LIKE SPINNING PLATES

Sometimes I think that old Virginny is trying to speak to me through its license plates.

But all too often, I have no idea what the fuck it's trying to say.

Take today for example. Within the span of about 90 seconds, I saw the following two plates:

2OSAS

2URSUS

So what's the message, Virginia?

“sliced tongue, watch out for them bears”?

WTF VA.

AND SHE'S GONE

Lucy in the sky died...

AND IN THE END

The people have gesprochen.

Here are the top 5 Beatles remasters in terms of first-week sales:

1. Abbey Road, 89K
2. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 74K
3. The Beatles (white album), 60K
4. Rubber Soul, 58K
5. Revolver, 46K

Not a bad week for a band that broke up 4o years ago. Well done, hype masters! Well done, remasters!

A THOUSAND PAGES GIVE OR TAKE A FEW (HUNDRED)

Much ink has been shed and many pixels have been sacrificed in the service of chronicling every damn thing The Beatles ever did.

One of the more compelling books you're going to find is Revolution in the Head, Ian MacDonald's detailed analysis of each song the band recorded. It is sometimes bafflingly music-geeky (“cyclic arpeggios” and “plain E Dorian melodies” anyone?), decidedly pro-Macca/anti-Lennon, and reactionary to a fault (stating as fact the “catastrophic decline of pop” after 1966).

That being said, it is also passionate, insightful, and incredibly detailed. It is the type of book that perhaps only The Beatles deserve...

GOOD NIGHT SLEEP TIGHT

Random thoughts on the remasters I bought:

-Tell Me Why is every inch as good as Heatwave, which it apes, and White Riot, which it begat.

-Next time you care to make fun of Ringo, listen to Ticket to Ride. I don't know shit about drumming, but that right there is brilliant drumming.

-I wish she was leaving home in pursuit of something more profound than “fun.” But I suppose the lack of profundity is what seals our sympathy for the middle-class mum and dad, which is a pretty extraordinary slant for 1967.

-”I used to be cruel to my woman/I beat her and kept her apart from the things that she loved”? Not cool, The Beatles. Not cool.

-On the other hand... I was taking my mom out shopping last Sunday. She's recovering from a mild stroke and battling arthritic knees, so it takes her 4 or 5 arduous minutes to get in the car. As she worked to pull herself across the back seat, she heard Getting Better playing on the radio. “I like your music,” she said, her face brightening. And here I let Paul carry the moment, and left John out of it...

-The guitar solo in I Should Have Known Better is just the damn dinkiest thing. Sounds like someone breaks a string at the end of it.

-Yesterday endures because it is 2:06.

-Glass Onion's obnoxious solipsism is one thing, but how about Savoy Truffle: “We all know ob-la-di-bla-da...” Um, yeah, we all know it, George... from aaaalllll the way back on fucking side 1. Sheesh.

CHASING PAPER

The fourth Beatles remaster I bought? Why, it's all there in that previous post.

Here's a hint: white text on a white background.

Now, go plant some acorns for peace, ya knuckleheads...

YOU ASK ME FOR A CONTRIBUTION

The last of the four Beatles remasters that I bought was the white album. That sprawling, bawling, yawing, hawing, mess of an album.

The thing is so schizophrenic that an actual schizophrenic heard in it messages to foment violent revolution.

Never mind that one of those songs was a slight but noisy ode to a fairground ride (Helter Skelter). Mind that one was a fairly vitriolic attack on middle-class values (Piggies).

And I have to say, whereas Helter Skelter always felt kind of cleansing to me, Piggies still just sounds nasty and condescending. I mean, that line about “clutching forks and knives to eat their bacon” (cannibalism, you see) is positively Swiftian—well, if Swift had been a moralizing, humorless prig, that is.

To indulge in some parlour games, here’s my version of the great single-album tracklist:

Side A
1. Back in the USSR
2. Dear Prudence
3. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
4. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
5. Happiness is a Warm Gun
6. I’m So Tired

Side B
1. Birthday
2. Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey
3. Sexy Sadie
4. Julia
5. Helter Skelter
6. Revolution 1

FUN IS THE ONE THING THAT MONEY CAN'T BUY

Next up on the remaster parade is Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The album is at heart a confection.

Its weight, in the context of late 60's Romantic notions, is its weightlessness.

Right up until A Day in the Life, that is.

Don't get me wrong-- A Day in the Life earns all its due respect as a watershed moment in pop. But, really it just seems out of place here. Sgt Pepper proper would be a much tidier affair if it ended with the reprise.

And as a bonus, then we could all acknowledge She's Leaving Home as the best single song on the album without feeling guilty...

HEAD IN HAND

The next Beatles remaster I picked up was Help!

