When I was on tour with my band in Europe two summers ago, the guy who booked our tour suggested that we not drive ourselves, and found three drivers, all German dudes, who would take turns navigating the European highways and generally babysitting us. The first was the wonderfully funny Andre Springer, the second was the amazingly calm Daniel Dutsky, and the third was a young buck named Patrick who spoke pretty much perfect English with a slight California accent, because he had gone to some of high school in Las Vegas. So convincing was his English, that when he did speak German it was really surprising to us. You couldn't help but think "how did that surfer get so good at German?" Patrick alluded to the fact that he had just gotten out of some form of public service, and we also found out that he had learned to drive stick shift just weeks before he met up with us, solely for the purpose of being able to drive us on the tour. It was just a tad rough at first, but he sure did get the hang of it!
When i asked Patrick about what he did for his mandatory public service to the German government, he told this story:
At first I did not believe this story. I tried looking up more information about it on the internet, and my searches for "German gay military" found nothing, so I held off on finishing the comic because it seemed pretty possible that the gay army brigade thing was a rumor. Then one day I was talking to a dreadlocked-pseudo-hippie German guy at the hostel I was staying at in Mexico City, and I luckily remembered to get a fact check about this curious piece of information. Sure enough, the dreadlocked German said that it was real (to his dismay as well, as he also had considered pulling the gay card to get out of military service), and so I now felt like I was cleared to finish the comic and scan it and stuff.
* Not that I am trying to stereotype what gay men look like in my depiction of the gay brigade, but as you may be able to see, I sort of wrote the comic in red pen and then didn't come back to it until months later, at which point after much internal struggle, I had determined that the "best" way to clearly depict a gay division of the German army was, in fact, to pull out all the stops and use every stereotype available. That's what you do in the world of comics, I am told. Do they look gay enough?
** A better title for the name of this hypothetical sitcom or reality show would be most welcome. Help me, please.
Monday, October 01, 2007
MAN-datory Military Service,
How I Am Going To Hang Out With Werner Herzog (Long Shot):
I've never really known too much about Henry Rollins, except that he is Mike Anderson's least favorite singer of Black Flag, and that The Rollins Band had a minor hit in the mid-90's with that song "Liar." I guess I just assumed that he is kind of a big deal because he has a talk show and had Werner Herzog as a guest on it once.
(At 4:04 you get to hear him say "cash money." It's great.)
Well, it turns out that Henry Rollins has a radio show, and he played a Rapider Than Horsepower song on it and wrote this:
Looks like we won't ever achieve our dream of playing a show at the Video Music Awards or Grammies. Thanks Henry! Still, this very slight brush with something that is actually nothing like fame got my delusional imagination going, and I envisioned an elaborate scenario that brings me one step closer to hanging out with Werner Herzog.
Here's how I see it going down: Let's say that Rollins makes mixtapes for Herzog, you know, like all the time. He puts the Beatbox Song on a tape, and Herzog listens to it and says in his brilliant cadence "I truly like this guy." He casts Mike Anderson as the sole giant in his next all-midget movie, and I get to hang out on the set. When I am introduced to him, all I can think to do is ask him what it was like being the dad in Julien Donkey Boy. It's incredibly embarrassing, but at least it provides some kind of closure.
My Friends Used To Throw Some Pretty Sweet Dinner Parties
And I had some pretty dorktastic hair.
And what on earth were we drinking?
High school was so nightmarishly awesome (in the truest, non-Bill and Ted sense of the word "awesome"). The other day I did the calculations, and here's what I came up with: I would repeat high school again for $240,000. Like, if there were some reality show where they made adults repeat high school and they asked me how much it would cost to get me repeat all four years, that would be my price. I figure the work would at least be easier this time around. Or would it? That's kind of the premise of the show. Sure, making friends would be awkward and difficult and you have to wake up kind of early, but you get to do whatever you want during study hall, and it's all over by around 3pm. If I could do it all over, I would have taken more wood shop and vocational classes. I sometimes wish I knew a trade. You know what they call electricians in Australia? Sparkies. Yeah, pretty cool-sounding, huh? Being a sparky sounds like a pretty cool gig. It might not get you invited to fancy dinner parties, but you will always have a job with a good title.
Barbecue Sauce All Over Your Face
Our souls are so alive, so moving, so breathing!
Like that one Enya song, I just have to say:
"How can I keep from singing?"
New And Profound Depths of Disappointment - The DLR Story
I should have known it was too good to be true when I heard that Ron Jeremy was going to be there too. At that point it just seemed impossible. Yesterday David Lee Roth was supposed to make an appearance at Plan Nine Video here in Bloomington, IN. What actually transpired brought me to new and profound depths of disappointment, so far down, in fact, that it was as if the disappointment spedometer on the dashboard of life had gone all the way around, and it was actually somehow kind of awesome.
