Sunday Song Suggestions #16…

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Trashy Women – Confederate Railroad – 1993

We’re back to the stetsons and spurs for today’s song.

Trashy Women is taken from Confederate Railroad’s self-titled debut album, and like a lot of country music at that time, it’s very much tongue in cheek and every bit as politically incorrect as the title suggests. The title alone probably fingers it as the kind of song that would not get much positive mainstream success if it was to be released today.

But having said that, Trashy Women is a great example of what I love about this early nineties window of country-rock music, because the performers knew how to present a joke, and their fans knew to take it as such. The modern country scene has become so sterile that you just don’t see this kind of thing anymore, and the world at large has its head so far up its own ass it can’t seem to hear the laughter.

You only need to listen to the song with an open mind to realise that it’s as inoffensive as the title is inflammatory. And besides, it’s hard to go all social justice warrior on something that has as catchy a chorus as this.

Friday Fiction Fixes #15…

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Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett – 1989

Guards-Guards-coverI was introduced to the world of Terry Pratchett by a friend many years ago, who was a big fan of his. He is primarily known for his loosely connected Discworld series of novels, which reached over forty entries before his death in 2015. Guards! Guards! is the eighth ‘chapter’, but it works as a standalone novel as well.

For whatever reason comedy novels don’t appeal to me very much, and the handful of Pratchett books that I read in the nineties – of which Guards! Guards! is the best – is my only foray into the genre. I’ve also never greatly enjoyed fantasy stuff, and the Discworld series is often considered a parody of The Lord of the Rings… a novel I didn’t enjoy either. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why I bothered!

The biggest gripe I have with the novel – and by extension all the other Pratchett stories I read – is just how similar they feel. Sure, they made me laugh like all comedy should, and in the case of Guards! Guards! there were moments that were very funny indeed, but the style of humour is ultimately very limited. It sticks to a tried and tested template and that’s fine, but when a lot of jokes follow a similar format, and one character often feels much like the next, it becomes difficult to differentiate. I wouldn’t go so far as to say once you’ve read one Discworld novel you’ve read them all, but that’s certainly a criticism I can understand.

Having said that, Pratchett’s Discworld trope of using footnotes throughout each of the novels in the series surprisingly never wears out its welcome.

Tuesday TV Testimonials #15…

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100m Final – Seoul Olympics, 1988

There’s something special about those five interlinked rings. I can sit down in front of the TV when the Olympics is on and be entertained by any sport… all right, maybe not the synchronised swimming, but most everything else.

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The Seoul Olympics in 1988 was the first time that I was old enough to watch live and understand what the hell was going on. The 100m final was the blue riband event and was always billed as Lewis the Olympic hero versus Johnson the world record holder – the other six guys could have stayed in the blocks for all the attention they were getting. I was a club-level runner back then and Carl Lewis was my favourite athlete, and I was ready to watch him retain the gold he had won four years earlier in Los Angeles.

And that’s just what he did. Well, kinda. Eventually.

As it played out, Canada’s Ben Johnson won in 9.79 seconds. That’s not blisteringly fast by today’s standards, but then it was a world record run, and my mate Carl trailed what felt like miles behind in 9.92 seconds.

I remember my disappointment as I was watching it, but – revisionist history of a bitter twelve year old fan or not – I also remember thinking something wasn’t quite right. As the race began Johnson was the only man to run the distance in under 9.9 seconds, and now here he was breaking 9.8 seconds. He flew down that track, and seemed to be picking up speed as he crossed the line.

Three days later, Johnson had his gold medal stripped and his record quashed after the most infamous drug scandal in the sport’s history, but even during that brief window between glory and castigation, it was becoming increasingly evident that Johnson had a devil sitting on his shoulder.

In some respects, the stigma of that race remains to this day, and track and field has never fully recovered; because for every Usain Bolt there’s a Justin Gatlin to remind everyone of the sport’s dark past.

Monday Movie Mentions #15…

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Duel (1971)

duelDuel is a monster movie set on the highways of rural America, and is one of the most seventies movies ever made. It’s also possibly the first TV movie to achieve somewhat of a legendary status since its release.

Duel is based on a similarly fantastic short story by Richard Matheson and has the simplest premise: a truck driver chases a motorist through the American dust. Why? No reason. At least, no reason that the viewer ever knows. You may call that lazy writing, but it’s actually pretty inspired and shows a lot of restraint in a world where the well of exposition is visited far too often. Sometimes, motivation is not required: sometimes it’s enough that there’s a crazy guy in a big ass truck who just wants to get his kicks from harrassing you until you can’t take it anymore.

