This is such a freakin’ good idea. See, when our “public servants” walk into office having “plans” and “introducing legislation,” they immediately start screwing stuff up, why is why Mayor Cass’s bold move should set a precedent, from POTUS on down to the local dogcatcher: once you’re elected and you have your inauguration (if you can get a zombie James Brown to play the inaugural ball, more power to ya), you take a powder for at least three months.

Godspeed, Mr. Mayor, but stay away from the drinks that have the umbrellas. You think they’re some sort of chick drink, but they will mess you up.

Now that I have the floor, I’d like to explain a little bit about how I became a citizen of Bootleg City, and how this week’s featured bootleg is a perfect example of why everybody should live here. Actually, I’m not a citizen, as I was here from the very beginning. I set my homestead here long before this city was born; they surrounded me. These guys came to my land.

It has always been about live music for me. Seeing a band in concert playing their music had to be the greatest thing in the world. I remember seeing video of a thousand girls go nuts during a Beatles concert, yet I remember seeing the same girls going nuts when the Beatles got off a plane. Even early on, I instinctively knew that wasn’t about the music. The first “live” songs I ever heard was from Frampton Comes Alive. The songs were nice enough, but the were nothing special about them for I had no knowledge of the studio versions that came before. They were just things on the car radio as my mom drove us kids around doing errands after school. I now know of course, that there was very little “live” about that album, it was more selling an image and well, selling a record or two.

But what sucked me in was Lynyrd Skynyrd’s One More From the Road. I knew Skynyrd. The older stoner brother of a friend would play their albums non-stop in his room while my friend and I geeked out with the comic books or something in another room. So I was familiar with Skynyrd and I pretty much liked what I heard. One day, I heard songs through the wall that I recognized but they sounded a little “different.” “Gimmie Three Steps” came on and I realized the guitar solo was longer. When it finished, I ran into the other room and asked the older stoner brother what was.

“It’s the live version, little man.”

I wanted to hear it again and when it came to the solo, I kneeled down to listen; I knew something was happening. Then I heard it, the singer yelled out to the crowd “Can he play?” as the solo began it’s extended part. I realized that when a song was played live, it was different. It was powerful. It was better.

But what sealed the deal was “Free Bird.” I know, now it’s a cliche; it’s now a rock and roll joke. But you remember back to when you heard that live version the first time. Right?

“What song is it you wanna hear?” Van Zant yelled. Then the redneck tabernacle choir answered in harmony, “‘Freeeeeeeebirrrrrrrd’!!”

If you think back, there was a silence in the crowd when Billy Powell starts tinkling the piano. Playing those opening chords with a piano instead of the organ I guess confused them. Then the audience recognized they were hearing the song they wanted and they fucking exploded.

I still can remember how I felt about that moment, it was the most fantastic thing I had ever heard. Music, in a live setting, was an exchange between the band and the crowd. Those heartbeats between Powell starting the song and the crowd realizing what the song was changed my life. I still think about the first time I heard those milliseconds between the start of a song and a crowd’s recognition.

So, I lived for the live albums. I bought the studio releases of the bands I liked, I listened to what my friends recommended was good. However, as I heard the studio versions of songs for the first time, one thought was going though my mind, “I wonder how this sounds live?” In the ’80s I became a concert junkie; I saw 40 to 50 major shows a year, hockey arena-type shows. I went to countless theatre shows. Then I hit the clubs when I got old enough.

The big ones, they were shows. Seeing a five-foot Ronnie James Dio run a sword through a 30-foot inflatable dragon was a show. Watching Dr. Righteous, Lt. Varnish, and Colonel Hyde throw fake guitars through a wood chipper on the “Kilroy” tour was a great show. Billy Gibbons told off-color jokes between songs, David Lee Roth did karate workouts during the drum solo. It was all the show. The show was whatever it took to connect with the audience.

But still, it boiled down the music; the music created in the junction between the crowd and the band. I still live for those heartbeats between the start and the recognition. However, I quickly learned a live album was not the show. Hell, for a while I thought a live album was a recording of an entire concert (I remember thinking those folks that went to that particular Foghat concert had to be pissed they only heard six songs). Reading liner notes, I learned live albums were recorded on different dates, sometimes with different members in the band. That was not a recording of the show. I found the live album wasn’t even the music of a show. Overdubs (even my Skynyd overdubbed, sob) and various other studio tricks ruined the magic for me. That was not what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear the ups and downs of an entire show.

So, I got into boots. And in the ’80s, if you were into boots you were into the Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin. And the Dead live was great. Zeppelin live was hit or miss. But I wanted more. I quickly graduated to the local NYC and Connecticut radio stations playing that Sunday-night concert from Westwood One. I got to hear Ozzy with Brad Gillis playing a ghost’s music from Memphis. I got Supertramp from LA. The Stones from Atlantic City. I taped what I could and listened to them all over and over again.

I know you are now reading this and saying, “Dude, this isn’t a basement tape. WTF?What the hell does all this have to do with the Cranberries?” Simple — you may come across a boot of a band you may not understand or necessarily like, but when you hear them play a concert, you become a fan, at least for that show.

So this brings us to this week’s boot. I never liked the Cranberries very much. The enormous amount of processing. Dolores O’Riordan’s voice, which more often than not was double tracked to give it even more presence. “Linger”? Well, let’s just say it was aptly named. Their sounds were studio enabled. To me, a little Cranberries went a long way. But for a few years in the early ’90s, they were the indie champs with crossover appeal and an international following.

Not being a big Cranberries fan, I will limit my knowledge to the context of this concert. They were in Europe for some warm up shows before their first major headlining tour of the United States. They had just dropped “No Need to Argue,” their second major-label album two weeks before, and some reviews were not pretty.

Although some of the songs from the new album had been performed live for nearly a year, you have to believe other songs were still getting the live arrangement kinks worked out. To top it all off, the whole things was being broadcast live on German TV/radio. So into the Alabama Halle in Munich, Germany they went.

On a side note, does anybody know anything about this club? It’s been around for years and think it might be named after the Skynyrd song. No kidding. Did some ex-military go back to where he was stationed and start a club? I don’t speak German and the English translated website offers very little in the way of clues. If anybody knows anything about this place, let me know, will ya?

So, were they a one hit wonder about the suffer the sophomore slump? Of course we know now, that second album pushed them from international stars to friggin’ huge. But at the time, they were a band unsure of where they stood. The first single off the album, “Zombie,” was slowly creeping up the charts, within a year it would be their biggest hit ever. But to my cynical self, “Zombie” was the result of a pragmatic producer. He stuck his head out the door during recording, wet his finger, and stuck it into the wind, and the wind said, “The kids are listening to grunge.” So, Mr. Producer went in, dialed up the big-ass-Marshall-stack-sound-with-heavy-reverb setting on the mixing board, and “Zombie” was born.

But not here. Here, “Zombie” is allowed to breathe. Melody is so important in a pop song and only God knows how many takes and edits were needed to get O’Riordan on key on the studio version. But live, melody takes a back seat to emotion. You can hear O’Riordan’s anger and frustration in her voice singing about such a horrific subject matter. “Dreams” was the song you heard if you saw any kind of teen-angst TV show or movie in the ’90s. Here, it becomes a workout in discovering how much of the Celtic yodel is needed. And “Linger” is fantastic. It starts with a little intro that was unfamiliar to me but when the chords that actually start the song are played — well it’s those moments between the start and the recognition. It still makes me smile.

All in all, each song presented here is far superior than any studio recording I ever heard from this band. There is power here. Band and audience worked as one to put on a show. And that is why the live concert (and thus the “unauthorized recording” of it) is so vital to my listening pleasure. Like I said, here is a band that I think is basically an average studio creation that made me a fan — for at least for one night. And just because that one night was 15 years ago is not important. This band was on the threshold of the biggest step of their career, with a just-released an album that at the time was not universally accepted. They became huge. The lead singer became the richest woman in Ireland. And for a while you could argue they were one of the biggest bands in the world.

