Tag: Absurd Comedy

Episode Five – Extreme Bon Jovi

Published October 23, 2018

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In which Young Southpaw gets confused by the titles of the Bon Jovi records, the bathtub one and the releases surrounding the bathtub one

Taking in My Chemical Romance, Steve Vai, Bruce Springsteen, New Jersey, Nick Rhodes, Randy Rhoads, Cynthia Rhodes, ‘Slippery When Wet’, Fugazi, Van Halen, the film Runaway, Ionescu, and much more.

“So today I’d like to, like to talk about the album titles of Mr. Jon Bon Jovi. Or the band Bon Jovi, of which Mr. Jon Bon Jovi is, well, an integral part I would say. Named after him. Unless he named the band after one of his ancestors also named Bon Jovi. Maybe, you never know. You really never know. I mean you could ask him but I have no way to contact the man. And you know, time is a flowin’ like all those waterfalls. Not over the edge hopefully. Just flowin’ on, ridin’ on as that mellow AC/DC song goes. But I mean I do get confused. I didn’t get too confused, but enough confused you know. I’m sure you can get confused by any bands album titles once you think of them for a very long time. Or even a few minutes as the case may be. I mean Public Image Ltd. is probably the only band that’s ever had an honest album title, you know. With Album, Cassette, or Compact Disc…whatever format you had it on. You know the one with Steve Vai, 1986, year of the Fire Tiger, you know, Joan Rivers all that. Well it just hit me, Steve Vai went from working with John Lydon to DLR in the course of a year. From punk rock to Roth rock as they say. And Album and Eat Em And Smile came out in the same year. That just blew my mind…

But yeah I mean what I wanted to talk about is – well gimme a minute to get over this whole album Eat Em And Smile thing…

Ok well then, let’s go. This one also came out in 1986. I’m talking about Slippery When Wet of course. I mean I get what they’re sayin’, believe me…I get it. It’s uh, it’s innuendo. But it’s also something you’d say about a road, you know, and I don’t think anybody named Rhodes played on that album. Imagine if Nick Rhodes and Randy Rhoads played on Slippery When Wet. And Cynthia Rhodes was the singer. I mean she was a singer, maybe still is, I don’t know. Be good to find out. Again I don’t have any way to contact her. But you know Dirty Dancin’ Flashdance coulda been called Dirty…Flash…vocals… But they weren’t called that. You know, those were not the names of those films. But it woulda been a wildly different sounding record if Slippery When Wet had been made like that. Heck, maybe even my favourite record of all time.

But once I started to think about it, it just started to bug me out, you know? Got my mind all bug buggin’ as they say, as I’ve said before. When something gets my mind all…bug buggin’, you know. But Slippery When Wet’s the big one outta all his confusing albums. I mean, I just don’t understand. And it’s on the front cover like that, is it some sorta warning? I mean who…who gets their records wet? They won’t play. Precisely because they’ll be slippery. It seems like common sense. I mean the jacket all damaged, you know. I suppose I mean maybe there was an epidemic in America at the time or maybe they heard it someplace else around the world, people just dippin’ their, takin their records with them in the bathtub. I mean I know I love Van Halen’s 1984 but even I could…afford to…put it down for a little while while I took a nice soak..you know? And then you got New Jersey, I mean that’s confus- I mean I get it. They’re from New Jersey, but then forever on after once people say they’re going to New Jersey they could just be talkin about going to listen to that Bon Jovi record. I think that’s my favorite one, it’s got Born To Be My Baby – Na Na etc you know. Not like that My Chemical Romance song – you know that crazy My Chemical Romance band, also from New Jersey I might add – but they had that song Na Na Na…and then a whole bunch more Na’s in parentheses, you know… From their Danger Days album – Double D! Well not like that comic by Steve Horry and Eddie Argos, but speakin of comics you got Grant Morrison in the video for Na Na Na etc. with all the Na’s. Well I think Bon Jovi says Na 11 times in each phrase and MCR has like 13 goin on, you know like that Blur album 13 and Teenage Fanclub had an album called 13 as well and I don’t remember any comparisons between the two in the music press at the time. And then Fugazi had that 13 Songs but that was really a compilation of the first two releases. And listening recently to Margin Walker, that second half of the 13 Songs, might very well be my favorite Fugazi album. Though I am fond of Repeater too. Not Repeater 2 that doesn’t exist, but Repeater also. And the funny thing is Glue Man is probably my favourite Fugazi song and it is the glue that holds together the two previous releases that make up 13 Songs. But I think that Teenage Fanclub album is also named 13 because it has 13 songs on it and I would love to hear Teenage Fanclub and that crazy Fugari band cover each other’s 13 albums. Then Bruce Springsteen’s got that Nebraska album you know, and he’s from New Jersey too! That’s utterly confusing as well. Was like ol Jon Bon tryin to set things right? Maybe they shoulda done a concept album dealin with all that. But then again we wouldn’t have had I’ll Be There For You, you know. And that one’s got that line ‘these five words I swear to you’. Well if you look close enough – well any way you look at it really – you’ll notice Born To Be My Baby is also 5 words. Hmmm? Well, you know… A lotta B’s in that title as well. 3 if you again look closely. But then you got Bad Medicine too. It’s like a plethora of b’s, a bee hive if you will. Some won’t. I do not know currently if I do. But you got ‘bad’ again like ‘you give love a bad name’ from the previous album, you know the bathtub one. And bathtub the word begins and ends with a B. And then you got, goin back in time to before the bathtub one, you got that crazy Fahrenheit one. I mean that’s, that’s inconceivable as to how much, how hot that would be. 7800 degrees it is, let’s be precise. And you’ll notice it’s a number evenly divided by 13, make of that what you will. But 7800 degrees Fahrenheit, the vinyl would melt, forget Slippery When Wet, you’d have to put it in the bathtub just to cool things down. And what if some kid thinks that’s the temperature you have to put in on the record player at. Remember this was 1985, cds weren’t, well cds would melt too! I mean the kid’s thinkin you gotta put this on at 7800 degrees Fahrenheit, well you couldn’t even get close enough to the record player. And then you had that first one with Runaway, you know.. And that was a film with Tom Selleck and Gene Simmons and Cynthia Rhodes who you know I’m a big fan of. You know, Flashdance and Dirty Dancin’, I don’t remember her dancing in Runaway but I remember that was a big deal cause Gene Simmons didn’t have his make-up on, you know. And then Bon Jovi became an actor later on so there ya go. Both that Jovi album and the film were released in 1984, you know the year of Van Halen, but I don’t think either had anything to do with each other. But imagine if Cynthia Rhodes had been in the Hot For Teacher video. I mean how awesome would that have been?!

