Category: Media

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Oh We Forgot About the Shah

This past Sunday, 60 Minutes presented an interview with Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president of Iraq.

60 Minutes is a good program– sometimes very good. But one should never forget that it is also completely controlled by a group of old white men (with the exception of the late Ed Bradley) and that, ultimately, like Time Magazine and the New York Times, it is an appendage of the corporate and governmental establishment, and thus can’t stray too far from conventional thinking on certain issues.

For 60 Minutes, it is okay to be different, but not too different. 60 Minutes devoted hours of coverage to jazz greats like Louis Armstrong and Ray Charles, and of course, they adore classical giants like George Solti and Luciano Pavarotti. But they only acknowledged the Beatles and Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen long after their significance was clearly established– but not among old white men. The counter culture was a little too counter for them, the punk movement ridiculous– couldn’t you just organize a petition? Independent films barely rate a mention– where’s the party where I get to have my picture take with Steven Spielberg? Alternative music? Alternative to what? Do you mean Stravinsky?

So Scott Pelley sat down opposite the leader of Iran and spanked him. How dare you supply weapons to Iraq, as George Bush has been telling us? How dare you try to build a nuclear bomb as those old reliables, the CIA and NSA have been telling us? How dare you display ingratitude to the nation that deposed your arch foe?

Here are some questions Scott Pelley could have asked but didn’t:

  • How does an Islamic state fit into the world’s family of nations?
  • Who are opposing you, in your quest to create a more just society that provides more benefits to the poor and disenfranchised?
  • Are there some in your country who exploit Islamic beliefs for the purpose of acquiring personal wealth?
  • What role should Iran play in the future of Iraq?
  • How close are your ties with Shiite tribal leaders in Iraq?
  • Do you believe that the U.S. will invade your country? What evidence do you have that freedom-loving America would ever consider invading an Islamic Arabic State. Oh yeah– other than that.
  • Is Iran a democracy?
  • What is the role of women in Islamic society?
  • Is there any common ground between you and George Bush– are you both religious fundamentalists?
  • Will Iranians ever forgive America for installing and supporting the Shah for all those years from 1953 up to 1979?  Why are you so upset about the torture?
  • We feel that only a subhuman monster of epic malevolence would ever consider exploding a nuclear bomb in a populated area. How would you ever learn to live with yourselves if you did that? Oh…
  • If we agree to allow international inspectors into our nuclear sites will you? Scratch that…

Scott Pelley: but the American people believe your country is a terrorist nation…

I am unaccustomed to 60 Minutes correspondents making that kind of bizarre, blanket statement.

Firstly, if a majority did believe that, it is clearly because they are told that by George Bush and the so-called “liberal” media. Most Americans couldn’t find Iran on a map, let alone know anything of it’s history, or whether it “exports terrorism” (like Saudi Arabia, from where most of the 9/11 hijackers came?)

Secondly, how illuminating is this kind of question? How about, “why does your country support the creation of a Palestinian state…” Or, if you want to be harsh, “why is it that the Islamic states won’t take in Palestinian refugees…”?

Or, even better, how about this:  Is your country still angry that the United States and Great Britain together overthrew your elected government and installed the Shah as dictator in 1953, and supported his regime right up until 1979 even though he imprisoned and tortured all political opposition and threw him incredibly expensive, lavish coronations, at the expense of the citizens of Iran?

 

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That Contrived Inspirational Teacher Movie: “Freedom Writers”

Just once, I would like to see a movie about a young teacher who doesn’t care about his students, can’t wait to move on to a better paying job, and doesn’t want any students intruding on his private life ever. And, it turns out, is a pretty good teacher. And he has a principal who really tries hard to manage his school well, and retain good staff. And when this teacher wants to take a field trip, his principal says, “of course– we take field trips all the time.”

This scenario is more likely than you think: life is not a Hollywood movie. What makes a good teacher? Dedication is one factor. Loving students is important. But, surprisingly– to Hollywood– it helps to be smart. To be competent. To know how to do a good job.

