All posts by Matthew Callan

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappopriate Walk Up Music: Randy Newman

For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

I think Randy Newman is inappropriate in any context. His voice drives me bonkers and all of this songs sound the same to me. All plinkety, Western saloon piano with a warmed over boogie beat. It makes my teeth hurt just to think of it.

When I was in high school, I went to book signing for John Cleese, and was lucky enough to get him to sign my copies of both the Monty Python scripts and the complete Fawlty Towers scripts (/ brag). There was a Q&A session, and some random fan asked him what kind of music he liked, for some reason. Cleese looked a bit puzzled, and responded that he didn’t listen to music all that often because he usually didn’t find it preferable to silence. But if he did listen to music, it was liable to be Bach or Randy Newman.

That response almost made me rethink my love for the man. But I looked past it, because love is deeper than that. After all, he’s spent pretty much his entire adult life writing and performing comedy, going back to his college days, so the guy hasn’t had much time to listen to music. Still, c’mon John.

Newman’s most famous tune, “Short People,” might be the most inappropriate Randy Newman tune of all, for many reasons. In retrospect, it seems insane that the song was not only released, but became an enormous hit. It’s one thing for him to compose a song full of hate (ironic or not). It’s another for everyone to decide to buy it. Not cool, people of the late 1970s. Then again, what do I expect from people who thought avocado was a good color for appliances?

Of course, if David Eckstein finds his way onto a major league roster this season, “Short People” would transform from inappropriate to mandatory.

Tuneage

The Freeform Station of the Nation Still Needs You

As I stated in this post, WFMU is currently in the midst of its annual pledge marathon, and could sure use your help. I will be pitching in tomorrow from 3 to 6pm during Terre T’s show. She’s the first WFMU DJ I listened to many moons ago, and I still tune in every Saturday to hear her spin the best punk/garage/glam/psychedelia on The Cherry Blossom Clinic.

This year, a donation to her fine program gets you not only a CD with many rockin’ rarities which you will not find anywhere else on Earth so don’t even try, but also a special Cherry Blossom Clinic apron! And what could be more rockin’ than keeping your clothes free of flour while making a souflee?

So call tomorrow from 3 to 6 to donate to her fantastic show, and to WFMU. You might even get to speak to yours truly and have me ask you to repeat the spelling of your last name eight times. If you can’t wait for 24 hours, feel free to use the handy dandy pledge widget to your right. DO IT.

Boob Tubery

Charlie Sheen Is Mentally Ill. What’s Your Excuse?

I succeeded in not seeing Two and a Half Men for a very long time. I try not to judge things I haven’t experienced, but this was one of those rare instances where pre-judging seemed not only okay, but wise.

Some time last summer, I found myself in a Strauss waiting room as I got a new set of front tires. (Nothing’s too good for my 12-year-old Hyundai.) The TV in the waiting room was showing Two and a Half Men, and there was no way to turn it off or mute it. So I wound up consuming an entire episode. It was everything I thought it was and less.

It’s not so much that Two and a Half Men was unfunny, though it certainly was that. The show seemed to come from some place damaged and cynical. It wasn’t a comedy so much as a joke delivery system, as brutal and automated as a slaughterhouse. It was not created to be enjoyed, but accepted. The creators all but came out and said, Here’s some more slop, you pigs.

No wonder that Charlie Sheen lasted on the show for so long, even when committing heinous acts that get most people serious jail time. He was perfectly suited for a show that is a sitcom shell wrapped around professional contempt for the masses.

Charlie Sheen is mentally ill, seriously so. I have no doubt of that. He’s not ill to the point that he shouldn’t be held accountable for his actions, but he is ill enough that he’s incapable of getting help completely on his own. This should not be made light of, especially when such illness manifests itself in domestic violence.

And yet, somehow Charlie Sheen’s insane rants made him not a figure to be scorned or pitied, but cheered. His mantra of WINNING–clearly the last furtive sparks from his remaining, dying synapses–has already been beaten into the ground as an internet meme. He’s even been hailed as some sort of badass antihero by the Maxim/Axe Body Spray contingent because he does tons of blow and has lots of consequence-free sex with a porn stars, a notion crazier than Sheen himself.

Sheen is a vile human being. I have zero respect for someone who would kidnap a woman or threaten his spouse with a knife. But I think at least on some level, he can’t help it. Whether it’s chemical imbalance, dangerous levels of self delusion, the product of a Hollywood upbringing, or years of cocaine abuse, his brain does not function properly.

But most people’s brains do function properly. So why are we cheering on this monster? Why are we elevating his evasion of responsibility and judgment into a rallying cry for douchebags everywhere? (WINNING!) Even if you’re doing it ironically, you’re enabling him and giving him exactly what he wants: the validation needed to be a sociopath. It’s like handing matches and gasoline to a pyromaniac.

Is it because celebrity shenanigans are supposed to be funny? It seems like we put every famous person’s transgression on the same plane, and our reactions to them are always the same, that leering, Jay Leno-esque tone of Didja see what Madonna did yesterday? As if their sole purpose in life is to do something dumb so that we can mock them from down below. But when we do this, we equate, say, a Kardashian sex tape or a Lady Gaga meat dress with what Charlie Sheen has done in his life–particularly what he’s done to women. I find that sort of thinking morally bankrupt.

Mel Gibson–another man who is probably not right in the head–has no career, for all intents and purposes, because of hideously racist statements he made. And that’s perfectly fine by me. But whereas Gibson simply said horrible things, Sheen actually abused women. In the final analysis, which of these is worse? And yet, which one of these men is more likely to work again? The one who threatened the mother of his children with a knife but came up with the “hilarious” catchphrase WINNING.*

*UPDATE: As @metsgrrl pointed out, Mel Gibson actually did abuse his significant other. But the fact that we’ve all but forgotten that illustrates how easy it is to get away with violence against women.

Unless you are just as sick as Charlie Sheen, you have no excuse for celebrating him, and maybe you do deserve slop like Two and a Half Men.