Kudos to the city council and mayor of Los Angeles, California for exhibiting rare leadership by mandating that pornographic film actors wear condoms when they make their films within the LA city limits.

With just a few strokes of his pen, the mayor has saved literally dozens of lives, probably. Actually, it’s probably millions of lives, because now not only will the performers in pornographic films be completely protected from uncovered penises, but the people who watch pornographic films will be reminded of how great condoms are, and they will emulate their pornographic film performer heroes and put them on when they engage in their own coitus.

That is what you call a “win-win.”

I’m not going to pretend to know anything about pornographic films, myself. If I tried to talk to you about pornography, I’d come off like Mitt Romney talking about shooting “small varmints, if you will.” But I would like to think that seeing James Deen wrap up his pecker before sticking it into the buttocks of, oh let’s say Naomi Russell, would be a welcome development for the pornographic film connoisseur, of which I am not one. Seriously, if you presented me with a lineup of Tori Black, Stoya, Carmen Kinsley, Eve Lawrence, and Jennifer White and told me to tell you which of them was whom, I would probably not be able to tell you, especially if they weren’t wearing any makeup. I understand they all look different without makeup.

I don't know who this is.

It’s just not my world, you see. As far as I know, the letters “ATM” stand for “Automated Teller Machine,” and nothing else. The only “Bang Brothers” I know are Archie and Chester Bang, of the Hampton Bangs. I met them while summering in the Hamptons in my long-ago youth. Oh, the times we had! That special summer I learned the true value of the word “teamwork,” when I and Chester and Archie and Bobo and Fritzy and the Jimster all worked together to win the big regatta against an upstart team led by the son of the groundskeeper. I digress. Anyway, the LA government has been on this beat for awhile now:

Los Angeles County public health officials backtracked Tuesday on their statements last week that at least 16 unpublicized cases of HIV in adult film performers had been reported to them since 2004.

Despite their release of data to The Times describing the cases as “adult film performers,” the county’s top health official acknowledged that the agency does not know whether any of those people were actively working as porn performers at the time of their positive test.
…
County public health officials said they had mislabeled all reports from the AIM clinic as adult performers when, in fact, information about their occupation is unclear. Although the clinic was created primarily to serve the porn industry, it serves other clients.

I would also like to commend the Los Angeles city council for the money-saving steps they took in adopting this requirement without going to the mess and bother of holding an actual vote on the subject.

The city would have had to spend over $4 million to hold the election, and city officials said a decision to simply adopt the condom requirement allowed them to dodge that costly poll.

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz, who brought the measure, said he expected residents at the ballot box would have overwhelmingly approved the condom requirement, so it was a “no-brainer” to adopt it now.

“For us right now, our only real policy issue is do we spend $4 million and have this become law? Or do we not spend $4 million and have this become law?” Koretz said.

The LA city council is known for its frugality. They’re always looking for ways to save money. Not only does this save the city the cost of holding an election, it also saves the pornographic film companies the expense of mounting some kind of campaign to convince voters to let their workers decide for themselves whether they want to use condoms or not. It’s my hope that the city council will extend this money-saving practice to other “election” issues. For instance, it’s pretty clear that Barack Obama is going to carry Los Angeles. So why don’t they just pass a resolution saying that Barack Obama carried Los Angeles, and then spare the expense of holding an actual vote? The city council can use that money to go toward Los Angeles’s storied mass transit system.

As happy as I am that the city of Los Angeles has adopted this no-brainer condom mandate, I have to wonder why it is that the mayor and the city council are only looking to protect pornographic film performers? After all, they’re not the only ones having coitus. It’s my understanding that a lot of people who don’t actually film themselves also enjoy having sex. And yet, the city council has said to these people, “Go ahead and have unprotected sexual relations with each other! Go ahead and catch diseases. We don’t care! If we did, we’d pass a law mandating that everyone who has sex wear a condom!”

Oh, I’m being farcical. Obviously I don’t think that everyone who has sex should have to wear a condom. Just those who are not currently married. Think about it. These people are out having sex with who knows whom, catching who knows what kinds of diseases, and then we all end up having to pay for it.

I am tired of it. We have to do something about it.

People do not have the right to abuse themselves. We don’t allow people to take just whatever drug they want. We don’t allow people to sell their own organs. We don’t allow people to just walk on an airplane without being frisked. We don’t allow people to drive without wearing a seatbelt. We have decided — as a society — to make certain decisions for you. In case you’re too stupid to make the right one.

Just as I don’t want to have to pay for your lung cancer treatment because you smoked, just as I don’t want to have to pay for your diabetes or heart disease medicine because you’ve eaten too much fast food, just as I don’t want to pay for your drug treatment because you got addicted to the marijuana, so too I don’t want to pay for your Valtrex because you think you’re too “cool” to remain in a committed relationship with one single sexual partner for the rest of your life like society says is the right way to do things, and you signed that social contract when you were born here if you didn’t like it you should have been born elsewhere.

I am totally unbiased in this argument. I don’t know Sunny Lane from Faye Reagan, and if they and Lexi Belle invited me to engage in some MFFF action I wouldn’t know what the hell they were talking about. But I do believe in protecting people; especially those people who refuse to protect themselves in the manner that I know is best.

