4/23/23
Newsletter #315
The Crack of Dawn
What did the Mexican woman name her twin sons? Jose and Hose B.
I heard Robert DeNiro tell this old actor joke. An actor develops terrible stage fright that gets so bad he quits the theater. His actor buddy, seeing his friend’s predicament, says, “I can get you a one line part in a play, and maybe that will help you overcome your stage fright.” The actor takes the part, and his one line is, “Hark, is that cannons I hear?” Backstage on opening night, the actor keeps repeating over and over, “Hark, is that cannons I hear? Hark, is that cannons I hear?” Finally, his entrance arrives, he steps out on stage and there’s a loud BOOM. The frightened actor yells, “What the fuck was that?”
My old buddy Rick Sandford would call me every morning in L.A. and tell me which celebrities had died. His theory was that because he informed me of their demise, now, whenever I think of that actor, I’ll also have to think of Rick. And he’s right. He told me both Joan Crawford (May 10, 1977) and John Wayne (June 11, 1979) died, and now I think of Rick whenever I think of those actors.
Returning to the wonderful Ms. Natalie Merchant for a moment. Natalie is way out of style. I actually get shit from a few of my friends for still liking her because she’s so ‘90s. Perhaps so, but that’s like saying, “Beethoven is out, man, he’s so 1800s.” In any case, as much as I love Natalie’s wonderful voice, and her extraordinary songwriting abilities, she has never been able to build a rapport with her audiences. Worse still, she antagonizes her audience, and the audience antagonizes her. I’ve never seen anything like it. If she asks the audience to sing along, they don’t. If she tells an amusing anecdote, the audience never laughs. She tried to get the audience to remember and sing along an old elementary school music class song, Señor Don Gato, which I remember, but nobody else did, and Natalie actually became a bit disgusted. She constantly comments about her terrific shoes, and she has truly awful taste in shoes. In one performance she explains that they’re recording an album so please be quiet, which is immediately stupid – if you want quiet, record in a studio – because the whole point of recording live is to get the audience’s vibe and reaction. Early into the song someone starts to clap. Natalie stops singing, tells the guy to shut up, explains the situation again, starts the song again, somebody else makes a noise, and she stops it again, this time legitimately pissed. She did an MTV “Storytellers” thing where songwriters explain their songs. Natalie’s explanations were inappropriately long, and told in a rather distracted manner. Early in her career, back in the Lollapalooza days, she would take off her shoes and turn in circles while singing, which seemed both cute and slightly autistic.
But man, she’s got a voice. You don’t keep a vibrato like that unless you practice all the time. And as I am a wannabe lyricist, I’m in awe of her. Her really excellent song, Kind & Generous, doesn’t have a single rhyme, which is reasonably unique (I can’t think of another one offhand). Every time I hear her song, San Andreas Fault, I think, “There’s a whole movie in that song, with a great metaphor.”
San Andreas Fault
Go west
Paradise is there
You'll have all that you can eat
Of milk & honey over there
You'll be the brightest star
The world has ever seen
Sun-baked slender heroine
Of film & magazine
Go west
Paradise is there
You'll have all that you can eat
Of milk & honey over there
You'll be the brightest light
The world has ever seen
The dizzy height of a jet-set life
You could never dream
Your pale blue eyes
Strawberry hair
Lips so sweet
Skin so fair
Your future bright
Beyond compare
It's rags to riches
Over there
San Andreas Fault
Moved its fingers
Through the ground
Earth divided
Plates collided
Such an awful sound
San Andreas Fault
Moved its fingers
Through the ground
Terra cotta shattered
And the walls came
Tumbling down
O, promised land
O, wicked ground
Build a dream
Tear it down
O, promised land
What a wicked ground
Build a dream
Watch it all fall down
(Used without permission, so sue me)
Well, I guess I’m ready for another day. I mean, how bad can it be? It might even be good. More and more, each new day seems to me like a jet landing: if you lived through it, it was a great landing.