the improbable

I suggest not viewing the attached video until you’ve finished reading through the back-story I've provided (a proper detailing of this historic moment may render the scene a bit more powerful).

Below is a brief clip of Jack Nicklaus, perhaps the greatest golfer the game has ever seen. Tiger may statistically wrest that title from Jack in the coming years, but as things stand at present, Nicklaus captured eighteen major championships—the standard measure by which most golf historians quantify success—to Tiger’s fourteen and 73 PGA tournaments to Tiger’s 65. Those are some mighty numbers.

Here’s Jack on the tee at Augusta National’s 16th hole. We’re reliving Masters Sunday,1986, the fourth and final day of the tournament. Jack is 46 years of age, two decades removed from his prime, seemingly unaware that he’s not supposed to be contending for the green jacket (Augusta’s prize to the victor) this afternoon. Not at his age. For the sake of comparison, Spaniard Seve Ballesteros—one of the few keeping pace with Jack throughout the back nine—is seventeen years Jack’s junior.

Jack arrives at the par-three 16th needing par or better to give himself an outside chance of winning this thing. It’s a bitch of a shot, too. There’s water left of the cup and a severe pondward (not a word—made it up) slope on the surface of the green which ushers pulled shots to certain death.

I’d like you to be Jack for just one moment. Here’s the situation:

You’re standing roughly 180 yards from a cylindrical hole in the ground the size of your fist. You must use a metal stick to strike an even smaller ball and project it into the air, imparting just the right measures of height, spin, speed and arc to allow it to land somewhere in the vicinity of the fist. This requires a perfect golf swing. If you miss your intended target (the fattest portion of the back of the ball) by two millimeters in either direction, your ball will act accordingly and assume a potentially reckless flight. Two millimeters! All this while accelerating through impact, clearing your hips, locking the left elbow, rotating your shoulders—not necessarily in that order. Oh, and you’re nervous. And you’re 46.

To be fair, you’ve been in this position before. You’re probably not experiencing the nerves of a virginal contender, but the ol' heart is beating a bit faster, which has got to be worth a millimeter or two right there. Legions of rubberneckers have lined both sides of the 16th to witness your fate. You stuff a peg in the ground, place the ball on the hollowed groove, commence your pre-shot routine.

What you’re about to see chills me every time I watch it. The musical crack between 1:04-1:05 is the purest sound I’ve ever heard, and perhaps the most beautiful:

should you stay or should you go?

...
(The following entry wasn't intended for this blog. I attempted to post this on another website—they’re encouraging me to submit once a week—but have NO IDEA how to format the thing. I'm not, uh, computer savvy. Where's this guy—


—when you need him? Just for the heck of it, I'm gonna post it here until I figure out how to link back to their site. Enjoy.)
...........................................................

Welcome!

Thanks for inadvertently stumbling upon my blog. I hope this finds you well. On to business:

This space will be utilized only for music discussion/opinion/rant (for my other blog, which does not adhere to a specified theme, please click here: _____).

Realquick now’s when you consider whether we’ll—you and I—make a good fit. You wonder, are we compatible? Can I stomach this thing? Well, here’s a quick-reference litmus test I’ve assembled for that very purpose, presented in convenient choose-your-own-adventure format:

Please answer the following questions to the best of your ability.

1. A friend calls and offers free tickets to see Sponge in, oh, about an hour. There’s two, he says, so you can take somebody. I have to get rid of these. For illustrative purposes, let’s say you have nothing to do. In fact, when he calls, you’re unwrapping an ice cream sandwich and playing poker online (for fake money). What do you do?

a) If you answer, “wait, weren’t they…didn’t they have a radio hit back in, like, ’95? Bah da…”—you pause, loot corridors of the brain, resume primordial grunting—“…da…da da, ba da…”—hitting your stride, suddenly—“…da da da, ba daa daa daa, da DA DA DA…wasn’t that them? Wasn’t that Sponge?,” please proceed to question #4, and that was awesome.

