Surf's Up

Just 5 or so mornings ago, I was on Ogunquit beach in Maine. It was 6:30 and foggy, a black-and-white world that may as well have been the moon. There were a few other people on the beach with me, but they were faraway and fuzzy like dust, stagehands in a play building a set for Day.

Then the sun dropped whatever it was busy doing (eating oatmeal?) and out of nowhere, cut through the mist like a light switch flipping on, not rising but arriving all at once… I thought of the Beach Boys’ song "Surf’s Up"—well, the 1967 version linked to below—a song that just sort of isn’t and then kinda is…honestly, listen, it just rolls in out of nowhere and fills you up:

Surf’s Up demo, plus Brian singing it on Leonard Bernstein's Inside Pop: The Rock Revolution TV special

Beautiful, right? A ton of cool stuff has been written and said about it—the juiciest probably being Jules Siegel’s article, “Goodbye Surfing, Hello God!,” in which Brian Wilson plays for the interviewer the black acetate dub of the song at his home, explaining its meaning, line by line. It’s pretty intense and very un-“French bikini on a Hawaiian Island doll,” but the best part is what he does when the song is over:

Wilson went into the kitchen and squirted Reddi-Whip direct from the can into his mouth; made himself a chocolate Great Shake, and ate a couple of candy bars…

I hope no one thinks I’m making fun of Brian—you know, the stories of him hanging out in his bedroom for 3 years and eating cheeseburgers, the ones that people can’t seem to get enough of. In fact, if you type in “brian wilson” in the Google Images searchbox, one of the choices it pre-fills in for you is “brian wilson fat,” which made me mad/sad all at once.

No. I just think it’s so endearing/perfect in a fairy tale/”children’s song” sort of way that a self-described “dumb angel” would fuel a masterpiece on whipped cream. Willy Wonka, with water and waves.

Sweet.

Play That Country Meowsic, White Boy

If you wore a concert T-shirt back in the day, it usually meant you went to the concert or at least knew the band and could name, say, 3 of their songs.

But things have changed, and that’s why I didn’t hesitate when I purchased a “Love that COUNTRY MEOWSIC” T-shirt, featuring an image just like the one above, on my recent trip to Nashville. I told everyone it was meant to be “ironic,” but who am I kidding? As some of you know, shamefully bad cat puns come naturally to me, so this is probably what I should be wearing every day. Not just, uh, today.

What to listen to when the bottle lets you down
Glen Campbell, Rhinestone Cowboy

Dillard & Clark, Through the Morning, Through the Night
Holy cannoli, is this song beautiful! (Clark means Gene, as in the former Byrdman.)

Hank Williams, Jr., Tennessee Stud
The song’s way hokey, but a good example of how some country songs are like little epic poems. “The Tennessee stud’s green eyes turned blue, ‘cause he was dreaming of his sweetheart, too…” (FYI, the Tennessee stud’s sweetheart is the Tennessee mare.) The comments on this vid are hysterical, too. Well, a little bit funny at first but ultimately disturbing.

P.S. When I searched for an image of the shirt, I came upon a picture of Vampire Weekend-leader Ezra wearing the exact same one I have.


It was posted on a fan forum, collecting comments about how cool he/it/he-wearing-it is, i.e.:

Definately, that shirt is a chic magnet and Ezra wearing it is beyond words. only thing i can say is gaaawww. only thing better than ezra wearign that shirt is ezra not wearing any shirt at all. *wink wink*

Of course, now I’m fascinated by the fine line between “chic” magnet and geek magnet. What if Ezra were wearing an I Heart MJ shirt…

…or this?




P.S.S. I don’t know much about Vampire Weekend, but my friend Holly at The Song In My Head Today does.

Double Vision

When I first met Festivus, the black kitty I’ve been fostering in my office since last week, I immediately fell in love with his big old head, carved of night and panther-wide. His face a river, broad and deep, flowing and rippling with catthoughts and catfeelings…

Aha! He reminded me of the beast in Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et La Bete, as portrayed by Jean Marais, above.

Totally catty, right? It’s one of my all-time favorite films, but for some reason thinking about it makes me profoundly sad. I don’t know if I can explain it, but I just walked into the living room as America’s Funniest Home Videos was playing a clip of some kid with a piece of spaghetti shooting out of his nose and, as the canned laughter and clapping by people-told-when-to-clap faded, I thought, “That is the exact opposite of Beauty and the Beast.” Which is OK—it’s not a judgment, really, just a fear… I hope people don’t laugh at Cocteau’s beautiful poem-film and think it “quaint,” or that we’re way past a candelabra held by a disembodied arm, in a pearly swirly palace in a black-and-white world of mirrors and magic and mist...

Ruh roh, sounds like a Cocteau Twins song! Eggs and Their Shells. Shallow Then Halo. The Spangle Maker. And those beautiful 4AD sleeves, making me want to buy a rock tumbler so everything hard could be soft, and wear clothes the color of mold and moss.

