March 2004

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I Hate 1984: 'V: The Final Battle'

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by Stephanie Carver

I first started having alien sex fantasies at age eight. No, just kidding. The alien sex fantasies were more a part of my early teens. In 1984, V: The Final Battle produced my very first feelings of arousal, and created a link between that arousal and fear. I was just a little too young to remember the original 1983 V: The Miniseries that spawned the sequel. The scene I remember most from V: The Final Battle is that of a naked woman taking a shower. You can see the blurry outline of her body through the shower door and the doughy whiteness of her skin. When I first tried to recall the actual V storyline, it was only that image my memory was able to return to. Looking back, I think that she was either showering so that the aliens could have a "clean" specimen to examine or else she had just finished having sex with one of them.

At eight, sexual morality a la Confraternity of Christian Doctrine classes (CCD) had infected me enough so that I felt it was wrong for me to look at her. However, I could not stop myself from looking at the woman's naked body. I wished very much that the shower door didn't make her outline so blurry. I squirmed and made sure to make gagging noises with the appropriate fervor so as not to expose my secret crush to my brother, who usually watched the show with me. I was terrified of the Visitors. The Visitors ate hamsters and rats. fuzzy little creatures that I liked a lot. I sat rigid and saucer-eyed, barely breathing. It's pretty normal that the lack of oxygen, fear, and arousal combination would spill over into a grown-up love of horror movies, no? I go to scary movies all the time trying to recapture those special V-like feelings. The only times I've felt any remote V-like quivers have been in the movies Memento and The Mothman Prophecies.

My father is a well-regarded member of The SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) Project. Maybe for that reason, aliens have always felt very real to me. Not real as in currently walking among us just real as in floating around waiting to probe us. Interestingly, the V fear/arousal feelings never spilled over into sadomasochism just horror movies. Maybe if I'd watch more Bambi or The Fox and the Hound I could have grown up to be a plushy. Ah, if only to have those crucial formative years back.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 31, 2004 9:50 AM

 

I Hate 1984: Van Halen's '1984'

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The Working Dirtball's California Dreams

by G.R. Anderson, Jr.

Part One

The first album out of the gate in 1984 was, quite literally, Van Halen's 1984. In a brilliant piece of marketing strategy, it was released on New Year's Eve day (December 31, 1983), jumping ahead of the pack for the pop onslaught that was to come for the next 12 months or so. Of course, some of the big hits that year came from records that were released earlier--Michael Jackson's Thriller was in the middle of a long squat on the top of the Billboard album charts--but Van Halen managed to stake a claim on that year like no other band.

Sales savvy aside, there was an accidental feel to the record's success, especially its domination on the singles chart. Think about it: The first single, "I'll Wait" died quickly and quietly, only to be replaced by "Jump," an obnoxious piece of synth rock that actually hit number one on the strength of a video shot with a handheld camcorder by the band's drummer, Alex Van Halen. His brother Eddie was evidently stoned in the clip, frontman David Lee Roth was so full of hubris that he looked like he was coming back to fuck your sister again while bassist Michael Anthony was quietly raiding your parents' liquor cabinet. Or your beer stash. Whatever.

The point is, there was no reason for Van Halen to rise in the height of the pastel Reagan era. What started as a working-class band from Southern California had put out five platinum records with marginal singles chart action and no critical acclaim. It's tough to imagine now, but they were the leaders of a rock underworld--the Atomic Punks, as Diamond Dave proclaimed on Van Halen I--that had far more to do with a punk/immigrant entrepreneurship than Madonna's bustier. Don't believe me? The cost of the "Jump" video: $100. The song roosted at number one for most of the spring.

In other words, the dirtballs triumphed. This was not lost on me as I hit the parking lot my first day of high school, as a freshman, and hung out with leather-jacketed dudes in vo-tech who skipped class smoking bowls and Marlboros on the hoods of their Impalas, Cameros and Skylarks. They blasted 1984; and they were happy for the attention. I was a shade over 5 feet tall, and 97 pounds with my braces, and wore a button-down Oxford with a red argyle crewneck. I knew Van Halen intimately. They welcomed me immediately.

Part Two

I suppose I should talk a bit about the music. But let me start by saying too much has been said about the "Orwellian" title, 1984. Roth is erudite enough--he once quipped that most metalheads understood Voltaire to be a kind of air conditioner--but I'm pretty sure nobody in the band thought much about the implications of the name of the record. They were too focused on the rock.

Ted Templeman, the band's producer during the golden age of VH--those first six records with Roth as the lead singer are still somehow underrated--told Rolling Stone years ago that the band was "balls to the wall" while recording 1984, and it shows. The purists derided the keyboard intro of the titular track, and the wussy flava of "Jump" to boot. ("I'll Wait" was another keyboard song, and that's why it failed at first. It was later re-released as the album's fourth single to hit the top 20.)

But the purists were missing the point; the Halen boys weren't out to follow a trend so much as subvert it. And they did that with "Panama," which followed "Jump" on the record and as a single.

