Friday, August 29, 2003
"It's Freaking Me Out, Baby!": Check out this hilarious attempt by a Christianity Today writer to evangelize an Austin Powers IM robot. I can't get over it.
1:51 PM
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Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Nick It Off: My friend Caren Lissner just published an item on her Weblog about something very funny that Nick Sarames said at Tuesday Night Trivia last night. Although I cringe at the "God kills a kitten" reference—it's not exactly a faith-friendly joke—I do wish I had been at TNT to hear this exchange. (After clicking that link, you'll find it at the top of the screen, starting with, "At Tuesday Night Trivia...")
By the way, I will be at TNT on Tuesday, to see music trivia guru Rich Appel co-host with Caren. I'm really looking forward to that, as I think the two of them together are going to make for a very fun and challenging game. If you're not familiar with Rich or haven't read about him here before, he hosts the M-T Bowl, a music trivia contest that benefits charity, at the Sony Music Building twice a year. He also publishes the mammoth Hz So Good, a newsletter full of fun facts about rock radio from the 1950s to the present. To subscribe (free), e-mail him at audiot.savant@verizon.net.
3:01 PM
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Show Me the Mommy: My mother told me over the phone that, even though she and my stepfather would be willing to help pay for me to do something fun on my birthday, she wanted to get me a lasting present as well, e.g. jewelry. Except that she didn't put it that way. She said, "I'll still get you some bling-bling."
What a lady. She cracks me up.
12:43 PM
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Sunday, August 24, 2003
Jealous Guy: Back in early 1985, when I was 16 and obsessed with Sixties garage (as opposed to being 34 and 25/26ths and obsessed with Sixties pop), I was blessed to find a hairdresser in Maplewood, N.J. who knew how to create the perfect Brian Jones moptop. (That's the haircut that can be seen on the back cover of the Mosquitos' EP, where I'm standing next to Miriam Linna.) Said hairdresser—let's call her H.D. for short, as I've unfortunately forgotten her name— used to regale me with tales of her teenage brushes with British Invasion bands, including one memorable contact with the Beatles. (I know; were there any unmemorable contacts with them?)
It was during the Beatles' first New York visit, when they were staying at the Plaza. H.D.'s aunt and uncle were on their honeymoon and happened to be staying at the hotel at the same time. They decided to try to meet the Beatles and, apparently, had little trouble. It helped that they were older and, as a honeymooning couple, less threatening than the screaming fans outside, plus the Beatles were lonely for ordinary human contact. (I've heard that the same loneliness is evident in the Maysles' documentary of that tour, though I've never seen it.)
As H.D. told it, her aunt and uncle were sitting with the Beatles in the group's hotel suite, when her aunt begged them to call H.D. The couple knew that their niece was every bit as much of a fan as the screamers outside.
So John called, and H.D., needless to say, was thunderstruck. Once she regained her wits, she ordered, "Put Ringo on the phone."
"Oh, you don't want to speak to him," said Lennon. "He's ugly."
"He is not!" shouted the indignant H.D., in her best sprout-girl Joisey accent. "He's better looking than you!"
Even Lennon knew when he was beaten. He handed the phone over to Ringo.
11:59 AM
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Saturday, August 23, 2003
The Critics Raved: I have to thank Jonathan Leaf for passing on to me an invitation to a cocktail party last night at his friend's Union Square apartment, because it led to an unexpected delight.
Jonathan introduced me to a friend of his at the party who turned out to be a classical music liner-note writer. Said writer and I—yours truly having drunk a single glass of cabernet—almost immediately hatched a plan to dash out to the Virgin Megastore and each buy the other a CD for which the one of us had written the notes. And that's what we did.
It was so much fun. I live for moments like that. More than that, I believe that parties exist so that people can come up with the most preposterous excuse possible to leave. The better the party, the more preposterous the excuse has to be. This excuse was the most gloriously lunatic ever. And now I have a CD of modern classical music to enjoy. (The classical liner-note writer got Harry Nilsson.)
2:05 AM
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Friday, August 22, 2003
Sheep Thrills: I tried very hard to ignore yesterday's wire stories about "Church Pageant Sheep Goes on Lam," but I finally gave in today and discovered this delightful quote from the Clinton [Iowa] Herald, via Christianity Today's Weblog: "'Our pastor even had spent a couple nights walking the dike looking,' Mussman said. 'When people asked what he was looking for he'd say, "A lost sheep." Then he'd have to tell them he really was looking for a lost sheep—that he wasn't looking for sinners.'"
