Review: Dogs Die In Hot Cars - Please Describe Yourself

Perfect Pop Song Alert! “Apples & Oranges” is a perfect power pop song. It’s driven by a flugelhorn progression derived from Laurie Anderson and evokes the best of XTC from Skylarking on. Any horn sound I can’t identify I call a flugelhorn. The song makes me want to run and dance at the same time. If only it were possible to dance The Pony at 5 mph.

Dogs Die In Hot Cars hail from Scotland. Please Describe Yourself was produced by Clive Langer & Alan Winstanley, who recorded Dexy's Midnight Runners, Madness, The Smiths and David Bowie. Many bands are cited as influences, even the Talking Heads. I don’t hear the Heads. Sure there are influences, but at their core Dogs Die In Hot Cars are a talented, eclectic power pop band who wear their influences on their sleeves yet follow nobody. They don’t throw everything against the wall to see what sticks like other bands but augment their songs with clever diversions and instrumentations. They don’t steal but frequently sound like, which is in no way unoriginal when the results are impressive.

The band they follow most is XTC. There’s a bit of Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Big Country, and even some New Order guitar. “Paul Newman’s Eyes” opens with what sounds like the beginning of Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” (“Oh lord, won’t you buy me a mercedes benz ?”) There’s also an energy and musical set-up and pay-off you find in melodic Emo. The core is 70’s Power Pop, which ran from mild to fierce. New Wave wasn’t new as much as it was an updated kind of old. The Jags and The Romantics were pure power pop bands that were interesting and peppy enough to make it as New Wave bands. The Buzzcocks and (early) XTC were pop bands but too jagged and manic to be considered power pop. Dogs Die In Hot Cars are neither jagged nor boring. They get a lot accomplished in the middle area that requires good songwriting to be noticed.

“I love You Cause I Have Too” is not a Ska song. It has Ska guitar riffs but is not Ska. Third Wave ruined Ska but it’s still a very fun sound and should always be appreciated when used well.

The only weakness I found is in some of the songwriting. Paul Newman is random name-dropping of someone even I barely remember as relevant. “Celebrity Sanctum” sounds great but why do they think Lucy Liu, Angelina Jolie and Catherine Zeta-Jones are names that will stand the test of time? Sam Raimi dressed Bruce Campbell for the Evil Dead movies in brown corduroy pants, a blue shirt and earth shoes because he thought they’d always look modern. Oy.

Cute Kitten With Rifle (Sniper Kitty)

Sniper Kitty Sniper Kitty

Bullet Catching Kitty

Blogger's Revenge, Dean04Prez Style

I get a lot of laughs from Stop The Neocon Death Machine, written by Dean (Not Real Name). It probably takes a long time to effectively mangle the Queen's English as he does. I love the comments section, where people either write like Dean or blow up with indignation.

Dean's rejoinders are classic. He'll answer in and out of character. Today brought this exchange between my hero and one Mrsevilneocon:

mrsevilneocon said...
I'm afraid that this post is so outrageously stupid that it's not even good for a laugh, Dean. You're slipping into a really sloppy style, with no subtlety at all. Getting boring, Dean.

dean04prez said...
you can leave

mrsevilneocon said...
You talking to me, Dean?

dean04prez said...
S h o u l d

I

t y p e

s l o w e r

?

I'm cracking up as I type. Blogs are free and nobody forces you to read them. I've hit this wall myself so many time I now look like this. Play along or go home, that's all we ask.

Here's another great response from the day before:

Rocky Mtn. Lioness said...
deanie, deanie, deanie:Not counting the punk'd punctuation and misspelling, the ONLY thing you got right in that story is when you said:"Im' sorry to..."On that we all agree.

dean04prez said...
You will have to wait untill I am 18 befor we can get maried. Sorry

Old Punk Moment 574

At the community college swap meet, amongst blankets piled with used tools and booths selling cds from singers who resemble The Frito Bandito , I came across a sectioned wood cassette case filled with weathered old tapes. I took a look, and if I had Sandy Duncan's Eye (obscure punk band reference!) it would have flown out and migrated home to Daddy.

Here were home tapes of The Cramps, The Dickies, The Pandoras and various surf mixes, all lovingly compiled with the maker's bestest handwriting on the covers and spine, all fifty cents each. Do you kids realize how much time it took to fill up a 90 minute cassette tape from albums and singles? It's my generation's walking to school ten miles each day, in the snow, uphill both ways, wearing old newspapers for shoes. Kids today know nothin' of hardship.

A quick glance at the AARP member in charge told me these weren't hers. I innocently asked where she found them. Her smile faded and her thirty word English vocabulary shrunk to four.