I don't know who this is, either.

I’m back with a rare Thursday night edition of  the once weekly and now sporadic “Audio Files” column.  And look out, because I’m armed with the contents of my Google Reader, namely…

The new David Lynch album, which apparently summons a bit of energy from…Peter Frampton? Via a Lynch profile in the Telegraph:

Lynch plays guitar and sings, sometimes in his own voice, sometimes in a voice altered by a vocoder machine, “or using this strange thing like – what’s the guy’s name?” wonders Lynch. “Oh shoot, the famous guitar player that speaks with a tube in the guitar?” Peter Frampton?

FYI: Frampton once (allegedly) hit on my mom, in an elevator. She didn’t let him “come alive” though. (I wonder what a Skepchick would have done?)

ELSEWHERE…

Found a great Mike Patton interview from way back when (during the recording of Faith No More’s Angel Dust album). Some transcript gems:

• …music sucks. I hate all music now…I really don’t like to listen to music very much anymore….nothing’s doing it. I’m not gonna blame anybody but…I’ll let you know when I figure it out…It’s pretty sad.

• Grotus is one of my favorite bands!…they’re not danceable. That’s just a really hard thing to find these days. Something you can’t dance to.

• There’s a lot of bands that I think you could listen to now and not be able to tell what era they come from, and I bet that those bands think that’s really magical and timeless…but it’s bullshit. It doesn’t sound like anything.

• You know, I read this interview with [the Black Crowes] and one of the guys’ quotes from the band was…something like, ‘Oh gee, I guess to be original nowadays you have to bang on a badger carcass or something like that. I don’t wanna do that just to be original.’ It just made me think, well I mean, god, I’d love to bang on a badger carcass. I think most people would. Whether it’s original or not is beside the point.

• I think it’s probably a good thing that computers just  take over music. Because computers are a lot more messed up than people…I think computers could kind of take it to a new level. I’m all for it. [People] are the worst! That’s the worst thing about music, the people that play it.

• We want to become a disco band. We’re here to defend disco from the likes of our guitar player and people like that, who were asleep during the whole era and really missed the point.

The entire load of those Angel Dust interviews can be found here. To read an interview where Diamanda Galas berates Patton, click here. Quote:

God, there’s this shithead out there, Mike Patton. He imitates me. He imitates everybody. That motherfucker short fuckin’ midget, he was at all my shows in the ‘90s. He wrote in Wire magazine that I don’t improvise. I just laughed.

UNCOMPROMISING CUISINE

Steve Albini has a food blog.

FLAVOR FLAV NEWS

I highly recommend Ice-T‘s latest book. I finished it last summer, and there are some great anecdotes in it, such as Ice’s descrip­tion of a car acci­dent involv­ing Flavor Flav:

Flavor gets out of the rental car and for one minute he’s trans­formed back into William Drayton — he’s no longer crazy-ass Flavor Flav. He’s talk­ing to me like an attor­ney, in his real voice. ‘Ice, I am really sorry for this mishap.’ None of that ‘Yeeaaaaaah, boy­eeeee!’ shit.

TRUCKIN’

How does everyone feel about Red Sovine? Found this LP cover on Jim Blanchard‘s Flickr page:

Of Red Sovine, a friend once said:

A great nugget I discovered this week is that truckin’ Dave Dudley is from Stevens Point, Wisconsin, the same town in which yours truly finished college.  See Dave below (also from Jim B’s collection):

Blanchard’s Flickr page is loaded with gems. Here are some more, and they’re not just for truckers:

XEROXED ZEPPELIN

My new Twitter BFF Lucy has an uncle who was in this band. Remember them?

Here’s what’s on my playlist this week:

• “Coming of Prince Kajuku,” UFO
• “I Pity Inanimate Objects,” Godley & Creme
• “Live With Me,” Massive Attack
• “Mexican Icecream,” Tobacco

xxx

Audio Files is published sporadically and whenever possible.

I have a tendency to find songs that I get addicted to–listening to on repeat incessantly, walking around with its lyrics in my head all day. One of the most recent examples of this has been Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” (linked below for your convenience.)

As this song keeps finding its way back on my playlist, I started to wonder what it was that made me love the song, and even the video, so much. I realized that the raw and honest emotion that it conveyed between two people parting ways really rung true to me. And although the metaphor portrayed in the video of his lover removing herself from the tapestry of his life might be too dramatic for some, I really thought the two did an excellent job of emphasizing the emotion of the lyrics without taking away from the sincerity of the song.

And although there are plenty of songs about broken hearts and break ups, I think what sets this song apart from the others is the fact that you’re not just hearing one point of view about this lost love — you have the rare chance to hear from both parties. Without Kimbra’s accompaniment, this song would still stand on its own, one I would probably still deem worthy of the “replay” button, but I think by providing the additional point of view, the emotions resonate a little deeper with me.

Because, really, we have all been on both sides on the break up — we have all felt like we were the ones who were wronged, that our pain is somehow deeper than the other’s. But it only takes a small break from our regularly scheduled self-pitying to realize that there is more to the story than our perceived pain. Maybe the other person is hurting, too, and maybe their feelings are just as justified as ours.

