AND WHAT EXACTLY IS A LOVE SPONGE?
NO, WAIT, I DON'T REALLY WANNA KNOW

I haven't listened to the Howard Stern show for more than eight minutes in the last three years. I spend enough time in my life dealing with six year olds obsessed with being repulsed by their own peepees and those of others, and quite frankly my life is too short to hear a bunch of uptight people carry on about it on the radio.

Also, commercial radio in general is a soulless wasteland of shrill screaming punctuated with ad jingles masquerading as popular music. If something interesting happens on commercial radio, it's a bloody accident, and you can bet it won't happen again. (I listen to WFMU, XFM and the CBC, if you want a recommendation.)

But that said, you gotta give it to Howard for being an original. If the revealing of one nipple (which, I'll say again, isn't anything a baby hasn't seen up close) can cause the FCC to bring an entire industry to heel, and if Clear Channel can push even the big pieces of their empire in a baldfaced and clumsy political attempt to stay in the FCC's good graces, then the people running mainstream media are even more out of touch than I thought.

Thing is, the political posturing is gonna work. Which sucks worst of all.

They've been making hangars full of money off people like Howard for decades now (he makes something like a half-million bucks per market he's syndicated in per year, so not only is he able to retire any time the exhaustion gets too much, but think about what his bosses are making off of him), but apparently he only became offensive last week, and the President of Clear Channel had never heard the flagship morning show on his network before, and now he's suddenly "ashamed" by what Howard's been doing since the mid-eighties. Do these people even buy their own line of bullshit?

Down at the UPS Depot last night while I was waiting for a special package from Latin America to arrive, I had a conversation about this with some homeless guy who apparently is doing a massive business in pirated computer equipment. Hey, I'm not judging.

"I been listening to Howard since he came to New York back in 1983," the guy was saying. "They're saying he's gotten worse over the years, but that's bullshit. He's in the getting worse business. He's supposed to be bad. If he doesn't get people angry, he doesn't have a job. That's what's so great about him."

"But can't he fight back? He is the King of all Media, right?"

"Yeah, well, the King done got de-posed." And he laughed and stuck his tongue out.

THE SECOND-LAST TEMPTATION OF, UH, RUSSELL CROWE

It finally hit me, after weeks of media bombardment and foofaraw about how horrible Mel Gibson is for trying to make his little God movie as if it was the greatest story ever told or something. It was in front of my face the entire time, and I know I'm far from the first to get this, but that doesn't matter. The light just went on.

It doesn't matter one whit what Mel Gibson thinks.

Sure, he has more money than, well, God and he's always tanned and he's got a great ass and he blew eight hundred billion dollars on making some pre-Vatican II-literalist movie about how things "really" "went" "down" a couple thousand years ago. Well, great. I hear there's buckets of blood, and no one speaks English, and the Jews don't come off all that well. Whatever. It's a movie. There'll be a flurry of stories in the next couple of weeks, it'll do boffo opening weekend box office, and it'll close after a month, having made its money back. The wave will go back out to sea, ashes to dust, and what'll piss off America next?

How about a sequel?

-- The Apathy of the Other Christ --
See, here's the story. Jesus had a twin brother, Jesse, who couldn't be bothered to get into the messiah business full-time, but he kind of hung out, did portraits on the boardwalk at the resorts along the Sea of Galilee, chilled with his pals, Jim the Best Friend of the Baptist and the St. Luke's brother, St. Bo, smoked a little weed (okay, a lot of weed) and cranked out a few tunes on his lyre, like:

There's a hole in my brother's hand
Where all the money goes
Jesus Christ'll die for nothin', I suppose[*]
After the crucifixion, Jesse walks the earth, sleeping on couches and, I don't know, solving crimes? Sure, solving crimes, using his Dad-given powers, even though they've eroded from disuse, and eventually he and this hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold named Molly Magdalene settle down and open a roadside falafel stand and they live happily ever after in obscurity. And… credits.

