A Randy "Duke" Cunnigham Primer



Thin Lizzy gets no respect, no airplay, and no one can pronounce Phil Lynott's last name. Jailbreak, their fifth US record, does not hold up, but there's some decent nostalgia swelling as Cowboy Song, Running Back, and the title track get a move on. The treat is Phil's solo Solo in Soho record. Indie shitbirds may recall that Mick Collins and co. took Ode to a Black Man off this disc. It's great as an original. The title track here starts out with a UK woman intoning the sage wisdom that she's, "a clapped-out whore." Jimmy Page never had the stones to put something like this on his breaks, and he was a white man robbing from the black. Put Solo in Soho on your Kwanzza list.

Your Mama's Working on the Chain Gang



The Detroit Cobra's previous effort, a collection of soul covers entitled Life, Love and Leaving, is a record that grows song by song into something kinda great. The final track, a cover of Otis Redding's Shout Bamalama, is the best cover I've heard in a while. Nagy's voice is growing on me. Does anybody remember the What Have You Been Listening To posts?

Best of 2005: Lest Any More Money Be Spent On Snark

D'yer Mak'er

Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage is an odd book purported to be concerned with the life of D.H. Lawrence. The blurbs on the back cover give away the secret that the book is instead the story of Dyer's failed attempts to write a scholarly book on Lawrence, the writer that got him writing in the first place. The joke stays fresh for 50 pages (1/4 of this quick-as-eggs read) as Dyer and his girlfriend frolic and fuck their way around Europe, full of the exile dread that supposedly kept Lawrence fresh and productive. The highpoint comes when they crash their scooter on a Greek island, resulting in this passage in the words of Dyer and D.H.:

At one point Lawrence says that the 'Italians are really rather low-bred swine nowadays'. He should have gone to Greece, should have hired and crashed a moped on Alonissos before making such an insulting generalization - insulting to the Greeks, I mean, for they pride themselves on being swine.

I'm all for a non-scholarly book on D.H., but the skimpy Rage falls flat and feels cheap. The amazingly hurried, reckless, and brief life Lawrence led does not emerge as Dyer attempts to mimic his wanderlust. The author of Sons and Lovers and The Rainbow deserves better comic treatment than Dyer can muster, and it's clear after finishing this book that no one will match the matchless wit of Harold Bloom, who in his brief essay on Lawrence in his Genius tome stated the following, presumably with a straight face:

Fashions change; the current neglect of Lawrence will not prevail. We are governed, in academic and journalistic circles these days, by feminist Puritanism. Lawrence, incorrect culturally and politically, is not acceptable to these archons. He concealed his homoeroticism, deprecated the female orgasm, and favored heterosexual anal intercourse. Yes, and also he wrote...

If Bloom decides to pen a stand-alone Lawrence bio, I'll be camped out in front of Barnes and Noble for a first copy.

Oh My, Dance All Night



The only thing I know less about than modern club d.j. music is horse fucking. That being said, there's this UK cat named Paul Oakenfold who released the lp Bunkka in 2002. He provides the beats, and guests like Ice Cube and the late Hunter S. Thompson provide the lyrics. The track that blows the doors off the crib is Starry Eyed Surprise, which might be the best single since Satisfaction. I've been accused of hyperbole in the past, but she was only 14 and unwilling to testify. Find your inner groove with this disc, and then tell me to piss off.

Motor Home Used As Strip Club at Bucs Game
By Associated Press

TAMPA, Fla. - A 40-foot motor home was converted into a strip club on wheels, offering alcohol and lap dances to football fans outside the stadium before kickoff of Sunday's Tampa Bay Buccaneers game, police said.

Six women performed lap dances inside the motor home, charging $20 to $40 depending on whether they danced topless or totally nude, police said Tuesday. The vehicle, adorned with a sign for strip club Deja Vu, was parked across the street from Raymond James Stadium.

Patrons paid a $20 cover charge and were served alcohol, said Tampa police Sgt. Bill Todd. Officers also caught a male patron smoking marijuana in the back of the vehicle.

"We determined this was the fourth game this season where they had done this," Todd said. "I don't understand what justification they think they had, bringing this to a family environment like a Bucs game."

