Upon Some Greatness Is Thrust—Part 3: The Scam-ly Album

I had a dream…

Two hairy human backs—naked: one dotted intriguingly w/ liver spots, the other showing enough rib to achieve an anorexic sexiness. From in front of their owners, little rhythmic slapping sounds can be heard, as can a low moaning.

I have a hard-on.

I can’t see the men’s faces, but I am not behind them. Is that me in front—the one who is moaning? It seems wrong. There’s a windy, barrel-chested quality to those sobs—that’s what they have become: sobs.

I seem to be nowhere, but I try to move around them—past the slap-slap-slapping—to see…

Wormy grin= Netanyahu. Sneery smile= a chipmunk… oh wait, I’m mistaken. It’s Barack Obama. And they’re… naked… And that slapping is them jerking off w/ saliva-stained palms. Not a very efficient system, as you have to spit in yr. hand frequently to avoid going raw, but then, there’s The Economy & a certain need for corner-cutting. That probably explains the absence of lube, as well as the fact that only 2 people have shown up for this circle jerk.

Or 3, I guess… if the thing in the middle can be called a person. It’s sniveling on the cushions of fat that line its knees & elbows, cradling its head in its hands, and jabbering. It wears a torn gingham nightgown like one Melissa Gilbert might’ve donned on Little House on the Prairie. The subhuman thing looks up, weeping, but…smiling a little… Abu Mazen…

A sign has been pinned to his back w/ a safety pin that reads “”MIDDLE EAST PEACE PROCESS”” in a messy child’s scrawl.

Even the quotation marks are in quotes. A smaller scrap of paper—a Post-It, really—sez “The Roadmap” in red ink. On it, is an arrow pointing toward Abbas’s ass.

Oh Mr. Benjamin… Slaughter my people… Oh Mr. Barack… humiliate them! This is so hot!

He goes on and on, as they try to make their flaccid lil’ willies do somethin’. Futility. It’s all futility. But hot futility. Abu Mazen squeals…

Where’s Hamas? I need them now! My tight asshole won’t stay cherry forever!

PLING! CRIK! TEE-YOO!

Sounds like gunshots! For a second, I thought it was Hamas, but there’s no one around here but my friend & I. Wasn’t Benjamin Netanyahu just here? Yeah… I’m sure he was—w/ a chipmunk & a pincushion. Boy, dreams sure can get weird, can’t they?

What dirty thing do you want me to do now? My friend sez.

Oh, run yr. well-seasoned nut-sack across my eyelids—gently, like a llama grazing at clover.

KLING! BLAT! CRIK!

Another interruption! A horrible racket, and it was ruining the mood. My friend started zipping up & turned to leave…

Wait, please don’t go!

He shook his head, sneering, threw a $50 bill on the bed and left…

Wait! Brian Dennehy! Please come back!

WEENG! PLEEE! POW!

The end of a—well, I’m deeply uncertain whether I should call it “pleasant”—dream… This wasn’t the 1^st time I’d been pulled out of a deep slumber by those sounds…

GLEEK! KLEEPOW!!!

Gunshots. That’s what I get for being a PI. Sleeping late can get you killed, but then, I felt fulfilled. I felt that I deserved to sleep late…

I cannot begin to tell you what sorta high I’ve been on lately. Not only has this blog been foundering in bad writing about music, but my life has been foundering in this bad blog. You’d think I’d have something to write about besides music. I mean, not that it’s a bad subject or even—in my estimation—an unimportant one. It’s just that there are other things to write about—or there used to be—e.g. my exiting excursions to Hawaii & NYC—not to mention other matters. You’ve been left hanging, haven’t you? I’d say I was sure you were real unhappy about that, if I thought that you’d even noticed.

Unfortunately, I did notice. As I said, it seemed I was doing nothing but writing blog entries. My testicles have shrunken to a point where they’ve practically atrophied. My dog no longer recognizes me—or if she does, she must really be pissed off, ‘cuz whenever I walk by, she growls at me as ‘tho I were cat burglar—ha ha ha… Yep. I’ve been neglecting a lot & failing to enjoy even more.