I started to realize there were a lot of songs in my list of “forever loves” that fit into this sub-category of two-broken-hearts-for-the-price-of-one songs. Further, I realized that many of these were the ones that have persevered the longest through my ever-changing life situations, mainly because at different times in my life, I was able to identify more strongly with one of the different perspectives shared in the song. Essentially I found that, depending on where I was in my life, or what heartache had brought me back to a particular song, I was able to find a new aspect of it to relate to, and oftentimes, it was not the same perspective that I felt most compelled towards upon my last listening.

In some cases, I found that hearing both characters’ points of view resonated with me because it more completely expressed the range of emotions that I was feeling — instead of relating simply to the “man” or the “woman,” I felt that I equally understood and felt both points of view in whatever situation the song was helping me to get through or recall. I recently had a discussion with a friend where I explained that although I understood that Of Monsters and Men’s “Little Talks” (posted below) was supposed to be providing the dialogue of two people who are struggling with how the other is feeling, I also thought it was applicable as one person’s internal conflict — fighting with his/her self about his/her own opposing feelings about staying with something that was known vs. exploring the possibility of making some pretty weighty changes.

So, without further ado, here is the short list of songs I was able to think of that fit the 2-for-1 sub-genre I’ve recently taken note of. Would love to hear from any of you about any songs you love that fit this bill, too.

“Life Effect” -Stars

“Nothing Better” -Postal Service

“Little Talks” -Of Monsters and Men

“I Remember” -Damien Rice

10. It’s Larry the Cable Guy’s first dramatic turn

9. Your movie was the basis for the television show “Working It”

8. It stars either Smurfs, gnomes, or chipmunks

7. The opening and the closing credits meet in the middle

6. The jury at Cannes recommended the death penalty

5. It’s called Incredibly Quiet and Extremely Far Away

4. During its in-flight run, people kept walking out

3. Like The Artist, it’s a silent film, but only due to a technical error

2. Instead of Meryl Streep, it stars Merle Haggard

1. In his review, Roger Ebert said he wished he had more than two thumbs to put down
 
Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

Gore Vidal is not the chronicler but the fictionalizer of American history. The twin capitals of the nation warranted titles of their own, in his estimation. The one was Washington DC. The other was Hollywood. I ascribe not even the tarnished Golden State as the residence of Hollywood. Instead this bucolic appellation that once meant a modest agricultural hamlet now describes an ethereal thoughtscape that hovers above and beyond terrestrial boundaries. Hollywood rests on a state of mind, not a mere State of the Union as the existence of Bollywood and other imitators attests. It is a factory town and it’s one produce is Dreams. Tony Montana was well advised. “Don’t get high on your own supply.” Mark Wahlberg should have listened.

You know this cat, he is the guy who is not Matt Damon. In the more civilized days after Disco he earned fame as the original B-boy in Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. But the honorable trades of break dancer and white rapper were not enough, the music industry could not fulfill his ambitions. Perhaps he thought so or perhaps some headhunter came and got him. In any case he has been knighted and raised to the Peerage through chiseled abs and skillful coaching. If he isn’t the King of Hollywood today his elevation only awaits a dagger thrust into George Clooney. His realm is the Action Movie and I must admit, this has had appeal for me. Among explosions that kill and disrobe most meticulously Wahlberg has leapt and grunted through my living room as much as the next fellow. Foolishly I allowed myself to be persuaded through the miracle of casting and screen writing that he truly was a sensible Everyman, perhaps the better to believe that I might also skillfully rob with the Mini Cooper as my weapon and gain the devotions of Mila Kunis. But that is their BUSINESS out in Hollywood. Mark Wahlberg should know as much about movies as Lee Iacoca knows about cars especially as he has much more to do with daily production. It seems though that Wahlberg has begun to believe his own highlights reel. He has bought his own press. He has gotten absurdly high on his own supply and we know this because he believes that 911 was a blockbuster from 2001 in which he, sadly, was not cast. Men’s Journal has the scoop.

“If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.’”

That’s his re-write. Not bad, huh? He doesn’t try to get himself cast as Todd Beamer. That is thinking small. Rather he writes himself in, playing himself and allows Beamer not even a supporting roll, much less the rest of the passengers and crew who, somehow, managed to hold a plane-wide vote on their actions. And he doesn’t save the day simply by crashing the plane that had been commandeered into jihad as a flying bomb; oh no! He leads the whole planeload of grateful extras to a safe harbor, perhaps in a Shanksville field or perhaps in Atlantic City, after which they take Trump’s casino for a grillion!

We cut the Hollywood hero a bit of slack. He was, after all, scheduled to board some 911 flight that day (which one is unclear), if only that Toronto film festival hadn’t popped up, how different history would have been! The more friendly venues where this story appears imply that Mark of Hollywood suffers PTSD, that is Pre-traumatic Stress Syndrome, or maybe HTSD, Hypo-thetical Stress Syndrome. Lucky for him and the jihadis that he was able to charter a plane that fateful day but unlucky for America. And he has apologized. We’ll give that equal billing with the original flubb.

“To speculate about such a situation is ridiculous to begin with. I deeply apologise to the families of the victims that my answer came off as insensitive, it was certainly not my intention.”