I bet we could get Russell Crowe to do it. He's an Aussie-American contrarian sonofabitch who doesn't give a shit what you think, and not only would he do it just to piss Mel off, with him attached we'd get all the money we needed to do it right.

Right, of course, means shooting it in Jersey (Hey, it is the promised land, isn't it?) with whoever we could find.

Get me Crowe's agent on the phone. This is gonna be huge. And by huge, I mean miniscule.

JUMPING AND JUMPING AND MISSING AND MISSING

Oh, and this week in Area 52: Frisbee, a second consecutive song about happiness. That streak ends after today, but seriously. Two in a row. That's, like, unprecedented.

In recording this week's song, I realized yet another way my year is going to change the face of modern music as we know it.

See, what Sidney Bechet did for the cornet, what Jimi Hendrix did for the electric guitar, what Walter Ostanek did for the accordion, what Ed Hamell has done for modern folk, I, Tony Hightower, aka Chico Amadeus Bangs, shall do for, among many other things, the kazoo.

Go ahead, laugh now. They laughed at Beethoven and Bill Gates, and one couldn't hear the taunts and the other one, well, he made out okay too. Neener neener neener.

The bus to the glorious future is leaving, and I'm driving. Are you on it?

YOU MISSED A SPOT

I have no axe to grind with Norah Jones. She's a fine singer, a decent writer and, considering her pedigree, a total overachiever. She's way, way better than Edie Brickell. You can quote me on that. But I can't help thinking that maybe she needs a teeny dose of reality.

From this NYT story:

"I've always loved to read, but sometimes I go for a year without reading a book because I forget to, or I don't have a book that I can get into easily,'' she said. "Recently I've been reading a lot more."

Now, she's 24 years old. If she sometimes goes an entire year without reading a book, then she hasn't always loved to read, has she?

Look, I'm glad she's literate, and TV rots your brain. (I'm living proof.) But if you're forgetting to read for a whole year, then maybe you need something more than a little piece of string around your finger to remind you of what you've allegedly always loved to do.

NOT FOLLOWING BEISBOL BEEN BERRY BERRY GOOD TO ME

I didn't expect everyone I knew to carry on endlessly about the Vietnam records of various Presidential hopefuls, or Super Bowl breasts, or Outkast or Dave Chappelle or whatever forever. And I know that this is Yankeetown and that baseball is everything to a lot of people I know, despite the fact that the season doesn't start for another month and they play 81 home games, which virtually no one I know can go to because you'd have to knock over a Brinks truck just to be able to buy a seat, even one high enough up that it requires an oxygen tank, and a cup of beer foam is eight bucks and a hot dog the size of my pinkie is another six, and -- they play eighty-one of the damned things, so how much does a midweek circle jerk in June matter?

But still, I understand. History. Civic pride. Championships. Lore. I get it.

But I'm tired of the fawning over Alex Rodriguez. He seems like a decent guy, and a hell of a player, and he makes almost as much as God and he loves his momma and eats his vegetables and they'll build a statue of him and school gonna be closed on his birthday. Great. Good on him. But -- enough.

On top of my work with the homeless and my forays into the worlds of curling, ballroom dancing and particle physics, I'm also a sports guy. Now, I know you hate sports, but you noticed I didn't ask you.

I stopped supporting baseball after the '94 strike. I figured any sport that cared so little for its fans that it would destroy the one thing every one of those fans stood for rather than give up a few precious dollars wouldn't care much if I stopped bringing my occasionally hard-earned dough to the table. Yay them. (This mindset is going to be challenged come next year's NHL lockout, but I have a few months to come up with a justification for that.) Anyway, it's been 10 years, and I don't see anything that convinces me to come back. A-Rod might make the world a better place, with the whole prodigal son come home to Gotham with the bags of cash and the whatever-it-is-he-does, but I ain't gonna pay none of that $252 million contract.