Part of my compulsion arose from guilt. I felt bad that I’d been doing such a bad job of maintaining this here record. And that’s pretty dumb, as, well, talk about yr. victimless crimes, right? Still, empty guilt is 1 of my most charming traits—or that’s what 1 of the shrinks I used to have (back when I still allowed for the possibility that there was some reason to visit ‘em) told me. That was right before—maybe it was after—who can be sure?—she took out a restraining order on me. Anyway, I’m not a pussy like that anymore, but I do feel guilty more often than I oughta, and I felt guilty about overlooking—or rather, hiding from this blog.

Part of the prob. was that writing about Hawaii & NYC & that sorta thing actually feels like work. At some point back there, I made the unfortunate choice to make an effort in writing about these things. You may be disturbed to hear that past entries represented my “making an effort.” If writing that’s that lousy is laborious, I really must be fucked, right? A bad writer who feels compelled to try to write well? Man, do I have a headache, but fret not, friend out there. I didn’t make much of an effort. But even an effort can be a lot, if you are as pathologically devoted to inertia as I am.

So I ran from my blog. I hid. I took out aliases, pretending I was a professional writer. Somehow, always, my blog would find me.

Fuck off! I sez.

Steve, I’m positioned perfectly. I’m coverin’ every point of egress. You’re not gettin’ outta there till you promise to blog. After all, I’m a blog. If you won’t turn yourself in, I got nothin’ to lose. I’ll ventilate you, bitch. Look at my big shiny gat. Well! Go ahead! Look!

Dumb fuck that I am, I looked. And WHIZZ! BLING! KLUPP! Flakes of drywall danced slowly through the air, like the dandruff of angels.

My blog was drooling and blubbering.

I don’t wanna die! I know I’m a mediocrity, but I don’t wanna die! Pleeze?!

Blink blink. Snivel.

I sighed.

OK, let’s talk. Look, I can’t stand it HI.? NYC? The subjects are so big. The stories are so complicated. The liquor cabinet’s so empty. (Not that I have 1.)

Well, like, remember when you used to write about Harold Washington and things—sorta in-between. Like, when you needed a break from HI. or whatever?

My head snapped to 1 side, looking for an imaginary camera to which I might direct an expression of surprise. I’d forgotten all about Harold Washington, Jeff Foxworthy, Alf, Tori Spelling, etc. My blog was right. I’d forgotten about the Apple store, jobs I’d had transferring stag films to VHS tapes and speed-induced breakdowns at drive in theater. But then it hit me.

Yeah, but see the prob. is that when I get carried away w/ that shit, it can take over everything. Even in an entry that’s supposed to be about HI. or whatever, a digression can take over. I get lost. The entry gets lost. Meaning gets lost. I feel like I’m Hansel, wandering in the woods—trying to convince Gretel to shove a juniper stalk up my urethra, ‘cuz like, we’re lost, ‘cuz our wood-cutter dad just remarried to some skank bitch, who’s pist cuz I wouldn’t fuck her cuz she’s my dad’s new wife, and that ain’t right, and besides which, I’m only into dudes who look like Montgomery Clift—esp. right after the big car accident—and she’s a chick who looks more like Mark Hamill right after that bad car accident… Did you ever see Corvette Summer? I never did, but aren’t you morbidly curious? Dontcha just kinda wanta know how bad his acting really is when he can’t hide it behind a light saber in the middle of a glorified kiddie flick…

My blog had nodded off. Slowly, I reached for its piece, but it started and leveled the barrel at me.

Clever fuck. You were trying to bore me into a coma so you could lift my gun and then prob. terminate me.

Look, I don’t wanna kill you. But you gotta admit: this has all gotten to be a little heavy, and if I fall back on stuff that’s easier, I’ll lose the thread—sorta like that magic thread that horny teen babe gave that Theseus guy so he could navigate through that giant underground maze w/o gettin’ seized by some hairy cow-headed stud, who’d then goose n’ sodomize Theseus w/ his horns before eating him (just why Theseus would wanna avoid such a titillating experience is beyond me)… I think the thread was this real long golden pube that I heard the horny teen babe stole from the crotch of a faerie princess from Davison, Michigan, who had an extra nipple that GLOORB BULUBB…

I found that I had the barrel of the gun in my mouth. My reflex was to start suckin’, but my blog was looking at me w/ a cold rage that distracted me.

No more pan-cultural folklore references. No more talking. Just listen: Music. Write about that. That will get you moving. Once you’ve built up some momentum, you can get back to NYC or HI. or Arcturus or wherever. Music. Usually, you can stay on-topic and finish what you have to say, when you write about music.

