Waking Up With Wilford Brimley

I woke up this morning to find Paloma under a blanket on the couch and Wilford Brimley’s whiskered mug on the television screen.

But there was more. There was the actor who played the titular character in The Mummy as well as Lance Henriksen (obviously supressing his dignity and picking up a paycheck).

As Wilford babbled away with a Cajun accent and I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, Jean-Claude Van Damme strode heroically into frame with an impressively sculpted mullet affixed to his noggin.

In the lower right-hand corner of the screen I noted the logo for Spike TV and everything I was witnessing made as much sense as it possibly could.

I looked at Paloma.

“It’s really bad,” she informed me, not elaborating but not needing to do so. I was watching Wilford Brimley fussing over some moonshine.

(personally, when I’m in the mood for a bad action flick from the ’80s/’90s, the hunt begins and ends with Steven Segal)

So, I’m struggling to awake, pondering Wilford Brimley and – and I am likely not alone here – my thoughts turned to Quaker Oats. I mean, anyone from the States that watched any television during the past twenty years recalls his stint as their pitchman and his almost threatening declaration that the consumption of those oats was “the right thing to do and a tasty way to do it.”

And, I can’t think of Wilford without thinking of Phil Kaufman.

Those of you neck-deep in music lore might recognize the name of Kaufman, who, as a road manager, worked with everyone from the Rolling Stones and Frank Zappa to Emmylou Harris and Marianne Faithfull. Kaufman was also involved in the theft of Gram Parsons’ body and, fulfilling Parsons’ wishes, his cremation in the Joshua Tree desert.

Paloma’s mother has long been a friend of Kaufman’s and I had met him years ago (in the presence of Marianne Faithfull, no less). For whatever reason, right or wrong, to me, he bore some resemblence to Brimley. I think it was a moustache thing.

I’m feeling better, though. I have had some coffee. Now, all I need to do is cleanse the mental palatte, completely evicting Wilford and his oats of malice from my headspace.

So, to help do so, here is a quintet of songs from Marianne Faithfull…

Marianne Faithfull – The Ballad Of Lucy Jordan
from Broken English

I knew little about Marianne Faithfull when the bookstore next to a record store where I worked scheduled her for an appearance. So, I grabbed a copy of Faithfull: A Collection of Her Best Recordings to have signed.

She was a tiny woman, petite and rather elegant. And she was smoking a cigarette.

As she signed the CD cover, she commented that she probably should quit smoking. Then, she took a drag and remarked that her grandmother smoked two packs a day and lived to be in her 80s.

Marianne Faithfull – Working Class Hero
from Broken English

When I finally sat down with Faithfull: A Collection of Her Best Recordings I instantly became a fan and one of the songs that converted me was her take on John Lennon’s Working Class Hero.

I knew the song, but her menacing version was far more powerful to me than the original. So much so that I convinced a band with whom I was working to open their shows with the song using Marianne’s cover as the template (it worked flawlessly).

The band found only limited success, but I spent the next few years accumulating most of her catalog.

Marianne Faithfull – Times Square
from Faithfull: A Collection of Her Best Recordings

Given the mostly uneven nature of Marianne’s albums, the compilation I grabbed to have her autograph was a wonderful introduction to her catalog. Times Square, like her strongest material, is a song that she completely inhabits.

Marianne Faithfull – Sliding Through Life On Charm
from Kissin’ Time

Marianne has often collaborated with other artists and I was interested to hear Kissin’ Time as she worked with an impressive array of modern rock acts like Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan, Blur’s Damon Albarn, and Beck. For the most part, the album was less than the sum of its parts.

However, Sliding Through Life On Charm, her collaboration with Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, was a keeper, a driving four minutes or so of chainsaw disco laced with autobiographical references and piss and vinegar.

The Hills Have Eyes (And They're Sensitive To Obscene Finger Gestures)

The other night, the cable offerings were rather uninspiring, but, as it was after dark, I stopped on the remake of The Hills Have Eyes.

The flick wasted little time getting to the carnage, opening with a group of scientists clad in protective gear being torn apart by some savage creature. It was gruesome but hardly shocking.

What has stuck in my head is a scene that came later, after the vacationing family had broken down taking a shortcut through the same remote stretch of desert.