I'll go see the Brooklyn Cyclones at Coney Island, though. I'll even go to Newark to see the Bears if someone's up for that. After all, it's gonna be a long summer.

IT'S A HELL OF A DRUG.

Having seen enough of the world that it was kind of almost a crime against my own experience that I hadn't been to Chicago yet, being so close and so big (yes, honey, I know you know what I mean), I went this weekend for my brother's birthday.

I landed expecting deep-freeze temperatures, and it turned out to be merely cold, to the point that I was sweating a little bit under my less-than-I-thought-I'd-need number of layers. I called my brother's buddy with whom I was staying, and with whom I spent the entire weekend (he was doing the occasional romantic thing with his wife, and what the hell was that all about?), which seemed like a large investment on his part, especially considering it was Valentine's Day weekend and his boyfriend stayed away pretty much the whole time. (At work, but still.)

First thing, we hit a drag bar with my luggage under the tables, and watched Steadman Graham (or an eerily close lookalike, minus about 40 pounds, but it really could have been him) giddily pass each performer singles, fives & tens in exchange for kisses, cheap feels and, in one case, simulated cunnilingus.

And how often does one get the opportunity to see Steadman Graham going down on a drag queen? Well, it was a new one for me, alright?

There were about four other bars that night, and I vaguely remember vomit being involved, but there wasn't anything on my clothes in the morning, and I was still on speaking terms with my captors, so everything was fine.

We watched Chappelle's Show (the infamous Rick James episode), from which we quoted liberally to everyone we met in town over the rest of the weekend. Pure fuckin' art, that man. It's a real wonder we didn't get the crap beaten out of us for the number of times we walked up to total strangers and asked them what the five fingers said to the face. (It's not the question, but rather the slap and the ensuing dance, yelling "Cold Blooded!" that tends to piss off the strangers.)

We kept moving, from Division Street to Michigan Avenue to Halstead Street (I saw as much of gay Chicago as I ever expected to see in a whole lifetime), from discos to neighborhood dives to the top of the John Hancock building. There was a detour to the Art Institute, and the only thing I really wanted to do that didn't happen was getting out to see some local bands. But it didn't really matter. It was a whirlwind trip, and I prevailed upon my captors enough as it was.

I feel like I met enough people that I could probably win the Illinois primary. It was the most fun I could expect to have by myself on Valentine's Day, and I'll go again when it's warmer, I promise.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some work to do.

AREA 52 UPDATE

I posted next week's song already, because it's Valentine's friendly and because I can.

Go and download it, and if you like, share it.

The site seems to be getting a little more popular lately. The novelist Caren Lissner said something nice, as has Brad over at Antifolk Online (If you're feeling good about life, go get the Anti-Up zine now. My track on the accompanying CD won't be the only one to bring the proverbial it, I promise.)

Also, I wanna say hey to Jay at Hiphopmusic.com. That's a great site, with lots of thought and wit, and his attitude rocks.

Thanks to them, and to you.

I'll be celebrating our dead presidents by getting rid of a few of them on the streets of Chicago. (I should tell my booking agent that Chicago in February is known as not setting up my schedule properly, but I guarantee you my posse will rock no less hard for the chill.) Much of the weekend will merely be spent indoors.

Also, food and alcohol might be involved. One can hope.

Now, brothers and sisters, friends of the revolution, go forth and hug someone you love tomorrow. And today.

HATING THE PLAYER, NOT THE PLAY (II)

Why in the world do we need a reasonable guide to openly decadent music? (Okay, "Scum Rock." I'll play along.) Not that it's even comprehensive. Where's "All Right Now" or "Too Drunk To Fuck," fergodsake?

This is halfway between two good ideas: either make a top-50 list with a sentence each abut how fucked-up these songs (and the people who sang them) are, or do a real essay on each of them, and make it a series. As an editor, I'd love to see 750 words on how jaded Exile-era Liz Phair was, or the story behind Dee Dee Ramone writing "Chinese Rock," especially if some of them could be written the same way Lester Bangs wrote about "Maggie May," fleshing out the story in the song until you can feel a bit of perspective and pathos for the people involved.

