LONG post here this morning, but it's mostly Trailer Park Boys quotes I've copied and pasted from wikiquote. I first put these together for a buddy of mine who's in jail and may be there for awhile, figuring it might cheer him up a bit. Then figured I may as well copy the whole thing and stick it on my blog.... so enjoy (whether you're on the inside or out):
Bubbles: "Holy f---k boys, this shed is like a f---g palace! Indoor plumbing (toilet seat inside), satellite tv, 400 channels, anything I wanna watch, it's right there, space for my kitties, Mobile phone, new technology (holds up an ancient mobile phone), this is the best f----g shed there ever was!"
********************
Ricky: Randy, come back here for a second.
Randy: What's up, Rick?
Ricky: Listen man, if you go down to the store and pick me up some jalapeno (pronounces it "ja-lap-ano") chips and two dollars worth of pepperoni, I'll hang out with you for a bit.
Bubbles: Yeah, and get me some f---n' gummy worms and stuff.
Randy: Gummy worms, okay. Jalapeño chips. Pepperoni. You want anything, Julian?
Julian: (shakes his head no)
Randy: Does anyone else want anything while I'm down there?
Julian: (changes his mind) Yeah, pick me up a bag of "hal-a-peeno" chips.
Randy: Alright.
Ricky: "Hal-a-peeno?" What flavor is that?
Julian: Ricky, the J is silent. You're saying it wrong.
Bubbles: The J is like an H, Ricky. "Hal-a-peeno," not "ja-lap-ano."
Ricky: What in the f--k are you guys talking about?
Bubbles: "Hal-a-peeno!" That's how you pronounce it.
Ricky: I know how to pronounce it! I ordered f---n' "ja-lap-ano!"
**************
Bubbles: Well, Ricky's been living in the Shitmobile for... I don't know how many years now. Julian gave it to him when he had no place to go and... Ricky goes on about it, you know, how much he hates the f---n' thing, but he's lived in it so long I think he really... he'd really miss it if he didn't have it.
Ricky: There's a lot of history, you know, in this car. I've been living in this car and its been a big part of my life, but... You know, its f---d me around quite a bit. Sometimes it stalls on you and it doesn't work right. You get to need to go somewhere and it's like 'No, you're not f-----g going anywhere because I'm gonna f----n' stall on ya' and it pisses you off!
Bubbles: It was Julian's grandmother who owned it originally and she left it to Julian. And that's probably how most of the damage got done because she used to drive around here drunk all the time, smashing into poles and stuff. You think Julian goes around with a drink a lot, you shoulda saw her!
[the Shitmobile stalls out]
Ricky: Yeah, you know what's comin', don't ya? You know what's gonna happen to you tonight!
Bubbles: You know, he's always kicking it and being mean to it, but he loves that ol' Yorker.
[Bubbles unwraps a Tootsie Pop]
Bubbles: Purple!
***********
Julian: So, Luce, can I ask you something?
Lucy: Yeah, what?
Julian: What's up with this lawsuit thing?
Sarah: Look, Ricky doesn't even understand what child support is, Julian. He doesn't get the f-----g concept.
Lucy: I figure that a law suit will sorta clear his head a little, make him a little bit more responsible.
Sarah: No, I don't f-----g think so. The only way Ricky is gonna get any smarter is if he dies and comes back as a turnip. He just keeps on getting stupider, Julian.
**********
[after knocking Cory and Trevor off of Julian's ice cream bikes]
Ricky: Tripped 'em up with a hockey stick, no big deal, and fired a few shots at them. the way I see it I bought the bikes, I own 'em. Just like owning a target. You shoot at that, I shot at the bikes. Then Julian's got this attitude and fires a bullet at my brand new car! Real nice! So I fired a shot at his new car. Spy for a spy, that's the way it works around here.
*************
Judge: Richard, since you chose to defend yourself and fire the public defender, I guess it's your turn to question the witness.
Ricky: Thank you, Your Majesty.
