Todd Levin

When the lights went down and the movie began with a fake CREATURE DOUBLE FEATURE broadcast, I felt really good about House of 1000 Corpses. And in ten short minutes, that good feeling was drained out of me like blood from a skull. I could spend a great deal of time complaining about this movie (and i have, elsewhere) but I am also aware that each complaint could easily be answered with, “but you paid money to see House of 1000 Corpses.” Touché.

I realize one must aggressively manage expectations over a movie like this, but shouldn’t I have been able to expect, at the very least, one house filled with (or composed of) 1,000 corpses? There was a house, to be sure. And there were some corpses. But 1,000? I didn’t stay until the end because that would have meant ditching my plan to shout, “fuck you, Rob Zombie! I’m sneaking into What a Girl Wants!!!” However, with less than 20 minutes left in the film, there were only about 30 corpses total. That is a generous figure. Unless those homeowners were expecting a FedEx delivery of hundreds and hundreds or dead bodies, House of 1000 Corpses either had the most spectacular finale in the history of horror films, or the second-most misleading title. (William Castle’s failed gimmick movie, Everyone Who Stays Till the End Gets a Reach-Around and a Handful of Butterscotch Candy still holds top honors in that category.)

I’m appreciating rock’s occasional return to simplicity. Fitting in tightly with this motif is the impending release of the latest album from The Cramps. Hot damn. That band was my first personal departure from the strict code of musical tastes my high school friends and I followed in perfect lockstep. As a unit, we championed XTC, REM, The dbs, Young Fresh Fellows, Elvis Costello, The Feelies, Yo La Tengo, Scruffy The Cat, and anything from Athens, GA or New Zealand.

But I always had a creepy side that I kept secreted away from my friends. A side that craved the Other adolescent pornography found gleaming like guts between the pages of Fangoria magazine. It wasn’t cool, like Jim Jarmusch, but it made my teenage blood boil in the same way. I had a crush on monster make-up, gore prosthetics, and the work of Tom Savini, Sam Raimi, Stuart Gordon, George Romero and Tobe Hooper. This was a league of men drawn to create some kind of weird splatter pornography where decapitations and chomped brains were the surrogate money shots, and I collected their work alone because I felt so alone with my desires.

And that’s what drew me to The Cramps and, in some ways, away from my core group of friends. I saw a copy of Bad Music for Bad People at my local record store, and its cover art knocked me out. It was a crap-yellow background with an ink drawing of a fleshless fiend with a pompadour haircut. It had the band’s name in that great creature double feature radioactive ghoul lettering, and song titles like “Goo Goo Muck” and “Human Fly.” I bought it based solely on its aesthetics. (this was before i inherited my first copy of The Trouser Press and could fact-check most minor curiosities.) Then I bought others. And more. And even when I thought I was done buying albums by The Cramps, I would still fawn lovingly over their area of my record store’s “imports” section because that’s where one could find their 12″ picture discs screened with a photograph of Poison Ivy in mid-squat.

Yesterday, an advance of their latest album arrived at my home. It’s called The Fiends of Dope Island and, in case one might think this album could possibly be a departure for the band, allow me to reproduce its track list:

1. Big Black Witchcraft Rock
2. Papa Satan Sang Louie
3. Hang Up
4. Fissure of Rolando
5. Dr. Fucker MD
6. Dopefiend Boogie
7. Taboo
8. Elvis Fucking Christ!
9. She’s Got Balls
10. Oowee Baby
11. Mojo Man From Mars
12. Color Me Black
13. Wrong Way Ticket

(and yes, there are lucky 13 tracks.) The lettering on the CD case is a typeface meant to look like compositions of human bones, and there’s even a dedication to shitty C-movie star John Agar. (maybe the cramps weren’t so different than young fresh fellows after all) The refusal to mature that this album represents is sort of invigorating. So much so that I think I just got pushed over the edge into insanely poor judgment. That’s right – I’m going to see House of 1000 Corpses.

My prediction for the number of record reviews that will paint The White Stripes’ (excellent, so excellent) new album “Elephant” as a departure from the band’s other releases by pointing out that the first track begins with a bass sound, only to later explain that this bass sound is in fact just Jack White picking his guitar through an octave pedal: ALL OF THEM.