I looked down at these labors of love with both pity and nostalgia. Ah, but for the grace of god goes my cassette collection. I couldn't take them all home, but I did buy 2 surf tapes, a 1985 Dickies bootleg and the original Dickies ROIR concert. I paid my two dollars and didn't look back at those I had left behind. I can only do so much.

The Homeless Steal Oxygen

This AP article takes me back to when I lived in Northern Virginia, where libraries act as day-care centers for the homeless. They hang out quietly because if they get kicked out they lose the benefits of nice chairs, clean bathrooms and stuff to read. They didn't smell as much as it was impossible to breathe near them. It was like being underwater.

Re: the homeless, many need and can use help. Others are crazy and should be institutionalized. There's also those who choose homelessness. I'm serious. It's a life of scrounging and danger but some prefer it over work and related responsibilities.

I see a number of them scavenging for recyclable cans and bottles. If other trash had a cash value the homeless could make more money and the streets would look nicer. Let's start with cigarette butts and fast food containers.

The relationship between the homefull (groupers) and the homeless (gobies) can be symbiotic, hopefully of Mutualism (scroll down!) and not Commensalism or Parasitism. That would be bad.

Sure I'll Open your Attachment, Guy Who Wrote To Say I Suck

If you write a web site you get hate mail. I received my fair share until I wrote rules for e-mailing on my main page which seemed to do the trick. In 1999 I wrote about Emil Matasareanu, whose family was suing Los Angeles for his (snicker) wrongful death.

The site I link to was written by a fan, and another cavity creep from Canada began sending me insane e-mails with virus attachments. He would sometimes send 15 viruses at a time as quickly as he could paste my e-mail address and hit send. He had a website where he claimed to have written 50 unpublished books and sang with bands. I can't find it now. I imagine the government paid him an allowance to buy food and pay rent because he was too sane for an institution and too crazy for a real job. I blocked his e-mail address and for all I know he still sends me virus attachments.

A serial killer groupie wrote a threatening e-mail a year ago asking where I lived. I responded that his message was evidence, the kind that probably violates whatever agreement he has with local authorities that allows him to leave his room.

I have a new virus pen pal from Austria. Herbert Newland. At 1st my crime was being a bad writer. Then yesterday he sent a virus with the message "See You". I googled his name and was able to send an e-mail to his internet provider, what might be his child's school, AND his local police. I figure they should know what kind of kook they're dealing with. Anti-social behaviors usually come in bunches. And I have proof to back it up. Moo ha ha.

The only attachments I ever open have to say Punk Kittens and mean it, man.

Air America and Newspapers

Air America isn't doing well and the right is gloating (here and here) while the left proudly turns their frown upside down (here) and says who really wants to be on the dumb radio anyway. George Will herniates a Cray Computer to come up with statistics on the decline of newspaper readership. It's his first article to not provide a topical anecdote from 50 - 12,000 years ago. I was once an NPR fanatic but after 9-11 I demanded my news sources not call insane murderers "insurgents". I never liked Rush on the radio but can handle reading his site sometimes. I commute on a motorcycle and like my apartment quiet so I've never heard Air America. I guess they can't be any worse than Michael Savage, whom I'm amazed is popular since he sounds a bit like Jackie Mason as The Aardvark on The Pink Panther cartoons. I liked Al Franken before he went nuts and settled on screaming the same small insults ad nauseum. Janeane Garofalo was great in Mystery Men and I liked how she used a cheat sheet (like I did) when she performed stand-up. Now she's the angriest dog in the world, taking smug superiority to new levels of hate and disgust. I stopped reading newspapers altogether. I get all my information on the internet, which does often include articles from newspapers. I thought I'd miss it or miss out, but I don't.

Powerline interviewed the author of South Park Conservatives, and he provides this comment from Trey Parker that sums up my own feelings on Hollywood and the mainstream media.

“People in the entertainment industry are by and large whore-chasing drug-addict f--kups,” he said. “But they still believe they’re better than the guy in Wyoming who really loves his wife and takes care of his kids and is a good, outstanding, wholesome person. Hollywood views regular people as children, and they think they’re the smart ones who need to tell the idiots out there how to be.”

Blame Bush!

Liberal Larry hits one out of the park today with MY FAVORITE TAX.

Tasteless T-Shirt O' The Day

WOW! This Michael Jackson shirt design is brutal.

Mo Better Meatty Meat Burgers

MO BETTER MEATTY MEAT BURGERS

The greatest restaurant name of all time, defeating Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, which I thought was fictitious when I saw Tapeheads. Mo Better is closed but Roscoe's is a fancy place with live music.

