Jefferson Starship: Dream Shatterers!

Imagine my surprise when, Wednesday night, I received a call from my good friend Brandon, informing me that not only was Jefferson Starship playing a show in Chicago, but that I would be able to attend...GRATIS! My mind was blown, and not ordinary, "wind roaring at high speeds" blown, but "a mad scientist invented a tornado gun that shoots tidal shifting gusts of air that is filled with wailing saxophones" blown. That is not hyperbole. I was so excited that I literally wanted a cyclone of sax-rocking breeze to knock my head off.

The night began at Club 162, the former ? Tavern, which was the former Benchwarmers Bar, which was the former Harry Caray's Wrigleyville, which was probably formerly the Alan Parsons Project at some point. Brandon and I had a superior plate of steak nachos and Blue Moon, and chatted with THE Alex Peters, barkeep extraordinaire. We sang "King of Wishful Thinking," watched the amazing new Captain America trailer and discussed the possibility of Procol Harum arriving at the Mayne Event to open for Jefferson Starship.

It was a cruel way to start an evening.

We cabbed it to the venue, The Mayne Event, a perfectly lovely performance space on the North side of Chicago. We were greeted by the lovely Marie, who showed us to our own, personal CORDONED OFF SEATS! How could this not be great? We were about to witness rock royalty celebrate their 40th anniversary of rocking royally. More Blue Moons and more Procol Harum jokes burst forth like so many saxophones caught in a hurricane. We could not have been more PSYCHed if we were the writers and creators of "Rizzoli and Isles."

Thought I was gonna write "Psych," didn't you? Well that's lazy writing, and yet, it still would have been better than the drivel we were exposed to by Jefferson Fucking Starship: Dream Shatterers!

Think of three songs you would want to hear Jefferson Starship play. "Jane?" You got it! Sung excellently by Dave Frieberg, who looked like a Hobbit with a tamborine. "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now?" Nope. "Sara?" Not at all. "We Built This City?" ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY NOT! How can Jefferson Starship show up at a venue, play a career spanning hits package, and NOT PLAY "WE BUILT THIS CITY!?" That's like Styx showing up and NOT playing "Come Sail Away." Or Asia showing up and NOT playing "Heat Of The Moment." Or that one past-it's-prime band showing up and NOT playing "THE SONG THEY ARE KNOWN FOR MOST!" No, instead we were treated to a bunch of geriatric dinosaurs playing deep cuts and b-sides from albums that were ENTIRELY DEEP CUTS AND B-SIDES because nobody has ever HEARD OF THEM! Did you know Jefferson Starship released an album in 2008 entitled Jefferson's Tree of Liberty? Of course you didn't, because you want to hear "We Built This City," not some generic corporate rock song that the original Jefferson Airplane would have drank under the table and murdered with tainted LSD back in 1968.



I had to get that out. Sorry.

Now, before I continue, allow me to put words in your mouth. You're saying, "Well, they were billed as 'Jefferson Starship,' so they only played songs under the 'Jefferson Starship' name. 'We Built This City' was just a 'Starship' song." And that would be a good assumption to make...if they hadn't played "White Rabbit" and "Somebody To Love" which were JEFFERSON AIRPLANE songs, released long before the eternally shrugging Paul Kantner ruined a psychedelic musical legacy by creating the band that would one day disappoint me so much that I pined for Level 42 to show up and sing "Something About You."

Ask the band, and you might hear that there were sound issues. Well, ask the people who work at the venue, and you'll find out that the band didn't show up for sound check until 10 minutes before the show, and then refused to walk through the audience to get to the stage. Throwing rock star tantrums might have been acceptable when you were still rock stars, but now you're just ancient reanimated fossils lumbering through life, playing the saddest, most lifeless versions of these "songs" that a fetid, rotting corpse could manage. And PS to Mr. Kantner: maybe your mic keeps feeding back because your amp is on too high because you didn't bother to come to SOUND CHECK! I saw the sound set up at this place, and it was amazing. If it were socially acceptable to make love to a mixing board, I'd pick the one at the Mayne Event. And yes, I'd clear it with the wife first, of course.

And no "WE BUILT THIS CITY!" I could have overlooked every egregious error of the night if you had just played that one song. I could have overlooked the fact that you played the shortest, most boring version of "White Rabbit" ever played. I could have overlooked your singer's horrifying, karaoke-on-Special K preening throughout the night. I could have even overlooked the fact that the only people having any fun onstage were the faceless drummer and Dave "Bilbo" Frieberg. But no, you chose to play a bunch of crap that no one had ever heard of and tried to pass it off as "hits."

