The Beatles' Music on TV

The most recent Mad Men episode licensed the Beatles "Tomorrow Never Knows," which proved, despite the price, to be a brilliant move, both artistically and in terms of promotion. Mad Men reportedly paid $250,000 for the rights to the song. Forbes initally reported that this was the first time a Beatles track had been licensed to a TV show. They later corrected themselves, reporting that WKRP in Cincinnati had lisenced multiple Beatles songs, and had used three in various episodes throughout its run from 1978 to 1982. Though I don't know how much WKRP in Cincinnati paid for the use of "I'm Down", "Here Comes the Sun" and "Come Together," most certainly less than what Mad Men paid.

It's also interesting to note a couple of earlier uses of Beatles songs in television shows. The British science fiction series UFO used "Get Back" in episode 9, "Ordeal", but perhaps without prior approval.

In the director's commentary for the 30th anniversary DVD edition of Easy Rider, Dennis Hopper reported that he had selected music for his film without regard to cost--they simply didn't think about licensing the music.  UFO was produced at roughly the same time as Easy Rider, and it appears that the producers of UFO had the same attitude toward soundtrack music in using "Get Back". Interesting to note, however, that "Get Back" remains in "Ordeal" on the DVD release of UFO episodes, while licensed music was edited out of WKRP in Cincinnati episodes when that show went into syndication. Also interesting is that UFO chose what was then a new release for this episode.  Though filmed in 1969-1970, the show was set in the distant future of 1980 (by that time, according to the vision of the show, British motorists were driving on the right side of the road in futuristic muscle cars). By that time, "Get Back" would have been ten years out of date--or perhaps they realized the timelessness of Beatles music.

Another use of the Beatles' music for a television show was the ABC Saturday morning cartoon The Beatles, which ran from 1965 to 1967. The first season featured the Beatles' early hits, but by the third season the show was airing the psychedelic Beatles. Make no mistake, though, The Beatles Saturday morning cartoon never rose above its own lack of ambition, always sticking to its formula of inane plots loosely tied to Beatles songs, hijinks involving lovable but clumsy Ringo, and girls chasing the Beatles. And despite the great music, the "Tomorrow Never Knows" episode was no exception. The Beatles Saturday morning cartoon never got it right--the accents and humor of the cartoon Beatles had nothing to do with the actiual Beatles--and the "Tomorrow Never Knows" episode just added cultural stereotypes of "primitives" for good measure.

One clever touch, however, was the use of backwards audio.  Here is the dialog just before "Tomorrow Never Knows" reversed:

Reversed Audio [edit 1]

Here is the dialog just after "Tomorrow Never Knows" reversed:

Reversed Audio [edit 2]

Life After The New Bomb Turks

Some time back I was in Barnes & Noble and a book jumped off the shelf at me. I was enjoying thumbing through We Never Learn: The Gunk Punk Undergut, 1998-2001 even before I realized that the author was Eric Davidson, lead singer of the New Bomb Turks. The book is a fun read, full of stories about bands that played raucous garage punk in the pre-internet era. Though they may not have achieved mass success, they built up legions of loyal fans who loved the over-the-top shows. A good time was had by all, which was the whole point of it anyway. Eric Davidson uses the term "gunk punk" to describe these bands "rocking around with a ragged revamp that seemed to have completely dismissed hardcore and gazed through beer goggles back to lost '60s garage rock (Sonics, Seeds) and/or early '70s proto-punks (Stooges, MC5, Dictators, New York Dolls, Flamin' Groovies, Cramps)." When Blurt asked Eric Davidson to name the three most important gunk punk bands, and he listed off 14.

Eegads! Well, if I must, but I'm making it longer, in relative chronological order...

