Chi Pig

I haven't seen this, but apparently it came out this month. "She's Not on the Menu" was the first song that popped in my head when I saw the title of this film. It's been a long time since SNFU made it in my tape deck, and it looks like the years have not been kind to Chi Pig.

Cold Turkey

Even when Lennon was trying to be a hippie or a house dad or a spaceman, he could roll, ya know?

Digging

Forgive me. I've never owned a Misfits record before. I used to have a taped-over TDK with a mishmash of songs, but I've never owned an album proper. Some of those so-called classics just slip through the vinyl cracks, and even when you think you've heard it, well, I guess not.  I bought Static Age for $10.98, which these days passes for a steal, the price of vinyl on full ascension.  People complain about the price of gasoline, but at least it comes down occasionally and at great speed. This new era of niche vinyl lovers has driven the prices beyond what I'll schlep out on anything but a sure thing, and that's sad, because I'm a lifetime digger. Do people regularly shell out $17.99 for an album they've only read about? Is everybody previewing everything via download and then just dropping the big load once they've determined the quality? I don't know, because everyone I know rolls their eyes when they see my record player. I am a very small island in my social circles, so what people do or don't do in the fetish world of vinyl record buying is a big mystery.

But I'm curious, because we've been through a number of stages, but seeing cd list prices six bucks less than vinyl list reminds ya of the tectonic shift. If you ask your typical bald, middle-aged, spectacle-wearing cultural critic, he'll write that music as a material item has been dead for a long time. Free, according to the caffeinated folks at Wired, is the new norm, and we're all supposed to get used to it. Of course, as any former Soulseek user will tell ya, what comes free through your computer at night and made you romp down the steps each morning to see what arrived in the Transfer box becomes sterile and empty over time.  If everything is free, what has value?

Well, at least that is part of my experience, if not all of it. When the Soulseek kick started waning, I went back to vinyl, and that made the process of acquiring music fun again. After awhile, though, I missed a few things. Most of all, I missed the hunt for nuggets, the cheapies some hungover buyer had mispriced. Finding that underpriced record you've been seeking forever is why diggers dig. Or just seeing something that looks weird and at a few bucks is worth the risk and won't tarnish the experience if it sucks. Unfortunately, it gets harder and harder to find anything like that anymore, at least at the stores I now occasionally sneak away to.  Granted, my time is far more limited these days, but I never find vinyl nuggets anymore, at least the way I define them. I even started rummaging through the cd bins, at least the bargain ones, because the hunt for cheap remained an important part of the experience. It makes no sense, unless you consider that seeing some record for a buck reminds you that you just might like it; thinking about what you might like on Soulseek requires you to recall, but digging is about recognition, and any cognition expert will tell you the latter is a far easier part of our memory to access.  So I see a Ministry greatest hits record and think, what the fuck? One enjoyable song is worth a buck, and the process far more than that.

And so I bought a Misfits record, because the reissue business has made quality vinyl a viable option. I'm curious, though: are these reissue folks making any money at this, or is it a selfless effort of love? Are those 4 Men with Beards profiting, or are they making vinyl that no longer exists that they'd like to hear? I don't know the answer to these questions. All I know is that if you offer me a record that has held up for twenty or thirty years at five or six bucks less than one that a few folks on the Internet are hyping, I have a very easy decision. For the record, I can't believe how good this Misfits record is. Really,  I am not kidding. It's fucking hit city.

For the Love of Tanner

To watch The Bad News Bears today is to look at a nearly unrecognizable world.  Walter Matthau stumbles around as a less than sober contrast to today's cult of self-esteem parenting that rewards breathing.  The "parenting" revolution of the last twenty-five years has not necessarily been an evolutionary leap forward, and this film reminds you of its mixed results. Look, I spend most weekends in a camping chair on various East Bay little league fields, and the most common parental cry is "Great job!" Little Timmy looks at three fastballs down the middle without lifting that hundred dollar aluminum bat off his shoulder, and the coach shrieks, "Great job, Timmy! Great try!" Little Max dribbles a meek grounder to the first baseman who lets the ball slowly roll into his glove and takes one easy step to the bag. The parents erupt: "Beautiful play! Now that's baseball!" Both boys look embarrassed. I breathe deeply.  And the beat goes on.