But not here. They made mistakes. They were still trying stuff out. But in the end, they came out and did their thing. And this boot is the historical document of that moment. Never to be repeated, nor could it ever be. Which is why this is the best Cranberries music I have ever heard. Until I find another concert.

How
Sunday
Linger
Dreaming My Dreams
Daffodil Lament
I Can’t Be With You
Wanted
I Don’t Need
Ode to My Family
Ridiculous Thoughts
Waltzing Back
Zombie
Pretty
Everything I Said
Not Sorry
So Cold in Ireland
Empty
Dreams

As a bonus, I have a few other things for you. Call it my payment to you for allowing me to rant. While opening for Duran Duran on their first trip to America, the Cranberries were invited to play KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Christmas shows at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California, on December 11 and 12, 1993. Perhaps the fact that their debut album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? had just gone platinum had something to do with it. Enjoy the Cranberries’ unplugged five-song set from December 11:

Ode to My Family
Sunday
Linger
False
Empty

Well, thanks to Mayor Cass for letting me to take over for a bit and allowing me to wax philosophic about the glories that are live boots.

Now, as the Minister of Fast Food for Bootleg City, I am off to see if I can convince Wendy’s to make me a triple Baconator.

Seriously, Wardlaw — Taco Bell? Ugh. Show some pride.

This season’s champ is clearly the feel-good urban horror movie Precious. It leaves no stone unturned to flatten us. A partial checklist of miseries: Poverty. Illiteracy. Morbid obesity. Incest and rape with dad. Two-time teenage pregnancy, the first resulting in a Down’s syndrome child matter-of-factly named “Mongo.” Oh, and it’s 1987, as AIDS did its worst to decimate whole communities. The movie is based, as the subtitle tells us, on the novel Push by Sapphire, and it pushes hard, squashing our tearducts. I smell a musical.

But wait, it gets worse. Poor Precious (Gabourey Sidibe), the punching bag of the title, is stuck in a festering, shades-drawn-tight Harlem apartment with her monster mother, played, in a performance of epic degeneracy, by Mo’Nique. Director Lee Daniels has conceived the film as a kind of fairy tale, with the big-boned actress as an unstoppable seven-headed dragon. From her sweaty couch she smokes incessantly, drinks buckets of Sunkist orange soda, defrauds the welfare authorities, and treats her daughter as her personal slave, hurling everything including the TV at her and poor Mongo—and she uses Precious for sexual gratification, too. Come awards time Mo’Nique should be whisked from the red carpet and transferred to the Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

With only a good right hook at her disposal Precious lumbers on, finding allies in a lesbian schoolteacher (Paula Patton), a no-nonsense welfare worker (Mariah Carey, completely scrubbed of glamour), a male nurse (Lenny Kravitz, ditto), and a gaggle of fellow special ed kids. Daniels films all of this from the perspective of Precious’ limited consciousness, with dream sequences that show her imaginary life as a plus-sized supermodel, or a skinny white girl. The movie is co-presented by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, and bears their earmarks—abuse stories, echoes of The Color Purple, and the weird shifts in tone that make Perry’s hits so jarring. And it has some of the neon flamboyance of Daniels’ unclassifiable feature debut, Shadowboxer (2006), which cast Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding, Jr. as mother-and-stepson assassins and lovers. Social realism goes down the stairwell along with that TV as Precious ducks the usual uplift and empowerment treatment.

I’ll give it that, and add that a motley cast acts persuasively. Good intentions, however, are scrambled together with the overripe awfulness of Precious’ degradation; it’s not enough for her to be greasily raped, the act has to be intercut with shots of pigs’ feet boiling nauseatingly on the stove. Precious wounds. But it’s also shameless, and a shambles.

You leave The Road thinking it’s at least ten degrees colder outside the theater than it actually is. Javier Aguirresarobe’s desaturated brown-gray cinematography perfectly captures the feeling you get from Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winner, of a dying, sun-deprived planet where night and day are all but interchangeable, and the only season is a chilly late fall. I was shivering when it ended.

And also mighty sleepy—that aesthetic is hard on the eyes. Director John Hillcoat has made an apocalyptic prison picture, Ghosts…of the Civil Dead (1988), and an apocalyptic Western, The Proposition (2005). Here he takes on the whole enchilada, and he does it very conscientiously, following the story of a father and son trapped in this wasteland practically to the letter. That fidelity, though, is a problem. If you’ve read the book, you really have seen this movie. It doesn’t give you anything more than McCarthy’s scorched earth prose did.

If you haven’t, well, as usual when blockbuster books don’t come across on screen, you’re likely to be left scratching your head. Like last year’s Blindness, the movie is a surface in search of a soul. The novel communicates a great deal by saying very little. The father is tormented by dreams of the world before the catastrophe, one only barely remembered, while the son knows only the world after. The rest is sort of a zombie movie waiting to happen—marauding cannibal gangs roam the roads, looking for two-legged meals, and the few other survivors encountered are suspect. (Like George A. Romero’s living dead movies, most of the film was grimily shot in Pittsburgh, and the association with the end of the world must thrill the town fathers no end.)

McCarthy doesn’t often foreground the horror (save for one terrifying incident early on). The focus is on the transcendent bond, which given the spare use of dialogue, and despite a good but overcompensating score by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis, is tougher to communicate. Caked in mud and filth, a look he seems to prefer, Viggo Mortensen is bedraggled and determined—but The Man, as he’s called, is let down by The Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who gives a whiny, less dimensional performance. The movie perks up a bit when that sly fox, Robert Duvall, turns up as a philosophical Old Man, then it’s back to muttering, and collecting cans, and trying to stay warm. As a film, The Road leads nowhere.

The world ends not with a bang, but with an Adam Lambert power ballad. That’s the takeaway from 2012, the flip side of The Road. Most filmmakers want to stretch, to grow, but Roland Emmerich is happy to kill off multitudes. This is the third time he’s gone after our big blue marble, after Independence Day (1996) and The Day After Tomorrow (2004), and when big arks slosh around the terrestrial bathtub that the Himalayas have become following a rash of Mayan-foretold earthquakes, volcanoes, and “super tsunamis,” I think it’s 99% safe to say he’s finished the job. (Maybe 95%.)

But just because your graphics engine gives you the power to drop the U.S.S. John Kennedy on an ash-covered black president or ravage Los Angeles with Playstation-ish temblors for queasy laughs doesn’t mean you should. Cecil B. DeMille and Irwin Allen showed a modicum of restraint in their spectacles, and peopled them from the top ranks. Emmerich is of the money shot-is-everything school, lavishing $200 million on a B-list cast and a jerry-built C-script that gets an affable John Cusack and his estranged family from one hot spot to another over the eventful if fatiguing course of two-and-a-half hours. (Along for the ride is actor/director Tom McCarthy, of last year’s mortal-sized Oscar nominee The Visitor—I shudder to think what he learned from Emmerich.)

For all the world-splitting antics, however, the only really memorable image is of Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue crumbling, which we glimpse on a hazy TV screen. Everything else has a been there-done that quality—Emmerich has trouble topping himself, with the spaceship attack on the White House in Independence Day and the tidal wave sluicing through the Manhattan canyons in Tomorrow (a truly arresting sequence in a truly awful movie) setting the bar high for this sort of thing. We’ve seen worlds destroyed plenty of times now. It’s more satisfying to see them built up.

At his best, Nicolas Cage is an A-list special effect, throwing off all kinds of sparks. But outside of the occasional Adaptation his post-Oscar career has pretty much been one big La-Z-Boy, as he goes from one high-salaried, low-impact gig to another. (The name of a recent dud says it all: Next.) There was reason, then, to hope that the no-budget Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, a collaboration with Werner Herzog, might shake him up—“snap out of it!” as Cher once advised him in Moonstruck. But the film is as clumsy as its title.

Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant (1992) was a geekshow, and a good excuse for Harvey Keitel to rip into his psyche and, figuratively and literally, expose himself. It’s a stunningly unkempt performance. This in-name-only followup (the sort of thing that usually goes straight to video) isn’t at all harrowing, partly because Cage doesn’t have much to share other than a bunch of tics and drug-addled shtick. His bad lieutenant, a pill-popper investigating the murder of Senegalese immigrants while ripping off dealers, users, and the police department evidence room for their stashes, has three moods: coke (frantic), heroin (slowed-down, hallucinating), and crack (over the top, somewhere near Pluto).

Cage’s performance might have made sense if Herzog had committed to it, and gave it the sort of context that allowed Klaus Kinski to rivet audiences. But the director’s recent documentaries have far outranked his recent features, and the two-hour movie just sort of sits there, inert, neither crime movie nor camp. (Ferrara had the good sense to end his bath of depravity at about 90 minutes.) Seemingly written in a fit of ADD, William M. Finkelstein’s screenplay introduces new characters in every scene, losing track of ones we might be interested in, like Val Kilmer as Cage’s hard-nosed partner or Michael Shannon as the guard unwisely entrusted with the department’s drug seizures. Herzog has never been strong on plot, and he’s clueless as to how to move this one along.

Disappointingly, Herzog’s weak on images, too: New Orleans post-Katrina would appear to be a natural fit for him, yet his typically excellent DP, Peter Zeitlinger, stuck indoors for most of the duration, has contributed shockingly shabby cinematography. The movie could have been set in Scranton or Des Moines for all it matters. (If you were hoping, at the very least, for hambone accents, forget it; no one has one, surely a deliberate, and peculiar, touch. Only Mark Isham’s score has a twang to it.)

From time to time the movie bumbles into something worthwhile—the frowsy comedienne Jennifer Coolidge is surprisingly touching as Cage’s beleaguered stepmother. It’s a mystifying flop, as if Herzog were under the influence of gonzo cop melodramas like Year of the Dragon (1985), 8 Million Ways to Die (1986), and Tough Guys Don’t Dance (1987). But those 80s failures had a ridiculous conviction to them. This one, entirely reliant on Cage’s mannerisms, reeks of contempt.

This little clip is a litmus test for much you might get out of the movie. Imagine 20 minutes more of this and perhaps instead of seeing the film just wait for the most outlandish of it (the hallucinatory iguanas, the “gator cam”) to wash up on YouTube as well:

Magnet Releasing did a good job handling horror fave Let the Right One In last year so I’m confident its two-and-a-half-hour distillation of John Woo’s two-part, five-hour epic Red Cliff is in good hands, and I’m glad to see it getting some sort of theatrical release. Not having seen the U.S. version yet I can’t really comment on it, but I have seen the full-strength epic (which is available on DVD from Asia-based vendors) and can recommend this cut based on what I know will be retained—namely, its titanic battle scenes. The money’s clearly on the screen, and not, as with 2012, in the workstation, with digital effects complementing but not defining the complicated clash of ancient warlords. You sense Woo’s guiding hand throughout.

Hollywood appropriated Woo’s run-and-gun action stylistics, then the filmmaker himself, for about a decade. By the end of the era, and the appropriately titled Paycheck (2003), both were exhausted. With Red Cliff, Woo has joined the trend among Hong Kong and mainland filmmakers (Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, etc.) to mount elaborate historical pageants and, given his chops in the field (The Killer, Hard-Boiled, and Face/Off, an astute use of Cage, are favorites), he blows the lid off the genre. That said, it’s impersonal—the whirling dervish gunfights and their noir-ish underpinnings have no place in the Han Dynasty, and the sociopolitical resonance of Yimou’s Hero is absent. But what Woo does with ships, and swords, and masses of armies is hugely impressive. And the excellent Tony Leung (from Hero and In the Mood for Love, among other contemporary Asian classics) holds all the intrigue together by quietly flexing star power. With China absorbing everything else in the U.S., I’m glad the country has imported the grand old traditions of Hollywood, just in time for the dreariest moviegoing Thanksgiving on record.

Bend It Like Bender! – Devin Townsend Project from Addicted (2009)

Blue Cheadle – Cheer-Accident from Fear Draws Misfortune (2009)

Cruisin’ With The Deuce – Quarterflash from Quarterflash (1980)

Elegy – Bob Belden from Black Dahlia (2001)

Hard Shoulder – Mark Knopfler from Get Lucky (2009)

Love’s Got A Lot To Answer For – Nick Lowe from At My Age (2007)

My Blue Heaven – Django Reinhardt from Django in Rome 1949-1950 (2004)

Never Mind – Minster Hill from MiNsTeR HiLL (1999)

The Road To Hell – Chris Rea from The Road to Hell (1989)

Rocks In The Ocean – Al Stewart from 24 Carrots (1980)

Take Me Back (Deja Vu) – Van Halen from Balance (1995)

That Old Black Magic – Louis Prima and Keely Smith from Capitol Collectors Series: Louis Prima (1991)

What She Wants – TDF from Retail Therapy (1997)

Witch’s Promise – Jethro Tull from Original Masters (1985)

Wooden Planes – Art Garfunkel from Watermark (1977)

Much (though by no means all) of the stuff I talk about in this column comes to me free for review, often well in advance of the street release date. That means there are a lot of unfamiliar CDs and books and DVDs scattered around my workplace; it also means we get a lot of mail.

My kids thought that part was pretty exciting, when I first took the gig — until they got a load of the actual contents of most of those packages. “Hey, guys, who wants to watch this Rob Thomas DVD with Dad?” is kind of a non-starter, when weighing the options for a rainy Thursday afternoon.

Every now and then, though, a hit finds its way into our house. I got my advance copy of the lavish annual photo-book put out by the Ripley’s people (this year’s edition is subtitled Seeing Is Believing) literally months ago, and I’m only writing about it now — because it’s been the exclusive property of my seven-year old since its arrival.

In fact, he wrote his review before I did:

The main idea of this book is basically about gathering up ramdom facts and try to shock you with unbelivable sights. (note: seeing is beliveing) My favorite part is when a bus jumped over 15 motorcycles while on fire in reverseal to Knievel’s stunts!

He’s not wrong, you know. Oddity for oddity’s sake has been the Ripley brand for well on 90 years now. Though it’s been through many incarnations — a radio show, a newsreel feature, a museum franchise, and no fewer than three television series — “Believe It or Not!” began as a newspaper comic. Robert L. Ripley’s little daily panel was (and, in the hands of current artist John Graziano, remains) a masterpiece of concision, depicting strange and unusual people and events in a single striking image and a few well-chosen words.

Ripley himself was an unholy admixture of P.T. Barnum and that guy that does “News of the Weird,” with the draftsmanship of a Hal Foster thrown into the bargain. He remains a curiously underrated artist, even among comics historians — perhaps because of his extensive use of photo reference, perhaps because he increasingly handed off the art chores to assistants and ghosts as he grew more famous, or perhaps because he worked exclusively in his own singular form.

Whatever the reason, even the book series that still bears his name downplays that aspect of his life. You won’t find any of Ripley’s cartoons in Seeing Is Believing’s 240+ pages — which is why Sam and I had to draw our own — but what you will find are hundreds of color photos of crazy athletic feats, human oddities, outsider art, uncanny coincidences, cultural footnotes, and other credulity-straining phenomena, all rendered in that classic, breathless tone:

STRANGE FAMILY! The elephant shrews, or sengi, are a family of tiny, insect-eating African mammals that are more closely related to elephants than to shrews.

CAMEL GIRL! Ella Harper of Hendersonville, Tennessee, appeared in shows as “The Camel Girl” because her knees turned backward. Owing to this deformity, she struggled to walk solely on her feet and preferred to move around on all fours.

