Call Security

A while back I had a networking guy out to the house, to try to see if we could get our wireless internet in the downstairs office to synch up with the computer upstairs without falling apart for days at a time once a week or so. He plugged away at the modem for about a half an hour, then proudly told me that he had been able to give me greatly increased security, installing a password on my wireless hookup that would prevent anyone from pirating my signal as they walked past the house, which was supposed to benefit me somehow or another, although I was never quite clear how.

Well, I asked him, does the upstairs computer work any better? Nah, he said. There wasn't really anything he could do about that.

I understand that computer guys do security because they can do security, and if they could get wireless signals to transmit and be received in the manner they were intended, they'd do that too, but they can't, so hey, let's install a new password here. What boggled my mind was that this guy expected me to be happy that he was keeping other people from stealing my wireless feed, as though I had been wasting a lot of time fending off derelicts who had been wandering from house to house, pausing only to make posts to Slashdot when the signal became strong enough.

Now, any of you who have been to my house (and really, you're all welcome to stop by) know that I live in an almost archetypal suburban setting, with almost no interruption by modern urban distractions, although we've got plenty of our own. Bums with laptops is quite literally the least of my problems.

Birthday Wishes

Please join me and all of us here at OPC in wishing a happy birthday to Jack Nawrocki, who is eleven years old today.

Quote of the Day

"Altamont, it could only happen to the Stones, man. Let's face it. It wouldn't happen to the Bee Gees." -- Keith Richards

I know I should stop writing about the Rolling Stones, but when I looked into that whole Richard/Richards thing, I picked up a copy of Stephen Davis' Old Gods Almost Dead, which is just chock-full of wonderful tidbits. Like:

* In a Tinker-Evers kind of feud, Bill Wyman stopped talking to Keith in 1970, and didn't say another word to him until 1981. I wonder if Keith ever noticed.

* One of Keith's doper running mates throughout the 1960s and 1970s, a guy named Stash de Rola, was the son of the creepy painter Balthus.

* Not just one guy but four people died at Altamont. One drowned in a ditch, two were killed in a car wreck, and one was stomped to death by the Hell's Angels.

* Brian Jones was an excellent swimmer.

It's Oh So Filthy

While researching the conversation that's taking place here, I spent about a half hour this morning studying the back cover of Beggar's Banquet, trying to see if Keith Richards had signed his own name in the graffiti (which is microscopic on CD). Mick and Keith wrote most if not all of that graffiti, as I'm sure you know, in the bathroom of a car repair shop in a Mexican part of Los Angeles. (All I could find was something reading "Keef," which isn't very helpful.)

Now by this point you are probably asking yourself, what does this have to do with Bjork? Spike Jonze's video for the elfin Icelandic belter's "It's Oh So Quiet" commences with a scene in the bathroom of an auto-parts store in a scrubby, Hispanic-looking part of Los Angeles! Coincidence? I think not! It's homage!

All This Science, I Don't Understand

It was never my intention to provide you, the dedicated reader, with material you were already familiar with here at OPC, so I apologize to anyone who has already seen this rather notorious clip. But I present it anyway because I have always had my own questions about it, deep, disturbing questions, beginning with the question of whether Bill Shatner could actually have been serious about this. It is so heartrendingly awful that you think he must be putting us on, and heaven knows Shatner doesn't take himself all that seriously. On the other hand, I don't think he's a good enough actor to pull that off.

Then again, I can't imagine why Bernie Taupin would participate in the desecration of his own song. So, go figure. Here, from the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards, is William Shatner's Brechtian declamation of Elton John's "Rocket Man."

Tara Browne, He Lived on the Outskirts of Town

Back in the early days of Swinging London, in 1965 and 1966, there lived a young gentleman with the decidedly unmasculine name of Tara Browne. He was an heir to the Guinness brewing fortune and about as happenin' as a bloke could be in those days, a friend to both Beatles and Stones, a giver of legendary parties and a taker of legendary drugs. On December 17, 1966, driving down a busy London street while in the throes of a trip -- idiot -- Tara ran a red light and was killed instantly. His model girlfriend, riding alongside him, was unhurt, but proceeded to rectify that by hooking up with doomed, abusive Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones. Tara Browne was 21.

John Lennon wrote about Browne's car accident in a sort of roundabout way in "A Day in the Life": "He blew his mind out in a car/He didn't notice that the light had changed." But none of that is what really interests me about Tara Browne. There's nothing unusual about a wealthy young feller going out cattin' around with a young model -- except Tara left behind a wife and two small children, and I mean left behind in that they survived him, although he had also obviously left them behind by the time he was 21 years old.

