Some thoughts on Red Dawn

AVENGE ME!!!!

Harry Dean Stanton. Dirty, tired, beaten down by his soviet captors, imprisoned in a drive in movie theater turned makeshift reeducation camp- shouts into the night. Is there any better scene in film? There is not.

That scene makes the scene in Goodfellas where Henry comes home from prison to learn that Karen flushed the drugs down the toilet ("Karen!? I needed that, Karen!") look like a middle school play rehearsal. Alec Baldwin's speech in Glengarry Glen Ross? Might as well be a local furniture store commercial.

If I know one thing about Red Dawn it is this: Red Dawn is less a cinematic escapade than it is video instruction tool. It asks the question "What would you do if you were sitting in history class, listening to a boring ass lecture on the Mongol horde, and a nightmare team of Russians, Cubans and Nicaraguans parachuted onto the football field and took over the town?" I'll tell you what I'd do: escape into the mountains and kill me some commies. If a foreign nation attacks, everything at the army/navy store is immediately free, so go nuts. It's like when you were a kid, and you had that fantasy that you would win a 5 minute shopping spree to Toys R Us. You can just run through the store and throw anything you want into the cart- you don't even think, you just take. I know that I could be a successful insurgent* for these reasons:

1. I have been camping.
2. I can hunt deer. (I have never been hunting, but neither had C. Thomas Howell, and he bagged a deer his first time out- so how hard can it be? C. Thomas Howell is a pussy.)
3. Russians, Cubans and Nicaraguans have apparently never had any formal military or firearms training.

Red Dawn teaches us that no military force, not even the combined military of 3 nations, can defeat midwestern americans**. Not even fully aged americans either, high school age americans- one of whom is C. Thomas Howell. It also teaches us that is is extremely important to ensure that all of our nations high schools have cool sounding team names. Calumet, Colorado had the Wolverines, which was fortunate, because Arturo "Aardvark" Mondragon decided to use the school mascot as a battle cry. It would have been pretty lame if the commies had attacked Montgomery, Alabama- home of the Sidney Lanier High School Poets. Even holding an AK-47 over your head, shouting "POETS!" is no way to celebrate victory.

The knowledge gained from Red Dawn is invaluable and it should be shown in middle schools monthly.

*obviously, when I use the term "insurgent", I don't mean dirty, brown, freedom hating terrorists, I mean corn-fed, all american heroes.

**obviously, by "midwestern americans", I mean "real americans". If McCain/Palin taught us anything, it's that if the bad guys had attacked either of the liberal coasts they would've been greeted with borscht and some kind of cuban food.

I am Winston Smith

I've been thinking a lot about Orwell's 1984 lately. With the patriot act, the elections, the rise of "infotainment" as news coverage, etc, it just makes sense to draw comparisons between this world and the one of the novel.

I took to labeling everything with the brand Victory from the book. During World War II sauerkraut was called liberty cabbage, and there are still those in this country who have replaced french fries with freedom fries, so it was amusing to me to call everything in the "international" aisle of the supermarket Victory Something: Victory Hummus, Victory Rice, Victory Soda, and I named this blog Victory Gin after Winston's preferred beverage.

Then, epiphany:

I grew up in a fundamentalist christian family. We went to church a minimum of 3 times a week, we only associated with church people, and went to a church school. Victory Christian School.

If there is any organization that relies on doublespeak and the thought police as much as Oceania's Ministry of Truth, it is absolutely the fundamentalist christian movement.

As students each day began with recitation of the pledge of allegiance, a pledge of allegiance to god, and prayer. There was a daily bible class, which essentially means that I went to church 6 days a week for about 8 years. I don't have any particularly bad memories during my time there, I'm just left with the feeling that I was robbed of a large part of my childhood and was kept from information that is necessary to live a normal, balanced life.

Oceania has not always been at war with Eurasia and God didn't create humans in a garden with a talking snake.