Now this was a revelation: Never had such a woozy combo of California burgers and cheap beer come out of my AM radio or my brand-spanking maroon Walkman. "Panama" made me feel drunk for the first time, dovetailed the band's pop sensibilities with the urge to fucking rock, and generally obliterated the misgivings anyone might have had about "Jump." (Itself a piece of unparalleled songcraft, if you could get past the sellout of it all.)

Best of all, it made no fucking sense. I defy anyone to explain to me what the hell "Panama" means. No matter: Once you've seen an arena of 14,000 people pumping their fists and yelling the chorus (oh, just do it now), you understand pretty much everything about how the rock universe works. Is that Dave's scream or Eddie's guitar? What the hell kind of time signature is Alex playing? And what's that "hairblower" sound in the bridge? (Answer: One of Eddie's Lamborghinis, close-miked, revving in neutral-so much for working class.) Ease the seat back indeed.

"Panama" remains one of Van Halen's--and one of pop's--best works of art. That it was played incessantly on top 40 radio slays me to this day.

Where do you go from here? The rest of the record is not my favorite Van Halen record (that distinction belongs to the still-frightening and oh-so-naughty Women and Children First), nor does it carry the headbanging legend of Van Halen I. But it is, objectively, the quintessential Van Halen record, and that's why it's sold more that 10 million copies since it was released.

The blues-boogie of "Top Jimmy," an ode to an L.A. club rat, follows "Panama," underscoring the band's street cred. Then comes "Drop Dead Legs," my favorite song on the album, which features Beatles harmonies over a stripper's chicka-boom-and the kind of melodic guitar work that Hendrix, even Hendrix, couldn't have pulled off.

Side Two (vinyl or cassette, downloaders) starts with the obscene rumble of "Hot for Teacher," a bombast that has spawned countless similarly themed porn Web sites, leading to "I'll Wait," the best power ballad this side of "Dream On," and nearly culminates with "Girl Gone Bad," the most audacious song ever written about a nubile Sunset Strip hooker.

The whole shebang ends with "House of Pain," a song that the band had been playing since its backyard kegger-party days of 1973, and foretells an impending doom. About 18 months after he laid down the final vocals for lyrics he had at hand for a decade, Diamond Dave quit the band.

Part Three

But none of this comes close to what 1984 actually meant. There was the most expensive and highest grossing tour ever mounted (at the time) in the wake of the record. There was Diamond Dave doing an interview on the fledgling Entertainment Tonight in bed, with an acoustic guitar on his lap and a busty blonde on each side. There was, of course, the thrill of hearing 'Hot for Teacher' next to Cyndi Lauper's "She Bop" on KDWB, and what that did to the pre-adolescent mind at the time I can't even tell you.

But I'll try. For me, the magic of Van Halen is found in the cover art for 1984, a coy angel that looks a little like Eddie and a little like Dave, mischievously stealing a smoke on a well-earned break from piety. (Roth yelping "Class dismissed" and "Oh my god" at the end of 'Hot for Teacher' nicely married the secular and non-secular in one stroke.) It's sinful, it's delightful, it's pretty much how everybody should feel listening to a Van Halen record. It's pure escape.

But more than that, it's a crucial part of the long-running narrative of California dreamin? The Beach Boys get credit for inventing it, and Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles honed it. Van Halen basically reinvented it, filling a void and paving the way for the Minutemen, The Chili Peppers, and even Tupac. Nada Surf and The OC wouldn't exist without VH. When I was a kid, I wanted to move to southern California just so I could live in Van Halen's world--the ocean, the beach, the riffs, the girls. It never happened.

Forgive me for a minute, as I'm suffering a hangover from still foolishly chasing the California dream. I just spent a week in L.A., and didn't hear one single Van Halen song. I stayed with my friend, whom I half-jokingly call Diamond Dave, and we always used to talk about turning on the Van Halen frequencies. It never happened.

But I felt it anyway: the never-ending party, the false bravado, the general good times of what Van Halen had hatched. But it was so 20 years ago; all I had was my imagination, and even Los Angeles doesn't want Van Halen anymore. They were once hometown heroes there, you know.

As I write this, there's talk of a Van Halen reunion tour with--blech--Sammy Hagar fronting the band. This is not the kind of thing that moves me: Hagar, after all, replaced Roth, and shut the door on everything that Van Halen was about. Songs became about love and commitment, loyalty and service; nothing about indulgence, sex, and drugs. Hagar made the band grow up, and because of this, ensured that Van Halen would become humorless and irrelevant. The workingman's escape had been co-opted into the myth of marital bliss. Fuck that. They might as well be John Mayer. (Roth, on the other hand, god bless him, has managed to get a bit part on The Sopranos. This seems significant to me.)

There's plenty of folks in the know who dismiss Van Halen outright, but they're simply snobs. For a while there, with Roth, Ed, Al and Mike were the best band on the face of the earth. They were the Beatles of metal, and in one California fall they made a defining record that, with any justice, will be seen on a par with Pet Sounds, Rumors, or Nevermind. 1984 combines all of those records, and it blows them all away.

