Jesse brought home Danny Trejo vehicle Machete (as in “what’s this long, hard thing?” “That’s my machete”…well, you get the dialog) With Steven Segal and Robert De Niro, you know you’re gettin’ action as well. Jesse votes for it as best movie ever made. I’m an open minded guy. I watched it 4 times de novo, then ran it head-to-head against Big Trouble in Little China, the actual best movie ever made.
Jess has some points coming his way. Movie addresses big themes—illegal aliens—with a deft hand, from multiple perspectives, and with good humor. For me, it loses big points for persistent gratuitous violence. If I’s gonna be the best movie ever, it has to have wide appeal. It does pull in religious themes and icons, and takes a generally nonlinear path to the denoument, which is a nice surprise and some dramatic twists. A nicely complicated ending.
But you know, BTILC is still balls to the wall action, humor, drama, horror, special effects, and you got the floating head that gets knifed and deflated. Complex plot. Tricks from every film school from NYC to Tokyo underground. Master class in cinema, complete in one film.
Final score? BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA 127 POINTS. MACHETE 80 POINTS. NO CONTEST, BGILC tops the polls for for one more year, no household should be without. Certainly this household won’t!
Dr. Dan and I have a running argument. Usually at the beach, and usually after the third beer in the morning sunshine. Oh, ok, sometimes after the second Negroni in the evening.
Anyway. I always start it by listing the “10 Best Albums of All Time”. We discuss that for a while, then Dan points out, and it’s obviously true, that you can’t really identify the 10 “best” albums in any genre, much less rock and roll.
OK, that may be the case. But you sure as hell can generate a list of albums everybody should own. Without exception. Of course, such a list eventually runs to 100s, if not 1000s. But we have to start somewhere.
Here goes.
The Velvet Underground and Nico. This album was, and is, so far ahead of anything else on the planet in terms of sound, songcraft, musicianship, and sheer balls-to-the-wall creativity that it is unique among works of art of all fields, not just music. Still the most amazing music there’s ever been. And, likely, ever will be. Plus a violin, for crap’s sake.
Drugstore. The first album—with the dark, stellar cover. Isabel Montero piloted them away from British hardcore and to a unique form of low-fi, high-intellect, drone. Again, so original as to be almost unprecedented.
Peter Case. First album—the one with Steel Strings and Small Town Spree. Awesome singer-songwriter storytelling. Nicely underproduced. Just gorgeous. After you get this, go ahead back and find everything the Plimsouls—his earlier band did. Almost as good.
Stones—Beggar’s Banquet. You know, for all the great music the Beatles, Stones, Faces, Kinks, etc. did, there were very few entire stone classic albums. And then, it was mostly the Stones. This slot could’ve been filled by Let It Bleed, Exile, or even more so, Sticky Fingers. But Beggar’s Banquet came out of nowhere and there’s not an uneven, inconsistent, or dishonest note on it. I make it a point to listen to it at least a couple times a year. It’s a wonder every frickin’ time.
Mekons—Rock and Roll. Just one of the best rock albums of all time. Ever. By anybody. At any time. Pounding. Melodic. Great lyrics. Hooks. Plus a violin. For crap’s sake (see Velvet Underground).
The Clash—Give ‘Em Enough Rope. I don’t care what your older brother, the critics, the punk fanzines, or the Clash themselves have said about their discography. This album is among the finest pure pop metal items on any planet. It kicks more ass than most albums, including those by the Clash.
Pogues—Hell’s Ditch. Speaking of production by Joe Strummer. This is another one to ignore all the bitching at allmusic.com and at Amazon and every where else small time reviewers feel compelled to mouth off. This is the darkest, darkest album ever. If you ever want to sleep again, do NOT read the lyric sheet. Trust me. I’ve read it. I’ve got awful insomnia.
Sisters of Mercy—Vision Thing. I know, this is starting to sound like a…uh…broken record (for those of you too young to remember “records”, think a big scratch in your nutcase friend’s collection of thrash on vinyl), but ignore the bitching at allmusic.com. This is a classic. A classic. “…on Detonation Boulevard…see the flowers on the razor wire…I was thinking about her…skin…”… .
The Who—Live at Leeds. A classic BEFORE they added the entire Tommy to the 2 disk set. The best live album—and one of the best of any albums—ever. The John Coltrane-ish instrumental breakdown at the end of Magic Bus and My Generation is worth the price of admission. Then you get definitive versions of their stage show, plus all of Tommy at its finest.
Nirvana—Never Mind. I know, you haven’t played this in years. Go thou now and do so. Thou will be amazed at what thou hast been missing. Trusteth me.
New material up around the horn. I’ve been sick, I apologize for being a day late with this stuff. Check http://endoftheworldpartdeux.blogspot.com/ for the cancer diary, http://docviper.livejournal.com/ for photos and a little ecology, http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.blogspot.com/ for the best in sustainability and the environmental consequences of war. And thanks again for stoppin’ by—every time you guys read this stuff, I feel a little more life come back to my battered frame!
