Scrubber Girls, Undermined Valets and Likeable Lords: The World of 'Downton Abbey'

Downton Abbey is one of those shows that people are really proud of watching, like the way people tell you that they heard something on NPR as opposed to just having heard it on the radio or the news. NPR equals Smart. Usually folks tell you what they heard on NPR like it’s a story about their own smartness. 

“Saturday I was listening to NPR while I made my own organic suet for the local woodpeckers? Because they're endangered? And I heard XYZ.”

There even used to be bumper stickers for NPR that read “Get out of your car smarter than when you got in!” That’s Downton Abbey, it’s like a fucking intellectual gang sign. You down with the D. A.? You know it, dawg. (Not really, don't really say that)

The first thing I learned about the show is that a fun thing to do is find people who love it, and then talk to them eagerly about it but call it Downtown Abbey. ​Blithely dismiss their corrections, wear a smugly bemused smile, and just confidently keep at it til they snap. Good times.

Now. It turns out that listening to NPR may have failed to make me smart. I simply could not pay attention to Downton Abbey the first several runs I made at it.

It’s dry. Leftover pork chop with no gravy dry. You turn it on and it’s playing NPR music at you and showing you a roughly Sherlock Holmes-era setting but without murder or Sherlock Holmes. No dragons, no explosions, no heists — why isn’t this thing a book sitting around in a library someplace?

​Even the Masterpiece Theater logo at the beginning seems proud of it. What you're about to watch will be like watching a book!

Instead it’s just showing me what all these people do. And fairly quickly, they fall into two categories, those who scrub and those who sit around eating fine food in freshly scrubbed rooms. You really get a sense of how many metric assloads of scrubbing would have to get done by how many people, back in the Pre Vacuum Cleaner Era.

But you can tell the show is smart as shit so you don’t want to fast forward through the eating and scrubbing because maybe they reveal something important and smart.

Eventually I used the Clockwork Orange Method, and my overall impression was like in The Dark Knight Rises when Catwoman blarneyed with alarming ease past Alfred to go try and steal something from Bruce Wayne, and you realize that cane’s real, Bruce Wayne is so out of shape he needs a cane, and you’re thinking, My God, this is going to be a long-ass movie.

Except here it’s not Oh Crap I Have To Watch Him Retrain To Be Batman Again; it’s just the sheer number of characters prancing around, and how many of them talk. Do I have to learn all of their names? Do they all have to speak Hobbit?

But I’m getting the hang of it now. The whole opening scene is more than just Who Scrubs and Who Gets To Eat. Instead, it follows the delivery of a telegram containing news that the Titanic sank. 

The telegram takes a Billy-From-Family-Circus-style journey all across the grounds from the telegraph office through the manor all the way to Lord Grantham, who is basically King Shit. And even though he has the same title as a certain Dark Side Jedi, Lord Grantham is an all right guy.

Like when they tell him the Titanic went down, and they reassure him that they got most of the ladies off of it first, it occurs to him that there were hundreds of poor people below deck and that they weren’t included in the term “ladies,” even if they were ladies. So okay, you don’t need to have a doctorate to get that message – We Like Lord Grantham. Got it.

But I doubt he’s the good guy, because he’s the Lord. You can’t say, “I’m pulling for the Lord of the Manor,” because what are you pulling for? That he’ll become a God King? I’m not seeing much of a journey ahead of him.

And yes, here’s the answer: Bates. He’s a grizzled, limping, well-spoken fellow who has just been hired as the new valet — a pretty sweet gig in the scrubber world, it seems — even though his leg is injured from the war. Turns out not much has changed — even a hundred years ago, people don’t like it when you get hired above them.

Suddenly we're in Mean Girls without Lindsay Lohan. Thomas the footman wanted to be the valet, it turns out. He's bad news, you can tell by looking at him. He's going to be trouble. If anyone gets murdered anytime soon, my money's on this guy.