Not going to see that movie. Ever. We have been conditioned by the movies (see list below) to believe that good teachers care deeply, personally about their students, have all the time in the world for them, evenings, and weekends, and really don’t need the slightest academic ability because most of his or her skills will only be applied to “real life” problems, like gang violence and poverty and … well, not sex anymore– those “gang members” in “Freedom Writers” seem to be absolutely celibate. Doesn’t seem to be any thing in their journals about their boyfriends or girlfriends… They might be getting shot at, but at least nobody’s hitting on them… I guess these are unusually spiritual gang members.

Or could it be the Erin Gruell has provided us with a sanitized version of the story? One wonders, of course, what else she has chosen to leave out. She certainly didn’t omit even the tiniest fragment of student adulation of her. In the film’s most disingenuous scenes, the head of her department, wildly caricatured– if you believe the movie, she has made it her purpose in life to sabotage good teachers–opposes the demands of her students that she continue to teach them into their junior and senior years. We are given to understand that there isn’t a single other worthy teacher in the system, and that it is only right and good that Gruell should never apply her special gifts to the new, equally needy students entering grade 9.

There’s not much in the film about how learning really takes place, how students actually learn to write and express themselves, how students acquire self-confidence, how teachers pass on skills and techniques. It’s really all about what a lovable, heroic person Ms. Gruell is, and to make her as lovable as possible, the movie leaves out all the little potholes and pitfalls of real life. That’s not inspirational: it’s delusional.

Did you notice my deception in the first paragraph? I was wrong, of course. There is one movie that actually tells you about a dedicated but rather chilly professor who comes to realize that he has wasted most of his life: “The Browning Version”. If you find yourself getting extremely nauseated by “Les Choristes” or “Dangerous Minds” or “Freedom Writers” some Saturday night, go and rent “The Browning Version” (if you can) and take the cure. Even better: rent “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” and try to understand how charismatic, visionary teachers may not be a good thing.

Of all of these, aside from “The Browning Version”, “To Sir, With Love” is probably the least smarmy, and “Mr. Holland’s Opus” is probably the most smarmy and gooey, and “Dead Poet’s Society” is the phoniest. Most of these films create a straw man villain to inject some tension into the story– invariably a principal or Board Member who really, really wants the students to be bored and oppressed.

If you liked most of these movies, I’ll bet you’ve never seen “The Browning Version” or “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”. You should. You must.

It is a dose of reality, a cold bath of truthfulness and authenticity, in a field of mushy, indeterminate ideals and beliefs. The truth is that any of the teachers in these movies could just as well be Jean Brodie, teaching her little brood the blessing of Fascism, and inspiring them with misguided fervor. The truth is that the high school band in “Mr. Holland’s Opus” would never have played that well in real life. The truth is that the poetry in “Dead Poet’s Society” didn’t express much about the lives of any of the characters in the movie because if it had, the audience would have been as frightened of real poetry as real people are frightened of real poets in real life.

And “Brodie” is the only one of these films to recognize that there is a danger in charismatic teachers. Make it a double feature: “Dead Poets Society” and “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie”. Which film has more truth?

Copyright © 2007 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved. July 20, 2007

The problem with “Freedom Writers”…

I’m sure a lot of the events in the film really happened, even if not quite as depicted in the movie. I’m a former teacher: even good students don’t quite prostrate themselves before good teachers the way these kids did. There’s always at least one smart ass, or more, and not all students are little angels waiting for an encouraging teacher to see the good in them.

By half way through the movie, I didn’t trust anything it was showing me. That doesn’t mean I believe all of it was false– just that the movie clearly set out to “Hollywoodize” the story. I didn’t believe the head of the English Department could be that ridiculously obstinate, or that a rival teacher would be so transparently jealous of his “honor students”. I really doubt that the real students were as disinterested in sex as these students were, or that all of them would conveniently lose their personalities during the second half of the film so we could all focus on how amazingly grateful they are to Ms. Gruell.

There’s a story here, probably a really good one. And if it had been told honestly, it would be an inspiration to us all. You would think, wow, there is hope for mankind. But I can’t think that about this film– it is so rigged.

