Please excuse the Buffy commentary: a great episode last night, but it does it seem like that, between the two of them, Willow and Spike get all the good lines? Spike's mean-spirited color commentary on Angel a couple of weeks ago, Willow's "don't you love me?" speech from last week that damned near made me cry like an infant and then last night's hilarious vampire-feeding-inability-as-impotence sketch. All excellent - and all three the finest moments from the three separate episodes. Buffy need to quit mooning over these college boys and get back in the swing of things - crackin' wise and kickin' ass, you know? It's what she does best.

Speaking of Willow, Alyson Hannigan's on the cover of Cosmo Girl this month; I may buy a copy.

My god, I have nothing of interest to say. That's a first!

I've said it before, but it can't be overstated: those Germans sure do make some nifty music.

I thought this was a pretty cool quote:

"Imagine the ensuing centuries of Judeo-Christian moral debate had Moses returned from the mountain carrying not two stone tablets inscribed with five commandments each, but the first Siouxsie and the Banshees LP." - Mark Sinker

That Gus, he writes a pretty good journal, huh? I'm working on his reruns right now. He is a prolific writer and an enthusiastic abuser of substances. I approve.

At my last job there was a dentist right next door. He was on my dental insurance, so going to him was a no-brainer. I changed jobs, though, and apparently he wasn't the kind of dentist who keeps up with his clients when they change insurance.

My new job has the same insurance, actually, but I guess no one told him that. Besides, it's terribly inconvenient for me now to go all the way out to my old dentist.

So I've made an appointment to see Sonya's dentist. She has gone to him since she was a small child and loves him dearly. He's always filling cavities, though, or finding something otherwise wrong with Sonya's mouth. I'm hoping he takes a passive approach towards my teeth. Just scrape off the crap, give 'em a quick polish and let me go on my way.

I've never had any dental work done, except for the occasional cleaning and check-up. Once, when I was in second grade, the dentist had to cut out one of my baby teeth when a permanent tooth started to grow in behind it. That was unpleasant, but it's also the most severe dental work I've ever had. Since I have no fillings, I can take a wad of aluminum foil, put it in my mouth and chew. I understand this is very unpleasant for people with fillings. I've seen people cringe and grow pale when I mention this ability, and grown men have left the room when I actually do it.

I admire Sonya's relationship with her dentist. I wish I still had my childhood dentist, but he retired while I was in college. Not that I went to see him very often, what with being a poor college student and all. Then I entered the working world and I went to see whoever my insurance would pay for. That seems to be the way doctor-patient relationships work these days.

I was watching VH1's Behind The Music last night; the theme was hair bands from the late eighties and early nineties. One band mentioned was called Trixter. Trixter? I actually quite liked that kind of music and I have no memory of Trixter. They must have been one of those post-1990, ballad-spewing bands that clogged the airwaves there right before the tattered All-Star of grunge squashed the last revival of glam rock. Right in there with Extreme, Slaughter and Saigon Kick.

Don't get me wrong, now. My music collection at the time was dominated by Motley Crue, Great White, Kix, Guns and Roses, Cinderella and Led Zeppelin. Loved 'em. Loved 'em. However, I also liked the heavier bands: Iron Maiden, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax. And the punk/speed metal bands like Exodus, Celtic Frost, Voivod, DRI, SOD, MOD, Suicidal Tendencies, Death Angel - I really liked them. Basically, I wanted it loud and fast with lots of guitars. And maybe one ballad per album for smoochin'.

[An Historical Note: James and I (yes, the James of Jen-n-James fame) went to the Monsters of Rock festival, an all-day all-metal concert in the Liberty Bowl. It toured the country in the summer of 1988 and let me tell you, it was one long, hot motherfucker of a day. The line-up? Kingdom Come, Metallica, Dokken, the Scorpions and Van Halen. Looking back, Monsters of Rock was the earliest relative of Lollapalooza, HORDE and the Lilith Fair. I helped make rock and roll history!

So James and I were in line to get in at about ten o'clock that morning. When the word came down the line that they weren't letting people take coolers in the guy in front of us - already stripped down to cut-offs and tennis shoes, despite the cool of the morning - reacted with good humor.

"Everybody drinks!" he said. That's how two kids - one 15, one 16 - went into the Monsters of Rock concert a touch more than half-drunk.]

But you see, that one ballad per album - that's what killed the genre. It got to where that one ballad was the lead single from every band. Instead of tough guys with great hair the whole damned lot of them came across as a bunch of simpering wimps and were ripe for Kurt Cobain's razor-sharp scythe of anomie and irony. Personally, I blame Extreme and their insipid power ballad "More Than Words" - with it's video that apparently had these two guys singing to each other- for bringing the whole thing down. Imagine the filthy, pot-smoking members of Pearl Jam seeing that video moments before they became huge mega-stars.

"Shit, man," Eddie Vedder must have mumbled, "we can take these pussies easy."

And that's what they did. All those poor hair-metal guys are now working at the same car wash as Snow, Vanilla Ice and Rico Suave.

And that fuckin' "More Than Words" song, man...the two summers I worked at Arby's it was like the number one song with a bullet on the Muzak.

Think about this, though: the two Illusion albums by Guns and Roses didn't come out until after the grunge deluge. They were both huge sellers and the subsequent tour was a total success. What if Axl Rose, instead of dicking around for the past five years, had kept touring and churning out albums? He could have singlehandedly kept that genre alive!

My mom just called; the Methodist preacher in West Memphis ran off with his bookkeeper. Hooray! That's the kind of small-town scandal that will keep West Memphis on edge for weeks.

back'ard

latest

archive

for'ard