (pretty much unknown heretofore), there were those in Casablanca management and staff that were indeed homophobic (not Neil Bogart, however). And there were those who didn't initially get that the Village People were a very gay act.

Interesting, too, is to read how often the music was viewed as "product" by executives, promoters, staff, and others (although seemingly not the artists themselves). Disco wasn't taken seriously at first (if ever), but it became a huge money-maker for the label, at least for a time. However, even KISS, a "serious" rock-and-roll act (OK, not really) was viewed in terms of money, product, risk, liability, promotion--the mechanics of the record industry.

Of course this shouldn't be such a surprise; it's just me being quite naive about how business works. It also shows my naivete about pop culture--it is often commerce that we attach deeper meaning to. Is that justified? Or does the meaning exist upon inception and creation of the work and the response to the creation is commercial? I can't really say; it's probably something of both. I'm unlikely to know unless I finally get that master's degree in popular culture from Bowling Green State University I've promised I would for years now.

Then again, in my profession, am I any different than a record company exec or flunky? I surround myself with literature, scholarship, and information, but they are really just product, commodities, costing money, requiring promotion, incurring liabilities and risks? Etc., etc., etc.

I don't mean this to sound negative about my profession or even the record industry. It just is what it is. Nevertheless, in my case, it's not too late to remember to appreciate books and information for the treasures that they truly are.

Which probably means a career change at some point, or retirement, or that master's degree from Bowling Green. I think it's plenty obvious that I'm not close to either of those events at this phase of my life. Alas and alack.

So in the meantime, I'll keep reading And Party Every Day and then hopefully quickly move on to Turn the Beat Around and The Disco Files (for which I am not paying the going rate), finally making it onto my suddenly rejuvenated reading list.

Get up and boogie, y'all.

No photographs, please

La gata negra del barrio

Meet Miss Kitty, my new, fast-moving neighbor, who, while extraordinarily affectionate for a cat, apparently has a "no photographs" clause in her contract. She just moves too darned quickly for me to get a good snap of her.

Normally, I am indifferent to the charms of cats. However, I am willing to make an exception for this one. She has begun greeting me every evening when I get home from work, almost every morning as well, and even during the day on weekends. Whenever she hears my garage door open, whether for my bike or my car, she flies out from a nearby alley, squalling hello, rubbing up against my legs, wanting me to stroke her back, her face, and even, tentatively, her belly. She has climbed into my lap once and even let me pick her up with no fuss just the other day.

Oh Miss Kitty, you had me at "meow."

I'd like to think that this cat-man love is limited just to me--and I may be right in that assumption. When Cairo last visited, she seemed surprised, even indifferent to him (and he's much more of a cat man than me) and even somewhat to me. She let me pet her . . . sort of. She let Cairo pick her up, which I didn't have the nerve to do prior to that, fearing the usual reaction I get from cats. (Pet me pet me pet me! How dare you pet me! Scratch!) But her reaction to both of us was all very perfunctory, very polite, very this-is-what-I'm-required-to-do. And then she coughed up a hairball in our presence.

It was like she suddenly went from being her normal Brazilian self to being British in spirit in the blink of an eye.

The next day, when Cairo left, she was back in black, with la Gata Negra hanging out with me while I tried to repair my bike brakes. This took hours (and I still didn't get them right), but le Chat Noir explored the garage, lolled about on the driveway, rubbed up against my hands and legs, and invited her (I'm assuming) kitten over for a visit. Even while I bitched, cursed, and dropped tools all over the concrete, she didn't sprint away in fear.

If all cats were this sweet, this charming, this happy, I'd consider getting one of my very own. Nonetheless, I don't think I'm likely to become a cat person anytime soon--and if I do, feel free to report me to the authorities as I will have officially lost my freakin' mind.

But I could get used to having Miss Kitty around the house. At least if she could stop coughing up hairballs.

The royal family

And they'll never be royals - "ClintonSenate"
by Unknown. Licensed under Public domain via
Wikimedia Commons.