I don’t mean to be cynical (I know, I almost always DO in fact mean to be cynical. In this case I do not). When something massive happens in the world, especially now in the age of tight and nearly universal electronic and social linkage, after time passes, the event is remembered simply for the event. Not for the tragedy or triumph. Simply because something happened to us collectively and it is part of our collective consciousness.
This is intensely true for the events of 9/11. There is plenty of legitimate memorial of the tragedy, heroism, and intensity of that day. There is also a lot of memorial simply of our collective experience. What I mean by not being cynical is that I don’t think this is any less legitimate than the more serious and dark-eyed remembrance. After all, a big shock is a big shock, whatever the outcome. The recent earthquake here on the east coast is a lesser example. Not much result, but sufficiently novel and affecting a sufficient number of people to warrant a lot of discussion. In the case of 9/11, of course, you had the much wider collective experience coupled with massive consequence. So the experience itself is a stand-alone event worthy of remembrance.
National Geographic Channel did a great job putting together a series of shows that premier this week addressing 9/11 issues. I thought I would have to force myself to watch them. But the shows are so well done it’s no effort at all. I commend the entire run of shows (well, except the Rudy Giuliani one. Even I couldn’t stomach that. The W interview is worth watching, though), most of them a couple hours, to you.
In the meantime, where were you on September 11 2000? I was in Cleveland. I flew in early that Tuesday morning, leaving BWI around 0630, hitting downtown Cleveland at around 0800. Three of us—one from Syracuse, one from Denver, and me, were converging for a proposal presentation to a client. We convened in the hotel room that one of the guys had booked the night before. Pulled out computers and started to review the Power Points. Cathy called my cell, something she rarely does during business hours when I’m on the road, so I assumed it was some kind of emergency. She told us to put on a television.
Which we did. Hooolllllyyyyy shhhhiiiittttttt. We watched the second plane hit the South Tower. Then the alarm went off and the hotel announced evacuation. Our near-the-waterfront location was directly in the path of Flight 93. The TV said commercial flights were grounded. Out in the plaza, a big jet flew low overhead in the clear, cool air, slowly turning in a big loop as it reversed back east. It was indeed United 93.
All of downtown Cleveland was evacuated. We wandered around the square outside the train station and shopping mall just up the hill from the Rock and Roll Museum and Hall of Fame. Repeatedly called the client via cells. No answer, of course. I told the two guys that we had to start figuring out how we were going to get out of town. They thought the client might want to hold the meeting later in the afternoon. I looked at them like they were deranged capitalists. Which they were. But they were insistent.
Finally I called our corporate travel agent and had them start reserving three vehicles, one for each of us, at every rent-a-car counter in or near Cleveland. I asked them to locate the nearest Hertz office, because according to the news, traffic in Cleveland was frozen and getting to the airport rental counters would take hours. Turned out to be 4 blocks from where we were. I grabbed the two guys—both of them frantically and repeatedly dialing the client’s number—and dragged them bodily along the street to the Hertz office.
We got into the queue that stretched half a block. A woman stuck her head out the door and shouted “we’re running out of cars. Who has reservations?” I waved my hand and said we had three. Woman behind us had one. “We have four cars left. You four, come in.” She pulled us inside and locked the door behind us.
Took an hour to process us. They did indeed have a car for each of us. When she handed me the keys, I popped the door open and shouted to the line for anyone going to Washington or Baltimore. Two kids popped up, a thin white girl and a black guy, and said they were in. When we got to the car in the garage, they said they had a third who would be along in a bit and did I mind the wait. I told them I thought we had all the time in the world. A black girl, also anorexically slender, showed up, heaved her gear in the trunk, and we headed for I80.
8 hours later we merged off 70 onto 695, then 95. I never did get their whole story. They were with some media firm, pitching a client. Their car was at BWI. I dropped them off, figured the rental counter at BWI wasn’t going to be open and drove the rental home. Swapped it out a few days later, no charge.
A few weeks later I was back on the road. When my briefcase went through the scanner, the guard said “there’s a knife in your bag”. I said I didn’t think so, I tossed my pocket knife and metal belt into a trash can in Cleveland. But they searched. Didn’t find it. Over the next month, every 2 or 3 security checks, somebody would think they saw a knife in my bag. But the search never turned it up.
I found it months later when I was emptying the bag out completely, getting ready for a long trip. Meaning I passed through the post-911 “enhanced security” at airports roughly 16 or 18 times with a knife in my bag… .
New stuff up around the weblog horn this week. Be sure, if you have a few minutes, to visit http://sustainablebiospheredotnet.blogspot.com/ for an essay on environmental consequences of armed conflict, http://docviper.livejournal.com/ for the natural world, and http://endoftheworldpartdeux.blogspot.com/ for the weekly cancer diary. Thanks for stopping by!
