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 »

November 13th, 2007

The Wife-Whale

This is a little late, but I wanted to share these pictures of Steph and I, taken at the Halloween party that Steph, Meg, and Bliss threw a few weeks ago. (This, by the way, is why I needed the pipe.)

This sea captain/whale combo is the first couple-costume Steph and I have ever donned. For a while now, I’ve held the opinion that couple-costumes are annoying. Whenever I see a Cleopatra and Mark Antony or a Romeo and Juliet, I can’t help but think these couples are overcompensating for some couple-shortfall they believe themselves, as a couple, to have. Why would they feel the need to be so…coupley? Recently, I’ve had a change of heart, though. It started when my friends JonScott and Sarah totally pulled off Mario and Luigi a few years ago. Friends Smitty and Nancy once did a great Laverne and Shirley. At the very same party the photos are from, friends Geoff and Regan showed up as Click and Clack from Car Talk. Brilliant. Now my official stance is: that couple-costumes — where the man plays a man and the woman plays a woman only — are annoying.

I’d planned to be a sea captain for over a month prior to the party (a role selected for its compatibility with my facial hair), and I’d set about gathering props at that time. Steph had the idea to be my whale two weeks before the party, but didn’t sit down and sew her outfit until about an hour before things got started. She finished with time to spare. Not even I knew she was capable of this. It was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. And, in addition to sweeping the “cutest” category of the costume contest that night, Steph propelled us into the winner’s circle for “best couple” as well. (And I’ll entertain no more comments about the suspiciousness of us receiving so much glory in a contest that we were overseeing. We won fair and square, people. Fair and square.)

In conclusion, this portrait is my favorite picture taken of me from probably the past 10 years of my life. Good job, Geoff.

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September 17th, 2007

Closing Up ’Shop

Ok, after this I promise I’ll go back to writing about other stuff, but Jerry has just posted a video of the barbershop wedding performance on YouTube, and I have to share it with you.

Highlights include:

• Seth smiling and smirking his way through the whole affair, as he does with many things in life.
• Mrs. Updyke looking like the happiest bride in the world.
• Mr. Updyke, with beer in one hand and woman in the other, looking like a seasoned barbershop professional having a little fun.
• Me mostly sort of looking like I am in pain, which I was not. I was having the time of my life, but I was also trying to concentrate and not mess up.
• -02:57: Jerry assuring Seth he was playing the right note on his pitch pipe. Seth never grew to fully trust that pitch pipe. He always thought it was playing him the wrong starting note.
• -02:52: Me not sticking my opening note. If you’re going to be solid on any note, it should be that opener. And I swear I always hit it in our practices. Oh well. Everyone else stays right on key and I recover ok.
• -02:05: Jerry holding up his ring finger when we sing “Place a wedding band upon your hand.” This is the extent of what we could come up with, choreography-wise.
• -01:49: The crowd interpreting a pause as the end of the song and going wild.
• -01:02: Mr. Updyke leaning in to the mic and really emphasizing the crazy low note he hits here. People being greatly amused by this.
• -00:54: That’s right. Key change.
• -00:18: Seth taking us out with a cool-looking, commanding “bam!” hand motion that was actually a signal for “I’ve been holding this note for a long time and I am now out of breath.”
• -00:15: Seth, Andrea, and I coming in for some love and Papa Updyke shoving us away. He later explained to me that he was trying to get us to spread out and take a bow, but then came to the realization that it was too much to orchestrate.
• -00:09: The four of us celebrating the culmination of several months of work, and our shared musical bond, by warmly embracing each other.
• -00:04: Me getting a face-full of Updyke’s boutonniere, because he is so freaking tall.

Enjoy.

Tags: Friends, Music - No Comments »