The opening track of Black Sabbath’s self-titled debut album, this song sets the stage for the marriage of heavy metal and Satanism, Goth, and other things some people are scared by and other people laugh at derisively. Yes, a lot of this is pretty silly, but the song still knocks me for a loop every time I hear it. And if I ever fulfill my childhood dream of becoming a filmmaker, I get first dibs on using this song for a scene in a mob film where a hitman plots taking out some enemies. This post will be registered with the WGA, so if any of you wannabe Tarantinos decide to steal from this wannabe Tarantino, my team of lawyers will see you in court.
By the way, Black Sabbath’s debut album was recorded for a mere 800 pounds ($1200 in American dollars). This is 1/5 the cost of the Ramones allegedly “low-budget” debut album which cost $6000 in American dollars.
Even though Black Sabbath are considered kings of heavy metal, “Paranoid” is pure punk rock in my humble opinion. While Led Zeppelin were bragging about giving you every inch of their love, Sabbath was fretting about war-mongering politicians and generals (their classic “War Pigs”) and emotional breakdowns. “Paranoid” contains one of my all-time favorite lyrics: “Make a joke and I will sigh and you will laugh and I will cry.” Damn, if that one line doesn’t sum up the downward spiral of the victim of a bully, I don’t know what does.
Whether you want to admit it or not, there’s a part in all of us that feels a certain pleasure when people who have risen to a higher level of success or notoriety than we have are taken down a peg … or twelve. This feeling is called “schadenfreude” and it’s the basis for for all of those clicks on TMZ.com and PerezHilton.com, all those times you pretend not to scan the headlines of the tabloids when you’re in the checkout line, and all of those times your computer mouse finds itself going to the “Entertainment” and “Celebrity” sections of your favorite news page. I’m not putting this practice down. While it’s a trait not too many people are proud of, it performs a necessary balancing act for our psyches. When you’re working a job you don’t like to pay for things you don’t need, it’s nice to be reminded those people who we think “have it all,” really don’t.
However, despite the rationalizations indicated above, I find it hard to rationalize why I’m addicted to Darwin Porter’s celebrity biographies. Forget TMZ. Forget Albert Goldman. Forget even Kenneth Anger (the author of the original “Hollywood Babylon,” the Magna Carta of Hollywood sleaze). Porter’s celebrity biographies are … hands down … the absolute FILTHIEST, DIRTIEST, and SLEAZIEST celebrity biographies you’ll ever read. I’ve read four of Porter’s bios so far (Steve McQueen, Michael Jackson, Marlon Brando, and Linda Lovelace) and every time I put one of his books down for sleep, I feel like I need one of those Karen Silkwood showers afterwards. This is because Porter focuses almost exclusively on the sexual lives of his subjects and he goes into extremely explicit detail about the sights, the sounds, and … sometimes … the smells of their sordid private affairs. Yet, while such details may seem titillating, they actually have the opposite effect. By the end, you feel like you’ve been ravaged by the entire series run of E! True Hollywood Stories and then abandoned with no cab fare for your efforts. I realize, of course, these protestations are hollow considering I’ve read four of these damn bios, but like Kyle MacLachlan’s character in “Blue Velvet” keeps going back to see Isabella Rossellini’s troubled character, I keep wandering back to Porter’s books.
Yes, most of Porter’s subjects are dead and therefore, can’t defend themselves. Yes, you’re a complete moron if you believe 100% of what you read in these books. However, there’s also the adage that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.” So, if you’re looking for that literary equivalent of hanging out at the bar until closing to find that special someone who will utter the magic words “Why not?”, Porter’s books are the ticket. As long as you have your bulls–t director on high and have the Comet cleanser close by, you’ll do just fine. Of course, you’ll go to hell for merely browsing any of these books. But at least if you’re going to hell for reading a book, Porter makes it worth your while. Most of his tomes are over 400 pages long and all of them are jam-packed with with nothing but the “bad” (or “good,” depending on how evil you are) stuff you’re looking for. And … most of them are available digitally … so you can read these books without rousing too much suspicion. However, please be warned that Porter does love to throw the inappropriate pictures around like many people pass out after-dinner mints. Like a Whitman’s Sampler of sleaze, you never know what picture might pop up when you turn the page, so be careful reading these books on a plane.