Judge: And Richard, before you begin, I'd like to say that I think this is a very bad idea. However, you do have a right to defend yourself, so proceed, but please remember to watch your language.
Ricky: Look, I can't speak without swearing, and I've only got my grade ten, and I haven't had a cigarette since I've been arrested, and I'm ready to f----n' snap. So I'd like to make a request under the people's freedom of choices and voices act that I be able to smoke and swear in your courtroom. Because if I can't smoke and swear, I'm f-----d! And so are all these guys. I won't be able to properly express myself at a court level, and that's bulls--t! It's not fair and if you ask me, I think it's a f-----n' mistrial.
Prosecutor: This man can't represent anyone... Your Honor! He's a complete and total idiot!
Judge: Now although I am opposed to that kind of language in my courtroom, I'm going to allow it, as unfortunately it is part of your right to a fair trial. So you may proceed, but please, I want to remind you that this is not a carnival. Richard, you have permission to smoke and swear.
Ricky: Thank you. I just gotta get some cigarettes, actually.
[Ricky walks over to the prosecutor's desk and snaps his fingers]
Ricky: Let's go, smokes!
Prosecutor: But I've only got two left!
Ricky: I don't care. You've been a dick all morning, it's the least you can do for me!
Prosecutor: Oh, for the love of god...
[Several members of the prosecution start to light cigarettes]
Judge: Just the defendant, please.
Ricky: My first order of business is to tell the prosecutor to shut the f--k up and wipe that stupid f---g grin off his face because it's distraculating my case.
Ricky: The defense rests, everybody can f--k off. Except you (points to the magistrate) I didn't mean you. But those two guys, and him (pointing to the prosecutor). (to camera man) Could you guys get the f--k out of the way? Please!
**************
[Bubble's Rap]
I got a grey kitty, white one, and a tabby too/
And a big orange guy who put snakes in my shoes/
Mad MC skills, leave ya struck, and I roll with ma kitties, and I'm hard as f--k/
I am down with Plato and Socrates/
And I like to get busy with all the ladies./
Grunt, grunt/
somethin', somethin', somethin', somethin'/
Grunt/
Up in my shed, up in my shed...ya bitches
************
J-Roc: Like, I'll go to f---n' jail, you know what I'm sayin', 'cause I'm hard, right? I ain't shook about goin' to jail. But it's like, I kinda like my freedom, too, at the same time, know what I mean?
***********
Ricky: There is nothing better than being in jail at Christmas. Guards let you party for twelve days straight, got no f---n' work chores or book readin's or Christmas trees or giving gifts or f---n' lights... F---k all that bullshit! (To other prisoners) Let's get f----d up!
Guard: Ricky, you got somebody here to see you.
Ricky: What are you talking about?
[Bubbles is warming up as Ricky walks into the room]
Ricky: Bubbles! What are you doing here, buddy?
Bubbles: Hey Ricky! Julian bailed you out! You're out!
Ricky: What?
Bubbles: Get your stuff!
Ricky: No, Bubbs, no! I got twelve days of partying. Come back in twelve days, buddy.
Bubbles: Ricky, what are you talking about? Come on, we getting you out! Sign out!
Ricky: Oh my f--k! I don't wanna leave now! What the f---k's he doing bailing me out? F--k! Thiebaud! Thiebaud, go get my s---t. Apparently I'm out. Christmas is f----n' ruined.
*****************
Bubbles: My God, Ricky! I think it's a letter from my mom! (reading letter aloud) Dear Bubbles: Merry Christmas. Sorry we're not there with you. It was the hardest thing we've ever done, when me and your dad had to pack up and leave you, but some very dangerous men were coming after your daddy, for his gambling, fighting and shooting his mouth off, drunk down at the legion. We never wanted to put you into any jeopardy so we had to leave fast. Hopefully some day you'll understand. P.S.: I've asked Julian's grandmother if you could stay with them for a bit. She said no problem, Julian would look after you. You're lucky you have a friend like Julian and that Richard boy who you try to help out with his school work.