Obviously, there is nothing wrong with positive encouragement, but at times it looks like a presentation of good parenting. Watch me encourage the children. If you get the same words in the same tone for doing absolutely nothing that you do for fouling off five pitches and then ripping a single to left, the traditional conditioning model has left the building. If I'm mixing my metaphors, maybe I'm confused, too.

The Bad News Bears came out in 1976, and the opening scene is Walter Matthau driving into the ballpark's parking lot, dumping a bit of Bud from the can he's holding and topping it off with bourbon. He's  being paid to coach a new team of misfits because the parents are busy. He's got his afternoons free and a fierce booze habit to support, so a genre is born- the lovable losers pull together and take on the arrogant rich kids for the championship. It was a novel premise at the time, but from a 2011 couch, much of the fun is spotting cultural shifts.

For one, Matthau drinks openly and publicly AT ALL TIMES. He drinks in the dugout. He's holding a Schlitz when he ambles to the mound to berate his pitcher. His Bud never leaves his hand when he drives, and he never shows the slightest self-consciousness about any of it.  He does all this in the presence of blessed children, and yet few comment on or gape at the booze in his hand. It's just there. A few kids comment by dismissing him as a drunk, but their tone is sadly knowing, as if they've seen this act for too long at home. He's not a good man and he's a terrible role model, and I wouldn't want him coaching or coming near my sons. But something in his unwillingness to even pretend at niceties makes him a cartoon anti-hero for those choking on the trophy-for-everyone times. Any "great job" coming out of his mouth comes in response to something worthy of the utterance.

The kids are especially tough. Everybody's favorite is Tanner, the trash-talking, racial-epithet hurling, fist-throwing second baseman. Tanner turns no cheeks and never met an empty "good game" he could spit out. At the end of the championship game, when the evil Yankees deliver their empty apology, Tanner doesn't fake-smile and the boy doesn't hug. "You can take your apology and your trophy and shove it up your ass."   He could grow up to be a horrible person, but it's hard to find that brash fighting spirit and toughness today.  In an uncomfortable sense, Tanner keeps folks honest.  Kelly Leak, the Harley-riding, chain-smoking and cougar-chasing baseball Brando, does doughnuts on the field during the opening day ceremonies and takes Tatum O'Neal to see the Stones. He was winning when Sheen was in diapers. Today, he'd probably be in Learning Skills and on Ritalin. 

Most importantly, the movie remains hilarious. The kids are distinctively funny, a few adults are not shallow and selfish, and the games are filled with weird drama. Find a sixer of Schlitz Malt Liquor and rent this beauty one rainy afternoon. Tanner will be a far better inspiration for the evening than that gym visit ever could. If you haven't seen it for awhile, you might be surprised just how raw this thing is.

Round 16 with The Beatles

I keep trying every couple years or so, and it's always a different catalyst. This time it might have been a blurry late-night Behind the Music John Lennon, the Final Years. Or maybe it was a Ringo infomercial. It's hard to say. No matter, but for some reason I feel compelled to "get" The Beatles, having failed miserably for all these years. I'm getting closer, but I suffered a major setback tonight when my wife insisted I not skip "Imagine." That fucking song has a way of highlighting Lennon as the poster boy of all things "stupid hippie" and everything else that was absurdly naive about the 60s.

I did pretty well a few years back with Revolver and Rubber Soul, but Sgt. Pepper's ended the run. Is that the most overrated album in rock? It sounds like the voice you've spent your whole life trying to suffocate with a camphor-soaked hankie. I always liked the White Album, even in my college days, when we set Let It Be on fire, taped it to a longboard and burned it in the trash can on 45th St. in Newport, screaming "Let it burn, let that fucker burn!" Not to get all druggy on ya, but The White Album is one great fucking acid record, up in the pantheon with Electric Sun or The Pleasure Principle. "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?" will make you fuck a light socket, but beware those emergency room bills. I even downloaded some early Beatles for the first time, and some of that sounds more honest. Cloying, but not dripping with pretension. Of course the problem with classic rock is you can't hear the hits anymore. Like the big cliches, all power is gone. Radio saturated the airwaves with the Fab Ones and and left our ears soggy, even if "Hey Jude" and "Yesterday" were dead on arrival.