Saint Pancake - The Play

Little Green Footballs links to a Jerusalem Post article on the latest Rachel Corrie travesty of hypocrisy. Alan Rickman, whom I liked until I discovered he's a monstrous prick, is staging a London play martyring Rachel Corrie, an angry rich kid attending a fake college who joined a Palestinian-sponsored front group that threw rich kids into a war zone to protect terrorists.

Here's the famous pic of Corrie teaching Palestinian children how to burn an American flag, as if their educational system wasn't Nazified enough. Glory in her iconic scream of hate. Rage, Rage, RAGE against the machine! Here's Corrie in hell. And here's what I had for breakfast this morning.

Re: Ward Churchill - Forrest Tucker Wasn't The Biggest Prick In The Imaginary West

If you get the joke in the title I owe you a beer.

This one's old but I'm new here. The last on Chief Whitey Fake-em-good (AKA Sitting Bull$hit) is that the University of Colorado issued a report and may be trying to whitewash (Ward's already white) the issue.

Ward's fake-yet-accurate tale of 'doh! is best detailed by VDH. When Colorado Indians repeatedly protested to the University that Ward wasn't real they were told ethnicity is solely determined by the person making the claim. In that case I'm a member of the So-Sue-Me Tribe and I want to build a casino in my living room.

Whitey also stole the combat stories of a real Native American and presents them as his own. Jewish (turned Italian) thespian Steven Segal did the same thing. Then there's Rigoberta Menchu, whose fake-yet-accurate life story was detailed by Frontpage. Her work is defended as "biomythography", a feminist literary genre that "explodes male-centered definitions of history, mythology, autobiography and fiction." Once again, fake-yet-accurate, but in Victim Culture you don't even have to be a real victim. And as Albert Einstein once said, isn't imagination more important than knowledge?

The First Amendment arguments will never be resolved, but it's laughable that a tenured professor is being defended like he's a Supreme Court justice. Churchill is just a state employee. He should be fired if he's lied, cheated and stolen.

The American Indian Movement also thinks Churchill's a prick. Check out the cartoon they themselves post. Here's a small pic of the Ward as hippie terrorist that made us all laugh so hard a while back. Also read the quote next to it. Here's the Cranky Neocon turning himself into Che Churchill.

Gift Card Blues

I received a $50 gift card so I spent an hour in Borders. I own most of the movies I'd see twice and books are too expensive even when they're free. I've been spoiled by the public library system. The local ones only keep books they can't sell, but Las Vegas has a great system. It exists solely to have something to point to when the city is accurately described as a burning hellhole of idiocy.

Of course my gift card was for Barnes & Noble, so I put everything back and drove across town. Bad eyes and a short attention span mix for a deadly cocktail!

I picked up Legend Of A Rock Star: The Last Testament of Dee Dee Ramone (I own two Dee Dee Ramone autobiographies? I need help) On The Road With The Ramones (I'm still trying to find out what Joey had for breakfast on Dec. 3, 1989) and a book on Krav Maga.

If I had my martial arts life to do over again I'd have taken Krav Maga, the combat system of the Israeli Defense Forces, and a Filipino stick and knife system. Krav Maga wasn't around back then but that's no reason not to list it on my List Of Regrets.

I strongly believe martial arts should be incorporated into Jewish religious and cultural life for the same reasons the Chinese did centuries ago. Most people think twice before fighting an Asian guy because it's just assumed they grew up learning self-defense. What a horrible stereotype, just like Jews are good with money. How dare you! And me!!

Skafish Friday

In celebration of the elevation of Joey Ratz to Benny The Pope I offer my Catholics readers fish on friday. I give you.... Jim Skafish!

He was the Klaus Nomi of the massively shnozzed. He could stick a thumb up each nostril and ring them like bells. And with that Friar Tuck haircut he was the Hutch-Nose Of Notre Dame. I'd break his nose but I only have two hands! Yes, I'm here all the week.

His new site is astounding. Print it out and you'll have the definitive book on Skafish. You must read the FAQs:

Q: Are any audio or video works by Skafish available for sale at this time?
A: At this time, nothing by Skafish or anything Skafish was included in is currently in release anywhere in the world.

Q: Does Skafish have anything to do with "Ska" music?
A: No, the first syllable of his name is pronounced SKAY, not SKAH.

(I don't care what you say, Jim, you're SKA-FISH!)

I also recommend watching Jim evolve from a gawky Baby Huey into a distinguished middle-aged man in the pictures section. He looks good thin, like Jean Reno with a honker designed by Basil Wolverton.