• Various Billy Childish groups - consistent, unrelentingly trashy recording and honesty.
• Lazy Cowgirls - Whipping up all raw American roots music fast-like before most did, before hardcore even.
• Pussy Galore - Template-setting garbage noise leap forward for garage punk.
• Dwarves - They made the perfect rock 'n' roll record, Blood, Guts & Pussy, and had probably the best overall live evocation of the We Never Learn icky ethos.
• Gories - Mick Collins says it best in the book - essentially, when he heard all those lame post-Nuggets comps' ads say "Wild, primitive garage rock!" then he bought them and they were jangly folk, he said they decided to make records as wild and primitive as those comps claimed. And did!
• Supersuckers - No one really sounded like the Ramones, the Saints, and Motorhead in 1990. Burped out a great sense of humor while living and playing within the often self-serious grunge central, Seattle.
• Mummies - Along with the Gories, truly reiterating the "anyone can do it" stance. The disgusting stained mummy outfits as a retort to the dress-up surf revival going on around them was a nice touch.
• Devil Dogs - Being one of the best rock 'n' roll bands ever, playing every show with sweaty urgency, and having Andy G hilariously spout off at all the jerks in the audience, yet winning them over, all make up the general savoir faire of gunk punk.
• New Bomb Turks, natch - Mike Lavella said to me, "I don't know how you're going to write this book without saying what a big deal your band and that first album was on the scene." So there, I said it here. Ha!
• Oblivians - Their informed roots and extremely well-written songs - blasted sloppy through a revived sense of trash after early side-projects - made them a kind of garage punk 7" tidal wave era cresting point, that washes down on bands to this day, where their reunion gigs are selling out in a few days.
• Teengenerate - Ditto, only WAY trashier even; maybe the most explosive live act of this whole thing.
• Hives - Veni, Vidi, Vicious was a truly great, catchy-approachable album that yanked a lot of this book's aesthetic chutzpah into the charts, which has never been easy.The Ramones couldn't even do it!
• Clone Defects - The Defects - whom I used to help sneak into Detroit area shows and watch piss people off around town before they formed - knew their garage-punk shit, and then ate it again, shitting it out as a cosmic mind-bending meal for another generation, I suppose.
• Black Lips - Similar job as the Clone Defects, only more Replacements drunk-winkers than Crime acid-eaters.

Many of these bands are still active, but gunk punk as described in We Never Learn had largely run its course by 2001. The New Bomb Turks themselves were a key band in this scene, of course. Though they still perform every now and then, the New Bomb Turks officially called it quits in 2003. At that time lead singer Eric Davidson explained,

Jim, our guitar player, is coming back to school as a teacher, our drummer has a baby and plays in another band, our bass player Matt and I may go back to school. It's a busy time for everybody.

Their myspace page explains, "We are NOT really a band anymore; we've all got various 'real' jobs, kids, etc. But we'll come swig'n'sing with ya if the offer's good."

It's interesting to see how the bandmembers have put their English majors from Ohio State to work. Eric Davidson worked edited CMJ for three years before publishing We Never Learn. Guitarist Jim Weber is now an English teacher at Hilliard Davidson High School in Hilliard, Ohio, and was named National Honor Society Outstanding Teacher in 2010. That same year, he did an interview with the school newspaper The Wildcat where he reported that he took up teaching because he "wanted to make an impact for the better". In response to the question, "What comes first your passion for music or teaching?" Weber responded, "Teaching, hands down." As he explains to his students on his website, "As you may or may not know, I play in a band called the New Bomb Turks. Before I became a teacher playing guitar was my job, that was how I earned a living. That ended about 8 years ago, but we we still play a couple of shows every year."

The New Bomb Turks' bassist Matt Reber was the manager of the Wexner Center Store, the bookstore of the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio. As part of a book tour in support of We Never Learn, Eric Davidson did a reading at the Wexner Center. Earlier that day, Eric Davidson and Matt Reber appeared in an internet forum to answer questions.

The New Bomb Turks played a number of shows in association with Eric Davidson's book tour, which were a mix of highbrow and lowbrow. They played a show at the Bell House in Brooklyn with Live Fast Die that was followed by a book release party. The day after the reading at the Wexner Center, the New Bomb Turks performed at the Surly Girl Parking Lot Blow-Out with the Gibson Bros. and Scrawl. Eric Davidson then continued his book tour in Chicago with a book signing at the Museum of Contemporary Art. More recently Eric Davidson has continued to do interviews and sing with the Livids.

The New Bomb Turks have canceled all upcoming performances. They provide only the sketchiest of explanations on their website and Facebook page, "Due to a serious illness in our family, New Bomb Turks have decided to suspend all activity for the time being." Let's hope all is well soon for the New Bomb Turks.

New Bomb Turks Live @OFMFest 2011 from Scott Johnson on Vimeo.

