I was seven when George Carlin’s “Class Clown” came out. I remember being at a party at the Picetti’s house and being sent to another room with the rest of the kids while the adults listened to the album in the living room. The next weekend, my older brother procured the LP at Tower in San Francisco (a fact that raised a few parental eyebrows) and within a few weeks I had the whole thing memorized. There was something about his intonation and rhythm that made it like memorizing a song for me. All these years later I can jump to any part of the record in my mind and do it word for word. Interestingly, I bought a record that day myself – Johnny Cash at San Quentin. It was the first music I ever bought on my own, and I committed that to memory too .. not just the songs, but every bit of dialogue in between. It would be easy to hang this memorization trick on some sort of fascination with early vinyl impressions, but it was much more than this. To this day I’d assert that there’s something special in those two recordings.
Class Clown presents Carlin at a potent juncture: He’s at the top of his game after honing his talents with his earlier, more conventional act, and he has the energy of a man unchained and venturing into riskier territory. There’s a political element to his material, but he never descends into blatant posturing. Instead he focuses on universal and semi universal curiosities; language in particular. On a later album he muses about the expression “at any rate.” ‘At any rate‘ .. what does that mean? And then in another voice: what about four and a half percent? He seemed attuned to the idea that, if we can’t trust the basic building blocks of communication, how can we put much weight in anything? And indeed, as he got older his humor became darker and defiantly fatalistic.There seemed to be a more antagonizing motivation behind his shtick – he became less concerned with eliciting laughter and more focused on driving home the realization that we’re all screwed.
My friend Heather sent me the preface to Carlin’s 1997 book “Brain Droppings” in acknowledgment of his death yesterday. For anyone interested, it can be found here. He makes some valid points and edges into some areas that, frankly, hit a bit too close to home with me. I prefer to remember him a decade or so past his prime but before this dark period, when he was still musing about such things as the flame thrower. As Bob Dylan might have put it, it wasn’t dark yet but he was getting there. (6.24.08)
The Scottish are a bit like Joe DiMaggio – they don’t get it. The great Yankee Clipper reportedly failed to comprehend the Simon and Garfunkel line “where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” and his own status as a national icon. “I’m still here,” Jolting Joe protested. “Haven’t they heard of Mr. Coffee?”
The passport official at Edinburgh Airport recommends the whitewater rafting up north. “It’s nothin’ like ye’ve got in America .. but it’ll git yer blood pumpin’..” But it isn’t Colorado we’re after, replete with ball cap wearing vacationers fresh from a spending splurge at The North Face and anxious to stave off increasing signals that middle age is taking hold. It’s the rolling hills of lush green. The fresh air. The ample helpings of mince and tatties that Oor Wullie dug into while Fat Boab waited patiently outside the hoose, in the shed. (OK – that last one may apply only to me.)
And the weather. Don’t get these people started on the weather. “Ach, I cannae believe it’s been rainin’ since ye got here – we haven’t seen one wet day fer all of May ..” It’s a documented fact that most of the UK (and particularly the English) regard Americans as a thick lot of uncultured morons. But there’s a limit to what even we will swallow. If it never rains here, why is everything greener than a Boston bar when the Celtics are playing? Why does the satellite shot on the news have a permanent dotted outline where the country is supposed to be? Why is that entire dining room set making its way down the River Tay? But still they persist, as if the subject of weather is akin to a misguided cousin prone to taking in high school girls lacrosse games and about whom the family doesn’t speak. Let it go – we’re not that stupid. We knew where we were going and don’t suspect a misprint on our tickets to Scottsdale.
The sign posted outside Saint John’s Shopping Centre on the High Street in Perth boasts “Now open late nights Wednesday until seven.” When do these people sleep? Perhaps it’s our long established independence from England that they wish to emulate. Indeed, the Scottish Nationalists seek secession from the UK, sighting rights to ample North Sea oil supplies as sufficient means. But I tend to place some value in the opinion of long time Perth resident and former City Planner Denis Munro, and his reticence regarding the matter. His concerns over who would fund the legions of his dole-seeking countrymen are well-founded, and a stroll through town shortly after the pubs close is enough to give one pause for thought. That’s a lot of North Sea oil, indeed.