But that was the point. Make an untouchable record, crash the top 40 party, steal the chicks and the beer, and get out. And that's what happened. Score one for the dirtballs.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 30, 2004 12:06 AM

 

I Hate 1984: 'The Terminator'

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by Joseph Golden

When James Cameron was directing Piranha Part Two: The Spawning (check it out, it's better then you'd think), goes the anecdote, it was rumored that the investors where so unhappy with his progress, they were going to yank him. To finish under budget, ahead of schedule, and hopefully still employed, Cameron filmed during the day and snuck back into the studios at night to edit the day's work. This stress, exhaustion, and sleep deprivation left him hallucinatory, punch-drunk, and prone to waking nightmares where an unstoppable cyborg killing machine from the future hunted him relentlessly.

That something worthwhile came out of the thankfully short-lived Piranha franchise is a shock only topped by the fact that The Terminator (and its unthankfully long-lived franchise) was nothing more then a byproduct, a happy, career-cementing, icon-creating, multibillion-dollar accident. The script (like a machine itself) would be a work in progress for years, refined, reedited, toned down, built up, until finally it was the leanest, tightest most efficient product it could be: a pre-post-apocalyptic retroactive abortion sci-fi concept pushing every character in the movie into the worst 24 hours they had ever experienced. (Even the time-travel angle and all the headaches such overthinking induces are shouted down by Kyle Reese in the police interrogation room, when Dr. Pullover V-Neck Sweater starts asking technical questions of our handcuffed hero, who screams, �I don�t know! I didn�t build the fucking thing!� It's as if Cameron were screaming at the eggheads in the audience, �This is as thinky as it gets so shut up and enjoy the wound effects!�).

Every boy I grew up with ached to be suicide commando Kyle Reese (life-sized adventure person Michael Biehn, in a role that would lock him into a lifetime of short-cropped hair and Kevlar), with his puppy-love crush and his masterful control of a 12 gauge. Linda Hamilton�s proto-slacker Sarah Connor (Hamilton, at the time a complete unknown who was probably hired on the spot at her audition the second Cameron saw her soul-dead eyes) would lay the ground work for every woman I would every find attractive: foot-soldier waitress job, shitty taste in men, and a slutty roommate. The relationship between the two heros and their unborn son is a Moebius strip of Military hierarchy and family dynamics: My commanding officer is my-older-then-me son, my baby�s daddy hasn�t been born yet. All these are the treats of a movie made by a man who knew the best shit happened offscreen (a future war that you only get a brief and almost spoiling glimpse of, a military commander and world-saver who is only talked of and never seen, Arnold yanking some hippie  away from the public phone to get to the phone book�-the punchline of the scene not his single minded intent or brutality, but the hippie in the background whining, �Hey, man. You got a serious attitude problem.�)

All Cameron�s instincts and patience would be literally blown away by the next two should-have-never-been sequels in which Sarah Connor would become a psychotic Contra and then an offscreen victim of a heart attack or something; John Connor would become the irritating Edward Furlong and then the forgettable Nick Stahl; the villain would become the admittedly cool Robert Patrick, with his boy-next-door-serial killer appeal, and then some supermodel whose name I never learned how to read let alone spell; and Arnold would become increasingly bored and very, very rich.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 29, 2004 3:26 AM

 

I Hate 1984: An introduction

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I was 14 for ten months and seven days of 1984, which tells you about all you need to know. I hated 1984 toward the end. The year before I had become a punk rocker at Marquette Middle School in Madison, Wisconsin, which was cool. I remember being outside on the grass during gym class, and somebody giving me shit about my hair, calling me Frankenstein, and then another girl saying shut up, he's dressing punk. Once people knew what I was, they respected it. And we were in 8th grade, so there was no one older than us to beat us up or enforce the rules.

Then I entered my Freshman year at East High School near the Oscar Mayer factory, big and anonymous and working-class, where you could get seriously hurt for looking weird. I had painful acne, and at home my brothers and my sister were joining me in moody adolescence. Hating Reagan and loving music brought us together, actually, corny as that sounds. Our Episcopal church had given sanctuary to Central American refugees, whose torture scars we could see if they let us, so our family was solidly for Mondale/Ferraro, and the parents (it's complicated, but I have four of them) didn't object when the kids walked out of school to protest Apartheid.

I distinctly remember my stepmom, Peg, whose church we attended, buying us these albums to share for Christmas: Cyndi Lauper's She So Unusual, Madonna's Like a Virgin, Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A., Chaka Khan's I Feel For You, Van Halen's 1984, and Prince's Purple Rain. This was back when buying records was a big investment for me, so getting all this music at once was a big deal. Meanwhile, through my friend in punk rock, Joel, I had gotten into the Replacements' Let It Be, the Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime, and Husker Du's Zen Arcade, all in a matter of weeks, come to think of it. The last of those became my first record review in the high school newspaper, for a senior named Ruth Conniff, who later became an editor at The Progressive.

