Just outside of Griffith Observatory, there’s an amazing piece of WPA art (technically PWAP, actually, but sponsored by the New Deal).

The sculpture features six astronomers: Hipparchus, Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and Herschel.

posted 30 July 2010 in Photos. no comments yet

Howdy. We were out of commission for a little while here at Rule Forty-Two, because the site’s database got hacked (like many other sites running on WordPress recently), redirecting readers to a malware site such as qooglesearch.com, and possibly trying to entice you to click on a fake Windows Virus Scan. Everything should be working as intended now, but if you have a Windows machine and you saw that malware site, you probably should do a real virus scan in case you got infected. My apologies.

posted 29 July 2010 in Self-reflexive. 1 comment

Time for another excerpt from The Andy Warhol Diaries. Jade is the daughter of Bianca and Mick Jagger.

Sunday, January 8, 1978

I read The New York Times at Halston’s, he was at the office. Someone called Bianca and she was on the phone for an hour talking about her problems… she was talking about what a stupid blonde Jerry Hall is. I think she’s really worried that she’s getting her permanent walking papers from Mick. While Bianca was on the phone Jade asked me for candy and I gave her some M&Ms and then she said, “You’ve got to give me my supply for the night.” So I gave her a few and she said, “You’ve got to give me some more, we’ll go to the bathroom,” and I told her that her mother would think it was strange if we went all the way to an upstairs bathroom and she said, “Well, come under the stairs, then.” I slipped the M&Ms to her and she took them like drugs.

posted 26 July 2010 in Excerpts. 2 comments

Taken a few days ago, on a walk through Runyon Canyon.

That’s part of an abandoned cement court, used years ago for both tennis and basketball.

posted 23 July 2010 in Photos. no comments yet

MTV station ID: we see the MTV logo, barely visible in outline, while a geyser of water spouts from left to right. Then white steam condenses on black rocks, again with the invisible logo–the sections in the M, the TV, and outside the logo were filmed at the same spot, but at different times. Third shot: fire spewing out from the right side of the screen. Then all three shots get combined, bringing the elements together: air and earth inside the TV, fire inside the M, water outside the logo. It’s high-concept, visually appealing, and over in ten seconds.

A repeat of an ad for The Conductor, the “high-output music battery for high-drain music machines,” in which a tuxedo-clad musician blocks out an opera-singing cabbie by putting on his Walkman. The ad begins with the musician asking to go to Broadway and 107th. That happens to be the location of Straus Park, named after a cofounder of the Abraham and Straus department stores; he died on the Titanic, along with his wife, who chose to stay with him rather than get on a lifeboat. Hey, whatever sells batteries.

Once again, the commercial for Bud Bowl I. “Football fans, get ready for the battle of the century, as unbeaten Budweiser takes on undefeated Bud Light!”

For the fifth time, a Rain Man ad. Dustin Hoffman keeps his head cocked to one side–that’s how you win the Oscar. Tom Cruise’s hair is bouffant.

For the umpteenth time, WWF’s Royal Rumble. We see lots of wrestlers flaring their nostrils and pointing up to the sky. As usual, it’s followed by Season’s Greetings from the UA-Columbia cable system, with lots of employees waving at the camera.

The commercial break ends with another MTV animated bumper. This one is clearly influenced by Terry Gilliam’s work with Monty Python: various public-domain illustrations wobble their way around the screen while an electro-rock song chants “to the beep-beep.” It’s murky and unclever, not up to the network’s high standards.

With the Bangles’ “In Your Room” playing in the background, we head back to the studio, where we see Kevin Seal again–he’s finishing his five-hour hosting shift (which has taken us through the past 26 months). To honor the occasion, he’s making an effort to keep his eyes open. “The top one hundred of 1988,” he announces. “Arguably the most exciting year in history, 1988, so really this is pretty much the countdown, really, if you look at it the proper way. In fact, it’s getting so exciting that I’m just going to have to leave.” He laughs, in his insincere way. Oh, Kevin, I will miss you: your squint, your smirk, your ironic patter, and your patent lack of enthusiasm for this whole enterprise.

posted 21 July 2010 in 1988. 3 comments

Writing this Lenny Kravitz article was like winning a prize on a game show, specifically Let’s Make a Deal. One day in the spring of 2004, I dropped by the Rolling Stone offices, checking in with various friends and colleagues. One editor, Joe, summoned me into his office and asked if I was free to travel for an assignment the following day. Only when I gave him my answer would he tell me the subject and the destination: Lenny Kravitz, in Miami. And so, the following day, I was on a plane to Florida.

Two other notes on the piece (which I’ve just added to the archives): (1) I don’t think I’ve ever interviewed anybody who dropped famous names as effortlessly as Kravitz. (2) I had totally forgotten that he dated Nicole Kidman.

posted 19 July 2010 in Archives, Articles. no comments yet

What’s Czech for “manhole cover”?

I know, it should really be a lamppost.

posted 16 July 2010 in Photos. no comments yet

(New to the countdown? Catch up here.)

Violins saw away as we slowly pan down an antique lamppost. We have time to note the lamppost’s broken pane of glass, its ironwork, and the details of its patina. This shot lasts, no lie, twenty seconds, as if INXS want to destroy MTV’s reputation for quick-cut editing with one long, loving look at a lamppost. It’s director Richard Lowenstein’s music-video equivalent of Scorsese’s tracking shot through the Copacabana nightclub in Goodfellas, except it’s just a lamppost.

It’s not even an especially nice lamppost. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, but if you were visiting Prague (where this video was shot), you wouldn’t stop to take a picture of it. But this video extended the single’s instrumental intro–just to have more lamppost time.

