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Lauren: The Language of Flowers
Mice: The Language of Fans

Getting that we’re about to be back into the Texas summer and our swing venue can get awful warm, maybe Lauren should get a fan.

The League of Melbotis did a 10 point listing of ladies of the 90’s media he “once dug”. For the record, when men are left alone, they pretty much do this as their primary hobby of choice. Frequently sports is used as subterfuge so that we can have some space in which to play this game, but essentially, it’s the national pasttime.

Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully.

Dana Scully: Hot, Red Haired, Didn’t mind finding Mulder’s uh, “videos” on occasion. A babe who gave hope to those of us at home on Friday night watching X-Files and dialing BBS’. As I noted on The League’s site, Ms. Anderson is a very un-compelling interviewee - heck that guy that made the beer-catapulting robot was a more coherent interview, or even Madonna in the “you don’t pee-pee in the shower” bit.

Nevertheless, Seasons 2 and 3 right as “the mythos” got going were very, very awesome.

Amanda Pays

Eh. I liked her in Max Hedroom, but that’s mostly because of her clean, crisp diction.

Michelle Yeoh

Not so hot in the 90’s, more hot in the naughts, but I see where he’s going and I’ll never say a word against a woman whose pinky is a registered implement of death.

Lovely Lady Miss Kier

She can dance.

Marcia Gay Harden

Eh, a wise-cracking moll is always kinda hot, but…hotter in the naughts. And what’s up with her hair! She stole it from Flat-Top.

As I’ve mentioned Madonna and Flattop in one entry, I saw an interview with Madonna where she said that it was hard for her to “act” (quotes mine) in Dick Tracy because her role required her to give a “bad performance”, something she simply couldn’t do naturally. Hubris, pure hubris.

Claudia Cardinale

In the galaxy of Hotula, orbiting babia majora, is Claudia Cardinale. Well done, sir.

In edition two, The League kicked it up a notch.

Sherilyn Fenn

The year was 1989. Batman came out. My friend Matt’s parents were into “Twin Peaks”. I saw Sherilyn Fenn. While the NES Advantage had a great deal of my attention, Ms. Fenn was hot like sweaters and bobby-socks hot, in a way that would presage my affection for the girls of Thee Parkside in San Francisco with Betty Page cuts, and Betty Page in general.

Hot, sweaters, and longer skirts with a mischievous twinkle. Fenn-tastic!

Something about the saddle Oxfords and Badlamenti’s orchestrations chasing a character about that make her much hotter. Speaking of…

Laura Dern

Eh. Like I said, the strains of Badlamenti following you about can’t hurt. I see where the League was going with this whole rough and fast thing ( a la Hamilton in Terminator 2 ), but….

Kim Deal ( Or Kelly Deal?)

I was way into The Breeders and The Pixies, the Breeders more so. I dug “Cannonball” and “Divine Hammer”, I’m sorry for inflicting that so much on The Social B. The interesting part about Kim is her sister Kelly who was also in the band. While I’m no Bud Light “..and twins” kinda guy, The Deals both had a full house in the guitar talent department and drug abuse department.

In any case, Kim is sorta like that girl in your math class who one day off-handedly says “Yeah my bass needs a tune up some dude knocked it over at Zelda’s the other night…” and then you find out she can play “Debaser” and you’re like. Wow, “all this time I thought you were just marking time until graduation like me, but you were doing something much cooler than I was, i shoulda asked you out before i was all intimidated”.

Patricia Arquette

Seeing “True Romance” was a revelation for me. It was to launch the ship called Quentin Tarantino ( sale of this movie’s rights financed “Pulp Fiction”). It was funny, it had Val Kilmer as Elvis, a stunning tete-a-tete between master of the craft Gary Oldman and Christian Slater and…well…a hot, sassy, and voluptuous hooker named Alabama who “tasted like a peach” ( confirmed by two generations of Whorley ).

And what about the Walken / Hopper discourse about Sicilians? Man that was IN-TENSE.

Oh, right Alabama. Well, Hot, Hot, Hot. Trashy outfits and a Southern lilt never worked so well.

And I never looked at phone booths the same way again.

Siouxsie

She’s one of the greatest artists ever. Knowing her increases your odds by 100% of being mopey, British, and wealthy in 2008.

She’s a relentless artist, never gave up anything for who she was, has a great smile and, despite the look, you just know she abides by that one for the kettle rule of making tea, she’s that British, OK?

I admit, some of her music was hard for me to get when I was in high school or junior high, but now her insight and risks continue to surprise me…all the more because the music today is so unbelievably processed and contrived. Hats off to you Siouxsie, and if you’re imagining a hat I want you to imagine it a short sort of funerary pill box hat with a veil…

At several times in my life I have undertaken to learn this “dancing” thing with mixed results. Well, here I go, both feet first, jumping without testing the depth of the water. Lauren and I signed up for Four on the Floor, Austin’s Tuesday night classes at The Texas Federation of Women’s clubs in West Campus.