Please remember the album was only officially released yesterday and I’ve already gathered the following pieces of hard evidence:

from Spike Magazine
“Elephant kickstarts with a pristine bass sound. “7 Nation Army”. The first single to be. Whatever you say, however you approach this, you don’t expect bass. The White Stripes are guitars and drums. Guitars and drums and occasional piano. They make a primal noise. That is what they do. The bass is just foolin’, though (it’s not bass at all – it’s just an effect – it’s just gee-tar)”

from Shake It Up
“A big statement is made right out of the starting gate as, yes, that’s a bass that we hear introducing Seven Nation Army before Jack’s now trademark slide style takes over.”

from Modernrock.com
“The first notes of the first “Elephant” track, “Seven Nation Army,” will tell fans that the two-piece band has altered its rule book. They are bass notes, the sound famously missing from most of the group’s previous work. The bass riff – actually Jack playing his guitar through a pitch-dropping device…”

from Totally Wired
“The best tracks by far are where the familiar guitar and drums formula is subverted; opener ‘Seven Nation Army’ is a bass-driven stormer.”

from Fake Jazz
“…on the album’s first single and leadoff track, “Seven Nation Army.” Using an octave pedal, Jack White turns his guitar into a bass to propel this foot-stomping Chuck Berry-style rocker.”

from the BBC
“…’Seven Nation Army’ – which finds Jack seeking a way out from international superstardom, helped by a driving pseudo bass and unforgiving guitars.”

from Rolling Stone
“There is, for starters, true bottom here, for the first time on a White Stripes record. Jack’s dancing-cobra bass line announces, then underpins, Elephant’s opening fight song, ‘Seven Nation Army.'”

from Other Music
“the production is not lushly over done nor is it the same old formula. For instance, the first track “Seven Nation Army” (an anthem of an opener — hooky, sexy, destined to be a single) starts with… a bass! Actually, it’s Jack playing guitar through an octave pedal.”

[Typically, Pitchfork Media is the exception to the rule because they are the only source of information more self-conscious than me. Also typically, their review totally overlooks this album’s merits because that would confuse their always-contrarian agenda.]

Music journalism is the best! Glad you died and didn’t have to see any of this, Mr. Bangs.

I’ve been very lucky recently, because I’ve caught up with a couple of filmmakers who are so gifted with easy naturalism – something really missing from most films today – that they practically elevate it to a kind of poetry. When I first saw David Gordon Green’s George Washington a couple of years ago, I really fell for it. It’s a pretty difficult film. It shuffles wherever it pleases, and is often unwilling to be contained. It doesn’t drive forward will all its fiery pistons-a-poppin’ but there’s something really beautiful in its refusal to resolve actions in any traditional way. Green does the kinds of great things that Terence Malick and Robert Altman did first. He zooms in for close-ups when actors don’t expect it, instead of physically pushing the camera in, and forces them to be the main focus of the scene without making them self-conscious or even remotely aware. He also spends as much time observing as he does capturing his story. A three legged dog is as important to him as a murder. And the result is not for everyone, but it was for me.

His latest film, All the Real Girls is a small, but big achievement. He captures first love and all of its various complications so naturally that it raised all my blood to the surface of my skin. The characters aren’t insightful the way scripted characters are. They’re not too smart for their own good. They suffer from the same poor articulation of emotions many of us did when we were young. It’s like the antithesis of Dawson’s Creek, in a way.

When the characters mix of their words or prefer to sit a moment out in silence, petting a dog or drinking a beer or dancing alone, you’re so close to them that you want to squint into the film’s sunlight. The movie is so pretty and sad and touching that I wish it were out in every city. It’s hard to imagine that a movie like All the Real Girls can even inhabit the same medium as shit like Summer Catch and Swimfan. How can they all claim to talk about the same emotions and experiences without laughing at each other? Summer Catch probably had a Smashmouth song on the soundtrack. All the Real Girls had Promise Ring. Do you hear me? PROMISE RING! Now that’s some sensitive shit.