There isn’t any oil, as far as I know, in the hills east of Pitlochry, just north of Perth and south of the Highlands. There is, however, the smallest distillery in Scotland – Edradour – where they produce a fine, handcrafted single malt whisky. There’s an older Scottish gentleman with white beard and kilt who will show you the facilities and offer a complimentary dram. And if you’ve hiked the two and a half miles up from town and take the trail back down, there’s an expanse of farm land and mountains in the distance for which no words could do apt justice and no inclement weather could spoil. Scotland needs no apologies. The place speaks for itself.
you got a heart so big
it could crush this town
-Petty
I think I used that tune as a lead in about five years ago, and wrote something about the heart .. how some claim that it has intuitive properties much like the brain and is capable of influencing reason, spirit and behavior. Most doctors would point out that it’s really just pumping blood, but don’t get me started on them. There must be a reason all those old sayings came to be. How you’ve got to follow it and be true to it. Heck, how you’ve just got to have it. The kids use it in their language today as a literal and mocking translation for the annoying emoticon symbols that crept up years ago. They’ll say “I heart cupcakes” using the “heart” effectively in place of “love” and as a slap in the face to the whole lol, brb, and lmao text culture (as well as NYC shopping bags and countless bumper stickers.) Most people over the age of thirty probably wouldn’t even get this, but fortunately I’ve regressed. And I hold it as singular proof of hope for this generation – a one word “f*ck you” to cutesy computer shorthand and powerful affirmation of this heavyweight vital organ.
The tune is “Walls (No. 3)” from the “She’s The One” soundtrack ..an interesting example of something I wrote below; that the observer often brings more to the table than the creator. In this case the observer was Tom Petty, and the creator Ed Burns, who asked Petty to do the soundtrack for his film. The film was a colossal piece of sh*t, but Petty wrote at least a few accompanying tunes that were as good as anything he’s ever done. The opening lines alone are fairly brilliant: some days are diamonds / some days are rocks / some doors are open / some roads are blocked. He keeps it simple, uses an unexpected rhyme scheme, and transitions into sundowns are golden / then fade away. It’s as if Rainman got in Nick Drake’s head and made everything all right. But what I really like about the tune is the power that the protagonist attributes to his object of affection’s heart; that it could crush this town. Don’t always assume that just because you’re dealing with a big heart, it will rule in your favor. And like the boy says, even walls fall down.
I think you’d better call John ’cause it don’t look like they’re here to deliver .. the mail.
-more Neil
I was showing someone an old comic strip of John Spears the other day, by way of explaining who he was. It was in a large album of other strips I’d done, with titles like Dad in: The Diet and Jim Moye in: Jim Moye, Intercom. The response came back “you really missed your calling,” which was a bit confusing, given the album in front of me. Nobody called, but I still drew them. I suppose I may have failed to understand the potential global appeal of Dad in: Painfully Shy, but at least I got it down on paper.
This particular early nineties Spears strip featured him crashing through the restroom door of our company lunchroom after he became convinced that someone was blocking his exit from the other side. Of course nobody was – he had simply failed to turn the handle and unlock the door. The resulting expressions on the faces of print department veteran Kevin Chan and his domino playing cronies were strip-worthy in themselves. I’d used the Coyote-Roadrunner effect of exact body outline to represent Spears breaking on through to the other side. In reality the door was broken at the lock and badly splintered. As others shuffled in for their lunch breaks and observed the structural carnage, “Spears thought he was trapped” was the only explanation necessary. I suppose we can all relate, at different times in our lives.
I guess I’m whoring the old boy out a bit by writing about this, but my conscience can live with that in light of my limited audience and the Powderfinger obscurity of my references. “He’s got a webpage,” my mom informed a neighbor the other night. A little too close to “she also tap dances” from where I was standing. That was one consistently admirable quality about Spears – no matter how brutally and insightfully over the top the depiction, he preferred it to not being noticed at all. He was never one of those to profess not wanting the attention while secretly craving the reverse. And you can always replace a lunchroom door.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Well they raised that horse to be a jumper ..
Tom Myers once told me that he heard the “I was flyin'” line in Tom Petty’s Runnin’ Down A Dream song as “I was sublime.” I myself once thought the “how my poor heart aches” line in Sting’s Every Breath You Take was “I’m a pool hall ace.” This just goes to show that the observer often brings more to the table than the creator. Which brings me to Torrance, California.
Dirk Diggler was from Torrance, but he was a fictional character. The city has one of the highest concentrations of Japanese Americans in the United States. Quentin Tarantino is a Torrance High drop out. What I’ve noticed about Torrance is the abundance of strip mall restaurants with partially burnt out neon signs. “Red obsters” abound. Dad and I have been eating at the Elephant Bar, currently going by the “lent Bar,” with a few gaps between and not too far past Easter. We’ve come to the conclusion that they have a decent menu and pour a good glass of wine. We’ve also agreed that the best thing about the digital age is that it allows less latitude for poseur auteur filmmakers to blame their creative shortcomings on the film laboratory.