It wasn’t the family dog getting gutted or the patriarch being beaten to a pulp then set aflame. No, it was a scene in which one daughter in the family gave the finger to her sister.

The defiant digit was blurred out.

Pondering the interesting choices in censorship aside, the movie made me miss the horror flicks on which I had grown up in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

I’m not referring to the movies of that time but rather the late-night television fare in a world without cable on our local independent station (usually the only one still on air after midnight).

These were mostly B-movies from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and early ‘70s and often in black and white. Sometimes they were surprisingly eerie, rising above their budgetary limitations, but, often, they were laughably shoddy or dated – bobble-headed alien invaders, puppet creatures and hippie vampires.

It was the latter which held the most entertainment value for me and several friends from the neighborhood when we’d hang out on Saturday nights in the early ‘80s. Not yet old enough for cars, girls, or guns, we’d be sprawled out on bean bag chairs in the dark basement of our friend Willie.

(as it was his basement, he had right of first refusal on the ancient couch)

Saturday night was the night for Nightmare Theater, hosted by the ghoul/zombie Sammy Terry (pictured above), who would add his commentary during commercial breaks or banter with a fake spider named George who “spoke” in squeaks.

For a couple years, ours was a ritual gathering most summer nights on Saturdays – Chris would be wired on Mountain Dew, Kurt would be obsessing over the dollar he’d loaned to Chris for the drink. Sometimes there would be a half dozen of us hanging out in that panel-walled womb.

We’d howl in amusement with every bad pun Sammy would deliver and yell, “George!” in unison the first time that rubber spider would descend into the scene.

By ’83, we had access to cars and had begun the pursuit of girls. There weren’t as many viewings of Sammy, but it was always fun to catch the show on occasion.

Years later, crashing out and watching Nightmare Theater was an incentive to make the trek home from college.

I hadn’t seen the show for twenty years until discovering a trove of clips here.

In 1982, the last year my friends and I regularly tuned into Nightmare Theater, I was still coming to the realization that I quite liked music – to an almost obsessive degree. It was still mostly Top 40, but I was venturing to some album rock, too. Some of the songs I remember from that spring…

Hall & Oates – Did It In A Minute
from Private Eyes

Hall & Oates were such a constant presence on radio and MTV in the ’80s, there are songs of theirs which I really wouldn’t miss if I never heard them again (I Can’t Go For That and Out Of Touch come to mind).

Then, there some of their lesser hits from that time – songs like How Does It Feel To Be Back, Wait For Me, Family Man – which are pleasant surprises when they pop up. The breezy Did It In A Minute is in the under appreciated category.

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – Crimson And Clover
from I Love Rock N’ Roll

Joan Jett’s I Love Rock N’ Roll was a monster in early 1982 and I imagine she could have belched the alphabet and had a follow-up hit. Instead, she opted for a cover of Tommy James’ Crimson And Clover.

Of course, my schoolmates and I had no idea who Tommy James was. It was one of our “hip” teachers who played the original for us in homeroom one afternoon.

We much preferred Joan.

Van Halen – (Oh) Pretty Woman
from Diver Down

Diver Down might have been Van Halen’s fifth album, but as the first four were released when I had little interest in music, it was my first exposure to Eddie and Diamond Dave.

Their take on the Roy Orbison classic isn’t bad, but I wouldn’t even offer it up as the best cover song on Diver Down (and there are several). Instead, I’d go with their version of Dancing In The Street.

John Cougar – Hurts So Good
from American Fool

American Fool was the album that would make Johnny Hoosier (as my friend Bosco called him) a household name. Growing up in Indiana, Hurts So Good was on every radio station from the moment it was released and the rest of the country soon joined us.

I was fairly ambivalent about Hurts So Good at the time. I had no idea that its success would, by the time Johnny Hoosier had become John Mellencamp, literally change the course of my life in ways I could have never imagined as a kid in junior high.

Watching The TV Guide Channel

I was stunned the first time I saw the TV Guide Channel. I don’t think I had cable at the time, but I was house-sitting for a friend. Late one night, I stumbled upon a channel which was showing nothing but a hypnotic, scrolling schedule of my choices.

