pop-culture for the people

Scribbled hurriedly by Aperturius   2/17/03

A little over a year ago, back when Avril Lavigne was no more than another piece of Canadian bacon waiting to be scraped off the griddle (so I missed breakfast, ok?  Humor me), I reviewed the new album by Ben Folds, Rockin’ the Suburbs.  It was Ben’s first foray into his humble solo career, and I was quite taken by it.  Sure, gone were the dips into the metal sound that were supplied by his back-up boys, Darren Jesse and Robert Sledge, and consequently some of the mindless adolescent fun was lost.  But Suburbs was still great to listen to, as Ben continued to tell the stories of boring friends and enemies in that pop piano catchiness he does so damn well.  But then came the time to tour for the album.  What to do?  Should he bring in a couple of new members as backup, sort of a Ben Folds Five Minus Two Plus Two New?  Seeing as how that would make the title of the band much too long for any marquee, Ben decided to forge ahead alone.  His new live album, aptly titled Ben Folds Live, tells the story of one determined man and his beloved baby grand, on the big thrill ride that is America.

I have seen Ben Folds Five, the entire group before its breakup, live on stage twice in my lifetime.  I would say that other than Pearl Jam, they put on the best show I’ve ever seen.  They had the three key essentials for a great show: good sound and musicianship, good audience participation, and extremely high energy.  That piano is truly Ben’s bitch, and he treats it as such.  Robert Sledge’s fuzz bass kept the groove, and Darren Jesse spent a lot of the show playing his drums while standing up.  Not to mention that almost every song required a hefty amount of harmonizing and background singing for all the members of the group, giving a nice, rich full-bodied lather of musical freshness.  What on earth would Ben sound like minus all that assistance?  Can he seriously fill a stadium with sound all by himself for two hours, and keep it interesting?  Despite a valiant effort, not completely.  The presence of the other instruments is sorely missed in some of Ben’s more powerful songs.  It’s to be expected though.  Can you imagine a song like One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces without that speedy drum work or that wandering bass line?  Ben has reworked the songs for a solo performance so that his piano hits most of the important bass notes at the right time, but it’s just not the same.  Other songs too, like Narcolepsy and Best Imitation of Myself, end up feeling thin despite Ben’s furious ivory tickling.

This is not to say that Ben is not an unbelievable piano player or songwriter.  He’s still one of my favorites for good reasons.  And there are moments in the live album that shine like a freshly waxed elephant tusk.  Most of them involve some of Ben’s mellower songs, which sound much more powerful and meaningful when played solo.  Emaline, the album’s closer, is fantastic, and so are new songs like Silver Street and One Down, which cleverly tells the story of Ben’s escape from his old recording contract.  Brick, the song that brought BF5 the closest it’s ever come to pop stardom, is of course on the album too.  Why, Ben even teams up on stage with John McCrea of Cake to sing Fred Jones Part 2 in one of the big highlights of the album.  If you happen to like Cake, that is. 

The best parts of the CD come when Ben invites the audience to participate in the magic of musicmaking.  Usually I hate it when a musician allows the crowd to sing his lines for him.  Hey buddy, I didn’t pay $18.99 to hear Joe Tonedeaf of CantSing, U.S.A. to scream the chorus to Evenflow, did I?  No I most certainly did not!  But at a Ben Folds show, it’s different.  The audience actually becomes Jesse and Sledge for a brief minute, and sometimes they even become the complete horn section!  Take the song Army, which came oh so close to bringing BF5 back in the big radio spotlight.  Ben splits the crowd into two parts, and in the middle of the song, the audience comes alive as both the trumpet and the saxophone sections, singing simultaneously.  It sounds wonderful, and I only wish I had been there to be a part of it.  This impromptu backup band also takes part in Not the Same and can be heard in a couple other places as well.  Ben should have capitalized on this more during some of the faster songs like Philosophy, where those extra voices really help the texture of the sound.  And he easily could have done it.  At this point, Ben is strictly a cult icon, a leader of a few thousand loyal serfs who love his music and know it through and through.  Every one of them would have been happy to lend their voices to one of his tunes.   

Ben Folds Live is currently being sold with a limited edition DVD, with videos of some of his live performances.  One of note includes Ben’s rendition of Tiny Dancer by Elton John.  Ben dons large, round, sparkling eyeglasses and becomes Elton for five minutes.  I have the strange suspicion now that Elton John really is Ben Folds in disguise.  Of course, the fact that Ben is married to a woman and that she has given birth to twins kind of blows that theory out of the water.  The other great moment from the DVD is the reworked version of Song For the Dumped, or as many like to call it, the “give me my money back, you bitch” song.  Slow, ominous, and melodic, it’s a brilliant version of one of the hardest BF5 songs ever written.  It also includes the three words that Ben wanted to sing for the album version, but was told they were too inappropriate.  You’ll have to watch the video yourself to find out what those words were.  Nyah-nyah! 