So you know how when your boss promotes Rachel instead of you because he and Rachel are having a secret affair, and you start sneakily undermining Rachel's job performance? Passive-aggressively not sending her emails to keep her abreast of the project you're working on?​ Inviting everyone out to happy hour except her?

That's what Thomas and his fellow Mean Scrubbers start doing to Bates, but instead of fornicating with the boss, Bates is an injured war veteran who served with Lord Grantham, and instead of sneakily undermining him, they knock stuff out of his hands and say "Oh, look what the crippled guy dropped!"​

​Meanwhile, Lord Grantham's daughter, Lady Mary was supposed to get married to her cousin — totally cool back then — but her cousin died on the Titantic and so did his dad. The first thing Lady Mary wants to do is verify that she doesn't have to formally mourn her cousin because they hadn't announced the engagement, freaking us and her dad out at the same time.

​Later on, Lord Grantham and his lawyer walk around dressed like Frosty the Snowman, and agree that they're screwed if Lady Mary doesn't sack up and marry somebody, I'm serious, I have no idea who it's going to be. I'll bet he'll be pretty hot though, cause a lot of ladies like this show.

​Okay, wait, here's a dude they want her to marry, and he looks like Wilson from House and now he says he's leaving even though Lady Mary kind of throws herself at him. Must be some other dude on the way, someone she's not supposed to marry. Oh, and this dude's blackmailing Thomas. Damn, there's a lot of shit going on around here.

Pretty soon Thomas and the Master Butler (not a ninja) just about have Lord Grantham convinced that Bates should be booted off the job. I get a Main Character vibe off of Bates, so they don't fool me. Also, Lord Grantham's too cool to fire his old war buddy. I feel smarter already watching Lord Grantham stand there in the driveway and realize he's too cool to fire his old war buddy, til he basically says it out loud again. Knock it off, Downton Abbey.

​And then a new Lord-ype guy gets a new letter at a new manor, and the episode ends, so I guess I get to learn a bunch of additional people next episode. Good lord, remember when Homer Simpson got that 12-foot sandwich and wouldn't stop eating it until he could fit it in the fridge? That's how I feel right now, having finished this first episode. Kind of nauseated by the extremely heavy meal, but I can't stay mad at the sandwich.

​How can I stay mad at the sandwich?

Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Is Now a Band in Addition to a Damn Good Question

Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? is a band hellbent on finding the answer to the following question: Why isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame? As such, the band will be performing a free show of all Cheap Trick covers at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland on Thursday, April 18.

​The date is significant because the actual induction ceremonies for the Rock Hall are taking place, in Los Angeles, that same night, and once again, Cheap Trick is not among the inductees. And as for the location, well, duh, Cleveland is where the Rock Hall is located. Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? will also be performing a free show the next night at KOBO in Columbus just for the hell of it.

Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? is the brainchild of Colin Gawel, co-founder of the band Watershed. Gawel and Joe Oestreich decided to form a band after attending a Cheap Trick concert when they were in middle school. The two were so determined to follow their heroes' path, Watershed eventually ended up getting signed — and dropped — by Epic Records, Cheap Trick's recording label for many years. Oestreich tells the tale in the 2012 memoir Hitless Wonder: A Life in Minor League Rock n Roll. The book was featured on National Public Radio and reached No. 1 on Amazon music biography list.​ 

While Gawel doesn't have the discipline to write a book, he did once rank EVERY SINGLE Cheap Trick song, complete with links, essays and personal stories. (Better call off work because it takes about five hours to read properly.)

Gawel said he decided to form Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? after getting sick of watching the band get snubbed year after year. "If Cheap Trick were from New York City instead of Rockford, Ill., they would have been in the Rock Hall years ago*," he said. "Show me someone who doesn't appreciate what Cheap Trick has meant to rock and roll and I will show you a dipshit."

Gawel added: "To draw attention to this injustice, we plan on performing every year on the night of the induction ceremony until Cheap Trick gets the call. For everybody's sake, let's hope this is our first and last show. I mean, Cheap Trick makes it look easy; surely we will prove otherwise."