Inspirational Teacher Movies, Ranked:

The Gems:

  1. The Browning Version (Michael Redgrave)
  2. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Maggie Smith)
  3. To Sir, With Love (Sidney Poitier)
  4. Up the Down Staircase (Sandy Dennis)
  5. Asphalt Jungle

The Stinkers:

  1. Freedom Writers
  2. Les Choristes
  3. Mr. Holland’s Opus
  4. Lean on Me
  5. Dead Poet’s Society
  6. Stand and Deliver
  7. Dangerous Minds
  8. The Substitute

About Schools:

  1. Ridgemount High

 

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714 Files

I have written about 714 rants now, over a period of about 10 years. In fact, next year will by the 10th anniversary of Chromehorse.net. My first piece appeared in November, 1997.

There is nothing to celebrate. As far as I can tell, I don’t have any readers. So this is the sound of one hand clapping. Thank you, thank you very much.

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The Ingenue: Jean Seberg

When I was quite young, I saw an entertaining little satire called “The Mouse That Roared” which starred Peter Sellers as Tully Bascombe, a bumbling but good-hearted soldier who was placed in charge of the army of the ridiculously tiny Grand Duchy of Fenwick when the conniving prime-minister realized that every country ever defeated by the United States became the recipient of scads of foreign aid.

The Grand Duchy of Fenwick thereby declared war on the United States– hoping and expecting to lose.

Tully led his troupes over to America– by commercial ocean liner– dressed in chain mail and armed with long bows, where they inadvertently captured the eccentric scientist in charge of developing a new type of atomic bomb, and his lovely daughter, and a working prototype of the bomb. (The scientist figured he was safer working inconspicuously in an apartment in an obscure area of New York than in a secure compound guarded by conspicuous soldiers.)

There was a funny scene when he returned to Fenwick to announce that he had won, arousing the fury of the Prime Minister.

There was also a scene with the daughter, Helen. For the sake of the safety of the world, her father urged her to try to seduce Tully. Tully was unmoved, mainly because he was quite seasick at the moment. In the end, though, Tully got the girl, and the new bomb went into a dungeon on a bed of straw, for safe-keeping.

The girl was Jean Seberg.

Jean Seberg was seventeen and wholly unprepared for Hollywood when she was chosen from among 3,000 girls to play Joan of Arc for Otto Preminger. The movie was a failure and Seberg’s performance was panned, but she went on to star in “Breathless”, one of the most influential films (among presumptive auteurs)  of the 1960’s. She became a kind of icon of the 1960’s, as unlike Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, and Doris Day as Bob Dylan was unlike Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr.. She was the real thing, one of the first post-modern celebrities. She was her own girl.

She held strong political views which led her to support the Black Panthers.

The FBI took note and spied on her and decided to plant a story about her in the press. They persuaded the L.A. Times and Newsweek to publish the rumour that she was pregnant with the child of an un-named member of the Black Panther party. Seberg, devastated, took an overdose of sleeping pills and lost the baby. She showed the stillborn body to the press, to prove that it was not mixed race.

She married and divorced, married and divorced. One of her husbands sold her Paris apartment out from under her and took the money to Spain to open a restaurant. Romain Gary insulted her and told the press he was going to teach this ignorant American girl all about real culture. Almost made me want to shred my “Brothers Karamazov”. You look at this guy’s washed out, oily face and you look at Seberg’s mesmerizing eyes and you think of Bob Dylan’s cryptic “The Man in the Long Black Coat”:

Gary abandoned her, after finding out she had cheated on him with Clint Eastwood.

Every year on the anniversary of her baby’s stillbirth, she tried to commit suicide, and finally succeeded in September, 1979, with barbiturates and alcohol.

There are no mistakes in life some people say
It is true sometimes you can see it that way
But people don’t live or die people just float
She went with the man in the long black coat.

or “What’s a Sweetheart Like You Doing in a Dump Like This”.

In order to deal in this game,
got to make the queen disappear,
It’s done with a flick of the wrist.
What’s a sweetheart like you
doin’ in a dump like this?

Her body was found in the back seat of her car where it had rested for 11 days.

Apparently, nobody had missed her. That seems inconceivable, but I read it somewhere: her absence had not been noted.

Her husband, Romain Gary, whom she was divorcing at the time of the rumour of her inter-racial baby, committed suicide himself a year later.

Was he haunted?

The FBI admitted their role in Jean Seberg’s disintegration, and said they were very, very sorry, and it won’t happen again.

I read somewhere that J. Edgar Hoover discouraged the attack on Seberg. Then why didn’t he order it stopped?

