Category Archives: A smart ass

I think I am sooooooooooooooo funny. Really.

Critics

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Until I up and quit, I had the misfortune of being a jazz critic for years. Which meant I had to meet a lot of other critics of all kinds. Turns out critics are pretty boring people, for the most part. I mean dullsville. They can’t tell jokes. They don’t get jokes. They sit around all serious because, I dunno, critics are supposed to sit around all serious. Now there were some flagrant exceptions, but not many. And of all the different kinds of critics I met, I thought that movie critics had the stuffedest shirts. In a world of pompous asses, their asses had pomp to a unique degree. I mean I think all critics are secretly wanting to be Addison DeWitt in All About Eve,  it’s just that critics of the cinema have that George Sanders shtick down, man. The motherfuckers can groove on it, baby. Easier than I ever could. Plus they get to use all kinds of big words and if they’re Peter Travers and love every movie ever made they get to see their name in big gnarly letters on all the ads and even in commercials which is almost like being in a movie and their mothers must have been so proud. I know mine would have been.

But man, the cats just ain’t funny. Critics think some boring little movie is witty, while some funny shit goes right over their heads. But then such is the price of smartassery…the squares just don’t get it. And while those squares ain’t the only voters in the Oscar academy or whatever it is, these critics have a big impact because people know how much influence they have (unlike a jazz critic….)  and give them respect which kinda pervades everything. The whole academy culture. Like the grotesqueries of Inside The Actors Studio, that James whatshisname grovelling before the mighty like a Byzantine eunuch and fuck, this has nothing to do with my point at all and now I just trashed that guy for nothing and is that show still even on? I remember Paul Newman playing a mean blues on a nearby piano and Dennis Hopper saying dude that was not a fake joint and Jack Lemmon saying his favorite swear word ever was ratbeep motherbeeper which made me feel good as that was my favorite swearword ever and  it made me wonder what the eunuch’s deal was getting stars to talk dirty which reminds me of the gorgeous icy blonde I worked the daytime gig with who would beg me to use eff words and the like at work and she would giggle excitedly as the air tuned blue. But to undigress, I suspect film critics’ deadly seriousness kinda bleeds all over the whole industry and soon if it’s funny, well, it can’t be that good. At least not good enough.

But as the Good Lord sez, fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke. Or as my wife sez, normal people, don’t ya just hate ‘em?, kinda quoting Harry Dean Stanton in Repo Man, one of the great funnier than living fuck movies back then. I would say and no Christians either!, and we’d giggle, stoned, and wander about the hills of Silver Lake getting lost, driving past homes the long dead famous once partied in and stopping to neck in the darkness and coming up for air to gaze upon the vastness of LA, sparkling like a zillion diamonds all the way to the sea. It was a beautiful ugly city then, the dead piled up in the streets, neighborhoods rotted away, everyone hated everyone. It was wonderful.  We partied like mad, went to clubs, formed bands and made ungodly noise. Mistakes were made—I took on a dozen cops once, they beat the shit out of me. I wouldn’t take on a dozen cops now. I’m old and respectable and a critic. Well, was a critic. Critics know better. Though certainly no better than you or you or you or even you, who played on the fucking record or made the fucking movie or wrote the fucking book or cooked the fucking food or fucked the fucking fuck (the porno critics, ya know). Life is lived by others, we just don’t get the jokes.

King Tut

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So according to the eight zillion stories about it on Google this morning, King Tut was weird, fell down a lot and had excessively feminine features. Therefore he was epileptic. Voila. Just like that.
 
OK, I’ll give them the weird and falling down a lot. But why the excessively feminine? It’s never he was weird and fell down a lot and was a gnarly dude or he was weird and fell down a lot and was hung like a horse or was strong as an ox or was John Wayne. It’s gotta be something vaguely gay. People think wow, there’s Brick the epileptic guy. I hear he has seizures and wears women’s underwear.
 
I have never worn women’s underwear.
 
I don’t know if the same could be said for King Tut, however.  Or John Wayne, for that matter. Though he was not epileptic. So I don’t know what his excuse would be. 

There was also a big story about Neil Young making the rounds on Google, an interview to plug a new book or something. The story mentions his epilepsy (and why he finally stopped drinking and smoking dope because of it, but never mind.) Now, Neil Young is weird. That’s a given. And no doubt he’s fallen a lot, from seizures, or from being too stoned to stand, or by being tripped by Stephen Stills for being such a creep. That’s a given too. But I’ve been staring and staring at this picture…
 
 
…and I can’t see anything remotely feminine in it. He’s a little too clean shaven, yes, but maybe he just has a good razor. Otherwise, though, he’s as macho as they come in a demented, drug addled epileptic rock’n’roll visionary kinda way. If he’s wearing women’s underwear you can’t tell, nor could you blame it on seizures. It’d be a lifestyle choice, or maybe they just feel good.
 