I was mesmerized. There was no need to even exert the minimal effort to actually channel surf. This was the stuff of genius.

I sat there boggle-eyed, maybe for hours. None of the programming listed was as gripping and, no matter whichever choice I made, I invariably returned to this magical channel.

I had to watch because if I didn’t I might miss something I’d wanted to watch because I was watching something else.

The other night, I consulted the TV Guide Channel. And, amidst the uninspiring offerings, a title caught my eye – Top Gun.

Man, I hadn’t seen that flick since it had been in theaters and I’d left that viewing feeling like I’d missed the evolutionary train for being slack-jawed enough to help the people who made this movie make money.

(and the flick made lots of money back in ’86)

Could it have been as bad as I remembered? I hopped on over to Bravo to give it another viewing.

I managed to hang with it through the opening as the flight scenes were engaging enough.

My head was soon resting on my hand (which was covering my eyes from the steaming pile of over wrought tripe which I was witnessing).

I had lasted roughly twenty-two minutes, until Tom Cruise began serenading the Amish chick from Witness.

As I sought to find something less insulting to my intelligence – or even as equally insulting so long as it was more entertaining – nothing was to be found.

Girding my loins (which sounds like something a Republican senator might get caught doing in a men’s bathroom at an airport), I flipped back to Top Gun.

Now Amish Chick was declaring her forbidden love to a sun glassed Tom Cruise, the two of them silhouetted against the setting sun, he having just chased down her convertible on his motorcycle as the wind swept through their hair (which didn’t so much as flinch).

I resisted the urge to batter my head against the table ‘til I bled from my eyes.

I’d need those orbs to eyeball the TV Guide Channel.

A-Ha – The Sun Always Shines On TV
Here in the States, the Norwegian trio A-Ha has been relegated to one-hit wonder status which is unfortunate. Sure, everyone knows Take On Me, but that song’s follow-up, The Sun Always Shines On TV, is a far better song. It hurtles along with a gloriously yearning melody and, as I recall, the video was almost as striking as the song for which they’re better known.

Bow Wow Wow – (I’m A) TV Savage
Was there a more fetching ingenue in ’80s music than Bow Wow Wow’s Anabella Lwin? (there’s never been a fifteen-year old Burmese chick with a mohawk quite like her)

Annabella aside, Bow Wow Wow was lots of fun. Sure, many of their songs were indistinguishable from one another – Annabella yelping manically over that tribal drumming – but fun nonetheless.

Cheap Trick – Ballad Of TV Violence (I’m Not The Only Boy)
Paloma and I have acquired most of Cheap Trick’s albums on vinyl (at least the ones worth acquiring) save for their self-titled debut on which this song appears. Instead, this is a live version from their box set Sex, America, Cheap Trick.

Headlights – TV
The trio Headlights seemed to have all the hip kids abuzz some time back (I could verify this except Spin magazine elicits the same reaction from me as Top Gun).

Like Cheap Trick, Headlights come from Illinois (Rockford for the former, Champaign for the latter) and their song Cherry Tulips is nearly perfect indie pop. TV, from their 2006 debut album Kill Them With Kindness, is the only other song of Headlights which I have heard, but it leads me to believe that the hip kids might actually be on to something.

Dark Night

So, Paloma and I participated in Earth Hour over the past weekend. For those of you who missed it, ignored it or simply don’t live on Earth, the rules entailed turning off all of the lights for one hour.

(not that the Earth has ever done the same for me, but…)

So, there we were, sitting in near darkness with only the reassuring glow of the television to comfort us through the perils of the unilluminated, nocturnal world.

(much like our ancestors did thousands of years ago)

In a seemingly fortuitous twist of fate, the movie 10,000 B.C. had arrived from Netflix. I hoped to pick up a few coping skills.

Time became meaningless as seconds turned to minutes and minutes turned to more minutes. It could have been the movie which left me with possibly the most vacant feeling a movie ever has. It was kind of like the cinematic experience of eating Chinese food.

(personally, I’ve never found a shred of truth in that cliché)

Even Straight To Hell left me humming some songs and puzzling over what I had just seen.

10,000 B.C. completely flat-lined me.