***************
[Ricky is making bacon on the stove in Ray's burnt-down trailer]
Ricky: Hey, Dad!
Ray: Hey, buddy.
Ricky: Cookin' some bacon for you, buddy.
Ray: Smells good, buddy.
Ricky: There's only three pieces left, but I'll give it to you so long as I can have the grease.
Ray: You can have the grease, buddy.
Ricky: Cool.
Ray: Bacon frying and the sparrows chirpin', Rick. It's all about the bacon and the sparrows, buddy.
Ricky: Dad, what the f--k are you talking about?
Ray: I'm talking about the sparrows, Rick. The sparrows in the Bible, buddy. You know, nothing to worry about. I'm not worried, the trailer's burned down, the sparrows aren't worried, nobody's worried.
Ricky: Sparrows are stupid, Dad. They don't give a f--k about anything.
Ray: Exactly my point, Rick. Maybe God forgives you for burning down my trailer, Rick. That's the point I'm trying to make this morning.
Ricky: Does ol' Goddy-boy forgive you for getting lap dances and playing VLTs? (video lottery terminals)
Ray: I don't... What's your point, Rick? There's nothing wrong with playing VLTs and gettin' drunk.
Ricky: You want some f---n' bacon or not?
Ray: Yes, Rick. I do. Rick, there's another point: We should be thankful for the bacon we're having this morning, because where do you think the bacon came from, Rick?
Ricky: From a cow.
************************
Ricky: Bubbles, are you sure we gotta play space here? This is kind of stupid.
Bubbles: Come on, Ricky, look at this! This is awesome! Mission control this is Commander Bubbles. I'm getting an NPS warning light on the link monitor control subsystem. I'm requesting reallocation to main OMS firing to CDS at level six, please advise.
Julian: Copy there, Commander. Reallocating there, Commander Bubbles.
Bubbles: Try some, Ricky!
Ricky: (sighs) Breaker breaker, come in Earth. This is rocket ship 27. Aliens f----d over the carbinator in engine number 4, I'm gonna try to refuckulate it and land on Juniper. Ah, hopefully they got some space weed, over... How's that buddy? I don't f---n' know!
Bubbles: Ricky, that's not very good. Use space words, real ones, not talkin' about space weed!
***************
Ricky: The thing with me is that I AM smart and I'm smelf, I'm self smarted, basically, by myself, basically from nature and smoking drugs and doing different things I've self… s… like self learned myself. And that's the whole difference I guess is that I don't need the books or the schooling type things. I just get everything on my own and because of that I'm alive right now. I mean if I had read more books or tried to go on to collage and different things like that I'd be dead right now because people say books and collage are for to be make you smarter, but they can also be for to be make you dead, which is what could have happened to me. My brain doesn't use enough oxygen because I don't have the whole thing filled with different stuff and if it was full, it's only part full, and that's why I'm alive right now. The guards are giving me here, you know, read this book, try to get smarter but I'm like, alright, I'll pretend to read it but I'm not going to really read it cause my brain will be more full and if I have another heart attack I'm going to die... I just wanna get out of here now and spend time with Lucy and Trinity and get my family going again. Basically that's all that matters to me. They come to visit me a couple times in jail for the first time ever which is awesome, Lucy seems to be really digging me and looking really good and I just wanna get out of here and see them, exercise a bit, maybe eat better and try to quit smoking. I'm going to quit smoking cigarettes first, and then, you know, work off the dope or whatever eventually, although I don't know.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Opening Shots: Goodfellas
Periods of unemployment seem like the best time to catch up on the movies you've been meaning to watch, or watch again, or watch for the 30th time...