Well congrats, Jefferson Starship. The best part of my night involving your music was going to Brandon's bar Brendan's and playing "Find Your Way Back" on the juke. You could have made my Guilty Pleasure Top Ten of all time, but you choice to shit on your audience, both figuratively (by not playing "We Built This City") and literally (by playing everything you played that wasn't called "Jane.") Well played, Dream Shatterers. Well played.

My Guilty Pleasure Mentor...

I have had a plethora of guilty pleasure influences in my life, but one person single handedly steered me to the guilty pleasure seeking missile I am today. Back in 2001, I was just starting college. I had packed up and moseyed on up to Toronto to study crazy make-em ups, and I didn't know anybody. In fact, for the first few months of school, I spent a majority of my time alone in my tiny, Turkish prison cell-esque room, playing Final Fantasy VII or VIII or eating Carl Buddig lunch meat out of the package, dipped in mayonnaise of course. I wasn't a savage.

Ryan Hipgrave was one of the first people who got me to emerge from my wee, refrigerator box-like room. Over my two years of college, he took me out to karaoke, to London, ON to see his former band, to Montreal, and finally, to guilty pleasure greatness. I learned at the feet of the master. Here are just a few of the "lessons" he imparted onto me:

1. "Africa" is the best song ever. We played in a two man, acoustic comedy band that specialized in comedic originals about 'bating to Kathy Bates and a smattering of bongo-augmented covers. Our big "hit," if a band that only played 2-3 gigs EVER could have a hit, was a medley that included "Come On Eileen," "Louie, Louie," "Come Sail Away," "Ice, Ice Baby" and the aforementioned "Africa," by the thankfully immortal Toto. The Whisky Slips were ahead of their time, and some day, unlike the South, will hopefully rise again... Anyhoo, to this day, I still listen to "Africa" constantly, and have also come to embrace the rest of Toto's library, especially the Hipgrave-endorsed "Georgy Porgy," a funky slice of lite jazz pop that is so filled with hooks, were you to drop it into the ocean, it would cause the mass extinction of at least 367 species of hook-attracted fish.



2. "Cool As Ice" is a stunning achievement of bad film. I'll never forget the night I went over to Ryan's place, far from the confines of my little, diorama-sized dorm. We had a twelve pack of Keith's, which I accidentally dropped, sacrificing several beers to the Parking Lot Gods. He sat me down and brought unto me Vanilla Ice's first, and sadly last, starring vehicle. Featuring "Family Ties" Michael Gross, "Cool As Ice" is one of the best bad movies of all time. Terrible acting, terrible rapping, and possibly the worst fight choreography outside of Star Wars FanFilmDom one could ever bear witness to. After the flick, we watched a beauty pageant hosted by the Kmet himself, Steve Kmetko. Wonderful.



3. Montreal. The road was treacherous, the poutine plentiful, the beer supposedly from Egypt (HEK!) and yet one of my fondest memories was jamming to the guilty pleasure mix Ryan curated for the road. It included stone cold classics I still revere to this very day, including, but not limited to: "Poison" by Bel Biv Devoe, "When I Get You Alone" by the Artist Formerly Known As Thicke and my personal fave, "Your Woman" by White Town. No album of the last 50 years was so effing terrible from top to bottom as "Women In Technology," yet no song perfectly sums up every awesomely fantasticular aspect of guilty pleasurism than "Your Woman." We tried to bring it back, resuscitate it back to living, breathing relevance, and as far as I am concerned, succeeded. Your welcome, White Town.



There was so much more. Styx, cheap wings, Tape Heads (not guilty, but definitely cult) and so on and on and on. Ryan Hipgrave taught me to seek out the awful and find the beauty in it. And for that, I am eternally grateful. Thank you sir, you truly are, and I truly mean this, a King among Men. Now enjoy this classic jam that I woke up to almost every morning, courtesy of yet another Hipgrave-approved mix. It's the Incredible Bongo Band, from their greatest hits package "The Incredible Bongo Year: 1969-1970." (That's my title for it at least)

I Got A Guilt Streak That's +2 Against Your Face...

I am 28 years old. Come November, I will begin counting down the final 365 to 30. And despite my soon-to-be-advanced age, I still manage to cling to my youthful enthusiasms: movies, video games, mac & cheese, etc. But one former favorite fell by the wayside long ago, and it still kind of pains me to think of it.