Thinking about the Cocteau Twins makes me melancholy, too. I did a Wikipedia search and then found myself watching a video of Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops, and wishing I hadn’t. Oh, it was all beautiful, but I much preferred thinking that the songs were sung and played by tiny redheaded fairies in a woodland clearing, or at least a flock of twittering sparrows or, heck, a pair of squirrels. To think they actually toured (and that I could have seen them but clearly didn’t want to break the spell), and that there’s even a genre for their music—dream pop. Eeek. And though I pretended not to know their species, I did know that they weren’t really twins but rather a trio. The voice? Elizabeth Fraser.

Oh, well. It’ll be OK. It’s just that there aren’t any good reality shows on TV right now, which is one of my main sources of truth and beauty these days. (Not my fault, I swear—my growing-up music was 80s music, so I’m used to that sort of “difficult beauty” you have to really look hard for, but can find in RuPaul’s Drag Race, Sober House and From G’s to Gents if you try.)

I just really, really, really miss thinking that life is more like a poem than a Facebook status.

P.S. Wondering why there are visions of George Costanza pole-dancing in your head?

Forgive me. They were no doubt triggered by the name Festivus, celebrated on December 23 in the land of Seinfeld.

Too Much Monkey Business

Jeff Koons has said there are no hidden meanings in his art. OK, then, so how come I didn’t get that his 1988 Michael Jackson and Bubbles, dubbed a “masterpiece” by Charlie Finch in artnet magazine, “entraps MJ in gold leaf like a metrosexual Midas and offers the chimp Bubbles as a witty child substitute?” “The total effect,” writes Finch, “is one of transcendent impotence, a brutal contradiction constantly underscored by the futility of Jackson’s crotch grabbing in performance and facial procedures under the surgeon’s knife.”

It’s not like I’m one of those people who gets all angry at the proverbial white canvas with a big red dot—my definitions of art and beauty are way more inclusive than they are exclusive—and it’s also not because I’m the kind of person who has the Michael Jackson Dress-Up Colorforms set (my favorite is his outfit from Beat It)...I just wouldn’t call this inspired. Actually I’d call it expired, its energy kind of going nowhere, though I do like the shiny fool’s-golden Franklin Mint aspect of it (get this $5.6 million sculpture for just 3 low payments of 19.99!). And if you can’t get your hands on one of the 3 identical sculptures Koons created, you can always purchase a t-shirt with the image on it. (I saw one on Etsy today! Geesh!)

Nah—screw the talk of Koons depicting childhood as a “lifeless signifier of death” (though that at least explains the piece's silent/gumball machine-esque nature) …what bugs me is he did a crappy job of depicting Bubbles! Either he needs to get some lessons from the sculptors at Franklin Mint or lose the speciesist notion that all chimps look the same. I ask you—does that look like a chimp who can moon walk and has drank tea with the mayor of Osaka?



For when you really feel like pant-hooting
Apeman, The Kinks


Ooooh! Could I get Ray’s big white fluffy jacket in 3 easy payments of $19.99?

Divining Rod

Rod was my first.

Concert, that is. I saw him on his Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? tour at Madison Square Garden, and even with my older sister for a chaperone, I’m surprised my parents let me go—I mean, this was a kid who wasn’t allowed to see a movie unless it was deemed “unobjectionable” by the Long Island Catholic newspaper. Had the editors got a load of Rod, all humping and bumping in his leather and spandex, no way would I have been standing there in my borrowed Candies heels (which I wound up ruining somehow—I can still see a greasy spot on the perforated beige leather) with my three fellow Most Holy Trinity schoolmates.

I don’t remember much of the concert, but I can still recall holding the album in my 5th-grader hands (Blondes Have More Fun!), and singing the song from whence the tour took its name—supposedly Rod’s answer to the Stones’ “Miss You”—with my classmates, screaming with laughter and having no idea if he was sexy or not, mainly because I didn’t have a working definition of sexy.

We were too young for Rod to be included on our “cute” radar (which likely targeted no male older than 15), but not too dull that we didn’t get his overall appeal. He was like one of those satin baseball jackets popular at the time, all fancy and slick and shiny, and certainly not as threatening—to young me, at least—as, say, Led Zeppelin. (I remember being unsettled and kind of frightened by “The Lemon Song,” and would always pick up the needle and plunk it down on the next track, the way, way more digestible “Thank You." ) Yes, I know, there’s a delicious irony—and something so sweet, too—in a bird-watching, sticker-collecting, genuflecting, funny-looking misfit of a little girl saving up to buy the even-then old Led Zeppelin II, isn’t there? Admittedly, I wasn't advanced enough to have made the Rod/Faces/Jeff Beck connection, though.

Anyway, thank you, Rod, for putting out (at the concert, people!) and for being a true showman. Bonus points for the meezer, too.

Supporting materials for getting your Rod on
Da Ya Think I'm Sexy? video
HA!! I found the squats particularly jarring, but overall a classic.

Everything you always wanted to know about Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?
Something about the layout of the page is very endearing. Is it the melon-and-tangerine freshness? Favorite bit: “This song was used in an animated TV commercial for Chips Ahoy! where a cartoon cookie sings.”

