Memorial Day 2012

Here's something to remember:

Read it.

Time for Grandpa's Diaper Change

John McCain actually said this last Sunday on This Week about VP possibilities for Romney:

"The absolute, most important aspect is, if something happened to him, would that person be well qualified to take that place? I happen to believe that was the primary factor in my decision in 2008.  And I know it will be Mitt's." 

What's the word for that sort of blindness?

Cinco del Gringo

Whazza what? More cut-out photos to celebrate the Battle of Puebla?! Curse you Don Julio!!!

Did you need menus or more chips or just the drinks?

Nine Years Ago Today

And countless lives later ...

Never stop counting their lies.

Meatloaf: Bat Out of Hell

I was somewhere around my 38^th Blatz one night last week, tooling around the Netflix queue, when I came upon the Classic Albums series that had dropped into the instant watch section. Staring me right in the face-- in all its sexually charged, prepubescent, operatic glory – was a short documentary on the making of Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell.

I cannot begin to tell you, dear readers, the importance that this album had on this author's sanity as an angst-ridden teen in the late '70s, suffice to say that without it I'd probably still be awaiting (with bated, nerdy breath) the latest technological musical noodlings of Robert Fripp or Rick Wakeman. Okay, maybe that's too harsh. I had always prided myself on staying atop the Euterpean food chain even back then and segued easily into the developing new wave and punk movements of the time. But it was a trying era in popular music.

Which leads me to another one of my crackpot theories. No, not the usual half-baked conjecture with holes wider than a crazy woman's quilt. A very real hypothesis that states, with unflinching assuredness, that the release of Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell singlehandedly saved rock and roll; or, at least, delayed its demise for approximately fifteen to twenty years.

It was long ago and it was far away

And it was so much better than it is today

In 1978, disco was still strong. Metal was making a vicious surge. The Grease soundtrack was being pawned off as real rock 'n roll. Prog rock had overtaken the concert arenas from the bands who had fused blues and rock in the earlier part of the decade (and the late '60s). And emasculating, gutless foam like Air Supply and Barry Manilow were dominating the airwaves. Something or someone needed to stand up in Howard Bealean protest and say "Enough!"

It was a man named Jim Steinman. And it was his encyclopedic music knowledge, adolescent preoccupation with teenage sexual frustration and fantasy, ability to turn a phrase, and love a big fat man with a decent set of pipes that became savior not only to music's most energetic genre, but to this poor, virginal, acne-ridden mess of a fourteen-year-old as well. Karla DeVito's nipples also helped.

As a matter of fact, maybe it was Karl DeVito's nipples that singlehandedly saved rock and roll.

Every Saturday Night

I felt the fever grow

Do you know what it's like

All revved up with no place to go

Having no car, no fake I.D., no girlfriends and no freedom, my friends and I used to hang out in our buddy's basement rec room every weekend. We'd play ping pong, pool, shoot the shit about who we just fucking hated at our school and, of course, rated our female classmates on "bangability". We did all these activities while the stereo was playing either our newly purchased albums, bootlegged cassettes, or the local AOR radio station ("Friday Night – Party Night!" it mocked). We lamented the current state of music, movies and television (Oh Lord! We couldn't know how worse it would get!), speaking often of turning 18, going to college and getting out from under the thumb of our domineering, hideous parents whom we were sure secretly hated us, yet would ultimately regret the unspeakable way they treated us throughout our youth before sending us off to university on their dime (Oh Lord! We couldn't know how worse it would get!).

Nothing ever grows in this rotten old hole

And everything is stunted and lost

And nothing really rocks

And nothing really rolls

And nothing's ever worth the cost

Then, sometime in the winter of 1978, the opening rockabilly boogie guitar chords of Paradise By the Dashboard Light twanged through the shitty, crackling speakers in the basement and we all knew, precisely and as one at that moment, that it was all going to be okay. We would get laid. We would drive a car. We would get to college. We would have girlfriends. And, when we saw Meatloaf perform the tune on Saturday Night Live later that year, we also got to see Karla DeVito's nipples.

It was the Phil Spector wall of sound, mixed with the sexual angst of a generation that didn't get to experience the free love or radical political thrill of the '60s. It was ball-busting musical theater for guys who hated fucking musical theater. It knocked the dicks of performance art rock dandies right into the dirt. It put a bulge in your pants and a riff in your heart. It was an anthem for the seeds of Gen-X, although those aging hipsters would deny it now. The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, The Clash, The Talking Heads and Elvis Costello were the newfound darlings, and rightfully so, but the revolt came with Steinman's operatic nostalgia which, like a cleansing rain, helped wash off the stink of Yes, Genesis, ELP, and the goddamn, fucking Eagles. At least, from this boy's playlist.

Most of this argument, while true on a personal level, is a bit disingenuous. The talents which brought you this phenomenal work of art have never achieved anything remotely close to it in the remainder of their careers. The two sequel albums are horrifically bad and Meatloaf's Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are is as silly as its title. His apparent follow up, Any Rebroadcast, Retransmission, or Account of this Game, without the Express Written Consent of Major League Baseball, is Strictly Prohibited was sadly never made.

Admittedly, Jim Steinman is a bit of a hack. Meatloaf lost weight and never did anything near as good. Producer Todd Rundgren, however, wondered how anyone could take the album seriously and said the humor of it was what got him through the drudgery of making it. This from the hermit of the pretentiously hollow who has never done anything near as interesting or listenable as this record. Put it this way; if they staged a revival concert of Bat Out of Hell at any venue in the United States of America, I would gouge someone's eyes out for a ticket. If Todd Rundgren and his band agreed to perform a free block party concert on an adjacent street where I live, I would call the cops and complain about the noise.