GLUPP?

Shut up. Write some entries about music. Now. No more runnin’. I wanna live!

More snivelin’ & weepin’. I hate my blog. It was bein’ all over-solicitous. You could tell it just wanted someone to feel sorry for it. Fortunately, I had a 9mm Browning in my mouth and was therefore exempted from having to say anything comforting. I did, however, brush 1 very greasy strand of hair from my blog’s teary eye. After all, I created the poor lil’ fucker…

Anyway. So. Music entries. And they started gettin’ as convoluted and unwieldy as my travelogues n’ psychedelic fantasies. Still, I soldiered on—I compiled my end of the year list early—got it outta the way immediately, before it could get outta hand; and then I lay to rest, once & for all, the eternal questions of who were the Greatest Musical Artists of All Time & what was the Greatest Song…

Fuck personal progress or blogress or whatever—I was hastening human progress. And then, finally, I’d said it all. There was nothing else to say about music. I was ready to barf, repeatedly, if I had to so much as glance at a Lester Bangs book. But my blog couldn’t demand anything else musical from me. It was gonna have to come up w/ some other tactic, & this time, I’d be ready for it. I’d get the drop--& w/ something a lot more creative than a 9mm. Something w/ plastique maybe—yeah… & cockroaches… Hmmm…

Ha! You can’t conceive of the happiness I felt! I laughed harder and in a healthier way than I did when Chicago Cubs pitcher Carlos Zambrano slugged former Cubs catcher Michael Barrett a few years back. It was a kinda elation I hadn’t experienced since childhood rides on the Tilt-a-Whirl. Once or twice I almost got an erection.

For days, my blog was conspicuously absent. It was like it knew I was laying in wait—ready for it this time. Then the other day, I was just hangin’ out, coalatin’ some photos of Elizabeth Elmore. Sigh… Elizabeth transfixed, as she took a solo… Elizabeth in a black sleeveless shirt, grinnin’ foxily … Somewhat incongruously, I was listenin’ to OHM: Early Gurus of Electronic Music, but even it couldn’t drown out my computer’s alarm tone (which, in case you’re wonderin’, is Barney Rubble chortlin’ like he just slipped a cleverly KY’ed finger up Fred Flintstone’s tight ass). It bespoke a new email message.

I don’t know why I set Elizabeth aside—as if I ever really could do that. I thought it would only take a moment to glance at the message—prob. just one more empty advertisement from some concern that is affiliated w/ some adult erotica type site I’d visited, which, despite the fact that I’d specified I didn’t wanna receive no announcements, offers, etc. re: various bargains or events in my area, had passed my name along to some other assholes, w/ whom I’d had no direct contact and were therefore not bound to leave me alone. And I’d have to email ‘em to unsubscribe. And their unsubscribe link would lead me to some 404: File Not Found Type page. And I’d shoot myself and then the computer—or maybe the other way around, just for the sake of variety. Butt that’s not what the message hadda do w/.

There was no subject heading, and I didn’t recognize the sender’s address: HYPERLINK "mailto:sforcemansblog69@aol.com"sforcemansblog69@aol.com. Who the fuck uses AOL anymore? I was intrigued. Of course, I’m sure the sender was hoping I’d be intrigued, so that I’d read the message, rather than deleting it out of hand, as I normally would.

12 pt. Arial characters spelt out: “best album?”

I woke up 4 hours later w/ crusted black blood in my eye. Apparently, I’d chosen to hit the bony ridge of my eye socket repeatedly w/ one of several blunt objects lying about, thereby driving myself into unconsciousness. I held my cradled my forehead and cast about for the weapon. Like it matters what I’d brained myself w/, but curiosity, often, is my undoing. Look at this email…

Of course it was from my blog. And of course, it had my number. Those words—those 2 accursed words—unleashed all of my diseased compulsiveness. Greatest Album. Now I have to write about that before—finally—I can rest—till I can quit writing about music for a while—maybe even quit writing this fuckin’ blog—and actually work on one of the many things I really want to write. Or maybe even I can just watch re-runs of Who’s the Boss? Or grow a tail. Or learn to speak Esperanto. Anything, anything, anything, but write about music again!

