The Wily Filipino

Your New Favorite Song, Part 3.

All right, here's a bootleg offering for you folks: the best band in America, Yo La Tengo, doing a blistering cover of Brinsley Schwarz's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love And Understanding" on the first night of their series of Hanukkah concerts in Hoboken back in 2001. (Okay, it's really Elvis Costello's cover version they cover here.)

Earlier this year I was driving up and down Interstate 80 from San Francisco to Davis and back and was overly conscious of the "No War On Iraq" bumper sticker on my car. I have to admit that, at the height of my paranoia (and anger and confusion), I was a little worried every time I'd step out to get gas; I looked different, and my politics were probably different too. But no matter: when this song came on my car stereo, practically at the beginning of Yo La Tengo's set, I felt oddly... invincible. Like the war would never begin and everything would be all right. Or something like that.

(It's not the clearest recording, but it's still a great version, and anything Yo La Tengo performs is still tops in my book.)

Screaming Monkeys.

M. Evelina Galang's Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images (Coffee House Press, 2003) arrived in my mailbox today, and -- from what I've gleaned in the last 20 minutes since I pulled it out of the priority mail envelope -- it sure looks like it kicks ass. Scholarly articles, memoirs, poetry, fiction, art, primary historical documents, advertisements -- it's all here. Thankfully it's not too late to change my syllabus for the spring; this looks like essential, thought-provoking (and most important for my students, exciting) stuff. And yes, I do read the books before I assign them. =)

(I got my copy from Small Press Distribution -- okay, I know it's cheaper at another online bookstore, but...)

p.s. to you poet-types out there: Does anyone know why Michael Gottlieb's Lost and Found seems to have been "removed," with a new version apparently coming out in mid-December instead? And why Roof Books doesn't even list it?

Spam Poetry, Part 2.

Michelle writes that I beat her to the punch by posting spam poetry. I don't know if what I posted would really qualify as "spam" -- "real" spam poetry would probably look like this crude offering:

I am hard.
I stay hard.
I am natural viagra.
I add three inches to my cable descrambler.
I make $$$$$ from my hot and horny computer.
I find the truth about my neighbor's gas mileage.
I astound my wife with prescription drugs delivered overnight.
I watch Jenny and her slutty cheerleader friends refinance home loans.

I am spam.
I contain multitudes.

Since then I've received about three or four more of those odd spam messages -- with great titles like "restless old immanuels" and "when he laid" -- and I'm not sure what to do with them. "restless old immanuels" doesn't start off very well -- the first two words are "german pecan," and "gesture wotan cheesecake cunningham" just stops the whole thing dead (though "cheesecake cunningham" works with "terrible betsy"). But it ends with:

glued thickish.
delinquent
soften

which I kind of like.

And Now, Back To Work.

Damn you, Rhett! I should be working!

15.77909% -- Geek.

And:

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!

Level descriptions: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-information.html
Take the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv

Which is, alas, crap for various reasons, like the Gender Test (it thought I was "definitely a woman!")

All About Adobo: a Call for Blog Entries.

Adobo -- eating it, cooking it, talking about it, thinking about it -- is also about memory, colonialism, cultural contact, consumption, family, cuisine, the senses, identity... and it's good to eat too!

Remembrances, poetry, stories, recipes, photographs and other ruminations, whether fragmented or complete, long or short, rough or polished, are all welcome.

"Deadline" -- or rather, posting time -- will be Monday, December 8 -- just drop me a line via email at wily [ a t ] thewilyfilipino.com when you've posted it on your blog, and I will combine the links (which you can then similarly append to your entries). (If you don't have a blog, feel free to send me the writeup and I can post it on mine.) I encourage everyone to comment on each other's work as well.

Hopefully this will be the beginning of a kind of collaborative Pinoy/Pinay blog project -- one in a series where Filipina/o bloggers all write and post on the same topic (on the same day). ("Submissions," by the way, are open to *everyone* who's ever tasted / smelled adobo, whether it's the Filipino, Mexican, or Peruvian variant...)

And please spread the word -- the more participants, the better!

I Look Good In Black.

You are Neo, from "The Matrix." You
display a perfect fusion of heroism and
compassion.