b) If you scrunch up your eyebrows and ask if Sponge is a movie or something, please exit the blog immediately. Do not pass Go. No $200.

c) If you answer, “wait, the yellow cartoon with the pants?,” make like the dude in b).

d) If you answer, “God, yes, they better play ‘Molly’ as a closer,” you were 11 years old in 1994, because if you were not exactly 11 in exactly 1994 you do not know this song. For being of similar age to me, and for somehow rescuing that song from the creases of your memory tarp, please proceed to question #3. We’re gonna be friends forever.

e) If you sputter, “are you serious?! Those guys are still around?,” you’ve raised a valid point and should probably continue reading. Check out #2.

2. When did Eric Clapton ditch ballsy rock for sappy balladry? Why? Why?

a) If you answer (after an exaggerated pause), “you know, there’s some sorta correlation between Clapton’s sobriety and his artistic decline—didja ever think about that? When did he clean himself up? Wasn’t it when his kid fell out of that window? Eric without the Horse is a stripped-down mannequin of his former self, an apparition of sorts. Flush the gunk from his veins and—poof!—suddenly he's Jackson Browne. Eric should know better‘n anybody that the electric guitar wasn’t designed for lucid fingers. If you’re a drunken wretch with a nosebleed, well, you’re already 2/3 of the way to the Big Stage,” please consult question #3 and seek help for your alcoholism/coke habit.

b) If you answer, “Gosh, I really liked that one song about changing the world, so in my eyes he’s still rockin’,” please exit the blog immediately.

c) If you answer, “sometime ‘round ’72—or whenever Derek and the Dominoes broke up,” you’re warm. Please proceed to question #3.

d) If you answer, “was he ever ballsy? I always thought of him as a terrifically proficient guitarist—I mean, the man is a blues encyclopedia—but ballsy? Not really, and he’s hopelessly overrated besides,” I direct you to #4. Well-played. Well-played. If there were a clapping feature in this blog, I’d click the hell out of it.

e) If you answer, “Mike, did you really mean what you said in d)? Why the negativity?,” you’ve sussed me out. I've taken out my bad day on one of rock's monolithic titans. Sorry, Eric. For penance, I’ll spin four “Cocaine”s and two “Hey Hey”s (seriously…I’m queuing it now). “Queue” is very difficult to spell. Hit up #4.

3. Who is Panda Bear?

a) If you answer, “I thought this was a music blog?!,” you are me circa March ’08, when I first discovered—via Pitchfork—who this guy is. Because I’d be a disreputable hypocrite to penalize you for your ignorance, I invite you to stay and proceed to question #4.

b) If you answer, “Animal Collective dude,” you’re precisely correct, but even moreso and Infinity+1 if you casually dropped any of these four words right after: Brian. Wilson. Pet. Sounds. Please refer to question #4.

c) If you answer, “Hey, Elwood, you know next to nothing about this Panda Bear guy—why are you feigning authority?,” you’re a fat-mouthed spoilsport—but a truthful one. Fact is, I’m not crazy about Animal Collective. Sigh. Yeah, I said it. I saw these guys live a few weeks ago and couldn’t even identify Panda on-stage. Adam Kaufman had to point him out to me. Anyway, you’re welcome to any door you please. #4? #5? Your pick. Just don’t leave. I’ll need you around to call me out when I get ahead of myself.

4. Another hypothetical: you meet someone of the opposite sex. Everything’s gravy—he/she is attractive, funny, engaging, sane. All systems are Go and your blood is already halfway from brain to pelvis. Eventually, though, the discussion swings to music. You discover that this person’s favorite band is Yellowcard, and that he/she has seen them in concert four times. What do you do?

a) If you laugh at the question and answer, “Dude, that’s not even believable. No one listens to Yellowcard unironically...no, that's the wrong word, but you know what I'm saying,” you are everybody, so let’s all of us link arms and jump to #5.