Which brings us back to King Tut.
 
OK, it doesn’t. It just brings us to the end of this ridiculous essay.
 
 
 
(That beautiful shot of Neil Young  is by Graeme Mitchell for The New York Times.)
 
 
 

“A Guide to Russian Band Pussy Riot’s Oeuvre”

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Never trust a rock critic who uses the word oeuvre. Never trust a rock critic who uses the word iconic. Never trust a rock critic who calls himself a pop critic. In fact, never trust a rock critic, they’ll steal your records. No they won’t. They get them free anyway. But they will try to get in on the guest list. Even if there’s no cover. A guest list is a guest list.

Yes, this goes for jazz critics too. Except for the word oeuvre. They can’t spell it. Well, I can’t, anyway. I spelled it oevre. Almost began this Never trust a rock critic who uses the word oevre. Imagine my embarrassment. It would have been an iconic moment in Brick’s typo oeuvre.

Soooo tempting

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(2010)

An email from a Pinay pal. She’s gorgeous, of course, and wants to know if I’d like to go see a Filipino transvestite jazz singer.  Really? A Filipino tranny jazz singer? It was tempting and odd…. Filipino transvestites can be awfully hot to the young and unaware. I remember this one flirty number who worked at a lunch counter near my job on Wilshire. Total babe. This was the 1980’s and I was in my late 20’s and awash in testosterone. I was standing there in line and imagining fucking her when suddenly I realized there was a penis there. The bitch. She saw me and laughed. I had completely forgotten this for nearly 25 years. I was horrified then but it sure is funny now.

You started the fight, Van Gogh

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(2012)

Harley Flanagan Arrested: Founder Of Cro-Mags Charged With Assault For NYC CBGB Fest Fight
NEW YORK — Authorities say a two people were stabbed and one was also bitten before a show at the New York City music venue Webster Hall. Harley Flanagan, a founder of the hard-core punk band the Cro-Mags, was arrested on assault charges. Published reports say the victims were current members of the group.

No information on an attorney for Flanagan was immediately available.

The violence happened Friday night during the CBGB Festival. CBGB representatives say in a statement that the disturbance shouldn’t overshadow the events, which included free concerts in Times Square and Central Park.

CBGB was once a famed Manhattan rock venue where bands like The Talking Heads performed in the early 1980s. The venue closed in 2006. The festival is an attempt to revive the CBGB brand.

The “CBGB brand”? Are you kidding me? Rock music is so fucked up anymore, just another bullshit business. I’m glad somebody got bit. At least that’s punk rock. Hell, back then if you didn’t get bit or beaten or jailed or wailed on somehow, you weren’t doing the shit right. When you can brand CBGB’s, it’s time to destroy everything and start all over. No shit. That should’ve happened along time ago already. I can’t believe there’s a whole generation of kids who think what we did back then was cool. I mean you simpering little fucks, you’re supposed to hate what we did. We did. Shit, we lived to harass hippies. Always hate what came before you. How do you think music changes? I suppose this is not part of the music appreciation course curriculum, however. You don’t study it when earning that MBA in music industry administration. Sigh…..Would’ve loved to have seen that idiot bite those guys. My guitar player bit a guy’s ear off back in the 80’s. OK, it was just an earlobe. But you shoulda the dude crawling around the floor of the Anti-Club looking for his earlobe like a lost contact lens. Like here ya go, Doc, sew it back on. Yeah, sure. You started the fight, Van Gogh. He was a rich kid anyway. He could buy another. Ya know, I’m supposed to be a hot shit jazz journalist now, but sometimes I miss punk rock.

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Osama’s Dead

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(Brick’s Picks, LA Weekly—what appeared in print was radically copy-edited thank god. Not sure which of these I turned in, or maybe I turned in another draft. This was early May, 2011 and I had quit the week before but the paper said I’d be back the following week but my heart wasn’t in it. I just hated writing Brick’s Picks by this point. Eventually split the end of July when yet another editor came aboard and I just didn’t feel like dealing with another editor. I was a prick about it, one of those take this job and shove it things that left the poor bastard  bewildered and sending me the proper rules of pronunciation. Ya wanna stay on my good side you don’t send me the proper rules of pronunciation, especially after I’d already quit….Oh, the line about drinking myself into a coma is a lie.)