Over the weekend, Chelsea Clinton, daughter of Bill and Hilary Rodham Clinton, gave birth to her first child. Despite the fact that this is something women do every day in every country on the planet, in far less plush surroundings with far less access to healthcare, it has taken the American news media by semi-storm.

Well, why not? There's nothing else much going on the world these days. *Cough* Ebola *cough* the Middle East *cough* oligarchy.

As part of the media cavalcade, CBS News referred to the Clintons as "American political royalty." Which is all true, of course.

It's just that they're more akin to the Grimaldis of Monaco rather than the Windsors of the United Kingdom. Although similarities to the Windsors in the '80s and '90s--Fergie having her toes sucked, Diana's affairs, Prince Charles covered in a blanket hiding in the back of a station wagon--wouldn't be amiss either.

Oh, but why cast aspersions on such a happy occasion. I'm sure no one will use this life event to their advantage . . . .

So congratulations, Grandpa Bill and Grandma Hilary! Can't wait for the photo ops on the non-campaign trail, Hil. And Bill, I'm sure you ordered your "World's Sexiest Grandpa" t-shirt during Chelsea's first trimester, so you're doing fine.

Business as usual for the both of you.

The veld-vet underground

I'm always the last to know. In this case that Die Antwoord released a new album earlier this summer, along with two singles over the last year.

Not that I can begin to explain "Cookie Thumper" without flushing red in embarrassment (nor without vomiting a little in my mouth for that matter). And yet it is yet another intriguing, dystopian video and hypnotic, addictive tune by a South African rap-(early '90s) techno hybrid that apparently is fronted by Hellraiser in a Speedo and that little girl from Poltergeist, all grown up, overly sexed up, with a hairstyle that only Pikachu could love.

Alternate group name suggestion: FouUnlimited.

I understand that there's been a lot of discussion surrounding Die Antwoord as an art project. Ninja (Hellraiser himself) has said that

People are unconscious, and you have to use your art as a shock machine to wake them up. Some people are too far gone. They'll just keep asking, "Is it real? Is it real?" That's dwanky. That's a word we have in South Africa, "dwanky." It's like lame. "Is it real?" You have to be futuristic and carry on. You gotta be a good guide to help people get away from dull experience. (David Marchese, "Die Antwoord's Totally Insane Words of Wisdom." Spin, February 7, 2012.)

I admit I'm semi-unconscious most days and have come to accept the fact that I have to be that way in order to survive the day-to-day of the real world. And yet I do admire Die Antwoord's brilliance. But it is a brilliance I'm fine with listening to from a distance and watching from even farther away.

Plus I'm old and wish they'd stop saying "fokken" every three seconds. That's what I do, not my art.

Almost simultaneous to discovering new music from Die Antwoord, I just checked out a copy of Agaat from my local library, Agaat being the latest work (I've discovered) by South African writer Marlene Van Niekerk, she of Triomf fame. Here's a description of the plot of Agaat from the back cover of the book:

In the waning days of South African apartheid, Milla, a sixty-seven-year-old white woman, is condemned to silence by a creeping paralysis. As she struggles to communicate with her maidservant turned caretaker, Agaat, the complicated history of their relationship is revealed . . . . With sadistic precision and yet infinite tenderness, Agaat performs her duties, balancing anger with loyalty.

So it's a light read.

If this is what I'm listening to, reading, and watching in September, I should be a right jolly ol' zef by the time Christmas rolls around.

Alpha, omega, Santa Barbara

. . . Maman raffolait des séries américaines de la télévision et rien ni personne n'aurait pu lui faire sauter un seul épisode de Santa Barbara.

--Anne Wiazemsky

Hymnes à l'amour

 How it all began . . .



. . . And how it all came to an end.



Santa Barbara really started out grand, improved over time, and then somehow along the way lost its footing. Kim Zimmer as a neo-Marcy Walker/Eden Capwell? I think not. No more Cruz. Lionel with Gina rather than Augusta. Gordon Thomson as Mason. Warren and B.J. as a couple. For realz?