Yesterday I watched "Goodfellas" for probably the 30th or 32nd time and it never ceases to amaze me, the details you pick up on after repeated viewings. One of the new little details I spotted this time around was a line in the airport diner the truck driver walks into after leaving his truck for Henry and Tommy to steal. "I need a small fry," you can hear the waitress saying. Just like Henry and Tommy needed the "small fry" driver to park his truck and then pretend it was stolen by a couple black guys. In the hands of your average film director I guess that could be a total throwaway line -- but with Scorcese? I'm guessing NOT.
(Another thing I noticed: the doctor "takes mercy" on Henry and gives him a valium when he shows up at the hospital all wrecked to pick up his brother Michael? Sheeeeeeeeeit, that's the actor Isiah Whitlock Jr. (or "Senator Clay Davis" to any fan of The Wire.)
And here's another detail I noticed several years/viewings ago: check out the very first shot of the movie. The Cadillac driven by Henry, with Jimmy and Tommy as passengers (and a bloodied but breathing Billy Batts in the trunk) abruptly swerves from the left lane into the right. Then the camera pans across and "passes" the car until it's out of frame. Moments later the three wiseguys hear a kicking noise -- and, assuming they had killed Batts dead already, initially think it's a flat tire. Then they pull over and finish the job.
For me, that's the entire story arc of the film right there, in the opening scene: three gangsters barreling down the turnpike in the fast lane, then abruptly swerving into the right (slow) lane, and then the Caddy slipping out of frame. Keep that in mind and watch the rest of the movie unfold: it's that Billy Batts hit that ultimately dooms Tommy and the rest of his crew. Some months or years later when Tommy is finally about to get "made," he instead gets a bullet in the brain. (As Henry comments, it was "for Billy Batts... and a lot of other things." Batts was a made guy and Tommy wasn't, so Tommy had to be whacked in return. "It was among the Italians -- real greaseball shit. And there was nothing we could do about it. We had to sit there and take it.")
In the next scene (Sunday, May 11, 1980, 6:55 a.m.) we see Henry hoovering up a couple lines of blow and then scurrying around suburbia like a rat, trying to sell a grocery sack full of guns and then pick up a load of cocaine at a motel all while a helicopter is apparently birddogging him from overhead. In other words, as Tommy was about to be made, the trio of partners in crime were seemingly at their peak (listen to the beautiful piano of Derek and the Dominoes' "Layla" playing on the soundtrack) -- once Tommy was made, nobody could mess with them. But it's from this anticipated height they fall hard. Without the made guy in their crew Jimmy and Henry are left to do whatever they can do to stay in business...which leads to the ultimate downfall of the "goodfellas" ring once Henry gets busted with the cocaine and then rats out the rest of his crew before heading into the life of bland obscurity as a federally protected witness.
So there you have it. Fast lane, kicking noise, slow lane, and aftermath. There's your whole film right there, right in the opening seconds.
L
Yesterday I watched "Goodfellas" for probably the 30th or 32nd time and it never ceases to amaze me, the details you pick up on after repeated viewings. One of the new little details I spotted this time around was a line in the airport diner the truck driver walks into after leaving his truck for Henry and Tommy to steal. "I need a small fry," you can hear the waitress saying. Just like Henry and Tommy needed the "small fry" driver to park his truck and then pretend it was stolen by a couple black guys. In the hands of your average film director I guess that could be a total throwaway line -- but with Scorcese? I'm guessing NOT.
(Another thing I noticed: the doctor "takes mercy" on Henry and gives him a valium when he shows up at the hospital all wrecked to pick up his brother Michael? Sheeeeeeeeeit, that's the actor Isiah Whitlock Jr. (or "Senator Clay Davis" to any fan of The Wire.)
And here's another detail I noticed several years/viewings ago: check out the very first shot of the movie. The Cadillac driven by Henry, with Jimmy and Tommy as passengers (and a bloodied but breathing Billy Batts in the trunk) abruptly swerves from the left lane into the right. Then the camera pans across and "passes" the car until it's out of frame. Moments later the three wiseguys hear a kicking noise -- and, assuming they had killed Batts dead already, initially think it's a flat tire. Then they pull over and finish the job.