Stuff happened. More stuff happened. Some cave people wandered a desert. I think that the good guys triumphed.

It was like Quest For Fire without the personality.

(I quite liked Quest For Fire)

I looked up at the clock once to see that we had only doused the lights forty-six minutes earlier. I was certain it had been an hour.

Either it was an incredibly boring flick or sitting in the dark had bent the time space continuum or induced some psychosis due to light deprivation.

I think it was likely the former.

The Jayhawks – Stumbling Through The Dark
During the twenty years or so that they’ve been releasing records, The Jayhawks have hardly reinvented fire, but while they might not be groundbreaking, they certainly do what they do quite well.

Whenever one of their songs pops up on the iPod’s shuffle, I know that I’m likely set for three minutes or so of something quite breath-taking.

The Police – Darkness
The hits of The Police were so effortlessly melodic, it was often easy to miss that much of their lyrical content was quite dark.

Darkness isn’t one of the best tracks on their Ghost In The Machine album (I’d have to go with Spirits In The Material World or Invisible Sun), but it’s hardly filler, either. Stewart Copeland wrote the song and its theme of the drudgery of day to day life makes it a cousin of sorts to Sting’s lyrics for the title track to The Police’s next record, Synchronicity.

The Blasters – Dark Night
I want to like The Blasters. I’ve read wonderful things, they seem like the genuine article, and I have liked the handful of songs I know. Unlike The Jayhawks, when shuffle pulls up a song by The Blasters, I always seem to look at the screen for the title of a song I don’t recognize, see that it’s The Blasters, and hit next.

It simply seems as if each and every time I’m presented with the chance to check them out, I’m not in the mood for their sound.

I loved Dark Night from the first time I heard it during the closing credits of From Dusk ‘Til Dawn. As I was in a theater, I couldn’t fast forward and, besides, the song was perfect for that flick.

Blue Oyster Cult – After Dark
I rarely am able to pass up a chance to post something by Blue Oyster Cult. After Dark was on their Fire Of Unknown Origin. That album might not be noted as a seminal moment in the history of music, but – from the moody title track to the eerie closer Don’t Turn Your Back – it is a fantastic rock record (and the cover artwork is a favorite)

(and doesn’t it seem like everyone knows Burnin’ For You even if they might not know who sings it?)

However, if pressed, I might point a finger at After Dark as the weakest link on Fire Of Unknown Origin. It’s still an engaging track, though.

Godzilla, I Can't Stay Mad At You

The first movie that I can recall seeing in a theater was Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster.

(simply typing the title makes me as giddy as when I was four)

Yes, perhaps you’ve seen a Godzilla flick or two, but there’s none of them like his match with the Smog Monster.

It has an early ‘70s environmental bent to it, blending psychedelic rock music, cartoons, Japanese hippies, and a Godzilla that could fly.

It truly was everything that a child’s first big-screen experience should be.

Some of it did, admittedly, frighten me (I was four).

Through the years, it was always like Christmas to stumble upon a Godzilla movie on late, late night TV. I must doff my chapeau to the Japanese for enriching my life through a man in a giant lizard suit.

Godzilla, sushi, and providing inspiration for Styx’ Mr. Roboto – the Japanese have greatly contributed to who I am today.

I thank you all (seriously).

So, I bought into the hype for the Godzilla remake in ’98. I remember checking out some trailer for the movie which arrived on the internet a year ahead of the flick.

The movie eventually did come out and did so while I was traveling in the UK with a couple friends. So, it had been in theaters for a week or so before I managed to see it. If I recall correctly, I went with some friends the evening of my first day back in the States.

Undone by jet-lag and crushed by the weight of expectations, Godzilla left me angry, disappointed, and hurt. You can’t CGI the inestimatable charm of a man in a fake suit (and the Puff Daddy song that came out the week before I left for the UK should have been taken as a very bad omen).

I’ve caught it on cable a few times in the last year, though, and I’ve learned to love it for what it is and not lament what it isn’t. I do think that the opening credits work well.

And the first twenty minutes or so do a good job of building suspense. His arrival in Manhattan, though, is where Godzilla and I part company, but it’s with much more mutual respect now than there was a decade ago (we both are older and more mature I suppose).