At least there was Jed Allen and Judith McConnell, Nancy Lee Grahn, and, although not an original cast member, Jack Wagner as Warren Lockridge--inspired casting, that.

I've seen some argue that the last head writer, Pamela K. Long, "ruined" Santa Barbara. I don't think that was the case at all, although one could argue her talents were better suited to more traditional soaps like Texas and Guidling Light. I think she tried to save it, as did its creators, Bridget and Jerome Dobson. From what I can gather, NBC ruined it--or rather, never got the show in the first place, even though millions of us in the U.S. and around the world did. They fought with the Dobsons, they fought with New World Television, they under-promoted it, and they or New World locked out the Dobsons and put in more standard soap writers and producers who never understood the show's ethos.

Oh sure, Santa Barbara always struggled in the ratings compared to other shows. Its humor was arch and often topical, its characters complex and intelligent, its storylines sometimes outrageous and provocative. Yet, while still soapy, it handled itself with more style and finesse than most of the American soaps did previously and even hereafter.

I'll always love Santa Barbara for what it did originally and did best--its sense of place (California glamor in the '80s); its bold, classic storytelling (working-class hero Joe Perkins and saintly Mary Duvall against the elegance and cruelty of the entitled Capwells); its heart and soul (Mason as Hamlet, Cruz and Eden's love-conquers-all across class and color lines, Mary and Mason); and its humor (Gina and Keith Timmons, Gina and Mason, Mason and Julia, Sonny Sprocket, and so much more).

More than 20 years later, I still feel sad over the demise of Santa Barbara. It's that same sense of loss you feel as you get older, as the world changes, loved ones die or disappear, and you're not sure what, if anything, will replace them. I find that I yearn for Santa Barbara, much as I yearn for my youth, for possibility, for a lover, for the past looking toward an unknown yet exciting future.

I understand that it had to go. Nothing lasts forever, and it had become a flimsy shell of its former self. But oh, when it was on and when it was "on" . . . those were indeed the days of my life.

Struth!

Still sheer pop brilliance, 19 years after its release. It may have only made it into the top 15 on the UK charts, but note the singalong! Clearly, this song still resonates with Nick Cave and (long-time) Kylie Minogue fans.

I read where La Minogue said that after celebrating her "K25" anniversary year and recording "classical" covers of her hits with the London Symphony Orchestra, she had a sort of epiphany about her career. Soon afterwards, she changed her management to Roc Nation and eventually released Kiss Me Once, executive-produced by her and current pop magician Sia Fuller.

Which is not a bad album at all, although it can feel a bit disjointed at times. (Is it pop? Is it dance? Is it alternative? Pick one or two please.) There is the anthemic "Into the Blue" and the moody, subliminally powerful, "I Was Gonna Cancel." There is the emotive "If Only" and the funky, silly "Sexy Love" (which should have been a single). And then there is the turd-in-the-pop-punchbowl that is "Sexercize." And maybe "Beautiful" (a duet with Enrique Iglesias).

All this is to say that I still love you, Kylie, and I think you can still produce pop pixie dust and glow glitter.

Nonetheless, I still wish you'd, ahem, "step back in time" to the heady days of "Where the Wild Roses Grow" and Impossible Princess. You were creating small, precious jewels then--emeralds, rubies, and sapphires for the pop elite, not rhinestones and sequins for the masses.

True, the market for those jewels was paltry at best. No spend-half-your-monthly-income on this. More like "for mere pennies a day." Simply stated, you got the press and the prestige, but your records didn't sell like they should have. Although why your fans couldn't appreciate this or this or this, I'll never fully grasp.

But do the hits need to keep on comin' at this point in your career? You have squillions of dollars, can fill concert halls, work with some pop heavyweights and up-and-comers, and have some artistic credibility, at the very least for reinvention, persistence, and longevity. You may not hit the chart heights like you used to, but all the more reason to step away from the dancefloor and hang out in the after-hours lounge, crooning and trilling songs that, if not quite serious and deep, are at least poignant and lovely.