Gawel said he is a big fan of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. "My son and I go every summer and always have a great time," he said. "This event isn't for the haters bitching about how their favorite band has been snubbed, too. Start your own band If you want to. This show is about taking a place I already enjoy and improving it with the addition of Cheap Trick."​

Gawel will be joined on stage by his backing band The Lonely Bones, featuring Four String brewmaster Dan Cochran on bass, Rick Kinsinger on guitar and former Watershed member Herb Schupp on the drums.

A limited number of Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame? T-shirts are available to spread the word and help cover the cost of van rental, gas, and beer for the band. Click here to purchase. Shirts will NOT be available at the show. Any extra proceeds will be plowed back into free stickers and/or buttons, which will be available.

Click here for Facebook event page and help us spread the word

Colin Gawel sings and plays guitar with Watershed along with his solo band The Lonely Bones. Once a year he performs with his side band, Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame? in Cleveland. He owns a small coffee shop in Columbus, Ohio, where he manages the website Pencilstorm. He is married and has a 9-year-old son who has seen Cheap Trick three times and met Rick once. www.colingawel.com

​* It occurred to me one evening while watching the Silver concert DVD that if a band from New York tried a show like that in Central Park, it would be covered live on all media outlets and probably have its own pullout section in USA Today.

Try to imagine a band from New York that had sold 20 million records over 30 years; been produced by George Martin, Todd Rundgren, Jack Douglas, Roy Thomas Baker and Steve Albini (OK, were recorded by Steve Abini); were John Lennon's favorite American band; had persevered through tough times and continued playing gigs all over the world because that's what rock n roll bands do; rallied to put out an amazing CD in 2009, The Latest; were beloved by Conan O' Brien, The Onion, David Letterman, The Simpsons, Steve Colbert and other pop-cultural icons; were the featured band at 2010 SXSW; performed on Austin City Limits and World Café; were invited by the Los Angeles Philharmonic to recreate Sgt. Pepper's at the Hollywood Bowl; influenced bands such as Green Day (Billie Joe left a note on Rick's door the first time Green Day played Chicago that said "We are going to be a good as your band one day") and Nirvana ("I think of Nirvana as being like Cheap Trick," Kurt Cobain once said). If a band from New York City accomplished even half of this, they would have been inducted into the Rock Hall on the first ballot. — Colin

Columbusland, or... The Abby Singer Show!

I used to be on TV. But, after ten years, I had to leave because of the man. And by “the man,” I mean this dick I worked for.

While I was pondering leaving my high profile, perk-riddled gig, my wife asked me if I could do it.

“Do what?” I asked.

“Not be on TV,” she said.

“What, are you kidding?”

Was she implying that I was some sort of egomaniac who needed to be on TV, like I needed the attention of an audience in order to be fulfilled?

Yes. She was.

“Of course, I don’t need to be on TV. That’s preposterous.”

It wasn’t long after I started my new job at the Gateway Film Center that I began plotting ways of getting my face on the screen. Why be on TV when you can be in the movies?

Yes, it killed me, but she was right.

The first piece I shepherded into being was a promo spot for the film center’s annual summer Double Barrel Western Series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcWwHiXb6QE

Well, seeing my mug plastered across a 50-foot wide screen was all the encouragement I needed to do more.

As part of the Cinema Classics film series, a companion to the WCBE radio show of the same name that I co-host  with my friend John DeSando, I saw another opportunity: comedy sketches that spoofed the movies we were showing.

They both feature an idiot studio exec who doesn’t quite get the geniuses who work for him.  In the first one, he (me) tussles with Stanley Kubrick; and in the second, Orson Welles.  Jimmy Mak, ShadowboxLive’s head comedy writer and an old friend, plays both directors -- brilliantly. DeSando turns up in a weird non-sequitir cameo in both.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48XxD4nDBek

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1w6T-Lna6Q

Fortunately, my boss, the phenomenally talented and brainy and not susceptible to in-print ass kissing, Chris Hamel, approved of these extracurricular activities. In fact, he’s so game he played the James Bond figure that my Nameless Cowboy guns down in the Western bit. What kind of a boss allows that to happen? An awesome one.

