Caboose #14: My Canadian Boyfriend by Liz Mason (lizmasonisawesome.com) This bookzine is a series of essays by zine maven Mason, the Queen of Quimbys, and it is a bit of a masterpiece, tracing her pre-teen obsession with the Canuck King of nocturnal tinted-eyewear, Corey Hart. With a Queen and King on the table, we need an Ace, and Mason has an ace on her sleeve (OK, up her sleeve, not on, but rhymes is rhymes) in that she was able as a grown ass lady to be just as obsessive about researching parasocial relationship studies as she was about finding Corey quotes in 1983 teen mags. This squarebound page-turner definitely satisfies the fun superfan, retro, cringe vibe by vividly recounting and reprinting her fanmail adventures with Corey’s mom, her scores of collectibles (posters, penpal missives, cardboard standups), and her barely pubescent fan fic fantasies. But because she is completely sincere, and still loyal to North America's third string Corey (but first String All Star in Canada, and in as least one bedroom of Downers Grove), this is not about a guilty pleasure vibe, but about pure pleasure. Her superpower here is keeping the same loose, joyful jokey writing when analyzing studies of how teen fan obsessiveness functions, how it has changed in the age of social media, and what Corey’s reply to Liz’s Facebook post of her teen poster display really means. Even though I cannot recall the song “Never Surrender,” I have to give it up to Liz’s Caboose.

George Harrison “All Things Must Pass”

(Capitol / UMe, 2021)

GUEST REVIEW BY GARY PIG GOLD

A little hysterical perspective here, if I may, as that once-Fabulous Four deign to Get Back to Disney: 

November of 1970: The very first thing I can recall about All Things Must Pass was it cost me (actually, truth be told, it cost my dear grandmother) a whopping $7.99 Canadian! ...and that was still after Sam the Record Man's gigantic in-store, pre-Xmas deep deep discount. And even though Capitol/Apple's enticing shrinkwrap sticker boasted “3 LP's For The Price Of 2 Including Full Color Poster” – the “free” LP being Side 5 and 6's Apple Jam ...and no, I doubt I played it more than once either – that big 23-by-35-inch image of George stayed stuck to the inside of my bedroom door clear through the arrival of his rhythm guitarist’s Imagine album's Tittenhurst piano-white poster, causing many over thirty in my household to repeatedly exclaim “Oh my, who is that scary looking old man??”

All domestic aesthetics aside, ATMP was in fact the first Box Set to proudly become part of my collection, and each Harrisong's pretty holier-than-me lyric reprinted upon its dust sleeves point quite directly towards the similarly vinyl boxed Jesus Christ Superstar due just a little later, if I may draw such a parallel. But when all was said and sung, strictly secularly speaking this great big George box remains every bit as weighty – literally, historically and socio-musically today as it did as ‘70 became '71 ...while the man's fellow ex-Fabs were still busy crooning about getting on yer feet and entering the streets, taking a morning bath and wetting hair, and not shouting or leaping about may I remind everyone.  

 

The deceptively Quiet Beatle did indeed have a LOT boxed up to get off his chest and onto tape after at least a half-decade of being, as he most revealingly explained to Dick Cavett at the time, “subtly sat upon” by Messrs. Lennon, McCartney and Martin. As a result the melodies were absolutely astounding, the chords beneath surprisingly serpentine, and as noted the lyrical sentiments were much more often than not perceptive, profound, and deeply penetrating to the extreme. All the better then to be sonically supported by Phil Spector's equally sweeping Wall of Sounds; wholly suitable productions which today remain even more unique and, yes, spectacular ...especially when A/B'd against those comparatively anemic mixes on the album's previously-re-issued 30th anniversary bonus material: Thank God, or Whomsoever, George resisted, as I quote his 2001 threat of, “remixing every track to liberate the songs from the big production that seemed appropriate at the time but now seems over the top.” Really, George? May I just say those gorgeous, big productions tower proudly over what could have been diluted via, for example, your pal Jeff Lynne ...perish the very thought.

