SPY VS SPY

I was 21 years when I wrote this song
I'm 22 now, but I won't be for long...

These, of course, are the opening lines to A New England by Billy Bragg, from lo, those many years ago.

But it was just yesterday that those lyrics put me in a crisis.

Let’s parse the ontology, as the French kids like to say...

One would think that the phrase “wrote this song” is meant comprehensively, that is, I wrote the music and the words. But if that is indeed the case, how does that “now” come into play?

Did he write the song when he was 21 with a different second line? Say,

I was 21 years when I wrote this song
Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong

Then, by the time he scored a record deal and hit the studio, he was 22 and updated the lyric to its present state?

That has to be it. Otherwise, this song bends all known laws of temporal physics. And gives me a splitting headache to boot...

GASSED AND FLACCID KIDS

Guilty pleasure

Along Comes Mary—The Association

My music teacher in middle school— Ms Cutler?— was an unreconstructed hippie. She reveled in the opportunity to share with us kids the wondrous sounds of the 60s.

Unfortunately, the wondrous sounds of the 60s to her meant the likes of Simon and Garfunkel’s Richard Cory (social commentary!), CSN’s Marrakesh Express (drugs!), and Along Comes Mary (more drugs!).

We’ll-call-her-Ms-Cutler used to try to replicate the whole psychedelic experience by flipping the classroom light switch on and off maniacally while a crackly version of one of the above songs played on a portable record player.

Sigh. Fecking hippies.

Still, though, Along Comes Mary survives in my esteem...

DIE CUT

If I ever bothered to make a list of my favorite videos, this would be a resident.

I've never technically had a dream where I came to on a typical suburban street after a car accident, wended my way past the wreckage, wept at the sight of a burning chair, ran off into the woods, found a box, opened the box, and was bathed in a pod of light.

But fuck, I actually sort of have...

Broadcast-- Tender Buttons

NEWS OF THE WORLD

I mentioned to my friend Tom a past affinity for Spread Your Wings by Queen, and he was kind enough to send along a link to the video.

It took a minute for me to reconstruct what the song had meant to me.

Hearing it again, it sounded harsher and more abrasive than I remembered. I think in my memory it was meeker.

But really it was me who was meek...

I stood in Michael’s basement, an expansive room crowded by a pool table, a ping pong table, and scores of orange Hot Wheels’ tracks. I stood, an 11-year old among a party of 12-year olds, and cried. Michael had slapped me across the face for sport.

He was a year older, and I called him my friend. And he was once, but as time wore on, the relationship became defined by his abuse and my passivity.

I left this party in tears, and ran out into the teeth of a winter storm...

By the time we reached high school, I enacted some empty revenge by terrorizing Michael when he strayed into a bathroom to which me and some of my buddies had staked a claim. But this did not wash away the aluminum aftertaste of my former timidity.

And so in Spread Your Wings, part of the soundtrack to those days, I do not hear perseverance and victory, but rather the echoes of humiliation and defeat...

EVERY SPERM IS SACRED

If Stephin Merritt, Salvador Dali, and your ninth-grade biology teacher got together, they would eventually concoct the Chiba Lotte Marines seventh-inning stretch:

DOLLS

I tried it out on the kids tonight...

"Dad, she pushed me!"

"Dear, don't push your brother. If you do it again, I am going to sell your womma."

I'm a parenting genius.

KISS THIS GUY

I picked up a copy of the Dolls' Too Much, Too Soon in Japan-- it appears to be out of print over here.

Reading the lyrics in the CD booklet is as disconcerting as listening to a lunatic rant.

Like, occasionally there are moments of lucidity where they flat get it right.

Then there are moments where, with some effort, you can reconstruct a bit of the logic behind the babble:

“That reminds me of Will Rogers
Back in 1933
And that was the year when he crashed on down
And his engines all packed up”

OK, yeah, Will Rogers died in a plane crash. Sure it was in 1935, but it was a plane crash. And I suppose that would cause one's engines to, um, pack up.

Of course it makes zero sense contextually. Here's the real deal:

“That reminds me of Buck Rogers
Back in 1933
That was the year when he crashed on down
And all the decos got stacked up”

And in moments like “Dad's gonna sell your womma” (“That's when I saw your momma”) I succumb to human frailty and avert my eyes...

IT IS TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME, TIME...

I have an awesome video of Arthur Lee performing You Set the Scene on Later from a few years back that now plays like a valedictory.

It laughs at life, and it laughs at death. It stresses that decay is just a trite physical process.

Because the soul does not decay.

I can't find a clip of that video, so here's a vintage promo film for Your Mind and We Belong Together.

RIP Arthur Lee.

男の子やあ

Sweeping generalizations suck monkey, but here's one for a welcome back: The Japanese loved my Creem t-shirt.

And to a lesser extent, my Davey & Goliath t-shirt...

THE SHINE OF YOUR JAPAN

I’m leaving on Friday for two weeks in Japan, and the next couple of days will be dizzy with last-minute preparation, so I’ll see you again on August 21, jet lag willing...

Here are some Japan lyrics off the top of my head. Ganbatte!

I'd rather be in Tokyo,
I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy-oh,
And watch the Sunday gang in Harajuku,
There’s something wrong with me— I’m a cuckoo...
-I’m a Cuckoo, Belle and Sebastian

Oh no, there goes Tokyo—
Go go Godzilla!
-Godzilla, Blue Oyster Cult

"This is a special news report.
Godzilla has been sighted in Tokyo Bay.
The attack on it by the Self-Defense Force has been useless.
He is heading towards the city. AAAAAGGGGHHHH!!!!!"
-Superman, R.E.M. (Japanese-language opening)

My woman from Tokyo
She makes me see,
My woman from Tokyo
She's so good to me.
-Woman from Tokyo, Deep Purple

Turning Japanese,
I think I'm turning Japanese
I really think so...
-Turning Japanese, The Vapors

I will wait here for my man tonight, it's easy when you’re big in Japan.
When you’re big in Japan, tonight,
Big in Japan, be tight, big in Japan, where the Eastern sea's so blue.
Big in Japan, alright, pay, then I'll sleep by your side,
Things are easy when you're big in Japan, when you're big in Japan...
-Big in Japan, Alphaville

She rode to Japan,
And we entered a town...
-My Wild Love, The Doors

I dreamed headlong collisions in jet lag panavisions,
I shouted “Sayonara!” it didn't mean goodbye.
But lovers turn to posers,
Show up in film exposures,
Just like in travel brochures
Discovering Japan, discovering Japan...
-Discovering Japan, Graham Parker and the Rumour

Everywhere in the world is good,
But Osaka is the best town, Osaka is the best town...
-My Favorite Town Osaka, Shonen Knife