I know, I know: Nobody asked me, least of all you, dearest Kylie, and it's not like I can figure out how to succeed in my own career, let alone map out yours. But why the heck not? What have you possibly got to lose at this point in time, life, and career?

Other than the megabucks deal with Roc Nation, the homegoods line, the sell-outs at stadia, the mainstream magazine covers . . . .

Straitjackets are a girl's best friend

Possibly the gayest--and therefore, greatest--video ever created, the "Joan Crawford Megamix."

The hair, the eyebrows, the hoofing, the slapping. So much to savor. So much to emulate.

And yet, alas, not perfect.

Why oh why in the scene featured at 4:50 did she just not go ahead and headbutt that guy?

You disappoint me, Joan. But please don't hurt me for saying so.

Devil with the blue polka-dot dress on

After sharing via Facebook my vivid dream involving cast members from the '80s soap Santa Barbara, one of my friends pointed out something that I had completely missed: That vivacious heroine Eden Capwell Castillo (played by the great Marcy Walker) and doll-faced Mrs. Beasley (late of the '60s show Family Affair) were perhaps separated at birth.

Or at the very least doppelgangers operating in different spheres and times, only discovered through the magic that is summer daytime reruns.

The resemblance is uncanny, I'll grant you that.

Nevertheless, Mrs. Beasley may have worn it first--two decades before in fact--but Eden Capwell wore it best.


Plus Eden had big hair and Cruz Castillo (played by hunky, sensitive spitfire A Martinez) as a love interest while Mrs. Beasley had to put up with being alternately fondled and ignored by Buffy and Jody and no doubt just fondled by Mr. French when nobody was looking.

Simply no contest. Viva Santa Barbara!

Call me Randy Capwell Lockridge Perkins Castillo Andrade Capwell

The higher the hair, the closer to Randy
Newman. Marcy Walker as Eden Capwell.

Last night's very vivid dream: I was hanging out with cast members from the late, great '80s soap, Santa Barbara--specifically, Marcy Walker (Eden Capwell) and Carrington Garland (Kelly Capwell no. 3). I noticed that they were speaking English but with different accents, i.e., not American ones.

I asked why.

"Oh, didn't you know?" said Eden/Marcy. "They dub our dialog with different accents to appeal to international audiences. We have British accents when we're shown in Britain, Australian accents in Australia, etc."

She demonstrated. "This is how I sound in Australia: 'Struth!'" she exclaimed in a very Aussie voice, but then the rest of the conversation was spoken in an accent of undetermined origin, maybe Japanese or Eastern European.

"So who dubs my voice?" I asked, as I was apparently on TV in international markets as well.

"Randy Newman," reported Kelly/Carrington.

"Randy Newman?! Jesus, couldn't they find anyone else?"

"It works very well," Kelly assured me.

I tried dubbing my own voice in imitation of Randy Newman. "Love?! You don't know the meaning of the word!"

Both Eden and Kelly winced. "That's not Randy Newman. That sounds like Droopy, the cartoon dog."

I practiced and practiced and finally got the accent right but had to sing all my dialog, sounding like a bluesy white crooner imitating a bluesy black crooner.

In other words, I totally nailed Randy Newman's voice.

To Scotland with love

Dearest Scotland,

Really, you voted no to your state of independence?

Who do you think you are, Québec?

I know the currency and banking issues were worrisome (100 kippers = 1 haggi, 100 haggis = 1 nessie, 100 nessies = 1 braveheart), as were the new trading agreements to be worked out.

(Possible headline from the year 2020: "Scotland, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and the Falkland Islands to form the Sheepen Area.")

But those were wee laddie potholes on the high road to freedom.

Now there's no more champagne for Lulu.

Aye. 'Tis indeed something to scream and shout about.

