I am probably going to be posting these delightful mini-screenplays from real life over on Tumblr soon, since that’s a great place for that kind of thing, but they’re down right now. (There was an Asian-looking girl at the top of my dashboard warning me that might happen, but I’ve been hitting the cold medicine pretty hard and thought that might be a vision.)
Dan: So that’s pretty much my office. Do you guys want to say “hi” to Carol?
ADAM: Hi, Carol. [giggles]
CAROL: Hi!
BECKY: Hi, Carol!
CHRISTIE: Are you guys going to introduce yourselves?
ADAM: My name is Adam. What’s your name?
CAROL: Carol.
BECKY: My name is Becky, what’s your name?
CAROL: Carol.
September 5th, 1993 marked a sleepover for my brother’s 16th birthday. A Sunday night that went into Monday morning (Labor Day), I actually had the chance to watch They Might Be Giants–my favorite band–host 120 Minutes, a show that I usually taped and watched the next day.
Halfway through the show, they introduced a video that started with a wall-of-guitars one-note riff. Shown on screen was a mariachi band, completely incapable of this garage-metal crunch, but eventually the real band was revealed. In matching plain white greaser t-shirts (and also matching Hawaiian shirts), they played in a tiny room illuminated by a disco ball. Images of the band goofing off (all repeating the lyrics), some house party, that mariachi band again, snapshots of southern California’s hispanic culture… it was a blur. At the end, I didn’t have any idea what I’d seen, but I loved it. It was Rocket From the Crypt’s first MTV exposure: the video for Sturdy Wrists.
I have no clue what the song means. It’s got something to do with wrists, elevators, and being in tune. I haven’t even looked up what the words of the chorus are, because as it is in my head, it’s perfect. After the verse riff has punished you enough, this horn kicks in - a gorgeous saxophone, in a punk song. It’s a total left turn, progression-wise, from what’s come before. But again, it’s so simple: only the wall of guitars is playing more than one note. They’re not trying to impress you with diversity or overwhelming cleverness: this is about boiling something down to essence, and hitting you over the head with it. God, that riff! The second verse is the first verse again, but now stated in past tense, and now nothing’s in tune.
The riff is the intro is the bridge, and once the second chorus is over, the same crushing riff is the closing statement. It’s perfectly symmetrical. The whole thing might be over in two minutes. It’s as punk as power-pop ever got, as far as I know. There’s no quiet/loud, no irony, no jokes… it was as if Helmet formed in the 60’s, or Black Sabbath played their funkiest stuff in double time at a beach party.
Which is not to say that RFTC never got better. Their follow-up, Scream Dracula Scream!, is a perfect introduction to their wise-ass punk-plus-horns-plus-keys philosophy, certainly more friendly, and at times, more intense. Hot Charity might be the best thing they ever did, but it was only available on vinyl for about five years, which made it an even more intimate, special and secret experience. RFTC off-shoots (Hot Snakes, Drive Like Jehu, the Sultans) are in no way inferior to their more popular sibling: all excellent variations (more or less serious) on the same themes.
They played their final show on Halloween 2005, and the DVD of that experience comes out next month.
Having spent about a month with it popping up on my iPod… jeez. It’s really good.
I do sometimes worry about getting old and only being interested in music that makes me slightly sleepy, but this whole record is deceptively quiet. It’s not bluesy or jammy at all - it’s surprisingly tight. If I were to put some kind of 2007 top 10 list together, this might just barely make it.
In the car, yesterday. Adam’s stuffed kitty is in the space between the car seats.
ADAM: I want to hold my kitty.
BECKY: What?
ADAM: I want to hold my kitty.
BECKY: What?
ADAM [who has, by this time, collected his kitty, but is repeating his request out of politeness]: I want to hold my kitty.
BECKY [suddenly a little exasperated]: Well, and there y’are, holding it.
2007 was the year that I started thinking to myself “I ought to twitter that” instead of “I ought to blog that”. On this trip to St. Louis, I would have noted several things, except we had no internet, so these are the untwittered things that I couldn’t send you.
This whole thing is inauthentic, because I didn’t note these things at the time - Twitter is nothing if not direct and automatic, so it feels fake to remember what happened on the trip and crack wise about it now. I haven’t cheated by pretending I knew the answers to the questions that came to me, but I’ll add notes at the end to let you know what I found.
Thursday, December 27th
You are going to love the new highway font. Iowa has it. It’s like butter.