The drill here is essentially the same as with A Hard Day's Night: seven brilliant soundtrack songs, followed by, um, others (quick-- whistle You Like Me Too Much or Tell Me What You See). The line of demarcation is drawn in boldface when Ticket to Ride gives way to Act Naturally.

But in this case, “other” also includes I've Just Seen a Face and Yesterday. (Thanks, Paul.) Plus, the brilliant songs are “better” than the one's on A Hard Day's Night because they're more “mature.”

So, while A Hard Day's Night is the winner in the movie category, Help! has got it on songs...

I DON'T CARE TOO MUCH FOR MONEY

Depending on the angle of light on any given day, The Beatles can appear infinite.

But then you see the box set sitting there: 14 discs, 180 or so songs. And The Beatles seem as tiny as England.

The truth-- as always-- is somewhere in between.

I didn't gob up for the box-- too many middling early covers I'll never listen to, plus the Yellow Submarine soundtrack.

I started with A Hard Day's Night.

The first seven songs are from the movie, and are pretty much magic in a can: A Hard Day's Night, I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, And I Love Her, Tell Me Why, Can't Buy Me Love.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, and bang.

The back six is not quite as strong. There's a reason you probably couldn't sing I'll Be Back or When I Get Home if I dared you.

But if the whole thing doesn't tickle your spine, you might want to try breathing on a mirror...

FOR SALE

Boy, they have just marketed the fuck out of those Beatles remasters.

Not that The Beatles had too much fuck in them to begin with.

So, um, which ones did you buy?

I'll tell you about mine...

VOULEZ-VOUS

I was looking at my usage stats the other day, and saw that someone from France had stumbled upon this page last week, my 2005 “interview” with Rudolf Schenker of Scorpions.

And I had this vision of a guy for whom perhaps English is not a first language (OK, I call him Jacques—my visions are pretty fleshed out), mistaking this for an actual interview.

In my vision, Jacques is the editor of the premier French Scorpions fanzine (it’s called “Scorpions: Les Maîtres de Rock” and it’s a 64-page, four-color, A4 affair), and he decides to appropriate my piece for an upcoming issue.

And that way, all the Scorpions fans in France and the French-speaking world can enjoy what is my favorite phrase ever in the history of this blog: “the bras bloom like tulips.”

Or as the French say, “la fleur de soutiens-gorge aiment des tulips”…

SKIP A LIFE COMPLETELY

Man, did Adventureland ever knock me for a loop.

Let me count the ways.

1. Setting. I grew up a couple of miles from the Adventureland that “inspired” the movie-- spent plenty of time there as a kid. Apparently the filmmakers looked to shoot at the Long Island location, but it had been modernized out of the 80s, so they found a more vintage park and changed the setting to Pittsburgh.
2. Soundtrack. Husker Du. The Replacements. The JAMC. The Velvet Underground. Hell, the third-album Velvet Underground, specifically. That was my 1987, too.
3. The piddling job. I did my time at a Waldbaum's deli counter, slicing meat for the masses (see this blog, name of).
4. Romance. Heidi and I came together for a brief moment at the deli. She was a sophomore, a surfer, a Deadhead, adrift. I was none of those things...except adrift. She invited me to a party, and I asked if I could bring a friend. When I showed up with Kenny, she assumed I was gay. I assured her I was not, and we ended the evening with an involved kiss. I had never kissed someone who was as tall as Heidi. We spent time together for the next few weeks. I wrote her poems, we wrote each other letters, and we stayed on the phone into the after hours. She slept in my bed the night before she went back to Binghamton. The poems, letters, and phone calls continued long distance for another couple of weeks, until she was absorbed finally back into life in her dorm. And it was over.
   

So, yeah-- a loop.

And I tell you, I have never liked being upside down...

A GREAT LONGING

Llllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaasssssssssss!

WHITE LABBIT

Picked this shirt up in NY at Century 21:



I swear I'm not biting your style, brain coral. It's just a really cool shirt.

Let's call it a tribute...

CHIPS AHOY

The best material gift my family brought me from Japan was a jumbo bag of nacho cheese Doritos from Costco.

Japanese nacho cheese Doritos are the platonic ideal of Doritos.

They are smaller than American Doritos, and a single chip can be eaten reasonably in a single bite.

They are slightly thicker, and therefore have a more substantial crunch.

The flavoring is mild, as opposed to the overwhelming orange powder of their American counterparts. This allows for an appropriate balance between the cheese flavor and the corn flavor.

I ran through the whole bag in about a week and a half, and I don't typically snack too much.

Japanese nacho cheese Doritos put the lay in Frito-Lay...

SHADE TOO WHITE

I like that Amazon offers 50 albums for download each month at $5 a pop.

I don't like that such a large percentage of the albums suck pepperjack.

Like, if you think you need a copy of Kings of the Wild Frontier, I'm here to tell you that you don't. Not even for a fivver.

This'll do for that...