I don’t know if it’s true or not that Hoover didn’t approve. It seems out of character for the voyeur-in-chief of the nation. He didn’t discourage spying on her or prying into the lives of people who held unpopular views– just this particular attack.

The entrancing mystery girl herself.

Everybody wants them but they don’t want themselves. They frequently suffer abuse and manipulation and frustration with men, and end up living alone. When they die, through suicide or neglect, the first thing you think is, if I had only been there, maybe I could have saved her.

In later interviews (see link in left column), Seberg looked as though she had had her fill of cheaters and liars and the disappointment of life. And that is saddest of all because the young Seberg was so full of cheerful embrace, ambition, and innocence.

More on the “ingenue” or “naif”.

The Other Jean Sebergs:
Edie Sedgewick
Marilyn Monroe
Chan Marshall (Cat Power)
Frances Farmer
Marianne Faithful
Louise Brooks

Looks like One but Isn’t
Audrey Hepburn

The Not Jean Sebergs:
Princess Diana
Paris Hilton
Ally McBeal
Katie Perry
Beyonce
Justin Bieber

Why am I writing about this? I have no idea.

Saint Jean Clippings

Jean Seberg blew me away in “Breathless” by Jean-Luc Godard, made in 1960. If you had watched nothing but American films until you saw “Breathless”, you would feel as though you had been eating meatballs all your life and someone has just brought you a thick, juicy, t-bone steak.

Just one example: Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) casually says to Patricia (Seberg), in inelegant translation, “I have slept with two girls since you. They weren’t very much.” This is the hero of the story.

Jean Seberg is incandescent, short-hair, bright, naive. She says she’ll see him tonight anyway. She isn’t sure why. She can’t figure out if she loves him or not. He says things about American girls. She says things about the French. She sits on the bed in her striped shirt and makes faces and he keeps asking her to let him sleep with her that night.

No American film of this era could stand this kind of adult interaction, or this kind of amorphous waltz of feeling and not feeling and sex and no sex and certainty or doubt. We are spoon-fed our Hollywood romances and we believe in singing nuns and virtuous prostitutes and that Meg Ryan could be a surgeon or not be a surgeon but she will never not be in love with the big lug, even if he is Nicholas Cage.

Have you seen “Breathless”? It’s a bizarre film. Very clumsy at times, but ridiculously unconventional, by Hollywood standards. Street scenes are filmed on the streets. There are long, rambling, disconnected conversations in hotel rooms. Dialogue is cut into a million pieces and then stitched together.

Mostly, there is Jean Seberg’s entrancing face. The film ends with her gazing into the camera, after committing an inexplicable betrayal, a beautiful, absorbing mystery.

[Incidentally, that technique, the actor staring directly into the camera, appears to have originated in the Bergman film, “Summer With Monika” (1953). It will not ever be as startling again.]

Video for “Africa”  Unrelated gratuitous link to one of my songs

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Demythologizing the Myth-crackers

Demythologizing the demythologized.

Did they really?

The 300 Spartans were accompanied by some 5,000 other Greeks. An indeterminate, smaller number of these Greeks remained behind with the Spartans for a last stand after the Persians surrounded them.

Yes, judges in Medieval Europe, in many instances, believed witches would float, and that they copulated with the devil himself…

They didn’t burn witches in Salem– they hanged them.  In one instance, they “pressed” a witch: put a board on him and loaded it with rocks until he died (one “witch” was  man, Corey).

And after years of see-saw analysis, it looks like most researchers accept that a disproportionate number of rich people made it onto the Titanic’s lifeboats, which is what Walter Lord observed right at the start. They didn’t need to elbow people aside: the stewards simply made sure that the 3rd class passengers did not reach the boat deck until well after the first class had the opportunity to get into the boats.

Al Gore never claimed to have “invented” the internet– he claimed that he took the “initiative” in supporting it’s early development. Gore was in fact an early congressional supporter of the progenitor of the internet, Arpanet. For all practical purposes, that statement is substantially true, though his choice of phrasing was unfortunate.

On the other hand, the statement that he claimed to have invented the internet, while not accurate, does reflect something of the pomposity of the way Gore phrased his statement. It was clumsy. It should have been passed over quickly, but Republicans love to point out that their candidate is the stupid one who would never, in a million years, ever be mistaken for anyone who could have invented anything of any importance, whereas the Democrats nominated someone who arrogantly achieved things.

