Time won't let me.... ahhh time won't let me...

Ok, for anyone reading I haven't been posting all that much as of late for time reasons. I really have been pressed for time to watch DVDs, Read books, or listen to music, so I haven't had time to write reviews of any of the above either... Family stuff has been going on, but I hope to have it all under control in the next two weeks... and then it's off to Sweden and Finland.. and then back, and trying to get everything back to quasi normal...

A DIET OF TREACLE

I read this, I enjoyed it, liked the beatnik speak and the take on drugs and what drugs do to a person. Sorry way to tired to write a proper review right now, but I recommend people check this out... It's a little light on the crime, but the set up is pretty interesting. I would also say that the take on the drug culture is of note when you look back at what the drug culture has done to the USA in the last 40 years.

DANCING WITH JOEY RAMONE

I wanna be your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert


DANCING WITH JOEY RAMONE
He walked into the party looking just like he had in the past
He came up to me and he didn’t even have to ask
I tried to say something he said “Girl shut your mouth,
They’re playing Papa Was A Rolling Stone”
Last night I was dancing with Joey Ramone

-Amy Rigby


I wanna be your Joey Ramone is the story of a young woman, Emily Black, who’s mother has fled her and her father to ‘Follow the music’ and Em’s quest to find her mother. The music in this instance is Punk Rock and all of its ascendants, stages and variations. As she grows Em keeps in mind that it’s the music that her mother set out to seek, and so Em designs to create the music and lead her mother home. All of this is told in stages, paralleling the lives of Em and her mother, punkspotting the points and places that punk flared up in America in the 80’s, 90’s and into the present decade.

The story is also the tale of what I know that many young women growing up in the 80’s and 90’s faced in small town America, as ‘old fashion’ values (read the social norms of the 40’s, 50’s and early 60’s) battled with the first generation of women growing up in a post feminist world. Honestly this is the part of the book that rings the most true, as I have known and even dated several women who grew up in small town Wisconsin in this era, and they all had stories that mirrored the central trauma that both Emily and her mother experience though the course of this book. The theme of growing up in a post 77 punk world, lost parents, changing social norms, social dislocation and expectations and the post feminist landscape in America seems to be a more and more common theme in film and lit in the last decade, with Gypsy 67, Girl, Juno, Hairstyles of the Damned, Blankets, The Waiting Place and now I wanna be your Joey Ramone just being some examples of what Generation X is looking back on as it’s youth and development.

The one complaint I have about this book is that there wasn’t enough about the punk rock that Em’s mother set’s out to find. Sure a few band names are dropped and a few scene’s pointed to, but there is never a real look at the reason why punk, the music, energy or connection that is created between people and that music is such a powerful draw. We are past the point where punk is thought of a simply violent anti-social behavior in America, and it’s time to only talk about why it’s still here but provide young people with a solid roadmap to follow the music, and this book had the perfect place to really start presenting that map to especially young women, and I just don’t feel like it did.

Over all this was a fine book, and I hope that not only young people embrace it, but that older ones who lived though the times depicted do as well.

9/2008 Playlist

Each month, since Feb of 2006, I start a playlist in my iTunes of the tunes that catch my ear that month. I started off writing a post to my Mog page with a short review or comments of each track, not only to keep a running diary for myself, but also to hopefully point others toward these tunes. In the last several months I have started to cross post this information on other sites where I keep blogs. (If you are reading this somewhere besides Mog, you can find all the old ones at www.mog.com/iren)  I want to apologies for any weird formatting stuff right here and now, I type this in MS word and then post it on these various message places, some of which have…w ell formatting issues….

Anyway for this month here is what caught my ear…

 

Kill The Poor by Dead Kennedys

No links, no nonsense… just pure impact… this one is for you The US government, and the legacy of the last two presidents…  700 Billion Dollars.. it’s almost like Dr. Evil is on the horn, or maybe Dr. Strangelove, maybe I should have busted out the R.E.M. End of the World as well this month… also see Holiday in Cambodia.

 

Academy Fight Song by Mission Of Burma

www.missionofburma.com

I have to admit that I haven’t ever been as big a fan of the so called Post-punk sound as others, but there is something about this tune, it’s got a bit of ringing, a bit of a shine, and of course the Military marching feel to it.

She Goes Out With Everybody by The Spongetones  

http://www.myspace.com/spongetones

Speaking of ringing chimy stuff, you can’t get much better than the power pop shimmy of this tune. It’s just a great rousing pop blast that’s worth repeating over and over… ok not over and over, but enough times to make one of my monthly play lists. This tune is from the Children of Nuggets box set, which covers the 80s for the most part

Ominous Presence (Live) by New Math

www.myspace.com/newmath1979     

and as long and we are talking about stuff I dig from the 80’s here is a great live tune by my secret forgotten band New Math. This mostly made the list because New Math bass player Gary Trainer called to tell me they were going to do a reunion gig in November, and wanted to let me know that my brother Stefan and I needed to be there… and we are going to try and make it out there… more info for any of you up state New Yorkers at http://scorgies.blogspot.com/

South of Hideous by Forbidden Dimension

http://www.myspace.com/forbiddendimension  

It’s that Halloween time of year and so of course there is a FD tune lodged in my brain and this time around it’s this one… all that distortion, all that stun and fuzz, the strut of it all… love it.

Thoughts, comments, spare change.

Suicide Squeeze by Victor Gischler

Suicide Squeeze by Victor Gischler

I think it's official, Victor Gischler has entered the pantheon of writes whom I have to check out everything by. Suicide Squeeze is the second of his books that I have consumed, and consumed is the right term, and I am looking forward to the next one. The book follows a cast of noir caricatures   as they all seek the almighty yankee dollar and the so called American dream. In the case of Conner Samson, and I think he was created before The Venture Bros. Brock Samson, it's the money that he's after.... and why not he seems to loose over and over in life, failing out of college, loosing his baseball scholarship, and becoming one of those down on his luck bottom feeders who populate this type of hard boilded noir. He has a classic car, he owes money to bookies, and he's unemployed. Enter a caper involving a Joe DiMaggio baseball card, signed not only by Joe, but his one time wife, Marilyn Monroe, 

and film director Billy Wilder. It's a one of a kind, and a crazy collector from Japan wants it.. The story flows from that point, as our hero and his cast all run though the maze of plot, and story that riffs on geek culture, action films, of course the pulp worlds that inspire these kinds of story. The action is fast and you can almost feel the velocity of the words and the story, and it never slows or gets to bogged down on any kind of faux dept. Have no illusions, this is simply a fun romp that will have you laughing, smiling and grinning knowingly, and will leave you with a buzz not unlike that of a overly sugary snack.

Sometimes nothing is a real cool hand

Thanks for the flicks Paul.

Junk in '57

The Pusher by Ed McBain

A Novel of the 87^th Precinct

 

       This was the third of the 87^th Precinct books, and it’s maybe the most out of date. It follows the investigation of the death of a junkie. It’s slight, it’s on the short side and it’s maybe the best example of the world that was. The topic of Narcotics, drugs, Pushing, what people do to get their junk and the effects of the Big H, is so 1950s, really one of the reasons that I am planning to read all of the books in order is that I was to see how the changing world of crime is covered in the form of the novel. I look forward to seeing the covering of Drugs in the ‘60s book and the 80s books.  This was also the last of the initial three books that were to be published as the trial run for the series, and it stands up well as one of the early setting the scene books in the series. Up next in the series…. The Con Man.