So w/ all due empty, targetless resentment, I bring you a consideration of The Greatest Musical Album of All Time…

Hole – Celebrity Skin:

Hole is/are/whatever…we’re really talkin’ about Courtney Love, right?…too chameleonic to be considered “great” What’s more, they mostly suck. But OK, back when, I liked their album Live through This. And I was all caught up in that Kurt & Courtney stuff. Live through This was OK, but sounded suspiciously like Courtney singin’ karaoke over a buncha Nirvana outtakes. Courtney’d act even pissier than usual—which was pretty pissy—whenever someone pointed that out. Eventually she overturned past statements when she allowed that Kurt might have helped her write some of the songs, but they were really hers at heart. Then Kurt died, and she went off and made this record w/ her ex-boyfriend and lead Smashing Pumpkin Billy Corrigan producing.

And pretty quick, Courtney released Celebrity Skin to mixed reviews. And damned if it didn’t sound a helluva lot like a buncha Smashing Pumpkins outtakes, wherein Billy whips 70s radio rock & softcore punk energy into one very intriguing cake. Or at least that’s what all the critics & DJs & various other outlets of musical lore told us.

People may’ve pointed out the apparently derivative nature of her new stuff to Courtney. They may or may’ve not been spit on for it. Or maybe she offered them that not-quite-convincing facsimile of a smile that she unrolled outside movie premiers on various red carpets—themselves unrolled—during her brief stint in Hollywood. (If you’re interested, you can actually watch her tryin’ to pull that smile together in the documentary Kurt & Courtney, right before she realized she was being asked about her involvement in ol’ Kurdt’s death.) Coulda gone either way. I don’t know. I was too busy playing Celebrity Skin really, really loud and ignoring everything else except for the fruit salads I had to make for the coffee shop I worked at. Melon-ballers & Courtney. The good life. Well, I made the salads anyway. In truth, I only rarely listened to this album, because it is so moving that I didn’t want to ruin it.

What’s better than sittin’ back & listenin’ to the amalgamated cheese ball that Billy &/or Courtney have made for yr. personal dinner party? Instead of marbled meat n’ cheese, it’s givin’ you distant little punk explosions folded over into that clean 70s feelin’ of rollin’ down yr. windows & crusin’. This is Cali 70s rawk—strictly decadent, but yearnin’—not above self-doubt—just like Hotel California or Rumors or one a those solo Joe Walsh records. (Did he live in California when he wasn’t being a mercenary for the Eagles?)

There are only 2 problems here, in this otherwise perfect platter. First, Billy &/or Courtney seem to have a shaky understanding of what that Fleetwood/Eagles, etc. shit sounds like, so they can only offer you a vague whiff of some car-tune of it here—a shaky replica of feeling, but not of sound. Worse, ‘tho neither Billy nor Courtney was every really an exponent of the punk esthetic, both seem to’ve forgotten what its 90s renaissance—the 1 that made ‘em famous—sounds like as well. This record only weakly recalls 70s yawn rock or 90s whine rock. It sounds a lot more like indeterminate mulch rock—a timeless, if bland, style, when properly cultured.

Still… there’s that 2^nd prob.: Courtney can’t sing! She makes Stevie Nicks sound like Stevie Wonder. And that’s a liability you don’t want weighing down a record like this. At best, we could argue that Courtney’s a sorta jazz singer—scattin’ & honkin’—like Ella Fitzgerald in heat. More like Billie Holiday maybe—in her later years, when many feel that her voice became less “perfect,” musically, but also far more expressive of emotion. Courtney’s just like that.

Mmmff…snicker… Not really… For one thing, Courtney never could sing, which was OK when her music was impersonating quasi-punk rock. After all, her dead hubbie’s talents were limited in this area—‘tho he did have them, & you could hear them in an unplugged context. But simple as he may or may not’ve been, he never entertained illusions that he was Glen Frey—who can sing OK, but has little discernible personality. Kurt did have personality—lots of it—but it’s rare that you get a lotta personality and talent. Mostly what C has is personality—again, lots of it—unfortunately, it’s almost aaaaalllllllll unlikable.