Marie Antoinette? The quote might well be apocryphal, but the perception that she was indifferent to the suffering of the poor, while leading a ridiculously extravagant lifestyle–even gambling and “playing” at being a milk-maid– is substantially true. I find it somewhat nauseating to now see websites aimed at high school students encouraging them to get to know this remarkable woman, with tie-ins to the movie. This is flat out ridiculous.

Yes, Joseph McCarthy persecuted innocent people.  He persecuted some guilty people too, but he persecuted many innocent people, destroyed their careers and livelihoods unjustly, and behaved like a bully and a pig.

Yes, Eva Duarte slept her way to the top.  Absolutely.  Please, please don’t accept Madonna’s spin on history.

And yes, 38 people were aware (to somewhat varying degree) of the murder of Kitty Genovese in Kew Gardens and did nothing.

The video of Arabs dancing in the street to celebrate 9/11 has long ago been debunked.  The video was of some other event.

How about “Does Donald Trump really have the world’s greatest memory?”  Judge for yourself.  By almost all accounts of individuals who worked with him, he never read any position papers or memorandums that were submitted to him, because he preferred articles with pictures and television.  [2022-05-08]

 

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Festering Corporate Monopolies: DRM

This may sound a little strange but… the simplest, most telling fact about the piracy issue is this: there is no reason why content providers have to issue their “valuable” content on CDs or DVDs. They have always been absolutely free to issue their content on any proprietary media that would prevent their valuable content from being copied.

A proprietary format would simply require a patented algorithm to implement encryption and a hardware device to unencrypt it and play the media.  Simple solution.  It is remarkably easily technically feasible.

But they didn’t. Why not? Because they knew the consumer would never buy it in large enough numbers to guarantee big, fat profits. And they knew that smaller, independent record labels and unsigned artists would be more than happy to issue their stuff on CDs and DVDs and they wouldn’t be able to skim off their customary share of the profits.

[2011-07: this is a profoundly important fact that cannot be underestimated: the media companies have always been free to issue their products on any format they wish to, including formats that have built in protections against copying and piracy. They are under no obligation to issue their products on DVD’s or CD’s. None at all! If they do not like the physical characteristics of these mediums, they should go elsewhere.]

Instead, what they are trying to do, is hijack the mediums.

If you were a smart person and you worked at the highest levels of a corporation in the music or film industry and you understood something about what was coming down the pipe in terms of the internet and user empowerment, and you cared deeply about preserving your own profitability… and you were somewhat ruthless… you would do what the industry has done.

For you would have realized that there was an enormous, gaping hole in the system, and that it had to be plugged quickly before it became transparent to everyone what was happening.

The hole is not in the system of copyright protections. It is in the system that gives you a cooperative monopoly (with the other big 4 music companies) over musical entertainment in the entire world. You have an incestuous relationship with TV and radio to ensure that the artists you have chosen to promote receive wide exposure, and that their music is played on the radio. (Sony recently paid out over $100 million to settle an action by New York State on this issue.) The system ensures that only artists you control will receive the kind of exposure that creates a “superstar”. Only the artists you control will appear on Letterman and Leno and Oprah and in movies and on radio play-lists.

As long as it cost tens of thousands of dollars, this system worked in favor of the big players, because very few people could afford to make a professional recording and print vinyl records.

But with new technologies, this control has dissipated, and suddenly almost anybody can make a good digital recording and make their music available on CD’s or through down-loading. This means a talented artist might be able to simply ignore the establishment, if he or she doesn’t like the unfair conditions imposed upon artists by industry contracts.

To sustain their control over the market, the music industry has to close this gap.

You must first create the illusion that your concern is about copyright, and about preserving your rights over the valuable original content your company insists it “created”. You must above all else perpetuate the illusion that your artists and your movies and your content are the best there is to offer and the only stuff that people really want. You validate a person’s entertainment choices. You give yourself awards, schedule your performers on Letterman and Leno, get your stars on the cover of magazines. You lobby foreign governments demanding that they empower their populations to see “Ishtar” and “Gigli”.