What Matrix Persona Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Eat your heart out, Rhett!

(And I look good in dusty gray rags, too:)

Weird, though, because I remember doing this before and I turned out to be Picard.

Spam "Poetry."

A couple of spam e-mail messages -- for a digital cable filter -- arrived in my mailbox today. The way it tucked its contents into html by inserting random words into the text was rather ingenious, though.

For instance, the phrase "The ultimate digital cable filter" is actually coded as "Thbracketslashmcknightslashe ulbracketslashcredobrackettimate dbracketslashreplenishbracketigital cabracketslashartistrybracketble fbracketslashapparatusbracketilter" (I've replaced "<" and "/" with "bracket" and "slash."). It didn't completely foil SF State's spam filter, though: it still arrived in my mailbox marked as spam, with the message left unrendered in html.

I've taken the random words -- in the same order they appeared in the spam e-mail, inserted into a "font color=white" tag, and laid them out below, adding punctuation here and there. It's called "Stymie."

Stymie

cryptanalytic allison
dither breech nnw julie
enunciate o'brien.

declassify integument aflame
perch punt testimonial
bookish.

dye
fife turnoff:
myriad sundial regulatory timeshare

bleed syrup appear
(jeres child gladstone cacm)
scoff falstaff

conflagration share decor.

cleft birch conspiracy --
giraffe tantalum dutiable
inverse fire.

galapagos: vengeful.

haircut conversion,
quizzical bmw,
forgetful soothsayer erastus:

catlike intrigue,
brainy lemonade.

brookhaven:
id dope deductible

atkins.

jitter.

cotangent malady

Joey de Leon.

I have no shame! Most people hide their old work -- you'll never see my undergraduate thesis on F. Sionil Jose, ha ha! But here's an old college paper that has mysteriously survived a disk crash and a couple of upgrades. One day I may return to it, but the whole paper requires a total overhaul. (My take on Barbi now would be somewhat different.) "Alternate subversive texts against the hegemony of Western culture?" I mean, come on -- De Leon's smart, but he would most likely think that reading would be a load of crap. If anything, you'll get a good glimpse of my sources for bad Pinoy trivia.

Here it is, in all its stark, embarrassing, unedited, late-'80s glory. (Note: I needed to post something long to keep the right tables from wrapping underneath everything, and this worked in a pinch.)

----------
When the history of Philippine popular culture in the Eighties is written, one name will undoubtedly be mentioned: Joey de Leon. His recent string of low-budget but phenomenally popular films have established his work as a solo performer, apart from Tito and Vic Sotto. As writer, director, and star his movies have aroused much controversy, prompting critics and newspaper columnists to bewail the declining quality of Philippine cinema, as exemplified by the De Leon films.

But despite scathing reviews, the films continue to be top money grossers, and this is certainly a clear indication of audience preference. Why, then, are his films extremely popular, despite their "poor" quality? In turn, it may say something about his audience. Forget the poor editing and the glaring lapses in narration, disregard the limited cinematography and generally wooden-faced acting; Joey de Leon has something deeper to say here.

De Leon's films have all dealt with American cultural icons, from Tarzan (the three Starzan movies), the Lone Ranger (Long Ranger and Tonto), He-Man (She-Man), Superman and Mighty Mouse (Super Mouse and the Roborats), Barbie (Barbi), and Elvis Presley and James Dean (Elvis and James 1 and 2), and whether this may account for their popularity will be dealt with in this study.

This paper will discuss Joey de Leon's films as alternate subversive texts against the hegemony of Western culture. It will also tackle the "epic" quality of the films, and their attempt to elevate De Leon and his co-actor, Rene Requiestas -- along with Fernando Poe, Jr. -- to "epic hero" status, as replacements for the Western heroes. This paper will focus on only five works: Super Mouse and the Roborats, Elvis and James 1 and 2, Starzan 2, and Hot Dog (a Tito, Vic and Joey starrer).

Some readers may point out that De Leon is merely using Western images to promote his own films; it shows the sorry state of Filipino culture -- that the audience is primarily more familiar with Western culture. This may be true, but it emphasizes more the need to subvert the Western domination. Working with familiar images makes the films' attempts at subversion more direct, more intense, and more effective. Neither is it De Leon's way of appropriating Western culture; he is not merely absorbing the images in his own terms, but deliberately twisting them.