The Other "N" Words

I never use the "N' word. It doesn't reside anywhere in my conscience where I'd use it for any purpose. My insults are cross-cultural with the word "asshole" the Rosetta Stone of my attack.

The "N" word is not my issue but I will say I think it's been deconstructed and demystified enough to be retired forever.

I do admit when I first heard the word "Wigger" I almost wet myself with glee. I'm surrounded by them in Orange County. I avoid them in droves at my gym, L.A. Crapness. A group of teen wiggers were lifting together and I said to a friend, "Don't you recognize them. That's the new boy band sensation Whiteys To Wiggers!" We shared eight good laughs between us.

Looking around I've noticed there's other pale, suburban fuggknuckles pretending they're gangbangers. Here there's the Higger (Hispanic) and Aigger (Asian, pronounced Aye-ga).

The "er" word ending is for formal writing only. The actual pronunciation is either "ah" or "uh". Linguistic Paleontologists are working day and night to create accurate usage maps for both derivations.

Try it yourself. "Wuzzup, Aigga?", "MY Higga!"

Remember, the "N" word is wrong in all cases but the other "N" words should be taught in public schools. Excel, I mean, Word!

On My Radio and On Your Radio

Hey kids, a Selecter AND Joe Jackson reference in the title.

Steve Jones, Henry "Neck" Rollins, Rob Zombie, Nina Blackwood, Dickey Barrett and others appear on radio station Indie 103.1, operating out of California's Inland Empire, Los Angeles' version of Appalachia.

You can even listen to it on your 'puter, so get crackin', or as they say in the Inland Empire, get methin'.

Review of 2 Albums By Retro-Neo-Groups That Were/Are(?) Hip

The Strokes: Is This It (released 2001)
Hot Hot Heat: Make Up The Breakdown (released 2002)

Now that I’m in the reviewing biz again I figured I should get groovy with what’s down with The Kids. This way I’d know what to avoid like a toothless crack whore. Then I’d look for bands that sound like something I’d like. The Strokes and Hot Hot Heat came with an implied pedigree I could live with, so here we are.

The Strokes (homepage) were touted as the 70’s NYC scene revisited, and against my snooty will I found I liked Is This It a whole lot. The drumming blends together more than it should but you can pogo ‘til you plotz and the rhythms are so peppy they induce Happy Happy Joy Joy. The bass lines are stupendous. If Television gets tossed around as an influence it’s not to say Television was that good. They were important though, and isn’t that important? What The Strokes do is apply the lesson of The Ramones to Television. Keep a steady beat and have the whole song be a catchy chorus if possible. Googling influences of The Strokes I find The Velvet Underground pops up, but there’s zero VU to be found. I do know that “Someday” and “Last Night” are based on Bowie/Pop’s “Lust For Life”, a perfect song with as many uses as my drug of choice, A1.

Hot Hot Heat (homepage) was compared to early XTC, which really appealed to me since Andy Partridge’s guitar and singing from 78-82 are only appreciated at 18% of their actual worth. The opening track on Make Up The Breakdown, “Naked In The City Again”, mixes a few great XTC elements to make for me a perfect tribute. They’re not ripping off “Down In The Cockpit” more than a b-track that sounds like it. I’m humming but can’t place it yet. Other tracks use XTC bass lines and Barry Andrew’s piano, but there’s also influences from Big Country and Dexy’s Midnight Runners.

Some yutz at Amazon wrote this: “Imagine that it's 1980 and Joe Jackson, fresh from a voice lesson by Robert Smith, got together with members of the Police and the Clash to record some songs that Elvis Costello had written.” Oh, this is so wrong on so many levels. I lived it, man! In the ‘Nam of the clubs and record stores.

The first four songs are keepers. Hot Hot Heat throws everything against the wall, and sometimes only bits and pieces work. “Bandages” is an average song with a great chorus. “Talk To Me, Dance With Me” is a cowbell-rocker with a built-in ‘everybody clap your hands’ part. That’s not good. It makes me think of Lou Costello in Mexican Hayride where he dances the Mambo against his will whenever the music plays. Taking the album as a whole I’d say the biggest influence on Hot Hot Heat is actually Weezer and its off-shoot The Rentals.

Cliff Clavin Explains The Buffalo Theory

Cliff Clavin's Buffalo Theory

"The buffalo herd can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. Thus the general speed and health of the herd keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members."

In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells, and excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cell first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.

"That's why you're always smarter after a few beers."