Advanced Dungeons and Dragons was a brief obsession of mine. I'd estimate I spent only about two years of my life getting into the whole role playing thing. And yet, I still recall it fondly, and even miss it a little bit. Sometimes I think about heading over to the shuttering Borders and grabbing a Dungeon Master's guide, rounding up a few like minded individuals and throwing down with a quest. Hell, I just want a 20-sided die. Is that wrong? It seems like it's wrong. For a grown man to want to play AD&D seems horribly wrong.

And I don't care.

Back in 1997, when I was more athletic than I ever will be again, I played basketball for my middle school. In fact, I was a starter for my team. It was the B-Team, but so what. I still started, and once I scored 8 points in a game, so yeah, I was kind of a big deal. However, before the B-Team got to stink it up with our clearly-not-as-good-as-the-A-Team ball skills, the all-the-tall-kids-and-guys-with-legit-talent A-Team got to play. And what did myself and my B-Team rejects do? We opened treasure chests, saved princesses, slew dragons and rolled dice to see if Bushman's dwarf would get pantsed. It was wonderful.

I even dabbled in Star Wars: The Role Playing Game. Mounted a couple campaigns, making my questers fight loads of Stormtroopers, steal a decommissioned TIE Fighter prototype with hyperdrive, saved saved princesses and rolled dice to see if Bushman's Ewok got de-loinclothed.

Yeah, I played a lot of that nerdy, dweeby, spazzy, geeky, losery stuff. I ran through Magic: The Gathering, Star Wars: The Customizable Collectible Card Game, Pogs...the works. And through it all, nothing ever beat rolling dice to make your half-elf thief even more dextrous. Nothing could top stumbling upon a hidden treasure chest and discovering some secret weapon. And nothing ever beat the good times. Sitting round, laughing, joking, eating, chilling. Good ass times.



Seriously, some day, I will get my hands on an AD&D book, some little lead knights and dice of many assorted sides, and when the day comes, be warned: Mark Rosenthal will be no more. Nay, he shall be replaced by his High Lordness, The Lord Rosenthallus, Lord of The Dungeon.

Okay, went a bit far at the end there. But you get the idea. Epic D&D game at my place some day. Gonna kick ass. And I'm not the only one who loves this shit. Just ask The Pacifier himself...

CONGO: Or A Journey Into My Blackest Of Thoughts

It struck me one day. Like a shot of tiger blood with an Adonis DNA chaser. “I must watch Congo.” I couldn’t explain it. It just hit me. Not just hit me; this gut reaction wrapped a flaming chain around it’s lead fist, dipped it in glass and punched the shit out of me. I was almost sick from NOT watching Congo. I knew that if I didn’t remedy the problem quickly, it would infect my daily life. Soon, obtaining this piece of 90’s cinematic detritus would become an all-consuming flame.

Allow me to backtrack: I saw Congo during it’s initial theatrical release. Twice. Willingly. I LOVED it. This was 1995, and as a not-yet-pop-culture-infused 13 year old, this flick had everything: talking gorillas, killer hippos and lasers chopping killer apes to bits. It was breakfast cereal: everything a growing boy needs. Plus: Winston Zeddemore as Brit.



Years passed, and every now and then, we’d dig up the corpse of Congo for easy mockery. Then, one day, it was gone. You couldn’t find it in video stores, at retail establishments, anywhere. Once VHS was autoerotically strangled by DVD, Congo ceased to exist. They say you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. Well, Congo was gone and I didn’t give a shit.

Until last year.

I cannot pretend to remember the exact moment the hunger began. I don’t even know what brought it up. I think it stemmed from my sister and I watching dungtastic movies at the time, and laughing about how we needed to watch Congo. Ha ha. Big laugh. "Remember how bad it was!?" Big joke! That is, until the joke was on me, and the aforementioned shit punching occurred. I started simple: checked my local big boxes (Best Buy, Target, gulp...Wal Mart) and every Blockbuster in the immediate area. All two of them. No luck. I even tried F.Y.E., who, despite severe overpricing, was known to have weird and/or out of print DVD’s for sale. Nada. I checked used CD stores and pawn shops. Garage sales. I even went to a succession of dollar stores, hoping to snag at least a VHS copy. Nothing.

My wife tried to convince me to just order it online, where it was readily available. But the hunt was part of my Congo lust. It was all for naught. I was just as exhausted as the supply of Congo DVD’s. Then, one night, on a whim, I searched Blockbusters outside of my normal radius, and lo, a great light shined upon me. Congo was available to rent, and only 20 miles away. It was 11 PM and I didn’t care. I had to Congo, and Congo I did. I paid $5.99 to erase a month of searing, shaking, uncontrollable Congo withdrawal. Upon viewing, it was like smoking a cigarette after quitting for a week. It made me light headed, a little unsteady, and greatly euphoric.

