Everybody Wants An Egg

How did it last this long?

"These days," she said.

And I waited.

"These days what," I wondered. But I waited patiently.

"These days it's hard to see," she said.

And she sighed.

And gestured at a pile of newspapers. Or maybe the TV.

I nodded cautiously. These days it's hard to tell how to deal with her.

She sat slowly. Sinking her long legs into the couch.

Sighing.

Taking a sip of herbal tea.

"These days," she said. Again.

And I waited. Because often she'd say something insightful.

But not that day.

Song for the Internets

And my lovely DSL provider.

It wouldn't bother me so much that their tech support is never helpful if they'd only stop reading their infernal scripts that talk endlessly about offering "excellent service."

And when they tell me there's no direct line to US-based Tech Support... well, that's just a lie.

Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of incompetent techs in the US, but no one from my ISP's outsourced tech support islands in the Phillipines or India has ever solved any problem I've had. Literally, they keep you running around in circles for 20-30 hours until you insist on escalating the issue to the US-based techs... and at least then there's a chance.

Let's Live for Today

One, two, three, four...

We all thought we'd live fast and die young.

But we were suburban kids. So that really meant sliding through the occasional stop sign, having a couple of beers, driving slightly above the speed limit, and misquoting Nietzshe (hey, it was a college town).

We thought we were bad-ass. But we were wrong.

Except for Caroline. She was bad-ass. A little too bad-ass.

And she was gorgeous. So gorgeous that every guy I knew wanted her.

Especially me.

Until those two and a half seconds.

At a party. Upstairs, looking for the bathroom.

And I turned a corner and saw Caroline, dressed in only bra and panties. And she saw me and smiled.

And I saw the needle still in her arm. Wiggling as she turned. "You want some?" she asked. "It's really, really great."

Looking from the needle to her glazed eyes, I backed out and downstairs.

Then and there I knew I didn't want to be bad-ass; I just wanted to watch bad-ass movies and listen to bad-ass music.


For years after, I'd get calls every few months that started with "Did you hear about Caroline?" Her exploits became legendary over the years. We lived vicariously through her as we stayed safe and warm.

Then, one day:

"Did you hear about Caroline?"

"What was it this time?"

"They found her."

"Was she..."

"Yeah."

"Shit."

"Yeah. She was bad-ass to the end."

After we hung up, I put on the goth-punk remake produced by Todd Rundgren (who also plays the moody synth part), blowing the dust off the vinyl and plunking the needle into the groove.

There were two and a half seconds of clicks and pops before the song started. A glazed-eyed tribute to a bad-ass suburban girl. It was less than she deserved, but all I had to give.

Strat Like a Harley

The first Meat Loaf album might just be the perfect music for teenagers.

It's loud. It's bombastic. It paints love and sex as life or death struggles from Paradise Lost or a Wagner opera.

And it erects the sonic equivalents of Iwo Jima monuments to young lust. In short, it's what every parent fears and what every teenager thinks he or she alone has discovered. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Jim Steinman provided the songs (think Wagner having fever dreams that mash up Phil Spector and Bruce Springsteen anthems), Todd Rundgren produced the tracks (and paid for the recording himself), and the musicians included Max Weinberg and Roy Bittan from the E Street Band, Willie Wilcox, Kasim Sulton, and Roger Powell from Utopia, Edgar Winter playing sax, Ellen Foley and Rory Dodd singing, and Todd Rundgren himself playing the "motorcycle guitar" on the title track (which, on the album, goes on for nearly 10 glorious minutes).

The other thing about this album that teenagers recognize with great embarrassment decades later is that it's hilarious -- why else would NY Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto be providing the play-by-play in "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," one of 3 songs on the record that are more than 8 minutes long?

The other day, I hauled my vinyl copy of this album out of storage and listened to it. (The record sure beats Tums for relief when you see this commercial.)Yeah, I cringed more than once. But I also laughed more than once and marveled at some of the music all over again. And while I know it's possible to defend this record, it's a bit of a guilty pleasure -- one that I share with almost 40 million people around the world (including about 200,000 new ones every year).