Now it could be argued by some, myself included, that George never again approached the pomp or majesty of All Things Must Pass (perhaps he shouldn't have used up all his best material on his first post-Beatle release?) and along with – for entirely different rhymes and reasons of course – John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band it remains one of the special few long-players that can still stand loudly and proudly alongside... oh, say, Rubber Soul, Revolver, or even Beatles VI. Yes, it was in 1970 the sound and sentiment of a man, and musician, demonstrating among many other things just how sweet life can be by setting oneself free. And it all still sounds every single bit as lustrous and liberating – not to mention unquestionably box-worthy – all the way up here in 2021. Let it continue to roll into the night.

And, as for his old bandmates? Can we just Let It Be now …PLEASE. 

Paul Stanley's Soul Station "Now and Then"

(paulstanley.com) Overall, this record is fine. I imagine that one of the bummer things about being in KISS (or in many of the heritage acts with huge catalogues of long standing fan favorites) is that you are a musician and you don't get to make records; this is Stanley's first release in almost a decade, since KISS' last album, and this is just the 4th studio album Paul has been on this Century. That said, an album of mostly covers of prominent Philly Soul and Motown classics played by a band so slick and talented that it sounds incredibly close to the original recordings, and sung in a respectful, non-outrageous, competent falsetto is kinda karaoke-ish. Stanley's voice has proven itself over the last 50 years to be very distinct and it is mainly because of imperfections. There's a kind of flatness that seems regional to Long Island, over the top rock n roll phrasing that adds superfluous syllables, and especially as he has aged, an instinct to muscle towards notes even if they aren't pretty all the way through. You don't get a much of any of that here. There is no point where this seems like bad karaoke, it's fine, but more bad might make it bettter, and a bolder or more innovative or looser approach to the instrumentation could have been cool. There are some originals here, but nothing as exciting as Stanley's best songwriting in the past, I really can't remember anything specific, and I just listened to it. But again, this is fine, if your rock n roll job does not let you make records, you get in where you fit in, so I'm happy he made this, but I wish it was a little better or way worse so I would feel compelled to listen to it again.

Awesome Snakes "Venom"

 

(Stand Up Records, 2021) If you didn't known this band's name you would easily be able to guess, as the majority of the songs are about things being awesome or about being snakes (which, I suppose, is awesome). This reissue of an early 2000s Midwestern ridiculous riff rock relic proves that nothing is as timeless as lo fi, stripped down, absurdist snake songs sung by a dude who sounds like Fred Schneider trying to be intimidating and a lady who sounds like she could sell an apple to Adam and/or Eve. A vinyl reissue (of what I believe was originally a cassette duplicated on someone's mom's Radio Shack Realistic© brand duo-deck stereo) is a glorious way to celebrate surviving a pandemic. The question is, can you survive a vintage snake attack?

The Creepers "A Night with..."

 

(thecreeperschicago.bandcamp.com) I am not the biggest fan of the snotty, nasal punk school of singing, except for the Zero Boys, and this dude gets really Zero-ish on the epic (3 minutes, twice as long as some of the songs on this EP) "Dead Party," so I'm giving this a snot pass. Alternately, like every sane person, I am a huge fan of guitars pummeling out 1.5 chord repetitious nasty gutter rock songs. Thus, I must conclude: Creep on Creepers!

Majani's Barbeque Cauliflower

(https://www.majani.biz/) This is not some cauliflower trying to be something else situation, this is just an A-list vegetable prepared so deliciously that it amazingly emerges as truly one of the best barbecue dishes on the South Side, which is a ridiculous, but accurate, thing to say.

Wallace the Brave by Will Henry

 

(https://www.gocomics.com/wallace-the-brave) This might be the best contemporary comic strip going. LiO may be better at gags, and the Cathy regeneration as a single-panel artisanal hand painted COVID-themed comic is nothing to cough at, but just look at this comic! It is not only funny, but the craftsmanship and design is devastatingly great --- only the late Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac compares. I mean, look at those germ hands! That is a masterpiece panel. Then he licked them! That is a punchline!

The Hubie Halloween Tradition

 

(Netflix) Every year my family gathers around the TV and watches the Adam Sandler classic Hubie Halloween on Halloween morning, and this year was no exception. In fact, this year was the best one yet - -- the movie truly gets funnier with time!