So, Chris asked me what I thought of the film center’s pre-show. For those of you not familiar with theater parlance, a pre-show is that generic package of trivia questions, ads, and animations that plays before the movie and is generally ignored.

We sat and watched the pre-show together. In its entirety. Afterwards, he asked me what I thought and I told him I thought it was crap. He agreed and asked if we could do better. Naturally.

And so, our new in-house show was conceived. After breathlessly kicking around different titles based on obscure movie jargon like The Cross Cut the good ideas began to flag. By the time we were seriously considering calling it The Abby Singer Show we were good and loopy. “But no one will know who or what an Abby Singer* is,” our co-workers cautioned. “Right!” we shouted back. “That’s the beauty part.” Eventually, having reached the nadir of our naming sessions, Chris blurted out Columbusland.

Abby Singer, for the record, is the second to last shot of the day on a movie production, named after 1950s Hollywood production manager and assistant director, Abner "Abby" Singer. When Singer's crew would ask how many shots were left to do he'd answer, "We'll do this and one more." 

Fortunately, the "Abby Singer" show idea never left Chris's office. The basic idea survived though and that was to create a loosely formatted, informal talk show in which we would interview Columbus prominents about the movies while drinking.  And the city would be our playground.

Kinopicz American, a hyper-talented production company in Grandview, agreed to take the project on and brought their insight and ideas. In order to keep the show from becoming me and Chris drinking and ego-jousting, Kino, as we affectionately call them, suggested bringing on a Girl Friday who would temper the testosterone and drastically drop the combined age of the two-man cast which if combined would approach octogenarian heights.

We immediately thought of social media maven and Columbus vlogging sensation, Amy "Schmittastic" Schmittauer. 

We thought Amy would anchor the show, keep it grounded, but she quickly proved to be as strange as we are, and so the show quickly took on a life of its own.  So far we’ve only shot 3 episodes, but it continues to evolve. We’ve worked in more scripted comedy and we’re playing around with the interview dynamics, and, quite frankly, I'm not sure where it's headed. As long as it continues to get better, which it has, we'll all be happy.

Each episode of Columbusland runs at the Gateway Film Center for 8 weeks and you can see the show 20 minutes before any movie we’re showing. Well, due to the constant cocktail drinking and frequent light cursing, you can see it before any PG-13 or R- rated movie.

The entire endeavor, it bears repeating, is the kind of project that can happen when a cool boss rolls the dice on a great idea and lets it ride.

Here’s episode two:

The complete cut of Columbusland: Episode 2 CASINO, shot at the new Hollywood Casino in Columbus, Ohio. Join in the misadventures of the Gateway Film Center characters as they traipse around Columbus, bumping into local personalities who share their takes on life, Columbus, and, of course, movies.

Video of So-So Cheap Trick Songs Is Easier to Find Than Dramatic World Series Home Runs

I grew up in Columbus, Ohio, with the Reds and Indians each being approximately 120 miles driving time from my home. In a stroke of genius, I will now use YouTube to sum up the two franchises' fortunes since 1980 in two single at-bats. This is going to be great! Searching YouTube. They have everything on here. Here... we... go! Um, hold on, let me try Marlins win. Um, no. OK, Eric the Red Bombs. Oh, it's Fernandez with a "z" not with an "s." WTF?  No clips??

Ugh. I had planned on showing a concise clip of Eric Davis's Riverfront-rattling bomb off Dave Stewart and the favored A's in Game One of the 1990 World Series and the Tribe's Tony Fernandez heartbreaking 10th-inning error, costing Cleveland the 1997 title to the upstart Marlins as my two defining moments.

