One Less Monkee

Davey Jones is dead. He died of a heart attack. It is hard to imagine Davey Jones as anything other than young. I loved the Monkees. Daydream Believer still takes me back to the summer of 1967, when I was a kid. When everything was candy, comic books, and crushes on cute girls (which Daydream Believer captures perfectly). Those of you that really know about the Monkees realize there was far more to this band than met the eye. They were a pretty savvy bunch of guys. They made a movie in 1968 named ‘Head’ which included a Frank Zappa cameo. They satirized their teenage idol success. If only Justin Bieber could do the same! But the Monkees music was excellent pop, written in large part by Neil Diamond and other top notch songwriters. True, they weren’t the Beatles, but they didn’t try to be. They just wanted to be a fun band, and they played their roles with their tongues firmly lodged in their cheeks. The tv show was fun, too. Beatles fans at that time were a bit nostalgic for the early Beatles, when they were full of innocent fun. and the Monkees gave them that. Davey Jones had a sweetly comic quality, never really losing that baby face, even in his fifties. That time seems so long ago, and just yesterday, at the same time. I can imagine in my mind the fun that the Monkees would have had with that sentence. “Just yesterday?” “No, man, it was long ago!” “But he just said….” “It’s called a metaphor.” “No it isn’t!” “Well, it’s one of those literary devices!” “Devices?” “Well, nothing’s changed for us, we’re still the same, right Davey?” “Hey, where’s Davey?”

The songs drew from many sources. (not your) Stepping Stone could have been an Animals song. I’m a Believer is as strong a song as any Beatles song, and sounds like one. It was written by Neil Diamond. Daydream Believer sounds a lot like the Lovin’ Spoonful. There were a few more obscure songs which hold up fairly well. Michael Nesmith wrote many of the Monkee’s songs (he was the one with the wool cap), and he never really received the accolades he deserved. Johnny Cash was a big fan of Nesmith. ‘The Girl I Knew Somewhere’ and ‘Mary Mary’ were as good as the bigger hits. Although it wasn’t written by Nesmith, Last Train to Clarksville holds up really well as a country song, as well as pop. The Monkees specialty were well-crafted pop songs which are as much fun now as they were then.

This is yet another unwelcome reminder of how things change for us baby boomers. Our childhood heroes die of heart attacks reminding us of our own mortality. I guess that’s not very funny, huh?

Return of Lolita

Recently, I have been writing an ongoing series called Stock Photo Girl Fantasy and today, I considered whether or not to include the fact that I am 58 years old and Stock Photo Girl looks to be in her mid to late twenties. It would give the story a strange twist, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to go there. It definitely reminded me of one of my favorite movies of all time, Lolita. Not the recent one, but the original Kubrick film. I even considered having her co-workers tease her and call her Little Lolita. In the Stock Photo Girl saga, I am definitely Humbert Humbert.

I agree with David Lynch that Kubrick’s Lolita is a perfect film. Everybody in it does a superb job! James Mason conveys perfectly just how hopelessly in love he is. It is a love that Lolita cannot understand, but she is nevertheless touched by it. But, of course, getting seriously involved with a man old enough to be her father is out of the question. It is natural and understandable that she would settle down with a man close to her age. Peter Sellers is also brilliant, and I can’t help thinking that he deserved his fate. But my heart goes out to poor Humbert Humbert.