Strange Magic

Bing has charisma, and he knows how to use it. And I’m not talking about the vaguely baby seal-ish face he employs when he wants a treat. Nope, this true Aquarian’s got his blue eyes on a way bigger prize—the world in general, and the world of lady cats in particular.

How do I know this? He told the animal communicator that he sees himself as a “matinee idol” (I know, I know, I’ve told this story many times. I don’t know why I persist, because it’s nothing but a conversation stopper) and that he was sure that all the girl cats would fall in love with him when they saw his photograph as it appeared in the 2002 ASPCA calendar. “Oooooh, Mr. November,” I see them purring.

Star quality? Whatever you want to call it, I think it has something to do with going through life imagining/assuming that you are being looked at, that there is an enveloping, admiring gaze on you. You wanna see it in action in human form? Watch the next Yankees game and set your sights on lucky #13.



Though his technique isn’t as refined as Bing’s, A Rod is all over the matinee-idol wannabe thing. The first time I noticed it looked like he was playing for the camera, he actually was. As he was rounding the bases after hitting a home run, he paused ever so slightly at 3rd, turned to face the camera and…did he smile? did he give a thumbs-up? (Oh no, that was Don Johnson, whom I’m hoping my friend Stephanie will tell you about in the comments box…) Anyway, I later saw the same clip of him in some promotional material, and he hasn’t stopped acting like we’re all looking ever since. Well, we are all looking, but he’s so dang obvious I laugh (and fall for it) every time. He’s not only playing the game, he’s playing himself playing the game.

Yes, A Rod is hot sh** and he isn’t about to let us forget it. True charisma, however, is when someone makes you, the viewer, the one doing the looking, the one initiating the gaze, feel like hot sh**. You don’t have to be a famous actor to have charisma, though that’s probably where it gets you the most money…and as such, that’s probably its grossest form. (Gross meaning unrefined here).

I remember walking through Times Square after I’d been country line dancing one night, probably like 10 years ago. I passed by one of the Broadway theaters and noticed someone getting into a limousine, and that person was…looking at me. Looking at ME? Yes, looking at me, as I walked by. Well, why not? I was swaggering by in my cowboy boots, all cat’s meow and hot sh**. Who is that person who thinks I’m the cat’s meow? I’ve seen him, I know him, is he the weatherman from the local news or something, someone you relate to on a half-snoozy level?

No, it was Warren Beatty. And he wasn’t looking at me, I was looking at him, and he was reflecting it right back at me. It’s not like I necessarily liked him either. I mean, I like Shampoo, but never made any further investments.



It was simply that which makes you think you’re greater than anything that can be thought…that old devil, charisma. And I walked on home, a little lighter and brighter than before.

Music for those who’ve got their mojo on
Strange Magic, ELO
It’s Your Voodoo Working, Charles Sheffield

I Lack the Christian Life

I was sitting in the Panera across from the Nashville Convention Center yesterday when the soundtrack in my brain started playing “The Christian Life.”

What’s up with that? I haven’t heard it in awhile, and it’s really not the sort of song you listen to for fun. To even get past the first verse, there has to be this weird line-up of factors: an open heart and a satisfied mind and a buttload of irony, combined with “let me show off my snobby musical taste” and a plastic Mary statue on the dashboard. Oh, and it sounds best when you sing along, badly and loudly, after drinking too much at someone you like’s birthday party.

The version playing in my head was this crazy-good megamix, too. My memory had decided to grab the best bits of the three versions I know, so there was a shot of Louvin Brothers, a fifth of the Byrds, with a little Gram Parsons on lead vocals.

Sure, I'm in Music City and I’d just heard Emmylou Harris speak about how she got started helping shelter dogs (did I explain I was at HSUS Animal Care Expo?), and maybe I was feeling especially prim and proper since the nice woman who served me recommended I get my bagel sliced because it would be more “ladylike.” (How the heck did she know I probably would have pecked at it and pulled it apart like a chicken? No offense to chickens. )

No, it wasn’t any of those things. It was more that the Panera across from the Convention Center happened to be catty-corner to the McKendree United Methodist Church Christian Life Center. I was just an example of the power of suggestion, one of those manipulated bozos who’d probably run and buy a Coke at the movies when they show those subliminal messages on the screen.

Perhaps that’s why I left Panera and wandered past the Ryman Auditorium, straight to the tackiest Elvis-filled souvenir store (YES! quite like a crow finding something shiny) I could find. I purchased the first item that made me laugh out loud. (If you Google “The Slut’s Pen,” you’ll find out where to buy a dozen for 48 bucks.)

And no, I won’t describe it here because, believe it or not, I’m not that kind of girl. Er, blogger.

Music to realign your cosmos
The Christian Life, The Byrds (w/GP singing lead)

Return of the Grievous Angel, Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris
The ‘calico bonnet’ line makes me think of my cat Paloma, so even if it weren’t for the gorgeous lyrics and harmonies, I’d love this dang song anyway.