Of course, parodies of American characters have always been around: less popular comedians like Redford White, Palito, and Chiquito have lampooned Rocky (Rocky Tu-log), James Bond (James Bone), the Karate Kid (The Master and the Karate Gid), Rambo (Rambo-Tango), and the Six Million Dollar Man (The Six Million Centavo Man), among others. De Leon, however, has outlasted and outgrossed them all. Perhaps De Leon has articulated his message better then the former filmmakers.

Super Mouse and the Roborats is loaded with Western cultural references: Mickey (De Leon), the hero, makes a Madonna imitation; Super Mouse's costume is the same as the cartoon character Mighty Mouse's; Mickey sings a song (to the tune of "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head") with two cartoon mice, a scene reminiscent of Mary Poppins; the Roborats' costumes are the same as Darth Vader's costume in the Star Wars trilogy. The end of the movie is also familiar, when the head Roborat unmasks himself and reveals himself to be Super Mouse's father -- in The Empire Strikes Back, Darth Vader unmasks himself too and reveals he is Luke Skywalker's father.

Other American characters are similarly skewered, like the Lone Ranger and Tonto: Barbie, the Mattel doll with the exaggeratedly perfect figure (and, in a way, the "embodiment" of the ideal American woman), becomes a transvestite household drudge in Barbi. The Edgar Rice Burroughs creation Tarzan, in the hands of De Leon, is a potbellied, sex-starved bumbler.

In Elvis and James, the satire becomes even more intense: the names of the secondary characters themselves are parodies. There is Elvis Presto's girlfriend, Marilyn Monroy (Maricel Laxa); James Dacuycoy's girlfriend, Long Tall Sally (from a Beatles song); a teacher at Jaena High, Eleanor Rigby (from another Beatles song); Libourache (Panchito), the gay music instructor; and Johnny B (from the Chuck Berry song "Johnny B. Goode"), Elvis' arch-rival. In Elvis and James 2, their love interests are named Tina, Diana and Whitney (named, of course, for the three goddesses of soul music, Tina Turner, Diana Ross, and Whitney Houston). The duo foils a hostage attempt by four bald robbers named John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Both movies are full of musical numbers satirizing popular American '50s songs.

De Leon's Elvis is a mixture of Presley fashion and Poe swagger. Requiestas' James is even worse: not even remotely resembling James Dean, James Dacuycoy, with a cigarette dangling constantly from his lips, is ready to kill anyone who dares touch his hair, and froths at the mouth whenever he gets too close to women.

Sometimes De Leon even takes a swipe at his own government. Starzan's arch-rival is a transvestite named Tita Gori, who is, appropriately enough, Queen of the Gorillas. Starzan and Jane's (Zsa Zsa Padilla) sponsors at their wedding are Cory Aquino and Ferdinand Marcos.

The films, however, are not simply twisting American icons; the Filipino heroes are also asking for acceptance. Acceptance and rejection is a major theme in the De Leon films, where he and Requiestas often play outsiders attempting to integrate with the society and ultimately being rejected. In Super Mouse, the duo are part of a carnival, the members of which (the "peryantes") are looked down upon by the town populace. Paeng (played by the midget actor Noel "Ungga" Ayala) is rejected by Dora (Manilyn Reynes). Elvis and James are regarded as social misfits, who wear the same clothes day in and day out and drive a tricycle to school. They are constantly the butt of jokes (like the young Mickey in Super Mouse), especially from Johnny B, who looks down on them as poor ("Masyadong kang eyepoor," James tells Johnny B. "Matapobre.")

In Hot Dog, the brothers Juan, Jose and Pedro are driven away from their home by the villagers (who are ready to torch their house) who consider them bad luck. They run to the forest and feed a starving old woman, who turns into a fairy and gives them an enchanted dog, the counterpart of the goose who laid the golden egg. (Since dogs do not lay eggs, the scriptwriter had to turn to the only other recourse.) Armed with bags full of golden feces, the brothers buy rice and canned food and distribute them to the needy of their community. The gold-defecating dog reaches the attention of the local greedy landlord (played by Paquito Diaz), who exclaims: "Hindi ako papayag! Ako lang ang pinaka-mayaman dito!" and proceeds to have the dog stolen, with disastrous results.