Police charged all six dancers with being nude where alcohol is served, and with being nude in a commercial establishment, misdemeanor violations of city ordinances. Two of the strippers who police said engaged in a sex as part of the show each were charged with a misdemeanor count each of performing an unnatural and lascivious act.

Three men connected to the club were charged with selling alcohol without a license and conspiring to violate beverage laws. One of them owned the motor home and was also charged with renting space for lewdness. All are misdemeanors.

Undercover officers raided the bus after seeing people hand out fliers advertising the party onboard, Todd said.

An attorney for the club, Luke Lirot, said he doesn't think the alleged city ordinance violations will stand up in court.

"The fact that this doesn't take place at a specific business location would render those charges inapplicable," Lirot said, likening the bus to a tailgate party where people share beverages.

He said Deja Vu managers parked the "party bus" across from the stadium to advertise their club's permanent location.

Lirot said the business should not be punished for promoting exotic dance, which he called a form of expression protected by the First Amendment. As long as partygoers exercise discretion and do not violate state statutes, "what goes on in the bus should stay on the bus," he said.

Best of 2005: Review Rewind

Shanghai Surprise

2004 was an awful year for new books. Nothing panned out, even the new Roth, which was average for him. The hype award goes to The Master, a novel about Henry James. This was supposed to be the big book of the year, but pundits forgot no one cares about Henry James and The Master properly tanked; one who endures Daisy Miller or Portrait of a Lady might binge on absinthe rather than read a bio-book. The usual suspects - Updike, Oates, Chabon, Allende, Tyler, Wolfe - launched works we will never read. In 2004 adults probably read more books by Lemonhead Snicket and JKKK Rowling than other authors, and I can't blame them. The only book that stops me cold in Green Apple is entitled Porn Star Portraits (near the comics, bottom shelf). Some pictures are worth two thousand words.

Discovering a novelist and reading his work back to back is a dicey endeavor. When I tried to binge on Sinclair Lewis it didn't take, and even old man Dickens needs space between reads. Yu Hua's To Live was a good book, and the title of his other available novel was enough to give it a go. Chronicle of a Blood Merchant was published in China in 1995 and recently released stateside.

Sanguan works in the silk industry and one day he falls for Yulan, who's tied up with another suitor. Sanguan lays it out before Yulan's old man, telling him he's the better choice, and Yulan reluctantly takes up and marries him. They raise three boys, selfish pricks all, and one day word spreads around town that Sanguan's oldest looks a lot like Yulan's former suitor. The book turns on this harsh discovery, but there's a ton of comedy here too; Yulan confesses her sexual misdeed to her three children and the kids' eyes pop out of their heads; Sanguan visits a fat former hotty whom he fucks to ease the pain of being a cuckold; Sanguan breaking balls in a restaurant after he has sold his blood.

Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, like To Live, explores China's history and its effect on one family, but Yu Hua takes his time with this better book, exposing the times and trials with greater detail and insight. When the Cultural Revolution breaks, Mao's agents come for Yulan and make her stand in the town square covered with a sign reading 'prostitute'. Sanguan, originally a spiteful ass for having spent ten year's worth of cash raising a bastard, gradually comes to life when he sacrifices his reputation and health to comfort his wife and children. His wisdom, whether post a fight or atonement, renders perfect lines like, "She's like a broken pot that's not afraid of shattering, and I'm a dead pig who no longer minds that the water's coming to a boil." I don't entirely know what that means, and I don't know if it's literature, but it's spot-on sentiment of a hot tempered family man dealing with life's harsh ebb and flow.

I hope I've missed a great novel from this past year, but it's doubtful. I understand why most readers prefer non-fiction to this imaginative nonsense, but I'm not gonna throw in the towel, not yet. 1995's Chronicle of a Blood Merchant is 2004's book of the year.

The Last Word From Whidbey



Ani DiFranco. There, I said it. I should dig this woman. We're the same age, though she's been famous for 15 years making her way as a DIY folk goddess. Thing is, I can't get the music. Girls love this girl, and that's sometimes a good sign and other times horror. There are some fine tracks on Out of Range, but the rest sounds too DIY, and should have been worked over/through. Still, she's cute, green, and possibly damaged. My kinda gal.