Last night we took the basic class (a bit below our familiarity, actually) and then took the intro Lindy Hop class ( Step 1: Basic Charleston ).

It’s going pretty well, Laur and I have been a-seen practicing our Charleston kicks on sidewalk, under eaves and even near my workplace. I’m determined to stick through with this one Big Nerd Ranch style, do it until it gets so into you it can’t get out, dammit.

I have my first latin II test tomorrow, so I’m studying and waiting for northbound MoPac traffic to lighten up.

OK, let me level with you.

Hipster pretense, “being into Bret Michaels-reality-show-star versus Bret Michaels sensitive tattooed rocker who realized after needin’ “Nothin’ but a Good Time” that “Every Rose Has its Thorn” …

…hipster ‘Best Week Ever’” artifice aside the truth is this: Van Halen Totally Rocks.

Shut up Hipsters

I mean Van Halen rocks in that “filling up a stadium with nubile dishwater blondes in tube-tops” way. It’s old school rock - something that, I’m sorry to say, the emo-castrati of our age (it’s not their fault ), post Blink-182-Queen-esque ( lookin’ atchu “Chemical Romance” ) teens of this age are simply unfamiliar with. I’m talking about rocking hard minus ennui ( Tool ); Rocking hard minus nonsensical Marxist blather ( Rage Against the Machine ); I’m talking about a Dionysian, graspy, pure pro-libido, pro-beer, pro-“hooray it’s five freaking o’clock on Friday let’s hit the Regal Begal” sense of rock.

Quien es mas macho?

Uh, nevermind

It’s strange, anyone born after 1985 simply doesn’t know the dream: LA, Sunset Strip, Limo with a hot tub in it with several groupies in bikinis,

loud music with way-too-many guitar notes.

The emperor thinks “Eruption” has a few too many notes”

It was the testosterone-fueled dream of 13 year olds of my era and all the eras before. Instead for the fili castrati of today, their pale ghost of a dream is nsparayshun432’s blurry headshot from the ‘turned-on-self’ digital camera on Facebook. How utterly sad.

I had thought for sure a Republican president committed to trickle-down economics and purging “evildoers” from the world would quicken the return of rock of this type ( cf. Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Cinderella, WASP ) or my own personal favorite mix of gasoline, death, sex, and Les Paul (from Bush I’s era): Guns ‘n Roses, but alas, that appears not to have happened. Maybe we don’t have it in us to rage, rage against the dying of the light, same with Rome, judging by the Silver Age.

Given that the young don’t know how to rock, it’s unsurprising that, in the postmodern age, the age of youth extension to your 70’s, the Baby Boomer concert promoters would go back to the Kilimanjaro preserve for rare and endangered masters of arena rock and haul them back out for our narcissistic look in the mirror before the kids start having discussions that include phrases like “long-term managed care”.

In the post-modern age we resurrect our icons or extend their life with fresh infusions of yoga and unicorn blood forever because we’ve lost our damned cojones and creativity ( shades of Baudrillard’s “Tasaday” essay from Simulacra & Simulation ), we went to Serengeti national park and pulled out the icons of that time when bands could rock, shamelessly, proudly, with some fucking showmanship.

That’s right, we went to the motherlode of feel good, guitar-shredding, put-a-goddamed-smile-on-your-face-you-mopey-bastard rock royalty of dare I say 1976-1983, the musical guests at Spicloli’s party: Van Halen.

“Whoa dude, I blew all my reward money on getting Van Halen to play graduation, bro!”

And what can I say but after 30 years of musicianship, you can’t help but deliver a great show with great music. During this show I realized some essential things about the Van Halen sound. If I were to use any particular scientific term s an adjective to describe their sound I would call it massively phase shifted. I don’t know how I never caught this years before, but everything they do has massive phase shift on it. During Alex’s stunning drum solo I realized that a sea of metallic cymbal, when washed in the Van Halen phase shift turns into a magnetic, roaring, metallic cascade of tin-tasting metal. When the guitar explosion that is Eddie van Halen’s guitar virtuosity ruptures into that ocean it’s like a supermassive gravitational body pulling the metallic seas of a neighboring planet this way and that in a shearing display of tidal friction.

Something should be said about young Wolfgang van Halen who, at his very early age appears to be exceedingly proficient at the bass ( as was his father before him ). I had to give a laugh at the fact that his bass was a modification of the famous Eddie van Halen “5150” Kramer guitar electrical tape theme. I remarked to my buddy that it was almost like the tartan pattern of his clan - a birthright, those hap-hazard stripes. And, I suppose I noticed the filial pride that must have infused the original tartan specifications of the highlands centuries ago.

Father

Son, with Diamond Dave

The set list:

• “You Really Got Me”
• “I’m the One”
• “Runnin’ With the Devil”
• “Romeo Delight”
• “Magic Bus”
• “Somebody Get Me a Doctor”
• “Beautiful Girls”
• “Dance the Night Away”
• “Atomic Punk”
• “Everybody Wants Some!!”
• “So This Is Love?”
• “Mean Street”
• “Oh, Pretty Woman”
• “Unchained”
• “I’ll Wait”
• “And the Cradle Will Rock …”
• “Hot For Teacher”
• “Little Dreamer”
• “Little Guitars”
• “Jamie’s Cryin’”
• “Ice Cream Man”
• “Panama”
• “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love”
• “Jump”

Here’s a few comments on specific songs.