The rich/poor dichotomy is seen here, with the rich portrayed as greedy and unscrupulous. It is the rich casino owner who has Mickey's adoptive "mother" (actually a fat circus transvestite) stabbed in the back in Super Mouse; it is the rich students who terrorize Elvis and James; it is the rich hunters headed by Bad Max (Ruel Vernal) who steal the King Diamond from the Jacuzi tribe in Starzan 2. It is the poor, the carnival freaks, the downtrodden, and the rejected who are elevated in De Leon's films. Super Mouse, the Long Ranger, and Starzan are presented as defenders of the "little people."

The little people are shown as virtuous; simplicity, virtue, and goodwill are emphasized in the films. The protagonists of Hot Dog are rewarded for their good deeds, and Diaz and his goons are vanquished; in his confusion over the complexities of the city, Starzan (in Starzan 1) tries to take his life by jumping from a building. Super Mouse pleads for the life of his friends (who are kidnapped by the Roborats for use in experiments), and the Roborats relent ("Sana, matandaan ninyo na kami rin ay may magandang asal, hindi katulad ng ibang tao," the head Roborat (Ruel Vernal) squeaks.)

Starzan is prevented by his pregnant wife Jane from joining the search for the stolen King Diamond: "Iiwanan mo ba 'ko sa ganitong kalagayan, eh may pamilya ka na?" Starzan answers: "Sa gubat, kami lahat, isa pamilya," thus emphasizing communality. The moral of Elvis and James is, as James pronounces at the end, "Don't judge a book by its cover." It wisely sums up a lesson from the whole De Leon series -- the Roborats, Elvis and James, Starzan (and Cheeta-eh and Ungga), and everybody else -- are to be judged according to their internal values and personality, not for the way they look, or the clothes they wear, or the place they come from.

Elvis and James 2 reportedly flopped at the box office, though it deals with the same acceptance/rejection theme, but to a lesser degree. This time, it is rock 'n' roll music versus the Establishment (in the person of Prof. Mozart (Lou Veloso), hysterical music instructor). Mozart's proposal to hold a class recital is squelched by Elvis' proposal for a barn dance, and Mozart exacts revenge ("Rock is evil! Repent!" he cries) by burning down the barn. In the end, Mozart is committed to an asylum, and Elvis affirms that all music is good. It is a limited message (and a passe one, for rock is already part of the Establishment). The audience is given less opportunities to identify with Elvis and James, who are now Music students at UP (their main problem at the start is where to enroll for college). The Elvis and James here are also strangely different from the ones in Part One: here, they attack an actress, and espouse the virtues of a-go-go dancers.

But one common thread that binds the films together are the references to the "unacknowledged" modern Filipino epic hero, Fernando Poe, Jr. The sharp audience will recognize Poe's swagger (in Starzan and Elvis' gait), Poe's movies ("Gawa na ang balang papatay sa iyo! Ako ang huhusga!" cries Ungga in a shootout with Bad Max's men; the Dacuycoy family is called "pamilya bungal"), and Poe's characteristic rapid-fire punching (in Aling Susie, Elvis and James' maid of sorts, who keeps beating up their gay landlord). (A recent Jimmy Santos/Requiestas/Ayala film, Small Medium Large, has its three lead characters named Fernando, Pol, and Junior. The title of the movie Gawa Na Ang Balang Papatay Sa Iyo has probably appeared, in different phrasings, in almost all of the films (even in Vic Sotto's).)The references to Poe are probably not meant to make fun of him, but to elevate him similarly as epic hero. If the Western heroes are subverted, then Poe must take their place, as even his gestures have fallen into myth.

But the heroes that De Leon plays are not exactly heroes. Super Mouse destroys highway billboards, he lets a man commit suicide in front of him, he allows a bank robber to shoot an ugly bank teller. The De Leon films themselves take a morbid look at mayhem, and all of it is supposed to be funny: Doro (Requiestas) accidentally sets himself on fire, and a girl is knifed twice in the forehead in a carnival show accident in Super Mouse; Don Pabling's (Panchito) posterior is accidentally burned by an overzealous herbolario in Hot Dog; Ungga's reproductive organ is bitten by a snake, and a transvestite is cooked by gorillas in Starzan 2; James is almost frozen to death in Baguio in Elvis and James.