If you feel little affection for Courtney, you’re mostly sorta left looking for talent. You’ll find it on this album, but for the most part, it isn’t hers. It’s the studio-as-artist esthetic championed by guys like Phil Spector, back when—an esthetic that took over a lotta the airwaves a long time ago. Behind the singer, battalions of backup vocals founder in string section squalls. If you’re Mariah Carey, you mostly show up to do karaoke. You read out the lyrics phonetically, not even paying attention to what you’re singin’, as yr. voice does these little dolphin jumps. You may very well be singin’ “I Wanna Be Black,” which is Mariah’s case would be pretty fuckin’ funny.

Here we are, adrift in a sea—did I say “sea?”—is a sea enough to contain this shit?—of twisted, elaborate enactments of art, personality, empathy, facelessness. Courtney has a face. It’s ugly, attractive or bland, according to yr. taste, but it’s there. And if there’s something buoying us up here, it’s the struggle, dance, intercourse, fight over a parking spot—whatever—here between that face and that sound. Humanity in Cyberbia—there’s Courtney, hashin’ it out—tryin’ to assert her uniqueness and significance, all the while, tangled up in matted balls of wires & playlists. Tension, baby, is the rule here. It leads to this utterly embarrassing artifact—something that is part train wreck, part commercial, part sex, (of course,) but mostly, mostly, mostly, a really good standup routine.

I hate to just laugh at people. Mostly, it’s a negative indulgence, but when someone feels she needs to act out her stupidity, her longing for popularity, her incredible self-consciousness, it becomes something like tragi-comedy. Ultimately, too, given the context of Courtney’s life, her utter bitchiness & her utter cynicism in appropriating a musical style that was, well, pretty shallow to begin w/, & in which, I suspect she had no interest—not even in its few elements that were not entirely shallow—along w/ so many other expressions of ugliness—well, unfortunately, the sense of tragedy falls away, and despite the fact that it was not yr. intention to do so, you find yourself laughing at her after all.

It’s so absurd! This record is so absurd! Listen to “Heaven Tonight” w/ its nasal “unh-hunh’s.” Look at all those 90s teen movies & TV shows, like, say, Dawson’s Creek, that featured these songs. Troll through the repeated lyrical imagery of someone—variously the protagonist & then her lover—galloping to each other—all of which is embarrassing & a little troubling, but I can’t say whether the pathology that’s marked out here is Courtney’s or someone else’s—possibly a disgruntled songwriting hack, who was having a good, long laugh at her expense. Worst, in “Heaven Tonight,” one of many candidates for the albums nadir, Courtney repeatedly describes herself galloping to heaven to save “you.” OK. I’m not certain who “you” may be, but I think we have to at least entertain the possibility that you’re Kurt Cobain! And if so—dude—I have 2 things to say to you: “Scentless Apprentice” is a great fuckin’ song, (and you have others,) and dude, I’m really sorry your wife has culled such an unpleasant bowl of gruel from yr. memory. But then, bad taste was always a staple of the punk esthetic, so I’m sure you’d agree, it goes w/ the territory you wandered—and I am wandering—through.

So that’s sad, I think. The Big Grungicide. But we can take solace in an image of Courtney galloping to heaven. Do you see it? In yr. mind, is she like a partially wooden/ partially fleshy rocking horse? Is she more like herself on all 4’s w/ a scuffed bit in her mouth? Or possibly she’s a sorta centaur? (Where am I, Wisconsin’s House on the Rock?) Or do you have somethin’ better?

Recently this album came up on random play. (I understand that you won’t believe me when I say this, but I didn’t buy it myself. My sister gave it to me 1 Xmas as a gift.) I was captivated by it. Why? There’s just something so big, so enormously fascinating here—an illustration of turmoil—about individual vs. machine (studio, etc.;); about loneliness & the desire for love—(not as stated in the lyrics, of course, but as redolent in the musical air as rancid semen—as Courtney looks for someone, everyone, to think she is cool)—and fame; about really ill-conceived ideas that foreground the characteristics of at least 2 “alternative music” icons w/ whom Courtney was close—the scrawny one in the ratty cardigan and the other one w/ the pale, globular bald head. This record’s got it all. So even if it’s horrible, it is the Greatest Album of All Time.

So that's it. I will never write about music again... as Alf is my witness... (I may not be able to resist writing about Elizabeth Elmore, but I'll point away from the music and just point toward her...) And maybe I won't write about Hawaii. And maybe not NYC. And maybe not Harold Washington. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get that lucky...

Ya gotta have hope...