Protopunk

Lately I’ve been listening to some protopunk garage rock. Stuff brings back memories, man, though not of the ’70s or 80s, but rather of the girl who stole my heart. I enjoy the raw energy of this music, not to mention the usually leftist political stance, social critique, or otherwise inspired lyrics. I’m talking about going all the way back to The Velvet Underground, circa White Light/White Heat (1968), and Loaded (1970). Great, though harsh, experimental psychedelia. I’m also thinking of the debut live album by MC5 (Motor City Quintet), Kick Out the Jams (1968), “motherfucker!” Talk about raw power and energy! Then there’s Iggy Pop & The Stooges. Like garage glam punk blues with hints of free jazz. Their album Raw Power (1973) says it all! Don’t forget Alice Cooper, whose early-70s output has a great punk garage rock vibe. (All three bands, MC5, The Stooges, and Alice Cooper, not coincidentally hail from Detroit.) Of course we have the New York Dolls (true glam punks) as well as Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers (Like A Mother Fucker!), fun punk rock ‘n’ roll. And Television, with their intriguing interlocking guitars and much more technically proficient compositions.

When I was younger (“so much younger than today”), I didn’t care much about punk rock, not because I disliked it, but because I was listening to progressively more and more complicated and weird music. It was only a few years ago that I started listening to punk because the love of my life spoke about it. That’s when I picked up albums by The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Ramones, and so on. I remember we listened to Blondie together when we were in Hawaii. (They played “The Tide Is High” everywhere we went, until we got sick of it!) She recommended The Buzzcocks to me after we broke up and I was still hoping we’d get back together. Other bands I (re-)discovered on my own, like The Runaways, The Damned, The Jam, The Stranglers, and so on. I remember taking the bus to her place one day when I had just uploaded Iggy Pop into my iPod. So, those are the recollections I get when I hear punk rock. Bittersweet as these memories are, they are some of the best and some of the worst moments of my life.

Funny Games

Have you ever seen the movie Funny Games (1997)? (Not the Hollywood frame-by-frame remake, I hope, but the German original.) This is another one of those weird movies, like Man Bites Dog and Delicatessen... I’ve been meaning to check this one out for quite some time, too... The title refers to the sadistic “funny games (komische Spiele)” that these two charming-looking lads unleash onto two completely unsuspecting vacationers and their kid. It’s the most awkward and uncomfortable movie experience, yet I couldn’t stop watching ... I had to see what inhumanely humiliating hoax these guys come up with next! None of the more gory, torturous scenes actually happen on-screen. That’s left to our imagination... But it’s already enough. Michael Haneke is clearly a director who enjoys long single shots in which the camera moves little or not at all, and he enjoys long awkward silences... The most charming of the two torturers keeps addressing the audience, winking and talking to us, even using a remote to rewind the action, thus breaking the fourth-wall, alienating us from the narrative, forcing us to realize we are only watching a movie ... making us wonder why on earth we are actually watching such a tediously torturous movie about random violence... Best not to watch this on your own at night if you’re skittish about going to sleep alone in the dark...

Challenges of Life

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there’s a follow-up to BBC’s Blue Planet and Planet Earth, and it’s simply called Life. Oh, boy, oh, boy, am I thrilled about this new series!!! The theme is survival, in honor of the hundredth anniversary of Charles Darwin’s death. This introductory installment focuses on the challenges of life, the spectacular strategies in the struggle to survive. (Note, incidentally, that the phrase “Survival of the Fittest” is not from Darwin’s Origin of Species.) There are so many magnificent moments in this episode: Venus flytraps feasting on flies trapped in her sweet leaves; male stalk-eyed flies fighting over who has the largest, well, stalk; a tiny strawberry poison frog carrying her tadpoles one by one high up a bromeliad tree into the waterpool between its leaves; an ever color-changing chameleon catching praying mantis with its tongue; two grebe birds performing a magnificent dance of courtship; a gruesome scene of a flailed chinstrap penguin sinking to the ocean floor after a leopard seal catches it skittering across broken ice; a school of flying fish escaping an attack by a group of sailfish; bottlenose dolphins stirring up silt in circles to trap a shoal of fish; some two dozen killer whales outwitted by a remarkably agile crabeater seal; a 14-ft. Pacific giant octopus laying a hundred thousand eggs and then starving herself to death while tending to her brood until they hatch; hippopotami fighting for overlordship and the right to mate; three cheetahs felling an ostrich together; and tufted capuchin monkeys cracking large nuts, that they had first peeled and let dry, with a large stone on a rocky surface. Truly awe-inspiring!

Mad Men 3x12(b)

Back in TV land, on Mad Men, I’ve been feeling that Betty and Don Draper were growing back to each other, getting past his false identity and weathering the storm after Kennedy’s assassination. There was this sweet scene in which Bets wakes up because the baby’s crying ... the bed is empty beside her ... so we assume Don is out philandering with sassy Suzanne ... Bets goes to the baby’s room ... only to find Don’s already cradling his little boy! But when Betty screams watching Lee Harvey Oswald get shot on live television and Don tries to comfort her, she says she has to leave the house and clear her head. Instead, she’s meeting with that Henry Francis she’s been dallying with. He offers her marriage. They don’t even know each other! What a moron. She goes back home and tells Don she doesn’t love him anymore. He believes she’s distraught about the tragic event of JFK’s death. The tables have been turned: while Don has cut things off with Suzanne, Betty is drawn further toward that Henry.