5. Congratulations! You’re a sure fit. Let’s have some fun.
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same place he keeps the champagne

sometimes i'm an idiot

Temping is hilarious. I’ve spent the last week and change in a 2nd floor classroom at Fordham University’s School of Law, stuffing potato chips and bottled water into white gift bags. We did other things, too. It wasn't all chips. Cleared out lockers, alphabetized student IDs, that sort of thing. Fordham's Orientation is next week. When the well-coifed Teds and Nancys receive their goodies on Monday morning, there's a one in four chance I was the dude behind the curtain transferring their Fritos from box to bag. See, I'm indispensable. Without me, the whole damn farm goes to the hens and everybody starves.

Fordham hired four male temps for the job. Could have been an ugly situation. Quarantining a group of (poor) men in a claustrophobic room for more than seven hours a day serves only to antagonize their vilest demons, ‘specially if one oblivious soul in the bunch doesn’t know when to zip the yap. And then there's the problem of the No Women. Tempers (pun intended) tend to run a bit thin when you're earning a wage somewhere beneath the poverty level and, uh, dealing with potato chips. You can cut the testosterone with a knife.

That said, I lucked out. Couldn’t have asked for three better fellas to share in the experience.

The four of us came from different worlds, so to speak:

a) me: suburban chicago
b) dave: rural nebraska
c) john: detroit
d) vince: brooklyn

John, particularly, deserves mention. At first glance, I wanted nothing to do with him. He struck me as quiet, reserved, boring. As for that slumbering elephant in the corner, let's expose him: John’s also a) gay and b) very effeminate. Regrettably, the following revelations probably demonstrate that I’m less open-minded about matters of orientation (pun not intended) than I'd like to believe.

To clear the air, I am not a homophobe. Quite the opposite. I champion the gay cause. In fact, if there’s one major political/social issue that gets me all worked up, it’s the debate surrounding legalization of gay marriage. I fail to understand how and why we’re still discussing this. No one ought to infringe on anyone else’s sexual choices, period. Private matters between consenting adults are not your business, or mine—and most certainly not the government’s. Actively restricting their right to wed is inexcusable, plain and simple. I’ll fight you to the death on that one.

I have no issue with the gay populace.

Upon reflection, though, it seems that I preach far better than I practice. Just as varying degrees of racism lie dormant in all of us, I’ll admit to some skepticism and blind ignorance of the gay lifestyle. I certainly held no ill will against John from the start, but I did foolishly assume that he had nothing to offer me, nor me him. Choosing not to exert any efforts to befriend him, I initially pursed my lips and pretended he did not exist.

Predictably, I learned an invaluable lesson in humility. John proved to be one of the more engaging individuals I’ve encountered since moving to the city. His intelligent musings and self-deprecating sense of humor took our minds off the bolt-turnings. We talked about women, and men, and men and men, and women and trannies. Laughed a lot, learned a lot.

Our classroom had computer access and a stereo system. Most of the first day was spent streaming AOL’s radio stations and digging up the most obscure feeds we could find. Each of the four felt compelled to offer his $.02 on every passing track, whether a recognizable 80's New Wave hit or a long-forgotten prog number. Musically speaking, John is more knowledgeable than anyone I know. For all the nonsense I broadcast about me being a sonic guru and all (Lester Bangs came up with the best descriptor for what I'm trying to convey: "verbal styrofoam"), John quickly put me in my place, and definitively so. Take tonight: I’m looping Gillian Welch, The Church, Tricky and The Radio Dept., all of whom were curiosities to me before our iPod exchanges. I was a pupil from the start.

Yesterday John and I trekked to the 72nd Street McDonald’s, discussing life and death and our families—and God. Made for a great lunch hour. Here’s a guy that I wrote off for being too gay, too weird, too much of a Mark David Chapman look-alike (you wouldn’t believe the resemblance, though John is a bit slimmer), too quiet, too dull.

There's a saying about books and their covers...
...

education on a subway car

The other day on the 3 train, I witnessed a great exchange between a soberly-dressed Jewish girl and a large black woman with rings on all of her fingers. The Jewish girl was bent over a book of scripture, moving her mouth very quickly but not making any sound. They were sitting next to each other, which was beautiful.