Because, my most excellent friend, the real point in this piece as I see it is to chronicle the veneration of degradation that has twisted the whole I'm-sure-the-Germans-have-a-word-for-it that has transformed Rock and Roll into the ever-less-relevant cultural dinosaur it is today.

THEY ALL LAUGHED WHEN I RENOVATED MY BOMB SHELTER

If you thought Amercan foreign policy was anything other than a total disaster these last couple of years, the latest Mars photo shows just how far word has spread.

[via Looka]

DON'T PLAYA HATE, -- WELL FINE, GO ON THEN

Look. No one's telling Roddy Doyle to like James Joyce, although you would think there might be a feeling of kinship from one idiosyncratic Irish literary guy to another (even in Ireland, where there have been a few of 'em, those types don't grow on trees), but to rip Ulysses for being sloppy is like ripping "Louie Louie" for having lyrics that are hard to understand. It's kind of part of the point. And who was going to edit that book, anyway? Hell, he could barely get people to read it in the beginning.

"People are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books but I doubt any of those people were really moved by it." ... Doyle was dismissive of the "Joyce industry", saying: "They'll be serving Joyce Happy Meals next."

Roddy. Dude. You're an amazing writer yourself. Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and The Van were transcendent, and both made me cry in places. We could easily be celebrating the centenary of your birth at some point too. But if you're fishing for publicity by trying to start some east/west blowdown showdown, don't take on Joyce. It's like attacking the Sphinx; the French have already shot his nose off.

No, that's not right. But even though he was a deeply flawed writer in many ways (sure he was sloppy, and he didn't finish his points sometimes, and you have to read his books out loud if you really want them to make any sense), getting all up in the Joyce Industry and calling for Happy Meals isn't going to win you any converts. The only people who'll notice are the hardcore Joyce fans. (Of which I am definitely one. Homeboy writes like I think. He follows threads into places I never seen a writer go, before or since, he mixes his pitches and styles better than Dizzy Dean, and no one who ever put pen to paper loved language as obsessively as he did. Ulysses might be more head than heart, but it made me laugh and cry and puke and wank like great literature bloody well should.)

The secret of a good rivalry, Mr. Doyle, which you'd know if you followed the saga of Pac & Biggie (or Sharon Osborne v. Billy Corgan, or even Uri Geller v. The Amazing Randi, even), is to pick on someone you can take. Sure, you could have a go at G.B. Shaw, or Oscar Wilde, but if you wanna start a Irish Lit turf war, what about Seamus Heaney? He's got a Nobel prize, but you could totally kick his ass. And you know, he might even play along. And in a couple years you two could kiss and make up and everyone sells more books. Win, win, win. Three bars. Cash in, cash out. Exeunt.

[link via Maud]

IRONY-FREE MUSIC MISSIVE AHEAD

Two things I noticed watching the Grammys last night:

1. Justin Timberlake's song didn't completely suck. Perhaps it was because he was surrounded by the best Cuban Jazz players still alive (people like Arturo Sandoval and the rest of the nameless band, who moved very well) and had the good sense to stay out of their way, he was a half-step above tolerable for the first time in, like, ever. I don't think his keyboard was even plugged in, and he's not the sharpest cheese in the shop, but I'm beginning to belive that one day, in the distant future, he might figure out how to genuinely not suck.

This is a seismic change in my worldview.

2. Outkast are really, really fucking good. Sure, they have as much booty & bling as the next act, but there's a joy and bounce to the music they make that I don't see all that often any more, not even in places you'd expect to see it, like punk or Latin music. (To compare, Jack White looked -- workmanlike, I guess. He was fine, they rocked hard, but it sure as hell didn't match Outkast's Solid-Gold-Marching-Band glee.) Those guys must be burning through money like water, but they do look like they're enjoying themselves.