“Runnin’ With the Devil”

The phase shifted brown sound of the brothers Van Halen par excellance.

“Everybody Wants Some!!”:

I hope I wasn’t the only one thinking of the claymation scene from Better Off Dead here.

“Unchained”

Un-Chained
<phase_shift>ch-ch-chu-chu-chunk-chunk</phase_shift>
Nothing Stays the Same
Un-Chained!

Hell, yes.

Icing on the cake: Young Wolfgang doing the post-guitar-solo cut-up ( on the album too )

Dave: [to some dude in the audience, in the “pit”, who is being broadcast on the huge screen]…you’ll get some leg tonight for sure. Tell us how you do!”
Wolf: “C’mon Dave, gimme a break..”
Dave: “One Break…comin’ up…..ungh”
Chorus

“Ice Cream Man”

This was the biggest surprise of the night to me. The stage went black and you heard some very impressive acoustic guitar playing, just noodlin’ as we with an axe say. And up came none other than David Lee Roth who proceeded to recount a story about growing up in Pasadena, CA. He told of the vast suburban boredom experience and that his town was the kind of place where they rip up the trees, put in new streets, and name the streets after the trees you ripped out. Whodathunk it, David Lee Roth, smart growth advocate.

But in recounting the story of growing up in Pasadena he told of a friend of his who had taken a job as an actual Ice Cream man, which led him into doing a great a capella version of the song which, at the end of the verse had Alex’s giant tom-tom’s come in like a tsunami with Ed’s frenetic guitar descent ride us into the second verse. Hell yes David Lee Roth, you are totally badass, still.

And no joke, Dave had an 8 pack, the high kicks that could have taken young grasshopper’s head off in a furious roundhouse kick and during the stellar finale of “1984” demonstrated mad staff twirling skills by twirling a shiny metal staff with such fury I was in mortal terror that he would lose it and impale someone in the mezzanine.

I did have to feel for Dave, thinking about him singing these songs, historically those folks right below the stage must have been nubile young ladies, instead of guys in their 50’s with enough cash to pay the astronomical price required to be in the most-wealthy room only pit.

Like: “Oh hell, more beer gut bald dudes, where the hotties at? MORE TROPHY WIVES!”

But, let that not dissuade anyone from this fact: You can continue loving the Halen all your days, so to you old dudes, rock on, to you women who should not be wearing that tube top anymore, rock on, to the kids with their dads ( Ed and Wolf; The guys in the audience ) rock on, to Alex and Dave, rock on.

In short, let me say this

Whooooooooo!

I didn’t watch it, but I think it’s karmic just desserts that the team who was apparently filming other teams’ practices got served.

Want me to watch the Superbowl? I want to see The Pixies play the halftime show. I want Black Francis up there gibbering incoherently in Spanish, Swahili, and Aramaic like a portly, bald, Hispanic, Mel Gibson.

I want Joey Santiago to wear a crown, a golden crown, with flammable gasses erupting from it so that his head appears to be on fire.

That would be worth watching.

If you’re interested in my notes or charts, or references, check out amorlatinae.com.

Insomnia is a total bitch. I wouldn’t have thought that Work, Class, Dancing at the Fed would be a formula for “I can’t sleep” but it appears to be so. At least something creative has come out of it.

Latin.

“Now remember Captain, you first have to look at the gender, number, and case of the adjective and coordinate the translated tense with respect to the infinitive”

If you want them to succeed in the world of technical, non-linear, cross-functional thinking, accept no substitute.

The argument could be made “but we live in an area with a strong Hispanic population ( uh, where? Anywhere in the lower 48? ) - Billy should learn Spanish.”

This is an understandable and pragmatic attitude. Spanish is a beautiful language that gifted us Lorca, Marquez, and Cervantes.

But here’s the thing, each step in latin is like a chess game, each tiny decision is the product of several threads collapsing to to a single point, and that point, in turn, opens up a wide path of contingencies that cascade into the text series of associations. Spanish, as I believe it is taught in the introductory level focuses on the quotidian tasks: “no me gusta el helado” or the particularly inane instruction of my French book “j’aime faire de la planche à voile”.

Much like making a chess move of placing a stone in “Go”, Latin invites careful pre-consideration, re-consideration, making a move ( but not taking your hand off the piece! ), un-making the, no wait, committing to the move, and being done with it. I have never, ever, ever encountered anything that taxed my mental faculties in a grueling, grinding, methodical, focused, unrelenting fashion.

And besides, picking up Spanish will be a snap with your Latin base in place. The skills for syntactical analysis would be without compare or companion and Romance languages, are by in large, pretty simple to master once you have one ( or an ancestor ).

That said, there’s always Mandarin or Ancient Greek…