So Sunday night we’re writing this column, snickering, feeling pretty good. We flip on the TV and some newscaster’s babbling, just beside himself with excitement. Osama’s dead, Osama’s dead, Osama’s dead. The foreign correspondent agreed. Osama’s dead. The experts chimed in. Osama’s dead. The kids singing the national anthem outside the White House chimed in. Osama’s dead. The people in New York City agreed. Osama was dead, so dead. And we looked at our column, and it was dead. Every single writer and blogger looked at what they were typing and said the same damn thing: Osama’s dead. So every gardening and fishing and bondage and music and political column written Monday morning says Osama’s dead. But just to be different we’ll just stick with what we wrote and hope no one notices.    

But we’ll keep it short. We apologized for skipping last week. The Kings got knocked out of the NHL playoffs, you see, and we drank ourselves into a coma. We’ll get ‘em next season. We mentioned talking with late great L.A. jazz jock Chuck Niles about the L.A. Kings. He said we’ll get ‘em next season. Segued into his funeral. It got quite poignant here. Then back to jazz and drinking whiskey and it almost made sense. Then it went off the deep end about hockey and jazz. It’d take too long to explain now, but basically we like to listen to crazy hard ass jazz while watching hockey.  Crazier the better. The logic got pretty tenuous from then on. We somehow mentioned AC/DC and jazz critics and chasing Mingus with an ax all in one sentence. Claimed we thought of that next to the stage one night at Charlie O’s. We did, actually, but never mind. Then we wrote a bunch of stuff about jazz and fucking shit up, as Donald Trump might put it. Though we didn’t say Trump, just “a leading Republican presidential contender”. It was very topical. That’s what we were snickering at when they told us Osama’s dead. So never mind. Here’s some shows, though. 

Take 2:

So last night we’re typing up this column, snickering, feeling pretty good. Then a bus driver calls. Brick—turn on the TV—they got Obama. He sounded excited. Bus drivers never sound excited. So we flipped on the TV and there, where Donald Trump should have been, some newscaster was babbling, just beside himself with excitement.  Mama done took him to Disneyland. Osama’s dead, Osama’s dead, Osama’s dead. The foreign correspondent agreed. Osama’s dead. The experts chimed in. Osama’s dead. The kids singing the national anthem outside the White House chimed in. Osama’s dead. The people in New York City agreed. Osama was dead, so dead. And we looked at our column, and it was dead. Every single writer and every single blogger looked at what they were typing and said the same damn thing. Osama’s dead. And every single gardening and fishing and bondage and music and political column written this morning says Osama’s dead. Which of course means we can’t. So we’ll just stick with what we wrote and hope no one notices.    

Unfortunately we already wasted space telling you Osama’s dead. So we’ll run through what we wrote. We opened by apologizing for skipping last week. Said the Kings got knocked out of the NHL playoffs and we drank ourselves into a coma. Said we’ll get ‘em next season. Then went on about talking to legendary L.A. jazz deejay with Chuck Niles about the L.A. Kings.  He said we’ll get ‘em next season. The about his funeral. It got quite poignant here. Then we went on about the L.A. Kings and jazz and drinking whiskey and it almost made sense. Then it went off the deep end about hockey and jazz. It’d take too long to explain now, but basically we like to listen to crazy hard ass jazz while listening to hockey.  Crazier the better. The logic got pretty tenuous from then on. We somehow mentioned AC/DC and jazz critics and chasing Mingus with an ax all in one sentence. Claimed we thought of that sipping whiskey next to the stage one night at Charlie O’s. We did actually, but never mind. Then we wrote a bunch of stuff about fucking shit up, as Donald Trump might put it. Though we didn’t say Trump, just “a leading Republican presidential contender”. It was very topical. That’s what we were snickering at when the bus driver called and told us Osama’s dead. So never mind. Here’s some shows, though.

Just trying to capture the spirit of the thing

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(2012)

It just dawned on me that if I hadn’t stopped writing the Brick’s Picks jazzcolumn I could have used my LA Weekly cachet to score some righteous press passes to the Los Angeles Kings victory parade on Thursday. 

I spent seven years writing that goddamned column. I spent twenty years a devoted Kings fan. I hated writing Brick’s Picks…maybe not at first but by the end it was nothing but misery. And you had to be a masochist to be a goddamned Kings fan all those years. Sure jumping on the bandwagon in ’92 was great, but staying on meant getting used to the cellar, humiliation, failure, pitying looks from Canadians or insults from people from San Jose in those fey teal jerseys. It meant watching your team finally make the playoffs only to be swept–swept–in the first round. And then doing the exact same thing two seasons later. It meant only once making it to the second round.  It meant watching the owner go to jail for counterfeiting old coins. It meant watching Rob Blake and wondering why the hell he was still here. It meant saying goodbye to the Great One when he left for a shot at a cup. It meant Lakers fans who had no idea who or even what the Kings were. It meant trying to believe it every time they said the miserable failure of  a hockey franchise was in a “rebuilding phase”. It meant feeling kinda sorry for Bob Miller but never saying so. It meant being a little heartbroken when Warren Wiebe died. It meant watching the Mighty Ducks win the cup. It meant not being sure what was lonelier, being a Kings fan or a jazz fan in Los Angeles. And not caring. Because I loved jazz, and I loved hockey. So what if sometimes it felt like nobody else did. 