So it was the year I had to show my ugly adolescent body, naked and shivering, to fellow high-school showerers during health class (where bathing after activities was required). But it was also the year I saw Apollonia naked on the big screen, and the year I began to see some of her voluptuousness in the new wave girls around me. This was the year my classmates literally cheered Reagan's reelection as the news broke (with more than a little melodramatic self-pity, I found myself empathizing with Winston Smith in Orwell's 1984, which I was reading around that time.) But it was also the year that radical, political punk rock produced its greatest art.

I hate 1984 today because it makes all the other years look bad. Not that I haven't felt much, much better in the two decades since, or that things around me have particularly gotten worse. (Communism left, the Bush clan stayed, and we've still got a bomb and could all die here today.) But I've never been so fully engaged in popular culture as I was in that lonely year. Which is to say, I've never enjoyed the culture as fully through my family, and through the friends I call family. I'll never forget watching The Terminator with my brother Matt and my stepdad, Tom, groaning "Arnold" at the screen and getting the whole theater to do the same. (My friend from well before those years, Joseph Golden, reviews the movie on Monday.) I'll never forget my sister, Jenna (then J.J.), and a bedroom full of her friends singing "Darling Nikki" together at the top of their lungs. (Tipper Gore was right.) I'll never forget my mom's enthusiasm for the Talking Heads' Stop Making Sense movie, or her patience when I tried to convince her that the Minutemen were great even though they couldn't sing. You lose some of this familial perspective when you go off to make your way in the world, and  now I remember with fondness my dad's system of preferential voting for what movies we would go see as a family, and the one we all agreed about afterwards: Sixteen Candles. Things I took for granted at the time, like my brother Ben's martial arts moves, that seriousness on his face, the way a news segment about him on local TV used The Karate Kid theme--these are now some of my fondest memories.

I could also talk about the sex I wasn't having, or the first girlfriend I never tongue kissed, or the sexual tension so overworked I'm amazed I didn't jump the girl with the pink, gelatin hair the moment she threw on some Culture Club and threw me on her bed. (I ran out of there, no regrets.)

But I've embarassed myself enough for one introduction. That's right, this is the beginning of a Complicatedfun.com series: a month of tributes to 1984 starting Monday. And I have to head out of town now. So my thanks to blogger extraordinaire Brad Zellar for posting items by various contributors while I'm away. My thanks to those contributors, who kicked ass without any real help from me. And my thanks to you, whom I hope will contribute in the way of some stray memories of your own. You have my email. Last but most, my thanks to Lars Larson of D.U. Nation for designing the cool and hilarious "I Hate 1984" parody logos free of charge. This blog is starting to feel like a real zine, which is what I always hoped it would be.

Now let's go crazy.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 26, 2004 3:19 AM

 

Hot for Teacher423423423

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Jam Master Jay

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Beat Bop

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Molly Ringwald111

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AMH222

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AMH111

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The Terminator111

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Stop Making Sense111

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1984 book jacket

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V the final battle111

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84 logo Apollonia

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Run-DMC

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Breakin 222

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Sammy Hagar

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Double Nickels cover11

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84 logo 16 candles

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84 logo 16 candles

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84 logo Sade

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84 logo Madonna

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84 logo Metallica

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84 logo prince

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stupid white men

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Movies, my cathedral

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How great is My Architect? If it's any indication, tickets for Saturday's screening at Oak Street Cinema in Minneapolis, featuring the film's director appearing in person, have already sold out. (It closes the month-long Twin Cities Festival of Festival of Jewish Film, which also screens a film I'd love to see tonight at 7:00 p.m., at Willow Creek Theaters, Rosenstrasse, though here are Noel Murray's misgivings.) My Architect opens a week later at Landmark, so don't fret. Meanwhile, here's my review of the Academy Award-nominated film, including my interview with director Nathaniel Kahn.

The Riot Auteur Remembered

I Was a Teenage Serial Killer was riot grrrl's shining moment in movies, a brilliant 1993 no-budget short about bloody revenge against sexist assholes. It felt as immediate and raw and funny as the Bikini Kill music on the soundtrack. ("Feels Blind," from the band's debut cassette.) The woman who made it, Sarah Jacobson, died in February, and fellow onetime Minnesotan Laura Sinagra remembered her a few weeks ago in City Pages, with a mention of this article and message board at IndieWire. For those too young to have been there, riot grrrl is more than a memory today: Drive to Chicago's Estrojam September 23-26 to see what I mean.

The Cinematic Griot Remembered

Jean Rouch, the father of cinéma vérité, also died in February. Not to be cavalier or callous, but that's how I want to go: crashing a Mercedes at age 86 in a remote desert of Niger, though of course without severely injuring my wife in the process.

