The Passion Of The Drunk

Well, look who was driving 87 mph down the Pacific Coast Highway at 2:36 am this morning, blowing a 0.12 on the old Breathalyzer. (Click on the title.)

You can bet your ass if I was caught doing that, they wouldn't call it "suspicion" of DUI. It would be plain old DUI.

What makes this news postworthy is that Gibson usually goes out of his way to make people aware of two things.

1. He used to drink. A lot. (Check out his old interviews.) If you want to believe Hollywood lore, he lost a few roles over his drinking.

2. He gave up drinking because he matured and wanted to be a family man.

Why people feel the need to tell you they used to drink a lot is beyond me. Are we supposed to think they were cool? And that they some ascended to a higher plane of being by not drinking anymore?

Which avenue to redemption will Mel chose? Will it be the "I made a one-time mistake and will never do it again. And by the way I love my wife and kids"? Or the Betty Ford Clinic?

Try not to be too shocked that a quasi-religious public figure doesn't walk it like he talks it.

Classic Rock Songs I Can Still Listen To

Back before it was called classic rock, it was just songs that the radio played over and over. I must have heard "Radar Love" 500 times between ninth grade and the time I graduated college. And I got sick of almost all of them. But you can't kill a really good song, so I still listen to these when I come across them.

1. Cream "Crossroads" (The live version from Wheels of Fire). The musicians in Cream were good, but when they tried to inject psychedelia into their music, or play 16 minute drum solos, they sucked. "Crossroads" is great because all they do is play.

2. Jimi Hendrix Experience "All Along the Watchtower". He didn't write it, but he sure got to the heart of the matter. This song was cover by lots of artists, and they all play Jimi's version.

3. Blue Oyster Cult "Burning For You". There is just something about this song that appeals to people that like punk music. I don't know why. What I do know is plenty of people that ignore classic rock but love this song. I once read a book by a female punk fan who said on her college radio show she played only punk, and "Burning For You", so I know it's not just me.

4. The Doors "Wishful Sinful". Although Morrison is in full messianic wail (groan), the lush string and horn arrangements make all of The Soft Parade strangely compelling.

5. The Rolling Stones "Monkey Man". Every time some DJ would play "You Can't Always Get What You Want", I wondered why he wasn't playing this Stones song that was half as long and a hundred times better.

6. Ted Nugent "Free For All". He just finds a good groove and sticks with it. And, thankfully, not for a "Stranglehold"-like 8 minutes.

Family Values Include Getting Fired

Thank God the virtues of the eternially imperiled American family (I love that phrase, coined by Dan Savage) were strong enough to withhold the pounding they took when Melanie Martinez hosted The Good Night Show. Her amoral reign of terror came to an end today when she was fired by PBSprout. Click on the link to read why she was fired.

If you are like me, you never heard of the show. Basically, it is three hours of wind down programing to get your preschoolers ready for bed. It runs in three hour blocks, from 6PM to 3AM, in case your kid's wind down time starts at 2AM.

I can't imagine why our tax dollars (it's PBS) are being spent to read bedtime stories to kids. Isn't that what parents are supposed to do? Especially the "family values" crowd, who carry on and on about how modern society is ruining their children. I would think these people would relish spending time with their children (not just talking about spending time with their children), instead, they just plop their kids in front of the TV and start surfing the Internet for free porn.

Here's where the hypocracy comes in. Melanie was fired because some comments she made in a video seven years ago were deemed inappropriate and would undermine her credibility with the audience. Her audience is a bunch of three-year-old that don't even comprehend the concept of credibility. All they want is someone with a pleasant voice to read them a story.

This firing was done to placate the parents. The same parents who probably slept with their high school sweetheart, did drugs in college, call in sick to play golf, and do all sorts of other things for which they don't want to be judged. They would say "That is just something I did, don't judge me as a person by it". Yet they will stand in judgment over comments made by a TV host.

It is possible that these parents will band together and demand Melanie be reinstated, and I will look like an overreacting jerk. Please make me look like an overreacting jerk.

Springsteen

This post is going to attempt to answer the following questions.

1. Why do people like Bruce Springsteen's music?

2. Seriously, why do people like Bruce Springsteen's music?

About 20 years ago, he was as big as any star of the 80's. I had never liked him, but with the release of Born in the USA and something like 7 charting singles, his music was inescapable over the mid 1980's. The kids listened to it, their parents listened to it, tens of thousands of people went to his marathon concerts, and a 5 album box set of live recordings was released.

At the time, I didn't get it. I still don't totally get it, but I think I somewhat get it.

Back before we could listen to lots of different free music on the Internet, we had to swallow a lot of crap that the radio fed us. Which meant that if an artist had a huge album, you had to hear the songs plenty of times. This gives you plenty of time to analyze the songs, what worked, what didn't work, and how they related to each other.

Even with that, I had to read a lot of critcism about his work before it was all put into perspective for me.

This is not an original analysis, but you must understand it, because this is the answer to question 1.

The reason why people like Springsteen's music is that his songs are a unique combination of 60's musical influences. He starts by writing a 60's style straight ahead pop song (as opposed to a 60's album song, there will be no lengthy In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida indulgent hippie solo workouts in his songs). Then he crams in other influences, like using a Roy Orbison like expressive vocal style, but writing Dylan-like, jam as much as you can into a line, lyrics, and setting this all against Wall-of-Sound production. I could easily list some more obscure influences, but the point is his songs sound like a bunch of things you have heard before. They are original, but familiar.

Think of this the next time you hear "Born To Run", "Dancing in the Dark", or "Glory Days". Or listen to that elephantine live set. The E Street Band sounds like they are still playing bars (this is meant as a compliment), tight and fast, not sleepwalking all over the place like some 80's stadium act (think Journey). It is no surprise that the first single of the live set was the Edwin Starr oldie "War". It comes straight from the musical time frame Springsteen relates to.

Which explains why people like his music. But it doesn't explain why people really like his music. Because as cleverly constructed as the music is, I find it emotionally cold.

Which brings us to question #2. No doubt there are (or were) tens of thousands of people that emotionally relate to his music. But with a few exceptions (like "Brilliant Disguise"), I just don't get it. He sings about a lot of generic things that sound like something that might have happened to someone somewhere (I am sure somebody somewhere ran into the lake in just his socks and his shirt) but he ends up coming off like a ninth grade poet trying to sound deep, trying to write about experiences he expects to have, but never actually lived through.

And musicians that perform cleverly constucted songs usually don't do well in the marketplace. Probably the best example I can think of is The Tubes. They have a number of cleverly constructed songs, full of sly commentary and a subersive musical style ("Don't Touch Me There" is a perfect example. Also check out "Prime Time"). They had a lot of videos in the can when MTV first came on the air, so they got a lot of play. But their cleverly construced songs got them nowhere, and all anyone remembers was their hit "She's A Beauty", a song I suspect not a lot of people thought about what it really meant.

So since we know tens of thousand of people aren't listening to Bruce's songs because they admire their blending of musical styles, what are they listening for? His generic tales of strife offset by the occasional minor triumph? Because it sounds like the music that was popular when they were kids, and not that modern music of today? Because rock critics tell them to?