Guilt-Free Thought Crimes

"And if my thought-dreams could be seen, They'd probably put my head in a guillotine, But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only."
-- Dylan

IS IT EVEN POSSIBLE to imagine a bigger waste of time, space and money than a live "Family Guy" musical? Of course you can't. But that's what took place at Carnegie Hall last night, billed as Family Guy Sings! -- an unedited live reading of two episodes from the (somehow) popular animated Fox series. Now, the show is not as bad as some critics make it out to be, but it's not The Simpsons. And it's certainly not worthy of this kind of elaborate treatment either. A 40-piece orchestra? C'mon! That's a good use of the family funds near the Holidays during a recession! Or perhaps just another sign of the apocalypse, as the kids used to say...

...Ironically, or maybe just tangentially, the only time I ever sat in hallowed Carnegie Hall was almost EXACTLY 30 years to the day. That august occasion was a David Bromberg show, which I attended with my high school sweetheart Debbie Ellen Epstein. I remember Bromberg making an announcement before the show to the effect of, "They said I should tell y'all that it's illegal to smoke grass here, but it's not like you have to listen to me." And of course we didn't. Or did...

...Man, I hadn't thought about that concert for several eons. Great show. Opening act was British folkie Ralph McTell of Streets of London fame. Saw Bromberg again a few years later at the Bottom Line, another long gone music venue that used to be in the West Village. I wanna say he played the epic "New Lee Highway Blues" both nights. Guess that's why this qualifies as a thought-dream. If I say it, I can believe it...

...Speaking of pop culture that wastes your time, I'm already sick of the Jim Carrey "Yes Man" trailer. I mean, what a tedious concept: a guy can only say yes to things. About as gripping as when he made the movie where he couldn't lie a few years ago. Just a lame excuse for Carrey to make those same stupid faces for 90 minutes that he's been doing since Ace Ventura. Talk about a one-trick pony...

...My rant continues apace with a shot at all the ink spilled and bandwidth wasted over a new Guns N Roses album. Apparently, it's a record that's been 17 years in the making, with Axl Rose endlessly tinkering and remixing the songs. It's the kind of thing a legend like Neil Young might do, the difference being that Young would continue to release other music during the same span, instead of boring everyone with changing release dates, etc...

....Now, it's my contention that GNR might be the most overhyped, overrated rock band in the history of the MTV generation, along with the likes of Van Halen and the Dave Matthews Band. I'm sure there are other groups vying for the same dubious mantel, but after naming the 3 songs by GNR that I can tolerate -- "Jungle," "Sweet Child" and "November Rain" -- I run out of any songs that made any kind of impact on the popular culture at large. Please don't bring up their wretched cover of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"; that's an atrocity better left unmentioned and disremembered...

...I could care less about this album, but the reviews are unavoidable. The Onion just ran a full-page Chuck Klosterman review, which at first I thought was actually an Onion satire, but as I read on, it apparently was the real Chuck Klosterman, a writer who is celebrated as some kind of pop music guru, but I see more charlatan than sage in this guy...

...The Klosterman piece is called "The Last Album" because (yawn) in the Digital Age people don't listen to whole albums from beginning to end anymore -- therefore according to Klosterman "it's the last album that will be marketed as a collection of autonomous-but-connected songs, the last album that will be absorbed as a static manifestation of who the band supposedly is, and the last album that will matter more as a physical object than as an Internet sound file." Now, we've been hearing this notion for years, just like the paperless society. Didn't AC/DC just release an album exclusively at Wal-Mart a month ago and it was a huge seller? That was a physical object that you took home, held, etc. Plus, vinyl itself is making a comeback...

...Back to Chinese Democracy. The uber-dorky Klosterman voluntarily relates that he's been eagerly anticipating the record's release lo these many years, through all the delays and false alarms: "I've been thinking about this record for 15 years; during that span, I've thought about this record more than I've thought about China, and maybe as much as I've thought about the principles of democracy." This line, predictably, has been quoted all over the place, just as Klosterman knew it would. It's the kind of cultural period we live in, one where you can see things coming a mile or two away, whether it's the next line in a formulaic movie or the next lame joke in a TV sitcom. Klosterman is this generation's safe version of Lester Bangs, a true misfit who certainly would have knocked Klosterman's glasses off his face if he ever came across the writer of the fraudulent sentiments contained in "The Last Album." Unfortunately, the endearingly bombastic but always authentic Bangs left us way back in 1982, when Klosterman the future nerd was but 10 years old.

From what little I've heard, Chinese Democracy sounds like an overproduced nightmare, maybe a poor man's Pet Sounds, or perhaps a Spinal Tap album produced by late-crazy-period Phil Spector. Klosterman describes the album as "like Jeff Lynne tried to make Out of the Blue sound more like Fun House, except with jazz drumming and a girl singer from Motown." See, to me that sounds like a totally forced sentence, written only because he knows it's gonna draw attention to itself, but it comes across as phony -- like the reliably insipid Peter Travers writing a movie review while thinking of the inevitable blurb that will be chosen for the trade ad...

...The most cringe-inducing sentiment is saved by Klosterman for last. At the end of his over-the-top review, one that is literally littered with forced arcane pop culture references, he actually forms the words: "The final truth is this: Axl makes the best songs. They sound the way I want songs to sound." Let that sink in a second or three. BEST COMPARED TO WHAT? This is like saying Mickey Rourke makes the best movies, makes movies the way I want them to look. You wonder what the hell this guy Klosterman is smoking, and why anyone holds him in anything like esteem. But people do, because I've skimmed through his books at the library, and I saw where he just published his first novel. Color me very unimpressed...

...A few more things here while I have your attention. Did you see where the Vatican went out of its/their way to praise the Beatles? AP reported that L'Osservatore Romano marked the 40th anniversary of the White Album last week, stating that the album was notable for its creativity and contrasting the Beatles' work with the "standardized, stereotypical" songs being produced today. Wow, "Sexy Sadie" and "Helter Skelter" sure have come a long way since Charles Manson and Family blackened the meaning behind the song lyrics for a lot of listeners. Makes one wonder if anyone is going to be showering praise on Chinese Democracy 40 years down the line in 2048. I seriously doubt it...

...Not only did they come to praise dead Beatles, but the Vatican mouthpiece even seemed eager to absolve John Lennon of his "bigger than Jesus" commentary, chalking it up to mere youthful indescretion. Of course, it would have been appropriate for one of the John Paul popes to have some Beatles tunes on his Holy iPod. But the new guy Benedict XVI really doesn't seem like a Rocky Racoon kind of guy. Maybe he can change his name to Pope George Ringo. That would move some units, as we say in the music biz...

...Disturbing reports of planned terrorist attack of New York City subways. According to FBI reports, the plot was beyond the "aspirational planning" stage, which means the extremists have not stopped thinking of ways to "blow us up real good" just because we changed presidential parties here. The subway was probably always a dream target for the terrorists (talk about your "bang for the buck") and it was never taken off the "to do" list, is how I see it...

...The first few weeks after 9/11, dread of an impending subway attack is what had me riding my bicycle from my apartment in Astoria to my job on Wall Street. Fear, after all, is a man's best motivator. Take Noah, for example. First he gets hit with the whole ark-building project. Then he finds out he has to collect two of every specimen on earth. Without the wrath of an all-powerful deity on his case 24/7, no way the guy even starts such an undertaking.