Yet, you baseball geeks have let me down. What are you good for anyway? I can search and find a live version of Cheap Trick performing "It's Only Love" from Harpo's in Detroit on The Doctor tour in less than 30 seconds, yet not one clip of the two most definitive plays in Reds and Indians' recent histories are posted. I mean, nobody has bothered to upload that stuff to YouTube? You nerds disgust me. For the love of all that is holy, please take a five-minute break managing one of your seven fantasy teams and upload these clips before all of Ohio is jinxed. In the meantime, the rest of you can enjoy these still photos from the 11 o'clock news. Not too shabby...

Seriously nerds, do it.​ Remember, it's up to you.  

From The Doctor tour. LIVE 11/14/86 Harpos Detroit, MI

Dwight Yoakam at the Bluestone Preview

In the early '90s, when I was even dumber than I am now, I spent most of my time driving around the country in a van named Rocco and playing dive bars with the band Watershed. (You can read all about it in the acclaimed book Hitless Wonder.) Growing up in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, the only thing I knew about country music was that it sucked, whereas KISS, well, they rocked.  

Thing is, the country music coming out of Nashville around that time did, in fact, suck. This is the era of "Achy Breaky Heart," "Boot Scootin' Boogie" and a whole shitload of Garth Brooks and Shania Twain. Or put another way, my idea of country was plugging in a cassette of Hank Williams Jr. and wondering what was this "Family Tradition" he was always singing about. To summarize: country sucked and I was stupid. 

Still, from all of our travels, generous souls occasionally took pity on our poor barren brains and would share nuggets of musical enlightenment over beers before last call. The name Dwight Yoakam would come up repeatedly.  Country doesn't suck, you dipshits just don't know where to find it, check out Dwight Yoakam and Steve Earle.

Yeah, yeah, we should check out Dwight Yoakam. Whatever, old-timer. Country sucks.  

So cruising late one night, Rocco was eating up I-71 while we listened to the Truckin' Bozo on WLW 700-AM and a mystery song came on. All our ears perked up. Damn, this sorta sounds like country except it doesn't suck. Now, the Truckin' Bozo was an overnight DJ who would take calls from big rigs all over the USA and occasionally play a tune so he never bothered to mention the title of the song or anything like that. But still, we all remembered that song and wondered who it was by.

Fast forward about six months and Mike "Biggie" McDermott pops in a CD (modern technology!) and says, "Might as well see what this Dwight guy is all about." We were all sort half paying attention when suddenly that song came on. "That's the song!!" we all yelled in unison. "That song" was "It Only Hurts When I Cry" and the album was If There Was a Way. We were smitten. Dwight vaulted into heavy van rotation and never left. If fact, we were so taken with Dwight, that we tried to slip a cover of "Turn Me Up, Turn Me Loose" on to a Watershed record. When the wise label suits at Epic got wind of our scheme they sent a memo that said in so many words, "What, are you guys crazy? No fuckin' way." It eventually showed up as a bonus track on a Star Vehicle re-issue when nobody cared what we did.

Yoakam and his master producer/guitarist Pete Anderson followed up If There Was A Way (1990) with  This Time (1993) and Gone (1995). Each one better than the last. How was this possible? If there has been a more impressive three-record run in any genre, let alone country, I'd like to hear it. All three albums are stone-cold classics, a music production clinic and a tour de force of great songwriting. And to top it all off, Dwight can deliver the goods live and has one of the great voices in all of country music.

Dwight's latest album, 3 Pears, is his first new release in seven years and his best since Tomorrow's Sounds Today, but that is hardly a knock on his other records. Mainstream country is still best to be ignored, but everything Dwight Yoakam puts his name on is worth your attention (movies included).

Dwight Yoakam will be performing at the Bluestone in Columbus, Ohio Tuesday April 9th. 