I don't have time to do Rouch's work justice  except to say that the "reality" media he birthed would benefit now, morally and commercially, from his insistence that the camera was always an instrument of provocation, never just, or even, an objective observer. He was the first documentary director to keep putting the documentary director onscreen, demystifying the process in ways more entertaining than the phrase suggests.

He was also an energetic ethnographic filmmaker who loved West Africa (they called him a cinematic griot), and was a principle influence on Godard and Martin Scorsese (see American Boy for the obvious homage of style). Rouch's 1961 classic Chronique d'un ete ("Chronicle of a Summer"), a sort of nonfiction counterpart to The Battle of Algiers (see below), changed my life and many others. Check out this Rouch tribute at the Keywords blog, this item at IndieWire, this Low Culture piece, and my interview with the great nonfiction filmmaker Heddy Honigmann, who predictably adored Rouch:

...Honigmann identifies Rouch's 1965 ethnographic study of bow hunters in West Africa, Hunting the Lion With Bow and Arrow, as one of her favorite movies. The scene she singles out reveals something about her philosophy. "The tribe he's filming with meets another tribe," she says, "and the chief turns to the camera and says to the other chief, 'I want to present you Mr. Rouch: He's chasing the lion with us.' I'll never forget that moment! He was in. He was totally in."

Har Mar Movie Star

I finally saw the Har Mar Superstar dance-off with Ben Stiller in the Starsky & Hutch movie, and it's the best thing in it. I'd already seen Har Mar/Sean Tillman in another, considerably smaller film this summer (forget the name, but it was local: He played a one-night-stand lover picked up in the Clown Lounge). He has a genuine charisma and presence that has nothing to do with his at-a-glance resemblance to Ron Jeremy. His voice is nothing like the porn star's, and his eyes are happier than Jeremy's, too. He always seems to be having a better time than he lets on.

Not that I blame Terri Sutton's review for passing mention on him: I blame her review for implying that the movie is funny and offensive. It's neither.

The Battle Over the Battle of Algiers

Speaking of offensive, Matthew Wilder's review of 1965's The Battle of Algiers is beautifully put, right about the movie (which opens at the Uptown tomorrow), and as facile as I feared in equating the terrorists of Algeria, Palestine, and Iraq.

I've experienced this kind of shudder before. About a month after September 11, 2001, Oliver Stone called the mass murders of that day a "revolt" and announced to the New York Film Festival audience that he'd be willing to remake The Battle of Algiers (as reported by Rob Nelson and many others) in light of recent events. I've since heard from a friend of Stone's that this wasn't the director's best week. But even to make a passing connection between Al Qaida and the FLN strikes me as something more than a messy mood.

Christopher Hitchens was on that same panel, and has since pointed out the differences between Iraq and Algeria to anyone on the left still reading him. (Even if you regard the selling off of Iraq with horror, as I do, the question remains: What, exactly, do people murdering their fellow citizens in hopes of fomenting sectarian civil war have in common with people murdering mostly foreigners to oust a colonial occupier with no announced intentions of leaving?)

But Hitchens's argument itself brings up why I have qualms about the film, even if I once agreed with Wilder's sentiment that "Surely The Battle of Algiers is the greatest political movie ever made." I mean, what does that phrase mean, anyway? "Greatest political movie." The only "politics" that Gillo Pontecorvo shows us is violence, and the "revolution" that so fired the imagination of a young Hitchens is dramatized almost purely in violent terms. You would never guess, from this film, that heroism or planning or adventure went into the popular street demonstrations that eventually dumped the French out of Algeria, the protests that close the film. This was the real revolution, but it's included almost as an afterthought, and framed as a mysterious and spontaneous response to the violence we've seen. (It's like an exact inversion of the great Madison '60s Vietnam protest documentary The War At Home, which ends with an act of domestic terrorism that all but killed the local movement. I shuddered again when local antiwar activists showed this film at the U of M after September 11.)

Here's an alternate nomination for "greatest political movie ever made": the Eyes on the Prize documentary series on PBS, both parts, from the 1980s, which richly deserve a DVD re-release. These shows aren't really a movie, per se, but they have the momentum and look of cinema (you can check them out at the library), and show the thought and work and passion of the struggle for black freedom in America in the 1960s. That's politics to me.