Now THAT is an apology! Clearly it has come from a PR team and was funneled through legal unlike the original offense which, by the way, was not all that original. Wahlberg said something quite similar in 2006 and this one specifically states it was Flight 93 so his statement…

“We certainly would have tried to do something to fight. I’ve had probably over 50 dreams about it.”

at least implies that no one did, in fact, do any fighting. Ah, but Marky has dreamed about it, now THAT I believe! But the guy, unsurprisingly, is having some trouble separating his dreams from our reality and friends, that is where the Hollywood/Washington axis runs.

In the same way the infantile Mr. Wahlberg believes, oh, if only I were there…. likewise does the political animal of any persuasion resoundingly know in his heart that if only HE were elevated, if only HE were entrusted, if only, gosh dern it, people would just LISTEN! then all would be well. Not just the individual beast believes this but our elected class as an institution does likewise. Most of the “partisan” division is illusory. In full Wahlberg style, Ron Paul believes that if he were at the helm of state 911 itself would never have happened as America would have been happily indifferent to the world and the jihadis therefore happily indifferent to us. Mr. Obama believes much the same, or did before he was in charge except he takes it further, saying we might have befriended the market bombers and honor killers; replacing their grievances with friendships. We have given peace a chance however. It’s poor results have been chalked up to older animosities like the fall of the Ottomans, the kindly predecessors to Mubarak and bin Laden. Boner and Ryan and Newt and Mitt all agree with Obama and his Democrats that a leading position in both your retirement and your medical decisions must be reserved for government. Does the simple observation that not a dime can be returned in benefits that was not first taken from a beneficiary crack the consensus? Oh no. If one is not convinced that there is a moral imperitive, based on metaphysical equality that demands the nationalization of all things important, then there is the pseudo-business rational that we have economies of scale in our giant government projects that cannot be duplicated. No one can be found to say, the actuaries have spoken and the whole enterprise is doomed; a simple truth. No failure or depravity of any sort wounds the happy comity; not a rate of fraud in Medicare that outstrips all profit in medicine seven fold; not an explosion in applicants simultaneous with a collapse in funding. No, if these aren’t the work of malcontents and enemies they are cyclical fluctuations, sometimes known as “luck”. We can still sell bonds. We can still print money. We shall shortly return to vigorous growth giving us time to work out the bugs and once we do there will be Happy Endings for all. This is the firm conviction of all these waistcoated muckies who examine their manicures in First-class and know they lack only the opportunity to show their greatness. There is a reason that politics is known as Showbiz for the Ugly. It is a state of affairs our limited government was designed to keep to a dull roar but the semi-venerated papers were never enough. The drafters assumed at least a bit of skepticism on the part of America at large. We know (if he does not) that Mark Wahlberg cannot leap and fart and shoot with any accuracy simultaneously even though we may enjoy seeing that at the movies. Gravity is not subject to over-cranking nor time to time lapse photography. How can we then accept that printing money creates wealth? Or that unemployment makes jobs? Or that taxes can provide MORE than they cost? 

Simple, there is a giant industry that produces those illusions. We collude in both the Hollywood and Washington games with the Willing Suspension of Disbelief and oodles of straight cash. The only solution lies in the resolution that neither of these dream factories have anything we cannot live without. We can realize that on our own or in short order it will become a literal and unavoidable fact. In the case of Washington, the checks will bounce. In the case of Hollywood, the tickets will go unsold. Both are happening now though those who live by make-believe refuse to grasp it.

Over at Bleeding Cool, someone called Darin Wagner thinks he has hit upon the primary reason that comic book sales have been steadily declining. And as it turns out, he has actually hit upon the primary reason that comic book sales have been steadily declining, and he stumbles into it in the second paragraph of his essay:

You pick up a superhero comic book featuring a childhood favorite of yours, hoping to reignite some of that magic you felt way back when and you see that the opening sequence in the comic deals with an oil rig disaster. You immediately and disappointingly know what’s going to be said, either by your childhood favorite or by some other character given credibility within the story. You turn the page, and sure enough, your childhood favorite grumbles about his/her country’s dependency on oil or how inherently dangerous oil drilling is to the environment and how it’s not worth it or simply mutters to him-or-herself briefly about the evils of corporate America. That’s when you put the comic back on the shelf and your local retailer loses a sale. (Sound familiar? Brightest Day #5 contained a similar scenario featuring Aquaman.)

Mr. Wagner claims that it’s “liberalism” that is — or, per the title of his piece, “may be” — hurting comic book sales. He claims that it’s Aquaman’s grumbling about oil drilling and the dangers of said practice that represents the “liberalism” that’s turning off readers. But it isn’t that.

Re-read Mr. Wagner’s description of the opening scene of that particular comic book. This story takes place in a world in which there is a S.T.A.R. Labs. There exist dozens of geniuses in any number of fields. There are dozens of alien devices and elements and magical items to which they have access. Why, in a universe such as this, are they still using oil?

You’re telling me that Ray Allen Palmer(!)*, who used “white dwarf star matter” to create a means of shrinking himself to microscopic size couldn’t come up with a better, cleaner, more efficient way to power the cars that they drive in the DCU? Doctor Fate can’t just magically create a fleet of cars that run on magic stardust, and then create an unlimited supply of magic stardust?