Megan thee Stallion Chicken Sandwich (Popeye's)

(Popeye's) So, I know the chicken sandwich at Popeye's had people losing their fucking minds a few minutes back, and I cannot get that excited about it, but it is solid. As far as the "Hottie" sauce, I feel either the Popeye's I went to made a mistake or this is just not particularly hot at all. But is it "hottie?" Maybe, it is a kind of sweet, shiny, thick sauce, which are all on brand attributes for Megan, but it is more like a mild Szechuan sauce than a hot sauce or spicy bbq sauce, and considering the logo, a cartoon of Megan's famous tongue (though drawn in a way that I think misses the playfulness of her tongue sticking out-ness) on actual fire, I expected more. Still, Popeye's is better than KFC, so if you're on Stony looking for chicken, might as well give MTS some love.

Champaign ILL

 

(YouTubeTV, 2018-19)  In Sam Richardson's first scenes of on Veep he seemed like he was playing a two-dimensional, stock corny nerd character. However, almost immediately after that he/they proved to be amongst the funniest actors/characters I have ever seen on TV, generating IRL LsOL nearly every appearance. His earnest optimism/obliviousness to the horrors around him/ninja level comic timing was a marvel. Thus, I sought out Detroiters, his co-starring comedy series with Tim Robinson, and I for real enjoy that show more than Veep. It is a modest, honest, incredibly sincere comedy about loving your decaying rust belt city, loving the families and neighbors and classmates who make up your community when you stay at home, and loving the weird flavors of local businesses, characters, TV stations, etc. Richardson's skillset was perfect for this, and he and Robinson presented a real assed friendship. And it's funny. Though I became a devoted fan (had to buy a month worth of Comedy Central on Amazon to watch Detroiters...that was like $3.99!), I was not willing to get whatever YouTubeTV was to see his show Champaign ILL, but now it has reached other streaming services and it was worth the wait. Similar to Detroiters, if a few hours drive away, it takes a pair of interracial childhood best buddies awkwardly figuring out adulthood, but adds the twist that their third best friend became Tupac-famous after high school, and they became his entitled, living large entourage leaders, who a decade and a half later end up with nothing, living at home shellshocked by their change of fortune. Pally and Richardson are good together, but I think it would be fair to say that though Pally is always a funny, pleasant screen presence, he has a vibe of your addict friend who you can't really trust, which is a weird texture against Richardson's uber-affableness. Which leads to the twist: this10-episode series starts off wacky and jokey-decadent, then takes a sharp turn into exploring the horrors of devastating opioid addiction. Which makes this narrative very compelling, even if this doesn't showcase our stars at their funniest. That said, Curtis "Booger" Armstrong, Jay Pharoah, and especially Keith David are wonderful supporting castmates, and this has way more action and arc and twists and satisfying wrap ups than should be expected from a show that no one should have had any expectation anyone would watch. What is YouTubeTV? You go, Sam!

Adam Pally

We've Got To Stop Talking About TMNT on CBB

(CBBWorld) Since they put all kindsa stuff up on their new subscription service I have actually not heard any new episodes of Comedy Bang Bang because I have been binging old parallel shows I missed, including the amazing mini-series Seth Morris Radio Project, and most significantly, this magnificent Sean Diston/Scott Aukerman two hander about ninja obsessive Sprague schooling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle virgin Scott on the history of turtles, watching and drinking in a different movie or cartoon or DTV release each week. The theme song is superb, the source material is absurd, and the chemistry is great. I have actually never watched any of these movies, and perhaps never will, but grew too understand and respect the IP, was always entertained, and learned a lot of lore. The best is when guests come in and either have true Turtles history themselves (Michael Ian Black should be heard and not spoiled) or are deep, deep fans (the Orphan Black-tress became almost aroused recalling her childhood connections with the characters and could remember every sound effect in certain scenes). So good! The follow up show has them watching iconic hit movies Scott has never seen and I am only interested if I care deeply about the movie, while this one was great even with no interest whatsoever in Donatello doing machines.