Bill Hicks on David Letterman

Outspoken stand-up comedian Bill Hicks was invited to appear on The Late Show with David Letterman on October 1, 1993. Though he had often felt constrained by the limited amount of time he had to work with in his appearances on David Letterman's show, he typically used his strongest material for these segments. And Bill Hicks was particularly looking forward to this appearance, his first on David Letterman's 11:30 show on CBS, which had only been on the air for just over a month. Just a few months earlier Bill Hicks had been diagnosed with inoperable cancer and knew he had little time left.

Rather than wear his customary black attire, Bill Hicks chose "bright fall colors--'an outfit bought just for the show and reflective of my bright and cheerful mood.'" He was happy with the way his segment had gone and left the studio feeling like it had been a success. Later in his hotel room, however, Bill Hicks received a call from producer Robert Morton telling him that the entire segment was going to be cut from the show.

Bill Hicks had appeared 11 times on David Letterman's NBC show. Though Late Night with David Letterman had aired at 12:30, Bill Hicks had had his share of problems with the censor on that program. But this was different--his entire segment was cut from the show and Bill Hicks was understandably upset. His routine had been "approved and re-approved" by the segment producer, Mary Connelly. Robert Morton told Bill Hicks that the culprit was CBS Standards and Practices, and that Dave was furious about it. They had fought "tooth and nail" to keep Hicks's segment in the show but to no avail. Hicks asked for a tape of his segment, but he never got one.  He was so incensed that he wrote a 39-page letter to John Lahr of the New Yorker, including a detailed account of his routine as best he could remember it. Lahr's article appeared in the New Yorker on November 1, 1993. Bill Hicks still wasn't done talking about the unreasonableness of the situation, but he didn't have much time left to make his case. He died on February 26th of the following year at the age of 32.

But the story doesn't end there. On January 30, 2009--over 15 years later--David Letterman invited Bill Hicks's mother, Mary Hicks, to appear on The Late Show to talk about her son's life and work.

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Then, admitting that the decision to cut Bill Hicks's segment had been his own, David Letterman sought to right a wrong by airing Bill Hicks's entire censored routine.

It's interesting to speculate not only about why David Letterman did this, but also why he waited until 2009 to do it. I would point to two reasons. One reason Dave was willing to air Bill Hicks's censored segment is that he had long since given up in the ratings war with Jay Leno.

The Late Show with David Letterman premiered on CBS on August 30, 1993--the end result of a rather messy, public battle over who would succeed Johnny Carson as host of the Tonight Show. David Letterman was bitterly disappointed when NBC selected Jay Leno as Johnny Carson's permanent replacement. David Letterman left NBC and took the 11:30 time slot with CBS in direct competition to the Tonight Show.

A few features of the show had to be renamed in order to avoid intellectual property issues with NBC, but The Late Show with David Letterman was much like his old show on NBC. In same ways, however, David Letterman changed how he approached the show in order to broaden his appeal.  He took to wearing tailored suits and monitored the content of the show more closely.  Bill Hicks's routine, with its references to Christians and the pro-life movement, hit too many hot buttons for David Letterman to allow it on the air.

For a couple of years Letterman's new approach to the show worked, as his show's ratings were consistently higher than those of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. It wasn't until Jay Leno's interview with Hugh Grant ("What the hell were you thinking?") that the ratings of the Tonight Show topped those of David Letterman's show. Since that time Jay Leno has maintained his ratings dominance in late night programming.

In an interview with Rolling Stone quoted in Bill Carter's book The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy, when asked why the Tonight Show has consistently scored higher ratings than The Late Show, "The answer is me," Dave said, "I just think that Jay has wider appeal than I do." Bill Carter also provides further reasons why Jay Leno has consistently bested David Letterman in the ratings game. Quite simply, Jay Leno follows the ratings of all the late-night talk show hosts with great interest and he has tailored his show to suit popular tastes based on his study of the ratings. According to Bill Carter, none of the other late night talk show hosts even came close to Jay Leno's level of interest in these numbers. Also, unlike Jay Leno, Letterman shows little interest in working with the network's affiliates, Letterman rarely does remote segments anymore, and he has taken to only working four days a week--the Friday show has gone from being taped on Friday to Thursday to Monday so that Dave can have a relaxed long weekend.