Comic book creators have been resistant to introducing real-world implications into their stories for as long as comics have existed. They could not care less about what would happen to the average person-on-the-street in a world filled with supergeniuses and magical figures. They have ignored the rich storytelling opportunities opened up by exploring what a world of superheroes would really be like. (What would housing look like in a world where you can create structures that are bigger on the inside than outside? What would security be like in a world where people can level entire cities with a thought? Would we all have jet packs? Would we have had them 50 years ago?) What they care about is re-telling the same stories over and over and over and over again, over and over.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, in this DCU in which there are supergeniuses and magicians, they are still drilling for oil in exactly the same manner we do here in the real world (which features a distinct lack of supergeniuses and magicians). The DCU features Atlantis, a continent that fell into the sea following a skull-shaped meteor strike on the earth. Rather than just pick up and move to a continent that hadn’t sunk into the sea, the Atlantis scientists instead figured out a way to turn themselves into aquatic mammals that could breathe ocean water, and withstand the intense pressure of the ocean. In this world, the surface dwellers would have to deal with the Atlantisians (“Atlanteans”?) in order to get permission to drill in the oceans in which they live. That opens up an entire new set of potential stories. How do the two groups of people get along? What do the Atlantisians get in return for using their seas in this manner? Could the Atlantisians mine the surface for some power source? Would “radical Atlantisians” throw water bombs at surfacers?

And what would the oil rigs themselves look like? How would Ray Allen Palmer(!)* design one? Would it be made of Nth metal, and therefore indestructible, making oil rig disasters all but impossible?

The creators of mainstream corporate comics today do not care about any of this. I’ve said it before, and it’s so depressing it bears repeating: Comic books as they exist today are nothing more than advertising pamphlets for movie and television properties. That’s all. The people creating them don’t care about what’s actually going on in them (or if they do, they do a fantastic job of hiding it). They don’t care about exploring the implications of the worlds they create. They care about licensing and merchandising.

How little imagination to they exhibit? Here’s a page from that same issue referenced by Mr. Wagner in his essay:

Aquaman was dead — and then came back to life! That’s so… typical. But then, on the very next page we get this *cliffhanger* ending:

(Both Brightest Day scans were swiped from the lovely Aquaman Shrine.)

Aquaman has already established — on the previous page! — that he’s been dead and come back to life, and somehow the fact that someone has been sent to “kill” him is supposed to create breathless tension that will compel us to pick up the next issue.

But it was his wife that was “sent” to “kill” him! Who sent her? Will she actually do it? And if she does do it, how long before he comes back to life yet again? I gotta pick up the next issue!

DC’s treatment of Aquaman is so fantastically pathetic, and an object lesson in everything that is wrong with modern comics, that I wrote a long essay about it here. They’ve made him into a PoMo joke, a commentary on the reaction to the character by people who don’t read comics at all, rather than owning him as character with the potential to be the most important and powerful player in the DCU. Over 80% of the world is ocean, and Aquaman rules the ocean, for crying out loud. But what are the creators doing with him?

Heroes will be tweaked and aged down to showcase them not as established titans but as strivers who “have to sweat to fight the bad guys,” [Jim] Lee says. For example, Johns’ new take on Aquaman — here THR offers an exclusive sneak peek at pages 5 to 8 of issue No. 1, with art by Ivan Reis and Joe Prado — retools the underwater-breathing hero so he is no longer the king of Atlantis and now plays off his second-banana status.

“Geoff has dived into the grandeur of the character while addressing that he’s been a running joke,” Lee says. “It’s going to have humor and majesty.”

If Aquaman were a real, actual, living being, he would be regarded as one of the most amazing people on the planet. I bet you that he would be one of the most — if not the most — popular superheroes, if for no other reason than our ever-present worries about climate change. Aquaman would be a fetish figure.

DC — or, rather, the “creators” at DC — don’t care about any of that. They’re trying to “optimize brand appeal.”

In his introduction to his story collection Strange Wine, Harlan Ellison (a sometime comics writer himself) wrote, regarding the dinosaurs,

“They lived 130,000,000 years and vanished. Why? Because they had no imagination. Unlike human beings who have it and use it and build their future rather than merely passing through their lives as if they were spectators. Spectators watching television, one might say.”

That is just about the best explanation of what is happening to the mainstream comic book industry today. A bunch of dinosaurs with no imagination, not trying to build a future at all, but continually re-writing the past, and keeping their eyes on television, movies, and video games, where they hope to license the properties they caretake.

And that is what’s hurting comic book sales.

*Corrected Jan 13 2012 @8:45PM PST — Many thanks to the gracious “Bruce” for pointing out my error in the comments.

I first encountered Rammstein in an almost empty cinema on Glasgow’s Buchanan Street, during an afternoon matinee of the largely unloved David Lynch movie Lost Highway. Balthazar Getty had just broken into a house, a porno starring his lover was unfolding on a giant screen, and something was about to go very wrong — a point underscored on the soundtrack by sinister chanting, tolling church bells and an impossibly low German voice muttering words I didn’t understand. It was ominous, bombastic, absurd, utterly hilarious- and yet also thrilling:

Was ist das? I thought. The credits revealed that it was an outfit called “Rammstein”, but that meant nothing. A few weeks later however I was back in Moscow where I lived at the time, shopping for sounds in the open-air pirate market Gorbushka and lo! I stumbled upon a weird cassette, featuring six oiled, naked from the waist-up Germans posing in front of a giant flower. This, apparently, was Rammstein, and track eight — “Heirate Mich” — was the song from the movie.