But it sure would be cool to stumble upon his predecessor – hanging with the hippies and saving the world from pollution – while channel-surfing.

There simply aren’t enough songs about Godzilla and I’ve already posted the Blue Oyster Cult classic, so here are a handful of songs that were popular in the spring of 1971 (when Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster was released)…

Keiko Mari – Save The Earth
OK, this wasn’t a hit, but, by God, it should have been. Save The Earth plays over a montage which opens Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster and truly sets the tone. It was actually kind of creepy – lava lamp graphics, images of pollution-choked harbors filled with manikins and such.

Marvin Gaye – What’s Going On
To state the obvious, What’s Going On needs no comment from me.

The Doors – Love Her Madly
In high school, The Doors were arguably the most popular band amongst the general population (despite the fact that Jim Morrison had been dead for more than a decade). So popular were they that two sisters were adamant that they were the illegitimate daughters of The Lizard King (Morrison, not Godzilla – although going with the Godzilla angle would have been equally as believable).

Lobo – Me And You And A Dog Named Boo
This is the one song in the bunch which I actually remember hearing on the radio at the time. I imagine the fact that the singer had a dog appealed to me (my brother and I had to make do with a hamster and hamsters, if no one has ever told you, don’t fetch).

Straight To Hell, Indeed

For several years, I worked in a very large record store. One of the perks of the job (aside from cocooning oneself from reality) was free rentals from our video department.

One night, after working a closing shift, I was perusing the “midnight movie” section, and locked onto a spine that read “Straight To Hell.” I pulled it from the rack and the cast drew me in.

Joe Strummer.

The Pogues.

Elvis Costello.

Dennis Hopper.

Grace Jones.

I recognized the director’s name – Alex Cox. He had directed Repo Man, a strange little film involving aliens, punks, and Harry Dean Stanton mentoring a young Emilio Estevez in the arts of the titular profession. The film was a must-see for teenagers in the ‘80s.

Straight To Hell opens with a botched bank heist by a gang including a pre-celebrity status Courtney Love. They end up fleeing to a bizarre, desert town right out of some Sergio Leone flick which is run by a gang consisting of members of The Pogues and The Clash’s Joe Strummer.

(it’s been well over fifteen years since I’ve seen the movie, so some of my details might be off)

The entire population of townsfolk is all whacked out on caffeine, swilling coffee like whisky which is served by Elvis Costello as some kind of butler.

There was also a hot dog vendor/troubadour.

Supposedly, the movie came about following the collapse of a scheduled tour in Nicaragua by Costello, Strummer, and The Pogues in support of the Sandinistas.

Since everyone now had an open schedule, they headed for Spain under the guidance of director Cox and made a movie.

Though I didn’t know that back story at the time, the surreal, spaghetti Western setting and Pogue Shane MacGowan in all his orthodontically-challenged glory had me expecting much.

I was certain that I would see one of the most entertaining things in the history of cinema or such an unmitigated disaster that it would still be one of the most entertaining things in the history of cinema.

It failed to achieve either inspired extreme.

Instead, I yawned a lot and the movie seemed to last longer than the time Paloma and I decided to watch the entire Lord Of The Rings trilogy in just one sitting (me being pretty much unfamiliar with the Tolkien epic).

And, when Straight To Hell ended, I had pretty much the same reaction I would have years later at the conclusion of Frodo’s road trip (or Mr. Frodo as that sycophantic sidekick kept calling him).

I just kind of stared at the television screen, slack-jawed and inert.

At least Straight To Hell had a cool little soundtrack.

The Pogues – The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
Yes, it’s The Pogues doing Ennio Morricone’s classic theme. Actually, it reminds me more of the style of Big Audio Dynamite (who were led by another member of The Clash – Mick Jones) than The Pogues.

Pray For Rain – The Killers
If I recall correctly, The Killers played over the opening credits of Straight To Hell. The song is stellar, but things went downhill from there.

Joe Strummer – Evil Darling
Evil Darling is one of two songs by the late, great Joe Strummer featured in Straight To Hell.

Zander Schloss – Salsa Y Ketchup
I mentioned that there was a hot dog vendor/troubadour in the movie. Well, that part was played by Zander Schloss of The Circle Jerks. Throughout the movie, the MacManus Gang which runs the town torments him. “Lets make that Weiner Kid sing his song. Wanna?”