Why are older men so attracted to young women? Well because, first of all, they don’t feel old inside. Their bodies played a dirty trick on them, growing old like that, and it is a difficult thing to accept sometimes. I can recall vividly my younger years and the experiences I had with younger women when I was young as well. It was this that I put to use in my Stock Photo Girl series. In my fantasies, I am young again! Also, when I gazed at the photos of Stock Photo Girl I felt young again. It was like a tonic. Older men lust after younger women because they lust after their own lost youth. It was a time when they felt vibrantly alive and didn’t worry about the future as much. A younger woman can bring back some of that. But it only lasts for a while, as was the case in Lolita. The younger woman gets bored with all of the obsessive attention, and after all, an older man may be intriguing, but they aren’t sexy. However, I wasn’t clear about the age of Russell in my Fantasy, and of course you never see a photo of him, so he could be older. It might be interesting to explore how a relationship between two people of such different ages would play out, after all it’s a fantasy. It would make the whole thing much more poignant, as it is in the film Lolita. The temptation to give my fantasy a happy ending is pretty strong, but I keep finding as I write that Stock Photo Girl keeps forcing me to keep it real. She may not allow me to be older, or if she does, I will have to pay the price, just as Humbert Humbert did. I will say this however, no one will die in my Fantasy, that is much too dramatic for a tongue-in-cheek series. Ah! Lolita, if only she understood how I felt! Life is so cruel!!

Viggo Rasp or is it Fritz Mortensen?

Viggo Mortensen seduces Louise Brooks, Wait! That can't be right!

Does anyone remember Fritz Rasp? He is that sinister other-worldly figure that haunts Metropolis, the sci-fi classic from the 1920’s. He also seduced Louise Brooks in Diary of a Lost Girl. At least, that is what we think we know. Actually, it is perfectly obvious to us that Fritz is Viggo Mortensen. How can this be? I think we need to ask Viggo a few questions to clarify the matter. Time travel? It’s hard to say. Maybe Fritz Rasp is Viggo’s grandpa? I am a fan of both actors, but this particular post focuses more on Fritz Rasp. Fritz captured a certain casual sadism pervasive in Weimar Germany. He seems to be this grotesque exaggeration of Aryan manhood, personifying the menacing  storm troopers which filled the streets at that time. He is deliciously creepy. Viggo Mortensen? He could certainly project a vicious manliness, but creepy? Not really. unless you count his performance in History of Violence. I am referring to the part of the film after he loses the nice family guy facade. That was creepy, but in a different way from Fritz Rasp. Even when Viggo is being a total bastard, you tend to root for him, but nobody roots for Fritz Rasp, except possibly Josef Goebbels.

I have seen the future and it is Fritz Rasp!!!

 

What to make of this bizarre resemblance, ja? Ist is a topic of much interest here in the Metropolis. Viggo ist ubermensch for your time, your reich. Very strong, ja! You must be proud of him! Such a fine Aryan, and a good actor as well!

Yeah, well, thanks Fritz.

I think.

Let’s see what other doppelgangers I can find! But take a look! They aren’t identical, but there is a distinct resemblance between the two actors.

 

 

Viggo Rasp or Fritz Mortensen?

Lulu

I sing the praises of Louise Brooks. She portrayed Lulu in Pandora’s Box and was Lulu in life. I am under her spell, ever since I saw her face on a button, and wondered who she was. Many years later I got the chance to watch Pandora’s Box and Diary of a Lost Girl and was captivated by her compelling yet mysterious presence. She has influenced sexy, independent women from Shirley MacLaine to Margaret Cho. Louise Brooks defied the conventions of her time, going to Germany for meaningful roles. She had become disgusted with the entertainment industry in America, with it’s shallow roles for women. The author of Pandora’s Box, upon meeting Louise, was struck by her resemblance to the character, Lulu, and had to cast her. Louise Brooks didn’t give a damn. She could have been a major star in her time. But she didn’t want to play the Hollywood game, and faded into obscurity. She led a life of her choosing, with exciting, artistic, sexy friends and lovers, on the fringes far from the public eye. She became a feisty, colorful old lady with many stories to tell, provided she were so inclined. Some people claim Louise Brooks had worked as a call girl in New York for many years, but this is unsubstantiated. It sounds like the sort of work Lulu would have pursued, and Louise had many similarities to her character.