Married, havin' babies, runnin' off, all before he could vote. Does that sound like one of the grooviest dudes in London to you? It's like he was from West Virginia or something.

Research Project, Part Two

After I posted about how nearly all the biggest names in rock history had dented the charts at the age of 25 or younger, there was a terrific comment by mjn comparing that performance to that of mathematicians, who also tended to make their mark at a fairly young age. If you haven't read that comment, go ahead and check it out now. I'll still be here when you get back.

But what mjn was talking about was not the rookie seasons for these mathematicians but their peak years, their Yaz '67 moments. Bill James also talked about baseball players' peaks, which he pegged as occurring between the ages of 26 and 30. When do rock & roll performers peak? Let's take a look.

To determine when an act reaches its peak, we will use their highest-ranking album in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the Top 500 Albums of All Time, and try to figure their age on the day the album came out. When we get to ten different artists on that list (i.e., we won't rate Sgt. Pepper's Lonely and Revolver), we'll stop and call it a day. Confusing? It shouldn't be. Here we go:

The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely (came out June 1967): John Lennon was 26, Paul McCartney was 24, Ringo Starr was 26, and George Harrison was 24.

The Beach Boys, Pet Sounds (came out March 1966): Brian Wilson was 23, Dennis Wilson was 21, Carl Wilson was 19 (can that be right? That would make him 14 when their first single came out), Mike Love was 25, and Al Jardine was 23.

Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (came out August 1965): Zimmy was 24.

The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main St. (came out May 1972): Mick Jagger was 28, Keith Richards was 28, Charlie Watts was 30, Mick Taylor was 24, Bill Wyman was an old man of 35.

Marvin Gaye, What's Going On (came out May 1971): Marvin was 32. God, what a mess he was.

The Clash, London Calling (came out December 1979): Joe Strummer was 27, Mick Jones was 24, Paul Simonon was 23, Topper Headon was 24.

Elvis Presley, The Sun Sessions (recorded in 1954-55, came out in 1976): Elvis was 19 and 20 when these sides were cut, but past 40 before they were released in album form. Let's call this one 19-20.

Velvet Underground and Nico, Velvet Underground and Nico (came out January 1967): Lou Reed was 24, John Cale was 26, Sterling Morrison was 24, Moe Tucker was 21, Nico was ageless in that decadent German manner -- okay, she was 28.

The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Are You Experienced? (came out 1967): Jimi was 25, and I'm not much interested in how old the other guys were.

Nirvana, Nevermind (came out September 1991): Kurt Cobain was 24, Krist Novoselic was 26, and Dave Grohl was 22.

[Ed. note: I left out Miles' Kind of Blue, since it's a jazz album and I'm not measuring jazz performers here.]

I have to say, even I am surprised by the youthfulness of this list. If not for the Rolling Stones' rhythm section (and I had Exile on Main St. at No. 1 or No. 2 on my ballot, but now I would probably rate Let It Bleed, on which everyone was three years younger, as the best Stones record) and the somewhat flukish Marvin Gaye, every single act on this list would have reached its artistic zenith at the age of 28 or younger -- many of them much younger. Even if I extended the list it would be hard to find someone who was even in their late 20s: Springsteen put out Born to Run at the age of 25, Van Morrison put out Astral Weeks at the age of 22, Michael Jackson put out Thriller at the age of 23, Stevie Wonder put out Innervisions at the age of 23.

Feist, remember, is 31.

Give Me Lots of Hair, Long, Beautiful Hair

And I wake up in the mornin'
With my hair down in my eyes and she says "Hi"

Those are the opening lines to O.C. Smith's Grammy-winning 1969 hit song "Little Green Apples." Now, pardon me for being crass, but Mr. Smith doesn't look to me like he ever had to worry about his hair falling in his eyes. Roger Miller, who originally did this song, I can see his hair falling in his eyes, or even Bobby Russell, who wrote both this one and "Honey," but not O.C. Smith.

Carroll, I Know

I wonder if the Carroll County in Bobbie Gentry's "Ode to Billie Joe" -- "And Brother said he recollected when he and Tom and Billie Joe/Put a frog down my back at the Carroll County picture show" -- is the same Carroll County that appears in Porter Wagoner's 1968 smash "The Carroll County Accident." Probably not, since even if both those artists had real Carroll counties in mind, I count at least seven Carroll counties throught the American South, but it's kind of fun to think that there's a central fictionalized locale where all the great country songs of the 1960s took place.

Quote of the Day

"The filmmakers that influenced me the most, I don't know their names. Because I would go see a film and hate it, and I would say, 'I gotta remember to never do anything like that.'" - Robert Altman, seen at left with his Prairie Home Companion star Lindsay Lohan