The question is not whether Bat Out of Hell saved rock and roll, but, without Bat Out of Hell, was rock and roll ever really worth saving?

Oh. And one more thing:

Would you offer your throat to the wolf with the red roses?

Immortals

It has been quite a long time since I've thrown an Orville Redenbacher in the microwave, drained my brain pan of its excess oil, and cued up a disk of pure popcorn entertainment like Tarsem Singh's Immortals. Of course, there has been a very good reason for that. This type of mindless escapism, once aimed at a much broader audience, has become nothing more than a CGI-clogged, illiterate, visual masturbation frenzy for the gamer set.

It has no place in the cinema of epic adventure.

As a friend of Simone's so ably put it, "If you want that kind of spectacle, go to the fucking circus."

Or stay in your parent's basement and stream Thai martial arts movies and Korean amputee porn until your puny dick falls off.

For all of Singh's noteworthy visuals (and there's not even many of those in a film that looks like the cutting room floor of every Lord of the Rings movie combined), Immortals lacks any sort of cohesive storyline, strong characters, or the blatant homoeroticism that made 300 so pruriently fascinating. If you want a perfect example of how something as promising as the technological advancements in filmmaking made in the last thirty years can be turned into absolute reeking bullshit; look no further than Immortals. It's as if the cure for cancer had been discovered but the doctors will only use it to treat rickets.

This is certainly the biggest problem with these new epics -- the crutch-like reliance the filmmakers have on CGI effects at the cost of plot or decent dialogue. Hell, I'll even take campy dialogue at this point. We see the same scenes over and over again – waves upon waves of semi-human creatures in a motley array of menacing armor and helmets amassing in front of large stone fortresses built into the side of mountains getting slaughtered wholesale in stop-motion/slow-motion battle sequences where no one can tell who the fuck is who or what the fuck is what. In between, there is corny banter which establishes nothing but the traits of the characters one has already gleaned from the tiresome exposition in their introductory scenes. Pepper in a scene of the hero having to fight a particularly large member of the aforementioned horde (who'll have an even more menacing helmet!), a female love interest culled typically from the gene pool of a wary ally (often a she-warrior or enchantress), and a final confrontation with the leader of "Teh Evil" (drawn out to at least a ten minute fight scene) and you have yourself a contemporary CGI epic sure to please the twelve-year-olds who somehow snuck into the theater without a guardian.

Immortals rarely strays from this focus-group path.

I had read a good amount of Greek mythology in my youth, so the film's storyline (playing wildly with Zeus and the gang) was as confusing as Oedipus' bath time at Jocasta's place.

In brief:

The peasant Theseus (played by Henry Cavill – the ridiculously handsome motherfucker from The Tudors -- last seen indirectly staining the sofas of dissatisfied Showtime-subscribing housewives everywhere) has been chosen by the Gods to wage battle against King Hyperion (played by Mickey Rourke – the ridiculously freakish motherfucker -- last seen actually staining some people's sofas and doing some real acting in The Wrestler). The King wishes to attain the Epirus Bow (a magical weapon) and enslave all of humanity. He storms some holy castle and kidnaps the virgin oracle (played by some woman who looks a lot like a very young Padma Lakshmi). In the ensuing chaos, there are many people impaled on spears in slow motion and flung harshly to the ground or into walls.

Theseus is enslaved during the struggle and sent to work in the salt fields. He also meets Stephen Dorff there. I'm not sure which hardship is greater for Theseus. It does, however, prove a theory I've been working on lately. That Stephen Dorff is so incapable an actor that he can actually be an annoying douchebag in any historical era. His lack of talent transcends the boundaries of time. Despite this, they band together with a few other expendables, rescue Padma Lakshmi, and return to Top Chef in time for the final vote Theseus' village in time for him to see his mother's throat get cut by Hyperion. There are many people impaled on spears in slow motion and flung harshly to the ground or into walls.

So inept is this band of merry rebels that the Gods watching from above begin to tamper in their quest. Yet Zeus forbids it! Fuck it, they do it anyway and get the gang out of some tough scrapes. There are many people impaled on spears in slow motion and flung harshly to the ground or into walls.

Theseus finds the magical bow while burying his mother and soon loses it to a hyena. Yeah, a hyena. He then fucks Padma Lakshmi, causing her to lose her gift of portent for she is no longer a virgin. They struggle back to the fortress of their wary allies (built into a mountain) and await Hyperion, who now possesses the Epirus Bow and is hell bent on destroying the reign of the Gods by releasing the Titans. There are many people impaled on spears in slow motion and flung harshly to the ground or into walls.

After one of the more outlandish confrontations ever committed to celluloid, Theseus slays Hyperion and Zeus commits to helping the poor humans by destroying the strangely simian Titans (in menacing helmets!) and bringing down the adjacent mountain on top of Hyperion's swarming throng. There are many people not impaled on spears but, rather, crushed by falling rock. It had to be thus.

After all, what sort of world would it be without benevolent Gods overseeing our fate or our fellow humans coming to our aid in times of great peril?

We just may find out if the Republicans gain control of the government again and pass Paul Ryan's budget.

Anyway, it's all Greek to me.