For me, that's the entire story arc of the film right there, in the opening scene: three gangsters barreling down the turnpike in the fast lane, then abruptly swerving into the right (slow) lane, and then the Caddy slipping out of frame. Keep that in mind and watch the rest of the movie unfold: it's that Billy Batts hit that ultimately dooms Tommy and the rest of his crew. Some months or years later when Tommy is finally about to get "made," he instead gets a bullet in the brain. (As Henry comments, it was "for Billy Batts... and a lot of other things." Batts was a made guy and Tommy wasn't, so Tommy had to be whacked in return. "It was among the Italians -- real greaseball shit. And there was nothing we could do about it. We had to sit there and take it.")
In the next scene (Sunday, May 11, 1980, 6:55 a.m.) we see Henry hoovering up a couple lines of blow and then scurrying around suburbia like a rat, trying to sell a grocery sack full of guns and then pick up a load of cocaine at a motel all while a helicopter is apparently birddogging him from overhead. In other words, as Tommy was about to be made, the trio of partners in crime were seemingly at their peak (listen to the beautiful piano of Derek and the Dominoes' "Layla" playing on the soundtrack) -- once Tommy was made, nobody could mess with them. But it's from this anticipated height they fall hard. Without the made guy in their crew Jimmy and Henry are left to do whatever they can do to stay in business...which leads to the ultimate downfall of the "goodfellas" ring once Henry gets busted with the cocaine and then rats out the rest of his crew before heading into the life of bland obscurity as a federally protected witness.
So there you have it. Fast lane, kicking noise, slow lane, and aftermath. There's your whole film right there, right in the opening seconds.
L
Monday, June 18, 2007
The Itchy and Lumpy Show
"This might be the worst, most embarrassing thing I've EVER seen."
That's my buddy Matt over at Avatar Media -- who was apparently surfing in the sewer-end of You Tube when he ran across this vile, rotten thing: the "Star Wars Holiday Special," aired on CBS in 1978. He's right; it is absolutely goddamned hideous.
see for yourself, but consider yourselves warned.
good review:
http://www.stomptokyo.com/movies/star-wars-holiday-special.html#gallery
or You Tube clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W344tHoOr-k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asnVcbWQ2cg
or the reply of one recipient my friend Matt forwarded these clips to:
That's the final straw, Hornaday! you're going into the spam filter for good. jesus fuck. christ. you asshat.
That's my buddy Matt over at Avatar Media -- who was apparently surfing in the sewer-end of You Tube when he ran across this vile, rotten thing: the "Star Wars Holiday Special," aired on CBS in 1978. He's right; it is absolutely goddamned hideous.
see for yourself, but consider yourselves warned.
good review:
http://www.stomptokyo.com/movies/star-wars-holiday-special.html#gallery
or You Tube clips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W344tHoOr-k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asnVcbWQ2cg
or the reply of one recipient my friend Matt forwarded these clips to:
That's the final straw, Hornaday! you're going into the spam filter for good. jesus fuck. christ. you asshat.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
What is with this guy? Who is he?
All credit (or blame) for the creation of this blog must go to my brother-in-law Joe, who recently suggested I start a blog about being unemployed. Which I pretty much have been since officially leaving my job at the Stanley Foundation on May 31.
The inspiration for the name of my blog came from the movie "The Big Lebowski" -- bonus points if you had that figured out already.
But if not here's the key scene between Mr. Lebowski (the big Lebowski) and the Dude (Jeffrey Lebowski), which plays out pretty early in the film:
The Big Lebowski: Are you employed, sir?
The Dude: Employed?
The Big Lebowski: You don't go out looking for a job dressed like that? On a weekday?
The Dude: Is this a... what day is this?
The Big Lebowski: Well, I do work sir, so if you don't mind...
The Dude: I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man...
And that last line pretty much sums up why I no longer work at the Stanley Foundation job I held for nearly six years. Though the transcript here doesn't really do the scene justice; it needs to be watched if you want to get the full understanding...