And yet more Attitude Challenge

Now this is gay. "Liberace Colour Allan Warren"
by Allan Warren (own work). Licensed under
CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Possibly the final installment of the Attitude Challenge: (More) Phrases that I No Longer Want to Hear, Part 2.

A suggestion from my sister, the Journo: "Next let's hear from Senator Lindsey Graham . . . ." Good ol' Lindsey "I do declare I'm gettin' the vapors" Graham.

In a related vein, "That's so gay!" Unless you're talking about talking about a group of rainbow-flag-waving LGBT people singing a rousing rendition of "We Are Family" or about Liberace's rhinestone undergarment collection, I just don't want to hear it.

In summation: Gay = homosexual, OK. Gay = camp, also OK. Gay = stupid, very much not OK.

And more of the same: "We're tired of having homosexuality forced/shoved/crammed down our throats." Hey, have you met my good friend, Dr. Freudian S. Lip?

But let's not be one-sided: "We can get married! We have overcome!" Well, we've got the two grooms or two brides on the top of the wedding cake, but we haven't even begun to deal with ingredients for the cake itself. Get crackin' some eggs and siftin' some flour.

Or even "He's hot!" said my gay men everywhere. Really? That's not much of a matrix for happiness, love, safety, satisfaction, and comfort in a relationship.

Also applicable to gay men: "I was watching Sex and the City, and I think I'm just like Carrie!" No. You're one part Charlotte, two parts Samantha. I'm a Miranda (first name, Carmen). Carrie is either dead or a myth.

"Now that we have a black [fill in the blank], we live in a post-racial society." Ha bloody ha.

"A young black man was killed during an altercation with a police officer today . . . ." See what I mean?

"Newt Gingrich." No way, no how, no where, no time.

"There was another mass shooting in the U.S. today . . . ."

"It's my Second Amendment right to . . . " muster a state militia? Sure. Own an assault weapon and carry it to a shopping mall "for effect"? No.

"Poor people are just lazy. They just need to pick themselves up by their bootstraps. I know one poor person who is now a millionaire!" By the way, bootstraps will not be provided. You'll have to make your own. What, you can't afford the ingredients for bootstraps? Well, try harder!

"Trailer trash." There is nothing wrong or trashy about living in a trailer. I did it myself for the first six years of my life. Sometimes that's the only housing available. Sometimes that's all people can afford. Sometimes it's just a trailer. Hell, half of America's retirees live in trailers in Florida. Try to be less judgy.

"The secret to losing weight is . . . ." Does anyone really know anymore? Could it be a different "secret" for each of us, depending on body type, lifestyle, food preferences, heritage, etc.?

"I'm a librarian" = "I love cats" and/or "I love Star Trek/Star Wars/gaming/Neil Gaiman/books/etc." Not necessarily. My nerdy stuff is probably different to your nerdy stuff. South African soap operas, ABBA, '70s disco, Belgian-made breakfast spreads. And I love cats along as they act like dogs.

"Open access" will set us free/destroy Elsevier/turn water into wine/create cold fusion/etc. It has its role to play, but . . . . let's just say I'm wary of evangelism and fundamentalism of all stripes. And I have to talk about this professional topic every damn day.

"Muslims are [complete negative stereotype]." I happen to know some lovely people who are Muslim, online and in person. Just as I know some wonderful Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, questioners, non-joiners, pagans, and what have you. No one group represents all the evil or stupidity in the world except in the simplest of minds.

"There is no god. It's all just science." Personally, I have no idea. I don't even think I care. To me, it's all about what you want it to be, what gets you through the day, what adds structure to your life, what helps you to help others, what prevents you from doing harm to others. As long as you don't impose your beliefs on others in a way that causes misery and suffering, you're probably doing OK.

And if it does turn out to be all about science, I am going to be really bored well into eternity. (Assuming there is one.) As it was, I barely got through high school biology and chemistry.

I'm sure I have others, but this should do for now.

For now.