THE WYMAN WEEKLY

Underemployed. Unattached. Unimpressed.

Issue 44 March 21, 1997

 

 

 

Stopped by the Electric Fetus a while back and purchased two blues albums you won’t be hearing played in any blues bars soon (wait: I haven’t spent a lot of time in blues bars...let’s just say you won’t be hearing them after KQ or Cities 97 declares themselves “your home for the blues” ) - the new one by The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and The Rolling Stones’ first American-released album. As I struggled to open up the package of the Stones disc (subtitled England’s Newest Hit Makers), all I could think of was that no industry expect for the recording industry makes it so difficult to get to their product. It used to be that albums were wrapped in the tightest plastic imaginable, and you’d risk bending the album cover (and you’d hate to do that to Head East’s Flat as a Pancake*) or breaking the enclosed vinyl to get the plastic off of the LP. Then came compact discs and the longbox, which is the only package I can think of where you would get to the product by opening the bottom of the box. That faked me out for at least two years, every time. Then came the little silver strip across the opening of the CD jewel box, and it never peeled off correctly and now I have a bunch of discs with all kinds of silver goop smeared on them. Now on CD’s there’s a strip of plastic that smothers the top of the CD case, and you spend way too long trying to get all of it off and all you can think of is getting into the case to pull the disc out so you can hear that song that you’ve been singing to yourself all the way home on the drive back from the record store. And I know somehow there’s an analogy to sex in the above sentences, but I just don’t feel like coming up with it.

 

* I’ve never owned that or any other Head East album, but I’m trying to come up with a new band name to drop to show that I was just a regular lunchbox-toting kid back in the old days. You know, ten years ago it was the Monkees, and then the last five years or so it was Kiss, and lately Cheap Trick is the name to drop. So I’m going with Head East because their name was dropped by the wannabe burnouts back in eighth grade (to this day “Head East” still sounds like some sort of secret code to me) and plus “Never Been Any Reason” is probably my #1 guilty pleasure song ever. Oooh - sounds like an opportunity for a Top Five List:

 

My Top Five All-Time Guilty Pleasure Songs:

 

1) “Never Been Any Reason” Head East

2) “Edge of Seventeen” Stevie Nicks

3) “Fire and Rain” James Taylor

4) “Cracklin’ Rosie” Neil Diamond

5) “Since You’ve Been Gone” Rainbow (originally done by ... Head East!)

 

AND OF COURSE, THE GOPHER FANS WHINED ABOUT #11 ALANIS MORRISETTE BEING A 22 YEAR OLD CANADIAN...

 

I’ve been looking through the new issue of Spin where they list the top 40 most vital artists in music today. My sports buff side immediately took this to be akin to a poll of the top 40 artists ranked from best to not-best, although Spin doesn’t mention if this is the case. But they aren’t ranked alphabetically, or by height, so they must mean it to be some sort of power ranking. Well, no way is Smashing Pumpkins a #2. That’d be like placing the Clarkson Golden Knights as a #1 seed in a college hockey regional. I’m thinking in rock ‘n’ roll twelve teams would go to the big dance just like the college hockey, so I bet PJ Harvey resents being on the bubble at #10, meaning that she would have to put in a good showing at her conference’s playoffs to guarantee a seeding in the regionals, which she would probably do and then never look back on her march to the championship, all the while making sure that everyone licks her injuries. And unranked Soul Asylum could mop the floor with #6 Oasis (if it wasn’t for PJ Harvey, I’d be off on an England = ECAC analogy right now...) on any stage you care to mention.

ANOTHER TOP FIVE

 

Top Five Reasons Why Temporary Work Rules:

 

1) No identity problems - you’re just there to get a job done, not to be part of their corporate culture (and Lord knows how much I hate to put the words “corporate” and “culture” next to each other...)

2) No tear jerker United Way meetings.

3) Leaving my last permanent job was arguably the greatest moment of my young life. Now I get to recreate that feeling every few months.

4) The clients don’t expect too much from you initially, so if you show even the smallest amount of talent or intelligence, they’re impressed.

5) When you call in sick (or, when you call in “sick”), you call the agency, who calls the client, who doesn’t have your home phone. You can then go back to sleep to take care of your illness (or do whatever you need to do to take care of your “illness”) and you don’t have anybody calling you at home because they can’t find a staple remover or because they apparently love their jobs so much they think that you must too and would just love to talk to them about how to get their work done.

 

SKIP THE R.E.M. LYRIC, WYMAN

 

Sunday nights are special as you can watch both The Simpsons (though I’ve been skipping it lately, too many not-funny scripts and guest stars plus they turned Homer into a raging homophobe) and The X Files (which flat-out rules television.) After The X Files, on Channel 23 you can watch Hercules, which I used to, but now I prefer Xena, which is on right afterwards. Why Xena? Well, scantily-clad women in leather fighting each other works for me every time. But after Xena is a show that is not only funny (though unintentionally so), but has as many out-there theories as The X Files does.

 

Check out Jack Van Impe Presents on Channel 23 on Sunday nights at eleven. The end is near! Find out all about it by ordering Dr. Van Impe’s book! (If the end is near, will I still have to pay for the book if the end comes within the ten days it will take to get the book in the mail?) In a typical show, Jack’s wife, Rexella, reads from national and world headlines and Dr. Jack explains how all this news fits into what the Bible has predicted. He quotes verses and prophesies from Daniel, Jeremiah, the Gospels, and Revelations so quick that you can’t keep up with him. This guy is like the Chuck D of TV preachers - come to think of it he should make a beat-driven hip-hop album with Dr. Dre producing. Dr. Jack’s bad guys are the Russians, those who want a one-world government, and the New Age movement. And check it out: Dr. Jack’s hair out-Jimmy Johnson’s Jimmy Johnson’s hair. Personally, I’m getting a small crush on Rexella. She looks at Jack in awe, though, and I know she’d never like a guy like me, ‘cuz I think I’m breaking a commandment with my feeling towards her. In one show she ended by saying “be careful that the things you own don’t own you.” Testify, sister. Rexella is much better looking than someone named Rexella should be, but the cameraman shouldn’t pan in too close on her. On the last one I watched, she definitely winked at the camera as she hyped sales for their videos. In another show, she had on an all-black outfit and said she cared about me. Yowsa!