Oh, and Lynne Ramsey. Shit. If I had the energy I would talk about her for the rest of time. She’s made two films – Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar – and they’ve each become favorites. I hate saying a movie that just came out is one of my favorite movies of all time, because it sort of suggests the same denial of history that teenage kids love to exhibit. But I love them. They are my favorites, right alongside Little Nicky and the new Matrix movie that hasn’t come out yet. If you don’t believe me, look at this still from Ratcather that I, in an act of total mental deficiency, captured by photographing my television screen and tell me you can still resist it:

Not bad for a girl, right?

Right on the heels of last month’s most heavily forwarded web site, “Cool 2B Real”, comes the less-beef-more-pork “Pork 4 Kids”. Are kids turning their backs on fatty meats? Why is the meat industry mobilizing like this? I must have missed out on a worldwide symposium somewhere.

Where Cool 2B Real bordered on insidious in its shady insinuation that beef consumption keeps teenage girls true to themselves, Pork 4 Kids is merely lazy and misguided. And infinitely more insane for its effort-without-effort approach to educating children. It’s almost as if the Pork 4 Kids people don’t believe their own agenda. I can’t think of any other way of explaining their defeatist approach to persuasion.

Here’s an example: click on the male character and show your affinity for pork by coloring a chef’s hat. Don’t worry. It only takes TWO clicks to color it since there are just two areas to fill in. Sweet. That leaves more time to eat bacon! Or click on the girlie to read the most long-winded cartoon ever dedicated to a better understanding of pork. It tells the very lonely tale of a pork chop named Peggy on a quest to discover which food group she belongs in. After about 15 pages of missed connections alternating with long, sweeping shots of a pork chop dragging itself across a meadow, Peggy meets (or should i say ‘meats’? i shouldn’t? ok, i won’t.) Robert Rib Roast and Henry Ham. And, not to spoil it for you but, yes, they all fuck.

There are seven other ways this site is terrible. Can you name them all?

Since The Onion moved its content online several years ago, it has become a peerless source of humor for everyone with an Internet connection. In the past, I’ve joked that it is no longer necessary to even point out or link to something funny you’ve seen in this publication because drawing attention to it as “funny” is almost superfluous. Everyone has already seen it, and laughed. It’s like saying, “Hey, did you notice that the Earth is round, or that dogs make excellent lovers?”

Because of The Onion’s great success online and offline – sweeping humor awards year after year, spawning several books and calendars and nerds – it has drawn an enormous amount of attention to itself and has been crudely imitated by less fertile minds. I’ve seen rip-offs of The Onion everywhere, from (the hopefully defunct) The Rotten Apple to a few video game-oriented news parody web sites, and each “homage” just makes you long for The Onion’s sharp wit and pitch-perfect voice even more.

I spoke with one of the paper’s editors around a year ago, and he explained what he believed was The Onion’s simple formula for success: parody the news with such unflagging loyalty that you actually begin to write it better than your source material. It’s a really good rule for parody because it requires that you never let your audience feel like they’re part of the joke.

[DIGRESSION ALERT] That’s why I’ve always felt the parodies on sketch shows like MR. SHOW generally work so well. MR. SHOW immerses itself fully in the material it parodies, almost to the point of losing the distinction between their sketch and the very thing they’re poking fun at. The painstaking attention they devoted to “Coupon: The Movie” and “Racist in the Year 3000” is what makes them so watchable. Even when the show isn’t outrageously funny, it is at least outrageously astute.

This type of parody works in contrast to shows like SNL and MAD TV (and, despite the protests many would love to offer, the majority of the material on THE BEN STILLER SHOW – a show as over-rated as it is under-rated), which constantly appear to doubt the intelligence of their audiences and therefore cannot create parody without completely revealing their hand. The parodies on SNL – with the exception of some of the curious characters created by Mike Meyers – and MAD TV are too often self-referential. This causes them to slash their own tires.