OLD SPRUCE! A spruce tree in Sweden has been sprouting new trees for nearly 10,000 years. Scientists think the tree took root in Dalmatia around the year 7542 B.C.

Selected items have a longer feature-style article attached, but for the most part the book reads just like this — like a Twitter feed from some slightly-more-wonderful world just alongside our own.

I’m not surprised that Sam glommed onto this book; the seven-year old version of myself would have devoured it, too. There’s something irresistible about this sort of miscellany. Leafing through such a book gives some of the same thrill of random discovery that you get when you’re surfing Wikipedia, looking for nothing in particular. When I was a kid I would pore over the Guinness Book of World Records, and I still get a little thrill every autumn when the new edition of the Old Farmer’s Almanac hits the shelves. John Hodgman lovingly skewered the format in The Areas of My Expertise, and captured the tone of facts and figures shading into anecdote, conveyed with the same earnestness. He ramps up the absurdity quotient — in Hodgman’s almanac, charts of the moon’s phases cross-reference not only the tides but the stages of werewolfism, and a survey of beard styles sits side-by-side with exposé of America’s secret hobo empire — but the essence of it, the free-floating oddities, shorn of context, adding up to singular worldview, comes straight from the models.

The Ripley books, like their spiritual descendants (and icons of my childhood) the People’s Almanac and the Book of Lists, are of dubious value as references; they’re thinly-sourced, and serve to perpetuate apocrypha and give new life to discredited old stories. The world of these books is full of mystery and wonder — just like the real world, of course, but in the crush of the mundane it’s easy to forget that. Seeing Is Believing’s emphasis on the weird and sensational is, in a way, a comfort; the message is that there is more to life than your workaday existence, that there is beauty and surprise all around you, if you look.

There’s a great repeated line in Warren Ellis’s recently-completed comics series Planetary, a line spoken by a “mystery archeologist,” an old-school globe-trotting adventurer who publishes his discoveries in a set of esoteric guidebooks — a figure not unlike the talented Mr. Ripley himself, now I come to think of it. “It’s a strange world,” he says; “Let’s keep it that way.” Exactly.

Seeing Is Believing is a wonderful stimulant for the mind, a snack tray for the imagination, a perfect vehicle for spending an evening around the kitchen table with paper and crayons in hand. Bottom line: if you have, are, or ever have been a child, this book should be somewhere within easy reach of your toilet.

Okay, so now that I’ve stopped Brian’s team of blood-thirsty lawyers in their tracks (kidding!), we can take a look at this week’s chart. And I don’t mean to cast a cloud over this Top 10, but I’m not thrilled with most of these songs. Although three of them did hit #1 (one of them is actually the #1 hit of 1977), five of them didn’t make the Top 100 of either 1976 or 1977 at all. And as you’ll see, the songs that actually did hit #1 aren’t that great either. Things were better earlier in 1976 and later in 1977, but this specific week is, in my opinion, a low point. Do you agree? Let me know — and let’s attack November 20, 1976!

10. Do You Feel Like We Do — Peter Frampton
9. Beth — Kiss
8. Just to Be Close to You — Commodores
7. Rock’n Me — Steve Miller
6. The Rubberband Man — Spinners
5. Disco Duck (Part 1) — Rick Dees
4. Muskrat Love — Captain & Tennille
3. Love So Right — Bee Gees
2. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald — Gordon Lightfoot
1. Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright) — Rod Stewart

10. Do You Feel Like We Do — Peter Frampton

One day, if I’m lucky enough to have kids as geeky as I am (seems kind of inevitable), I’ll sit them down and tell them about the improbability of this song’s success. Sure, I’ll have to explain terms like “double album,” “record label” and “radio,” but I think it’ll be worth it. I’ll explain to them how Peter Frampton managed to remain on a major record label, A&M, despite the fact that his first three albums (as well as his first eight singles) didn’t even crack the Hot 100 (”what’s the Hot 100, daddy?”) and his fourth album peaked at #32. And that despite these failures, A&M decided that his next release should be a live album — and when he turned in the live album, the head of the record label (Jerry Moss) complained that it was too short (!) and should be a double album (!!). And so Frampton — who had recorded most of the album at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, went to record more tracks live at SUNY Plattsburgh, better known as the least sexy of all the NY State-owned colleges. (I know. My dad went there.) “Do You Feel Like We Do” was one of the tracks recorded on the college campus. Unedited, it clocks in at 14:15. And children, guess what? “Radio stations,” as they were known back then, actually played the full, unedited version of the song! “Disc jockeys,” who were the people who actually had some control over what songs were played on the radio, used the song as an excuse to go to the bathroom or do other things that I’ll tell you about when you’re older. A&M understood that some stations might not want to play a 14-minute song, though, so they reasonably edited the song…to 7:19. 7:19 was considered reasonable, children!

At this point, my kids will probably be asleep from boredom, and that’ll be a shame, because I haven’t even explained to them why the unedited version of this song became so successful. Two words: TALKBOX SOLO. And here’s what I want to know, people: why do I have to wait SEVEN MINUTES AND 25 SECONDS for the talkbox solo? There should have been one in the beginning, in the middle, and then another one at the end. No, wait: the end one should be a false ending, and then there’d be another one after that one. There. That’s your perfect song. And I know the audience would have agreed, because you can hear how loud they cheer when he starts using the damn thing. You can’t deny the power of the talkbox. The talkbox is so powerful that the audience forgets the fact that anybody using one looks like a total douche.

“durrrrrrrrrrr!”

Frampton does a talkbox solo for four full minutes, making “Do You Feel Like We Do” not only our CHART ATTACK! Song of the Week, but perhaps The Greatest Song of All Time, Excluding “What a Fool Believes.”

9. Beth — Kiss

I was looking through the comment section at Songfacts to see what people thought of this song. Here’s my favorite comment, by Frank from Brampton, Ontario.

This is a really sad song and I cry alot whenever I listen to it. Call me a wuss if you want but it is indeed a sad song despite it being a powerful ballad. Hey it’s ok to cry whenever you hear a sad song like this.

Word, Frank. Word.

And so here we have Kiss’s highest-charting single, peaking at #7. Of course, there was only one way Kiss could reach this peak on the charts, and that was by ensuring that all members of the band kept their damn hands off their instruments. Though written by Kiss drummer (and this song’s lead vocalist) Peter Criss, the piano and string arrangements were performed by other (real) musicians. Criss was the only member of the band in the studio when it was recorded, and in concert, he performed it to a backing track. The rest of the band didn’t learn the song until almost 20 years later, despite it being their biggest hit of their career. I think this proves how much Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley hated the song (they fought to keep it off the album), and not being a Kiss fan, this is the only thing about “Beth” that makes me happy. (Although I should say that I know Paul Stanley’s mother, and she’s a sweetheart.) Actually, “Beth” isn’t really a bad song at all; the piano and strings are quite pretty, and I like the last verse, where he says “Beth, I know you’re lonely / And I hope you’ll be all right / ‘Cause me and the boys will be playing all night.” I love that in this beautiful song, he just kind of gives her the middle finger at the end: I know you’re lonely, Beth…sucks to be you!

8. Just to Be Close to You — Commodores (download)

I find this song unintentionally funny for a number of reasons. If you’re not familiar with it, download and we can discuss it together. For starters, there’s this beautiful, gentle piano opening. The first time I heard it, I was expecting a song that was soft and subtle, like “Fee Tines a Mady” “Three Times a Lady.” The entrance of the vocals are, shall we say, a bit more abrupt — I nearly jumped out of my chair when they came in. Second, the song has some space-agey synths playing random notes for seemingly no reason — like it’s a love song on Jupiter or something. Then, after less than a minute, Lionel starts speaking. Oh, this is the best part. Listen to that first “Ahh!” at about :55. I don’t know who Lionel’s trying to be, but he’s doing a terrible job at it. At 1:23, I think he’s trying to be a preacher. I love the way he pronounces the word “value.” I snicker every time I hear it.

