From the Beastie Boys’ debut “Licensed to Ill,” this is the track (even more so than “Fight for your Right”) that sucked me into the world of the Beasties back in 1986. The title is a shout-out to Motorhead’s classic “No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith” live LP. The positively sick lead guitar is by Kerry King of Slayer (which becomes prominent when the gorilla starts his solo in the video). This album is in my all-time Top 20 … and as much as I admired the avant-garde direction the Beasties went later in their career (especially 1989’s “Paul’s Boutique), this is the one I never hesitate to listen to.
F–k “The Exorcist”! THIS is the scariest film of all time … because it involves real life at its worst … whatever good is in it is eroding away bit by bit. Based on David Mamet’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, this is a film about men who have had varying degrees of success in their life, but are now not doing so great. They’re a millimeter away from losing their livelihood … and they’re resorting to desperate means to hold onto what little they have. This movie disturbed me as recent college graduate in 1992 … it scares me even more 20+ years later.
This scene … the most famous in the film … involves a sales leader browbeating and emasculating the desperate men who are their weakest. This is darkly funny on one level … horrendously sad and depressing on another. This is the dark side of the American Dream … the side which says if you fail, it’s because you didn’t work hard enough, you didn’t want it badly enough, because … you weren’t man enough.
Aside from his genius portrayal of CEO Jack Donaghy on the comedy TV classic “30 Rock,” this is Alec Baldwin’s greatest performance. The other performances by Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, and Kevin Spacey are all top-notch, as well. This is not safe for work by any means. This is verbal brutality at its most heinous. A-B-C. Always be closing … ALWAYS BE CLOSING!
The Butthole Surfers’ “unique” take on Black Sabbath’s “Sweet Leaf”. One of the greatest openings to a song ever:
“Daddy, what does regret mean?
Well son, the funny thing about regret is,
It’s better to regret something you have done,
Than to regret something you haven’t done.
And by the way, if you see your mom this weekend,
Be sure and tell her, SATAN, SATAN, SATAN!!!”
The terrific and gloriously politically incorrect opening of writer/director Christopher McQuarrie’s 2000 film “Way of the Gun” … McQuarrie’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning script for “The Usual Suspects.” The performance by Sarah Silverman as the obnoxious girlfriend is beyond perfect. The fact that the entire sequence is underscored by the Rolling Stones’ “Rip This Joint” makes it even more memorable. Be warned, though. The language (and action in the sequence) is beyond obscene … not safe for work, little ones, or those who are highly sensitive.
The original “Apology Line” from 1980-1995 was the brainchild of conceptual artist Allan Bridge, who posted fliers in New York City requesting that people call his answering machine to confess to anything they felt guilty about.
The fliers prompted a flurry of phone calls to his machine, which led to a magazine (“Apology”), an HBO film based on the project (“Apology”) with Leslie Ann Warren and Peter Weller, as well as several different projects over the years where the calls were played. The calls ranged from the mundane (lying about going to a family gathering) to the truly criminal and scary (rapes, murders). Since it was all anonymous, it’s not clear how much was true and what wasn’t. However, if you want to examine the human mind at its darkest, this is a good place to start.
A sampling of the original calls can be found here:
A segment on the Apology Line from a past episode of Ira Glass’s “This American Life” can be found here … with additional calls:
I first heard about the Apology Line back in the fall of 1984 when the USA cable network’s late night show “Night Flight” featured a short documentary about the Apology Line where several of the calls were played. It was probably one of the most disturbing things I had ever encountered at that point.
Allan Bridge was accidentally killed by a jet skier while diving in the mid-1990s (the sad irony was that the jet skier who killed him was never found). However, the legacy of the “Apology Line” continues today. First of all, with a new play based on the project, written by Greg Pierotti, who co-wrote “The Laramie Project”:
There’s also a new “Apology Line,” based in England, which inspired the James Less directed documentary, which you can view below:
Please note that none of what you’ll see or hear is safe for work or little ones. You are literally hearing the darkest parts of the human soul being expressed here … so be warned.