Always Coming Back Home to You

Random notes before I leave town: Too sick to attend Eyedea's CD-release shows, I heard him on Saturday's 2 The Break-A-Dawn playing music by his old hero Sess, the late St. Paul rapper whom many consider the best Minnesota MC ever. (Read about him here, here, and here.) Do yourself a favor, and listen halfway through the show at KFAI audio archives, available for another week. Maybe Rhymesayers will re-release these old recordings someday, but for now,this is the only place to hear them.  Despite the venue's treatment of my old pal Nick Nice, I'm going to go see Eyedea and Abilities at Club Majestic in Madison, Wisconsin, Saturday, April 3. It's the first rap show I've seen there, and completes a weird circle: I got my first job there back when it was a movie theater in the Landmark chain.  Here's a blog titled "God Loves Ugly" by a guy calling himself Atmospheric Yoj.  The secret history of how Cadillacs went hip-hop, from the L.A. Times car critic. (Thanks to The Cyclops.)  Eminem's little brother's web site  Aaron Money on rap words that should die.  Has anyone read the hardcopy of this? Where do I buy it?  Still gotta tape Prince on VH1.  Apparently, Prince's live concert in Los Angeles on March 29 is screening live in area multiplex theaters, at 10:00 p.m. Central Time, for... $17.50!?! If you like rip-offs, click here.  Buy Michaelangelo Matos's book on Sign 'O the Times.  The death of a Dead Milkman.  American Idle brings us next month's issue of Martha Stewart Living.  My friend Jessica wrote this great email weeks ago about how a lot of people are devastated by the transit strike, and she's more right the longer we wait.  Go to the Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival April 2-17

 I'm also going to the Wisconsin Film Festival April 1-4

See you soon.

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 25, 2004 4:15 AM

 

We can't wait

Filed under: Stories

From ComplicatedFun.com, an open letter from my friend Jessica:

Imagine they closed the freeways and stopped selling gas

Hello,

I am writing in regards to the current transit workers strike. For people like myself who have built a life where, with the bus system, we have no need for a car on a daily basis, the current bus strike is quite devastating. Friends and coworkers are left scrambling for rides, many students at the University are missing classes because they cannot afford to take cabs or can't find people to help them get home, from night classes in particular. Meanwhile, I've been told some groups close to legislators are suddenly saying, "Well, it looks like everyone is doing fine, why do we even need a bus system?"

We need a bus system because for students, people without cars, and elderly citizens without the financial or physical means to own or operate a car, thousands are left stranded. For those with cars, imagine one day they just closed all the freeways or stopped selling gasoline for an undetermined amount of time. No doubt you would be mortified! How would you get to work, buy groceries, get to appointments? Who in their right mind would think it is acceptable to compromise your needs like that?

This is how crippled we, who count on these buses like others count on their cars, are every day this strike continues. However they decide to finance the situation, public transportation is crucial to any growing metropolitan area. In all my travels, the Twin Cities already has the most struggling and insufficient public transportation for our need and climate. But to just forget about this, to drop it all together, to disregard the thousands of people affected my this strike? A wait for a taxi in the Twin Cities was already sometimes up to one hour before the strike and to take a cab from my house to downtown, less than a handful of miles away, costs more than $10. One way. A ride to and from downtown costs almost as much as it does to fill a car's gas tank. A ride to the airport costs more than $30 one way.

Without public transportation the highways are already even more congested. Some people are driving from one suburb to another with a private bus system to avoid driving and trying to find already sparse affordable parking downtown. Telling everyone to carpool is not enough. You can't carpool to a doctor's appointment. You can't carpool when your class runs late and your ride has to get home to their family. Tuition at the University has nearly doubled in the last few years. Students need an affordable and reliable way to school. And those without cars, generally those with disabilities or low income issues, have suffered enough.

There is no reason you should be "forced" to own a car in a major metropolitan area. We cannot wait almost three weeks like we did for the last strike in 1995 to be resolved. Please help.

Sincerely,

Jessica Hampton

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 25, 2004 3:59 AM

 

Minneapolis St. Paul festival

Filed under: Imported

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 25, 2004 3:28 AM

 

Wisconsin Film Festival logo111

Filed under: Imported

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 25, 2004 3:25 AM

 

Battleposter

Filed under: Imported

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 25, 2004 2:21 AM

 

Rouch film11

Filed under: Imported

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 25, 2004 12:27 AM

 

Shattered Glass

Filed under: Imported

I finally got around to seeing Shattered Glass, which feels kind of like the ultimate horror film for journalists. It's a thriller, actually, and one so effective, I immediately read a bunch of things about it: a review of Glass's book by a friend, a review of the film by that friend's husband, a blog at the New Republic,. Shattered Glass casts overly competitive ambition as a possible enemy of journalism, which sits well with me. But it also calls into question something that hits me closer to home: the tendency of writers to emotionalize their relationships with editors, to apologize and display angst as a way of gaining sympathy in lieu of respect. I don't know if every writer has been there, but I have, and I'm glad to say I've mostly changed my ways. Most of that angst was a waste of time, anyway. Still, few of us have ever gone to the extremes of pathological self-delusion dramatized in Shattered Glass.