Black Woman: What are you reading?

Jewish Girl: I’m reading about God.

BW: Jesus Christ?

JG: No, not Jesus.

BW: You don’t believe in Jesus?

JG: No.

BW: What about this man?

She pointed to a business card tucked in the piping of the subway ad on my left. The Jewish girl had put it there a few stops prior (I’d been watching her since she boarded). On the front of the card was a blurred image of an elderly, bearded man in a black hat, and then a foreign word that looked like “Messiah,” just spelled differently. The “M” and all the major vowels seemed to be in place.

JG: That’s ___ (I didn’t catch it).

BW: Is he dead?

JG: He is never dead.

BW: What do you mean? His body or his soul?

JG: He is dead in the traditional sense, in your sense, but he is never dead to us. He is forever. He lives forever.

BW: May I see the card?

The Jewish girl handed it to her. We rode in silence for a few minutes. When the black woman was finished reading (the back of the card was printed in English) I asked to see it, too. The card stated seven rules/laws, in a similar way to the Ten Commandments. I remember one of the seven said, “do not consume anything that comes from the body of an animal.”

After awhile the black woman turned back to the Jewish girl.

BW: Do you practice on Saturday?

JG: We practice every day.

BW: That’s nice, but I don’t believe the part about him not being dead.

JG: Well, that’s truth. You can’t argue with truth. Truth is truth.

The black woman nodded.

I got off at the next stop, thankful for New York City.
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i am the world's forgotten boy

Saw Iggy last night. There were a few other Stooges up there, too, but I couldn't pick them out of a lineup. My eyes rarely strayed from Mr. Osterberg.

He's the best performer I've ever seen.

I arrived later than I wished (8:20 for 8pm doors) and made straight for the bathroom and cash bar, readying the ol’ system for the task at hand. Crowbarred my way into a spot about 20 feet from the stage, just left of the Ig’s mic. Perfect. Life was making a whole lotta sense.

Well, not entirely perfect. That’s misleading. I found myself jock-strapped behind two young pretenders who probably had their mom cart them over in the family Prius. They both donned Interpol t-shirts and talked a lot. I did the side-shuffle. Threw a few elbows and ended up ten feet to their left, safely immune from their moronic fist-pumping and ill-timed "Iggy!" chants. Little craps have probably never heard The Idiot. There oughta be an entrance exam to these things.

Ten minutes before showtime an overenthusiastic fan in the third row of heads hurled a beer skyward. It landed straight on my dome, dousing me and four or five people in my cluster. Awesome! I wasn't even all that upset about it. These things should happen at an Iggy show. Terminal 5, thankfully, doesn’t serve their drafts in glass pints.

Mopping my skull, reeking vaguely of college, I overheard a conversation between a hot tatted girl and a guy that kind of looked like Neil Young:

Hot Tatted Girl: “Ever read that book Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil?”
Neil: (confused stare)
Me: (interrupting) “Oh yeah, yeah. Great read.” (it really is…check it out)
Hot Tatted Girl: “See the white-haired guy to my right?”
Me: “Yup.”
Hot Tatted Girl: “That’s Leee Childers.”
Me: “Oh wow, nice. How do you know him?”
Hot Tatted Girl: “Well, I spend a lot of time in Alphabet City. He’s a regular of (muffled).”
Me: “Oh.”

That’s when Iggy came on. I screamed like a crazy person. We all did.


First few songs:

“Loose”
“Down on the Street”
“1969”
“I Wanna Be Your Dog”

The throng pressed forward. At one point I was leaning at a 45 degree angle towards the stage, feet off the floor, walled by a crush of bodies. It hurt like hell, but you weren't gonna see me at the back with the cape cod drinkers. I had to check out all the fuss.

