I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: DUDLEY MOORE & PETER COOK-“Bedazzled” (1967).

I learned about this song when John Lydon was a DJ on NPR’s All Songs Considered.   His collection of songs included Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid,” Jimi Hendrix’ “All Along the Watchtower” and Planxty’s “The Well Below the Valley.”  The other song was this Dudley Moore/Peter Cook number from the movie Bedazzled (the Brendan Frasier movie was a remake which Lydon says was a travesty compared to the original).

This song is wonderfully bizarre.  It’s got a groovy 60’s beat with female singers seducing Peter with their come on lines.  And after each line from the women, Peter deadpans a line about how disinterested he is.  As Lydon says, the best couplet is:

THE GIRLS: You drive me wiiiiild
PETER: You fill me with inertia.

Obviously the song is comic, but the music is cool and slinky and fun in a completely retro sort of way.   I’m only disappointed that I’ve never heard it before.  Thanks Mr. Rotten.  Oh, and I see the soundtrack just got a reissue!

Hear the song (and all of Lydon’s) DJing here. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126559893

[READ: December 9, 2010] “On the Show”

I don’t really care about carny stories (and yet I’m surprised by just how many there are).  But this story was interesting because of the twist that sucked me into the carny.

The story opens with the narrator describing his carny boss.  And what I loved about this set up is that the carny boss is a tough-guy, braggart, asshole.  [He knocked out Steve Martin on the set of one of his movies].  And the stories are wonderful precisely because we hear them through the ears of the narrator who thinks this guy is full of shit.  I realize that I dislike tough guy stories in general, but you could tell me a tough guy story and have the guy he’ talking to say he’s a jerk and I’ll think it’s okay.  Call me the anti-Hemingway.

We flashback to how this narrator, who we don’t know all that much about, got here.  Turns out the flashback is about twelve hours ago (which is also pretty funny).  The narrator is a young college kid who was home for the summer.  His stepfather really doesn’t like him and they have a huge fight (which gets physical) so he runs off and, yes, joins the circus.

The rest of the story returns to the circus which, in no uncertain terms, sucks (life in the circus sucks, not the story).  The physical work is exhausting, the people are selfish and rude and even the fair-goers are dismissive.  I enjoyed that Tower reversed the typical story of carnies taking advantage of customers by having a customer trick the narrator.

Things go from bad to worse and the narrator finally decides to call his mother to see if it’s safe to come home yet.  Her response is rather less than exciting for him, and he knows that he’s going to have to tough it out a little longer.  Sleeping quarters are dreadful, you never get to sit and geez, breaking down the Zipper sounds utterly awful.

Since we more or less know how the carny saga will end, the actual ending of the story goes in a slightly different direction.  True, it is still a humiliating tale for him, but at least he knows he can escape.

Some time next year I’m going to have to read Wells Tower’s short story collection (I suspect that this one is included in it).