Another (perhaps related) reason David Letterman chose to air Bill Hicks's segment in 2009 is that it appears he is no longer so wary of expressing a political viewpoint. Johnny Carson had established the image of the talk show host as a genial, neutral presence.  He certainly made reference to political events of the day, but he joked about them in a lighthearted way that caused few to take offense.  Letterman's humor was always more caustic than Carson's, but much like Johnny Carson he shied away from making political statements to the point where his political leanings were anyone's guess. David Letterman has shown greater willingness to tangle with political figures in recent years, however, particularly during the 2008 presidential campaign. Granted, his sarcastic jabs at John McCain arose in large part from McCain's abrupt cancellation of his appearance on the Late Show in the midst of the financial crisis--only to be interviewed by Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News at the time we would have been taping his appearance on David Letterman. But it goes beyond that. In one of John McCain's appearances on The Late Show, David Letterman made the observation, "It seems like everyone's gone wacky in the Republican party."

Perhaps this helped clear the way for David Letterman to revisit the censoring of Bill Hicks. In a sense, David Letterman gave Bill Hicks the last word, even though Bill Hicks had effectively given his "last word" in a statement he wrote just before his death.

I was born William Melvin Hicks on December 16, 1961 in Valdosta, Georgia. Ugh. Melvin Hicks from Georgia. Yee Har! I already had gotten off to life on the wrong foot. I was always “awake,” I guess you’d say. Some part of me clamoring for new insights and new ways to make the world a better place' 

All of this came out years down the line, in my multitude of creative interests that are the tools I now bring to the Party. Writing, acting, music, comedy. A deep love of literature and books. Thank God for all the artists who’ve helped me. I’d read these words and off I went – dreaming my own imaginative dreams. Exercising them at will, eventually to form bands, comedy, more bands, movies, anything creative. This is the coin of the realm I use in my words – Vision. 

On June 16, 1993 I was diagnosed with having “liver cancer that had spread from the pancreas.” One of life’s weirdest and worst jokes imaginable. I’d been making such progress recently in my attitude, my career and realizing my dreams that it just stood me on my head for a while. “Why me!?” I would cry out, and “Why now!?” 

Well, I know now there may never be any answers to those particular questions, but maybe in telling a little about myself, we can find some other answers to other questions. That might help our way down our own particular paths, towards realizing my dream of New Hope and New Happiness. 

Amen 

I left in love, in laughter, and in truth and wherever truth, love and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.

American: The Bill Hicks Story is available for free viewing (with commercial interruptions) on Hulu.

The Droogs

Early in their career, the garage/psych band The Droogs released a single entitled "Ahead of My Time," an appropriate theme song for this underappreciated band. Several years before it became fashionable, the Droogs were playing what would later be called "garage revival". The Droogs released several singles beginning in 1973, and their early records were energetic interpretations of little-known 1960s garage-punk songs along with original material inspired by those records. Also, in terms of their artistic independence, the Droogs anticipated the "do it yourself" approach of punk rock by several years, releasing their records on their own label, Plug 'n Socket. Despite releasing several compelling albums over a thirty-year span, however, the Droogs are little known outside of a loyal following, much of which is in Europe.

A few years back I interviewed guitarist Roger Clay about the long and eventful career of the Droogs. Here is the two-hour show that aired on Turn Me On, Dead Man Radio.

Interview with Roger Clay of the Droogs, Part 1

Interview with Roger Clay of the Droogs, Part 2

Ric Albin (vocals) and Roger Clay (guitar) began playing together as kids in the 1960s in a band called "Savage Rose"—only later did they find out a Danish band was using the same name. They formed the Droogs in 1972, taking their name from A Clockwork Orange, a novel by Anthony Burgess (1962) made into a film by Stanley Kubrick (1971). Their first release, a 7" with cover versions of the Sonics' "He's Waitin'" and the Shadows of Knight's "Lightbulb Blues", came out the following year. Creem praised this record as the first American independent punk rock single. "Bow down to 'em on Sunday for that alone." Their subsequent singles included more songs that have come to be regarded as garage/psych classics, but the band quickly shifted the focus to original material. The A side of their second single was "Set My Love on You," written by Albin and Clay, backed with "I'm Not Like Everybody Else" by the Kinks. The Droogs' next two singles featured all original material inspired by 1960s garage punk. The Droogs choice of material at this time was certainly out of the ordinary. Lenny Kaye's original Nuggets compilation came out in 1972 but few, if any, new bands were playing this sort of music in the early- to mid-1970s. In fact, the stripped-down approach of the Droogs was decidedly out of step with the trends toward progressive and arena rock prevalent at the time.