Che Shite

I have no idea why people idolize revolutionary butcher Che Guevara. I imagine most just like the look of the Warhol-esque logo-icon you can even find on a cheap plastic clock in the mall next to KISS and the Misfits. I recently stood next to a self-conscious college geek sporting a Che logo shirt and fake combat pants. Part of me wanted to A) laugh, while another voted to B) stand on his neck. The internal lawyer that is my superego decided to walk away before I was arrested for either B or B precipitated by A. The biggest source of general interest in Che is the hipster-doofus retro-60's revolutionary-chic thing. There's already been one teen-beat movie on him and another is in production. It's despicable. It's not cute because the man was an indiscriminate killer and set up institutions for murder and torture. If The Pineapple wasn't so friggin' fuggly I bet Noriega stickers would also adorn the car bumpers of dimwits. Hardcore Leftists, genocidal to the core, love how his romantic visions of a people's paradise involved so much pain to innocents. Oh, they do hate the little people. All animals are created equal but some are more equal than others. And remember, he did it all for the revolution, which is change, and change is good! Hate is Love, War is Peace, Oppression is Freedom. That's how the game of Nuance is played by the functionally insane. Anyway, here's an article I found on the shite that was Che. I'm amazed more people don't know the truth or don't care to know. They just think that logo looks cool. By the by, comrade Joe Strummer is being set up as punk's Che figure. 4/21/05 update: Powerline linked to this great article from the Yale Daily News titled "Radical un-chic: think before you wear". Here da money shot!: "Marxism was a dark -- perhaps the darkest -- chapter in human history. Those who still admire the ideology are sullied by the black stain of 85 million deaths. Those who -- ignorant of the story behind their beloved leftist icons -- sport Che or vintage Communist Party shirts are likewise tainted by tacit approval of unprecedented crimes against humanity."

Today's Confusing Punk Soapbox Declaration

I hit links for no reason, and sometimes I see something that makes me wonder about, you know, The Big Question, as in why I waste my life with links.

This one-screen epitaph for defunct Screamo unit Kyds Vs. Columbus has words on it that form patterns of mesmerizing illiterate poetry. It's as if a cliche generator spit out 100 scraps of paper which were then picked up and put in order by a blind person.

By the way, Screamo is Death Metal for Emo nerds.

Each time I read this a new shade of pretentious, nonsensical, strident, didactical crapola rises to the fore, and I shiver. The kind of people who write like this actually exist. They speak from the heart and demand to be heard. In order to save the world they must make every living person roll their eyes like a slot machine, mouth agape.

Here's a sweet, sweet taste: "Initially, we were the kyds vs columbus, but we made a conscious effort to eliminate "the" from our name because it is isolationist."

Punk Rock Aerobics, Inc.

I wouldn't take aerobics even if they did play the punk rock, but I might take Tae Bo if they played the punk rock.

Billy Blanks was one of 15 children, which reminds me of the scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life that goes something like this. "Ohh, get that, would you, Deirdre?"

Here's a link to Punk Rock Aerobics

Today's Larf from Scrappleface

Kerry: Ratzinger Papal Election is 'No Mandate' by Scott Ott, Scrappleface (2005-04-19) -- America's leading Roman Catholic politician today greeted the news of German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger's election to the papacy with a warning that Pope Benedict XVI has "no mandate other than an obligation to heal the wounds of the church and bring people together in the spirit of diversity." "This is not a time for narrow ideologues, or dogmatists," said Sen. John Kerry, D-MA. "I'm praying that the new Holy Father -- despite his reputation as God's Rottweiller -- will realize his duty to be a big-tent guy. And he should never take what is an article of faith for him, personally, and try to impose it on others." Mr. Kerry said that, even though his favorite candidate didn't win the papal election, the Massachusetts Democrat will continue to play an influential role in shaping Catholic doctrine and practice.

Review: Stan Ridgway, DVD SHOW BUSINESS IS MY LIFE

Show Business Is My Life is a great 26 song video and concert collection that should exceed any fan’s expectations. It’s inexpensive but hard to find. Try here.

Stan once looked like a craggier John Cusak. He’s aged into Johnny Cash. See here. Now John Cusak looks like the craggy young Stan Ridgway.

I loved Wall of Voodoo but followed Stan’s solo career only for a short time as it was a game of diminishing returns. The Big Heat and Mosquitos were equally good, but “I Wanna Be A Boss”(Partyball) was as lyrically weak as “Camouflague”. I didn’t stop loving Stan Ridgway but I stopped buying his records. His solo work was bested by what he wrote for Call Of The West, notably “Lost Weekend” and “Factory”.