In short, if you love Ben Folds’ music, especially his slower songs, don’t hesitate to purchase this album.  However, it’s not going to create many new converts, unless they are really taken in by good piano music.  But given that there are two new studio albums planned to be released by Ben this year, plus the new William Shatner album produced by Ben (I can’t friggin’ wait!!), there will be plenty of opportunities for Ben to become the mainstream man once again.  And if not, hey, he’s still got my back!

Rating: Three and a half out of Five Monkeys

What our Staff Thinks:
William Shatner: “I’m………………drunk!”

The Crocodile Hunter: “Blimey!  Ben Folds lives in Australia now!  Maybe his music can soothe the savage beast that’s puncturing my kidney right now!”

My father has digital cable, which means I could conceivably stay up all night watching soft-core pornography, but I don’t because my father’s usually awake playing his ridiculous fantasy Hockey game on the computer where his version of the Pittsburgh Penguins is 5 and O-h, who gives a shit?!

So, last night, I had to find something to watch, and I ended up turning to TMC (Turner Movie Classics?). And I stayed up an extra 2½ hours to watch the most bizarre Black and White movies I’ve ever seen.

Devil Dolls

The night began with Devil Dolls… Now, I don’t like black and white movies. Call me trite and lazy… (No, really, go ahead, call me that… and don’t be surprised if I show up at your house with a rusty shovel and break your face.) But this movie had me hooked from the second I saw none other than Mr. Potter from “It’s a Wonderful Life” in a long flowered dress squeaking and shrieking like the Spam lady from that famous Monty Python sketch.

The premise of this movie has something to do with an exiled escaped convict who creates a race of tiny men who pose as dolls in order to kill people. Sure, Puppet Master was about that, right? So, it can’t be so terrible, right? What’s wrong with this premise? Here’s a brief list:

Small “Devil Dolls” look like hapless drunken vagrants that no child would play with unless they somehow got a “Wild On E!: Orient Express” playset for Christmas.
Small demons are really, really small rendering them very, very useless. Complete with tiny switchblades these little thug-life bastards are out for blood… about two drops of it. That knife couldn’t punch a hole in a slice of ham from an Arby’s hot ham n’ cheese.

No matter how much scary music you play when a devil doll is sneaking up on someone, it doesn’t change the fact that the guy he’s sneaking up on is a good 100x his size. Some wrestling fans may recall the short-lived feud between Owen Hart and an early incarnation of Degeneration-X and think to themselves that this “one small man against all odds” scenario could actually be somewhat cool. You’d be wrong. It’s not cool! In fact, it’s actually almost as lame as me using an obscure wrestling reference to tell you how lame it is.

Demon Dolls appear to be men that are shrunk, but instead of voodoo, Mr. Potter and his assistant use a lot of beakers and tubes from 8th grade Chemistry lab that explode whenever dropped. Oh yeah, his assistant is the bride of Frankenstein only more German.

So, it’s a tale of science and intrigue. More science, though, because I failed to maintain high levels intrigue in those littler goobers once I saw their master. Mr. Potter is apparently running from the law (standard “crime he didn’t commit” stuff). Potter has a daughter who’s ashamed of him, and so Potter must use his knowledge of science to ensure the safety of his family er something.

What circumstances could drive a man to such ends where he absolutely MUST, without any other option, create evil dolls that pitifully terrorize innocent people? What kind of crazy funhouse wall do you have to have your back up against before making tiny demonic dolls becomes your ONLY option? Oh, but not just that! He has to pretend to be an old woman by disguising his voice (badly) and raiding Estelle Getty’s closet.

Mr. Potter gives many rousing speeches, which are expertly performed. However, they seem to lose a little something, because of, oh, I don’t know, but I’ll go out on a limb and say it’s the dangling ruby earrings and the pearly buttons of his Sunday blouse.

Bottom line: If you manage to find this movie anywhere. It’s well worth your time. The later in the night you see it, the more you’ll laugh. Warning, though, it gets boring towards the end after the “big” explosion takes out the lab and the little people. Mr. Potter’s pretty boring when he’s not clopping around in pumps or at least rolling around in a wheelchair being mean to people.

Three words describe this movie…

SQWARWK! SQWARWK!! SQWARWK!

Todd Browning’s Freaks is a beautifully filmed movie that isn’t intended to be funny, but trust me, you do not want to drink milk for a single second of this movie, especially if you have weak nasal membranes, could be somehow fatal. I loved this movie so much, I didn’t even clean up my puddle of comedic appreciation, I just let it sit there to commemorate the occasion so that should someone arrive and wonder what that spot (and smell) was, I can say, “Todd Browning made me piss my trousers when the angry midget whipped out his sinister switchblade!”