L
The inspiration for the name of my blog came from the movie "The Big Lebowski" -- bonus points if you had that figured out already.
But if not here's the key scene between Mr. Lebowski (the big Lebowski) and the Dude (Jeffrey Lebowski), which plays out pretty early in the film:
The Big Lebowski: Are you employed, sir?
The Dude: Employed?
The Big Lebowski: You don't go out looking for a job dressed like that? On a weekday?
The Dude: Is this a... what day is this?
The Big Lebowski: Well, I do work sir, so if you don't mind...
The Dude: I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man...
And that last line pretty much sums up why I no longer work at the Stanley Foundation job I held for nearly six years. Though the transcript here doesn't really do the scene justice; it needs to be watched if you want to get the full understanding...
L
Saturday, June 16, 2007
The Very Last of Guided By Voices
My good friend over at Things I'd Rather Be Doing had the idea first: write something about every one of the 1,100-some songs recorded by the late great Guided By Voices. A wildly ambitious task -- one I'd probably never set my own self to doing though I gotta admire any kind of lunatic who actually would. There's a separate blog he's created for this mighty effort called My Impression Now (named, naturally, after a GBV song.)
I'm not sure if he's looking to divide up the work a little... or if he is truly intent on going this alone and getting it done, someday... but in any case, I have a little essay about the GBV song "Huffman Prairie Flying Field" and hell, since this is MY blog the least I can do is borrow Kenyon's cool idea and write forthwith:
I should actually start by THANKING Kenyon profusely for pretty much introducing me to the band and its voluminous work. I HAD seen GBV once while living in L.A. before but it was on a bad night for me... I did make it through Matthew Sweet's set, and then, being pretty clueless about the band and feeling depressed and down I decided to head home. I DID stay for a couple songs, watching Robert Pollard jumping around like a jackass, all pissed off on beer, aggressive, foul-tempered and in-your-face with that put-on British accent. All of which today I've grown to love and admire, though for whatever reason at the time it just put me off...
Then back in Iowa on a longish drive to see a show (not GBV) at Grinnell College, Kenyon spun me through a range of selections from the GBV catalog and I was sold.. and the price was certainly right for the $8 GBV 32-track "best of" compilation released around that time, Human Amusements At Hourly Rates.
From then I too was a fan... but then I got hooked. I bought the very last GBV album, Half Smiles of the Decomposed, and per habit popped it in the Chrysler's CD player at the start of the 45-minute commute one sunny morning to Muscatine. The very last track, a sweet and heavy power pop song called "Huffman Prairie Flying Field" was playing as I rolled into a hillside parking spot a couple blocks from work and set the emergency brake.
What first grabbed me about the song -- a sort of arena rock thing -- was how purely evocative it was. It sounded a LOT to me like that .38 Special (or was it Cheap Trick?) song as I always remembered it -- the one that was blasting out over Weed Park pool one summer, about the time I really started noticing girls, especially the ones laying out tanning by the pool. It was THAT cut-to-the-heart for me, when I heard this song, it was like some lost track from 70s. I'm pretty sure it made me tear up at least a little, it was that powerful.
But I was so astonished, mesmerized by that song that I must've jabbed the repeat button and listened just once more at least six times in a row, maybe seven or eight, as I sat there in my car delaying the walk to my office. The pure weight of the song just hit me like a storm.... I mean, this is Robert Pollard almost signing off, in a way, and this is how the swan song goes... all muscular, hook-laden guitar crunch and soaring melody: I've come to start up my head / Been closed and locked up / for far too long...
And the line for far too long is drawn out and repeated like a clarion call (which actually breaks down, to my ears, along the lines of the old three-toned "NBC" signature audio thing, but slightly different... a little more minor than major in key, I guess.) It's one of those simple but timeless melodies you wonder why you hadn't heard until now. The line is repeated and the song begins to fade, but not before Uncle Bob gets a final "yeah yeah" out... ending the band's recording career on the most triumphant of notes.