I think what’s most clear about this song is that Lionel Richie had simply not yet mastered his songwriting-fu; the damn thing is all over the place. Sure, the hook of the song is great, and maybe that’s all they needed: something to which people could get their groove on. Who cares about the rest, right? The only thing that really had any staying power was that first line at the beginning: “You know, I’ve been through so many changes in my life, girl.” Lionel recycled it seven years later for his solo hit “My Love,” except he changed “girl” to “woman.” (Y’know, because he was older.)

I looked all over to find you a clip of Lionel singing this song live in the ’70s; I’m disappointed that I came up short, because you know there’d be nothing more wonderful than Lionel in one of those silver glittery Commodore suits, speak-singing this song while his afro collided with the other members of the group. However, I did find this recent version, from a small concert Lionel did for industry people. He performs the song with just the right amount of tongue in cheek, proving once again that Lionel Richie is super, super awesome. Please do a concert in New York again, Lionel. I need to be there.

7. Rock’n Me — Steve Miller

I know I’ve complained about this before, but man, fewer artists get me angry the way Steve Miller gets me angry. (Maybe Andy Gibb.) His success actually gets me furious. Yes, yes, the man writes a killer hook, but his lyrics are some of the most moronic lyrics I’ve ever read. “Rock’n Me” is a great example; strong chorus, but dumb-as-shit lyrics, and actually, some awful singing, too. Arrgh, where do I even start?

Well I’ve been lookin’ real hard
And I’m tryin’ to find a job
But it just keeps gettin’ tougher every day
But I got to do my part cause I know in my heart
I got to please my sweet baby, yeah

Okay. Not an awful start. I mean, you can’t rhyme either “baby” or “yeah” with “day,” but whatever. So this song is about him trying to find work to make his woman happy. I’m with him so far.

Well, I ain’t superstitious
And I don’t get suspicious
But my woman is a friend of mine
And I know that it’s true that all the things that I do
Will come back to me in my sweet time

WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS MEAN.

I went from Phoenix, Arizona
All the way to Tacoma
Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A.
Northern California where the girls are warm
So I could be with my sweet baby, yeah

I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS EITHER. Unless this is just Miller figuring he can guarantee either radio play or a concert audience in any of these locations. God, to think that this song might have inspired “The Heart of Rock & Roll” makes me shudder.

…and that’s pretty much it for lyrics. I am so freakin’ angry right now. This song makes no sense at all. It’s not as dumb as “Take the Money and Run,” but it’s up there. We made Steve Miller a star. Why did we do it? Why? I think I need to lie down. I hate you, Steve Miller. And you too, Andy Gibb.

6. The Rubberband Man — Spinners

Just when I thought this chart was hopeless, the Spinners come to rescue me. “The Rubberband Man” is a great soul song, and it would have won Song of the Week if it had only featured five minutes of talkbox. Instead, it features zero minutes of talkbox, so I award it no points and may God have mercy on its soul. Still, it deserves mention as one of the few good songs to rise out of the crud of this week.

Despite having formed in 1954 with a debut on the Hot 100 in 1961, the Spinners didn’t have their first Top 10 hit until 1970’s wonderful “Ill Be Around,” which hit #3. Another four of their songs reached the Top 10 before “The Rubberband Man” peaked at #2; it would be the group’s last Top 10 until their popular medleys of 1980.

There’s a great clip on YouTube of the Spinners performing “The Rubberband Man” on The Midnight Special, but I had to leave it off this week’s post in favor of Lynda Carter performing it on The Muppet Show. I’m sure you understand.

5. Disco Duck (Part 1) — Rick Dees

You know, given the fact that I’m somewhat known for my fondness of bad music (see Earmageddon or Mellowmas), I’ll admit to you that I’ve been able to fully avoid “Disco Duck” until this week. So while that’s a really awesome thing for me, it means that I can’t really reflect properly on how this song invaded popular culture enough to become a #1 hit. Rather than just blatantly curse out everybody in 1976 who bought this record, I figured I’d ask fellow Popdose staffer (and one of my favorite writers) Jon Cummings to weigh in on “Disco Duck” and its popularity. But be warned, everybody: this writing is not what we’re used to reading on CHART ATTACK!: it’s really, really good. Jon?

*******
Thanks, Jason. You’re right about one thing: No one can explain, much less justify, the popularity of “Disco Duck.” But let’s give it a shot anyway, shall we?

Like any good sociological phenomenon, disco didn’t emerge full-blown out of nowhere. By the summer of ‘76, even as the music had begun to dominate pop radio, the flamboyant dance-club subculture behind disco hadn’t yet expanded beyond its base in the major urban centers and entered the mainstream. The sexuality — and the sometimes covert, sometimes overt homosexuality — intrinsic to the music was unfamiliar to, and no doubt uncomfortable for, many listeners during disco’s early stages. And when the less cutting-edge elements of society encounter a new and discomfiting cultural presence, it’s not unusual for them to dismiss or ridicule that presence — or, if they choose to embrace it, to make it more compatible with their conventional worldview via imitation (see Pat Boone), comment (see “Play That Funky Music,” a #1 hit two months before this chart was released), or parody. This may explain why a radio DJ from a Southern city was able to achieve nationwide success with a single that recontextualized disco’s throbbing rhythms and pulsating sexuality with help from a universally beloved cartoon voice.

Or maybe that’s all a bunch of crap, and what really happened was that a Memphis DJ/stand-up comic encountered a goofball at the gym who could do a good Donald Duck voice, and decided it would be funny to make a novelty record that capitalized on the disco craze. And the American people, whose taste in comedy should never be overestimated, sent “Disco Duck” to #1 in mid-October. My favorite part of the “Disco Duck” story is the fact that radio listeners in Memphis couldn’t hear it: Competing stations wouldn’t play it because they were loath to give Rick Dees any publicity, and his own station’s owners thought it would be a conflict of interest to give it any spins. Dees got fired just for mentioning the song on the air! He quickly got hired somewhere else, of course — and though he lost his most recent daily on-air gig this past spring, his “Weekly Top 40″ is still going in syndication. And “Disco Duck,” though we never hear it anymore, lives in infamy — and in the #3 slot on my list of the Worst #1 Songs of the ’70s.

Back to you, Jason.
*******

Thanks, Jon! You should know that every morning, I wake up and curse your writing skills. Here’s Rick Dees on The Midnight Special performing his beloved hit.

4. Muskrat Love — Captain & Tennille

Wonderful. So right after our song about the disco duck, we have a track that answers the age-old question, “What Casio synth pad accurately replicates the sounds of muskrats fucking?” I wonder how many music fans killed themselves over Thanksgiving in 1976.

Honestly, I thought I knew this song, but when I took a listen this week, I found that I had never actually heard it before (both this and “Disco Duck” — how did I get so lucky?). I keep trying to figure out what this song is really trying to say in its subtext — but no, I’m pretty sure it’s actually about two muskrats courting. I know I said this a few songs ago, but WHY? Why did we need a song about two muskrats on a date? And even more importantly, why were Captain & Tennille the third artists to record the song? Originally titled “Mukstrat Candlelight” — and let’s just pause a second to think about the meeting where the artistic merits of this title were debated — the song was written and recorded by Willis Alan Ramsey in 1972, then covered by America in 1973 and C&T in 1976. The America version peaked at #67, but C&T made it all the way here to #4. Why? It must have been those adorable little synthesizers! Thank you, Daryl Dragon! And I’m sure there are many record buyers who thank you for including those sounds in the run-off groove on the 45, so they’d repeat themselves until someone took the record off the turntable (and subsequently threw it — and themselves — out the window).

But I don’t know. Part of me is also perversely pleased that a song about the copulation of muskrats managed to become a popular hit. Also, I have to give Toni Tennille credit for the huge grin she plasters on her face whenever she sings this song. I imagine, after 33 years, one probably no longer has a burning desire to sing about muskrats doing the nasty.