At some point I think I figured that my assumption that I had the best mom in the world was likely based partially on subjective reasoning. But along the way I’ve met a lot of people, many of whom have or have had mothers of their own, who’ve affirmed my opinion of her.
None of this relates much to the Marriott Residence Inn, which sits semi majestically on Torrance Boulevard at Hawthorne, fitting the So Cal landscape like words from a Petty Song. Sometimes you got to trust yourself .. it ain’t like anywhere else.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
nothin’ illegal; just a little bit funny
Springsteen wrote the tune, in deference to Pete Seeger, on 1992’s Lucky Town. It’s a difficult one for me to get through now, because I have a specific memory of my old pal John C. Spears wading in my parents’ swimming pool, clad only in what my brother referred to as his “marble bag,” while the song played on an outdoor speaker. “Waist-deep, in a big muddy..” Never before had words so aptly described a situation. Which is kind of my point..
While Springsteen is a decidedly liberal dude, it’s never interfered with his capacity to write insightful lyrics. A few of them from this tune (“don’t tell me the rich don’t know – sooner or later it all comes down to money“) registered this morning while reading this essay by esteemed playwright David Mamet. The piece is further proof of the paramount power of good writing; whether one agrees with his change of heart or not, his logic as expressed is difficult to refute.
The beauty of the primary elections is that they allow you to pick a side without having to make a final decision. While you are influencing the general outcome of things, you can still jump ship when you step in the booth come November. As such, it’s been easy for me to pull for Obama in these contests. While I’m patently uncertain about the liberal argument, I’m fairly clear on my feelings about Hillary Clinton. However, previously expressed sentiments about sticking with the ticket for the long haul are subject to change. It’s been more than easy to get caught up in all this rock star hyperbole surrounding the Illinois senator, but I’d admittedly take Alice Cooper over Hillary. And as old as McCain is, it almost always comes down to your basic philosophical approach. That said, I’d gladly sell out to either side to be able to write like David Mamet. (3/12/08)
rip ‘n’ run
Both Davids – Simon and Chase – should take heart in the amount of critical attention given to the final acts of their respective creations. While The Wire may have ended a bit too neatly and The Sopranos a bit too obscurely for some, it was only because they both left the audience wanting more. There was some talk that HBO would have to develop a strong replacement series for their Jersey mob epic, but they already had it in The Wire. That the public at large never caught on was just an unfortunate side note. If anything, The Wire was more ambitious than the Sopranos. It was also a bit less comical and substantially less white. This isn’t a knock on Chase and company – I actually preferred his show. But at its peak The Wire was strong stuff.
As screwed as HBO would now appear to be, I have a solution for them: coax David Chase out of retirement and talk him in to expanding the upcoming John Adams mini series starring Paul Giamatti into a full blown series. While Giamatti may seem the most unlikely of leading men, Chase has a reputation for turning less than dashing Italian actors into national icons. He could delve into the psyche of one of America’s forefathers and mix fiction with reality by foreshadowing the actor’s real life father becoming commissioner of our national pastime. If anyone could pull this off it would be Chase, and at the very least it would have to be better than the colossal piece of crap that was John From Cincinatti.
I have to give props again to my buddy and George Lucas’ most valuable sound designer, Tom Myers, for getting me hooked on The Wire. I didn’t have the same personal connection with the show that I did with The Sopranos, and were it not for Tom I likely would not have persisted. But it was worth it if for only seeing the way that Cheese was taken out by Slim in the final episode. It might have been the most concise and punctuated example of poetic justice in television history. And unlike Tony Soprano’s fade to black, it left nobody wondering what happened. (3/10/08)
An off the cuff remark by an Obama advisor featured in this article provides what has to be one of the least startling angles on this campaign: a lot of people are rightfully wary of the Clintons in general, and Hillary in particular. Shortly after I read the quote, I received an email from Clinton’s team (I’m on both her and Obama’s mailing list) asking for money to help ward off this sort of “attack politics.” But anyone caring to put the remark in context could see that it was more a regrettable slip than an orchestrated attack, and one that the advisor attempted to retract and keep off the record. And as such it only echoes my own suspicions about the woman. Everyone’s human, but she’s as harden, fixated and driven as any man in recent political history. Old Bubba may have been a savvy and knowledgeable politician, but he’s a teddy bear compared to the woman he married.
