SOUNDTRACK: AGENT ORANGE on 21 Jump Street (1987).
Sarah and I are watching 21 Jump Street on DVD. We were both fans of the show when it came out, but our only thought about it was to sing JUMP every once in a while. So, we got Season One and have been very pleasantly surprised at how good the show is. It holds up surprisingly well: the story lines are a bit over the top, and some very basic logical issues like: they go to a different high school every episode, just how many high schools are in this town? And, what town in the world is as pervaded by so many different teen criminal masterminds? But, once you get past that (and the egregious late 80’s fashion) the stories are really compelling.
Anyhow, the music on the original was very good, but like many DVDs, (Northern Exposure, I’m looking at you) the original scores could not be obtained so they have lame background music. (Don’t even get me started on the bullshit factor of THAT). But the last episode of Season One features music by Agent Orange (it’s about punks, you see). I assume the band on screen is Agent Orange (although the singer isn’t the band’s singer, so maybe not). Anyhow, there are several scene in a punk club, and the Agent Orange songs are really good. I never got into them back in the day, probably because they only really put out two albums, but I am now intrigued enough to see what they were like. I’ll likely be getting and reviewing their debut, which sounds very promising.
[READ: July 2, 2008] “The Case of the Severed Hand”
This was the only story out of all of the magazine stories I just read that I did not like. I starts out as a stereotypical “pulp” detective story: the detective is named Noir, the woman is named Flame, the cop is called Blue. It was so over the top I assumed it was a joke-noir, especially since the hero winds up in women’s clothes twice in the first section.
But no, it proceeds apace, as a crime detective story, albeit a somewhat surreal one. The severed hand in the title appears in a flashback to a previous case, and that part is kind of interesting; however, the bookend part of the story is just sort of noir for the sake of noir. I kept thinking I was missing something. Since I don’t really read that genre, maybe it was much funnier than I thought. But I kept expecting something to happen, and it never did.
I Just Read About That... 
I’m loving watching these, but I’m not sure I’d call the stories compelling.
I subscribe to Harper’s and loved the Coover story. Reminded me very much, stylistically, of Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy.
If you didn’t get the story, perhaps you should give up reading and concentrate your “talents” on watching old television shows. I’m sure that’s very rewarding.
He called me talented! Hey, was that sarcasm? Well, I guess I’ll have to just turn on the Mary Tyler Moore show and…damnit, I read the booklet…. must…read… more… words… Crap, there’s one. Oh, and another. They’re unavoidable. Damn these eyes, damn them!