In case you haven’t heard, today is the 33rd anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, and although I haven’t seen much chatter about it out there in the blogosphere, what I have run across is the usual snark and sarcasm that a certain type of hipper-than-thou people seem to love throwing at this unfortunate man. I may not be an Elvis fan per se, but it pisses me off that he gets so little respect when this day rolls around. Yes, he died in his gaudily decorated bathroom, overweight and strung out on prescription drugs. And yes, according to some accounts, he may have been straining to take a crap when his heart gave out. But that isn’t funny, people — it’s pathetic, a genuinely sad way for any human being to leave this world, let alone one who’d occupied the heights that Elvis once did. And it pisses me off that there are so many ignoramuses out there who get off on being cruel and vulgar about how far he eventually fell. I hope you dip-weeds meet your own fates with a little more dignity.
To counter some of that nasty, grade-school-level horseshit, I’m going to repost an entry I wrote earlier this year about the surprising impact Elvis’ death had on me. You can click the link for the original post if you like, or simply pop below the fold…
Getting back to our regularly scheduled, non-Star Wars programming, I’ve gathered up a selection of music vids that all mention my obsession du jour, summertime, and which, in one way or another, mirror my feelings on the season I’ve largely missed out on this year. Don’t worry, it’s not all heavy, depressing stuff… and yes, I know it’s no longer Friday evening…
It’s been a while since I posted a TV Title Sequence, and there’s one that’s been on my mind the last couple days. As it happens, this one is very MTV-esque, so it can double as a Friday Evening Video, for those who enjoy those and missed seeing one this week… two for the price of one! Just another little favor from your friends here at Simple Tricks and Nonsense!
If you don’t remember it — and really, why should you? — Booker was a short-lived spin-off from 21 Jump Street, that early hit for the fledgling Fox network that brought Johnny Depp to the public’s attention. As I understand it — and I could be totally offbase here, as I was never more than a casual fan and occasional viewer of Jump Street — Depp started talking about leaving the series early on in its five-season run and Richard Greico, who had a similar look, was brought on in the third season as a possible replacement for him. When Greico’s character, Dennis Booker, proved to popular and Depp was placated by some behind-the-scenes negotiations, Booker got his own show, which lasted a single season. (Depp ended up leaving Jump Street at the end of the fourth season, which coincided with the end of Booker‘s run as well.)
Although I generally enjoyed Jump Street, I never got into Booker much. Greico annoyed me on an almost cellular level, no doubt because of the way my girlfriend at the time used to react whenever his face popped up somewhere. (I was so easily threatened by virtual competition from media heartthrobs in those days, and I was so not a Richard Greico type, that I couldn’t help but loathe the guy on general principles. I had similar issues with Johnny Depp back then, and several members of Duran Duran as well.) It didn’t help that the only episode of Booker that made an impression on me was such a blatant rip-off of Die Hard that I’m amazed nobody got sued. But the opening credits… ah, I liked the opening. I used to tune in every week just to catch that one-minute sequence, and then I’d go find something else to do. It’s a near-perfect marriage of sound and imagery, in my opinion.
The sound is Billy Idol’s “Hot in the City,” of course, specifically the “Exterminator Remix” from the 1987 compilation album Vital Idol. Billy Idol was another one I didn’t much like at the time — I’ve since come to appreciate him quite a bit — but this song was awesome. Strangely enough, the official music video for the song bears a lot of resemblance to Booker‘s opening credits. Apparently Bruce Willis movies weren’t the only thing the producers were ripping off. I can’t find an embeddable clip, but you can see the Idol video here.