The Droogs had few places to play until the garage revival began in the late-1970s. The difficulty finding an audience and the lack of a stable rhythm section proved frustrating for the band. The Droogs considered packing it in, but with the success of bands such as the Last and the Unclaimed, who also drew on 1960s rock, more venues opened to them. By the time those bands were on the scene, however, the Droogs were already veterans of the genre. Rhino included the Droogs' "Ahead of My Time" on their 1979 compilation L.A. In noting "if ever a band were ahead of its time, this was the one. Pre-dating the current movement by five years in spirit, attitude, and ideas, Ric Albin and Roger Clay epitomized the late 70's American New Wave Band."

The Droogs released two more singles and an EP before recording their first full-length LP in 1984, Stone Cold World. Despite its favorable reception, Stone Cold World didn't receive the same level of attention that was given to albums by other California bands exploring similar territory. As noted in The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, "Stone Cold World was sadly obscured in the flurry to praise Green On Red, the Long Ryders and Bangles, but Albin and Clay doggedly pursued their chosen direction when the fashion faded." The Droogs' second LP, Kingdom Day, which was released in 1987, also received a fair amount of airplay on college radio stations. This album was included in Rolling Stone's retrospective section "The Year in Records" as one of a handful of albums representing "highly individual but equally striking contemporary refractions of the psychedelic dream." Despite critical acclaim, however, the Droogs did not reach a broad audience. Perhaps most frustrating to the band is that they've always faced a cool reception in their home base, Los Angeles. "You're never a prophet in your home town," says Roger Clay with some resignation. After years of releasing their own records, the Droogs signed to the label PVC/Jem in the mid-1980s, but that label folded while the Droogs were on tour supporting Kingdom Day.

In his review of Stone Cold World in Melody Maker, Ian Gittens remarked that while the Droogs wore their 1960s garage rock influences on their sleeves, they "draw heavily on a whole range of influences to for an approach peculiarly their own; taking from all times". His concluding remark, calling the Droogs "a curious anachronism", clearly demonstrates a problem the Droogs long faced. That is, despite the quality of their material, the Droogs have not fit easily into any of the trends that have come and gone during their career, making the band difficult to market to a larger audience. Though Stone Cold World contained a re-recorded version of the Albin/Clay's "Set My Love on You", along with a live version of "He's Waitin'", the Droogs incorporated influences that set them apart from other garage revival bands. Creem referred to Stone Cold World as showcasing their "new, streamlined moderne approach to punkadelic blues". Timothy Gassen, author of Knights of Fuzz: The Garage and Psychedelic Music Explosion, 1980 to Now, didn't consider Stone Cold World—or any of the Droogs' recordings after 1983, for that matter—to be garage rock releases. Also, despite being included on a couple of new wave compilations, the Droogs weren't really a new wave band, either. Being from southern California and playing 1960s-inspired music, the Droogs were often associated with the neo-psychedelic Paisley Underground. The Droogs' sound, however, was always more garage punk than the more psychedelic sound of Paisley Underground groups, such as the Dream Syndicate and Rain Parade. Still, the Droogs had close ties to other bands from the area, particularly the Dream Syndicate. Dave Provost, the bassist for the Droogs since the early 1980s, has also played for the Dream Syndicate. Other Dream Syndicate members have made guest appearances on Droogs recordings. Karl Precoda played guitar on "I Want Something" and Steve Wynn joined Ric Albin on vocals for his song "Maria", both of which appeared on the 1990 LP Want Something.

Fortunately for the Droogs, the late-1980s brought the band success in Europe. The Droogs' early singles had become sought-after collector's items and the Droogs were well received on their European tours. Roger Clay attributes the Droogs' success there to a European interest in American music and the more varied radio programming available in European countries. Some time ago I got a copy of Where The Bottles Flies!, a bootleg CD of the Droogs performance at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark in June, 1997. The Droogs had their own set to play at the festival, but they agreed to fill in for the Wu Tang Clan, who had canceled because of an altercation at the Newark airport on their way to the festival. Unfortunately for the Droogs, the festival management didn't do a particularly good job of letting the audience know about the change. According to a story in the Danish newspaper Politiken, the Droogs were subjected to

mean behavior by the audience, throwing glass bottles, filled paper cups, food left-overs and other items at the Droogs, who were replacing the original group.... Though the situation seemed pretty dangerous to the Droogs, the Americans kept playing against the riot, without a word for the first four musical numbers, at which point the singer Ric Albin sarcastically said: "Well, thanks for the shower!". The throwing also damaged the light control panel in the green tent, so the concert continued in a dark tent.... The Droogs, in spite of the dangerous and unreasonable conditions played a tight and well organized program to the end. When simple garage rock can be played so nicely with varied tempos and primitive atmosphere, you give in. And the audience did the same. At the end of the concert the Droogs received enormous ovations and the request for encores.