And then you got the Young Guns soundtrack or Young Guns II the number two not also but I guess you could use also or too as also if you were conversing about both films in the same sentence like I did but I didn’t mean it. And you got Blaze a Glory ‘shot down’ etc. you know. And then I lost track so I had to look this up on Wikipedia just to see if maybe their record titles started making more sense. But they didn’t need to make any more sense, it’s strange cause you figure once you establish yourself you can just do these crazy art installation album titles, you know. Livin’ On A Prayer, I mean prayers don’t have any physical substance to them. Unless he meant prairie all along. I mean they just confuse the heck outta me, but I ain’t never seen em. Maybe their live show is some sort of elaborate play that explains all this. That’d be cool, you know like maybe written by Ionescu you know, the Rumanian playright, The Rhinoceros, you know. Did you see that Gene Wilder film with Zero Mostel? I started watchin it earlier this year, I really wanna finish it. I was a bit tired that night but I dug the music and the mise en scene as-they-say-in…Paris, and all a France prolly, the whole French speakin’ world. And well even if you’re not in the French speakin’ world and people are still speakin’ French they could say it there too, you know. I mean why not?

Back in Boston there used to be this great bookstore called Avenue Victor Hugo. Not there anymore RIP. But I bought J.P. Donleavy’s Schultz there, first edition, orange cover, one of my favourite novels of all time. It was right across the street from Newbury Comics on Newbury street. The bookshop I mean, not the novel. That takes places in a fictional universe and anyway well Ally McBeal was set in Boston, you know. Like that band….Aerosmith… And Mr. Jon Bon Jovi speaking of his acting career well you know he McBeal’d it up. And the Bee Gees they had that song Massachusetts you know, not a whole album like New Jersey but I think I’ve proved my point.”

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Episode Four – Some Kind Of Wonderful Soup Formation

Published October 16, 2018

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In which Young Southpaw confuses even himself wondering whether or not he is at a wedding, wrestling with the conspiracy theory behind the song ‘Some Kind Of Wonderful’ while professing his love of all things soup

Taking in soups, broths, and consommés, that crazy Freezepop band, Thomas Pynchon, ‘The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock’, The Soup Diaries, Happy Mondays, The Boomtown Rats, Loudness, Randy Rhoads, Quiet Riot, Aquirax Uno, and much more.

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Episode Three – TLC’s “Waterfalls”

Published October 7, 2018

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In which Young Southpaw posits that Stephen Hawking must have been touched by the hand of Van Halen’s Fair Warning.

Taking in the nature of water, snow, Boston Celtics, Celtic Frost, TLC, a vast array of alcoholic beverages, Van Hagar, snake wine, and the film Titanic.