But all of that is secondary to her face. It speaks volumes, over the decades to our computer, with an intimacy unmatched since. She gazes upon the sexual sadism surrounding her with scorn, but also with understanding. Her light is unbearably bright within the sordid darkness of pre-Nazi Germany. Even though she has many lovers, she remains pure and seemingly innocent. The viewer longs to know her, to hear her voice, and to soothe her pain with a close embrace, running our fingers through her dark helmet of hair. But we also sense that we can never really know this woman. She is forever elusive, mutely beckoning to us from the screen.

Louise Brooks was perfect for the silent age. Whatever voice she possessed could not possibly match what we could imagine. She appeared in a few very obscure talkies in the early thirties, but I would discourage anyone from watching them. This is not the Louise Brooks you should remember, giving an adequate, but uninspired performance in an adequate, but uninspired film. It was just work, nothing more. Her magic is in the work of the twenties, especially the German films. I am sitting here trying to capture what it was about Louise Brooks. What have I left unsaid? She was real, heartbreakingly so. You felt you could have her as a friend. She was just herself onscreen as Louise has said, by way of explaining why she seemed so natural. She also feels absolutely modern, her acting is decades ahead of her time. This naturalness, and accessibility is shared by both Shirley MacLaine and Margaret Cho. I realize I wrote above that she was an enigma, and the viewer feels they could never really know her. That is the essence of Louise Brooks, both are true, she is a walking contradiction, a paradox, who beguiles us still.

Where Scott Walker doth dwell

Where Scott Walker doth dwell there may be spiders, I can’t tell. Although he has sung of it, in his deathly tones, many times I confess. I cannot tell the lamppost from the lie, the fractured fairy tale from the putrid meat in the cellar. Scott Walker beckons to me from too great a depth, I cannot fathom it. His longing, his longing,,,,I must go to sleep, it is getting late. Scott Walker grew up on a ranch, no!, ’twas in the heart of New York City, ah, no it is told he had a different name, but why bother? He is the night, he is the promise, he lifts his blood stained hands before the altar. Why? Why must this man force his way into my brain? His objectives are obscure, hammering softly the same refrain, you have a swanky suit, a very swanky suit. But it shall not save me.

He is old. He is young, this man of no certain hour. Where doth dwell this teenage idol, this mildewed tower? He lives in a forgotten magazine, songs you can’t quite hear, no matter how much you increase the volume. He doth dwell on abandoned staircases within forgotten movie sets. He knows the ancient whores gazing out the window beside the rotting wharf, cigarette dangling out of a grease stained mouth. Don’t ask this seraph to explain his evocation, for this is not his path. It is his to slam the freshly butchered lamb with mallets till he’s said…..it…..all. Such is the way of this mysterious man, whose weirding way is but by chance. Where Scott Walker doth dwell there may be a knowledge unprepared, wrapped in fading newsprint, like a fish.

The Sun will never shine again as Scott pulls the azure garment close, and cries. The Sun will never shine again as Scott makes the ancient sign, and hopes. Gazing steadily with his youthful smirk, Scott Walker knows just how it works, stealth and guile, mirrors and smoke. Where Scott Walker doth dwell.

Elvis’ Elusive Face

Who is this guy?

He almost looks like Elvis Presley. or perhaps a cross between Kirk Russell and Elvis Presley. Could it be Lisa Marie Presley’s son?

All of the above are wrong. This is a very expensive action figure of ….somebody. It is supposed to be Elvis Presley during his 1968 comeback special, but it doesn’t quite make it. Would you shell out over $300 for an action figure of someone who almost looks like Elvis Presley?

But I am being too hard on the manufacturer of this figure. It is very difficult to capture Elvis Presley’s face. I am sure his imitator’s struggle with this a great deal, but nobody struggles with it like the makers of action figures. Below are some attempts which I think come closer than the one above. But they show Elvis with eyes closed. That is cheating.

One of the better efforts is below, the Rockabilly Cat action figure, still the eyes are essentially closed. But this is pretty close, as you can see by looking at the picture of the real thing from 1957 shows. But check out the other two action figures. They aren’t even trying!! I don’t know, maybe I am being really picky, but I like my action figures to be as realistic as possible.