You must try– in the face of the unremitting ridiculousness of your position– to insist that your really do want to make sure that artists get paid for their work. In spite of the fact that almost none of your current artists under contract will stand up and say he or she believes you.

But you know, deep in your musty little heart, that most of this is an illusion you have created to convince people that your artists are important and talented, and to assure the average consumer that he or she can’t be like your artists.

And you know that if the marketplace was actually free to choose it’s own “successes” from the thousands and thousands of artists our there, that yours might not be among the best or most desired or most original or interesting.  Even worse, geographical areas might develop a base of fans for local artists who can survive on their earnings from this base, instead of having to depend on multi-national media corporations.  Imagine a Duluth radio station playing, primarily, artists from the Duluth region, or Minnesota, instead of artists from New York or Los Angeles?

So you must find a way to ensure that these other artists do not slip through your filters, your stranglehold on media, into a position wherein they could make money performing music without you being able to skim off the largest chunk of their incomes.

You must prevent them from being able to sell their music directly to the public, without you.

And you discovered, to your horror, that, given a choice between your own copy-protected, restricted, controlled, homogenized product, and unprotected, unrestricted, un-homogenized works by new, independent artists, the public is drawn to the free and the original. You realize that if the industry issued it’s product on media that prevented individuals from copying, that everyone would simply migrate to media that did allow copying. Because there are lots of artists who are willing to make that trade-off and you don’t own them all.

And so you realized that you had to prevent such media from existing, by persuading the government to violate the essence of capitalism and free enterprise by imposing a design upon the manufacturers of the hardware used to create and play back video and audio.

If you continue to issue your product on protected disks while other artists are free to issue their own work on non-protected disks– your days of lavish hotels and extravagant junkets are over.

So you must– you absolutely MUST– force the media outlets, now including Windows itself, and all hardware to incorporate a system of DRM — “digital rights management”–, which has the function of allowing you to hijack the media. In essence, you are taking over the media itself, the disk itself, the player itself, the computer itself… controlling them, without even having to pay a penny for it, other than the cost of lobbying.

This is like requiring every car to be able to use ethanol. This is a program that would be of great interest to corn growers. All they need to do is lobby the right politicians. After a few years, no one will wonder if ethanol is actually any good or not. It won’t matter. And if someone builds a better car that will run on hydrogen– it doesn’t matter: it will also have to be able to use ethanol.

You have pulled off one of the biggest cases of fraud in the history of corporate malfeasance. Congratulations. Nobody even seems to know yet, what you have done.

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Four Great Songs of the Early 1960’s

The the late 1950’s and early 60’s were generally weak years for popular music– so weak that four merely good songs stand out clearly as “great” amid the rolling surf of mediocrities and manufactured product.

Early rock’n’roll like “Heart Break Hotel” and “Sh-boom” had been supplanted by look-alike drones and novelty tunes issued by the recording industry as after-thoughts to feed a market they thought was sure to disappear shortly. Serious musicians went into folk or classical. The fascists went for country. The teeny-boppers when for Fabian and the Italian studs like… Frankie Avalon and Bobby Whatever or Tony Twister.

So a very small number of outstanding singles made it onto the play lists:

  • Runaway (Del Shannon)
  • I Fought the Law (Bobby Fuller Four)
  • Needles and Pins (Searchers)
  • Suspicion (Terry Stafford)

The last-named is really a rather blatant rip-off of the Presley version– one of the few Presley songs I really like. If you search the internet long and hard, you might find a recording of the song including stops and retakes and comments by the musicians, including Presley.

And I can’t remember what the fourth one was. I’ll think of it eventually. [I did. It was “Needles and Pins”. Not really, but it will do.] It was not “Sherry”, which is a novelty tune. In the meantime, to properly appreciate the achievement of the songs listed above, you have to spend a few hours listening to nothing but all of the 2:30 long singles by the Chiffons and the Shirelles or even the Supremes. Don’t believe the revisionists who will try to tell you that the Chiffons were actually brilliant: they were always mediocre. As for the Supremes… you can’t hurry love.

They got on the radio because the airwaves were not controlled by listener preferences but by the backroom deal, payola, as it pretty well is today.

The best driving song ever, bar none: “Echo Beach” by Martha and the Muffins.