I missed much of the show last night, as I was trying to program this drum machine I found. (I did catch Celine Dion's mic meltdown and McCartney's playing 2 bars of Yesterday on tape from home like the aging vaudevillian he is, but I missed the Zevon tribute. Was there one?) I was hoping I could make something funky to play behind this week's song, but all my beats are a little too Laibach and not enough lay-back. Also, I was going through my freezer and found a couple of those single-serve gin things from my last flight and I figured now's as good a time as any other time. Which admittedly didn't help my sense of rhythm much.

Further research is required.

On top of gunpowder, the helicopter, the mechanical drill, the parachute, and everything else he invented (not to mention that I hear the guy could paint pretty good), it turns out Leonardo Da Vinci also invented plastics.

Seems he did some trick with resins and made some substance that we now know as bakelite.

Bastard. He left nothing for the rest of us to invent, except for piddly shit like Flow-Bees and locking spaghetti pot strainers. Also, I bet he had terrible abs. See, he wasn't focusing on the important things, now, was he. Mhm, yeaup.

[via Dangerousmeta]

FEIGNING APATHY
or, GOOGLE AS FREUD, DUDE

Not that I care about this stuff, really, but: Lovely Asses?

A BRIEF NOSTALGIA SPASM, AND WE'LL BE ON OUR WAY
What was the last TV show theme song you really wanted to listen to? I'm talking about songs written to be theme songs, as opposed to, say, REM's "Stand" or even Warren Zevon's "Even A Dog Can Shake Hands" (which was the theme to the excellent and very short lived Hollywood-insider fuckyou-satire sitcom Action, about which there's precious little information out there), just to name two.

The reason it's on my mind is that I co-hosted the trivia night at Dempsey's last night, and one of the songs in the audio round was "Keep Your Eye On The Sparrow," from Baretta, which is such a git-down funkified thang that it made Sammy Davis cool all over again in a way that even Frank and Dino couldn't really pull off. (Those poor schlemiels were relegated by then to A-Very-Special-Love-Boat style purgatory for most of the 70s, until everyone realized they were gonna die soon and they got dragged out for their farewell tours and Lincoln Center love-ins and whatnot. Sammy… well, Baretta's up on murder one now, and Sammy's as dead as all his friends. No, wait, is Joey Bishop still alive? Oh, right, I forgot, I don't care. Besides, Joey's best work is probably behind him at this point anyway. But I severely digress.)

The 70s were a real glory age for theme songs. Chico and the Man, Welcome Back Kotter, Barney Miller, I'm sure there were others. Nowadays, what? Friends? What? I mean, I love the Six Feet Under theme music, but it's not the most hummable thing in the world.

See, what I'm really doing here is fixing to write one of these suckers myself. Anyone wanna pitch me an idea for a TV show they're working on?

Because, really, I need more stuff to work on. Also, I could use another hole in my head.

HE GOES IN & OUT & IN & OUT

Item: Nude Accordionist Calendar Takes Off [via Jon]

One of the Super Bowl ads that climbed just this far under my skin (no, not this one, with which I'm finished for the moment) was an ad that implied that Jimi Hendrix was one soft-drink choice away from being an accordion virtuoso instead of a guitar god.

The implication was that that would have been a bad thing, and I'm not sure I follow that.

Dig, if you will, a picture.

Woodstock, Monday, August 18, 1969. The end of a mind-blowing weekend of mud and humping and getting high and communing with your fellow man, man. And music, yeah, oh yeah, the music was great, all weekend, man, Country Joe, Sha Na Na, Santana, fuckin, like, everyone was there, man. The toilets backed up, tents leaked, everyone slept in filth, but it was alright somehow, y'know? Because everyone was into it, man. You know? You know.