Phil Hendrie is, hands down, the funniest human being on radio. While I think Howard Stern may be the funniest “off the cuff” humorist on radio, Hendrie is a true artiste and what he does night after night is nothing short of brilliant … almost at an Andy Kaufman-level of comic genius.
If you’ve never heard of Hendrie, here’s the premise of his show: Hendrie plays himself as a frustrated straight-man radio host interviewing people who are … to put it kindly … some of the most repulsive human beings who have ever existed. Among the wretched that Hendrie has interviewed: a man who believes you should protect children from predators by forcing them to never bathe and get fat; a man who wants to sue his wife and children for not letting him take the family savings to Norway so he can “get his head together for six months … to five years” because he fears a terrorist attack; a pornographer upset because the City of New York has denied him a permit to make a porn film at Ground Zero called “9 or 11 … Take Your Pick … Let the Healing Begin”; a woman who wants to sue her neighbor for choosing not to have a C-section because her neighbor agreed to let the woman use her baby in a “prettiest baby” contest and the woman is afraid the baby will be deformed because it’s coming out of a … well … narrower opening … and so on … and so forth. The big “secret” is that Hendrie also plays the people he is interviewing. Who’s not in on the joke? The callers who call in to tear these “guests” apart. Hendrie’s show is, hands down, the best satire of talk radio that’s ever been conceived. And every single one of shows has left me convulsing in hysterics.
As always, Maron delivers a GREAT interview with Hendrie. Hendrie dishes not only about his history and how he developed his comic genius over the years, but also gives his assessment on the current state of talk radio. If you have any interest in comedy, talk radio, technology, or media studies, this interview is essential.
And please … if Hendrie interests you at all … throw him some money at his website and get access to not only his current broadcasts and podcasts, but some of his classic shows from over the last 15 years or so. Or you can listen to some freebies through iTunes (download anything that has “Classic Phil Hendrie” in the subject line). Some may sneer and say this is just the radio version of trolling, but I would vehemently disagree. Holy mackeral, trust me when I say that this is some next level s–t!
From Bob Mould’s game-changing 1989 solo album “Workbook,” the former Husker Du frontman and punk rock God channeled his inner Richard Thompson into decepitvely quieter, but no less intense songs. The opening acoustic bridge was used for years as bumper music on NPR’s “All Things Considered.” One of my all-time favorite albums.
One of my favorites from the early 1990s. From Cracker’s 1992 self-titled debut. Favorite line: “I see the light at the end of the tunnel now … Someone please tell me it’s not a train.”
A great performance of one of the more memorable (albeit extremely depressing) songs from Lou Reed’s stellar 1973 song cycle “Berlin.” If you like what you hear, you should check out the original album, or the brilliant 2007 film adaptation (lensed by Oscar-nominated director Julian Schnabel) called “Lou Reed’s Berlin.”
One of the best films about the art / history of comedy, as well as the early days of TV is director Richard Benjamin’s hilarious and touching 1982 film “My Favorite Year.” The unspoken denominator in this enterprise is (uncredited) producer Mel Brooks. Mel Brooks was a comedy writer for Sid Caesar’s early TV show “Your Show of Shows,” which the film’s show within a show “The King Kaiser Show” is based on.
Mark Linn-Baker (as rookie writer Benjy Stone) is the obvious Brooks stand-in, trying to keep notorious debauched movie star Alan Swann (brilliantly played by Peter O’Toole based on debauched real-life movie star Errol Flynn) sober and on schedule for his appearance on the show. However, the constantly drunk Swann has other plans.
“My Favorite Year” may not be perfect … or even a great film, but it’s one of those films that always puts me in a good mood. And it earned Peter O’Toole a well-deserved Best Actor Oscar nomination in 1982. The film also resurrected Lainie Kazan’s career, who plays Benjy’s overbearing, but loving mom. Kazan resurrected the role in the 1992 Broadway musical adaptation of the film.
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