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March 23rd, 2009test
March 23rd, 2009test
“Scared Straight” (or “How I Got My Driver’s License”)
February 14th, 2009I saw “The Wrestler” a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I hadn’t realized that a lot of it was filmed in New Jersey. I recognized the Asbury boardwalk during the scene where The Ram is walking with his daughter. In another scene, they mention that the characters are in the town of Rahway.
If you grew up in the vicinity of Rahway in the late 1970’s, you likely took your first driver’s test at The NJ Motor Vehicle test track which was located adjacent to the maximum security state prison that was featured in the award-winning documentary “Scared Straight.” That’s the one where trouble-maker teens are brought into prison for a day to show them what life would be like inside the walls. Being traded for a cigarette or ordered to hold onto a large man’s beltloop would certainly scare me straight. I forgot all about my earlier fear of parallel parking a car that had no power steering, my eyes darting back and forth between the cement wall, the barbwire, and the imposing green dome on the roof.
“Good peripheral vision,” the examiner said, as I maneuvered through the course.
Frankly, what was I doing there? I could have continued to bum rides or take the bus; either of which would have been superior to holding onto a large man’s belt loop for 5-7 years.
A friend of mine told me at the time that if you passed the test with an escapee in the back seat, your license was good for life. Luckily, I passed without incident. Whenever I get nostalgic for Rahway, I simply rent the Sly Stallone classic “Lock Up,” which pitted Sly against creepy warden, Donald Sutherland, and featured scenes at the prison.
DIXIE - 1977
February 14th, 2009You’re ten and it’s 1977. You’re riding with three others in the back of an Oldsmobile. You’re from the North and know very little about the South. At that moment, you are in the heart of Dixie, having left South of the Border hours ago, while it was still light. As you ride, you dream in the dark and sing along with the song that you have heard the most on the trip by far - only, you get the words wrong. “Purdy Little Love Song. PURDY LITTLE LO-VE SONG! Purdy Little Love Song. Can’t be wrong.”
Diving For Pennies
February 10th, 2009Guests who make frequent visits to Sauro Motel will quickly learn that I am a big fan of John Eddie’s music. I’m actually a multi-decade-long member of the Faithful. As an introduction to his music, below is a link to John performing his song “Everything.” Every time I’ve heard him sing this song, he introduced it by saying it’s “for everybody that’s been divorced.”
Although there are several clips of “Everything” on the web, I prefer this one because of John’s passionate performance, and the guy dancing with his little girl in front of the stage.
The last time I heard this song live was at The Bitter End in NYC several months ago. My only claim to fame is that I am usually the instigator of the audience “Momentum Clapping” that should start 3 minutes and 32 seconds into the song. I was pleasantly surprised that night when a group of Twenty Something women joined in. Rather than make me feel like Wolfman from “That Thing You Do,” it inspired me to offer a link to my short story, “Diving For Pennies,” which has Twenty Somethings, a music theme, and, on its face, appears to be about divorce. Check it out. http://www.sauromotel.com/2007/07/diving-for-pennies/
Popstars
February 4th, 20091. Madonna (Cherish the Thought)
2. Wendy James (Revolution Baby)
3. Ashlee Simpson (Beautifully Broken)
HALLE BERRY MAY HAVE GOTTEN HER OSCAR BUT I’M STILL AFRAID OF TIDAL WAVES
January 20th, 2008I was reading an article recently in which Halle Berry talked about the risk she took doing that controversial sex scene with Billy Bob Thornton in “Monster’s Ball,” the gritty, graphic film for which she won the Academy Award. The scene involved naked prison guard Billy Bob and Halle having sex following the Death Row execution of her husband. It was an intense scene for an adult, never mind for the 5 year-old sitting in front of me in the theatre. I guess the child’s parents were too busy on their cell phones to realize how inappropriate the film was for their child.
My first movie-going experience wasn’t much better, but for a different reason. The first film I saw in a theatre was “Krakatoa, East of Java” – a jarring motion picture that recounted the 1883 annihilation of a volcanic, Indonesian island by one of the loudest explosions in human history and the ensuing tidal waves that killed over 35,000 people. Although “Krakatoa” did prepare me psychologically for first, “The Poseidon Adventure,” and, later in life, “The Perfect Storm,” it resulted in my life-long fear of tidal waves.
The experience has affected all areas of my life, and the fear is not confined to the recurring tidal wave dream. I’ll never travel to the Big Island (if you’ve ever seen the opening credits to “Hawaii Five-O,” you know why). Nor do I feel totally comfortable driving past water parks that have those large wave pools. Moon-lit, romantic strolls on the beach are inevitably ruined; even a Beach Girl feels insecure with a guy who keeps squinting into the dark, looking for exceptionally high and aggressive breakers. I don’t mean to diminish tsunami threats, but my phobia is irrational for someone who lives at the edge of the North Georgia Mountains, 4 hours from the coast.