“Welcome to this third installment of The Young Southpaw Part Of An Hour. I hope you meditated on my koan from last time, you know. The water implied in that Melissa Etheridge song was of course, you know the Moon. You know, by the light of the Moon that she’s singin’ like that. All full of feelin’ and stuff. You know, the Moon controls the tides so Boom, there ya go…

Well there I was you know… Wait, now what did I wanna talk about now? Oh yeah, another water song… You know that one by TH, TLC… what was I thinkin’ of? ‘Don’t Go Chasin’ Waterfalls’? Well I mean I love TLC, you know. Saw em live at the Boston Garden, back right after a snowstorm. Snow was piled real high outside the cars. Well not that high, ‘pretty’ high, you know it was January. But one time I was in Boston – I wasn’t livin’ there anymore – went up to visit after the blizzard of 2013 and the snow was piled over the cars. It was 7 feet tall, it was insane. The snow coulda played for the Celtics, you know like that band Celtic Frost. Then there’d be the issue though of the way you pronounce the ‘C’ – hard or soft – like tacos you know. And then maybe an issue about Celtic Frost being a Canadian metal band and not technically in the National Basketball Association. Now wait just a second, Celtic Frost were Swiss, I’m thinkin’ of Voivod. They’re from Canada, you know like the Expos and Toronto Blue Jays. But those are baseball teams not basketball, but you just add a K and a T to baseball and voila, as they say in the French speakin’ parts. That’s a hard K like in Celtic Frost and not like Boston Celtics. But you know all that snow kinda relates to the song I wanna talk about… because… if the snow starts meltin’ real fast we would be getting’ some waterfalls, you know…

But my problem is – and again don’t get me wrong – nothin’ against THC, but ‘don’t go chasin’ waterfalls’ I mean, ya know… Waterfalls don’t move, you know. It’s always in the same exact geographical location. I mean the water moves. I mean if it said don’t go chasin’ the water in waterfalls, you know. It would kinda make sense. But I mean don’t go chasin’ water anywhere. I mean the water’s fallin’ but it’s still movin’ like it’s in a river or something, you know. I mean Stone Roses had that song ‘Waterfall’, that was real good, you know, I love that first Stone Roses album…

But uh you know, uh, I just don’t understand. That song, the THC one, was a huge hit. But it’s not gonna scan if you say ‘don’t go chasin’ the water in waterfalls’ cause you repeat water, sayin’ it twice, you know. That’s kinda redundant, not an oxymoron like, like I said it wasn’t in that first episode. Anyway I remember seein’ them at the Boston Garden, this was in January, then when my birthday rolled around in April I had my birthday cd shopping list and I had, well I think I had T Boz’s solo record on there. Already owned that crazy CrazySexyCool album, and you know what? I even had the Ain’t Too Proud To Beg cassingle cassette when it came out, you know, two spools one tape little cardboard box, heck of a long thing to name a product… But you know, I had that album on my birthday shopping list and I went to my birthday party and someone saw it and they were joshin’ me about it and I stood up and just said ‘I love THC’…

But I didn’t have as much of a problem with the Waterfalls song then as I do now. Now that I’ve had decades to reflect on it. You know years go by, flowin’ like the sands of time, like the water in a waterfall…like the liquid in a waterfall. That’d be an even worse song title – don’t go chasin’ the liquid in waterfalls. Might get confusin’. I mean people dump their, well people pee in water. That’s inappropriate to have a pop song on the radio like that… Except first time I was ever in Sweden… you know, we were sittin’ at some café listenin’ to the P3 POP radio show. Turned it on, wanted to hear that rock stone ‘cherry vanilla’ single and you know, first song we done gone hear is ‘pissing on the panda’…which blew my mind, still blows my mind, I mean that’s hilarious…