2:48 PM
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Thursday, August 21, 2003
The 'Ayes' of a New York Press Man: In the current issue of New York Press, J.R. Taylor's B-Listers column recounts meeting B.J. Thomas and seeing him perform during his recent Staten Island stop. I'd told J.R. about the show, and he repaid me very kindly by getting me as his plus-one. As he says in his piece, the show was wonderful. I also learned something I didn't know when Thomas performed "Mama"—that he was the original performer of that song, which was a U.K. smash for Dave Berry. Afterwards, I discovered that the song was written by Thomas's bandmate, Mark Charron (and so, perhaps it was indeed, as Thomas claimed during the show, inspired by the singer's own mother). Hard to believe that a song that sounds like a Jolson-era Tin Pan Alley standard was written by a Southern guitar player in 1965.
2:58 PM
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Saturday, August 16, 2003
Kinky Spoonful: Just heard Cousin Brucie play the Kinks' "Sunny Afternoon" on WCBS-FM's British Invasion Weekend and realized for the first time that the song was directly influenced by the Lovin' Spoonful's "Daydream." So much of "Daydream"'s feel is there, from what John Sebastian called the "straight-eight" staccato guitars (which were in turn inspired by the Supremes' "Baby Love") to the good-time harmonica licks. The songs also share a sense of irony and affectation, which probably explains why "Daydream" is one of my least favorite Spoonful songs, and "Sunny Afternoon" one of my least favorite Kinks songs. But it's still cool to think that Ray Davies was inspired by John Sebastian.
10:16 PM
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Blackout Anecdote #1
Overheard from the Women's Wear Daily finance editor, who may have meant it tongue-in-cheek: "Bloomberg says to drink a lot of liquids."
Blackout Anecdote #2
Between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m., as I walked from my office to my friend's apartment, braving a sea of people, there were a couple of spots where people were clustered around a radio. Inevitably, the newscaster was spouting: "There are hordes of people on the streets..."
11:26 AM
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Thursday, August 14, 2003
If you haven't yet read Eric Metaxas' satire on the California gubernatorial race, it's even more topical than it was a week ago, and can still be found on its own page, as a Dawn Patrol special feature.
Mark/My Words: Today a friend gave me the curious news that Mark Bacino, while performing at Pete's Candy Store last week, took time in between songs to read my review of his latest album to the audience. My friend said that Bacino didn't mention my name, but prefaced the reading with a "this is what they're saying about me" kind of line.
Rereading my review, I can see how its last line would make a good segue into a song: "Here's one the kids will like—it's got a good beat, and you can dance to it." But the fact that he would read it onstage is strange. It's not included among the raves on his press page. Perhaps I'm the only person who bothered to review the album, who didn't fall prostrate before its " sparkly, head-bobbing melodicism of classic mid-'60s pop," as RollingStone.com put it. Truth is, as I said in the review, I really liked a lot of the elements of the disc, but thought that Bacino's singing lacked sincerity.
I've always been harder on bands who come close-but-no-candy-cigarette to the kind of music I like, than on bands who miss the mark entirely. It's something I'm aware of, and something I've tried to moderate in recent years. But I do believe that, as long as a review describes the artist's music honestly and is not malicious, no press is bad press.
2:45 PM
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Wednesday, August 13, 2003
The Box Top Who Used My Bathroom: Today I got an e-mail out of the blue from a producer for an television network who wants me to participate in a series in which people talk about their brushes with rock stars. I arranged to speak with him tonight so he can pick my brain and decide if I have any tales he can use. Then I e-mailed Todd Seavey for advice. Why Todd? He's been telling me for a while that I should write a book or, failing that, a New York Press column with the theme, "From Groupie to Christian." I've resisted, because of not wanting to identify myself in that way. After all, why advertise that I'm a Christian? (Ba-dump-pum.) Anyway, I asked Todd if it were possible to present my brushes with celebrity in an interesting, non-groupieish manner. He responded with these sage words: My main advice would be to think of entire TV segments not as comparable to a print article but as comparable to, say, the amount of copy on an average movie poster. And assume that producers don't want to hear about bands that even a substantial minority let alone a slight majority of their audience haven't heard of.
So: you need something that can be sold in one simple sentence, quickly, while people are flipping channels, like:
"I was the last person to interview Del Shannon before he died."
"I played bass for the Who one night when Entwhistle was drunk."
"I have seen all four of the Monkees naked—and they are women."
As opposed to:
"I once met the mother of Stephen Simmons—the lead singer of the Strawberry Alarm Clock side project called the Shoremen—and she explained to me that he had done so much acid that he lost his ability to hear different tonalities in the early '70s, and that was what inspired the song 'Little Different Now,' which was the B-side of the Shoremen's 1973 hit, 'Street Boogie,' which made it almost into the Top Forty."
Even though I'll do as Todd suggests, it'll still be hard to prevent the show from presenting me as a stereotypical Elizabeth Wurtzel-type female rock critic who's more into rock stars than rock and roll. The fact that many of my experiences with well-known rockers read like preludes to groupie experiences doesn't help.