I found a few video clips of “Muskrat Love,” but this one seems to be the most disturbing. Enjoy. Or don’t.

3. Love So Right — Bee Gees (download)

I’m almost positive a memo was issued in the fall of 1976. It went to all popular artists, and it said, “Just take it easy this season. Don’t work too hard. Only give us mediocre songs. We’ll call on you for the good stuff in 1977.” Because if you look at 1975, you’ll see awesome Bee Gees songs like “Jive Talkin’” and “Nights on Broadway,” and of course, 1977 gave us the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Summer of ‘76 even gave us “You Should Be Dancing.” But fall of 1976? This dreck. I am aware some people really like this song. I am not one of them. According to Andy Brennan’s always-phenomenal Gibb Songs website (which I could read all day), it was right around this time that Barry began to really explore this new range of his voice:

Barry had developed his falsetto to an incredible degree. [Previously] it was still breathy and tentative. Now it was loud and clear, a very expressive instrument that he began to prefer to his natural voice…‘["Love So Right"] is a more traditional kind of Bee Gees song that could easily have been done the old way had Barry been inclined to do so. The falsetto makes it sound more new and different than it is. The question of how much falsetto is enough has caused much friendly argument among fans.

I’m so glad Andy brought this up: IT’S TOO MUCH FALSETTO. And I’m not going to be friendly about it, Andy! Christ! It’s ridiculous how much high-pitched caterwauling ensues during the final minute of the song! Tune in above at around 3:00. There are actually dueling Barry Gibbs, each going falsetto-batshit all over this thing. Look, most of the Bee Gees songs we know and love wouldn’t be as wonderful as they are without Barry’s high notes. But there’s actually a line, and he crosses it here. And sadly, I don’t think I can blame Andy for it.

2. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald — Gordon Lightfoot

It does seem a little odd that a song such as this would reach #2, considering that it’s depressing as all hell, it has no chorus and no bridge, and it’s surrounded by crap like “Disco Duck” and “Muskrat Love.” But clearly it struck a chord with the public, arriving on the charts close to a year after the S.S. Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior, killing the 29 crew members aboard. Lightfoot had read about the event in the November 24, 1975 issue of Newsweek, and was inspired to write a song recounting the event. He took some liberties with the subject matter, or at least that’s what I’m told — I know it makes me a horrible person, but I just can’t pay attention to more than two verses of this song. As always, I hear Gordon Lightfoot and all I want to do is nap. Lightfoot considers this song his most significant musical achievement (and credit should indeed be given for including the words “Gitche Gumee” in a pop song), and peaking here at #2, it’s his second-highest charter, behind 1974’s “Sundown.”

Lightfoot gave all rights and royalties of this song to the families of those lost in the wreck, which is a truly wonderful thing. The writers from The Simpsons wanted to use this song in a section of the “Radio Bart” episode where Bart sees an commercial for a microphone that transmits to any AM radio — but because of the complications in getting permission from the families, they went with C.W. McCall’s “Convoy” instead. True story!

1. Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright) — Rod Stewart

Here it is, folks: not only the #1 song of the week, but the #1 song of 1977. We gave it to this guy.

He’s worse than this guy!

“durrrrrrrrrrr!”

I’m perplexed. First, I’m perplexed that this song became the #1 hit of 1977, considering it didn’t actually chart at #1 during that year (I’m sure this will be explained by Cummings in the comments). But more than that, I’m perplexed that Rod Stewart became a sex symbol while wearing this outfit. He looks like an inbred clown doing dinner theatre. This is the third time I’m asking “why?” today. I’m tired of it. I’m so happy this week is over.

“Tonight’s the Night” is a song not exactly known for its subtlety; it was actually banned in Europe (and initially only played later in the evening in America) for its overt sexuality. This was mainly due to the line “spread your wings and let me come inside.” Is that really offensive? I only think it’s offensive if you think of “me” being “Rod Stewart.” Because I don’t see why anybody would want to sleep with him. Even if the song’s purpose is just to encourage others to get all sexy with each other, that doesn’t work for me either — because when the chorus starts, all I can think about is poor Rod’s vocal chords. Is it sexy to sound like you’re screaming up a lung? Of course, who cares what I think — this song became the biggest hit of Rod Stewart’s career. And if that doesn’t depress you enough, do you want to know what’s #2? “All for Love,” that stupid song he did with Bryan Adams and Sting. I think now is a very good time for me to stop writing.

By the way, I can’t believe this happened, but it did: a duet of “Tonight’s the Night” between Rod and Kim Carnes, presumably with a throat specialist waiting in the wings. I love that if I close my eyes and listen to this duet, I can’t tell them apart.

Whew! We’re done! I’m quite happy this week is over. Maybe it wasn’t as bad for you as it was for me, but personally, I’m giving thanks that we’ll be exploring a different week and year soon. You suck, November 1976. But I thank you for reading anyway! See you soon for another edition of CHART ATTACK!

The Strokes were victims of what happens to bands when the perfect storm of hype carries them beyond their allotted 15 minutes of fame. I remember publications calling them the next Nirvana. It was a poignant prophecy in a way, if by being the next Nirvana meant making three really good albums that were raw yet polished at the same time, and then never being heard from again. It’s hard when people anoint you the savior of rock and roll before you’ve actually really done anything. The Strokes unfortunately bought into the idea that they had to change the world, when they should have just kept on making Strokes albums. Their music was better than good enough, and much better than any of the solo records their hiatus has produced. Phrazes for the Young is no exception, though it comes closer than the others.

So what has Casablancas been doing all these years, besides not making an album with the Strokes? Judging from the lyrics, he’s been doing a lot of self-reflection.  He’s been thinking, he’s been growing up, he’s been trying to make sense of the world, and he’s been trying out sobriety. All of this is easily apparent in Phrazes, where he seems to be apologizing at times, and at others, even offering some advice. The album’s title and influence come from Oscar Wilde’s Phrases and Philosophies for the Young, a collection of witty and often tongue-in-cheek bumper sticker-style self-help quotes like “Dullness is the coming of age of seriousness,” and “Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.”  The eight songs on Phrazes are based on the eight phrases Casablancas adds to the list, often slightly more serious than Wilde ever intended, like “Being nice is most important when others are not,” and “Drunkenness is cowardice, sobriety is loneliness.”

Casablancas is easily one of the most underrated talents in rock, but he only has himself to blame, and he’d probably like you to think that he doesn’t even care. The thing is, you know he does — that’s why his songs don’t suck. He’s got a thing for a hooky melody, and he’s always liked to mix it up stylistically while being extremely proficient at turning his influences into something of his own. Phrazes for the Young continues this tradition. It seems like the logical next step from his last batch of songs with the Strokes. This time, with nary a Strokes guitarist in sight, he ventures into electro-soul and ’80s synth-pop, sounding at its best moments like a young Van Morrison making an album with Erasure. He’s always written and arranged songs predominantly on the keyboard, so the synthesizer-heavy vibe of Phrazes suits Casablancas well.

It’s all a bit retro, yet slightly futuristic. ”11th Dimension” is New Order meets Motown girl group, while a song like “Left and Right in the Dark” makes me think of both Flock of Seagulls and Cyndi Lauper — in the best way possible, mind you. ”4 Chords of the Apocolypse ” is crooner cool with the added bonus of a sweet little solo, and “Ludlow Street” is a waltzy old Irish drinking song if Irish drinking songs featured drum machines. I love “River of Breaklights,” which falls somewhere between the last Strokes record and Thom Yorke’s Eraser, but my favorite is the jumpy opener “Out of the Blue,” where Casablancas is recounting mistakes of his past and only half apologizing for them. He’s learned some things along the way, but it’s not all regret. He wants to keep you from making his mistakes, yet he knows you need to. He’s “going to hell in a leather jacket,” but he’s fine with it, because “he’ll be in another world while you’re pissing on my casket.” I’m sure some people probably hate that line, but I fucking adore it. It’s a classic lyric in a song that is nothing if not classic Casablancas, and it sets the tone for the entire record. It’s not the only lyrical gem you’ll find here, either.