I met Stan when I worked security for a concert lineup of Minor Threat, Wall Of Voodoo and P.I.L. He asked me my name and said to tell him about myself. I walked away from that encounter thinking I’d met the nicest man in the world. I felt like a pale, 1/5th scale Ving Rhames as Duane in the film Dave:

Duane: [Dave shakes hands with Duane just before they part company] Dave? Dave Kovic: Yeah? Duane: I would have taken a bullet for you. Dave Kovic: [smiling] Thanks, Duane

I like the videos for “Mexican Radio” and “Rumblefish” for nostalgia’s sake, but generally I have no use for the art form. Videos were a fun novelty that wore off once they eclipsed the music itself. I did get a kick out of the video for “Big Dumb Town” because they manically depict a Charlie McCarthy puppet as a scumbag Hollywood agent.

The live footage of Wall Of Voodoo makes this priceless. Guitarist Marc Moreland goes completely nuts on “Ring Of Fire”. Dark Continent is of a kind with Gang Of Four’s Entertainment! “Back In Flesh” doesn’t measure up to “Damaged Goods” but the album is in serious need of reevaluation upwards There’s a sameness to the 11 tracks but with repeated listens each becomes a masterful variation on a theme. Call Of The West is not as cohesive but the storytelling is better and the sound more epic.

The concert footage of Stan’s solo work doesn’t come off well because his work is imagined for small, intimate settings, with Stan sitting on a stool as his cigarette smoke dances in a single overhead light. The cover blurb reads, “Stan Ridgway is equal parts Raymond Chandler and John Huston, Johnny Cash and Rod Serling.” These qualities simply cannot come through in a stadium show presentation.

Visit Stan. Listen to Stan. Obey Stan. Stan the Man.

Funny Onion

You need to subscribe to get the original, but here's the text to a great piece from The Onion titled PERFORMANCE ARTIST SHOCKS U.S. OUT OF APATHETIC STUPOR.

Like the CBS Memos and Ward Churchill it's fake yet accurate. And funny.

Woody Allen said "Those who can’t do, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym." Those who can't perform become performance artists.

The original photos were great but here's some real performance artists who prove the point. What the? Nerd! Thank God for Oliver BaldBorg Pretty (Humorless) Former 70s NYC toilet-porn actress Annie Sprinkles Karen Finley in chocolate

Old Punk Moment 127

I buy car stuff at Pep Boys because Manny Moe and Jack were east coast Jews, like me!, and on the Jew-To-Do-List, next to the Blood Libel, is to buy from fellow tribe members. You know, spend locally and control globally. Gabba Gabba Oy!

As you all (should) know, The Dickies recorded "Manny Moe and Jack" in 1979 (like George Carlin said, a golden oldie from before you were born, remember kids?) Sing!

"When you're on the road/and your car wont pull that load/ and your wheels aren't feeling fine/ Well I know of this joint/ where they'll check your plugs and points/ I know these guys they're three good friends of mine/ Manny Moe and Jack/ They know what I'm after/ Manny Moe and Jack/ They Know what I'm after/ They're Manny Moe and Jack/ Once your inside/ they wont take you for a ride/ they got a good deal for you and your automobile/ for the right price/ they will sell you fuzzy dice/ and leather hand grips for your steering whee-al/ [Chorus]/ If its tires you want/ they got a lot for you/Dunlop, Firestone, Pirelli too[x8] /Many Moe and Jack!/They know what I'm after..."

Every so often I forget to keep my mouth shut and I ask the guy behind the register if he's ever heard the song. All I ever get is a blank look. Then I hear crickets and tumbleweed roll by. Isn't and shouldn't this be the official company song? Shouldn't everyone who works there know it just as an interesting piece of work-related trivia? What's wrong with these people? Why must I be treated like a raving lunatic when I start screaming the chorus? it's not me this time, it's them. Stop looking at me.

Anarchy Juh-ism!

There must be 5,236 varieties of Anarchy, with more coming, because Anarchy, by nature of its perpetual spitefulness, evolves into something else once it has been raped by the very act of definition.

What all Anarchies have in common is insanity, from insanely juvenile to insanely insane. It's a utopian fantasy that believes either peace will come through the genocides and purges of "the struggle", or that paradise is just what's left once everyone is dead.

As with coprophilia fetishes, it's hard to say why one person prefers poop over pee or nihilism over the urge to "build strong communities that can manage themselves through direct democracy in conjunction and solidarity with other communities". With both, I don't know and I don't want to know.

In the dementia of Anarchy, laws create lawlessness and people will readily give up their vanity and selfishness once television is outlawed and all decisions are made by small, random groups of hu-persons in hemp panchos sitting in weed fields being eaten alive by malaria-bearing mosquitoes.