At the time I was more of a 70s art rock/Algerian Rai man than a fan of Teutonic heavy metal. But beneath the grinding riffs, the guttural vocals, the industrial synths I detected something unexpected: a gift for melody, a sense of rhythm, almost, at times, a groove. It was, in other words, sehr gut:

Mere weeks later Rammstein released their second album, Sehnsucht which featured more grinding riffs, a female vocal and a bit more synth. It also contains what is probably the band’s signature track, “Du Hast” which became briefly notorious in the US since the Columbine killers dug it big time. Note the martial beat, and the obvious pleasure lead singer Till Lindemann takes in enunciating the sounds of his native language. Like Kraftwerk before them, Rammstein embraced their Germanic identity, albeit very different aspects of it:

The clip above is from the concert film Live Aus Berlin, when their stage show was big but not yet the epic piece of infernal rock theatre it would become. It also dates from a period when Rammstein’s sense of the absurd was less on display. Two tours later, and some members of the band had abandoned the “scary cyborg” look for lederhosen and even (in guitarist Paul Landers’ case) a monk’s tonsure. However Lindemann’s unique body language has always remained constant  — a champion swimmer in his youth, he is a huge presence on stage, alternately doing the “Rammstein squat”, pounding his fist on his knee, or staggering around looking alienated from his own ageing carcass, a profound melancholy in eyes.

I was lucky to discover Rammstein in Russia, because they were massive over there. Each release was an event, rather than an esoteric fringe thing as in the UK or US. The Mayor of Moscow was outraged by their sturm und drang stage antics, thought they were fascists and banned one concert I had tickets for lest Moscow’s many skinheads were inspired to go on the rampage. A year or so later he relented, which was good because it meant that after I had cleared multiple police barriers I could enjoy a live performance of “Mein Teil”, a song inspired by the penis-munching German cannibal Armen Meiwes:

Both “Du Hast” and “Mein Teil” are present on the recently released overview of their 16 year career, Made in Germany: 1995-2011. Putting together an effective compilation is an art, and Rammstein kept the track list secret until the last moment, making fans such as myself nervous. How could you select a single disc worth of songs from five excellent studio records (the band have in fact released six, but Rosenrot was rubbish). Would the sequencing work? I feared a travesty like the cult British band Pulp’s Hits- an incredibly lazy serving of four songs each from their four Island albums, presented in chronological order. Dreadful.

Fortunately, the sequencing of Made in Germany is excellent. The thing about Rammstein is that they sprang fully-formed from the head of Wotan. Membership of the band has remained constant, and they have always worked with the same producer. Rather than mess about with different styles, they have rather refined and explored the sound they were born with. Thus although the first six tracks were recorded over a period of almost ten years, the riffage is consistently mighty, whether exceedingly brutal in the case of “Links 234” a military march proclaiming the band’s allegedly leftist leanings (they were tired of being called Nazis), or exceedingly brutal, as in the case of “Keine Lust” in which Lindemann laments his lack of desire to do ordinary things such as masturbate or chew food, whereas those things he would like to do- say, have sex with large animals, involve rather too much risk. This fine song was accompanied by a rather entertaining video (available on the luxury box set edition) in which the band perform in fat suits:

It’s not all brutality and perversion however. Rammstein may operate within strict sonic parameters, but this does not stop them from experimenting with their sound. Thus track 8, “Mein Herz Brennt”, begins with a rising swell of strings, as Lindemann sings the opening narration from an East German kid’s show “The Sandman” rendering it into something anguished and nightmarish:

Indeed, Rammstein’s lyrics are well-written, featuring neologisms and word-play, while also being steeped in such fine German traditions as romantic and decadent poetry, porn and, er, sadistic stuff in the newspapers. Lindemann published a volume of poetry in the early 2000s and when the German composer Torsten Rasch took Lindemann’s lyrics and melodies and rendered them as orchestral lieder nobody laughed — in fact, one reviewer at the UK’s conservative Spectator magazine selected it as his best classical recording of 2002:

Attentive listeners will have noticed that the last two videos are in fact the same song.

One of Rammstein’s great strengths vis a vis American heavy metal is that they are not inspired by rage, with its drastically diminishing returns (see the career of Metallica for an example). Rather they do melancholy, perversion, yearning, grief. Lindemann was already 34 and a divorced father of two when he became successful. Knowing the hardships of adulthood, and the deprivation of an East German upbringing, he is not inspired by adolescent themes. Rather, he is inspired by the thought of Snow White enslaving the seven dwarves and doing coke, before dying of an overdose in the bath:

My only substantial complaint about Made in Germany is the quantity of tracks (five) selected from their third album, Mutter. Sure it is a work of art, possibly their finest recording, and it was their major international breakthrough. But they could definitely have cut the title track in favour of, say, “Heirate Mich”, which I linked to above. Meanwhile their sixth album, Liebe ist fur alle da is represented by an odd song selection, which might dissuade a neophyte from investing in a copy when I’d rank it as one of their best. Tokenism then lumps us with a track from Rosenrot which could easily have been omitted in favour of something better. But that’s what the skip function on a CD/MP3 player is for- so you can hop over minor mistakes to enjoy tracks such as this:

