January 15th, 2008

Rock and a Hard Place

I’ve found myself thinking about rock stars a lot lately.

Probably because Steph and I’s friend and neighbor Thurston got the game Rock Band for his Xbox for Christmas, and Steph and I have been over there at least once a week playing the crap out of it. He, his wife Bliss, Steph, and I have switched around on all the instruments many times, and discussed the finer points of all of the different songs at great length. We’ve all not only created virtual game-versions of ourselves that look like us, but we’ve started going on pretend world tours, where, not to toot my own simulated horn, but the fake crowds just keep getting bigger and bigger. We’ve had such fictional success lately that we now get to treat ourselves to regular faux shopping sprees with our phony money, buying ourselves crazy farcical clothing and getting our imaginary hair styled in outrageous manners.

Perhaps this is why I have rock stars on the brain.

Or maybe it’s because Thurston has recently taken it upon himself to introduce me to a certain type of band that came into being shortly after Black Sabbath reached acclaim, and that is still around today. I didn’t acquaint myself with most of these particular groups in junior high or high school — which is the most popular time for this to happen — and now I guess I’m making up for lost time. If I had to describe the music these bands make in one word, it would be “metal.” The great majority of the records Thurston has given me feature songs about wizards, famous ancient battles, space travel, and Norse mythology. In each case, the outlandishness is taken a step further with the cover artwork, choice of font, and photos of a fully-costumed band, in the liner layout, whole-heartedly supporting the music’s theme(s). Not all of these groups qualify as “rock stars,” but this kind of almost delusional cookyness is a definite cornerstone of rock stardom.

With the exception of Bruce Springsteen (who I think made strides to appear even more blue-collar and normal than he was) and maybe Billy Joel (who’s never seemed to do anything but show up in a suit and play the piano), performing in arenas that hold 10s of thousands of people/becoming a celebrity that everyone wants to interview, and fabricating a mind-boggling bizarre new persona for yourself, seem to go hand-in-hand. Think about all the famous singers or musicians who, once they made enough dough, started buying things like broadswords or residences where the scariest, most unsolvable murders in history have occurred. I guess when I say I’ve found myself thinking about “rock stars” a lot lately I mean I’m thinking about the truly special ones who’ve gone totally weird for the sake weird and are always wearing make-up and Victorian gowns (even though they are dudes) and spending ludicrous amounts of money making trippy and/or disturbing and/or incomprehensible music videos (or even better, full-length feature films).

What I’ve been wondering about, specifically, is what a normal day at home, when they’re not touring or being photographed or filmed or attending the music video awards, is like for these people?

At some point, I have to imagine, Marilyn Manson has been chilling by himself in his foreboding chateau, in his fishnets and thigh-high leather boots, on his living room chair made of skulls, and he’s really just wanted a plain old peanut butter sandwich on white bread. (You know it’s happened. Even he was a kid at once.) What if he’s out of peanut butter? But he really wants this sandwich? I suppose he has a personal assistant who gets these kind of things for him, so he doesn’t have to leave the house and he can stay home in the pain and darkness. If so, let’s say that person is sick this day. Now, Marilyn Manson’s either got to live without a peanut butter sandwich — something he really wants, that is easily attainable by basically every schmuck in America — or he can put on his top hat and black trench coat and get in his replica of the car from The Addams Family and go to the grocery store where he will push a shiny metal cart around and wait in line behind soccer moms purchasing frozen pizzas and supersized bags of Doritos, and Nascar fans hauling around cases of Bud. And that activity, no matter how you look at it, is just not something that occurs in a twisted gothic dreamworld.

Ziggy Stardust-era David Bowie probably had to go to the dentist at some point, right?

Surely Alice Cooper has had to have a Roto-Rooter guy over his house to look at his plumbing before.

When these people who’ve worked so hard to cultivate an image that’s avant-garde and perverse, have to do mundane, everyday stuff, do they drop the act for a while?

If not, I guess it’s:

Interior designer: “So, Mr. & Mrs. Dio, do you see a carpet pattern you’re happy with?”

Ronnie James (in a Lord of the Rings-style outfit, getting up from the couch and assuming front man stance): “The winds of Loro are howling in ni-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiight!”

Interior designer: (Packing up things and leaving.)

Of course, if they do — if they put on jeans and go to the occasional ball game — isn’t that an admission on their part that the eyeliner and feather boa business is kind of silly? That when they don it, they’re nothing more than grown-ups who still play make-believe?

Which scenario best expresses what we expect of our rock stars?

I know I’ve got my answer.

Tags: Friends, Ideas, Music | No Comments »

January 11th, 2008

Ghostbusters II Sky

• 1920×1200 (works at 1920×1200, 1680×1050, 1440×900, and 1280×800)
• 1600×1200 (works at 1600×1200 and 1024×768)
• 320×480 (works on the iPhone and iPod Touch)

Tags: Desktops | No Comments »