This suggests a somewhat perverted manner of looking at Super Mouse and Starzan as heroes: these are comedies, they are no real heroes, and they are not meant to be serious. The movie itself constantly betrays its nature by reminding the movie audience that this is a movie. In Elvis and James 2, Elvis throws a hairbrush at James, misses, and hits the cameraman instead. In Starzan 3, Ungga complains that he has no "ka-love team" in the movie, and Starzan assures him: "Maghintay ka, sabi ni Direk, sa Starzan 4 na lang." In Super Mouse, after a song duet with Manilyn Reynes, Ayala turns to the camera and says, "Sorry, Keempee, ha?" Keempee is not only Joey de Leon's son, but also Reynes' love teammate in real life. The song they sing is a parodized version of "Sayang na Sayang", a song Reynes popularized herself. The references to events and people outside the realm of the movie are many and varied.

More interesting, however, are the references to other De Leon films. In Long Ranger and Tonton, there is a scene where Tonton (Requiestas) and a bandit take turns lighting and snuffing out a candle by shooting at it with a gun ("Patay." "Buhay." "Patay." "Buhay.") The same dialogue occurs in Elvis and James when Requiestas tips over his long-dead grandfather's coffin, and the corpse awakens. In the same movie, Ayala makes a cameo appearance, and tells James: "Mabuti ka pa, may sine ngayon," and James answers, "Magkikita naman tayo sa Starzan 3, eh." Even the phrase "Ganda lalaki" (and "Ganda babae"), coined in Starzan, has appeared in Barbi, the other Starzan movies, and is even in the title of Requiestas' new movie. At the end of Super Mouse, Keempee de Leon makes a cameo appearance dressed as Starzan.

The inside references would only be effective if the audience is familiar with De Leon's other movies, or at least his movie trailers. His works, then, demand a somewhat more active participation from the audience; they demand that the viewer has prior knowledge. Gags of this sort would fall flat without knowing the referent; viewing a De Leon film almost requires the viewer to be familiar with the other films.

There is a sense of interrelatedness in the films; perhaps one is inextricable from the other. This invites the critic to look at the series holistically. If the gags, the situations, the themes, the cast, and even the characterizations are the same, then the movies are probably connected in a way.

It may be that the movies belong to a larger frame -- a whole epic, perhaps. The shortcomings in the films that the critics decry may be defended as remnants of an oral culture. The largely "flat" characters (as opposed to "round") belong to most oral epics, including the episodic nature of the films. Elaborate jokes are simply strung together with a hardly tangible plot line (interspersed with musical numbers); like the oral epic, there is no actual climax: fragments of subplots weave in and out, and the movies usually begin in medias res.

But even the plots are similar, in a way, to the Campbellian monomyth (reduced to its essentials). The offspring of an other-worldly being, the hero comes to earth with super powers, and helps the innocent and fights evil. This, in fact is basically the same structure as in Superman, the Star Wars trilogy, and, if one stretches it, the Gospels -- and, of course, Mighty Mouse. The heroes are given supernatural aid: Mickey's superpowers in Super Mouse, after his "mother" is killed; and the dog in Hot Dog. The three heroes in the latter film even get to make a literal (and not just symbolic) marriage with the goddess (in this case, the fairy).

Along with FPJ, Joey de Leon and Rene Requiestas may be the epic heroes of our time. Through De Leon's films subverting and deliberately twisting American cultural icons, the simple, the "native", and the poor has been elevated. In their various screen incarnations which transcend time, place, and context, they preserve the quality of oral narration and weave tales for an age. They may be clumsy, stupid and even repulsive "heroes" who drag the viewers along through their misadventures, but they equip the audience with the ability to laugh at their (our) condition. And in the end, they are victorious.