 

http://www.shatteredglassmovie.com/index_flash.html

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 24, 2004 10:19 PM

 

My Architect

Filed under: Imported

Posted by Peter S. Scholtes at March 24, 2004 9:25 PM

 

28 Days Later: Rock&roll March 24-April 21

Filed under: Imported

      The Distillers at The Quest April 17

I'm on vacation as of Friday for two weeks, but Complicatedfun.com will continue without me, with tributes to 1984 pop culture written by various friends and posted in my absence by Brad Zellar. In the meantime, here's a tentative schedule of what looks fun in Minneapolis and St. Paul over the next four weeks, drawn from these essential sources: the Twin Cities Alternative Shows List, the D.U. Nation hip-hop calendar, and the City Pages A-List and Calendar.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24

PICK The Original Harmony Ridge Creek Dippers. 6:30 p.m., VIKING BAR 1829 Riverside Ave, Mpls., 612.332.4259  I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, Tyler Keith, Sluthumper. $5. 8:00 p.m., 7TH ST. ENTRY, 701 1st Ave N, Mpls., 612.332.1775  Tiffany ("yes, that Tiffany") 18+. $15/$17. 8:00 p.m., FINE LINE MUSIC CAFE, 318 1st Ave N, Mpls., 612.338.8100  Soul Smooth with DJ Nikoless, 9:30 P.M. 21+ King and I Thai, FREE!  Datura 1.0, Fadladder, Samsa, Panzram. All ages. $5. 8:00 p.m., ACADIA CAFE & CABARET THEATER, 1931 Nicollet Ave S, Mpls., 612.874.8702  TRANSFOMERS, Written by Daviná Stewart; performed by Daughters of the Diaspora, March 24 - March 28, 2004, Wednesdays through Sunday, 8:00 p.m., Saturday and Sunday, 2:00 p.m. Matinee, $15 ($12 in advance), Post Show Discussions: Friday and Saturday, March 26 & March 27, Mixed Blood Theatre, 1501 South 4th Street (West Bank), Minneapolis, MN 55454, 612-228-6131, Tru Ruts Media Center.  SARA WEDDINGTON, 7:30 p.m. speaking at Willey Hall at the U of M. She was the winning attorney in the landmark Roe v. Wade case.  MENAGE A TWANG, "The Chex Party Mix Of Americana," Lee's Liquor Lounge, Glenwood and 11th St, Mpls, Music @ 9:15 Free

THURSDAY, MARCH 25

PICK 25 Suaves, Demolition Dollrods, the Bleeding Hickeys, the Fucking Americans. $6. 9:00 p.m., TRIPLE ROCK SOCIAL CLUB 629 Cedar Ave S, Mpls., 612.333.7399  PICK The Art of City Pages opening: Covers from the last 25 years at Calhoun Square across from Kitchen Window, will be on display for free at Calhoun Square through April 22; I'm assuming there's booze.  PICK The MPLS LTD Travel Companion CD-Release Show. Featuring Samarah, the Chris Danforths, the Flavor Crystals, Seakn Conrad, DJs Christian Fritz, Jerome Reading. $5. 8:00 p.m., 7TH ST. ENTRY, 701 1st Ave N, Mpls., 612.332.1775  Death Cab for Cutie, Ben Kweller, +/- All ages. $15. 5:00 p.m. FIRST AVENUE 701 1st Ave N, Mpls., 612.332.1775 .  TC Muzique featuring Best Fight Story. Live broadcast of the Channel 17 show. Free. 8:00 p.m. MTN STUDIOS, 125 SE Main Street, Mpls., 612.331.8575  Sandor Szabo & Tim Sparks 730 P.M. Cedar Cultural Center ALL-AGES $14/16  The Liquid Kids, Johnnyrook, Blue Shift, Pseudosmile 9 P.M. Urban Wildlife Club 18+ $5/8  DUTTY VIBEZ, Dancehall For The People...Real Caribbean Vibez...9:00 P.M. 21+, First Avenue (VIP Room), $3 (9p.m. - 11p.m.), $6 (11p.m. - 2am), Birthdays & Members Free +3  Hydrophonics w/ TBA, 9:00 P.M., 21+, The Rox, St.Cloud, MN  Done Delicious (featuring, from Amsterdam, March and Murmur), 9:00 P.M. 21+, The Kitty Cat Klub, $3.00

