A terrific marriage of rap and thrash metal and the first PE song that hooked me. The guitar riff comes from Slayer’s “Angel of Death.” Producer Rick Rubin is a genius.
“She Watch Channel Zero” – Public Enemy
Reply
Monthly Archives: September 2012
“Jet Boy” – The New York Dolls
A great lip-sync performance by the Dolls from Britain’s “Old Grey Whistle Test” from 1973.
“Brickfield Nights” – The Boys
Great English power pop from the late 1970s. I love the opening which rips off The Ronettes’”Be My Baby” (in a great way). I also love the line about the girls with “their makeup never quite right.”
“Mad Max” (1979) dir. George Miller
Back in the spring of 1980, my older brother and I saw this trailer (or some variation of it) while waiting for another movie. My brother looked at me, serious as a heart attack, and said “We have to see this movie.” Since my Dad (who was divorced from my Mom) was coming for his monthly visit the following weekend, we were going to do everything in our power to have him take us to see this R-rated film. To my Dad’s credit, he wanted to take us to see “The Black Stallion,” which, as far as G-rated films go, is pretty superlative. But my brother was beyond the age where G-rated films were remotely cool, and me, by extension as a spineless younger brother, agreed 100%. So after much cajoling, my Dad bought the tickets and we settled in for something that completely blew me away (and needless to say, was completely inappropriate for a 10-year old). Not only was “Mad Max” full of action, but a lot of people died … in very painfully graphic ways. I was seriously disturbed, but also completely thrilled. Of course, my brother and I completely ruined any future chance of seeing a transgressive movie like this by excitedly telling our Mom in graphic detail what we just saw. My Mom berated my Dad, who sheepishly shrugged his shoulders and tried to say, “I had no idea what kind of movie this was.” Wherever you are Dad (he’s since deceased), sorry for putting you in that position … but also thank you for taking my brother and me to such an awesome flick.
I tried explaining for months to my friends how great this film was, but since the original theatrical run of “Mad Max” was completely under the radar in the United States (one of the only territories in the world where this film wasn’t a success), most just brushed me off. It wasn’t until the 1982 sequel “The Road Warrior” made major waves that my friends got interested in seeing “Mad Max.” As terrific as “The Road Warrior” is, the original “Mad Max” is still the best. There’s just something so freakin’ cool with how down and dirty this flick is. The only film that has remotely approached its original feel in my opinion is Paul Verhoeven’s “Robocop.”
“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” – Bryan Ferry
In my opinion, Bryan Ferry gets better as he gets older. The world-weary Serge Gainsbourg persona suits him pretty well and he really covers Dylan with class and taste, especially this rambunctious cover of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.” I couldn’t find the terrific studio version from 2002’s “Frantic” on YouTube, so this decent live version will have to suffice.
“Walk on the Wild Side” – Lou Reed from “Live: Take No Prisoners” (1978)
An almost 17-minute live version of “Walk on the Wild Side” where Reed takes various breaks to talk about the genesis of this rock classic, along with other topics that are on his mind or get on his nerves (i.e. rock critics). A really funny and interesting analysis by an artist of his work.
“Sherman’s March” (1986) dir. Ross McElwee
One of the warmest and funniest documentaries I’ve ever seen is Ross McElwee’s “Sherman’s March.” McElwee, a North Carolina native, originally planned on making a documentary on General William Tecumseh Sherman’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas during the Civil War. However, right before filming, McElwee broke up with his girlfriend. Unable to focus on his original subject matter, he started documenting his attempts to find a new girlfriend, featuring various women he’s interested in, only to face disappointment most of the time.
Despite the subject matter, this is not a self-pity fest or a lecherous / misogynistic journey through multiple hook-ups. McElwee genuinely loves women, thinks the world of them, and the loving way he captures various women who strike his fancy is touching. That’s not to say that some of the women he encounters aren’t … well … a little “off,” as you can see in the clip above.
“Sherman’s March” is a long film (over 2.5 hours), but it’s not dull at all. It’s a real charmer. It has won numerous awards over the years, including being selected by the Library of Congress in 2000 for preservation in the National Film Registry. Their opinion was that it was a “hilarious one-of-a-kind romantic exploration of the South.” I couldn’t have said it any better myself.
And there was a happy ending for McElwee in real life. Not only did he get married and become a father (the subject of his documentary “Time Indefinite”), he’s also a film professor at Harvard as well as the creator of several other terrific documentaries.
“The Demon” by Hubert Selby Jr.
Sex addiction is sort of taken seriously these days, but too often, it’s either thought of as a failure of morality or mindlessly celebrated as “transgressive.” I don’t believe Hubert Selby Jr. was ever a sex addict, but sex addiction follows similar patterns of other addictive behaviors, whether it’s drug abuse, shopping to the point of bankruptcy, hoarding, overeating, etc. Addiction is a compulsion to do the same behavior over and over again to satisfy some undefined need that’s never fulfilled. It can be a very scary and dark place. Selby understood this and had the foresight to write one of the first pieces of fiction that took this compulsion very seriously.
Written in 1976, “The Demon” is about a man named Harry who is a rising star on the corporate ladder, except his addiction to anonymous hook-ups consistently threatens to derail his career, his marriage, his sanity, his freedom, and his life. The book chronicles roughly 15 years Harry’s life from his early 20s until his late 30s and shows his struggles. It’s an explicit book, but not in the way you would expect (especially from Selby). Instead of describing Harry’s sexual hook-ups explicitly, it instead graphically describes the inner demons raging within him before a hook-up … the twitching, the sweating, the rationalizing, and finally the surrender to his compulsions. He tries substituting other things for his addiction (i.e. he becomes obsessed with collecting plants), but always succumbs to the monkey on his back. The book takes some very dark turns. I can’t say there’s a happy ending.
If my synopsis makes “The Demon” sound like some hysterical, religious-inflected “Reefer Madness”-style look at sex addiction, it’s only because of my limitations as a writer. “The Demon” is a great, but very dark hell-ride into the inner hell of compulsive behavior. The fact that this was written during the height of the sexual revolution (the original book was published by Playboy Press) is especially ballsy on Selby’s part and being a recovering addict himself, had an insight into a compulsive behavior many didn’t (and still don’t) take seriously. A truly terrific, scary, and underrated book that many people don’t know about (“Last Exit to Brooklyn” and “Requiem for a Dream” being Selby’s most famous works).
“Punk” compilation CD (1990s era TV commercial)
Video
I can’t tell if this is the most boneheaded example of corporate marketing ever or deadpan comedic genius on the level of Andy Kaufman. It’s likely the former, but if you were a comedian trying to design something that would make hipsters lose their collective minds, you couldn’t do any better than this TV ad. Even better than the infamous “Freedom Rock” commercials of the late 1980s.
Dave's Strange World 