Shirts

 

(Stores) I like wearing shirts, but it's also kind of freeing to take a shirt off. So I also like no shirts.

Cookie Crisp

(General Mills) Kinda bad in certain ways (the crispness makes it seem kinda stale, for example), but definitely does taste pretty good in a bowl of milk. Cookies for breakfast indeed, respect for the cookie wolves, crooks, dogs, and cops who have kept this legacy alive.

Pom Wonderful

(www.pomwonderful.com) Unless you are riddled with crippling oxidants or are a millionaire it is hard to justify the insane price of this somewhat tasty (but not 31 cents an ounce tasty) beverage.

The Cool School (edited by Glenn O'Brien)

 

(Library of America, 2013) As the ringmaster of the greatest assemblage of freaks, geniuses, and superstars in public access television history, Glenn O'Brien knows cool, so having him assemble a collection of essays, excerpts, lyrics, jokes, and manifestos by the ultimate A-list of jazzbos, bats, comics, punks, painters, poets, and oddball outsiders was a slam dunk. I spent a year savoring this, reading Miles' impressions of Bird one day, Lenny Bruce's catalogue of drug use a week later, Henry Miller recollections of sabotaging a posh dinner party when the mood hit me, Joyce Johnson's bad boyfriend tales of Kerouac later on, and Del CLose's hipster dictionary when I got around to it. Sad to have finished this collection, as I feel way less cool without this on my nightstand.

Those Shaggs “Philosophy Of The World”

(LIGHT IN THE ATTIC, 2021)

GUEST REVIEW BY GARY PIG GOLD

 

On the driz-laden afternoon of March 9, 1969, three guitar-and-drum beating sisters from tiny Fremont, NH entered an even tinier recording studio and emerged, just a few hours later, with a dozen original rock ‘n’ roll songs on some quarter-inch tape. These twelve songs were then pressed onto one thousand long-playing records, nine hundred of which immediately vanished forever off the face of the Earth. Within a year however, no less an authority than Frank Zappa declared this album, prophetically entitled Philosophy Of The World, to be “better than the Beatles,” and a decade after that the similarly inclined visionaries in NRBQ re-pressed Philosophy briefly on their very own Red Rooster label.  

 

Now then, if you’ve already grabbed either of these scarcer-than-rare items, then you’re undoubtedly already a complete convert …or at least a collector with mighty deep connections and/or pockets. But for those thousands upon untold thousands of unfortunates out there who have not yet come face-to-foot with The Shaggs, why, Now’s Your Chance! For Philosophy Of The World, with all of its original 1969 mix, sequence and even cover art lovingly intact, has been made available once again courtesy of the fine folk over at Light In The Attic.  

 

It is, believe you me, the greatest album you may never have heard.

 

From its opening title track (so lyrically brilliant that there’s a knee-deep moral lesson packed into each and every stanza!) through its garage-brand benediction (“We Have A Savior”) thirty-one ear-boggling minutes later, Philosophy is absolutely brimming with the sort of decorum-be-dumped bash ‘n’ popping that such supposed heirs-to-the-genre as Half Japanese and even them Replacements couldn’t ever come within a million notes of emulating. And how could they …or anyone else for that matter? For The Shaggs, as their daddy-slash-producer-slash-drill sergeant Austin Wiggin, Jr. wrote at the time, “are real, pure, and unaffected by outside influences. Their music is  different; it is theirs alone.” Indeed.  

 

Sure, a cursory half-listen suggests only a trio of inept-at-best gals trying to differentiate their fingers from their toes, musically speaking that is. Yet a closer examination reveals some fiercely detailed and all-the-way-downright ingenious compositional skills beneath all of the Neanderthal strum und drumming (for example, one should hear how flawlessly Dorothy Wiggin’s lead guitar ghosts her melody lines during most every song, in true Muddy-Waters-by-way-of-Peter-Tork fashion). Dorothy’s lyrics too run raging gamuts between nervous nursery rhyming (“My Pal Foot Foot”) on the one hand hand, to blazing teen-fiery pontificating on the other (“Who Are Parents” makes J. Lennon’s post-primal Plastic Ono natterings appear pretty darn Romper Room by comparison, while “Things I Wonder” and “Why Do I Feel?” actually reel towards near B. Wilson realms of agoraphobic self-analysis). And “Sweet Thing,” with its more than touching timelessness vis-a-vis that ol’ love-gone-wrong thang, makes one wonder if the Wiggin sisters didn’t have a battered copy of Another Side Of Bob Dylan hidden under their bedroom dresser all along.  