Even though Elvis had many different looks over his career, his face still had some basic characteristics. Why don’t you try it? See if you can draw a picture, or sculpt a bust of Elvis Presley. Then you will quickly discover how hard it is to capture that famous face. Here are a few more photos of Elvis for you to work from. You will get the hair right very easily, and possibly the mouth, the nose isn’t extremely hard, but the eyes are the hardest. Don’t place them too close together or you end up with Kurt Russell. Or is it something else? I don’t really know.

The Dark Knight

I was listening to Danny Elfman’s opening credits music for the first Tim Burton Batman film, when I came across a story in the San Francisco Chronicle. A man in Oakland had been walking his tiny little eight pound terrier, when he was approached by a couple of thugs. These guys thought the Red Sox cap and red sweater meant this man belonged to a gang, and proceeded to beat the crap out of him. When the little dog, named Shadow, began barking and trying to protect his owner, the thugs stomped the little dog to death. The music swelled in my headphones as a perfect accompaniment to my rage over this gross injustice. A little dog! What threat did he pose? I wanted to kill those thugs with my bare hands. Such is the birth of Batman.

Batman has remained popular since his inception in  1939, on the eve of the Second World War, because he is us. A human being outraged by the outrageous evil in our everyday lives. His parents were gunned down senselessly, and so the young Bruce Wayne devised a way to strike fear into the hearts of such thugs. Batman appeals to the vigilante within us, but he has a code of conduct. He does not carry a gun, and avoids killing if at all possible. The genius of Batman lies in the fact that although he’s quite gothic, at least in the beginning, and today, he is a beacon of hope within the darkness in which he dwells. He has been represented in various ways throughout his career, but the dark knight is probably the most resonant, especially in today’s dark times. Batman was born in the Depression, as was Superman, and he fought for the underdog. Of course, Bruce Wayne is a rich playboy, but unlike Donald Trump, Bruce Wayne could be imagined visiting an Occupy Wall Street demonstration to offer his qualified support. The wealth was a device to enable Bruce Wayne to support himself while being Batman, and to have a very expensive Batcave lair, with an undoubtedly expensive Batmobile, Batplane, and even a Batsubmarine.

The early Batman comics, which are among my favorites, are spooky. Shadows loom large, and his cape gave Batman a spectral majesty. He was quite operatic, with the cowl and cape, and connects us with antiheroes in literature and film, such as the Phantom of the Opera. He is not an evil figure, and yet he evokes Dracula. His appearance owes a debt to the German expressionists, and stimulates a complex array of emotions, much of it subconscious. But to me, as a snot-nosed kid, he just looked cool.

Unlike Superman, Batman was vulnerable. You could easily imagine him getting killed or hurt. It wasn’t until recently with his ongoing battle with Bain, that Batman actually gets badly hurt. I had to suspend my disbelief, as a child, when Batman managed to escape from harm with bullets flying all around him. His utility belt also stretched my imagination to the breaking point. Just how much stuff is in there? Why does he always have the most improbable thing in his belt just when he needs it? Of course, I realized that comics are not logical.

  Then there is the matter of the eyes. There aren’t any!! I can recall a fairly recent Batman comic which made fun of this fact, with another character commenting on the creepiness of the white space in place of eyes. Actually it just adds to the uncanny quality of Batman. When Bruce dons the costume and cowl, he becomes a magical icon from out of our collective unconscious, and such icons don’t have eyes. All psychologists know this. It was one of the few things that Freud and Jung agreed on.

Because Batman had no special powers, he always represented us. We could put ourselves into the story much  more effectively with Batman than Superman, Green Lantern, Flash, or Wonder Woman. With them there was always a gimmick, which was fun, but with Batman you could really imagine how you would fair in that comic book world. I could learn martial arts just like Bruce did. I could manage to keep my massive cape out of the way as I engaged in fisticuffs with a bunch of loons with very poor aim.