What really awed me about this whole experience was the amount of sheer physicality involved. I’ve never worked so hard, perspired so profusely, for a few inches of space. At one point a girl to my left got knocked by my wayward arm, so the loon bit my wrist! I've still got marks. Clearly, this was a very Darwinian viewing experience. The greatest men won.

During “No Fun” Ig invited the crowd onstage. Pandemonium ensued. I rode the wave near the front rail, seeking an opening. Nada. A few dozen people escaped, hurling their bodies up there with exaggerated braggadocio. I hated them for it.



















Highlight of the night came about 2/3 of the way through his setlist. The Stooges played “Search and Destroy,” inducing mass psychosis. At this point I was in the second row of people, about six feet from Ig. He stage-dove twice during the song (check the above pic that I pulled from Brooklyn Vegan...I'm the guy on the right with the grey shirtsleeve), both times just out of my arm’s reach. You better believe I flailed like a maniac trying to surf him. During the outro Iggy sidled into our section, suave as hell. Bear-hugged us. I finally got my wish and threw an arm around that leather body of his. How cool is that?

Ig was the Ig of old. He crawled on all fours, pawing the air like a subhuman. Clamped down on the microphone cable with his teeth and extended both arms, as if on the cross. Got coital with the floor. Exposed most of his ass and a great deal of his pubic region. Emptied more than a few bottles of water in his hair. Hollered obscenities, passed the mic to people in the crowd. It was refreshing to watch a performer give so much of himself. Supreme showmanship is a bit of a lost art, but not in Iggy's world. He knew what we wanted, and he put his body on the line to provide. No one walked away unhappy.

Isn’t hero-worship crazy? Every hand in the place wanted to be on that body. Whenever Iggy got within three feet of the crowd, fifty arms would reach and grope and stretch towards him, praying for a brush of skin. I’m usually relatively subdued at concerts, but I was right there with them, lunging like an idiot at The Idiot. It was magic.

I think he played “I Wanna Be Your Dog” twice. Didn’t make a lot of sense to me, but then, no one was complaining.
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rolling stone, where art thou?

Peter Travers’ most recent fuscia quotable (culled from the banner of a print ad in this week’s The Onion), ass-tonguing Apatow’s Pineapple Express:

“This is like if Superbad met Midnight Run and they had a baby, and then Pulp Fiction and True Romance met Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared and they had a baby, and by some miracle those babies met—this would be the funny movie they birthed.”

—Peter Travers (pictured above)

Peter Travers, thanks so much for telling me all about Pineapple Express, Peter Travers. I plan on Peter Travers seeing the film for no reason other than your bloated Peter Travers endorsement on page 21, which, incidentally, leapt up straight outta the adspace and nearly poked out both my eyes, Peter Travers. No hard feelings, though. Seeing as Rolling Travers is an established big-ass magazine and all, Peter, I entrust myself to your Peter Travers musings fully, utterly, completely.

I’m sure the Peter film Travers, Pineapple Express, is everything one might Travers wish for in a summer feel-good viewing experience and then some, Peter Travers, so gahblessya—from the bottom of meh gahdamn heart—for steering me ‘way from those skunky skull-pollutin’ films and pointing those toes o’ mine in the right die-rection. ‘Fore you can say ‘Armageddon’ I’ll steam-walk A to B straightaway to the nearest theater complex so that I might throw my change at Peter Travers, or Judd Apatow, or Seth Rogan—or Peter Travers—cuz I want nothin’ more than to offer up my dimes to a great (Travers) cause, great (Travers) art, and, of course, because I often chuckle vacuously at forgettable stoner comedies.

Goodnight, Rolling Stone, and (Peter Travers) goodbye.
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time for dinner! set the pool table

Back when I was a little shit—somewhere between the ages of twelve and fourteen—I remember informing my mother that a pool table will be the sole piece of furniture in my first apartment/house. After a few afternoon games, I’d simply drape a thin board and a tablecloth over the felt to serve up the evening meal. Twelve years later I’m occupying a rented room of 12’x15’ (welcome to NYC), so the table will have to wait. But just you watch: on move-in day into my fictional house, while my fictional wife is out buying petty crap with my fictional money (I’m loaded, somehow), I’ll wile away the afternoon buffing the paneling of my new full-length table with a soft cloth diaper, just like Cameron’s father.

