Metal Mania

I am now listening to another brilliant Dan Carlin’s Common Sense (www.dancarlin.com), this week about journalism and the decline of the news business. He’s priceless-very thoughtful and very highly recommended. He is nonpartisan, sometimes radical, always intelligent and well written commentary about current events-and free! He makes a very interesting point- a hidden turning point in the history of journalism was the William Kennedy Smith case. When the rape victim’s name was revealed, and journalists began to cite that “Station X is reporting…”, a practice that they wouldn’t engage in previously, it marked a process where no one “owns” the story any more- all you do is report what other stations are reporting.
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While commenting on another blog (www.massperspectives.wordpress.com) about pensions, I started reflecting on my time working in the VA Hospital system. Jeanne, the blog’s main writer, argues that pensions for Massachusetts state workers should be abolished. I think she has a point. I think that pensions, on balance, are better than 401Ks. But there are many appeals to being a state or federal worker-one of them is typically taking less salary-sometimes dramatically less-in my case 40%-in return for better benefits and working conditions. I think Jeanne has a point that maybe we should take the risk, in today’s high unemployment era, of a mass defection from the ranks of state workers by trimming their benefits.

On the other hand, we always seem to pick on state workers when it’s budget cutting time. I bet we could save even more by cutting corporate welfare.
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We do a lot of accidental TV watching at my house, which is bad, like a lot of other accidental things. (Pregnancies and Presidencies, to name just two. That begin with P.) Last night, it was VH1 Classic’s Metal Mania, a series of Heavy Metal videos. My first thought was that, pre-Headbanger’s Ball, we would have killed for a show like this, back in the proverbial day. All metal videos, for two or three hours? Sign me up.

I decided I would play a little game, which is also bad , where I wouldn’t change the channel until I saw a video I wasn’t familiar with.

Since it was already late, and I had to be up for work in the morning, this was a pretty bad idea. But, once I get a half baked idea in my head, it can be hard to shake, so the game was afoot.

So the first one was WASP’s “Wild Child”. I owned more than one WASP cassette, so I have to own up to that right out of the gate. WASP was kind of all of the things that made heavy metal silly, all rolled up into one. The singer and bass player, Blackie Lawless, for one thing, used to go on stage with a sawblade protruding from a codpiece between his legs. Not only is that kind of the opposite message from most heavy metal artists, who try to welcome visitors to that area of the male body, it is, well, deeply silly. Blackie sells it, though, overacting to the hilt, to the point where he points to his eye when the lyric notes he is going to keep his eye on you. Thanks, Blackie, that wasn’t too clear.

Standup comedian Brian Posehn has a very funny routine about interviewing Chris Holmes of WASP when he was in high school. I won’t repeat it-I bet if you look on Youtube for Brian Posehn and WASP, it will come up.

The next one is Dokken’s “Dream Warriors”, which was on the soundtrack to one of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Now, not only did I own this, I bought the cassette single. This tells us several things-1) I am old enough to have owned a cassette single, 2)Someone thought that music fans would be so overwhelmed by the brilliance of this song that they simply had to have it, and 3) I was prone to bouts of clinical insanity.

I didn’t even like Dokken. They were okay-I didn’t have any problem with them-they were just not my brand of soda. So what in the name of George Lynch was I thinking when I saw the Dream Warriors cassette single and thought, “Well, I have to have THAT.” Is it possible someone gave it to me, like a pox ridden blanket?

The video consisted of Dokken playing the song and posing somewhat dramatically, and I guess from the sheer power of their rokken, managing to defeat Freddy Krueger. Which I think everyone will agree was a very likely outcome.

Speaking of pox ridden blankets, the next one was Iron Maiden’s “Run To The Hills”. A fine song, and a band I was a pretty big fan of. The video consists of the band performing at what looks like a small club but is probably a soundstage, interspersed with comical and vaguely insulting silent movie footage of cowboys and Indians. The song is about settling the West, of course, so the footage is not out of place, except for the fact that it is stupid. I am reminded of Lewis Black’s dictum that if you see a music video, and the images on the screen are the same as what you saw in your mind the first time you heard the song, kill yourself.

Then comes Alice Cooper’s “Poison”. Dear old Alice. His video is not set in a factory that makes sparks, a la Damn Yankees (h/t Patton Oswald), but instead in a factory where lingerie clad women make watery chains. There were chains, and there was water, and there was women in their underwear. Obviously. Because when you have people working with things as dangerous as watery chains, you want these people in their underwear.

Then it’s good ‘ol Slaughter, featuring the aptly named Mark Slaughter. (What are the odds- a guy named Mark Slaughter joins a band that happens to be named Slaughter!) Slaughter, based on the name, would seem to be a heavy, thrash metally sort of outfit, but they are instead a boring, poppy sort of combo, who I remember as being very popular among the distaff set. Sort of a Jon Bon Jovi without all the talent and without the Arena Football team. Slaughter came along right about the time I decided it wasn’t all that important that I keep up with every new group that comes along.

Their song is “Fly To The Angels”, which is sort of a weird thing to say. Unless you’re telling a member of the Los Angeles American League baseball team’s AAA affiliate to hop a plane to join the big club, I can’t imagine why you would want to say that. They play the song in an airplane hangar. Like you do. (As my buddy Erik Fisher (www.wbrshow.com) would put it.)

Then it’s Tesla, and their video for “Hang Tough”, one of the tracks from their second album, “The Great Radio Controversy”. I really loved Tesla, but “Hang Tough” was one of those uplifting, you can do it, just hang in there kind of songs. This was about the time Tesla started to jump the shark for me. Blah. Give me negativity and naked longing any old time over the power of positive thinking.

The video was in one of those “places to shoot rock videos”, that look like a TGI Friday’s with all the tables pulled out. The singer, Jeff Keith, had a white headband on, which made him look like he had taken a break from shooting hoops to make this super cool video.

This made me realize that I didn’t remember the names of all the members of Tesla, or even Iron Maiden for that matter! If you asked me to name the members of either band 20 years ago, and I couldn’t, it would be proof positive that I had suffered a traumatic brain injury and should be hospitalized immediately. And now I can’t name the members of either group.

My wife, of course, responded that she had daily evidence of my traumatic brain injuries.

The game ended with Keel, which I would have told you was part of a ship.

Sigh.