Let me explain.
So, about a week ago, through my various channels of information (stuff written on bathroom walls, stuff I overheard strangers say at parties, notes passed to me in study hall, etc.) I started hearing that David Lee Roth was coming to Bloomington, and he would be signing autographs at the Plan Nine video store. I pretty much believed it for two reasons: First, I had heard rumors that DLR was born here. Second, I had seen these posters for a horror movie festival happening here in town, and one of the featured guests was someone named Brenna Lee Roth, so I figured she was related to Diamond Dave.
Maybe it's because of the culture of irony that we live in, or maybe it's because it was the coolest thing going on at 6PM that day, but it seemed like everyone was talking about going to see David Lee Roth and how sweet it was going to be. Not that I ever really heard of people being that into him before this, his name never really came up in conversation before that, but I think that I (like most people) consider him to be an essential ingredient to the original Van Halen lineup that never really was the same after he was dismissed (Sammy Hagar? come onnnnn). DLR: A rock star kicked out of his band for being too big of a rock star. It's weird, I know. He was the essential ingredient, but it was an ingredient that did not do well on its own (kind of like chewing on just a lime by itself, but can you imagine Mexican food without it? [wait, I can, it's called La Charreada]) as anyone who has heard his solo records would probably tell you (Not even Steve Vai could help him. Wait, did Steve Vai help any band he was in after Zappa? Right.).
Anyway, things started getting weird when the news filtered in that Ron Jeremy would be there as well. Why would Ron Jeremy be there? Is Ron Jeremy's daughter in town too? Was Ron Jeremy born here? I was kind of worried that the appearance of Ron Jeremy would prompt a bunch of chazzes to show up, but I guess it didn't really matter, because neither DLR or Ron Jeremy showed up. Something about being in an interview for CNN in Indianapolis? They got caught in a combine accident? The reasons for their absence were colorful and varied.
The mighty Dave Walter was there, trying his best to keep people from rioting as he broke the news:
Nobody showed up to sign autographs except tattooed daughter Brenna Lee Roth, accompanied by her small entourage of dudes who looked like they worked in the horror and/or porn industry. She sat at a table in the back of the store, with two stacks of photos, one clothed, one nude, and awkwardly exchanged pleasantries with the few people who seemed interested in the consolation prize of meeting David Lee Roth's daughter. There were rumors that she had talked a lot about her "awesome rack" in an interview on a local radio station earlier that day, but the relative truth of that statement seemed to be a topic of lively debate among those in attendance. On the table there was a single photograph of DLR with his daughter. Dave looked like a dad. He has short hair now, he was wearing a sensible shirt. Hardly the man showcased here.
The awkwardness in the room was palpable. People were left holding their DLR solo LPs, but also not tying to make it seem like DLR was the only reason they came out. Brenna didn't need to have her feelings hurt more than we can assume they already are. <-- Actually, apparently she does, see Lucy's comment about this.
At some point I realized that I was disappointed about something that really didn't matter that much to me. I mean, I was looking forward to it just to have something to look forward to. I had told my friends from out of town that I was going to see David Lee Roth at a video store. It would have been cool if David Lee Roth was there spitting tequila on people and jumping off of stuff, but in all honesty, if he had been anything else but completely ridiculous, it might have just been kind of a bummer. It was more the act of getting excited that took the place of actual excitement. I guess that's the meta world that we live in. Getting excited about getting excited, being disappointed only because you were so excited about that excitement. Know what I mean?
I have really got to go. My free food radar is going bonkers!
Very Low Acronym Standards
I mean, come on. Just don't do an acronym if it's going to be like this. I mean, come on. This is really a stretch.
Highly Recommended: The Peanut Butter Solution
First, the trailer:
Interested? Of course you are.
Then watch THE WHOLE THING here:
http://video.google.com/
Your mind will surely be blown!
-MD
Musical Guilty Pleasure Confession 1
I'm just going to go ahead and say it.
Last week I was up in Chicago recording Raccoo-oo-oon at Nathan Cook's new studio (the studio doesn't have a name yet, and just when he thought he had decided upon the name "Strange Wool" he Googled it and promptly decided against it). On the way to and from Chicago, I had a pile of CD's that I had found in a box that I had left in James Mann's garage for a year (approximately one year longer than I told him the boxes would be there). I was glad to see some of them, but I was not glad to see most of them. You see, I used to do CD reviews for this online zine called Action Attack Helicopter, and they gave me a lot of CD's and I was kind of a mean reviewer. I liked being the mean reviewer, and it wasn't like I tried to be mean on purpose, it was just that we for the most part got a lot of crappy CD's to review. Sometimes they were good, (that Figurine CD for example) but for the most part it was either really bad or just unexceptional to the point of me just kind of wondering why people would put so much effort into making that kind of music. Point being, I have piles of CD's that I should probably just get rid of because I never listen to them.