Some of the missing classics appear on the CD’s second disc, albeit in remix form. I’m not sure whether this second compilation will make much sense to those unfamiliar with the originals, but it’s a lot of fun nevertheless. I suspect Faith No More thought they were taking the mickey when they reduced “Du Riechst So Gut” to romantic strings and voice. Little did they realize that Rammstein were in on the joke already, and would go much farther in their pursuit of radical or frankly bizarre reworkings of their songs. In many cases the heavy metal guitars disappear completely, and the focus is on electronics and voice, such as in the trancey remix of “Stripped” by Tiamat, a Swedish black metal band. The somewhat tiresome satire “Amerika” is rendered into a boppin’ bossanova, while “Rammlied” becomes a polka, complete with banjos and yodelling. And if you have ever wondered what the Pet Shop Boys would sound like with a guttural German bass baritone as their lead singer, why not try out their disco version of “Mein Teil”? The best remix however is probably Laibach’s version of “Ohne Dich”. The mega-bombastic Slovenes were a major influence on Rammstein’s sound, imagery and provocative tactics- something, it seems, the band was for a long time wary of fully acknowledging. But Rammstein never really got into Laibach’s ultra-arch, cerebral irony, which left their elder Slavic cousins the creative space to make this preposterous/awesome version of Lindemann’s mournful, melancholic ballad:

My verdict: Rammstein: Made in Germany gets eleven stars out of five. Give the gift of Teutonic metal this Christmas. Wait a minute, Christmas has already come and gone. Never mind, give the gift of Teutonic metal anyway.

10. You’re a perfect 36: 12, 12, and 12

9. The judges make note of a suspicious bulge under your bathing suit

8. You can’t stop belching

7. Your evening gown is made out of pork rinds

6. You claim to be from East Virginia

5. During the interview portion, you say that the man you most admire is Satan

4. You spent all your preparation time polishing your tooth

3. The only thing you’ve ever won before is an Abe Vigoda Lookalike Contest

2. Your talent is standing erect

1. Instead of using adhesive spray to keep your swimsuit from riding up, you use duct tape
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

10. So You Think You Can Wassail

9. I Saw Uncle Charlie Kissing Santa Claus

8. The Littlest Angel: You’re Gonna Do What With That Christmas Tree?!

7. When Elves Attack

6. How the Grinch Got Green Genital Warts

5. Sheep in Heavenly Fleece

4. America’s Funniest Home Videos Nutcracker

3. Frosty the Hypothermia Victim

2. It’s a Wonderful Life for the One Percent

1. The Black Friday Special: Assault & Pepper Spray
 

Bob Sullivan’s Top Ten Everything appears every Monday.

I generally hate Christmas music. Happy, happy, joy, joy — elves, lollypops and sugarplums. I am looking for a Bluegrass or Rock version of the Messiah. A goth or punk version would be fun too.

Not that there aren’t some great Christmas songs. A lot of them are in Latin or German, and reflect emotions other than “oh boy, oh boy, this is gonna be great!” They reflect a sense of yearning, hope and melancholy. If you’re a believer, you realize the agony necessary for the promise of the Messiah to be fulfilled…and, if you’re a realist, your recognize that the agony will go on far longer than. If you tend toward the agno-anti-atheistic side of things, you can scoff, or appreciate the need for balence and forgiveness and hope in a future that remains dark and beyond a present tied to a past full of pain, disappointment and loneliness. We are spared despair by those moments of anticipation, fulfillment and hope, and I believe that the best Christmas songs capture all of that. Even though few were written in minor keys, they can be played that way…from Away in a Manger and Silent Night — which I once got to hear in a 9th Century Catholic Church played on zither and guitar and sung by the children of Berchtesgarden, a somewhat haunting moment –to White Christmas..

Christmas is the Holiday that is most human. Perhaps since so much of it results from Christianity ripping off the various  Solstice feasts and festivals; perhaps because it speaks not to the past in our western mythology but rather to the past  living through and to a future, real or not; perhaps because it is child-centered regardless of the worst Church  bureaucracy and commercialization have been able to do to it since the Milesian Bridge — it is just that way. In China  today, Christmas is celebrated as a lead-in to the Spring Festival, which starts in early January. The nicest Christmasy-  Christmas I’ve spent in recent years was in Shanghai, where there was enough Christmas stuff around to not make me  homesick, but it was weird enough in many ways to make me smile. The Chinese in Shanghai and I suspect other parts of  China don’t really get the whole realm of sacred versus profane thing. I saw this my first evening wandering around a  Shanghai mall, where the anchor store, Carrefour, had a large number of displays with Santa, Reindeer, Angels, Cribs and  Wisemen. All together — with a tree and presents. Go figure.

So what are my thoughts on the best contemporary Christmas stuff?