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The monster – a 1955 Peterbilt 281.

Dennis Weaver plays David, the unfortunate soul who has to outwit the mysterious metal assassin, and he is perfectly cast, gradually progressing from mild annoyance to what could be considered outright insanity by the time the credits roll.

Sure, the simple effectiveness of the movie collapses under a modern microscope, because mobiles are ubiquitous nowadays, and internet access is never more than ten feet away, but the abandonment and loneliness felt by David here is palpable. It’s a lean movie – it barely tickles the ninety minute standard – and there’s nothing in here that doesn’t contribute to David’s paranoia in some way.

Duel is like a catchy song that you hear at breakfast and is still playing in your head when you go to bed at night, and it’s telling that whenever I’m driving and I see a big rig close in on my rear view, I invariably think of that Peterbilt 281… and wonder.

Sunday Song Suggestions #15…

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Bring Me Some Water – Melissa Etheridge – 1988

Every song on Melissa Etheridge’s self-titled album from 1988 is a winner, and the collection was certainly one of the best mainstream musical debuts of the eighties. Bring Me Some Water was her hard-hitting hello to the world and helped to put her on the map, with its crisp vocals, stripped back sound, and infectious chorus. It’s rock music without the bells and whistles often associated with it – the way rock music is meant to be.

When I got my hands on Melissa Etheridge (the album, not the woman – I don’t think I’m her type) I was still living in a pre-CD world, and I played the cassette so much that eventually the tape warped, which is of course the ultimate retro-compliment.

Traditionally, rock music is seen as male, which is at least part of the reason that she has been criminally underrated and overlooked throughout the duration of her career, but you don’t even hear Melissa Etheridge’s name mentioned often when there’s a discussion about female rock icons and their influence on the industry, but she should definitely be in that converation.

Songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist, Melissa Etheridge is one of the most consistent rock stars – male or female – of the last thirty years.

The Hype Train Rolls In…

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Watch-Mayweather-vs-McGregor-OnlineSo, did you hear? The circus is coming to town.

The bout between Floyd Mayweather Jr and Conor McGregor tonight is being billed as the biggest fight for years, but it’s really nothing of the sort. It’s nothing more than a money-making exercise by greedy advertisers and even greedier competitors, who understand that they can make hundreds of millions of dollars by depending on the general public’s insatiable appetite for celebrity garbage. All we’re doing is making two wealthy guys a lot more money. Well done everybody, well done.

But the craziest thing about this whole media frenzy is that despite the confrontation being so lop-sided that it should be nothing more than a glorified sparring session for Floyd, the marketing along the way has been so insidious and disingenuous that there are actually pockets of fans who give Conor a fighting chance of victory. Are you kidding me? I don’t know whether to shake my head at the impressive depth of public gullibility on display, or applaud the advertisers for managing to spin it in such a way as to make this seem like a fair fight.

409d8444649ca9e476c09b985639272cDoes McGregor have a chance against Mayweather? Sure. Of course he does. In much the same way that I would have if you slapped a pair of gloves on me and sat me down in front of a Rocky box set to prepare. Just because McGregor busts people up in the UFC for breakfast doesn’t mean he can hang in a boxing match with one of the best fighters, well… ever. It’s no less ridiculous than Mo Farah taking on Usain Bolt over 100 metres. Sure they’re both athletes, both runners, but Bolt would have to leave his motor skills at home for Mo to break the tape first. It’s laughable.

If Mayweather shows up at ringside healthy, he wins. If Mayweather shows up awake, he wins. Hell, if Mayweather shows up with an eye patch, a broken wrist, and on crutches, he still wins. All right, he probably loses that one on points, but you get the idea. The mismatch is so great that it should qualify as assault.

011316-ufc-Conor-McGregor-pi-mp.vresize.1200.675.high_.251Whether you love him or hate him (and there’s a lot about him to dislike) it’s hard to argue against Mayweather’s credentials. He’s one of the best boxers of this or any other generation. He’s undefeated in 49 professional fights. The only realistic way that McGregor wins is if this entire farce is – to use a pro-wrestling term – ‘a work’. In other words, scripted. And understanding that both men have at least tenuous links to WWE, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if there is some form of theatre involved in the final decision.