And just as a bonus, here’s the music video for the original version of “Hot in the City,” which was first released in 1982:
I like the original, but this is a rare, rare case in which I think I prefer the remix. I like that pounding bass line at the beginning…
I’ve been planning for a couple of weeks to post a clip of Harry Chapin performing “Taxi,” a lengthy ballad about disappointment and thwarted childhood ambitions, but you know what? Screw that. I’m not in the mood to dwell on my dissatisfaction right now. It’s a hot, muggy summer night in the SLC, the kind of night when young people go out on the prowl, and we middle-aged types reminisce about the crap we somehow managed to get away with, back in our own prowling days. So instead of that downer ’70s tune, I’m going back to the genre I turn to when I need a pick-me-up, the dumb and lustful pop-metal that I absorbed like oxygen in my late teens and early 20s. Here’s a song I can’t begin to justify liking, but I do, and I won’t apologize for it. It’s by Lita Ford, another former member of The Runaways who had a few solo hits in the late ’80s, including a pretty big duet she performed with Ozzy Osbourne. The song is “Kiss Me Deadly,” and no, it has nothing to do with Mickey Spillane:
I don’t have any specific memories associated with this song, other than liking it a lot when it was first out. I still have a 45 of it down in the Archives somewhere that features a rather fetching photo of Ms. Ford on the sleeve — she’s naked except for her guitar, which is naturally positioned just so to hide everything. I think it was that flavor of blunt sexuality that drew me to this song, actually… the line about getting laid and the one about knowing what she likes… I don’t think I’d ever heard a woman sing about sex in such frank, almost masculine terms before. Certainly it was a far cry from the fragile romanticism and opaque metaphors of Stevie Nicks. And I thought it was pretty hot.
Hot just like this miserable night. Going to be a long one, I think…
Today marks 100 days since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico and touched off an environmental catastrophe. The last I heard, the cap over the broken wellhead was still holding, and BP expects its relief well will intercept the original hole within two weeks and then they’ll hopefully be able to plug the damn thing for good. But millions of gallons of brown goo are still sloshing around in the Gulf or settling into the sediments at the bottom, and it’s going to be there for years, if not decades or centuries, to come. So this seems like an especially appropriate and poignant time to post the following music video. It’s a clip from the free concert Jimmy Buffett gave in Gulf Shores, Alabama, on July 11, which was broadcast live without commercial interruption on the CMT network and which I finally got around to watching just last weekend. (Thanks to The Girlfriend for recording it for me, since I am one of those Luddites who only watches the TV channels I can pull out of the airwaves for free.)
This is the finale of the show, a reworking of Jimmy’s 24-year-old ballad “When the Coast Is Clear.” It was always a melancholy song — originally it was about the end of summer and the self-reflection brought on by the change of season — but these new lyrics are downright heartbreaking. Watch for the pretty girl at about 2:10 who looks like she’s fighting back tears. I was, too, and I’ve never been anywhere near the Gulf Coast…
I know we need the oil, and I’m a far cry from a treehugging environmentalist — anyone who reads this blog knows how much I love driving my cars — but there’s going to come a day when people will realize just how damn shortsighted and clumsy our civilization has been, how much damage we’ve caused to ourselves and everything around us. After Deepwater Horizon, I think maybe that day is close. I just hope we can live with the regret.
So, after traipsing this weekend with The Girlfriend and her 17-year-old niece through every clothing store in two malls that are oriented to young, pretty people, I have scientifically determined that Hollister Co. has the best music, kind of a quasi-retro surf-rock thing. They also have exactly the leather easy chair and ottoman I want for my living room, cunningly distressed to look like something found at random in an antique store… except that the same exact chair turned up in two different Hollister stores. Go figure.