When she suggests Don to contact a divorce lawyer, he advises she should see a doctor. She asks him why, “because I have to be sick to want out of this?” “I didn’t break up this family,” she retorts when he blames her for walking away... sigh... Soon enough Betty is seeing a lawyer with Henry, but she learns that it won’t be easy in New York to get a divorce. Moreover, Henry advices her against a financial settlement. (That’ll mean she’ll become dependent on Henry. Not a good idea.) Later Don finds out about Henry and his hurt turns into anger. All the ugliness comes out, the accusations, the frustrations. The truth comes crashing down and all the lies are crumbling. Oh, my, I’ve been rooting for these two, believing they could get past their issues. I always wanna believe in love. But it seems quite inevitable now... They need to tell the kids, Sally and Bobby, who take it hard. They want to know who’s to blame, solve the problem, and keep things the way they are. “Nobody wants to do this,” Don tells Bobby. Afterwards Don calls Betty from work to let her know he won’t be fighting her. “I hope you get what you always wanted,” he adds. She and Henry will go to Reno for a quicky divorce. Don moves to Greenwich Village.

Dexter 2x05

This second season of Dexter has a brilliant story arch of Dexter’s introspection as a result of his inadvertent attendance of the Narcotics Anonymous. Dex is confronted by the fact that his foster father wasn’t the straight and narrow upright police officer he always believed he was. A poster at some homicide scene of the “Dark Avenger” provokes a flashback to the time young Dexter witnessed the bloodbath in which his mother perished. The memory leads him to see if any of the murderers are still alive ... and he learns that one is actually still on the loose. In the archives he also finds audio tapes ... another brilliantly unexpected plot twist ... because they are interviews of Dex’ foster father Harry with his biological mother Laura! She was an informant for the police! Harry knew her before the bloodshed! No, more than that: Harry had an affair with Laura!!! Soon after he takes a trip with his N.A. sponsor Lila to confront his mother’s murderer, but I found that a bit anticlimactic...

When Rita’s mother hears that Dexter is in the N.A. program, she tells him to leave her daughter alone. Rita insists she feels safe for the first time in her life and will choose Dex over her if she has to. So her mother decides to give Dex another shot, but will move in with Rita, just to stay close! Awkward. Deb doesn’t know if she can trust her new date, Gabriel. So she goes through his things ... his drawers ... his e-mails ... and believes he’s writing a piece about her, “The Ice Princess,” hoping to cash in on the notorious Ice Truck Killer she went out with. But Special Agent Lundy, concerned over his favorite officer, ran a back check that showed Gabriel is a children’s books writer. Aw! How sweetly innocent! Wanting to be sure there really are no blood stains left on his boat, Dex goes to the harbor at night to give it a thorough cleaning using black light to spot any stains – not knowing that FBI Agent Lundy installed security cameras that record everything going on at the harbor...! Exciting episode!!

Caprica 1x08

At planet Caprica, Joseph Adama is still looking for his dead daughter Tamara in virtual reality ... He learns that she been spotted at this joint in V-World New Cap City, appropriately called “Mysteries.” The club offers some freak cabaret, strip-tease, game show that’s too tedious for words. But she had performed there, so Adama is on the right track. Daniel Graystone has become convinced that the “avatar” of his daughter Zoe is trapped inside the body of his U87 Cylon prototype. So, he tries provoking her to reveal herself, talking to her about teenage rebellion and childhood traumas, giving the robot commands to see if she snaps, yelling at her, ordering her to shoot her dog (except he gave her blanks). She doesn’t budge. Amanda Graystone seems to be going insane, seeing her long-dead brother everywhere, even when she revisits the scene of his death. When she confides in Sister Clarice, the sly fox tries to turn the conversation to Zoe and her avatar that she’s trying to steal.

Gossip Girl 3x15

On Gossip Girl, Nate and Serena are still taking it slow the way only they know ... between the sheets getting their freak on! Dan and Vanessa are similarly taking things slow ... between the sheets! Wow, people get lucky in New York! The motherchucker of a basshole, Chuck Bass finally gets sued for sexual harassment by several of his female employees at his Empire Hotel! And some Christian Family Values club threatens to boycott his business. To spoil the party between Chuck and his long lost mother, Uncle Jack shows up claiming Chuck’s real mother did in fact die, and that this woman is a fraud. So Chuck has a DNA test run on her, which comes out positive. And to weather the storm, he signs off operations of his business to her. Except we learn soon after she is nothing less than a partner in crime of Uncle Jack! The Basstard has been double crossed!!! Jenny’s been banished to Brooklyn and grounded ... for life, it would seem. But Jenny from the block wouldn’t be a teenage rebel if she wouldn’t cut class ... and do her best to become a virgin no more ... So she takes it slow between the sheets with dapper Damien! Freak out! At least, her dad Rufus is freaking out. But in the end, Jenny too freaks out and backs out, and stays a sixteen year old virgin. Oh, how I love you, Gossip Girl!