With the Silver Age of Batman (the fifties and early sixties) he lost his original mysterious quality and become a much friendlier, but also goofier hero. The stories became much more outlandish, but as a kid I didn’t really care. The Silver Age was packed with all kinds of great characters. Never mind that you see Batman in outer space with no helmet, somehow avoiding death by suffocation. Never mind that he joined the Justice League and spent a lot of the time standing about, listening to the other superheroes discuss strategy.

  Undoubtedly one of the best things about Batman was his car. I mean, none of the other heroes had cars, didn’t need them, but Batman had the very cool Batmobile. My favorite has to be the Silver Age Batmobile, I mean the bat fin and the cowl on the front is kitsch paradise as far as I am concerned. It has that Buck Rogers 1930’s chic going for it. Seeing that awesome car barreling through the streets of Gotham is great to recreate in your imagination and I did for many years.

Batman created the car himself in 1950, and the panel above shows Robin’s reaction. Ten years ahead? You bet! Fuel-injected overdrive, bullet resistant glass, state of the art intercom, and whitewalls. It was a heavy vehicle and only someone with Batman’s strength could handle a standard transmission. Power steering? That’s for sissies!

There have been other Batmobiles since (see above) but they don’t compare to the original. In fact, what the heck is that last thing? That isn’t the Batmobile, it’s some kind of Humvee from Hell.

  There was a campy mid-sixties Batman tv show, which I didn’t particularly like as a kid. It wasn’t Batman. It was Adam West. I got involved in other things and lost track of Batman until the awesome Batman cartoons of the nineties on Cartoon Network. There had been Batman cartoons before, but Super Friends was not the kind of cartoon I craved. I never watched them. The great film treatment by Tim Burton resparked my interest in the Dark Knight. I did think Michael Keaton was miscast, but Jack Nicholson played a memorable Joker, unmatched until Heath Ledger created an equally memorable Joker. The cartoons of the nineties however managed to capture the hip quality of Batman, and the artwork was superb, matching the look of much of both the Golden and Silver Age. He became a character somewhat removed from the others, unlike the family friendly Batman of the Silver Age. He retained his dark allure, and the voice was perfect.

Batman is still going strong today, although he has become a bit too dark for my taste. I liked the grey outfit with the blue cape and the bat on the chest, both with or without the yellow oval. In the latest movie versions, and even in the comics he is becoming too macho. I don’t like the super buff transformer outfit he wears. I would like to see him become more of a human being once again.

This is not Batman. This is Adam West. This is not Robin. This is Bert Ward.

Valentine’s Pop

Happy Valentine’s Day!

If you are in love, you love this day. If you are in a relationship that seems to be working, you like this day. If you are not in a relationship of any kind, Valentine’s Day sucks. This post is for those of you that are in love. Whatever else that may be going on, you are on top of the world. You spend your days enchanted, and your world has been transformed into little candy hearts with cute messages. Lucky lucky you!!! But you need a soundtrack. I have selected ten songs that are perfect for Valentine’s Day. I’m sure you can track them down and play them for your sweetheart. You probably have an app for that.

1. My Funny Valentine – there are a million versions of this one out there. It is the ultimate Valentine. I prefer Chet Baker’s version, but Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra have killer versions, and more recently, Elvis Costello and Diana Krall have nice versions.

2. And I Love Her – Pure Paul. One of his best. Although this is a Beatles tune, it is actually just Paul McCartney. It has such an elegance about it, like something from an earlier age. This particular love song isn’t so silly.

 

3. Can’t Help Falling In Love – Pure Elvis. One of his best. Equally elegant, and be sure to find the original version. His live versions from the seventies lack the charm. The original recording captures the King at his most restrained. The voice is delicate.

4. Every Day I Write the Book – Pure Elvis. Costello that is. One of his best. This is a perfect pop song, in every respect. You are going to feel good after hearing this song. It lifts you up. This is the kind of book we all want to write, when love is fresh and beautiful.