We visit a public park as the extended Prague-rock string intro continues. White birds fly over a pond; blocky cement architecture can be seen in the mist past the water. We pass by three tree stumps, a strolling nerd who I believe is one of INXS’s five members not named Michael Hutchence, three gray-haired symphony violinists miming that they’re playing the song, and then the one member of INXS who is named Michael Hutchence.

Hutchence exudes charisma from every pore and follicle. He’s walking by the water, wearing a long dark coat and leather gloves, clasping his hands, letting his hair audition for a role in Oliver Stone’s Doors movie. “Don’t ask me / What you know is true,” he sings, looking moody and wounded. Hutchence passes by an embracing couple, and another lamppost, and then drifts towards the water, arms crossed. We cut to a brief shot of a large building (a castle? a hotel?) at night, glowing with golden light. Then a Prague bridge: two subaltern members of INXS and a brunette model all look dramatically into the camera.

After a full minute and a half of strings (and some synth filigree), we get some guitar, emphasized by a closeup on the hands of the guitarist. Or more precisely, a closeup on his fingerless gloves–this scene was apparently filmed on a very cold Czechoslovakian night. We pan back to see Hutchence and the other members of INXS, all huddled in thick coats. They stride purposefully down a cobblestone street, trying to keep warm. I believe this is the only moment in the video where we see all six members of the band in the same place. Hutchence keeps turning over his shoulder to lip-sync the lyrics for the camera’s benefit, but somehow makes it seem natural.

We return to the bridge; a soldier patrols nearby, making sure that nobody steals the bridge. Hutchence sits on an embankment, singing “we all have wings, but some of us don’t know why-i-i-i-i-i-yi.” The brunette model stands around, waiting to be told what to do.

Back in 1988, I wasn’t crazy about INXS. I liked the singles off their previous album–“What You Need,” “Kiss the Dirt,” “Listen Like Thieves”–back when the band still felt like a secret in the United States (despite having a top-five hit). The Kick album, however, seemed crass and inescapable–the band placed five songs from it in this countdown, tied for the most with Michael Jackson. (Admittedly, INXS occupied only four slots with those five songs. But their videos collectively placed a lot higher than Jackson’s.) Two decades later, “Never Tear Us Apart” (the fourth single from Kick), just seems like high-quality pop rock, much better made than most of the songs surrounding it on the countdown. It’s a moving ballad with an unusual sound (mostly strings and synth, anchored by a guitar lick), and Hutchence makes you believe that even gorgeous Australian rock stars have ineffable romantic longings.

Back to the public park, where Hutchence is crouching in front of the string section. He gets up and walks past some swans. Other non-Hutchence members of the band get a few seconds of screen time, with Prague stretching out behind them. In 1988, it was unusual to film videos in Eastern Europe; the Velvet Revolution didn’t happen until the following year. Why don’t INXS get any credit for bringing democracy to Czechoslovakia?

Sax solo. The saxophonist wails away in an urban graveyard. He gets considerably less screen time than the lamppost did. Hutchence walks past the saxophonist, then past another member of the band, and onto the bridge where the brunette model eyes him, with the cold wind whipping through her hair.

More violinists, more random members of INXS, more Prague streets. I spent a few days in Prague back in 2005, so at this point, I’m watching the video as travelogue, wondering whether I’ve gone over that bridge or down that staircase, and whether Hutchence is concealing a copy of Let’s Go Czechoslovakia in that long coat. And then Hutchence reveals himself as a total tourist, passing by the famed Prague Astronomical Clock! He disappears into a crowd in the Old Town Square, looking either for Vaclav Havel or a literary agent interested in his unauthorized Narnia sequel, Michael and the Magical Lamppost.

“Never Tear Us Apart” hit #7 on the Billboard singles chart. You can watch the video (with Spanish subtitles!) here. Or you can watch Beck and his “Record Club” pals cover it here, with Annie Clark of St. Vincent on lead vocals.

posted 15 July 2010 in 1988. 5 comments

Three reading recommendations from three talented friends on a summer Monday:

There was an intense debate in our cafeteria over who would be the first rock star to make a video where he got crucified and sing his latest hit from up on the cross. Flynn thought it would be Ozzy. I argued for Billy Idol. We were both right: it was Def Leppard, in “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak.”

Rob Sheffield’s brilliant second book, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, is out this Thursday. That means if you order it now from Amazon, you could get it the very first day it’s unleashed upon the world. Or you could line up now outside your local bookstore. Or you could pass the time by rereading his first book, Love Is a Mix Tape. Or you could check out the website. All these options are guaranteed to leave you dancing on the valentine.

Each encounter with a different fellow added to a pattern, and they all became the same man, instead of sticking in my mind as individual earth-shattering events. By and by, the tune in my head changed from “I’ve Got to Stop This” to “It’s Not Like I’m Having an Affair.”

James Hannaham’s debut novel, God Says No, remains as excellent as it was last year–funny, raw, heartbreaking–but now it’s in paperback. You can get it from Amazon or directly from the publishers, the good people at McSweeney’s. If you don’t believe me, then I hope you will trust the good people of Entertainment Weekly, who just included it in the “Best New Paperbacks” section of their “Summer Must List.”

“Say hi to 1972 for me.” That’s what a friend texted me when I told him I was at Tanglewood seeing a James Taylor/Carole King concert.”

David Handelman, gifted writer of both magazine articles and West Wing episodes, has started a wry and witty blog, called “Hands On.” Read it for accounts of writers-room mind-melding, autograph collecting, and a summer spent writing for the “Women’s Pages” of the Winston-Salem Journal.

posted 12 July 2010 in Links. 1 comment

Another picture of the Prague Astronomical Clock.

My reasons for posting this will become clearer next week.

posted 9 July 2010 in Photos. no comments yet