The main unwritten implication of this paper is that De Leon's films are so popular because of their function as repository of anti-Western (or "nationalistic" sentiment; the audience may unconsciously enjoy seeing the bashing of foreign cultural icons on the head, and De Leon may be unconscious of this too. This idea may be taken by readers as seriously as, say, De Leon's films themselves, but the subversive implications of the films are perhaps clear. But there is one sure thing, though: Joey de Leon has irrevocably touched the pulse of our people, and it is reason enough for this study.

Guided by Beer

From FFWD Weekly, Robert Pollard's favorite beers:

1. Tequila

2. Miller Lite

3. Bud Lite

4. Guinness

5. Michelob

Plus Uncle Bob has a "literary magazine" out now, entitled EAT, available at Rockathon Records -- collages, "more than 30 pages worth of poetry," and (this is gonna be great) "over 100 new band names."

Your New Favorite Song, Part 2.

I'm currently in total grading hell, plus a lot of other things besides, so I haven't had time to post anything.

But with this post I'm officially changing my short-lived "Earworms" series -- dead meme, anyway -- to "Your New Favorite Song."

I've written about the "Orientalist" pleasures of Shonen Knife before, and this particular song -- yes, it's about food, and yes, there's a kind of infantilized pleading in the lyrics, and yes, "strawberry" is charmingly pronounced "stroh-berry" -- won't change naysayers' minds. It's not even typically punky like the best of the tracks from, say, Let's Knife. But there's something about this 1996 song (left off Rock Animals and collected on The Birds and the B-Sides) that made me keep pressing the rewind button just so I could hear it again.

The refrain before the chorus ("But I can't make strawberry cream puff / And I can't get strawberry cream puff") perfectly encapsulates the paradoxical ephemerality of the pop song -- okay, this pop song -- as well as, um, strawberry cream puffs:

It can easily disappear
It's just like a daydream
If you eat it only once
You'll be obsessed with it all your life!

Here's your new favorite song: Shonen Knife's "Strawberry Cream Puff." (3mb mp3)

Mouth Stuffed Full of Crow.

My words continue to come back and haunt me, and they've been doing that for the past two weeks.

This time, Daniel Lue himself replies to a previous post:

Thanks for the free plug and thanks for standing up for Asian guys. I haven't read any of your other posts, but don't you understand how Asians are portrayed on TV? Isn't it more constructive to stick up for your fellow Asian brother rather than tear them down? I think Asians, particularly Asian men, have an uphill battle as it is, we don't need our own to push each other down.

Daniel

You're right; I'm being unfair. All my petty sniping and ad hominem attacks -- albeit within the informal context of blogging -- simply doesn't advance anything. I should really watch my tongue / fingers, especially since they've gotten me into a little trouble lately.

But the sexist banter between the guys (particularly you and Rob) -- though probably played up a little for the camera, highlighted via skillful (misleading?) editing, and brought out in the way that probably only a bunch of men shooting the breeze can do -- simply made me cringe. What was up with that?

And did you have to keep falling off that log??? =)

That said, I am indeed very aware of the lack of Asian Americans on TV, and of the constant need to battle demeaning stereotypes. And your calendar, I suppose, is a clear rebuttal to the stereotype of the Asian American male. My wife and I (and many other Asian Americans I know, actually) were really rooting for you to go far, and we had high hopes of you beating the Shii Ann curse, but the way in which you were portrayed as a leering frat-rat left much to be desired...

p.s. One of your cousins is a good friend of mine!

Wondering Boy Poet.

Here's part of John Mulvey's review of the new box set (their third!) from Guided By Voices, Hardcore UFOs, from The Wire:

At their best, they present meticulously crafted songs with all the spontaneity and never to be repeated excitement of improvised music...

Yet it would be wrong to see GBV's music as an avant garde re-imagining of rock history. What propels their finest performances isn't self-consciousness -- [Robert] Pollard saves that for the freshman surrealism of his song titles -- but an apparently naive, instinctual grasp of what some guys, some gear and electricity can create. Tellingly, the essays accompanying Hardcore UFOs don't dwell on theory, or on Pollard's peculiar compunction to call his every fragment of melody a song. Instead, the writers focus on bleary memories of bonding over old records, sport and inland oceans of American beer. GBV are just a bunch of Midwesterners hammering away in the garage, goes the subtext, and Pollard is a genius comfortable in the body of Everyman.