The next best driving song: “July 4th, Asbury Park” (Sandy) Bruce Springsteen.

All right– it’s ridiculous to think there is only one or two best driving song. There are several, including “Satisfaction” and “Thunder Road”.

For some weird reason, not a single Beatles song ever sounded really great in your car at 50 mph with your window open. They just don’t. Well, maybe “Obladi Oblada”.

Bob Seger’: “Night Moves” does pretty well.  So does “Reelin’ in the Years” by Steely Dan.

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The Worst Pop Singles of All Time

Of course these are not really the worst singles of all time. Most people have never heard the worst singles of all time– like “The Times They Are A’Changin'” by Rabbi Abraham Feinberg, or “Clouds” by Leonard Nimoy or “Big Yellow Taxi” by Bob Dylan or “Mr. Tambourine Man” by William Shatner– because they simply have never been played on the radio.

So, actually, these are songs that stink even though they were massively promoted and acquired a certain following.  Note that in a few cases, the song itself, like “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, might be pretty good: it is this specific performance that makes the list.

  • Wonder Wall (Oasis)
  • Seasons in the Sun (Terry Jacks)
  • I Write the Songs (Barry Manilow)
  • The Night Chicago Died (Paper Lace)
  • Honey (Bobby Goldsboro)
  • I am I said (Neil Diamond)
  • Cracklin’ Rosie (Neil Diamond)
  • Candle in the Wind 1997 (Elton John)
  • Popcorn (Hot Butter)
  • Achy Breaky Heart (Billy Ray Cyrus)
  • Smells Like Teen Spirit (Paul Anka)
  • Hanky Panky (Tommy James and the Shondells)

Honorable Mentions (added November 2007)

  • Three Times a Lady (Lionel Richie)
  • Every Thing I Do (Bryan Adams)
  • Puppy Love (Donny Osmond, written by Paul Anka)
  • Glamour Boy (Guess Who)
  • We Will Rock You (Queen)
  • Never Been to Me (Charlene)
  • Feelin’ Groovy (Simon & Garfunkel)
  • Do Yah Think I’m Sexy (Rod Stewart)

Most ill-advised single of all time:

  • Pet Me, Poppa (Rosemary Clooney).

Most horrible earworm (tie):

  • “Mandy” (Barry Manilow),
  • “Sweet City Woman”, (Stampeders)

Note: the writers of “Hanky Panky”, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich, have no illusions: they wrote the song in the hallway of a recording studio to be on the b-side of a new single.  Both admit it is a terrible piece of work.

Dissent:

Wonder Wall” was recently voted the best pop song ever by a segment of the British public which is probably also responsible for the tabloids and Benny Hill. I don’t get it. I can’t even finish listening to it once. It sounds to me like your older brother, when you are 11, and he is about 13, and he is making fun of a song you like, by singing it in as unpleasant a voice as he can manage, without any noteworthy accompaniment. And it sounds like he is making up the lyrics at the same time, in a kind of sing-song, nasal, whine on the “now”.

I was just stunned to learn, recently, that “I’ve Never Been to Me” was first released in 1977!  1977!  Was it written by a man?  I knew it!  Written by Ron Miller, Kenneth Hirsch!  How did I know?  Because almost all bad songs written about women’s roles are authored by men:  “Having My Baby”, “I am Woman”.

And a good one:  “You Don’t Own Me” performed by Leslie Gore.

A British Worst
Singles of All Time List.

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Michael Powell and Janet Jackson’s Breast

The FCC does not fine television networks very often or for very large amounts.

So think about all the indecent things you have seen on TV in the past two years.

You have seen incredibly powerful corporations advertise sugar-coated cereals to children seven years old or younger.

You have seen decapitations, stabbings, gunshot wounds, amputations, rapes, burns, slashes, and strangling.

Nope. Nothing offensive there. Nothing there that could be construed as a threat to the moral fabric of the nation.

You’ve seen cheer-leading network eunuchs swallow whole the bilious lies and distortions of a government justifying a war it had no business starting and now has no clue about ending and which has resulted in the kidnappings, tortures, and murders of thousands of innocent civilians. Nothing “indecent” there.