The negatives about this record go back to what I was saying before, and probably have more to do with what I’m used to hearing with Casablancas and the Strokes than anything really to do with Phrazes. Alone, Phrazes is an extremely enjoyable listen as far as I’m concerned, but in the context of the three Strokes albums, there’s a warmth and an attitude that’s sometimes missing, and every now and then it all feels kind of antiseptic and over-thought. That kind of thing can happen when you aren’t able to hide behind or within a band of brothers. The best thing about Casablancas with the Strokes was that they had the ability to craft amazingly good songs that sounded familiar yet fresh, all the while making it seem like they didn’t really give a shit. The Strokes had solid songs, but they also had a feel. Phrazes sounds meticulously crafted and produced, which shouldn’t alone be a negative, but I think Casablancas is just trying too hard and thinking too much, which is probably what inevitably sent the Strokes on hiatus in the first place.

Luckily, it’s a different world now, and no one expects the Strokes to change it anymore. The only people that still care about the band want nothing more than to hear more from them, and it’s just good to hear Casablancas writing songs again. If you liked the Strokes, you probably already own Phrazes, or you should. If you never liked them, this won’t change your mind — but what does become quite apparent with repeated listens is how much the Strokes are, in fact, Casablancas. Phrazes for the Young is in essence a Strokes album without the Strokes. Sure, he’s good enough to hold his own without them, but I can’t help but wonder how great this album would have sounded with the band. Julian Casablancas as a solo artist? I believe it, but I don’t want to. I just want another record from the Strokes, but I’ll take what I can get.

Interspersed between the songs are excerpts from interviews with Motown artists. These include Mike Douglas speaking with Smokey Robinson, Motown-founder Berry Gordy on a local Detroit show called Teen Town, and some thoroughly cringe-worthy shtick featuring Lloyd Thaxton with the Temptations. Bonus features include previously unseen footage from the Motown Picnic, circa 1970. Basically it’s the company’s home movies. There are a couple of poignant shots of a young Michael Jackson in this footage. The complete Gordy Teen Town interview is here, as is a 1959 featurette about what was going on in the world in the year that Motown was founded. A Maypo commercial and a trailer for a Brigitte Bardot film are fun, but that is no reason to buy this DVD. Sadly, the 1959 newsreel is the most interesting thing in this package. The accompanying booklet features a nice essay by Stu Hackel.

The music on Motown: The DVD is, of course, above reproach. That said, this disc is as close to non-essential as you can get. Compare it to a really well done documentary on a related subject, Standing In the Shadows of Motown, and it falls far short. While some of the vintage footage is interesting, the whole thing has the feeling of something that was thrown together to clean out some leftovers in Universal’s vault.

It was such a simpler time, that summer of 2001. Remember it? That last season of America’s (cyclical) innocence shimmers in the memory, sorta like those gauzy images of lovebirds Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby – images so blurry they make you wonder if you need to adjust the focus on your TV. Ah, for those halcyon days! … when the only Washington story most of us cared about was the fate of Chandra Levy, and the most pressing topic on George Bush’s plate was stem cells (because he sure as hell wasn’t paying attention to al Qaeda).

Back then, the Taliban were a nasty band of fundamentalist cusses about whom we knew rather little – apart from the facts that they oppressed their women, didn’t care much for poppy growing, and were somehow in cahoots with that bin Laden guy we’d been hearing about. That summer the biggest Taliban-related news was a minor international uproar over their peculiar decision to use small explosives and machine-gun fire to attack a pair of massive Buddha statues that had been carved out of Afghan cliffs a couple millennia earlier. Meanwhile, a fascinating story emerged (I don’t remember where) about the last two remaining Jews in Kabul, and their daily struggle to observe their cultural traditions despite the Taliban’s strict enforcement of Sharia laws concerning everything from beard length to public worship.

It’s a story that has shown remarkable legs through the years, partly because of this juicy detail: The two aging men were living in the ruins of a synagogue … and they weren’t speaking to one another! Their saga has spawned at least two darkly comic plays: My Brother’s Keeper played in Edinburgh and London in 2006, while The Last Two Jews of Kabul premiered off-off-Broadway last year. Much earlier than that, during those happy-go-lucky days of summer 2001, that first article had inspired me to write what remains my one and only original limerick. So if you’ll forgive my mispronunciation of the Afghan capital…

There was just one Jew left in Kabul
His beard shaven, by government rule
But he was much too distinct
In his lower precinct
So the Taliban shot off his tool

I’m sure you’re wondering what could possibly be my point in dredging up all this (literally) “pre-9/11 thinking.” Could it be I’ve been conditioned by President Obama’s current orgy of analysis to take my sweet time getting to the point when it comes to Afghanistan – to “dither,” as it were? Nah … My point is actually this: When I wrote my little poem nearly 8½ years ago, the Taliban could still be laughed at, even though they posed an existential threat to those two Jews (and a mortal threat to those statues), and they had implemented an alarming program of discrimination against a female population that had always been discriminated against anyway. Those issues, as it turned out, paled in comparison to the danger that emanated from al Qaeda’s Taliban-approved training camps; still, in summer 2001 the notion of America punishing the Taliban for any of that stuff by occupying their country for a decade with 40 (or 60, or 80) thousand troops would have been deemed preposterous — even by neocons who were already hellbent on punishing Saddam Hussein for similar transgressions, and by similar means.

Yet that’s pretty much precisely the point we’re at today – Obama is considering a major ramping up of U.S. forces to save Afghanistan from Taliban crazies who (for real, this time) pose no discernable threat to anyone outside that country’s borders. So why is this even a serious topic for contemplation? Tell us, Mr. President, why is this decision taking so damn long – and why does it seem so much more likely that you’ll give General McChrystal at least some of the 40,000 additional troops he wants, rather than do the responsible thing and get us the hell out of there?

We all know why. Obama long ago deemed Afghanistan “the necessary war,” the one (unlike Iraq) that we were justified to start in the first place, the one in which we had some real international consensus behind our actions – and the one that needed to be finished, particularly considering how badly Bush had bungled it. Talking up Afghanistan was a useful strategy for the Obama campaign, allowing him to bolster his peace-through-strength bona fides while simultaneously reminding the electorate what a bunch of fuck-ups Bush’s Republicans were. In retrospect, it’s difficult to imagine that Obama would have gotten past Hillary, much less McCain, without being willing to double down on at least one of Bush’s two occupations. And once he became president, it was (and remains) difficult to imagine him abandoning that stance – particularly with the perpetually pro-war GOP grading his every move for its supposed anti-Americanism.

But while there is something to the idea that the U.S. should finish what it started in the fall of 2001, does anybody still remember what it was we set out to do in the first place? And even if we jog the memory banks – it was something about denying al Qaeda a safe haven and facilitating the creation of a stable, “democratic” government, I think – does anybody really believe the latter of those goals is still achievable?

It seems McChrystal and congressional Republicans would like nothing better than to hit some invisible “reset” button, start over and do things right this time – the same sort of vision Obama himself encouraged last year (and again this past spring, when he announced his first major policy shift for Afghanistan). But if there’s one thing we should have learned from recent events in that country, there is no reset button. Hamid Karzai’s government is, and to a great extent always has been, a fraud, and is hardly the kind of institution we should be propping up at the cost of American lives and dollars. Our NATO allies have largely bailed out on us, and it’s folly to imagine they will re-commit themselves just because Obama does. The American people have turned against this endeavor in droves. And, most important, all our efforts over the past eight years seem to have done little to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, without whose support our “nation-building” inevitably devolves into its far-less-benevolent cousin, empire building. The simple fact is, America has proven it has neither the talent nor the stomach for nation-building. And after all this time, the Afghan people clearly prefer the Taliban to us – and the Taliban aren’t leaving, ever, no matter how long we stay.