"It's not every day that you get to see a monster piñata killing teens on a paradise island."

Oh how true that statement is and due to a fortuitous bout of insomnia that had me channel surfing in the early-morning hours, I can now rebuff anyone that uses that line as a selling point. Of course, the fellow who reviewed the film for Slasherpool might be the only human in the history of humans to state the titular quote.

If you’re a piñata aficionado or simply have an interest in really bad movies, well Piñata: Survival Island might just be for you. I cannot recommend it as a “so bad it’s good” feature as I only caught the last ten minutes and that brief glimpse led me to believe that it’s so bad, it’s just bad. It’s the kind of movie where you mumble to yourself, “Someone actually believed this needed to be written down?”

It was entrapment that I watched what I did. As I said, I was channel-surfing when I was confronted with…well…I really don’t know how to describe it. Remember the little tiki idol that caused so much mayhem when the Brady Bunch went to Hawaii? Well, imagine that tiki idol roughly eight-feet tall, breathing fire, and rampaging through a jungle wielding a battle axe. Understandably, my hand froze on the remote as I watched, boggle-eyed.

Apparently, the angry tiki thing burst forth from a piñata. Man, I already have a feeling that someone out there, either suffering from insomnia or bad taste in viewing choices, caught this flick and will be touting it as a solution to the illegal immigration debate.

Piñata: Survival Island is not without star power, though. One of the survivors of the piñata run amok is Jaime Pressly from My Name Is Earl. In fact, she dispatches with the evil spirit by quickly assembling a Molotov cocktail and handcuffing it to the creature’s ceremonial headdress (or maybe it was just its misshapen cranium). It also stars Aeryk Egan who seemingly put more thought into making his stage name a bastardization of Eric than in choosing his roles (or maybe he had parents with too much time on their hands).

The fact that the film was showing on AMC, which allegedly stands for American Movie Classics, is another kettle of fish altogether. However, I suppose that I should feel enriched and enlightened for the experience. It’s not often that I will have the opportunity to write about piñatas and, for that, I am grateful.

And, if any of you are now filled with a sense of urgency to get to your local movie rental outlet, be sure to check under Demon Island if they don’t have Piñata: Survival Island. Apparently a cinematic endeavor of such magnitude could not be constrained to merely having one title.

Sadly, my music collection is sorely lacking in piñata songs.

Sting – Island Of Souls
Perhaps like many young music fans who came of age during the mania surrounding The Police and their album Synchronicity, Sting was the paragon of cool (of course, there were a lot of folks who also consider(ed) him to be an insufferable, pretentious twat.

Island Of Souls came from Sting’s third solo album, The Soul Cages, and, even though I own several of his albums released since, it was really the last one which I awaited eagerly and listened to devotedly.

Blondie – Island Of Lost Souls
Ah, Island Of Lost Souls – nothing more than a wholly transparent attempt by Blondie to duplicate the success of The Tide Is High from their previous album, Autoamerican. There are a handful of good songs on The Hunter (see/hear the dreamy English Boys), the group’s wreck of a follow-up, but I wouldn’t consider this to be one of them.

However, it does have one of my favorite cringe-inducing lyrics from a band that definitely had a few such moments (that would be, “Hey buccaneer, can you help me put my trunk in gear?”) and, personally, even bad Blondie is something for which I have a weakness.

Heather Nova – Island
Nova made some of the most atmospheric and ethereal music of the mid- to late-’90s, but she seemed to, unfortunately, get lost in the glut of post-Lilith Fair artists who worked the same territory.

She was attractive, talented, and had a cool back story (raised on a houseboat in the Bahamas, as I recall). When she was picked up by Sony following a couple independent releases, I told a friend at the label that, if they couldn’t break her, they should give up.

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts – Coney Island Whitefish
When I posted some Joan Jett awhile back, there was much love as the tracks proved to be some of the most popular of anything I have ever posted. And why not?

A little research revealed the title of this song to be slang for a used condom washed ashore on Coney Island. A listen reveals that – not surprisingly – Joan is one woman not be trifled with.