Our plot is simple, there’s a circus full of odd people that just arrives SOMEWHERE. It really doesn’t matter where, but we can assume it’s not ancient Egypt or the South Pole. It’s somewhere more rural and Californian, maybe. Two tiny people, who haven’t aged past the year of five, but are something like 30, have their love interrupted by some evil, full-sized chick who is just playing the little dude for his money. She has a slumpy, moronic foreign boyfriend who hides and gets drunk. This movie’s full of characters you can relate to.

Yes, there are tons of circus freaks, and no, I don’t enjoy making fun of people who look different than me… except babies, because they can’t defend themselves… but I love making fun of silly movies… and nothing you can tell me about political correctness can make me stop giggling when I see the man with no legs and arms crawling around with a switchblade in his mouth in the final action sequence. The movie is full of interesting characters, most with awful speech impediments and a failing degree from some community college theater arts program . The sound quality is simply dreadful, too, mostly ‘cause of that awful jumpy, jazzy car-chase music in the background of almost every scene…. Someone forgot to tell Browning that excessive music from a 12-cup-o’-coffee lounge act playing in fast-forward isn’t a necessity in a “Talky” since the actually “action” is “supposed” to be “spell-binding” enough… (boy, that’s a lot of sarcastic quotation marks in one sentence!) Really, though, it’s hard to hear this movie, so sit close to the TV.

And then be prepared to jump back, as they scream incoherent things and parade around in a circle and wonder why onlookers get annoyed. The circus has some fun subplots. It’s way more than “a look at the freaks” sort of movie, but you gotta see the bearded lady, people… that’s entertainment! It really treats these people with class and dignity, even in the scene where they flip out and turn into vigilante killers, and it’s not a bad story (Teen Wolf 2, that’s a bad story), filmed great, but something is off. I can’t tell what it is…

The movie starts with a long and pointless bit of text that scrolls by in a Star Wars manner, only none of this shit is interesting in anyway. However, it refers to “The Code of the Freaks” which is some kind of mystical order that involves odd chanting and banging of silverware. I’m still not certain where “goobah gobba ONE OF US goobah gobba ONE OF USE!” came from, but it’s in this movie from 1932. The circus folk chant it to the evil chick (not a womanizer… a migdetizer, maybe?) after she agrees to marry the little guy who’s money she’s trying to rip off. She’s freaked out and calls them all names… Couldn’t see that one coming…

Evil people have a natural relationship with freaks… They beat them up and in some cases make them do their dirty work. Skeletor is evil, for example, and has a whole army of hapless freaks to do his bidding. Of course, he doesn’t have to show a little leg or cram Beastman’s face into his boobs to get some service, but you get the idea. Evil people are the natural masters of the freaks. It’s an inevitable fact, and I don’t see why the freaks seems so upset about it.

There’s another woman who isn’t evil, and she starts romancing with a clown, who is actually hilarious… YOU MUST SEE THIS MOVIE, so I won’t give away any of his jokes. In between laughing at the bad acting of the two midget/child people and puzzling over how that one guy without arms or legs manages to slink into almost every scene, you’ll find this clown’s antics very amusing… that’s if you have a soul, so some of you might be in trouble, especially you bastards who aren’t planning to come back to the site after reading this article.

The evil girl, (Cleo, I think) realizes she can’t keep the kid with just lies and the occasional rubbing of his head. So, she decides to poison him and keep him bedridden. Eat your heart out William Faulkner, this is real dementia! So, the freaks band together and decide to take the bitch and her useless foreign boyfriend out of the picture…

The action scene that follows is ridiculous… absolute grade ‘A’ stupid went into this thing… from the badass midget with the switchblade to the armless legless man… with a switchblade. Let this be a lesson to you, don’t mess with the freaks. They will freak you up…

And at the end you see that by some means left ambiguous (but one might say because Browning is chode-bag) the evil woman is turned into a freakish, limbless creep-show that can only make a painfully audible squawking noise…. You guessed it:

You have to see this movie to believe it. If you’re at all interesting in anything weird and bizarre, you should watch this movie. Sure, I suppose you could laugh at the freaks, but I wouldn’t…. they’ll cut you… even if they don’t have hands to do it… when it comes to murderous revenge, all handicaps can be overcome… so, watch the movie and be nice… It’s cute… It’s clever… It’s silly… and the acting is below bad and somewhere around “fecal”… so run to the video store and get it… and wonder why people ran out of the theaters during the original release… too creepy? Or did they just run out to get hearing aids cause they couldn’t understand what those too small people were saying?

It’s a mystery…