The Guardian had a piece with some of their critics favorite Christmas songs and Fairytale of New York came in 2nd on their poll; Planet Rock did one of their listeners and the Fairytale came in first. It’s one of my favorite pieces of Celtic stuff, as well as of Christmas songs. The reason that it didn’t win the Guardian poll, by the way, was that one of the judges felt it wasn’t really a Christmas song and it got zero points. Well, he’s a fucking idiot. Yearning, past happiness, despair in the present and acceptance of a confusing future, forgiveness and redemption– If this isn’t the best of what Christmas offers, then screw it. It should be.

While I was screwing around last night, I found a new Shane McGowan and Popes compilation and they had this one. I thought it was almost as good as the Fairytale. It loses points in my estimation because it feels overproduced and it takes the Toora-Loora-Loora melody without a lot of modification. However, I think people like Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan would have little problem with it, seeing the borrowing of the tune as part of the folk process, and who am I to argue. (In case you’re wondering why I cite Dylan, I recommend listening to Dominic Behan’s The Patriot Game and then to With God on Our Side; closer to home, listen to All I Really Wanna Do and then to Muddy Waters’ I Just Want to Make Love to You –same song, same phrasing, different instrumentation, voicing and lyrics.) and, as with a lot of McGowan’s material, the lyrics drive the train. The Pogues were a better band, and he needs someone like Kristi McCall or Sinead O’Connor or Dolores O’Riordan singing harmony to make it perfect. But, it’s close. Same emotions, stronger on the hope perhaps and on the acceptance than Fairy Tale.

On a far more contemporary note, there’s my young, sort of little friend Sheri Miller. She hasn’t recorded this one yet, and doesn’t want me to publish her lyrics for it until she’s got a polished version and video. I can understand that, bt I wish she’d have gotten it done! – The version is I’ve posted is from several years ago, and Sheri is still evolving artistically. Her most recent effort included a wider variety of musicians, including people like Steve Cropper and I think it’ll be really great. This song is more of a straight folk, kinda Shawn Colvin kind of thing, and she’s done a variety of stuff in her short career. She recently wrote something about Rock and Roll Landmarks, and I’m not sure where she went with that. Although she got a kick out of Keith Moon’s antics in various LA hotels and the idea of Sun Studios and Stax in Memphis among my various recommendations. I wish I had thought to mention the Edgewater Hotel in Seattle, by the way — the hotel is on pilings over Elliot Bay, and supposedly John Lennon tried to fish out his bedroom window the first time the Beatles came through Seattle. Anyway, she’s working on another album and says that this number, “Merry Christmas…Jesus it’s been One Helluva year” will be a great fit. While I’m looking forward to it, I think the rawness and starkness of this version combined with the lushness of her voice should be a performance classic in years to come. After this, musically, I can forgive her anything, even Spoons

Steve Earle has kind of a classic Chrismas protest song here, showing his Woody Guthrie-Townes Van Zandt roots. I had a senior moment earlier, thinking that it had originally been titled Christmas in Taneytown, a city in Maryland between DC and Baltimore and Gettysburg. For some reason, I thought this might have had something to do with Larry McMurtry’s book store that he owned before going back to Texas. Well, the song resounds even today, and adds Phil Ochs to the list of his antecedents. It also reminds me of some Guy Clark stuff and some Robert Earl Keen stuff. But, it is a Christmas song — calling us to do, be and build something better.

Speaking of Robert Earl Keen, it would be blasphemous for someone like me to not cite Merry Christmas from the Family as a marvelous contemporary take on things. And then, there’s the Jeff Foxworthy take on the whole thing which I first heard on a Christmas in Germany, and have chuckled over at least once a year — especially those years where I own a Mustang GT.

Thinking again of my Celtic roots, I thought of the Chieftains. This is one of their carols, with Nanci Griffith providing the vocal. They have a history of recording with interesting talents, and here is a more normal carol, but with Rickie Lee Jones providing the vocal. However, again, note the minor key and the sense of resignation.

How can you think about Ricky Lee Jones without a nod to Tom Waits? I suppose it’s really not that hard, but this is a fascinating little piece by a major artist who irritates and illuminates. And then irritates again — I suspect he wouldn’t want to have it any other way. Now, in mercy for the season, I’m using Neko Case’s cover — his voice is an acquired taste, where as her voice is insanely good. And, as a bonus, here’s a New Pornographers piece that has a definite 90s hipster Vancouver Christmas vibe…you’re asking me to believe too many things…

Finally, I thought of blues and R&B. As you probably know, Hubert Sumlin died recently and Etta James is dying — and in the tradition of the music, friends paid for Hubert’s funeral and Etta James family is squabbling over her estate. Now, I heard this piece earlier this week on Little Stephen’s Underground Garage at XM21. James Brown is definitely telling us to get a grip and a perspective — particularly at this time of economic injustice and oppression. Still resonates, and I hate to say that, but I find that very sad indeed…

Here’s Etta James take on the holiday, and on life in general.

Sumlin isn’t really identified with any Christmas music; there is a school of thought that “Sittin On Top of the World” is kind of a Christmas song. That school is wrong. If that’s a Chrismas song, I can make the case that St Valentine’s Day is a Christmas song. And, Sumlin wasn’t in Howlin Wolf’s band when he cut “Sittin…” for Sun Records before going off to Chicago and Chess. However, the Drifters cut this piece, and it’s definitely worth considering, as is this nugget from John Lee Hooker.