Here’s one example of many, from MAD TV. (and this might not be 100% representational, because i confess i barely watch the show since i find it so loud and its jokes so telegraphed) The players did a parody of the television show WEST WING, and for the majority of the sketch one or several characters paced the labyrinthine halls of the White House, speaking in tones as rushed as their brisk walking pace. It was actually funny, because it illustrated exactly what was ridiculous about the show. It felt right. Then, as if we couldn’t make the connection without a well-illustrated instruction manual, the characters did that horrible post-modern trick that most sketch shows are guilty of: they began telling us (the audience) exactly what was so funny about what they were doing. One of the characters literally said something like, “I think we should continue to speak quickly and walk with a great sense of purpose, forever.” That’s either a lack of confidence in your ideas and presentation, or unforgivable laziness, but it’s a really common device. It’s also what keeps these sketches from being transcendent.

Jimmy Fallon is the mainstream comedy king of this technique. Watch his celebrity impersonations and see how often he actually, in character, lets the audience in on exactly what funny attribute he chose to zero in on for his parody. As Carson Daly: “Hi, I’m Carson Daly and I’m a total tool.” As that guy from E! Entertainment: “Hi, I’m that guy from E! Entertainment and I never breathe through my mouth!!!” Thanks, Jimmy! And hey, nice song parody. When you made that song from 8 Mile about puking up St. Patrick’s Day beer I told everyone in my quad about it. I wish you weren’t so popular so you could come to SUNY Oneonta and perform at our on-campus bar, The Nook.

[BACK TO BUSINESS]
Fortunately, The Onion gets it right. It always has, and that’s why it is so easily distinguished from its imitators even when that distinction is difficult to articulate. I think many people probably still find the imitators funny, because their expectations are as low as their need for subtlety. In fact, I saw a site today that shamelessly ripped off The Onion with slightly inferior results, and I’ll bet many people would even see the difference. Similar format, but less graceful editorial layout. Similar stories but with a greater eagerness to please, and with jokes recycled and slightly modified from old issues of The Onion. Current events that rely more heavily on poorly photoshopped photographs than the strength of the headline, conceit, or body copy. Similar tone, though slightly more brash and less sophisticated. It even has a similar name. It’s called The Onion. (nervy!) All in all, it’s OK but it’s really not fooling anyone. It’s just another pale imitator or the original.

This weekend, quite by accident, I discovered another band that almost perfectly connects the musical dots between the late-60s Kinks and my full, full heart. The Glands have the right name, are from the right town (atlanta, ga), and sound just like late 80s indie rock channeling 1968 British pop. (even though their albums were released in 97 and 2000.) The Glands are a nice band to discover, mostly because they sound exactly like they’ve been forgotten.

Every 8-12 months I have an incredible ah-ha moment, where a band falls into my earholes and everything else falls into place. It’s a lot like growing up, but the way I’d prefer to do it – through dancing and denial.

This is a subject I’ve written about before (but i’m too lazy to link you there), probably after shooting my mouth off about ESG. In addition to ESG, previous ah-ha moments (from the last five years, i’d guess) have included Moby Grape/Skip Spence, The Only Ones, Wreckless Eric, The Undertones, The Rezillos, Masta Ace, and Hasil Adkins. It feels good to feel good.

In other music news, I am now the proud owner of a genuine tenor saw. It was a belated birthday gift from my parents, who are now terribly worried about how I’ll be able to smuggle a 30″ saw on an Amtrak train tomorrow morning. I’m not concerned at all, because when you’re armed with a handsaw there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Except a petrified forest.

The Preppie Killer is out! The Preppie Killer is out! It’s interesting to me that people still call him that, since it’s really such a dated label. More interesting, however, is that it seems Robert Chambers was in prison exactly long enough for his clothes to go out of style, and then back in again. Shouldn’t there be a more cruel form of punishment? For instance, I’ve noticed that style-less grunge is starting to rear its lazy, glue-addled head again. Beards are showing up, as are trucker caps and flannel. Maybe the state should have waited a few months longer to release Chambers because, as the world exists today, he could become confused into believing he has lots of followers.

For those of you without the patience to read that last paragraph, here is a distilled, monologue-ready version of that joke:

“Robert Chambers, the Preppie Killer, is finally out. Which is ironic, because preppie is actually kind of in.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome Mr. Alfred Molina!

[p.s. this officially ends my latest streak of maudlin behavior on tremble.com. i’ve always felt you deserved better. i hope my naked humanity was not too nauseating for you. werewolf jokes, ho!]