My favorite such nonevent happened in 1994 or so, when I was about 26. I went to see Alex Chilton at Maxwell's. I don't remember how it happened, but, before the show, I got to talking with him and he asked me to dine with him in the nightclub's restaurant area. We were vaguely acquainted—I'd interviewed him by phone years earlier, and he knew my name—and we had some mutual friends, but I'd never spent any time with him before. With his being a legendary figure, and my having had a teenage crush on him, it was exciting getting to have what really felt like, for me, a romantic dinner.
After the show, I worked up the guts to ask Chilton if his manager would give me a ride home, as I lived a 15-minute walk from the club. It was a provocative request, to be sure, but I didn't really expect that anything would happen.
Chilton's manager decided to stop the car at a Johnny Rockets around the corner from my place, as he wanted to get a burger. We all got out of the car and, I—feeling I had just about worn out my welcome—was about to say goodbye, when Chilton asked if he could use my bathroom.
Johnny Rockets had a bathroom too, but who was I to complain? So I led Chilton up to my abode, thinking about how my 17-year-old self would have been in heaven at that moment.
In reality, my 25-year-old self was vaguely uncomfortable, something Chilton must have sensed. After using my bathroom, he made a beeline for the front door. He waved at me and said those words I'll never forget:
"Well, bye."
He turned for the elevator and that was it.
Even as I shut the door, I was thinking, No one is ever going to believe that Alex Chilton came over just to use my bathroom.
5:12 PM
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Tuesday, August 12, 2003
The Line's Even Funnier When You Consider That Crosby Looks Like Michael Nesmith: I'm getting ahead of myself here. Last night, I went with Chris Granozio to see my first Hope/Crosby road film: "The Road to Utopia." It wasn't as funny as I'd hoped, but still had some wonderful moments, most of which are referenced in this online review of the film. (I know that letting someone else describe a "Road" movie for me may seem like sarong thing to do, but I'm all Lamour grateful to not have to do it myself.) I admit to getting goosebumps when Der Bingle sang, "Welcome to My Dream," a beautiful, haunting tune that I recognized from Tiny Tim's first album.
The film also introduced for me the Bing Crosby-Michael Nesmith connection. There's a scene near the beginning where Crosby has the beginnings of sideburns, and, I tell you, he looks for all the world like he's going to break into "Papa Gene's Blues." The line I was thinking of when I wrote the header is an outré quip that Crosby makes in a scene where he and Hope are performing in a talent contest, trying to do better than a monkey/organ-grinder act—Hope accompanying Crosby on accordion. Hope boasts about the great solo he's playing, and Crosby replies, "You could beat the monkey alone." Then Hope does a perfect double-take.
12:13 PM
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Saturday, August 9, 2003
Ten Commandments of Love: My latest headline for my online personal: "What part of 'Thou' don't you understand?"
12:18 AM
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Friday, August 8, 2003
If you're looking for Eric Metaxas' spot-on satire on the California gubernatorial race, "California Muggin'," it's been honored with its own page.
[UPDATED] Was It By That All-Female '80s Metal Band—Twisted Knickers? Finally, a reader had the desired reaction to my "Brief Encounter" post: he laughed hard. Getting Rich Appel's laudatory e-mail was a relief after hearing from friends who were either disgusted by the post or just reacted however they normally would to a woman's writing about her underwear.
Rich, who puts out the wonderfully comprehensive radio-lovers' newsletter Hz So Good (free to subscribe—write him at audiot.savant@verizon.net), added that the post "brought to mind a...trivia question. What was (or has been, to now, anyway) the only #1 song (in the U.S.) to mention 'panties' (not 'thongs')? Good luck." Well, I have had no luck at this one—all I can think of is Mason Williams's album cut "The Prince's Panties," which never even came out as a single. Readers? [We have a winner! See below.]
P.S. As Hz So Good readers know, Rich can be quite the witty headline writer when he puts his mind to it. His e-mail to me was headed, "Thongs for the memories."
P.P.S. Just thought of "Dedicated Follower of Fashion," but it wasn't Number One. Pooh.
UPDATE: The first reader response to this item happens to be the right one, from Roy Currlin: "Abracadabra." His impressive knowledge should be no surprise to anyone who remembers him from "Mouth Vs. Ear."
1:02 PM
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Asti Spumante, Baby: By an amazing good fortune which I have yet to comprehend, I have received an unsolicited Dawn Patrol submission from Eric Metaxas, whose work normally appears in such esteemed outlets as The New York Times (OK, maybe not that esteemed), The Atlantic Monthly, The Washington Post, etc., etc. Woody Allen called his humor writings "quite funny." Metaxas' Dawn Patrol contribution, for which I've created a separate page, is a transcript of a California candidates' debate. Every way you look at it, you laugh.
