LATE NIGHT GOOGLY EYES

I can remember, in the very, and I mean, very early 80's I would take advantage of the late hours my family kept, and my own free time, and stay up as late as possible.  Particularly on the weekends, when the local channels all signed off, and we were pre-vcr, I would sometimes sit and stare googly eyed in the aura of easy listening from the 70's at the Keyfax service's WFLD Chicago Channel 32 broadcast of Nite Owl.  

It premiered for my Chicago-adjacent ass in September of 1981, featuring pixel graphics that were top flight at the time.  Sports, weather, and news were all there to be regaled.  All the news that's fit to read on your television screen in the wee hours of the morning. There may not have been a CNN to dial up at the time, but goddamn if I didn't have Nite Owl to keep my young ass informed. 

Apparently Nite Owl was huge in the UK, but not so much here stateside.  Really, consider this: I had spent most of a Saturday night watching something akin to comedy reruns, maybe Saturday Night Live, some SCTV, Don Kirshner's rock concert, and whatever late-night rocka-rolla I could find.  For a youngster who had immersed himself in all that, Nite Owl's content mixture was probably about the best wind-down that could be imagined. 

Until bopping around on YouTube, I had forgotten about this little piece of my mind's history. I mean, it was buried.  Take a peek, seriously.  This shit was addicting and soothing as fuck.

 

POPS & BUZZES 2

As of yesterday I've tried both the Pepsi and Mountain Dew "Throwbacks", and I gotta tell you, I was surprised. They taste better than the regular versions, oddly enough. If tasted cold, they're lighter and crisper, lacking that syrupy aftertaste quality that hangs around in your mouth for far too long. I'd drink it again.

In honor of Mountain Dew Throwback, dig this Chuck Norris Dew spot.

SCHADENFREUDE PART 2

As a kid in junior high, I always got a kick out of late night television's visits from Joe Garagiola and pre-scandal Marv Albert because they always brought sports bloopers with them. I really dug Joe G. because he was strictly baseball, and that was my game at the time.

I was stunned to uncover on YouTube, a summer '84 appearance of Garagiola's, bloopers and all, on the Johnny Carson show in it's entirety. I can't get over how good the image quality of this old video is. If you got 7:14, please enjoy. Dig the cheesy 80's uniforms, and as a lifelong Milwaukee Brewer fan, the frequency and ineptitude of the Chicago Cubs fielding is not lost on me here.

ALIEN TRESPASS

Eric McCormick wielded sarcasm better than anybody on primetime television in 30 years on "Will & Grace". Robert Patrick is, well....Robert Patrick.

Take these two, throw them into an homage to late 50's and early 60's sci-fi, and it can't turn out bad. "Alien Trespass" earned a B+ from the notoriously stingy Entertainment Weekly, kudos for them.

Knowing, witty, self-aware "throwback" movies like "Matinee" and "Ed Wood" are too rare to pass by, so do like my kid and I plan to do this weekend, and head out and give some support to this effort that appears to be pretty unique, especially in today's film climate.

NOBODY KNOWS: A Christian Punk Jewel

Oftentimes, Christian Punk is categorically ridiculed as being condescending and even patronizing. In many cases these bands take a soapbox approach, and from their pedestals can be annoyingly elitist and insulting to a listener who may be, for better or worse, "uninitiated". This is defeating the purpose, is it not? As good as their musicianship may have been, you felt excluded and often gave up on them.

There was a band that recorded for a short period of time that didn't fall into that ridiculous trap. They were Nobody Special, led by guitarist/singer/primary songwriter Pat Nobody. In 1989 the planets aligned, and they recorded what I feel as a punk rock sampling madman myself, SOME KIND OF MASTERWORK. The album was released by Broken Records, entitled "Call it Whatever You Want".

Make no mistake, NS could lean toward that pushy "Jesus Freak" (not my term) platitudism, but when they did step in that direction, it was brief, and not out of place. Where they excelled was in putting together music that you did not have to be a diehard religious fanatic to not just enjoy, but completely rock out to.

"Call it Whatever You Want" is loaded with songs like that. My favorite, "Fingerpointer" features a galloping riff, that much like their trademark Ramones-esque mid tempo romping, has you bobbing you head. Nobody's lyrics take a poke at self-righteousness, while underlining his own humanity. He may be be a lot of things, but smug, Mr. Nobody is not.

"Point your finger at me, I'll bite it off
I don't need you to tell me how to live.

Slap my face, I'll turn the other cheek.
Maybe, ...maybe not." -Pat Nobody

Smart, to the point lyrics. Good stuff.


On "Special People", the band takes a different look at the mentally handicapped, and sees them as not as shortchanged, but unburdened by the luggage that being "intelligent" carries.

"It's you and I who have to constantly see
Just How destructive knowledge can be." --Pat Nobody

A track that I as far back as 1990 have held dear to my heart, "Weirdo" spins a somber and weatherbeaten vibe, as Nobody seems to feel uncomfortable in his own skin, and like an outcast in his own world. He sings not with bellowing rage, but with beleagured frustration.

"I can see your point of view, you have ambitions,
things you want to do,
but me too,
Just not like you." --Pat Nobody.

The band just rips on this album. Nobody and Frank Wesolek grind out some memorable and undeniably catchy riffs. Tony Cena drums like Chris Mars on acid. Chris "The Vax" Kouacs keeps time with Cena, and flourishes just enough to keep things snappy. "Call it Whatever You Want" is like a great picture taken in a weird place. You can't forget it, and you won't throw it away. You constantly find your self pulling it back out and looking at it again, because you can't believe it's an accurate representation of what it is.

This is a Christian Punk band? Wow.
Nobody else in that sub-genre can touch this record, and to be honest, few that fall in the category of regular punk, or even "secular" if you prefer the term, can carry it's jock, either.

Nobody Special doesn't exist anymore, and this unheralded piece of history is way too hard to find. My only copy is a vinyl rip. I urge you to search it out.

ITS ALL POPS & BUZZES TO ME

For the next 8 weeks, Pepsico is unspooling Mt. Dew and Pepsi Throwback. What's the diff, you ask? Well regular versions are sweetened with High Fructose Corn Syrup, and "Throwback" is sweetened with a mixture of cane and beet sugar, i.e. "natural" sugar. Again, what's the diff? According to reviewers at bevreview.com, definitely noticeable. For the better, I guess.

What the hell, I'll try anything once.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.....Oh, shut the hell up!!

What kind of an aloof country do we live in when the last 3 "great" catchphrases we've had here were "Whatever", "shit happens", and "It is what it is".

It's confounding. They all mean the same damn thing.

What if this aloofness had permeated the great soundbites of American history?

"Ask not what your country can do for you, because it is what it is." Doesn't work, does it?

"The only thing we have to fear is nothing, because it is what it is." Wow. FDR sure would have motivated us out of WW2 with that logic.


Not just politically, but culturally, as well. It makes us sound lazy...

"Frankly, Scarlet, it is what it is." Gone with the Wind, went with the breeze.

"You have to ask yourself, did he fire 5 bullets or six, in all this confusion, I've lost track myself, so you have to ask yourself, Is it what is is? Well is it, Punk?"
Dirty Harry, sounds like Lazy Harry.


Even Journalistic Genius Bernard Goldberg stated in his "100 People that are screwing up America" that the phrase essentialy is an adult version of "Whatever".

Or basically, "Who gives a shit?"

Just say what you mean. There is no poetic self important way of being unproactive in your attitude. You couldn't care less.

It is what it is.