I don’t have a horse in this race, so I don’t care either way, but multi-million dollar payday or not, do you think an ego the size of Mayweather would have accepted the match if he thought there was any chance for McGregor – who has never stepped inside a competitive boxing ring – to embarrass him and blemish his otherwise flawless record?

Mayweather by stoppage in Round 9.

Friday Fiction Fixes #14…

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Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride – 2005

1182531I am an advocate and active petitioner for people to read more, because it seems that sitting down with a good book is something that may not be a thing in a couple of generations… but Cold Granite irked me, and the majority of its local readers irked me even more.

MacBride is a Scottish author and Cold Granite is set here, in Aberdeen. Now, I’ve got no problem with parochial content, nor have I got a problem with trying to write for a specific audience, but if I got a pound (£) from every person – most of whom haven’t read a book since The Hungry Caterpillar – who came up to me in 2005 and 2006 and asked if I had read this glorious novel, my pockets would be full.

Eventually I bowed to peer pressure and read it, and the book is entirely average in almost every respect. Friends and acquaintances who insisted I read it were – I can only assume – doing so because it delighted them that familiar streets and locations popped up in the text. Let’s forget the fact that the writing is basic, the plot has been done a thousand times before, and the central character is about as typical a police detective as fiction can throw up. It’s by no means terrible, but it’s just like a thousand other cop thrillers out there.

If you’ve got nothing to compare it to, then yes, Cold Granite is probably a pretty good story, but I’ve read too widely for this to stand out from the pack in any way, and I need more in a story than a checklist of places that I recognise.

Tuesday TV Testimonials #14…

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Starsky & Hutch (1975 – 1979)

starsky-1The US spat out many car-centric cop shows in the seventies and eighties, and I’ve probably sat down in front of most of them at one time or another. These days that particular form of escapist entertainment is on life support, but for many years it was a very popular and successful television sub-genre.

As the latter half of the seventies kicked off, Starsky & Hutch was the leader of that particular pack, and Glaser and Soul respectively were unquestionably the coolest cats on the box… and that includes Starsky and his ridiculously passe cardigan.

26C7E16A00000578-3070309-image-a-29_1430921370542Starsky & Hutch forces you to suspend your disbelief right out of the gates. Here are two Californian detectives whose best friend and long time informant Huggy Bear is about as close to a pimp as the production company could get away with without annoying the censors, and who spend their days chasing the bad guys in the most ostentatious and conspicuous cop car ever committed to the screen. In fact, the iconic Ford Gran Torino – nicknamed the Striped Tomato – quickly became such a big part of the show that it deserved to be given a title credit right after the two stars.

But for all the silliness that Starsky & Hutch presented on the surface, it was narratively quite a grounded show and managed to present some hard-hitting episodes and adult themes throughout its run.

And if you don’t think it has one of the funkiest TV themes of all time, you’re out of your mind.

Monday Movie Mentions #14…

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Rope (1948)

1 WvBI9L537SCIzmpGclCnNwJames Stewart is one of my favourite classic Hollywood actors, and this was the first of his four Hitchcock collaborations. They’re all very good, and I know I’m in the minority here, but Rope is arguably their best work together… despite the fact that apparently Stewart didn’t like it.

It’s a rather progressive subject matter for the time of its release, but it was loosely based on an actual crime that took place over two decades earlier, so perhaps that is the most jarring thing about it.

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It’s a game of cat and mouse.

Students Brandon and Phillip decide to kill one of their classmates in order to see if they can pull off the perfect murder, only to have their crime brought under the microscope by their mentor Rupert. What follows is a back and forth, with Brandon enjoying the post-mortem glow and Phillip emotionally unravelling beside him, while Rupert tries to piece the whole thing together.

Hitchcock used an innovative one-camera technique which helps to give the whole thing a very intimate and claustrophobic feel, as if you’re a literal fly on the wall in the aftermath of this experimental murder. Audiences nowadays are comfortable with longer attractions, so modern cinema often throws up (a term which is apropos here) snoozefests that run over three hours, however Rope is presented as a real time affair and clocks in at a refreshingly lean eighty minutes. The entire movie also takes place in one static apartment location, so action junkies need not apply as there is no visual excitement to distract you from the limited number of characters on screen.

Although Rope is extremely underrated, and you won’t see it appearing on many ‘best of’ Hitchcock lists, it is an exercise in how to build a great plot with interesting characters and thought-provoking dialogue.