2:45 AM
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Wednesday, August 6, 2003
Tom Jones's Kind of Weather: My "Brief Encounter" post, which I find bittersweet and intermittently hilarious, has been met with near-universal dislike—specifically from a normally supportive friend who greeted the post with an uncharacteristic silence, and from Peter Horvath, who writes, "I know I said, 'more rock and roll posts,' but..." The only semipositive response is from Michael Lynch, who refrains from opining about it—I'm willing to allow that he's engaging in gentlemanly reticence—but does offer a funny related link: "Just read your thing about briefs. Well, imagine you got caught in a brief shower, as this poor guy did."
Said "poor guy" turns out to be the legendary Dan Ingram, and the sound bite is from the must-hear WABC Musicradio 77 Web site. Thanks, Michael!
11:59 PM
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Brief Encounter: I get up every morning with the nagging feeling that I need to buy new panties. My old panties are almost all in that pathetic don't-get-caught-in-them-if-you're-on-a-hospital-stretcher condition, and there aren't enough of them. So I put on a pair of my long-suffering old panties (along with, as a great woman said, the rest of my clothes) and go to work, wondering how I can fit a panty-buying excursion into my busy go-to-work/see-friends/drop schedule.
I could buy panties from the mammoth Herald Square Victoria's Secret that I pass by every day on my way to and from work, but I'm boycotting that place, as I'm offended by its window display of lingerie-clad mannequins astride gargantuan Harley Davidsons. It's not only wrong to put something that trashy where thousands of kids can see it each day, it's also just plain gauche. The message is so obvious—why don't they just plop the mannequins, Hope for the Flowers-like, atop giant, pillar-like male organs? And that's probably coming, except that the canny Victoria's Secret marketing geniuses knew that men shopping with their girlfriends would be more drawn in by Harleys.
Instead, last night I tried another place a few doors down from my office, H&M, but no luck. It's very hard shopping for panties when you do not have a boyfriend and do not intend to have any physical intimacy outside a committed relationship. The store had a lot of lacy items that looked beautiful (save for an odd bra-and-panty set in black lace that was marred by hot-pink ribbons forming what looked like racing stripes). But I can't buy things like that just for myself. I find it too depressing to buy beautiful panties knowing that, by the time I'm close enough with my imagined future commited boyfriend to let him see them, their lace will be frayed, full of little balls that I can see even if others can't, etc.
So I scanned the racks for pretty cotton panties, like the extra-soft combed cotton, muted leopard-print numbers I got a few years back from, well, Victoria's Secret. Unfortunately, the "in" style now for cotton panties is man-style briefs. So man-style, in fact, that they're seamed to look as though they have a hole in the front, only they're cut in a decidedly unmanly bikini style. Great. Now, without having a boyfriend, I can look like I'm borrowing the underwear of my gay boyfriend. The search continues...
1:09 PM
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Not-So-Dirty Pretty Things*: I was recently reminded of the greatness of Peter Noone's version of the iconic Bowie song "Oh You Pretty Things" when I picked up a copy of it in the format in which all great singles are meant to be heard—on 45, of course (US Bell, promo). I'm not even a Bowie fan (she writes as her 13-year-old self spins in her grave), and I absolutely adore this record, with its Biff Rose-influenced piano-and-strings arrangement—it is, dare I say, delightful.
I was again reminded of the song yesterday when Todd Seavey referenced it in an e-mail promoting his participation in tonight's Jinx Athenaeum Society debate. The topic is, "Resolved: Humanity Will Be Extinct Within One Hundred Years," and Todd will be defending it, arguing in true Bowie spirit that "you gotta make way for the Homo Superior." I won't be making it due to a prior engagement, but it'll be in the basement of Lolita bar, at the corner of Broome and Allen St., at 8pm.
*To justify this hipster headline, I should explain that, while Bowie sang, "The earth is a [female bow-wow]," Noone sang, "The earth is a beast."
12:05 AM
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Tuesday, August 5, 2003
Arf and Life: A dog walks into a Western Union office and wants to send a telegram. He gives the telegraph operator his message: "ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF."
The telegram operator says, "That's only nine words. You're paying for up to ten. You can add another "ARF."
The dog says, "But that wouldn't make sense."
11:36 AM
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Sunday, August 3, 2003
 Can You Tell He Digs the Stones? When this quarryman isn't doing the hully gully, he's chiseling the most finely crafted garage-rock since the Pebbles series. Michael Lynch (of Gaits of Eden and Dawn Patrol jingle fame) has a smashing new CD EP and yours truly wrote the liners.
11:30 PM
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Saturday, August 2, 2003
Meet the Mailman: Don't ask me how I get started on these Web research tangents, but I just discovered through the ASCAP database that Ruth Roberts and Bill Katz, who wrote the delightful "Meet the Mets," also wrote a song that was recorded by Buddy Holly and the Beatles: "Mailman Bring Me No More Blues."
2:37 PM
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