"Call Off Your Dogs" and "Puzzled Mynds" from Where The Bottles Flies!

One of the most avid collectors of the Droogs' recordings was Hans Kesteloo of the German label Music Maniac Records. Music Maniac released Anthology in 1988, collecting all of the Droogs' early singles and the 1983 EP Heads Examined. Music Maniac also released the Droogs' follow-up to Kingdom Day, Mad Dog Dreams in 1989. Since PVC had folded, that album was not released in the United States until the following year. After adding a couple of tracks, Skyclad released the album in the United States as Want Something. The Droogs' label troubles continued, however, and their next two albums, Droogs Live in Europe (1990) and Guerrilla Love-In (1991), were released only in Europe on Music Maniac.

In 1997, the Droogs returned with Atomic Garage, which featured a raw, less polished sound. No covers of 1960s garage-punk classics are included on this album, but the fuzzed-out sound of Roger Clay's guitar harkens back to the sound of the Droogs' early recordings. The title of the album signals a return to the energy of garage rock, but using a variety of equipment, vintage and new, the album sounds retro and current at the same. Apart from minor complaints about the drumming, The Bob called Atomic Garage an otherwise "perfect album for lovers of introspective psych-garage-rock."

Perhaps someday the rest of the world will catch up to the Droogs. In 2006 the Droogs released a career retrospective compilation Collection, and much of their catalog is now available as digital downloads.

Trippy Films: Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971)

This is the second in a series of posts on movies with psychedelic themes, discussing the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, directed by Mel Stuart and starring Gene Wilder. This movie was adapted from Roald Dahl's classic book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, published in 1964. But before getting to that, allow me to digress for a moment (for no good reason, really) to discuss a story with a different Charlie.

I have two young children and they ask me to tell them stories on a fairly regular basis. I try to make up stories relevant to what they're doing, but occasionally I fall back on recounting the plot from movies I've seen or books I've read. The main thing I've learned is that when told the right way you can pretty turn any story into one a child can enjoy. Some time back I told my son the story of Apocalypse Now--not the easiest story to recount in a kid-friendly way, but my heavily edited version of the story worked surprisingly well, and both my son and my daughter have asked to hear that one again. They've asked some interesting questions about it: "Did Captain Willard talk to Charlie?", "Did Charlie blow up the bridge every night because it was too long?" (the Do Long Bridge, that is), "Did Chef ever get out of the boat?" (well, yes, but...). In telling the story I used a few lines from the movie, such as "Never get out of the boat!" and "Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger" and I laughed out loud when my daughter asked me to tell the story again by saying, "start with the part where Charlie was squatting in the bushes."

Apocalypse Now is certainly a trippy movie and no doubt I'll return to that in a later post, but as I said, this post is about Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I don't know why it took me so long to think of telling my kids the story of Charlie Bucket and Willy Wonka--or more to the point, why I thought of telling my kids the story of Apocalypse Now before Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Probably not worth the effort, but just to explain what made me think of Apocalypse Now was when my son asked what a "mission" was, and, of course, I thought of Willard being given the mission to terminate Kurtz "with extreme prejudice" and what kid wouldn't be swept away by the magic of that story? Right? Oh, never mind. Anyway, back to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I loved the book and the movie as a child, and my kids love the story, as well, of course. It has so many elements that make for a good children's story: good things to eat, an imaginative setting, interesting, easily identifiable characters who are punished for their bad behavior and a heroic central character who is rewarded for his earnestness and loyalty (you know, if you think about it, Apocalypse Now has all these elements, as well). We've read parts of the book together, and we've watched the 1971 version of the movie starring Gene Wilder, as well as the 2005 remake starring Johnny Depp, which returned the original title, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. What struck me is how the 1971 film adds psychedelic elements not present in Dahl's book or the 2005 remake, for that matter, which tried to stay closer to Dahl's story (other than the whole Wonka father-son conflict backstory, that is). The most obvious psychedelic twist in the 1971 film is the "The Wondrous Boat Ride" as it is called on the soundtrack LP. Willy Wonka invites the group to board his boat, the SS Wonkatania, to travel down the chocolate river, but things quickly get weird. "What is this, a freak-out?" asks Violet Beauregard as they enter a strange tunnel.