The first and best-known track of 1988’s “Daydream Nation,” this not only brings back memories of my first year in college, but also, more importantly, my second year in grad school. Why was this song … and this album … so important to me in 1995-1996? Because it was my only line of defense against my next door neighbor …
My next door neighbor was a meek looking guy … resembling Garth from “Wayne’s World,” but with a Kurt Cobain haircut. Somehow this geekazoid managed to snare a hot goth girlfriend. Yes, I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but they did exist on occasion back in the day. Anyway, Garth and his girlfriend used to have loud relations at all hours of the night. This wasn’t the standard moans and groans and occasional loud “Oh my God!” This was full-on Ted Bundy-and-young-female-hitchhiker type shenanigans. This young woman’s screams were blood curdling. And because I lived in a wood-panelled apartment that cost me $210 a month, let’s just say it got a little loud when I was trying to sleep.
So I would have to venture into my living room and sleep on a sofa that Goodwill later rejected when I moved out. I had to crank this very drony album by Sonic Youth at a volume just loud enough to drown out the nonsense two rooms removed, but not loud enough to annoy my other neighbors. This album and My Bloody Valentine’s equally drony shoe-gazing masterpiece “Loveless” worked well enough to drown out the serial killer fantasies of the lovers next door and saved my sanity that year.
This is a shorter version of the 70+ minute monologue Henry Rollins delivered on seeing KISS for the first time towards the end of the 1990s. This is very funny stuff, but if you like what you hear, be sure to check out the full 70+ minute version on Rollins’ “Talk is Cheap Vol. 2” 2-CD set. I think the delivery of this tale is better on the longer version, but this is still a lot of fun.
Being a cultural phenomenon can be a good thing for the initial success of any film. Some of these iconic films not only maintain their popularity throughout the years, but their status as classics only strengthens. Examples of this phenomenon: “Casablanca,” “The Godfather,” “Star Wars,” and “Pulp Fiction.”
However, some films are so of their time, that they don’t hold up as well and are often dismissed in later years as flukes. “Saturday Night Fever” is probably the best example of a film that was phenomenally successful (with both audiences and critics) during its initial release, but which subsequently became a pop culture joke due to the fading popularity of disco. While the reputation of “Fever” has improved slightly over the years (most noticeably after lead actor John Travolta became hip again from his role in “Pulp Fiction”), most people look at it as a campy reminder of the 1970s at their tackiest. Yes, there are a lot of scenes that seem unintentionally funny these days (Travolta’s character Tony primping in front of the mirror). Yes, those 1970s fashions are painfully ugly. And yes, the film has a wall-to-wall disco soundtrack, so if you despise disco, this film will likely be pure torture to watch. But while I would never call “Fever” a great film, it’s a damn good one.
While most people remember the dancing, the music, and the bad fashions, most people don’t ever talk about how dark “Fever” actually is. “Fever” is an extremely gritty and grim 1970s NYC urban masterpiece that belongs in that celebrated genre of films that also includes “Mean Streets,” “Taxi Driver,” “Serpico,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “The Warriors,” and “Death Wish.” The language is pretty crude and by today’s standards, very politically incorrect. Many of the male characters in the film are fairly misogynistic. There’s also the extremely dark fact that Tony not only attempts to rape his dance companion at one point, but that he doesn’t stop the gang rape of a young woman who is in love with him when it’s happening in the backseat of the car he’s driving. (He thoughtfully calls her the c-word after it’s over and she’s crying hysterically). I’m not criticizing the film for any of this, by the way. These ugly scenes not only illustrate how complex “Fever” actually is, but that there’s no way the film would ever be released, let alone shot, as scripted if made these days. Nowadays, Tony would have to have a “redemptive arc” of some kind or be punished in some way for what he does or doesn’t do. The ugly scenes in “Fever” are so powerful, it makes me a little pissed that the film isn’t better than it actually is. But what’s there isn’t bad at all. When I watched it again recently, the film that it most reminded me of is Martin Scorsese’s “Mean Streets.”
The scene I’ve included here is not from any of the famed dance sequences, but the scene where Tony and his friends enact revenge on a gang they believe hurt their friend. It’s a pretty well-staged and intense fight scene.