 Colin Gawel writes for Pencilstorm, plays in Watershed and apologizes for the subpar grammar in this story. See, he wrote it while working at Colin's Coffee and rushed it to have ready for the Dwight Yoakam show the same night in Columbus, Ohio. We will polish it up for the archives.  What do you think this is? Grantland? More at colingawel.com

Get 3 Pears on iTunes - http://smarturl.it/3pears Watch Dwight Yoakam perform in The Live Room - http://smarturl.it/dyliveroom www.dwightyoakam.com © 2012 WMG

Dwight Yoakam performs his song "3 Pears" in an exclusive recording session live in the legendary Studio One at EASTWEST STUDIOS in Hollywood, CA for The Live Room on The Warner Sound.

The 4 R's: Readin', 'Ritin' and Rock & Roll by Ricki C.

"I've been inside of more libraries 

Than I have dope houses"

- from song, "A Life Of Rock & Roll," Ricki C. (c) 2009

From the ages of zero to twelve years old all I cared about was reading and World War II.  When I was 12 The Beatles (and, more importantly, The Dave Clark 5) appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show and my little seventh-grade Catholic boy head exploded.  As such, from the age of 12 to earlier this morning all I have cared about is reading and rock & roll.  (And maybe movies and sex, but not until much later on.)

Nowadays that means that I read way too many books about rock & roll that I get out of the library.  It also means that, problematically, I would now often prefer to read about rock & roll than to LISTEN to rock & roll.  (Have you HEARD & SEEN what's masquerading as rock & roll and/or music lately on your radio and T.V.?  Mumford & Sons?  The Voice?  American Idol?  Seriously?)    

Anyway, here's my two latest rock & roll book recommendations:

1) I Slept With Joey Ramone by Mitch Leigh.  This book was published in 2009 but somehow I never got around to reading it until now, and it's pretty great, I sincerely regret not picking it up sooner.  Written by Joey Ramone's younger brother - Mitch Leigh (who also served as guitarist & co-songwriter in rock critic Lester Bangs' band Birdland)  - it documents, in a really poignant and personal way, how Jeffry Hyman of Forest Hills Queens, New York, reinvented himself, pretty much by sheer force of will, to become Joey Ramone.     

The Ramones' story has been pretty well documented over the years.  Just in my collection I've got books by Everett True and Monte Melnick (The Ramones road manager for pretty much all of their existence) and I know there's a book by Johnny Ramone floating around out there.  (But Johnny was kind of a dick, so I never bought that one, though I'm pretty sure I read it out of the library.)  (At the same time I find myself calling Johnny Ramone a dick - largely for stealing away Joey's steady girl and then marrying her, maybe just to prove that he could and for running The Ramones like a military operation rather than like a BAND for all of their career - I find myself admitting that if Johnny hadn't run the organization that way, The Ramones most likely would never have played 2,263 gigs over a 22 year span, without ever having anything approaching a hit record.)  (On the other hand, as Colin and I have oft-conjectured on Watershed tours; maybe if The Ramones HADN'T been run that way -  traveling the world crammed together in a van, hating one another and literally not speaking  for years at a time  - two members of the band wouldn't have destroyed their immune systems with collected stress and died of cancer and a third wouldn't have OD'd.  We have no conclusive medical or psychological proof of this hypothesis, we're just sayin'.)     

But I digress.  You really oughta read this book.  It's simultaneously funny and heartbreaking in all the right ways as we watch Joey Ramone - who, due to various physical & mental problems, more than a couple of doctors declared "would never be able to function in normal society" - transition from existing as a marginalized basket case to being a rock & roll star.  Or are those really just two sides of the same coin?  Either way, it's still a truly inspirational human story, told with love, grace & humor by Joey's little brother.  (Most telling incident in the book: In 1977, when Mitch Leigh quit as The Ramones' first roadie, after getting a raise in pay from $60 to $70 A WEEK, Johnny replaced Mitch with TWO new guys, each making $250 a week.  In rock & roll, brothers so often get screwed.)     

2) A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of The Smiths by Tony Fletcher.  My lovely wife Debbie and I don't get out much in the winter.  In fact, if we could work it right and ensure that a steady supply of snack cakes, milk, Lay's potato chips and Mountain Dew would get delivered, we might not ever leave the house at all in December, January & February .  As such, I'll occasionally find myself just trolling the library website for something interesting to read.  That's where I ran across this book.    