Even that old saw of “defending our vital national-security interests” doesn’t hold water anymore, really. If there’s one thing Bush’s Afghan strategy actually accomplished – if “accomplished” is the right word — it was driving al Qaeda out of the country (rather than destroying it altogether). Bin Laden and nearly all his minions are in Pakistan now; the best military estimates put the number of al Qaeda operating in Afghanistan at fewer than 100. Even if the Taliban succeeded in wresting control of their homeland back from Karzai’s crooked regime, why would al Qaeda bother crossing the mountains again when they’re having such a high time in a country we can’t invade?

That’s our principal quandary in central Asia – figuring out how to work together with, or else work around, the Pakistani government to keep al Qaeda from reconstituting a legitimate threat to us and our interests. (And, oh by the way, to keep nuclear-armed Pakistan from itself becoming a threat, in part because of Taliban destabilization in Islamabad.) That’s a valid national-security pursuit, and it will require lots of strategizing, lots of intelligence-gathering, lots of covert and overt law-enforcement/military work, and lots of that hearts-and-minds stuff that Bush sucked at but which comes naturally to Obama. (The only folks he can’t seem to win over are Republicans, which says a lot more about them than it does about him.)

What safeguarding our interests in central Asia doesn’t require, and hasn’t for years, is a continued presence of tens of thousands of American troops in Afghanistan. It certainly would be a shame to leave unfinished whatever construction and infrastructure projects we’ve launched there, and it clearly would cost us a bit of our “We Are the Champions” self-esteem if the Taliban succeed in retaking Kabul and undoing whatever thin threads of democracy and civil rights we’ve helped establish. But you know what? Those things are probably going to happen at some point anyway, no matter how long we stick around. Until then, our maintenance of a “heavy footprint” in Afghanistan will simply be a matter of throwing good money after bad, and throwing away the lives of more young Americans after our goals have already become unattainable.

My thinking on all of this, like that of many Americans (including prominent conservatives like George Will), admittedly has shifted somewhat over the past year as Afghanistan has taken a turn for the worse. Obama was smart to emphasize that country over Iraq during the campaign, and perhaps he was even smart to give last spring’s “mini-surge” a chance to right Bush’s wrongs. But now that we’ve seen the Taliban renew its stranglehold despite our troops’ best efforts – and particularly now that we’ve heard the Pentagon begin spouting the same nonsense about Afghanistan that it’s been spewing about Iraq for years (stuff like “when their troops stand up, we’ll stand down”) – we should recognize that continued occupation is going to bring considerably diminished returns, with no additional benefit to our interests.

In short, it’s time to get out of the way and let the Afghans determine their own future, because they’ve made it clear they don’t want us to do it for them. Total abandonment is not required – we should keep some Special Forces troops and unmanned firepower in the vicinity (based perhaps in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, or at sea) to pursue al Qaeda when we get good leads. Apart from that, though, it’s time for us to dig ourselves out of this Graveyard of Empires – and it’s time to return, at long last, to our “pre-9/11 mentality,” at least as it concerns a nation that no longer poses a real threat to our national security.

So, my miserly friends, if you have limited funds to spend on looking fabulous, for God’s sake put the money into things you can wear over and over. Buy your t-shirts at Goodwill and save your money for the best jeans, accessories, haircuts and skin products you can afford — quality skin products like those from… you guessed it: Obagi.

The Obagi Nu-Derm System is an appropriately pricey combination of creams and cleanser that claims to make your skin act “younger and healthier.” This stuff is about as A-list as you can get and doesn’t come cheap, though it’s thankfully not quite as dear as La Mer. It’s also only available by prescription, so if you are the type of person who likes having a professional to oversee your skin regimen, this product is for you.

There are six components to the Obagi Nu-Derm System; the most medically active ingredients being phytic acid and hydroquinone. These two elements block melanin production and bleach the epidermis, addressing classic signs of aging like pigment deposit and sun damage. It’s like taking an dirty old car and scrubbing away years of dirt and grime, then buffing it like hell until it really starts to shine.

So, you ask, what’s not to love? Well, as it so happens, hydroquinone is actually banned in the European Union, Japan, Australia and South Africa; rodent studies have indicated it may be carcinogenic. Hydroquinone can also (rarely) cause ochronosis or areas of hypo-pigmentation, especially in darker-skinned individuals. The FDA is expected to make a final ruling on US sales of hydroquinone-containing products by the end of this year, but in the meantime I’d say individuals who chose to use these products should limit their exposure. Apparently results should appear in 6-8 weeks; after three months dermatologists are advising patients to reduce down to a maintenance dose of 2-3 times weekly.

Bottom line: be careful. You don’t want to go all Sammy Sosa with this stuff.

That said, I’ve been using the Nu-Derm System for about three months, and have been quite happy with the results. I had a little bit of lasting melasma from my pregnancies, so ordered a travel kit as a “starter package” for $189 from lovelyskin.com (without a prescription, by the way — FDA eat your heart out). The system seemed awfully complicated at first, but the packaging includes clever numbering and “AM/PM” designations to help you get started. After some mild itching and redness for the first week I found the system quite easy to use, and the sunscreen is divine.

As I mentioned above, you can order the Nu-Derm system without a prescription from Lovely Skin but my recommendation (and the FDA’s) would be work with a dermatologist or other health-care professional. Though I have noticed a more uniform appearance in my skin and have received several skin-related compliments (well, um… thanks mom), considering the questionable risks I don’t think I’ll be using the Nu-Derm system long-term.

Guess I better start saving up for some La Mer.

Like nearly all the great early songs by Old 97’s, the beauty of “Barrier Reef” is how it simultaneously works within the confines of country music while standing them on its head. It starts off with a simple guitar riff by Ken Bethea, followed by the rhythm section of drummer Philip Peeples and bassist Murry Hammond crashing in with a loping shuffle. If that wasn’t enough to scream “COUNTRY!” Rhett Miller’s lyrics seal the deal.

The Empty Bottle was half-empty
Tide was low and I was thirsty
Saw her sitting at the bar

Isn’t that perfect? Within the first 25 seconds, you’ve got a bar with a great name for the local honky-tonk, and a girl just waiting for some guy to put the moves on, which is what Rhett does in the second verse.

So I sidled up beside her
Settled down, shouted “Hi, there!
“My name’s Stuart Ransom Miller
“I’m a serial ladykiller”

Only guys who look like Rhett Miller can get away with lines as cheesy as that and have them work. It also helps when she responds with “I’m already dead.” In the third verse, they dance all night, then decide to get the hell out of there as the song builds up to the chorus.

What’s so great about the Barrier Reef?
What’s so fine about art?
What’s so good about a Goodtimes Van
When you’re working on a broken, working on a broken
Working on a broken man?

Turns out the self-proclaimed “serial ladykiller” is anything but. The lyrical shift is matched by the music, as the guitars kick in and Miller’s tone changes from seductive to desperate. After the guitar solo, Miller tells us what went wrong.

My heart wasn’t in it
Not for one single minute
I went through the motions with her
Her on top and me on liquor
Didn’t do no good
Well, I didn’t think it would

Remember that classic scene in Say Anything… where Lloyd’s friend tells him that, in order to get over Diane, he needs to “find a girl that looks just like her, nail her, and then dump her?” Thankfully, Lloyd didn’t take his advice, but Miller apparently did, and it turned out as well as expected. But at least he got laid, right?

As great as “Barrier Reef” is on its own, it works best in conjunction with “Timebomb,” the song that precedes it on the band’s 1997 Elektra debut Too Far to Care. “Timebomb” features Miller crazy about a “stick-legged girl” who’s “gonna kill me/and I don’t mean softly.” So when “Barrier Reef” comes in immediately afterward, it comes across as the aftermath of “Timebomb,” and forms one of the great one-two punches for an album of the past 15 years.