Surely it can't be that straightforward. Siltbreeze label head Tom Lax's tale of GBV playing a tiny Philadelphia gig in exchange for his copy of Amon Duul's Yeti suggests Pollard has more esoteric tastes than most teachers in the Dayton area. And what of songtitles like Catfood On The Earwig", "The Ascended Masters Grogshop", '14 Cheerleader Coldfront"? Their scrupulous eccentricity confirms Pollard as an only partially suppressed aficionado of Prog rock as well as psychedelic whimsy.

While there's the "It's Only Rock 'N Roll" camp -- and if you've ever seen them live, there's no question regarding that -- I'm inclined to be among the "Surely it can't be that straightforward" folks.

Check out the lyrics of "Wire Greyhounds," for instance (from the 2002 album Universal Truths and Cycles:

My tongue that moves slow
A minute before the evil street
Breath woman captures a ghost
Blurring sweat heads eat noodlestuff

Sit up and beg

For slivers of language
That the night air might offer

Pin back your ears
And feed...

The man's a poet.

The '80s.

Gearing up for the 1983 Theme Party I'm attending tomorrow...

Scored 137. (It isn't the greatest quiz, but I had fun. Barbara, how did you do?)

Kicked out before the Merge.

An embarrassment to his gender and race, Daniel Lue still tries to cash in. As it says on the blurb, "His pictures will bring room temperatures to the levels of the Amazon heat." Yeah. But judging from the rave reviews -- and I like this one the best:

If you own the Mary-Kate and Ashley calendar you will notice many similarities such as 12 months and many days and a photo for each month. If you are concerned about the appropriateness, don't be because pants are worn throughout the calendar.

-- there's a career for the voted-off-the-island-three-weeks-into-the-show loser yet.

(At least his season was the best of the lot; this year there's little reason to watch once Rupert gets voted off...)

Correction.

Here's a correction to an old post.

The following comment is full of crap:

"Compare this, for instance, with child murderer Carol Jo Pivar's portrait, which looks like a Cindy Sherman "film still" -- she looks like she just stepped out of some noir film."

My mother, Carol Jo Pivar, the woman in the "portrait" was not and is NOT a "child murderer"!!

As a woman married to a man suffering what was then known as "shell shock" [now called "post-traumatic stress syndrome"], and that marriage basically decaying rapidly, she lashed out and struck my sister Laurie, a baby at the time causing problems for Laurie that have been sustained to this day. However, Laurie is alive and well. My mother is not, having died at the ripe old age of 38 years in 1972 from the big "C". Fortunately the whole episode was passed on, in detail to my oldest sister and she passed it on to me some years back. I was very shocked to see the posting on your site with the offensive term as you printed it. I will however admit that this was probably lifted from newspapers of the time, as the whole "incident" got a lot of publicity. The photo was probably taken as Mom was being taken to jail or Sybil Brand (where she roomed with the 1st woman in California to be executed!!). The situation aside, it does reflect the feel of a noir photo shoot.
...just wanted to set things straight!

Bruce W. Pivar

My apologies -- as a student of history I should have known better than to extrapolate (totally erroneously!) from the description. It was extremely stupid of me.

I am truly, genuinely sorry for causing offense; the original post has now been edited and the offending phrase deleted.

How The Mighty Have Fallen?

Via the Postal Blowfish mailing list:

Mix 93.3 presents the biggest concert of the Holiday Season: Jingle Jam #5: A Very Diva Christmas!

Get your tickets now and see performances from Michelle Branch, Hilary Duff, Stacie Orrico, Mandy Moore, Liz Phair, Fefe Dobson and special guest host Jessica Simpson and the crew from MTV's "The Newlyweds."

My first reaction was that this was rather pathetic -- the fall from grace from what All Music Guide's Stephen Thomas Erlewine described as "a singer/songwriter of immense imagination, musically and lyrically." The creator of Exile in Guyville is touring with Hilary Duff and Mandy Moore?

But on second thought: a) she'll probably be making more money (and getting bigger audiences) than she's ever had in her life, and I have no problems with that; and b) there's something gleefully subversive about the idea of teenyboppers dancing to "Fuck And Run."