When I began thinking about writing this all down I did some quick research on the school curriculum, just as a refresher. Obviously I was not taught real science, given that it was a religious school, I got creation. Universe was done in 7 days, about 6,000 years ago. Dinosaurs? Don't focus on the dinosaurs, they went extinct naturally (after the flood and Noah's ark there wasn't enough oxygen in the atmosphere because most of the plant life had died, so the dinosaurs suffocated. done. no more explanation required. excellent.). History was also pretty much just the history of Christianity, with a heavy emphasis on good things happening to christian societies and bad things happening to everyone else. America was founded by Christians, communism fails because communists don't believe in god. The Spanish inquisition was bad, but only because they were catholic and not christian. Every time there was anything at all wrong in the middle east we got a refresher course in the end times (how a history class reconciled teaching me about the future I'll never know). Think of the last time there was no tension in the middle east. That is a lot of Armageddon talk.

What about math though? Surely math is safe!

2+2=4. Winston Smith's truest statement of freedom.

Checking the a bekka math curriculum, it turns out I am wrong. 2+2 still equals 4, but only because god says it does. Logic is a gift from god, and without god we would live in chaos...a world without math!!! For real. Without god, 2+2 might equal 4, but it might equal 17...it might equal porcupine for all we know. I left the christian school after 8th grade, and it turns out, 8th grade math is as high as it goes. Oh, they teach high school math classes, but stop at modern, human ideas like set theory, so basically no geometry, no calculus, hell, not even algebra 2! I'm sure they teach what they think is algebra 2 and geometry, but they leave out the stuff they don't like. Some states (California for sure) do not accept math scores from students transferring from a bekka schools into public schools because they are light years behind other students. Apparently, god only wants you to count on your fingers.

English, it turns out, is allowed. A bekka has decided that, in order to spread the holy word of god, students should be taught proper grammar. However, I do not know what the reading list for high school students looks like. If the curriculum prohibits any work that doesn't glorify god, or even if they only look at art through the prism of Christianity, I'd imagine it's a pretty limited list.

Luckily, I got out. My parents divorced, and the hypocritical christian influence of my mother left. I was allowed to attend public high school. I listened to every record I could get my hands on, read books that were previously kept from my hands. Basically, I had to catch up on the first thirteen years of my life. You know what came out before I was 13? THRILLER. Imagine not listening to Thriller until 1990. Pretty bleak. I caught up though.

I do not love Big Brother.

Gods of Night

Let's review the new Bang Camaro Album.

Bang Camaro II proves that these guys are brilliant. They could have done a "more of the same" album and people would still have listened to it, but instead they've improved on the original concept. There are certainly more lyrics this time around.

Those not in the know might write them off as a gimmick or as just a bunch of dudes making fun of eighties metal. Couldn't be more wrong.

Here are the highlights:

"Thunderclap". Yeah. If Cliff Burton was in Thin Lizzy, this is the song he would have recorded. A band that takes the stage to the theme from "Conan the Destroyer" had better have something epic on deck, and this one fits the bill.

"Night Lies", "Miss Illusion" and "Can't Stop the Night" all revive the true spirit of rock and roll. Prettymuch sex and booze reign supreme. Download immediately.

Live. Love. Die. Rock.

Who killed Amanda Palmer?

I wish it had been me.

Jon called me at work on Monday and told me that he got guest listed for the Amanda Palmer show at the Paradise on Tuesday and I could be his plus one. I think her album is pretty good, and I've seen the Dresden Dolls once before and while not exactly my cup of tea, I was impressed.

We missed the opening act because it was a fucking tuesday and people work and parking at the 'dise is about as much fun as, well, parking anywhere in Boston. From what I gathered in the one or two songs I heard they were remakably average.

The show started, and since the album is titled "Who killed Amanda Palmer?" some steampunk/goth/dark cabaret dude came out and began talking like it was her funeral and we were all there to mourn her. This would have been fine if he talked for a minute or so then intorduced her, but it went on way too long. He brought out some piano player to play Amanda's favorite piece, then some old british writer who read a poem about her, then some other steampunk/goth/dark cabaret dude who played violin. While that was going on, some more steampunk/goth/dark cabaret people made their way to the stage and generally looked goth. Eventually they reached into the crowd and lifted up...gasp...Amanda Palmer.