I guess it's kinda funny that I didn't really "get" Guided By Voices until their last song just slayed me... though I'm glad I got in when I did (I saw the band play two more times before the 2004 breakup and wouldn't have left the club early if my shirttails were on fire.) And I always liked how the Onion's Keith Phipps stated things in his review of the song when the record came out in 2004, so I'll just quote:
"Named for a stretch of Dayton land where the Wright Brothers tested their airplanes, 'Huffman' ends the album, and the band, with a majestic melody and some typically cryptic Pollard lines about comebacks, pregnant skies, and something lasting 'far too long.' The song connects Pollard to a tradition of backroom tinkering with unexpectedly far-reaching results, and provides a fine bookend to the career of a group that had its share of crashes over the years, but somehow always found a way to fly."
Pollard grew up in Dayton and still lives there. Beautiful.
L
I'm not sure if he's looking to divide up the work a little... or if he is truly intent on going this alone and getting it done, someday... but in any case, I have a little essay about the GBV song "Huffman Prairie Flying Field" and hell, since this is MY blog the least I can do is borrow Kenyon's cool idea and write forthwith:
I should actually start by THANKING Kenyon profusely for pretty much introducing me to the band and its voluminous work. I HAD seen GBV once while living in L.A. before but it was on a bad night for me... I did make it through Matthew Sweet's set, and then, being pretty clueless about the band and feeling depressed and down I decided to head home. I DID stay for a couple songs, watching Robert Pollard jumping around like a jackass, all pissed off on beer, aggressive, foul-tempered and in-your-face with that put-on British accent. All of which today I've grown to love and admire, though for whatever reason at the time it just put me off...
Then back in Iowa on a longish drive to see a show (not GBV) at Grinnell College, Kenyon spun me through a range of selections from the GBV catalog and I was sold.. and the price was certainly right for the $8 GBV 32-track "best of" compilation released around that time, Human Amusements At Hourly Rates.
From then I too was a fan... but then I got hooked. I bought the very last GBV album, Half Smiles of the Decomposed, and per habit popped it in the Chrysler's CD player at the start of the 45-minute commute one sunny morning to Muscatine. The very last track, a sweet and heavy power pop song called "Huffman Prairie Flying Field" was playing as I rolled into a hillside parking spot a couple blocks from work and set the emergency brake.
What first grabbed me about the song -- a sort of arena rock thing -- was how purely evocative it was. It sounded a LOT to me like that .38 Special (or was it Cheap Trick?) song as I always remembered it -- the one that was blasting out over Weed Park pool one summer, about the time I really started noticing girls, especially the ones laying out tanning by the pool. It was THAT cut-to-the-heart for me, when I heard this song, it was like some lost track from 70s. I'm pretty sure it made me tear up at least a little, it was that powerful.
But I was so astonished, mesmerized by that song that I must've jabbed the repeat button and listened just once more at least six times in a row, maybe seven or eight, as I sat there in my car delaying the walk to my office. The pure weight of the song just hit me like a storm.... I mean, this is Robert Pollard almost signing off, in a way, and this is how the swan song goes... all muscular, hook-laden guitar crunch and soaring melody: I've come to start up my head / Been closed and locked up / for far too long...
And the line for far too long is drawn out and repeated like a clarion call (which actually breaks down, to my ears, along the lines of the old three-toned "NBC" signature audio thing, but slightly different... a little more minor than major in key, I guess.) It's one of those simple but timeless melodies you wonder why you hadn't heard until now. The line is repeated and the song begins to fade, but not before Uncle Bob gets a final "yeah yeah" out... ending the band's recording career on the most triumphant of notes.