Your typical anarchy punk web site looks like this, and please hit all the links because they just keep on giving. It's funny, mostly harmless and part of many kid's learning curve. Then there's the Green Anarchists....

Why do people against all civilization and all technology have a website? Shouldn't they be C.H.U.D., living in sewers wreaking havoc on passersby, being, you know, the product of and demise of corrupt, polluted, hierarchical, patriarchal society?

Visit the Green Anarchists and try to read an entire article all the way through. Lawyers and Anarchists both must get paid by the word. At least read the page on the horrors of Niceism.

If you read enough Anarchist literature you'll notice a fascination with all words that end with "-ism". As with most creepy cults, I'm afraid Anarchy is just another way guys try to get naive women to help them to that perfect utopian state of juh-ism.

Save CBGBs

The Bowery cattle-car known as CBGBs is in danger of losing their space because the landlord wants to raise rents to the area average. The Bowery Residents' Committee owns the building and runs the homeless shelter above the club. It's Hobo vs. Hoodlum in lower Manhattan near Noho and Soho!

Here's a link: Welcome to the official Save CBGB site

Here's a classic anectdote from Deborah Harry in Please Kill Me as to what happened when bums last battled a punk music space, in this case the Mercer Arts Center:

“The Center was integrally linked to the Broadway Central Hotel, which had a glorious history but had now become a crumbling structure occupied by welfare recipients. It was so old and decrepit from years of people pissing on the floor and throwing up in the corner that it just caved in.”

Defining Punk With A Color Pie Chart

What is Punk?

It's a reason to live, to die, a breath mint, a shoe polish, why one hates and why one loves. It's everything and nothing at the same time, threatening to collapse all matter into itself. It's a vague term people define for pretentious, political and commercial reasons. Punk is just so...PUNK!

Follow this link for a USA Today article from 2003 that's a textbook example of lazy pop-journalism. It's well written and tackles many points in a limited amount of space, but it knowingly promulgates the myth that punk is a movement with a visionary history and a defined purpose. The very act of diving punk's "true meaning, history and purpose" should disqualify someone from being taken seriously.

Nitpicking one point of many, someone is quoted as saying “When it was being created in the mid-’70s, it didn’t sound like anything out there before." It's a harmless statement and true as long as you don't scratch the surface of what was going on, but this just isn't accurate. In the mid-70s scene this applied pretty much to the Ramones and maybe the Talking Heads. But, who cares, the journalist had a deadline and the usual suspects lined up to give soundbites.

I'll tell you wnat Punk is. It's this and this. And my toaster. It's angry yet sincere. This kid here isn't punk, but someone really should call Social Services.

All Hail the Sofa King

Just how low are Sofa King prices?

and

How happy am I?

Review: OnoffOn by Mission Of Burma

Nobody wanted to love the last Mission Of Burma CD more than I did. A year ago I was just reaching the climax of my born-again fanaticism for them after listening to “Dumbells” for the first time in years. Fans of Big Black’s “Kerosene” would love this track. This made me throw on the 2-LP Rykodisc collection and between “This Is Not A Photograph” and “That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate” I wondered if they had a death cult I could join. My eyes still roll into the back of my head when the latter track opens with someone simply speaking the name of the song.

Well, sadly, OnoffOn isn’t very good, regardless of what fawning critics have written. It’s fa-la-las instead of unplanned yells and slow when it should be fast. Even worse, the harmonies are off-key. It opens strongly with “The Setup” but quickly devolves into some weird thrash-hippie revival of Godspell or Let My People Come. Or something.

When Lionel Hutz finishes suing the makers of The Neverending Story for false advertising, I'll have him milk Mission of Burma for the same practice. OnoffOn is a MOB side-project, one of many. I'll gladly head back twenty years for some real Mission Of Burma.

I listen to this every so often to see if there's some hidden genius at work. I downplayed Sugar whilst still a Husker Du purist but changed my mind fairly quickly. OnoffOn will have "The Setup" burned off it and then I'll trade it in. For the love of Pete, Track 9 is a silent track used to separate the cd into 2 sets. How, uh, artful that is.

That said, if you don't own Signals, Calls and Marches and Vs. the hole in your music collection is gaping. Mission of Burma are gawd.

Punk News Update

In Punk news today, my pyramid-studded leather bracelet is still older than 95% of people who bought a punk cd in the last year.

The Other L Word

The Weekly Standard posted a great article titled Take Back The Word: Liberalism Isn't What It Used To Be. I also hit this one out of the...well, actually I dribbled one down the third base line well over five years ago on the same topic.