"Wondrous" boat ride? I think "terrorizing" is a more fitting adjective for this bad trip--as scary as Willard taking the boat up the Nung River into Cambodia to meet Kurtz, but I digress again. In his memoir Pure Imagination: The Making of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, director Mel Stuart denied any drug-related inspiration for this scene. Instead, he claims that he was trying to heighten the sense of danger by expanding on Dahl's original depiction of the scene.

Many young people have come up to me and told me that they understood the allusion that the voyage of the SS Wonkatania was making. When the ship steams down the chocolate river with Wonka offering a bizarre commentary as strange images appear on the tunnel wall, the characters are really tripping out. The kids going into the chocolate tunnel are on the ultimate acid trip. Here's their theory: the mushroom filing eaten by the group before the boat enters the tunnel is peyote, a form of psychedelic mushroom. Their rationale for this theory is that Willy Wonka is a "candy man," a street term for a drug dealer. 

But it wasn't a psychedelic trip, or at least it wasn't my intention for people to think it was. It was simply a deliberate attempt to heighten the drama in the film and to introduce an element of danger in the trip through the factory. However, I can't prevent people from interpreting the movie in a way that suits them. As for me, I've never taken a drug in my life, so I don't know anything about their effects.

Despite Mel Stuart's claims to the contrary, it's easy to see how this film has earned the reputation of being a hallucinogenic trip. Slant magazine refers to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as a "sweetly psychedelic freak-out," and Kieran Humphries of Dogfood Films has gone so far as to reimagine Willy Wonka as the "biggest drug baron in town" in a recut parody preview.

But beyond the "Wondrous Boat Ride" and the whimsical depiction of Willy Wonka and his factory, this story isn't particularly psychedelic. The danger to the children in this film is not from mind-altering drugs, but rather once inside Wonka's chocolate factory, the tragic flaws of each child lead to their demise. A common interpretation of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is that the children each represent one or more of the seven deadly sins. In this light, the ominous tone of the boat ride suggests that the children are being put to the test. It's interesting to note that Augustus Gloop doesn't even make it to the boat ride before his tragic flaw gets him ejected from the factory. Dahl seems to have had a special disdain for fat people, as several of his stories contained fat characters who were always portrayed in a negative light. In Augustus Gloop, Dahl equates being overweight with gluttony, making it next to impossible for Augustus Gloop to keep from doing himself in among all the temptations in Wonka's wondrous chocolate factory. The other children might not succumb to their failings as quickly as Augustus Gloop, but it is only a matter of time before their greed, envy, sloth, and whatever other negative characteristics they possess lead to their demise. In a draft of the book Dahl included a sixth child, Miranda Piker, a "a nasty-looking girl with a smug face and a smirk on her mouth, and whenever she spoke it was always with a voice that seemed to be saying: 'Everybody is a fool except me.'" (representing pride, perhaps?) but Dahl edited her out of the final version of the book.

On viewing this movie again, it's really striking how negatively children and their parents are portrayed in a film that's generally regarded as a sweet children's story. Clearly, Dahl was not influenced at all by Dr. Benjamin Spock and his kinder, gentler approach to parenting. Before Spock's influential 1946 book, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, the common wisdom was that above all parents needed to discipline their children or else they would become "spoiled." Spock emphasized parental affection and understanding over discipline, but Dahl is clearly not sympathetic to this approach. It seems that in Dahl's worldview, Charlie passes the test mainly because he is too poor to be spoiled, as Dahl seems to subscribe to Frank Capra's notion that poor people are heroic simply by virtue of their poverty, and the Buckets, of course, are ridiculously poor.

Dahl also came under criticism for his depiction of the Oompa Loompas. In the first edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Oompa Loompas were pygmies from Africa. In later editions of the book Dahl changed their origins to "Loompaland," and Willy Wonka gets rather defensive when Mrs. Salt points out that no such place exists. Mel Stuart explains that in the movie the Oompa Loompas were given orange faces and green hair so as to avoid the appearance that the Oompa Loompas were "a bunch of black pygmies from Africa working for the white man". In 1972 Canadian children's author Eleanor Cameron criticizedCharlie and the Chocolate Factory in a piece in The Horn Book Magazine, pointing not only to the servile depiction of the Oompa Loompas, but also the disregard shown toward the grandparents and their wishes to remain in their home, and to the "phony" way the book presented poverty. The Horn Book Magazine published Dahl's testy reply to these criticisms the following year. He defended himself by accusing Eleanor Cameron of attacking him personally. He went on to claim that he had told his children some 5000 stories over the years and that their favorite among these was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He concluded by stating, "Mrs. Cameron will stop them reading it only over my dead body." Well, at least he displayed (marginally) more class than Jacqueline Howette and Alice Hoffman in responding to criticism of his work.