If I had my way (and people paid me for my addictions), I’d play eighty games of pool a day. There’s nothing more fulfilling, more oddly sexual, than a well-played game of pool. I’ve experienced many of my greatest joys in pubs and billiard halls, chalk streaks across my brow and quarters weighing my pockets. Just because I can, I’m gonna share with you a few of my more memorable games. I’m the hero in every one of them. No one’s stealing my thunder. Not in my blog.

1) The site: Arcade Tavern. Bandon, Oregon. Late one evening, about six beers deep, I squared off against a fella named Bluejay. (Most of the Bandon caddies adopt nicknames. Tragically, mine was “Mike Elwood,” a terrifically boring moniker. Some jerk heisted “Elwood” a year prior, so I couldn’t even go by the shortened version...seems a blind caddie manager thought this imposter resembled Blues Brothers-era Dan Aykroyd—he did not—and the name stuck.)

Blue’s a solid player, thru and thru. Doesn’t beat himself. Now, in terms of pool ranks at the Arcade, I was certainly one of the better players, but by no means Top Dog. That honor went to either Mike Kelley, Greenie, Brett Williams, Foxey or Jay Olson, depending on the day. Well, come to think of it, I began matching Olson in my final months there. On a good day I might make the podium. Anyway, Bluejay surprised me. He methodically grazed the table, sinking ball after ball. We split the first two. A small crowd gathered. About a dozen loopers rubbernecked from their bar squats during the tiebreaker. Blue broke and proceeded to clear five of his stripes without pause. I sunk one in the corner, foolishly blocked the cue and missed wide on my next shot. Blue pocketed one more, leaving me the cue against the far rail. Now I’ve got the table to myself, six of my solids remaining. I bore down. Two bank shots, one suicidal cut and a jump shot(!) later, I snatched victory from the jaws of defeat. Cleared the remaining balls without relinquishing my turn. I felt like a daggum superhero.

2) The site: Vasmay Lounge. New York, New York. First game of the night. My buddy Garrett and I joined forces against two out-of-towners. I ran the table, break to eight-ball. Not much of a story, ‘cept that my shot on the eight was downright gross. I had to jaywalk (shoot the length of the table diagonally) from the lower corner pocket, but the eight was blocked by an opposing ball, forcing me to call an awkward bank. Basically, I had to breathe hard right on the eight, shoving it off the near rail and back across the table into the corner. Drained it. The out-of-towners didn’t even have time to take off their jackets.

3) The site: Vasmay Lounge. New York, New York. Perhaps my finest hour. I was running the table against some locals when this diminutive Asian woman signed up on the chalkboard. I saw no harm. She didn’t look like trouble. Anyway, turned out she’s a ringer, and perhaps the most impressive pool player I’ve seen live and in-person. The first moment I watched her set over the ball, I knew this was gonna be my greatest challenge. Her form was just too beautiful for words; that cue became a natural extension of her bare hands. She sunk four in succession, exhibiting serious control
over her pace and English. I rallied hard, though, employing some defensive pool tactics in the closing moments (carefully guiding the cue behind my ball, etc.). Game one was mine, by the narrowest of margins. She looked ready to kill. Another rack. I won again. After she steamed off for a cigarette, I played a few more and set down the cue. Made for my stool. Ten minutes later, she tiptoed up to me from the booth and offered an apology for her tantrum. “Frankly, I’m just not used to losing,” she said. “You play a mean game of pool.”
...

music thoughts

Today’s lesson: The Perfect Song.