By the way, if you're in Germany, stop in and visit Charles Altmann and bring your vinyl copy of Bat Out of Hell. What better way to listen to an album with a "motorcycle guitar" than on a turntable built out of parts from an actual motorcycle?

No Place Like Utopia

I was a big fan of Utopia.

Not the three-keyboardist prog period. And not the heavy metal period. But the brief New Wave/Power Pop period (which lasted from about 1980 to 1982).

A couple days ago, I heard "Set Me Free" by Utopia on XM Radio. It was like running into an old lover years after the passion had cooled. You can see things more objectively (the good and the bad) and hopefully you leave the encounter with some good feelings (and not still be crazy after all these years).

Adventures in Utopia was all over hipper radio stations in 1980, with its mixture of anthemic space ditties and straightforward pop-rock. Flush with cash from some afterschool job I can't remember, I bought the album new instead of hunting down a used copy.

The band was always seen as a Todd Rundgren side project (and most of its fans were Todd-heads), but it's secret weapon was always Kasim Sulton, who sang the band's one real hit "Set Me Free" (which barely crept into the Top 40 in 1980).


Utopia's next album Deface the Music was a collection of Beatle soundalike songs that sounded exactly like what might have happened if Todd Rundgren had joined the Rutles. In a masterstroke of shitty timing, the album came out just before John Lennon was killed. And suddenly the idea of clever fake Beatle songs seemed much less appealing (especially when compared to real Beatle songs people already knew and loved). I saw them at a club in Hartford touring behind this album; the show was half-full, but the concert was amazing. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


For the next few years, Rundgren alternated solo albums and Utopia albums with Utopia never quite breaking through and usually playing second fiddle to whatever directions or passions were important to Rundgren. Ironically, Todd's solo albums proved much more popular than Utopia records just as Utopia was finally developing a signature sound and group identity that wasn't based on Rundgren. But Utopia never regained the momentum they had in 1980 and each successive album was less successful (artistically and commercially).

Swing to the Right, a concept album that grew out of Reagan's election, failed to catch fire with audiences. Utopia was more notable for being a three-sided album than for the music itself (it came on two vinyl records, but the second record had side 3 on each side). The ironically named Oblivion sunk like a stone (perhaps because it traded the Utopia sound for a generic arena-rock sound that sounded like Asia on a bad day). I bought all these records; like a gambler on a losing streak, I figured my luck had to change (and the few good songs on each album kept my hope alive like an occasional winning hand). By 1986, they'd faded away which ultimately may have been a good thing (but it left me feeling like I was at a casino that closed just when I'd deluded myself into thinking my luck had changed).

Ironically enough, after college, I lived down the block from a club called Johnny D's; I always wondered about the place but never went inside. And then tonight, I found this video of Kasim Sulton singing "Libertine" at Johnny D's in 2008 and it sounds as good as it did back in the day.

Todd, Tums, and TV

It's important to meeeeeee.... that you know it gives you quick-acting, long-lasting relief.

I'm not opposed to pop songs in commercials. Sometimes they work well. The Fiest song from the iPod nano commercials a few years back was great. Using "Revolution" in that Nike ad was surprising (but at least the ad was for Nikes and not Odor Eaters). And the Volkswagon ad with Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" was moody and atmospheric -- like the song.

On one level, those ads all represent a certain selling out of the Baby Boomer ideals and memories of music. But at least, it's a selling out to something that's cool.

And then there's Todd Rundgren, whose "Todd is Godd" days are clearly way behind him. Because every time I see the new ad for Tums, I wonder what the hell happened. Having him sub for Ric Ocasek in the New Cars (reportedly for the money) was harmless enough, but does he really need to sell his best-known song as comic relief for an over-the-counter heartburn medicine? And couldn't he have gotten more money if he'd held out for the Herpes drugs (which at least reflect rock-'n'-roll behavior as opposed to a guy staring longingly at a plate of meatballs)?


Sure, Pete Townsend's probably given up on hoping he dies before he gets old, but at least when he sells out, the ads are cool.


Or is this just the first shot in the war on aging baby boomers that won't stop until Grateful Dead songs advertise Viagra and Jimi Hendrix songs shill for Depends?