But if I had known the goddamn Kings were going to be Stanley Cup Champions this year after one of the most improbably glorious post-season runs in NHL history, I would never have quit the Weekly. I’d still be there, grinding out the column every Sunday night and hating every second of it. I would have done it because I could have called in some favors and gotten me a couple passes to the press section and watch this silly-assed parade. I would have so loved that. I could stop watching the end of Slapshot and being jealous of the extras cheering like mad for a fictional hockey team.

So this is the first time I have regretted quitting my gig at the L.A. Weekly. It’s a dumb reason, I know.  And it’s a selfish reason, I know that too. But it’s a good reason. You see, the Charlestown Chiefs have won the championship of the Federal League. Yup. Finally. And all that stuff before, the failures and disappointments and the what-the-fucks?…well, who cares. It only makes this year even better. Amazing. Miraculous. Great. Just great. Beautiful, even.

Oh…and my second favorite team?  The New Jersey Devils. Now what are those odds?

OK…..and I have another confession, and now that the Kings are Stanley Cup Champions it’s not so embarrassing. Well, it’s embarrassing, but not so pathetic. You see, I have only been star struck once in my life. It was a couple years ago, at the height of my hipness. While leaving the St. Patrick’s Day festivities at LALive (press passes with free everything, of course) I run smack dab into Luc Robataille. Luc. Ohmygod. I said–and I quote–wow, you’re Luc Robataille. He said yes I am. I tried to say something hip and knowledgeable but nothing came out. Just a few incoherent syllables. He nodded and walked on. I said to my wife–and I quote–that was Luc Robataille. She said yes I know. I told everyone I that week that I had met Luc Robataille. They said who? Except for Kings fans. They said wow. And then they said Luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc.

That Like thing

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I would “Like”, Amanda wrote,  a whole lot more of your writings (because I love & enjoy your writings)… but I just hate to sign up and sign in, in order to do the “Like” thing.

The Like thing? Wow. I had no idea there was a like thing on WordPress. I thought that was a Facebook thing.

So I looked. Sure enough, there it as. Right below the Share This thing. Which I had never noticed either.

I don’t think I’ve quite gotten the hang of this blog thing. 

I told Amanda things were different on my planet. I say that  a lot, things are different on my planet. A nice way of saying clueless.

I am clueless about the like thing. I don’t quite understand why people care or not if people “like” what the wrote. Personally I don’t give a fuck. I don’t sit here writing and hoping somebody will be moved enough to do the like thing. I don’t think about that at all when I write. It’s not like I’m writing advertising copy. I’m writing for me. If I like it I post it. If I don’t like it I do the delete thing. I do the delete thing a lot.

If I kinda like it I do the edit thing. I have a couple hundred pieces here that I kinda like but not enough to do the edit thing yet . They’re stuck in the draft category. It’s like limbo for blog posts.  If I lit a candle for each you could read a book by their glow.

And how come there’s not a hate thing? That’d be a lot more fun than a like thing. If you post something and people do the hate thing, then you know you’re doing something right.

(This was a while ago…I understand that whole Like Thing thing now. And am a much better person thing for it.)

Remembrance of moms past‏

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Someone once wrote a nearly 300 page biography of Proust’s mother. University of Chicago press just published the thing. Personally, the idea of spending years writing a biography of Proust’s mother seems so sad. But then I was never a post-grad in literature, so I suppose it’s just a matter of perspective. If that was a proustian joke I didn’t get it, as alas I have never read Proust. If it was a Joycean joke I didn’t get it either. Same reason, but even more on the alas side. I think. Which means I had better start or I will never be able to tell if I made a joke or not. I wonder if my employer will grant paid leave for a month or two to read Proust? Damn…ignorance had been so blissful. Now this nagging doubt. I wish I had never started this post.

Rock’n’roll

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(2011)

A drummer friend of mine was playing some concerts over in Holland a few weeks ago.  A bunch of American hard rock and metal bands. One of the bassists—who’s gotta be way into his thirties at least—had some local metal hottie bent over the sink in the men’s room and was banging away furiously, like a good rock star. Her boyfriend comes into the bar looking for her. Somebody points to the men’s room. He goes storming in, sees them and says what the hell do you think you’re doing? The bass player sees the boyfriend in the mirror, turns around and flattens the dude with one punch, and gets right back to banging like nothing had happened.

Sometimes I miss those days.