All of this negativity is going to really surprise you when you read what I am about to write. So, in this pile of CD's there were a few that I was really glad to see, they were CD's that I had purchased at one point or another, and I got giddy when I saw that they still existed. The wheat among the chaff? Mostly stand up comedy CDs, by Woody Allen (classic!), Bill Cosby (classy!), and David Cross (obvious). There were some music CDs in there as well though, and what I found was pretty sweet. You see, there was a period in my life when I bought every Tori Amos album that came out. This was not a very long period, but it was long enough to establish a pretty serious guilty pleasure. What I had in my hands as I embarked for Chicago were Tori's second and third albums, Under the Pink and Boys for Pele. What a ride it was.
Let me explain.
Back when I was high school, I saw her video Silent All These Years on MTV. The chorus featured the 6th to flat7th chord progression, so I was kind of impressed right there. This this cool guy in my study hall, Matt McConnell sometimes wore on of her shirts, so I thought there might be something there. My aunt had her CD Little Earthquakes, so I borrowed it, and thought it was pretty good. My impression (and this law has proven to true throughout the ages) was that one third of her songs are incredibly good, and then the rest of the stuff is either kind of weird, trying to be a radio hit ("Cornflake Girl" anyone?), or just annoying. But in baseball as well as music, .333 is a pretty good batting average, when you consider what you get.
Other people who are not fans of her music have said this, and I would have to agree, but the number one thing that keeps people from liking her music is not her music, but her legion of annoying fans. Generally, I would tend to agree, there's a certain j'ne se quois about the die-hard Tori fan that rubs me the wrong way, but there are plenty of other artists with horrible fans who I am somehow willing to look past. Wilco, for example. Or The Locust.
So as I was driving, I put in these two magical CD's (you do know that she claims that her songs come to her in the form of fairies, right?). What happened next is that I would listen to the first few seconds of each song, and I could pretty much instantly remember if I liked the song or not. When it was one that I remembered liking, it was like a stampede of wild memory horses. Pretty cool.
So, here it is, my play-by-play list of songs from Under the Pink and Boys for Pele that I think are great.
Under the Pink:
Pretty Good Year <-- Good, emo.
Baker Baker <-- I really "feel" this one.
Cloud On My Tongue <-- "Leave me with your Borneo" What? Exactly!
Space Dog <-- Weird, interesting.
Yes, Anastasia <-- Epic! It should actually count as two songs.
That's 5 out of 12. Slightly better than one third, actually (although Baker Baker almost didn't make the cut [too many bad rhymes]).
What we see here is Tori Amos setting the stage for coming out as being totally crazy. There are traces of it in Little Earthquakes, a few hints here and there in Under the Pink. What comes next with Boys for Pele is a tour-de-force of a "I can do whatever I want because my legions of fans will eat it up and because my songs come to me in the form of faeries" kind of album. The picture of Tori breast feeding the piglet on the inside of the CD should be as good a hint as any. And again, one third of the time, it really works:
Father Lucifer <-- Brilliant! Wow! Scarier than Marilyn Manson could ever try to be.
Marianne <-- Very pretty! "Tuna robber, little blubber in my igloo yeah" What? Exactly!
Hey Jupiter <--Actually, now I'm not so sure. Oh well. Too late.
Way Down <-- Sure it's only like a minute long, but it is very good minute.
Agent Orange <--Same as above!
Putting the Damage On <-- I am a sucker for some good horn arrangements.
That's 5 out of 18. Kind of close to 33%. I don't know if it's nostalgia or what, but I just could not stop listening to the aforementioned songs in the car. There you have it. Rediscovering these albums has kind of left me with a dilemma: Should I follow up on her catalog after this point? If it's bad, I don't want to ruin what I consider to be a good impression. Sort of like how I wish that I had never listened to Metallica after their fourth album. I wish someone had took me aside and said "This is where it ends for you. Cherish what you have, and do not let that ass-clown Bob Rock destroy your image of the perfect heavy metal band." That, of course, did not happen, but I would like it if there is somebody out there who can point me in the right direction to (based on my assessment of albums 2 and 3) tell me if it would be a good idea for me to listen to her stuff after this. I just don't want to get hurt again, the way I did when I heard the Metallica black album. Somebody please set me straight.
The Top 1/3rd. Listen for yourself. Then feel free to leave a comment on how incredibly wrong I am.
More musical confessions to come. This is fun.
Chinese Nerd Power
The most amazing thing happens at 3:36.
He makes the robots, and then he names them after himself! This one's called Mr. Woo number 5! Seriously though, these robots are pretty amazing considering they are made of trash. If my future children ever ask for Lego Mindstorms for Christmas, I am going to just show them this video and then give them a pile of broken hairdryers. Someday they will thank me.