And the end of the weekend is coming, and everyone's dragging their dirty dopesleepy asses out of the muck and starting to pack their stuff, whatever they brought, and out comes the last act of the weekend, and it's Jimi, his fro out to here, tassels hanging off his sleeves hanging down to his knees, and he's got the biggest accordion anyone's ever seen. A full 88 keys on one side, and 88 buttons on the other, hazy purple inlay, the word FOXEY in mother-of-pearl up one side, a fine, fine work of art. The two hundred thousand people close enough to see the blood in his eyes can feel the heat coming from the stage, and he has yet to play a note.

Suddenly, with a flex of his shoulders, he pulls the first chord out of the instrument. Ten long, strong fingers, starting slowly, authoritatively, bringing the crowd to a halt, right in their tracks. A short trill, and then silence for two, maybe three agonizing seconds, and then a single note, high, gaining in strength and pace until it fills everyone's consciousness, and then down a third to the next note, and then the major chord that starts the Star Spangled Banner.

As people recognize what song it is, what Jimi is doing to it, they get it. He's telling the story of America, note by note, his hands pulsing and flying up and down the keyboards, his skinny shoulders shrugging under the weight of his great instrument like Atlas himself. He interjects the sounds of war, the rockets red glare, and everyone still in the garden is transported to that battleground in 1814 that inspired Mr. Key to write the song in the first place. The reedy sound of the accordion is both fife and drum, and Jimi is our new bandaged hero.

He plays eight and a half minutes, and when the final chord is squeezed out of Jimi's accordion, there is a moment where everyone catches their breath, still digesting that immense moment of sound. There's no need for Jimi Hendrix to light his squeezebox on fire today. He made his point, and even in scratchy film footage viewed three and a half decades later, the force of his performance remains untarnished.

Since his death a little over a year after that day, millions of kids have picked up the accordion, learned its nuances and capabilities, how to squeeze feeling and emotion from its ivory keys and rubbery bellows.

And this calendar sells a hundred times as many copies out of every music store in the universe, and this ain't so outlandish-sounding, if you think about it.

ALRIGHT, I'LL PLAY.

I gotta preface this by saying I read On The Road at a very impressionable age, and did a lot of bus travel both for music purposes and just to get the hell out of town for a few weeks or months at a time. I lived in Vancouver for six months, and my brother lives in Minnesota. And I don't feel like I've seen barely a damned thing in this country yet. That said.

My "visited states" map is here.

(Create your own visited states map)

THE GAYEST SUPER BOWL EVER!

And you thought the NFL wasn't never gonna acknowledge the homoerotic subtext in football. Well, if a nekkid dude getting tackled by a big muscular linebacker in front of a billion people ain't gonna open a few eyes, then what in the world will?

Then again, I was at a top-secret gathering of Nobel Laureates and high-ranking government officials watching the game in a granite bunker in a top-secret location about 400 feet below the surface of the earth, and even though we were viewing it on a screen created for watching the Mars expedition, none of us (not even Vidiot, that little eagle-eyed whippersnapper) noticed Janet Jackson's little Girls Gone Wild imitation. (There's no doubt in my mind that the flashing episode was planned, if only by Janet herself; she knows enough about both wardrobe and large-scale promotion that I can't believe she'd let something like that happen by accident. And Timberlake may be a dim little pony, but he knows how to play along with stuff like this.)

Seriously, I didn't know what had gone down until this morning. Props apparently go to the cat-quick prudes in the truck, who caught it before the impressionable kids in the flyover states accidentally saw something that only babies are allowed to look at up close.

And I haven't been able to find the source, but I heard that they opened the retractable roof during the halftime show because they were afraid the performances of Messrs. Diddy and Timberlake would suck so incredibly hard that the roof would fall in.

But it all turned out okay, they played the second half, one Metroplex's team beat the other Metroplex's team, and apparently there was rioting in Boston last night! With deaths and everything! And while I'm not as pro-death as I'd like to admit to myself, it warmed my jaded little heart that they have so little to cheer for in New England that even multiple Super Bowl victories can still whup the locals into an orgiastic murderous frenzy.

The world is a wonderful place.