On Chest Beards and Cocaine Legs

"You can take me to paradise/ And then again you can be cold as ice/ I'm over my head/ But it sure feels nice." Ah, the verities of love, as delivered by one Christine McVie, a lovely woman and a fine singer, and a lyricist rivaling, but not equaling, my sixth grade girlfriend, Kathy, who once wrote, "You make me see the stars but sometimes I see dented cars." Little did she know. Round X in the random pull record review contest, we find ourselves with an album I did not know I owned- Fleetwood Mac/ Fleetwood Mac. I'm struck by the back cover photo, in which our heroes line up in a loose horseshoe in front of five sinks- oh, the rigors of the road- and what screams out from that photo is that they haven't made it yet. Stevie Nicks does have a fringe jacket, but her hair is brown and she looks lost in innocence, not a blow bender. Mick Fleetwood is 6:10 and 150 lbs., very sexy in tight black stretch pants, Lurch's face and a shag mullet somebody needs to bring back. Christine McVie is a smoking dirty blonde British queen radiating husky later excitement. Lindsay Buckingham is my favorite- sagging fro, black fu manchu and pirate's blouse just barely buttoned, highlighting a Dylanesque chest beard that reminds me of when I saw him in the LA airport in the 80s, dropping off the hottest girl in Hollywood and looking rumpled like only a true narcissist can, hair mussed up as if by a retinue of Vietnamese fingers, tight black jeans screaming cocaine legs, an open shirt- even at LAX!- and that same black patch of chest bush. Which brings us to John McVie, always outside the talent nexus, covering the male pattern baldness with a Mexican straw hat and those skinny legs with red leather pants, painted on. Striking.

I'm exhausted! Who cares about the music after that visual splendor! More exclamation points! Everybody knows "Rhiannon," but "Monday Morning" is a tip tip tapper and "Landslide" shows that a pre-lace Stevie had restraint, before the sinus surgeries. Christine provides most of the cheese, with "Say You Love Me" (you remember, "Have mercy baby, on a poor girl like me"- always the romantic victim, Christine) and "Warm Ways" telegraphs hooks so big and so obvious they could only be FM staples. The whole thing is only half good, but did I mention that picture? I'm having it blown up and put on the living room ceiling- remind those next dinner guests how far we've fallen.