I guess it's kinda funny that I didn't really "get" Guided By Voices until their last song just slayed me... though I'm glad I got in when I did (I saw the band play two more times before the 2004 breakup and wouldn't have left the club early if my shirttails were on fire.) And I always liked how the Onion's Keith Phipps stated things in his review of the song when the record came out in 2004, so I'll just quote:
"Named for a stretch of Dayton land where the Wright Brothers tested their airplanes, 'Huffman' ends the album, and the band, with a majestic melody and some typically cryptic Pollard lines about comebacks, pregnant skies, and something lasting 'far too long.' The song connects Pollard to a tradition of backroom tinkering with unexpectedly far-reaching results, and provides a fine bookend to the career of a group that had its share of crashes over the years, but somehow always found a way to fly."
Pollard grew up in Dayton and still lives there. Beautiful.
L
Friday, June 15, 2007
Getting "Loaded"
Driving around today I was thinking of the song "Loaded," the first single off the landmark 1992 Primal Scream record "Screamadelica." It's a grand, lurid, anthemic, clap-happy party song -- just right for a Saturday night drive down the Strip -- and it may already sound vaguely familiar to the neophyte listener... and here is why I think that might be the case: "Loaded," as I've tried to explain to anyone who will listen, is really a mix of THREE popular, long-enduring songs; two of them rock tunes and the third a Christmas hymn.
It's long been my contention that Primal Scream's "Loaded" borrows heavily from "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles' "Hey Jude" -- but then ALSO blends in (actually starts with) the melody line of a third song, a hymn we always sang in church around Christmastime. "Gloria," I think was the name of it... "in excelcious deo" was the subtitle, part of the lyric, or something close to that spelling...
But I can hear elements of those three songs woven together seamlessly -- not sampled, but recreated from the melody of "Gloria" to the slowed-down bongo beat of "Sympathy." Then -- after a slow build that layers a new sound or instrument into the mix every four lines -- roughly the bongo beat/cymbal crash/glockenspeil, then the bassline, followed by piano, then fourth come the strings, then horns, violin, handclaps, and finally (by my count anyway) the eighth or maybe tenth "add" to the mix, a tambourine kicking in at 2:46.) And it's that steady, shaking tambourine I find so evocative of "Hey Jude" (before the bottom of the song falls out and strips down to a light, echoey drumbeat before building up again.)
------------> And then "Loaded" itself is sort of "answered," I think, or maybe outright stolen, by the Beta Band for the tune "Alleged" from their record "Hot Shots II" -- a song that blends together all of the above, and the one I was actually listening to today that got me thinking again about "Loaded."
I don't know if anyone else has heard this, or would hear it in the same way I'm describing, or if any of this is making any sense whatsoever to the reader....but hey, there you have it.
L
It's long been my contention that Primal Scream's "Loaded" borrows heavily from "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles' "Hey Jude" -- but then ALSO blends in (actually starts with) the melody line of a third song, a hymn we always sang in church around Christmastime. "Gloria," I think was the name of it... "in excelcious deo" was the subtitle, part of the lyric, or something close to that spelling...
But I can hear elements of those three songs woven together seamlessly -- not sampled, but recreated from the melody of "Gloria" to the slowed-down bongo beat of "Sympathy." Then -- after a slow build that layers a new sound or instrument into the mix every four lines -- roughly the bongo beat/cymbal crash/glockenspeil, then the bassline, followed by piano, then fourth come the strings, then horns, violin, handclaps, and finally (by my count anyway) the eighth or maybe tenth "add" to the mix, a tambourine kicking in at 2:46.) And it's that steady, shaking tambourine I find so evocative of "Hey Jude" (before the bottom of the song falls out and strips down to a light, echoey drumbeat before building up again.)
------------> And then "Loaded" itself is sort of "answered," I think, or maybe outright stolen, by the Beta Band for the tune "Alleged" from their record "Hot Shots II" -- a song that blends together all of the above, and the one I was actually listening to today that got me thinking again about "Loaded."
I don't know if anyone else has heard this, or would hear it in the same way I'm describing, or if any of this is making any sense whatsoever to the reader....but hey, there you have it.
L
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