There's nothing wrong with being Liberal. There's everything wrong with being a stinking pinko-commie hypocrite hate-blinded superior-fugg rich kid Leftist. As a neo-con I don't consider myself a conservative in the least. Hell, it's the only sane liberal activism going and it tries to avoid the nuances of hypocrisy that define the extremes on both ends of the political spectrum. I never voted for a Republican president until 2004. My god, 9/11 threw the Left so far left I had to step right just to avoid the spittle and lobbed feces.

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is the only force keeping the Democrats from spinning out into fringe-party status. I hope they fight and win the civil war they acknowledge they must wage against the Michael Moore/George Soros/Gnome Crapsky wing of their party. It's important to have a viable two-party system because it keeps both sides looking at the center when people head to the polls.

We're probably just one more election cycle away from bands of angry rich kids reliving the glory days of angry rich kid mayhem (see SLA and Weathermen). Oh joy, oh rapture....

Now THAT'S National Lampoon Funny!

Blame Bush! and ScrappleFace are two of the best satirists on the internet, a medium that while gaining hasn't acheived parity with what print has to offer.

Then there's Jay Pinkerton, a Managing Editor of the on-line National Lampoon. His personal site has grown into a monster and it's really worth a look.

The last 2 articles are pure genius. Titled Dead Students Society: Teenagers Are Retarded, you can easily visualize events as they unfold.

http://www.jaypinkerton.com/blog/archives/001346.html
http://www.jaypinkerton.com/blog/archives/001349.html#more

Then you have to see his Superman Origin Comics:
http://www.jaypinkerton.com/blog/archives/001320.html

After that there's the instantly classic Superman Is A Dick collection of real comic book covers:
http://www.nationallampoon.com/supermanisadick/

Around 1980 I traded X-Men #94 (New X-Men) for the first National Lampoon. It, and 100 or so other issues, sit in a basement 3,000 miles away.

Old Punk Moment 472:

At my gym, L.A. Crapness, they’ve been pretty good lately at putting on the station that plays a little of everything instead of all ©rap or the equally mind-numbing slow jams. It seems like years of complaints from the morning regulars (average age: 50!) finally worked. At least until they hire another 20-something O.C. cretin to open the place.

Anyhoo, every so often they play something by Basement Jaxx called “Where’s Your Head At”, based on a sample of the 3-note synth riff from Gary Numan’s 1979 album track “M.E.”

So, every time it comes on I sing “And me I eat dust” after the 3 notes play, which must come across as weird to those around me. Then the music nerd in me wants to say the song playing is based on another song, like I'm proud of some kind of personal accomplishment.

All things considered, I’m glad when the song comes on and even happier when it ends.

On a related note, when you shut down a computer with a newer Microsoft Windows OS, it plays the 4 signature notes from Gary Numan's "Cars".

Ding Dong The Dworkin Is Dead:

Man-hating uber-feminist Andrea Dworkin died Monday at the age of 58. I thought she’d live forever just out of spite.

I’ll take her word for it she was forced into prostitution, a rape victim and also a battered wife. That still doesn’t justify the unrelenting hate she applied to her ideas. Here’s one right now that mostly proves the general idea people have that Dworkin believed heterosexual lovemaking is rape:

“Marriage as an institution developed from rape as a practice. Rape, originally defined as abduction, became marriage by capture. Marriage meant the taking was to extend in time, to be not only use of but possession of, or ownership.”

Her great crusade in life was against pornography, which is almost by definition exploitative, but she was against all erotica:

“Erotica is simply high-class pornography; better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer.”

Dworkin Kool-Aid drinker Robin Morgan summed it up best with her snappy one-liner "Pornography is the theory and rape is the practice." Then there’s Catharine McKinnon theory all men are potential rapists. I italicize the word “potential” because it’s the perfect example of a qualifying euphemism.

People can be victims, but victim culture allows for no resolutions. There is no master gender or sexuality, no matter how much the idea builds up the self-esteem of victim classes. Revenge is an act, not a way of life. Dworkin and her ilk fail because all they have to offer is hatred towards entire categories of people, most of whom do no harm.

She was the ugly face of feminism (oh my, I’m guilty of Looksism!) To paraphrase George Carlin, “Have you ever noticed that most of the people against pornography are people you wouldn't want to have sex with in the first place?"

4/18/2005 Update: Via Instapundit, here's a link to an article titled "The Dworkin Whitewash".

Welcome!

Welcome to the Old Punks Blog, a continuation of the Old Punks Web Zine at http://www.oldpunks.com.

This format is better for me since I can add to it from any computer and the format demands shorter posts, which better matches my attention span these days.

E-mails should still be addressed to oldpunkswebzine@yahoo.com. I won't read simple insults so save that for your friends.