The 40s on XM 4 played a song I’m sure Frank Black has covered (but I didn’t know). “The Big Hurt”.
Wait, was Mark Twain born in Hannibal, MO? Because they should put up a sign about that. (Sorry, there are a zillion signs that say that.)
My first Country Kitchen experience since childhood is… disappointing.
Friday, December 28th
If this becomes the vacation of GarageBand and watching TV in iTunes, I’m fine with that.
Questions I’d like answered at the St. Louis Arch museum: why a giant arch? How big is it? And can we touch it?
Getting the metal detector treatment at the arch seems a little extreme. Are terrorists really thinking along these lines?
I touched the arch, but we’re not going up there. Still no satisfactory answer to “why”.
A revival-esque, harmonizing fudge vendor wouldn’t do well in Minnesota. Or maybe it would.
We live two miles from Houlihan’s in Richfield, so going out for appetizers at a Houlihan’s in St. Louis is not very adventurous. Landry’s seafood looked too fancy for preschoolers, though.
Saturday, December 29th
Christie’s family thinks I’m fall-down hilarious. I don’t need new matierial, I just need audiences that haven’t heard the old stuff yet.
Watching the NE/NYG game with a Titans fan who wants everyone on every other team to die. Being twelve never really changes.
The third-floor bedroom we’ve moved to has a few new wifi options - a “linksys” that sometimes works, and a “screwyoutheif” [sic] that never does.
There won’t be any The Office on this trip - the one episode I brought with me is one Christie’s seen.
Getting through two Flight of the Conchords and three Californications makes this an awesome vacation.
Sunday, December 30th
I recommend the chili dog at Crown Candy. The chocolate malt back home at Uncle Franky’s remains the best ever, though.
No, we don’t go into convenience stores in this part of St. Louis. We ask for a Diet Coke through the bullet-proof window.
Not able to tell from the national coverage how the Vikings looked. They lost and were eliminated from the playoffs, but did they appear to care?
Convenient, really, that the Titans game is on national TV, since everyone I’m staying with is from Nashville.
Monday, December 31st
At the St. Louis Science Center, I’m starting to kind of understand DNA.
All of this directions-transcribing is making me want not a GPS system, but an iPhone. (I wouldn’t have to beg for wifi anymore, either.)
Who said “if god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him”? I want to say a French philosopher, but it’s certainly not Ben Franklin (as CB’s dad says).
We’re doing nothing for New Year’s. There are fireworks outside, though.
Tuesday, January 1st
People - in this neighborhood - are FIRING FUCKING GUNS for the new year.
In the hour before we leave, the usually weak wifi is strong. Wait, it’s broken again.
Turns out that most stores and places we’d want to eat are open on 1/1. Good.
When she says “two pies” and you think you heard “two fries”, it’s customary to both exchange the item and REFUND THE DIFFERENCE IN PRICE. Jeez.
Twenty-five cent lotto in Iowa? Yes, please.
Thermometer has dropped to 2 from 16 where we left.
Your ancestors expand exponentially (2 in generation n-1, 4 in n-2, 8 in n-3)… but there weren’t that many people that many years ago. What’s the scientific answer to this?
Notes
The Big Hurt was in fact covered by Frank Black and the Catholics. It drove me kind of crazy for the six days that I couldn’t further research that.
Still not sure about the Vikings - I think we’ll know more this week about who’s hired and fired and targeted for free agency. I’ll repeat - this was never a playoff team.
Christie’s dad was quoting Voltaire, not Benjamin Franklin.
You have 8 ancestors 3 generations back, 32 5 generations back, and 1024 10 generations back. Christie and I discussed it on the way home, and you have 2^n only if the same one guy (or gal) isn’t represented twice somewhere. If that’s the case, then somebody had a kid with their cousin, and there’s probably no point getting worried about it now. That reduces the large math by a little - it’s probably not 2^10 (over 1 million) ten generations ago, but something like 700,000 or 800,000. Still, that’s too much to hold up if you go further - 10 more generations, and you’re at some percentage less than a billion people, and then 10 more (only 1000 years total) to a trillion, which there never were on the planet and there never could be. Does the overlap effect explain away all this?
You found the blog. Some people get here without coming through the front page - that's totally cool, I just wanted you to be aware that it's like a whole page full of sidebars and content you won't necessarily find here. So now you know.