I heard tonight’s selection while driving home from The Girlfriend’s, the first time I’ve seen her all week. It was after dark and traffic was sparse, one of those times when the road seems to belong to you and you alone. The car responds like a horse that’s been penned up all winter, the windows are down and the draft whipping through them carries a sullen ghost of the 100-degree day that lived and died without your notice while you were at work. And then… a song that seems to perfectly encapsulate everything you’re currently feeling, and everything you’ve experienced over the past couple weeks:
To any of my Loyal Readers who’re still awake out there in the darkness, good night… and pleasant dreams…
Yeah, I know, another damn music video. I haven’t had the time for anything more substantive, I’m afraid. Lots of late nights at the office this week, and the way things are going, I’ll be lucky if I don’t have to work over the holiday weekend, too, and possibly the following weekend as well, and all thanks to some overzealous middle-management dumbass who made an impossible promise that I and my fellow bottom-of-the-ladder production people — the people who do the actual work around this place — now have to try and fulfill. My Loyal Readers can probably guess how I feel about that. Call me lazy if that’s how you see it, but I personally think the American-style protestant work ethic (i.e., the “thank you, sir, may I have another” mindset) is bullshit, and I resent the hell out of every additional second The Man shaves off the already too-small “life” portion of my work/life balance.
So, in that vein, here’s one for every middle-aged, white-collar cubicle monkey out there who spends his days wondering which of the reasonable, responsible choices he made in his youth led him to this bleak plateau where he feels like a coyote that’s thinking about gnawing off his own leg in order to escape the merciless steel jaws. It’s a little primal-scream therapy from Sting and The Police, and while the Road Warrior-inspired, post-apocalypse trappings of this video are as 1980s as it gets, the meaning of the lyrics and the bubbling rage at the grinding inhumanity of modern life remain as applicable — sadly — as ever.
And on that note, I hope that everyone reading this does, in fact, get to enjoy their holiday weekends. Think of me while you’re barbecuing and looking for a good spot to watch the parade…
…and brother, could I use a little boost these days.
It’s not the greatest rendition of the song, but everyone involved looks to be having fun:
You know, I’ve never been much of a Poison fan beyond their three or four biggest hits, and I’ve never had an opinion about Bret Michaels one way or the other, but for some reason, I find that I was really rooting for him during his recent health crisis, and I’m very pleased he pulled through. Possibly because Bret himself seems to be so damn grateful to be alive. His grin and his good cheer are infectious.
Having a highly public near-death experience certainly seems to have given his career a shot in the arm… he’s turning up everywhere, from American Idol to a duet with Mylie Cyrus on Good Morning, America to a Jimmy Buffett concert. A hair-metal vocalist and Mr. Margaritaville? Or Hannah Montana? Who would’ve ever predicted that?! He’s even scheduled to do a double-bill with my main man, Rick Springfield, on July 31st in Pala, California. Again, that’s not a pairing I ever would’ve imagined, but who knows, maybe it’s one of those “so crazy it just might work” things. Certainly the ladies in attendance will enjoy the male eye candy, or so The Girlfriend informs me. (She likes Bret’s eyes and Rick’s… well, pretty much everything.)
What was it Fitzgerald said about Americans not getting second acts? Wonder what he would’ve made of this one?
I’ve really dropped the ball with these video entries, and for that I apologize. But just lately I seem to be dropping all kinds of balls, so why should this feature be any different?
Anyhow, what I’m posting this week isn’t a video exactly; it’s a TV spot for Michelob beer that aired in the late ’80s, but it looks like a music video, and it features the guitar god Eric Clapton and a (then) updated version of his classic “After Midnight.” Michelob had a number of similar ads around this same time featuring popular music and an MTV visual style. I have the impression (but no actual knowledge) that it was a successful campaign for them. Certainly, I liked these ads, all of them that as I can recall seeing, anyway, but this was my favorite… it sounded and looked cool, and I just knew that the atmospheric mood of the clip was a prediction of what weekend nights were going to be like when I came of age. Yet another adolescent fantasy that didn’t quite work out, considering I’m currently sitting at home by myself on a Friday night/Saturday morning writing about a 20-year-old beer ad instead of out listening to blues music in a smokey dive somewhere. Sigh… anyway, here’s the ad. Enjoy:
For the record, I know there was also a one-minute version of this ad, but it’s the 30-second spot that I remember seeing the most. There were also Michelob ads featuring Genesis, Phil Collins, and Steve Winwood (I wasn’t able to find a link to that one).
And now, considering that it’s well after midnight, I think I’m going to call it a week…