But anyway, you know, people it’s, you say liquid that’s a bit too vague cause you know people gonna be dumpin’ some beer, throwin their empties in with liquid. The water could go in the hole at the top of the can you know where you press that thing it opens and you drink the beer out of it. Throw it away there’s prolly a little bit a beer left in it… People be…people be…throwing that in the water, you know. It mixes in with the water, will flow with the waterfall, same thing you throw a rum bottle or a vodka bottle or a whisky bottle a gin bottle a champagne bottle a red wine bottle a white wine bottle a rosé wine bottle…a jenever bottle a Cointreau bottle an Armagnac bottle a cognac bottle a sake bottle a snake wine bottle – do they even have snake wine bottles? But uh, I think you get the point… And I’m sayin’ the liquid will mix in and then come out or maybe the whole bottle, you know the cichasa bottle the slivowitz bottle the lambiek bottle, the bourbon bottle – double B! – the Kirschwasser bottle the ouzo bottle the tequila bottle the poteen bottle the absinthe bottle the brandy bottle – another double B! quadroop! – the Old Krupnik bottle the Mad Dog bottle the Nighttrain bottle – GNR you know… Maybe the whole bottle just goes flowin over the waterfall. Don’t go chasin’ that, it’s litter it’s already been thrown out, why’d you chase it?… Unless you wanna recycle it like some eco warrior…I mean that’s…laudable... But you know why don’t you just wait at the bottom of the waterfall like with some giant net you know like the one Van Halen didn’t have on their live video video tape. You know VHS, you’ve got the Van Halen initials right in there, I’ve said it before you know with Sammy, it’s actually Van Hagar, let’s be honest, but initials stay the same… But when he first joined the band they had Live Without A Net recorded live in New Haven, CT… they opened with a Sammy Hagar song, There’s Only One Way To Rock and they’re runnin around, Eddie just smilin’, Sammy’s playin’ guitar on a few songs. They covered Led Zeppelin’s Rock N Roll you know ‘been a long time’ etc. It was real excitin’, wish I had seen that show… I never saw em with Hagar, I never saw em with Roth back in the day but my very first concert was Roth’s Eat Em And Smile tour Cinderella opening. They had that Night Songs you know, stage all dark and purple, you know what Cinderella song I always liked was that Shelter Me from the third album… But that’d be weird if they opened for Dave and Van Hagar, that never happened, I wonder if there was any band that ever did… I mean it’d be weird but prolly not that important in the brief history a time as Stephen Hawking might say, you know… I mean, I wonder if he ever saw Van Halen. I mean he must’ve, to be a genius like that I think you must be touched by the hand of ‘Fair Warning’… I don’t know, I’m not Stephen Hawking…

…But maybe he knows about snake wine. I mean I’m sure it’s in a bottle, have to be to ferment… Unless you do it in a bathtub and then once it’s ready people just come like pigs to a trough and lap it up. I guess you can tell I’ve never had snake wine before, never even seen it in the movies… Or maybe I have, I can’t remember every single scene a every single movie I’ve even seen. I coulda got up to use the facilities come back and when I asked what’d I miss no one wanted to tell me there were a bunch a people hovering and slurping over a bathtub full a fermented dead snakes… Or maybe they use straws. If they were real long straws it’d be a whole lot more civilized…

And speakin’ a civilized you’d think they woulda changed the name of iceberg lettuce after the Titanic happened… I mean I guess farmers can be insensitive just like anyone else… Or maybe the farmers don’t care and it’s the agricultural marketing people… And I guess agricultural marketing people can be insensitive just like anyone else… I mean they prolly don’t mean to be insensitive… Now I gotta go look see if there are any books detailing the long sordid history of the name of iceberg lettuce… But then again you woulda thought they woulda changed the name of the movie Titanic after the Titanic happened… But those Hollywood people I guess, well, they’re not just like anyone else but insensitivity knows no bounds. And who knows where the line between agricultural marketing and blockbuster films begins and ends… I surely don’t. If it hasn’t kept me awake at night before it sure may well do now… Not to end this on a sour note and I don’t mean to be distressin’ y’all… Go listen to some TLC, that Boston Garden show was real good… So until next week, have yourselves a fine one”

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Episode Two – Madness, Melissa Etheridge, & The Secret History

Published September 26, 2018

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The Young Southpaw Part Of An Hour

Episode Two – Madness, Melissa Etheridge, & The Secret History

In which Young Southpaw apologises, runs into some trouble betting on the order Def Leppard would play their ‘Hysteria’ album shows in, is confused by Madness’ ‘Our House’, and is spotted in Bermuda.

Taking in James Bond, Scooby Doo, quarry diving, Desperate Journalist, Morrissey, Madness, My Favorite, The Secret History, Donna Tartt, Sweden, Melissa Etheridge, and more.

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Episode One – The Breeders’ Pod

Published September 17, 2018

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The Young Southpaw Part Of An Hour

Epsiode One – The Breeders’ Pod

In which Young Southpaw almost latches on to a conspiracy theory that the Internet is all a hoax started by The Breeders’ 1990 debut.

Inspired by his favorite podcasts, Harmontown and Greg Proops’ The Smartest Man In The World, Young Southpaw decides to start one of his own. Wondering what the word ‘podcast’ actually means, he takes in The Breeders, Bruce Dickinson & Iron Maiden, Van Halen of course, Slade, Quiet Riot, Saint Etienne, New Order, Monopoly, The Divine Comedy, Risk, and more.

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