I do enjoy her music, but man, there were too many long theatrical interludes. At one point the focus shifted from the stage to the floor as the extra goth kids who had started the show by lifting Amanda onto the stage did some weird dance thing in the middle of the crowd.

"JUST PLAY YOUR FUCKING SONGS!" was all my brain could scream.

The low point of the night was when she actually auctioned off memorabilia from the stage. I know the music industry is tough, and touring bands need all the help they can get, but I've never seen it sink so low as to sell props from the latest video shoot to the crowd. I still don't know what made me feel worse: the fact that she did it, or that people bought the stuff.

One of the high points was a karaoke version of Rihanna's "Umbrella" towards the end of the show. It cannot be argued that "Umbrella" is not a great pop song, and what made it even better was that it really took the piss out of the goth crowd. Yeah, she sings a bunch of songs about depressing crap, but she can have fun with a top 40 hit too, and it's ok for you to like it.

Throughout the night, the music was solid and in the end that's all that really matters.

Bob Dylan Rules

Feeling depressed? Listen to "Blood on the Tracks" by Bob Dylan. You'll still be depressed, but at least you'll have a good soundtrack.

What I did with my summer vacation

Three shows that helped make my year:



Dear Leader at TT the Bear's.

After some sort of sabbatical in Belgium, Aaron Perrino returned to Boston to save us from republicans. I hadn't been to TT's for a while, it was nice to be back. Some band from Belgium called the Rones opened both nights and did a great job despite having an audience of 8 people max, at least 4 of whom were checking their cell phones at any given moment. Boston veterans Taxpayer tore up the first show, and new guys the Fatal Flaw filled out the second. It's been a few years since I caught Taxpayer (actually I think it was with Dear Leader last time), they did not disappoint. The Fatal Flaw are an east coast/west coast mash up of indie bands, I'd seen them at the Pill in Allston a couple weeks before, and they promise to be big. Finally we got to Dear Leader. Right from the start, they knocked it out of the park. "Nightmare Alleys", "Nation", "Billionserved", "My Life As a Wrestler"... the highlight was "Labor On" on night two. I have decided that America needs Dear Leader.




Bang Camaro at the Hard Rock

The Camaro triumphantly returned home to Boston to signal the end of their "rock rebellion" tour. How can you not love a band who takes the stage to the soundtrack from Conan the Destroyer? They are all that is rock. I'd seen them a bunch of times before they took off, and caught up with them in Austin, Tx (I was on vacation and they allowed me to join their man choir for the night). The Austin show was great, and being on stage certainly made my summer, but I think the Hard Rock show edges it out for the following reasons:





1. Free Booze. I don't mean just free beer, I mean free booze. Free Whiskey? Sure. Free Scotch? You got it.


2. The company of friends. I went to Austin alone, which was great and I would do it again in a second. I needed to get away and clear my head in a city with zero possibility of running into people I know, and it worked perfectly. The only downside was that no one I knew was there to bear witness to my rock 'n roll adventure singing the encore to Bangs set. For the Boston show, Brian and Jon came along, and the shared experience was much better.


3. They let me up to sing again, and it was rock glory.



Bang Camaro are a band that seem like a gimmick (there is anywhere from 10-15 singers, depending on the show), but they all have serious chops. Serious. Chops.



Trap Them at Anchors Up



Born from the ashes of December Wolves and Backstabbers, Inc., Trap Them grabs you by the throat and never lets go. I don't generally go in for the harcore, but I know these guys from my days at Newbury Comics and I know that they are the real thing. A truly great band transcends genre and the change of pace was just what I needed. I like my hipster bars and indie rock friends, but it's important to mix it up once in a while (and there were certainly no white belts or non-prescription glasses in the crowd). The opening bands were ok. Run of the mill hardcore in my opinion (please keep in mind that I am not well versed in this area), but the moment Trap Them took the stage the basement crowd stood transfixed. It was amazing. 25 minutes later the drummer was collapsed at the back of the room in a heap of sweat drenched flesh, the singer was sitting on the front of the stage bleeding from self-inflicted wounds caused by repeatedly smashing the microphone into his forehead, and the other two band members were fleeing the sauna of a room for cooler temperatures outside.