FRIDAY, MARCH 26

PICK Harvey Pekar, author and subject of American Splendor (here's his blog), speaks in the Coffman Memorial Union theatre (UM-Minneapolis campus) at 12:00 P.M.  PICK So Fox performs on Radio K (KUOM-AM 770 & KUOM-FM 106.5), as this week�s guest on "Off The Record," with hosts Adam and Keri, 4:00 p.m.  PICK The Honeydogs (CD release), Michael Penn, High Heels, Punch the Clock 5 P.M. First Avenue $8/10  PICK The Modey Lemon, The Apes, The Gris Gris. This showcase for San Francisco's Birdman Records label (see Static Taxi and Paula Frazer) features three unusually good "the" bands in varying states of psych-punk arousal, but the similarities end there: The Apes are violently funky, organ-powered originals from Washington, D.C. (great live show); the Gris Gris (with Greg Ashley) are finding their voice, but rocket from their tomb in Oakland with an eclecticism that's pure 1975 punk; the Pittsburgh headliners match fuzztones with riffs so primitive, they must have studied like pre-meds to get this stupid. $8. 10:00 p.m., TRIPLE ROCK SOCIAL CLUB 629 Cedar Ave S, Mpls., 612.333.7399  A Prairie Home Companion Friday Night Preview Mar. 26 (non-broadcast performances, tickets available at Fitzgerald box office and through Ticketmaster)  Dying Fetus, the End, Creeping Charlie. All ages. $10. 5:00 p.m., TRIPLE ROCK SOCIAL CLUB 629 Cedar Ave S, Mpls., 612.333.7399  Midnight Evils, Cave Music, Diplomats of Solid Sound, Ed Gein Fanclub. $6. 8:00 p.m., 7TH ST. ENTRY, 701 1st Ave N, Mpls., 612.332.1775  Holy Cowboys, Malachi Constant, TURF CLUB, 1601 University Ave W (at Snelling Ave), St. Paul, 651.647.0486  West Side. (Drop by between sets at the Turf Club, you'll be glad you did.) 9:30 p.m., ARNELLIA'S, 1183 University Ave W, St. Paul, 651.642.5975  Martin Zellar & the Hardaways, Kory & the Fireflies. $11/$13. 8:00 p.m., FINE LINE MUSIC CAFE, 318 1st Ave N, Mpls., 612.338.8100  Umbrella Sequence, Faux Jean 9 P.M. Uptown Bar  O.F. Band, For Pete's Sake 9 P.M. Urban Wildlife Club $5  Edupoetic "Patriotic Duty" CD signing and free show, 5:00 P.M., All Ages, Borders Bookstore (Block E) Minneapolis, FREE!  Pleasure Pause, 8:00 P.M., 21+, 5 Corners, $5.00  Dean Macgraw, Jim Anton, J.T. Bates. $10. 9:00 p.m., ARTISTS' QUARTER, 7th Pl and St Peter (Hamm Bldg), St. Paul, 651.292.1359  The Delcounts, FRIDLEY CRAB HOUSE MUSIC CAFE, 6161 Hwy 65 NE (Central Ave), Fridley, 763.571.3444  Dan K CD-Release Party, O'GARA'S GARAGE 164 Snelling Ave N, St. Paul, 651.644.3333  In Pictures, Down Like Velvet, NASA. $5. 8:00 p.m., 400 BAR, 400 Cedar Ave S (at Riverside Ave), Mpls., 612.332.2903  PETERSON FAMILY HOMETOWN BENEFIT CONCERT $15-$25. 7:30 p.m.. For tickets call 612.861.9385. Richfield High School Auditorium, 7001 Harriet Ave, Richfield.  Flaneur Productions presents BLACK DIAMOND BABY or the voice of the volcano, a new play written and directed by Jim Bovino, Featuring: Christian Gaylord, Don Mabley-Allen, Cherri Macht, Barbara Meyer, Original soundtrack and graphic design by Rich Barlow, at Brainco, 2900 Aldrich Avenue South, Thursdays-Saturdays, March 11-March 27 $10 for more information call 612.822.6395

SATURDAY, MARCH 27

PICK Josh Ritter, Haley Bonar. $10. 5:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m., 400 BAR, 400 Cedar Ave S (at Riverside Ave), Mpls., 612.332.2903  Fifth Element Open Mic & Instore w/ Immortal Technique, 6:00 P.M., All Ages, Fifth Element, FREE!  Tina & the Salvation Band, Scott Laurent Band $7. 8:30 p.m., CABOOZE, 917 Cedar Ave S, Mpls., 612.338.6425  Old Time Relijun, Signal to Trust, Eufio 9 P.M. The Haunted House ALL-AGES $5  Big Ditch Road. $5, LEE'S LIQUOR LOUNGE, 101 Glenwood Ave N (at 11th St), Mpls., 612.338.9491  Jack Knife & the Sharps. Lazy Ike, MAYSLACK'S MUSIC LOUNGE, 1428 4th St NE, Mpls., 612.789.9862  Folk singer Mike Gunther, singer-songwriter Marlee McLeod on the Rhubarb Show, Garrison Keillor's new, "after show" cabaret for A Prairie Home Companion, with separate tickets available at Fitzgerald box office and through Ticketmaster, Fitzgerald Theatre, 10 East Exchange St., St. Paul MN, All ages 651-999-1099  The Bill Mike Band, Cowboy Curtis, the Monarques. 18+. 8:00 p.m., WHOLE MUSIC CLUB, Coffman Union, 300 Washington Ave SE (University of Minnesota), Mpls., 612.625.2272  Martin Taylor & Alex de Grassi 8 P.M. Cedar Cultural Center ALL-AGES $16/18  All the Pretty Horses, Temptress (storied live show), SMR 9 P.M. Triple Rock Social Club  The Proclaimers. With Kevin Bowe & the Okemah Prophets. 18+. $16/$18. 6:00 p.m., FINE LINE MUSIC CAFE, 318 1st Ave N, Mpls., 612.338.8100 Great Big Sea, the Push Stars. $12/$15. 6:00 p.m., FIRST AVENUE, 70