 

But this / that being the Swinging Sixties – and The Shaggs playing House Band at the prestigious Fremont Town Hall for roughly the entire Nixon Presidency – there’s lotsa slap-happy, good olden rock ‘n’ roll littering Philosophy Of The World as well:  “That Little Sports Car” (the only Shaggsong, by the way, to feature the mysterious fourth Shagg, Rachel, on bass) is wholly, happily, ham-fistedly frug-worthy …despite drummist Helen Wiggin’s never-less-than Beefheartian way with a tempo lurch. Plus “What Should I Do?” would not sound one bar out of place upon your favorite Lesley Gore or even, dare I say it, Shangri-La’s platter (dig Dorothy’s put-down of some Fremont stud-about-town: “He’s a two-face, he’s a disgrace, he never wins a race” …yeah, you go grrl!).

 

So, while it may be all too easy to file this album alongside your Wild Man Fischer or even Smoking Catapillar rekkids (personally, I place The Shaggs somewhere between Sun Ra and Dino, Desi & Billy), it simply cannot be denied that Philosophy Of The World is one of the greatest musical, uh, curiosities to ever be created by man or even beast. And I for one am glad that this true, off-blue cultural treasure is FINALLY getting the chance it’s so long deserved to make a lasting and loving imprint upon what remains of our socio-musical consciousness.  

 

So God Bless those Wiggins then, and Please grab at least two copies of their album immediately, won’t you?

Only Murders in the Building

(Hulu, 2021) When I saw the trailer for this, with its New York as the 4th character, pseudo dry, not quite funny vibe, I thought this was going to be bad. But Steve Martin was in The Jerk and plays banjo well and writes funny jokes and had that white suit, and Martin Short was Ed Grimley and Clifford, and I didn't not watch Wizards of Waverly Place, so you know, I was still going to give this a chance.  And it turned out to be very, very good. So to summarize. Thought it bad. It good. There were a lot of genuinely impressive things (the deaf character's perspective, Nathan Lane's emergence as a non-annoying, impressive actor, Short going from over the top caricature to genuine human), but bottom line is, show good, avoid spoilers, enjoy.

Willie Nelson "Spirit"

(Universal, 1996) Nelson established himself as one of the greatest songwriters in American history with a suite of songs with the perfect country/countrypolitan/pop balance of sincerity and emotion with of cleverness, wordplay, and fun gimmickry. He has been able to draw upon that skillset often, and has alternately carved out a niche as an interpreter of the Great American Songbook and the work of other songwriters. But to put out an album in the mid-90s of thirteen moving, low key, gimmick free, beautiful songs was truly a singular achievement, while also adding to the tens of thousands of brushstrokes on the masterpiece of his career. Certainly as a whole this is one of his best albums, and he likely has over a hundred albums, so that ain't small taters.

PigOut Pigless Pork RInds Nacho Cheese

 

(outstandingfoods.com) DEFINITELY better than Trader Joe's fake pork rinds, but I'm not sure why you have to add Nacho  Cheese flavor to pork flavor. For centuries pork has been enough, and that should apply even when the pork is made out of high-oleic expeller pressed sunflower oil, pea grits, and rice.

Cinnamon Toast Crunch

 (General Mills) Of canonized cereals (not considering short-lived atrocities like Drumstick ice cream cereal) this is the worst one. The combination of the right angles and the borderline obscene amount of sugar and "cinnamon" coating these health hazards makes these seem not only jagged and gritty, but also equally awful in taste. And though their mascot can never surpass Apple Jacks ill conceived Rastafarian cinnamon stick Cinna Mon in the bad idea category, Cin-emoji is a godawful mistake that was greenlit by someone trying to get fired.