The unsung hero of “Fever” is the screenwriter Norman Wexler. In addition to “Fever,” Wexler was the author of many gritty 1970s films including “Joe” and “Serpico” (both films yielded him Oscar nominations). However, the secret to Wexler’s genius was revealed in Bob Zmuda’s book about Andy Kaufman “Andy Kaufman Revealed!” Before Zmuda became Kaufman’s partner-in-crime, he worked for Wexler as his assistant. However, Zmuda called Wexler “Mr. X” in the book because Wexler was still alive when the book was written… and Zmuda still lived in grave fear of Wexler. (He confirmed “Mr. X” was Wexler long after Wexler passed away). Zmuda’s accounts of “Mr. X” are some of the funniest and most dangerous tales of urban performance art you’ll ever read. “Mr. X” later inspired Kaufman’s brand of confrontational performance art, but compared to “Mr. X,” Kaufman comes off as cuddly as Wayne Brady.
From the 1990 album “The Last Temptation of Reid” comes the Dead Kennedys’ Jello Biafra and Ministry’s Al Jourgensen project from hell, Lard. This track is called “Can God Fill Teeth?” Alternately funny … and annoying … but in a good way. I always liked this song, even though most of it sounds like a cat being stretched in two. Lard was thoughtful enough to also include a cover of “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha – Haa!” on the same album, but “Teeth” makes that one sound like the Carpenters.
“The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years” is Penelope Spheeris’s follow-up to her groundbreaking documentary on hardcore punk from 1980 (“The Decline of Western Civilization”). “Decline II” chronicles heavy metal, circa 1988 in Los Angeles, predominately glam metal, which was the rage at the time.
“Decline II” is often cited for being extremely funny because many of the participants seem absolutely delusional about their prospects at future success in music … and in life. There are interviews with stars (Ozzy Osbourne, Steve Tyler, Joe Perry, Poison, Dave Mustaine, Lemmy, Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Chris Holmes) and interviews with up and comers, most of which you’ve never seen nor heard from since this film came out.
However, the most compelling part of the film is arguably the interview with Chris Holmes of W.A.S.P. Lying in a pool chair, literally pouring vodka down his throat, explaining he’s a piece of s–t, while is mother is sitting next to him, trying to put on a good face, but looking like she wants to cry. One of the saddest and most disturbing scenes from a documentary ever.
Despite this, the humor outweighs the pathos. One of the best scenes in the film comes near the end where legendary club owner Bill Gazzarri hosts his annual “Miss Gazzarri Dancer” contest and Gazzarri tries to get everyone excited about a band called Odin, which he claims are going to be the next big thing. Needless to say, they fell far short of this goal. I’ll let you be the judge as to whether the public was ignorant in their mass rejection of Odin through this clip:
Spheeris later hit the box-office jackpot as the director of “Wayne’s World” in 1992, a job she got in no small part due to her success with “Decline II.”
Before “Eastbound and Down” and the rest of Jody Hill’s brilliantly dark and funny oeuvre of delusional losers, there was Eagle Pennell’s funny and sad “Last Night at the Alamo.” Written by Kim Henkel, the man who wrote the original screenplay for “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and one of the best truly indie movies of all time, “Last Night at the Alamo” tells the tale of the Alamo’s (a Houston dive bar) last night in business. The regulars are an interesting bunch: William (aka Ichabod) is a hot-headed, but dim young man in his early 20s; Claude is a man whose blue collar world is threatened when his wife insists they move the suburbs and she subsequently throws him out for drinking too much; and then there’s Cowboy, the legendary BMOC at the bar, who has a big plan to save the bar … or go to Hollywood to become a cowboy actor. There’s other regulars too, as well as assorted bartenders, girlfriends, wives, and former lovers, who fade in and out of the scenery, as the night continues.
The Alamo’s closing represents more than the closing of their favorite watering hole. This is a place where all the men go to be big shots after difficult days on the job or in their lives. It’s obvious the men feel small outside the Alamo, because they strut around and pathetically act like badasses within its confines. The Alamo’s closing means that these men will now be reduced the lives they lead … with their favorite escape hatch closing behind them.
The film has some serious moments, but it’s also hysterically and profanely funny. One of the best scenes in the film is the very first one, where William drives to the Alamo after work with his girlfriend and he rants and screams about everything from having to borrow an undesirable vehicle because his regular ride needs repair to his girlfriend complaining about his cursing and drinking, etc. If the opening scene doesn’t grab you, the rest of the film won’t.
If you’re at all a fan of Jody Hill or Danny McBride, “Last Night at the Alamo” is an absolute must-see.
In addition, you must see the feature length documentary about Pennell, called “The King of Texas: The Life and Death of Independent Filmmaker Eagle Pennell,” a terrific but painful and sad documentary about the tragic life of “Last Night at the Alamo”‘s director.
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