Now let's get some parameters straight: I could give less of a shit about The Smiths.  They were the very first band, back in the 1980's, that all of my tastemaker friends LOVED (are you reading this, Curt Schieber?) that I finally wound up thinking, "Okay, the hell with it, I have tried and tried and TRIED to like this band and they just suck.  I should not have to work this hard to enjoy music."  (I later repeated that pattern with Guns & Roses, Nirvana, grunge and most recently with Arcade Fire and Mumford & Sons.)  But something about the library's description of the book hooked me, so I reserved it.       

When the reserve came in, Debbie and I were on one of our rare outings together to obtain food & literary supplies, so she ran into the library to grab the book for me while I kept the warm car running in the cold.  She came out lugging a book about 1/3rd of her diminutive five foot height and I thought, "What the hell is this?"  It turns out the Fletcher book is 698 PAGES LONG!  ABOUT THE FUCKING SMITHS!  HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE! 

Pencilstorm readers, I was looking for maybe 237 pages about The Smiths, tops, not 698 pages.  If I had gone into the library myself rather than sending Debbie I'd have handed that book right back to the librarian for them to pass on to the next reservee - to some pale, wan, winsome Morrissey & Marr fan who might actually appreciate 700 pages about their heroes. 

Since it was already checked out and since it was too cold to ask Debbie to walk it back into the library I decided to give it a shot, and damn if it isn't actually pretty good.  Admittedly, I didn't start the book until page 210, chapter thirteen, as it takes Fletcher THAT LONG to get to Morrissey and Marr even meeting for the first time.  (I'm fairly certain Tony was being paid by the word for this tome, BIG MISTAKE for the publisher.)  But from there on the story moves right along.  The book chronicles the birth and growth of a young band in month to month - if not week to week - detail and I'm genuinely enjoying it, way more than I ever would have thought I would.  It's truly well written.  (By the way, I'm 200 pages beyond where I started and they haven't made their second album yet.) 

One of the true advantages of reading rock & roll books in the internet age is that virtually any television appearance mentioned in the text can be punched up on YouTube.  (By the way, if Debbie hears the phrase, "Just punch it up on YouTube" from me ONE MORE TIME this long winter/spring, there's gonna be trouble.)  I've found myself doing that more and more while reading this book, and you know what I've discovered?  I've discovered I STILL don't like The Smiths music.  Somehow I like the IDEA of The Smiths more than I actually like The Smiths.  I'm enormously heartened by the idea that Morrissey refused to go on Jimmy Kimmel's show alongside those cracker assholes from Duck Dynasty, solely because of his vegetarian beliefs.  Try to imagine almost any other celebrity or rocker turning down a paycheck or a T.V. appearance these days just because of their principles.  Or, indeed, try to imagine any other celebrity or rocker these days WITH a belief or a principle.  (Let's face facts, people, any one of the Kardashian sisters would fuck a llama in a closet if it meant they could get another reality show out of the deal.)

Come to think of, Morrissey probably wouldn't go on that show either.  Thanks, Steven. 

(ps. Best pop-culture Morrissey reference of the week: The Colbert Report, last Wednesday night, when an interview-guest pig farmer claimed their pork is made "naturally," Colbert asked, "At what point do the little piggies decide to naturally meander into the slaughterhouse?  Do you read them Nietzsche, play them a little Morrissey?") 

Ricki C. missed  The Ramones the first time they played Columbus, Ohio, in March of  1978 at a dive called The Sugar Shack, because he didn't believe The Ramones would  actually PLAY at the dive that was The Sugar Shack.   He did see them  the second time they played Columbus in July 1978 at a supermarket-converted-into-a-rock-club - Cafe Rock & Roll, by name - and damn, is he glad he did.  

  He never saw The Smiths live anywhere, anytime, and is equally glad of that.