You’ve seen programs in which the police are shown, approvingly, beating up, abusing, and terrorizing suspects in order to extract confessions from them. Of course, these suspects are then always shown to be guilty– not like that soldier shot by the cop in Los Angeles, or Amadou Diallo, or any of these others. Is society threatened by entertainment that teaches us that police brutality is usually justified and almost always rewarding? No.

But in February 2004, the moral health of America was threatened with such pernicious and devious audacity that Colin Powell’s son– head of the FCC– leapt to his feet and immediately took drastic and decisive action. America must not be permitted to see a woman’s breast, not even for a second!

You know what a breast is, don’t you? You may have seen one yourself, if you were ever a nursing baby, a married man, or even a lucky teenager. In fact, a quick study of television and magazines would lead a reasonable person to conclude that America doesn’t think that there is anything they want to see more than a woman’s breast. Americans spend billions of dollars every year improving and enlarging their breasts. Breast cancer survivors raise money for research by posing– topless– for calendars. You pretty well can’t be a singer or actress or entertainer of any kind unless you have large ones.

So Michael Powell, speaking most deeply from beneath his cloak, has fined CBS — get this!– $550,000!

The naked breast appeared during a performance in which Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson gyrated and danced around on stage simulating incredibly passionate levels of sexual arousal and desire for each other. Timberlake sang, “I’m gonna have you naked by the end of this song.”

This is what America paid to watch. It’s what the promoters of the Superbowel paid to show. It’s what every radio station in America promotes every day: songs about sexual desire. It’s what makes “Friends” funny, and Paris Hilton rich. It’s why competitors in “Fear Factor” wear bikinis. It’s the engine of the entertainment economy. It’s why National Geographic is read by adolescent boys.

The breast was indecent? The most indecent thing about this entire sorry episode is the overwhelming obscenity of people like Michael Powell having the power to determine what is “obscene”. What on earth does he think will happen in a person’s mind when he sees a woman’s breast?

What happened in his mind?

June 22, 2011:

Be it noted– the most “Tivo-ed” moment in television history is… the Janet Jackson Superbowl breast exposure. Okay, so while the FCC decided that Janet Jackson’s breast was the most offensive and shocking thing on TV this year, the public has decided that it was the thing they most wanted to see. CBS should have appealed this to the Supreme Court.

Well… maybe not. Clarence Thomas? Antonin Scalia? Samuel Alito?

Forget it.

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The Rolling Stones at the Superbowl

Let me get this straight:  the NFL wants to provide a half-time show that will attract the coveted 18-25 demographic– free-spending young adults who like geriatric rock stars, apparently. Would these people like to watch the Olsen Twins? No. Jessica Simpson? Well, all right– the meaning of “wholesome” has changed a bit. I know– we’ll get The Rolling Stones. Hey, aren’t they a bunch of perverts? Of course they are.

While simultaneously announcing that they have booked a filthy, disgusting, perverted band for the half-time show (by their standards, not mine), the promoters, the NFL, assures viewers that the entertainment will be quite wholesome. Suitable for the entire family. You won’t be embarrassed if your kids are watching. But your kids will want to watch.

Is this belated recognition of the fact that any interesting culture in our society seems to come from rebels and outsiders? Why on earth didn’t they book Garth Brooks or Tammy Wynette, if they wanted something wholesome?

How will the promoters ensure that the audience is spared anything shocking or inappropriate? They will have a five-second delay on the broadcast.

And it worked. During “Start Me Up” (the real obscenity here is that “Start Me Up” was sold to Microsoft as the theme for Windows 98 for millions of dollars), Mick Jagger alluded to the fact that this woman of whom he was singing was so sexy that she could cause a dead man to become aroused. But not in so many words. So the microphone went dead and Mick’s lips moved alone and silently.

All right. Everybody’s happy. The kids get to be entertained by the world’s greatest rock’n’roll band, and the adults get to sleep easy knowing that their children are still infused with good, wholesome, Calvinist virtues.

But the Rolling Stones, worried about their credibility with the in crowd, announce that they are disgusted with the censorship. But the NFL announces that if they were so disgusted with the censorship, why did they agree to play in the first place? The Rolling Stones respond, just because we knew about it in advance and agreed to it doesn’t mean we don’t think it’s stupid. Pay us first, then we’ll tell you how stupid it is.

The answer is: all of the above.