But the older I get and the further  I drift from the old dogma, the better the Beatles sound. They still can't touch the Stones in my personal on-the-bus-off-the-bus trip, but the polarization ain't as great. Hell, I put on John Lennon's Greatest Hits earlier this evening and only fast-forwarded through seven of twenty songs. I'm not sure if that's emotional maturity, middle-age or laziness, but that "Working Class Hero" tune kills. Anyway, I'm just avoiding duties and clearly have little to say. Ya got any personal Beatles' demons to exorcise?

Cure the Sunday Blues

I'm hungover, and it's raining on a Sunday afternoon. Tried to watch Richard Pryor on the Sunset Strip and fell asleep. Tried to listen to J. Mascis' new band, Sweet Apple, but failed because it's aggressively awful. Picked up that Touch 'n Go book and was reminded of the print zine's chief function - to salve the Sunday afternoon blues. Read a piece on John Brannon when he was in Negative Approach and was reminded that I've never checked out The Laughing Hyenas on youtube. And there it is. Enjoy.

Passing in the Left Lane

I found it. The first record of 2011 I really dig. It's the product of a two-piece from Fort Wayne, Indiana. On their new lp, Junkyard Speedball, they team up with the Rev. James Leg from the Black Diamond Heavies and Detroit Ghetto Recorder's Jim Diamond. What transpires is a very fun lesson in slide guitar, distortion and backbeat. If you're thinking this is just like the Black Keys, or even the White Stripes, you're wrong....this is waaaaay better. More like a modern day Bantam Rooster. Raw, middle America punk-ass blues. Dig it!

Escape Winter with White Wires II

Sometimes when I'm listening to this record, and I'm listening to it often, I get the queasy feeling that its target audience is 13-year old girls. Let's face it- generally, we could abolish rock lyrics and we'd be better off. Toe tap to the catchy riffs and avoid words like "popularity" and "summer girl," and you can escape the river of tasks curling into your inbox making pleasure a fantasy equivalent to Democratic efficiency. I don't know- the relentless grind can get you down, and sometimes only the Brainbombs or Pissed Jeans reflect the churning bitterness within. A steady diet of that shit, though, and you're on the 7:00 news, so lighter fare tempers the darkness and creates the illusion that convertible fun might be just around the corner. That's where White Wires come in. Their new record, White Wires II,  is a collection of singalong summer anthems to pretend to. We need that escapism now and then. The top is still on the Mustang, but it's nice to know that soon it can come off and we'll be riding through the Oakland hills, gazing at majestic views of the East Bay and contemplating a trip to Haight St., to Amoeba and then several rounds at Hobson's Choice. White Wires are about possibility, and they make the medicine of winter go down just a little easier. Maybe Drunks with Guns is a better x-ray, but I'm hoping White Wires point to the future. Or at least Tuesday.

How to End Your Career

Last weekend I watched a fascinating documentary on Harry Nilsson. You remember that guy- he sang the theme to Midnight Cowboy, "Everybody's Talkin'," even if he didn't write it. He did that kooky "Put the lime in the coconut" ditty. He partied with John Lennon and apparently sent the anointed one to rehab and god, which is probably redundant. Anyway, after his breakthrough album sold a gillion copies, he imploded and insisted the following song be his next single. I like this man, at least at a humble distance.

"You're Breakin' My Heart"

You're breakin' my heart
You're tearing it apart so fuck you

All I want to do is have a good time now I'm blue
You won't boogaloo,
Run down to Tramps, have a dance or two, ooohhh
You're breakin' my heart,
You're tearing it apart but fuck you

You're breakin' my heart
You're tearing it apart, boo-hoo

You stepped on my ass
You're breakin' my glasses too
You won't drive my car, might be a star
I've had enough of you
I'm goin' insane
There's no one to blame so fuck you

You can't have your way
There's nothing left to say
There's nothing left to do, ooooohhh
You're breakin' my heart
You're tearing it apart so fuck you

You gotta have your way
There's nothing left to say
There's nothing left to do, ooooowww
You're breakin' my heart
You're tearing it apart but I love you