Car washes are a challenge but also are oddly exhilarating. There’s the tremendous downpour of water, which frightens me, but there’s something empowering about guzzling the private label, bottled water while waiting for my ride to emerge (That reminds me, one of these days I need to ask the car wash manager about the sign that brags how they “recycle 100% of the water.”)
I have no way of knowing how the 5 year-old at “Monster’s Ball” has fared in life. I cannot even begin to imagine what phobia developed from seeing bare-assed Billy Bob going at it, but he’s not the only one I am worried about. My own research leads me to conclude that “First Movie Paranoia Syndrome” is widespread. A number of years ago I was in a NoHo Army-Navy Store looking for a World War II-era trench coat and black knit mittens (with the fingertips cut off) to complete the Echo and the Bunnymen look I was cultivating. I overheard a young guy exclaim to his friend: “I hope I never run into one of those mother-fuckin’ zombies in an alleyway.” Judging by his age, I immediately deduced that the first film he saw in a theatre was “Night of the Living Dead.”
Scooby-Doo must have had a similar movie-going experience because he too was very afraid of zombies. Although lanky stoner Shaggy was something of a slacker, he was a first-rate zombie spotter. His prescient warnings like, “Make tracks, Scoob, it’s a zombie!” would cause Scooby to nervously gulp and exclaim: “Rom-bie?!! Rut-ro.”
Unlike Scooby, zombies don’t scare me at all. In fact, I’d love to run into some zombies in a Chelsea alley one night, dragging their twisted limbs and butchering the English language as they pathetically reached out - all stiffed-armed - to strangle me. Talk about telegraphing it! I’d taunt them with Frankenstein metaphors before putting the Chuck Taylors into high gear and, like the skulls of the subterranean dwellers in “Beneath The Planet of the Apes,” I’m gone.
After smokin’ their sorry asses, I’d rent the Oscar-overlooked, zombie-classic “Night of the Comet,” and chomp on a bucket of day-old chicken wings.
Tidal waves, of course, are a different story. One of my best friends once tried to alleviate my fears with his theory that all I would need to do is wrap myself around a pole (or some similarly grounded object) and wait for the wave to pass. At first, I doubted I would have the arm strength to hold on, but Red Buttons survived in “The Poseidon Adventure” and he was a slightly-built man with no muscle tone to speak of. I had the chance recently to sort of test my friend’s theory. It was my first time at a W Hotel and their powerful “rain” showerhead caught me by surprise. Wrapping my arms and legs around the towel rack, I was able to hold on long enough until the Bath Butler arrived and lowered the water pressure.
I’m not a big fan of Disney, but maybe they have it right making movies about fairies, animals and princesses. What if my first film had been “Mary Poppins” instead? What’s the scariest thing in that movie? Dick Van Dykes’s teeth? That candy-striped jacket and straw hat? I might have become a song and dance man but at least I wouldn’t spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.
Affinity Trinities
August 10th, 2007POPSTARS
- Madonna (Cherish the Thought)
- Wendy James (Revolution Baby)
- Ashlee Simpson (Beautifully Broken)
Twin-Spins
August 10th, 20072 SONGS THAT UNFAIRLY PORTRAY THE DEVIL
“The Devil Went Down To Georgia”
The Charlie Daniels Band (1979)
The Devil went down to Georgia… actually, he flew down on Delta on Labor Day from Belmar, New Jersey where he had just enjoyed a summer half-share. He was actually 45 minutes late for his fiddle showdown; having never flown into the Atlanta airport before, he rode that train back and forth for 25 minutes before he found baggage claim. The Devil had to wholeheartedly support a poultry salesman from Arkansas who pleaded out of frustration: “Jesus Christ, where’s the baggage claim?!”
I’m sure you know the story told in the song. The Devil jumps up on a hickory stump and challenges “Johnny” to a fiddle-off. The Devil goes first, and, backed by a band of demons playing funk guitars, does quite well considering that his fiddle is out of tune. Hitler, who had been given the relatively simple task of re-stringing the instrument, had once again failed miserably. Never one to make excuses or blame his subordinates, the Devil gamely went forward with the challenge. Smug Johnny, however, is “the best there’s ever been” and easily wins the fiddle of gold and saves his soul.
Although the Devil graciously acknowledges his defeat, Johnny calls him a son-of-a-bitch, confirming a suspicion the Devil has had for hundreds of years that Southern Hospitality is a myth.