The next day, my local Target was selling it for five bucks. I bought it. In total, in my life, I estimate spending around $100 dollars in pursuit of Congo, including: movie tickets, rentals, gas, and finally purchase. But why do I love it so? Well, for starters, nobody calls Tim Curry a bag of shit like Delroy Lindo. It’s only one scene, and it has so little to do with the rest of the film, but Lindo tears it up. He’s a beast. He showed up fifteen minutes before filming, covered the entire set in bechamel sauce, dehydrated it into set jerky and chewed the shit out of it. Don’t believe me?



That’s some tasty ass set.

Now, look at the cast: Bruce Campbell, Joey Pants, Joe Don Baker. It’s a roster of cult awesomeness. Look deeper: Dylan Walsh, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, John Hawkes. All future TV stars. On to the next layer of the delicious CongoCake: Laura Linney and Grant Heslov are both Oscar nominees. Ernie Hudson was a Ghostbuster dammit! Plus, the previously mentioned Delroy “Sesame Cake” Lindo and Tim “Bag of Shit” Curry. It’s filled to the brim with ringers, and yet, it’s a pretty terrible film. And further yet, I love it unconditionally. It appeals to the 13 year old inside of me, which is not nearly as disgusting as it sounds. Sometimes a poorly adapted, slowly paced, not-particularly-filled-with-action action movie is exctly what you need.

Now please stop eating my sesame cake, lest I call you a bag of shit.

(UN)Cool: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Guilty Pleasures - An Introduction: Special Edition

Years ago, as a petulant teenager coming to terms with my inner self (i.e. a total prick), I found myself a participant in a heated debate (i.e. a word brawl). My uncle Mick and I spent a large portion of an evening mercilessly mocking the music of Andrew Gold, much to the dismay of his wife and my mother. For hours, we ridiculed the 70's AM piano pop of "Lonely Boy" and "Thank You For Being A Friend." Awful things were said, by my uncle and I. Terrible, spiteful things.

I loved "Lonely Boy."



I couldn't admit it at the time, as it would have led to snap after burn after mockery at my expense. It was easier to lie and take my own turn poking fun at how "lame" the tune was. "Lonely Boy" was my very first guilty pleasure. It would not be my last. Examples include, but are not limited to:

Toto (the session musician collective, not the overgrown rat who hates irascible townswoman Almira Gulch). The song "Africa" remains one of the greatest non-African songs about the Motherland in existence. Also, Lukather.

Congo (the 1995 action disaster with the black Ghostbuster, not the war torn, jungle engulfed African country). When a movie brings together cult stars Bruce Campbell, Joe Don Baker and Joey Pants, it wins. Period.

JCVD (the movie, the man, the myth and the legend). I dare you to find a late-80's to mid-90's action hero who can kick higher, split further and pronounce "black silk underwear" better. You can't. Also, "Lionheart" starts in Africa.

Tied that shit together right good.

The only problem I have with the phrase "guilty pleasure" is the connotation that we should be ashamed of loving this trash. Quite the opposite, I proudly embrace my love of utter garbage. I don't care who knows Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story keeps me awake whenever it's on. It doesn't bother me that people question my unconditional love of Pool of Radiance, an ancient AD&D PC game. Nothing will deter me from eating poutine, that delectable Canadian ensemble of fries, cheese curds and gravy.

The only thing I am guilty of is loving these pop culture train wrecks too much. On a daily basis, it's a good bet that I will try and push my guilty pleasure agenda on people like an overzealous Pop Culture Jehovah's Witness. I spent the entire winter and spring of 2002 trying to bring back "Your Woman" by White Town. Anyone who asks for a food recommendation is immediately referred to "White Castle" or "Popeye's." Just last year, I went on a week long sojourn to procure Wings of Tomorrow, the Europe album that doesn't have "Final Countdown" on it.

A truly impressive guilty pleasure is like getting a movie theater handy. It's amazing, if a little immature, and when it's over, you feel fantastic, if a little embarrassed. Don't be embarrassed. At least you don't own a copy of the Sinbad/Phil Hartman classic "Houseguest" on VHS. And if you do, you can be the Tango to my Cash.

EPILOGUE: Let me take a brief moment and explain that despite my undeterred love of cheese, I have great affection for quality music/film/food/etc as well. Although, to be fair, as I write this, I am listening to "Alone" by Heart. Draw your own conclusion. Stay tuned for more (UN)Cool musings...