My iTunes is shuffling away as I type this. Doesn’t it piss you off when a song has everything going for it—engrossing lyrics, atmosphere/ambience, hooks, inspired musicianship—and then makes an inexplicable left turn into some bullshit? Here’s a few culprits:

a) Steppenwolf—“Magic Carpet Ride.” The first two minutes are pretty rad. It’s overplayed, sure, and now sounds more than a little stale to these seasoned ears, but there’s no denying it’s a decent radio track in its own right. The crime? Stepp’s interminable Quaalude jam, which lumbers in around 1:53 and steals two minutes and change from my life. They noodle about like a buncha imbeciles who just discovered the delay pedal, impressing us all with their cosmic girth. Then, unbelievably, they resuscitate the intro and staple it to the dying embers of their stoner whiz, passing it off as an appropriate outro. To cop an overused phrase from the golfing community, that's whipped cream on shit. Not cool.

b) E.L.O.—“Showdown.” Not sure who selected this track for the Kingpin montage (below), but he done did himself a fine job. The true shits here are Jeff Lynne (speaking of Jeff Lynne, my favorite “feeler” music trivia question is fairly straightforward: name the five core Traveling Wilburys. knowitalls always get Dylan and Harrison and Petty and Orbison, but almost no one seems to remember Lynne by name) and his cohorts. They ruined the Greatest Song Of All Time by offering up some atonal droggy synth guitar hemorrhage thing at 2:05. Kingpin thankfully omitted the digressions.



c) Iggy Pop—“Lust for Life” and “The Passenger.” Great, great tunes. Super solid. That said, both should have been at least a full minute shorter and would have benefitted greatly from the White Stripes treatment a la “Fell In Love With A Girl.” Get in, get out, move on. The urgency and energy are lost somewhere in minute three.

d) Gary Wright—“Love is Alive.” Everyone and their dog knows that Gary Wright is a colossal pussy. “Dream Weaver” was mildly intriguing, I suppose, but then there’s those other seventy overproduced bedtime stories that constitute his catalogue. “Love is Alive,” like the E.L.O. track, barrels out of the gate like a motherfucker. Catchy beat with a lot of cock and mustard. Sure, the lyrics suck, but you’re not listening to them anyway. It’s that beat. Now we get to :49 on the dash and he pulls the rug out from under us, ditches the groovy thump for an awful, super-wimpy chorus of—I wish I was making this up—“my heart is on fire/my soul’s like a wheel that’s turning/my love is alive/my love is alive, oh yeah yeah yeah.” Beneath contempt.

Ed. 8/4: Ok, then I saw the attached video. I take back anything negative I've ever said about Gary Wright. This is hilarious.



Those are songs that could have been. Here are songs that are. I’ve eyeballed all 6,196 tunes on my computer and rounded up the best of the best, neglecting tuneage scarred by superfluos filler and/or mindless soloing.

Ladies and Gentlepeople, 26 perfect songs:

a) Howlin’ Wolf—“Spoonful”
b) The Smiths—“Bigmouth Strikes Again”
c) Miles Davis—“Pharaoh’s Dance”
d) Nina Simone—“Sinnerman”
e) The Who—“Eminence Front”
f) The Clientele—“Joseph Cornell”
g) Bauhaus—“Bela Lugosi’s Dead”
h) Aliotta, Haynes and Jeremiah—“Lake Shore Drive”
i) Beirut—“Mount Roclai”
j) Bob Dylan—“It’s Alright, Ma”
k) Portishead—“Roads”
l) T Rex—“Mambo Sun”
m) The Cramps—“Human Fly”
n) David Bowie—“Lady Grinning Soul”
o) The Dead Kennedys—“Holiday in Cambodia”
p) Johnny Cash—“Cat’s in the Cradle”
q) The Modern Lovers—“I’m Straight”
r) Joy Division—“Heart and Soul”
s) The Velvet Underground—“White Light/White Heat”
t) George Thorogood—“Who Do You Love”
u) The Police—“Canary in a Coalmine”
v) Radiohead—“Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box”
w) The Stooges—“I Need Somebody”
x) Talking Heads—“Houses in Motion”
y) Massive Attack—“Live With Me”
z) The Stray Cats—“Stray Cat Strut”

There it is. A—Z.
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