Following his humiliating loss, the Devil retreated to South Beach and now spins disks at Mansion under the avatar “Lucifer.” Getting the last laugh, the Devil hits on attractive 25-year-olds from Syosset in Redroom at Skybar while Johnny futilely waits at the hickory stump for a Julliard Grad to happen to pass by so he can kick her ass at fiddling.
ONB Trivia
Charlie Daniels sports the largest belt buckle in the history of the world.
“A Girl Like You”
Edwyn Collins (1995)
This song is that unique One Hit Wonder embraced by both the general public and medieval scholars (because of its reference to “days of yore”). The girl, unlike any other the singer had ever known, somehow makes him “acknowledge the Devil in me.” This frightens the singer and leads him to “hope to God I’m talking metaphorically; I hope that I’m talking allegorically.”
I can conclusively confirm for you all that the Devil was not literally inside this guy; the Devil had far better things to do, including devoting 2 hours each day to the “Quick Pickin’, Fun Strummin’ Home Guitar Course,” to waste time interfering with this singer’s misguided relationship with his insecure, dominatrix girlfriend.
Putting the unfair portrayal aside, I do applaud the song for its use of the words “metaphorically” and “allegorically” to promote flowery language in popular culture. At the time, linguists everywhere excitedly exclaimed: “Fuckin’ A. We finally broke the Top 40!” (Their previous highest charter had been a Top 100 alliteration-laden novelty song that Casey Kasem had found witty).
ONB Bonus Trivia
The Devil actually played the digital synthesizer on the demo track for this song but his part was unfortunately dumped by producer Jimmy Iovine as too “tinny-sounding” during pre-production.
MUSIC N’ MOVIES
The song "Lonely Ol’ Night" (John Mellencamp, 1985) and the film "Hud" (1963). The beautifully photographed, black and white "Hud" starred Paul Newman, Patricia Neal, and Melvyn Douglas, among others. Adapted from the Larry McMurtry novel, Horseman, Pass By, it received 7 Oscar nominations, with Oscar wins for Neal and Douglas. The central conflict is between the painfully honest, principled father, Homer (played by Douglas), and the cheating, narcissistic son, Hud (played by Newman). Homer had long given up on Hud, saying: "You just live with yourself and that makes you not fit to live with." They live a small town in Texas cattle country where Dr. Pepper rules and art spins to the populace courtesy of the paperback rack at the drugstore.
Mellencamp found inspiration in the following exchange between Hud and his nephew, Lon, who are on their way into town for a night of carousing:
"It’s a lonesome old night, isn’t it?"
"Ain’t they all."
Other than the housekeeper Alma (played by Neal), Hud can charm any woman into bed. Lon initially is seduced by the cocky winner, Hud, but ultimately sees through and rejects Hud. Lon departs the ranch to make his own way in the world, leaving Hud all alone. By that time, Homer had suffered a heart attack and died (after his precious longhorns had contracted hoof and mouth disease and been exterminated), and Alma had boarded a Trailways bus to an uncertain future with unknown companions.
At least in Mellencamp’s song, the night is custom made for two lonely people. In Hud, no two are left together. Then again, we don’t even know the names of the two people in the song. Maybe that’s why Mellencamp named one of his sons Hud in 1994.
INAPPROPRIATE SONGS THAT WON’T DIE
In an era of heightened political correctness, we are baffled how the following two songs (originally released in the early 1980’s) seem to climb the radio charts every 5 years or so:
"Into the Night"
Benny Mardones (1980)
This song ("If I could fly, I’d pick you up, I’d take you into the night and show you a love, like you’ve never seen, ever seen…") apparently tells the story of a middle-aged man’s forbidden lust for a 16 year-old girl. Something of an In-Your-Face ballad to those fools "who don’t know what love is yet," this song makes us think it’s just a matter of time until Chris Hanson asks Mr. Mardones to take a seat.
"Total Eclipse of the Heart"
Bonnie Tyler (1983)
"Once upon a time I was falling in love, but now I’m only falling apart, there’s nothing I can do, a total eclipse of the heart."
Actually, the song lyrics weren’t offensive, it was the bizarre video. The set was a smoke-filled, private all-boys high school located deep within the Evil Empire. Flying altar boys with glowing eye sockets (aka "Bright Eyes") were the most normal characters in a video populated with enough sexual innuendo to make Elton John blush. If the Radio Gods have to re-release one of Ms. Tyler’s songs every so often why can’t it be the vastly superior and uplifting "It’s A Heartache"?
Celebrity Endorsements
August 10th, 2007(FAKE) CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS
Scarlett Johannson (Actor, Avenue B, East Village, NYC): "More fun than an all-night Woody Allen filmfest at The Angelika or tasering paparazzi."