 

5. Cherish – You need to be in love for this one. When I was in love this song was the perfect soundtrack. I prefer the original Association version, it has that magical quality that so many songs from the mid-sixties have. It describes a lovely sort of Strawberry Fields Forever kind of world.

6. Love Can Make You Happy – You really need to be in love for this one, it is unbearable otherwise. I recall hearing it on a sunny morning as I ate breakfast before going to school in 1969. I had a crush on a girl at school. It is by Mercy, a bit obscure, but keep searching! I love the harmony of the voices, capturing the optimism of 1969.

7. Close To You – Although this one has been played at way too many weddings, it still has it’s charms. Karen Carpenter’s voice comes through like the finest crystal, capturing that pure untarnished quality of love as it first blossoms.

8. Love – For those of you that prefer to avoid all the lace and candy hearts, this song’s simplicity and directness does the job. It is one of John Lennon’s most moving songs, You can sing it to your Yoko.

9. Here Comes My Girl – Tom Petty is bursting out of his jeans with joy as he sings about his new girlfriend. This one captures the thrill of new love when you are young and everything is before you.

10. Walking on Sunshine – This much disparaged hit from the eighties by Katrina and the Waves, isn’t so bad really. It has a lot of bright, happy energy which characterizes how young love feels. When you feel good this song gets you going. Otherwise you are going to think it sucks, like John Cusack does in High Fidelity.

My Virtual Living Room

My Virtual Living Room

Welcome to my virtual living room. This was a project for my Beginning Photoshop class in 2010. It captures my fascination with popular culture quite well, and it is certainly a lot more interesting than my real living room. This is the face of popular culture in the twentyfirst century. Everyone creates their own versions of the culture which surrounds them. Popular culture today is interactive, which leads to a lot of thorny issues I won’t go into here. Popular culture has always involved an interaction between the viewer, listener, or reader’s imagination and the work. This is where the magic occurs. When I was a kid I used carbon paper to trace images from my Batman comic books. I created my own stories for my own amusement. Much the same sort of thing happens today with the varied multimedia tools available to us all. We use the sounds, images, and words of popular culture to produce our own product. So long as we aren’t selling our product, we reason that we are not violating any laws. If we are creating projects for school we are generally protected under fair use laws. This is a difficult area for consumers and artists, because today  the consumer also becomes an artist.

This virtual living room also reveals a few of my obsessions within pop culture. I am fascinated by the weird and mysterious fringe areas of popular culture exemplified by Donnie Darko. The rabbit stands guard here, about ten times larger than the original figure. Batman of course, I have mentioned before, and he continues to resonate with me. Batman wasn’t always so cool, I was teased relentlessly for the Batman sticker on my bicycle. There weren’t any action figures when I was a kid, only models of Superman or Batman that you had to assemble. If I could afford it, I’d have a ton of action figures. So that is another obsession. They are especially fun because they are tangible, you can actually hold an action figure in your hand. In our virtual entertainment paradise we lose the tactile quality of toys. I think it is important to have an actual object to play with. I am not an advocate of keeping things in their boxes. I am not a collector. I want to play with my toys. Of course Andy Warhol’s Marilyn stares down from the wall. She is the queen of pop culture. Elvis is the king. Considering he is one more of my obsessions it is odd that he isn’t present. The devil girl bathed in red light is also a cute touch. I like kitsch, especially the underground comic sort of kitsch, which this sort of is. I liked how the San Francisco street outside appears like a watercolor. Nice unintended artifact.

I am fascinated by the interface between imagination and art, which is the essence of popular culture. To a child everything gets mixed together, they aren’t bothered by differences in scale, playing with a plastic dinosaur and a huge teddy bear at the same time. Things don’t have to make sense, the child gives it his or her own sense. That is the spirit of today’s popular cultural explosion. So this blog isn’t entirely about the passive consumer aspect of pop culture, it is also about the deconstruction of pop culture and the new art that emerges from that. So…anyway would you like an oreo?, they are right there on the coffee table. Help yourself.