Comedian Dennis Miller hit the nail on the head well over a year ago, before this race had taken shape or even gotten under way: “If I were Obama, I’d keep my head on a swivel, because you go up against the Clintons .. that’s like going across the middle on Ronnie Lott.” As a long time 49er fan, I appreciated the remark; Barack might want to stay loose as this thing enters the final minutes of the fourth quarter. That was always when Ronnie did his hardest hitting. I saw Lott not too long ago while going through the security check at the Oakland airport, and he looked as formidable as ever. But given the choice, I’d be looking across the line at him rather than Hillary. (3/8/08)
Friday, February 29, 2008
Brooklyn, on his damned quarrel smiling,
showed like a rebel’s whore
I saw Macbeth in Brooklyn last night, not in the form of an oddly cloaked apparition on the F train, but as performed by Patrick Stewart at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Stewart has damn fine posture for a man pushing seventy and needs no lesson in elocution. If projection is the opposite of depression, he might be the least depressed person on the planet. Also fine in the production is Michael Feast playing Macduff. Feast seems inherently attuned to the intrinsic power of silence. No words could speak so much when he realizes his entire family has been wiped out.
The dimensions of seeing a Scottish play, written by one fairly prominent englishman and starring another (albeit one of Scottish descent), all performed in a Brooklyn theater, are staggering. So much so that I won’t attempt to tie them all together here. Having spent time in both Scotland and Brooklyn, I can attest to similarities. Both possess a fiercely independent spirit while inevitably drawing on their proximity to larger players. This proximity is relative, however, and herein may lie the difference. The journey from Brooklyn to Manhattan is much shorter than that from Edinburgh to London, and a borough does not a country make. You won’t find too many New Yorkers objecting to the idea that we’re all Americans, but similar arguments might not fly so well in select Scottish pubs. Poorly constructed postulation aside, they are bringing this production of Macbeth to Broadway next month. I feel fortunate for having had the opportunity to see it in Brooklyn, but won’t likely attempt to explain this the next time I’m in Scotland.
On another slightly less convoluted note, I was wondering last night how these actors manage to commit countless lines of Shakespearean verse to memory. After expressing my amazement to a friend, I was reminded of my own faculty in this regard, the primary difference being that I’ve inexplicably chosen to focus on vintage Muhammad Ali rhymes and the words to the Patty Duke Show intro. Such a fine line between clever and stupid. (2/29/08)
Thursday, February 28, 2008
I’ve done a lot of sleeping on couches in my time. It’s affected some of the relationships I’ve been in, as some people take it as a personal affront. But the truth is I’m equally likely to sleep on the couch, or get up from the bed to go sleep on the couch, when I’m alone. Someone once put it to me as “getting away from yourself on the couch,” which stuck with me long enough to suggest it wasn’t entirely inaccurate. But sometimes it’s just a choice and where I sleep the whole night through.
A couch can possess a particular lure lacking in a bed. Strictly speaking, it’s intended for leisurely and communal sitting. When one associates sleep with a couch, it’s typically in the form of a nap. This idea of “getting away with something” can make it seem more enticing and likely to seduce one into greedy slumber. (Which, coincidentally, was the name of my high school band.) The other unconventional but accepted context for couch sleep is that of a marital dispute. In either case, it isn’t where “proper sleep” is supposed to take place. This distinction is reserved for one’s bed, and as such comes with the pressure to perform as soon as one turns down the sheets. This might be why, when I do sleep on the bed, it’s more often on top of the comforter with another comforter over me.
All of this relates to the psychology of sleep, which, if you’re fortunate, you’ve never had to consider. My father has been sleep-challenged for most of his post adolescent life, and there is definitely a genetic component involved. As a younger man he could often be found in the morning curled under a blanket on the living room floor, having given half a dozen other spots a try. Back then he attributed most of his sleeping woes to worries about work, but the truth is that it’s the mind set and not the circumstance that leads to problems. Although his sleeping woes have abated to some extent in retirement, he’s just as likely to lose sleep these days over a ten a.m. tee time. Don’t let anyone tell you that golf is relaxing.
Being a sympathizer and disproportionately huge fan of genetic theory, my dad urged me to consult a sleep clinic some years back. I put it off for a while but eventually submitted and forked over $250 for a consultation from one of the few accredited facilities in San Francisco. After some tests and extensive interviewing the physician informed me that my problems were not physiological and were best addressed by consulting a therapist. Fortunately, I’d had some experience with this as well – enough to know that it was a lot like consulting a sleep expert, except every week and for the rest of your life. So I went home and resolved to deal with my problem as I always had, which has worked with varying degrees of success to the present. While I’ve often envied those who are able to switch over to sleep in an instant, some of these folks also tend to speak hauntingly and even scream in their sleep, thrashing and kicking at unseen demons. Given the choice, I prefer to do my demon kicking while awake. As Willie Nelson once pointed out, “nobody slides, my friend.” (2/28/08)