But Willy Wonka and the Choclate Factory isn't a children's movie. As Mel Stuart put it, "I never wanted to make a picture for children. I wanted to make a movie for adults. I never changed my aim on that. This was not a Disney movie; that’s the last thing I wanted it to be." Because of its universal themes, however, both children and adults can enjoy this movie, not to mention that the story has become a trope of its own. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory has been parodied many times, and it's significant that two recent parodies have come from animated TV series for adults, The Family Guy and Futurama. In both of these parodies the characters succumb to their own overindulgence and get ejected from the tour of the factory. In the Futurama episode "Fry and the Slurm Factory," Fry wins a tour of the factory where the soft drink slurm is bottled by finding a golden bottlecap in a can of Slurm. On the tour Fry falls into the Slurm river and is carried away only to discover that the plant is a fake. In The Family Guy episode "Wasted Talent," Peter drinks bottle after bottle of Pawtucket Patriot beer in order to find one of the "silver scrolls" hidden in a bottle of the beer to win a tour of the brewery. Peter gets ejected from the tour when he ventures into a forbidden room in the brewery to sample Pawtucket Patriot's experimental beer that never goes flat. Peter literally gets kicked out by the Oompa Loompa-like Chumbawumbas when they cut short their song to kick him in the knee.

The TV series The Office also parodied Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory in the episode "Golden Ticket," and once again the story seems to bring out the worst in the characters. Michael includes five "golden tickets" in random shipments, with the recipient gettng a 10 percent discount for a full year. Michael is proud of this idea and begins dressing like Willy Wonka. Things go wrong, however, when all five of the golden tickets go to one of Dunder Mifflin's biggest clients, Blue Cross of Pennsylvania, which they interpret as entitling them to a 50 percent discount for the year. Horrified by such a bad outcome, Michael convinces Dwight to take the fall by saying it was all his idea. Rather than getting fired, however, Dwight receives congratulations when Blue Cross of Pennsylvania decides to use Dunder Mifflin exclusively as their provider of office supplies.

Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the chocolate factory, he gets stronger.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

The book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, published in 1974, describes a 1968 motorcycle trip by the book's author, Robert Pirsig, and his son, Chris. For the first half of the trip they were joined by Pirsig's friends John and Sylvia Sutherland, though Pirsig and his son completed the journey on their own. The book operates on a couple of different levels: 1) as a story about relationships as the narrator, haunted by Phaedrus, the ghost of his former self, comes to understand his relationship with his son in a new light as he struggles to reconcile his current life with the one he led before a mental breakdown; and 2) as a series of philosophical discussions on the metaphysics of quality. Using motorcycle maintenance to illustrate the philosophical component of the story, John Sutherland represents a "romantic" perspective in the sense that he would rather be in the moment and doesn't care much about the particulars of how it all works, while the narrator represents the "classical" outlook with his attention to the details.

Robert Pirsig describes how Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance came about in an undated BBC interview

ZMM, as Pirsig abbreviates it, has sold something like 5 million copies worldwide (if the Wikipedia is to be believed) making it the most successful philosophical road-trip novel of all time. Despite the difficulties of adapting such an intellectual book to the screen, Pirsig has had a number of offers to turn the story into a movie. In 2006 Pirsig did an interview with Tim Adams of The Observer that he (perhaps jokingly) claimed would be his last. In his article, Adams writes, "Robert Redford tried to buy the film rights (Pirsig refused)." This statement makes it sound as if Pirsig brushed off the offer with little consideration, but that is hardly the case. Pirsig was actually quite eager to work with Redford and they discussed the project over a period of several years. Robert Redford even makes an appearance in Pirsig's 1992 novel, Lila, his follow-up to ZMM, as Redford travels to New York to meet with Phaedrus to discuss a film adaptation of ZMM. Pirsig describes how Phaedrus and Redford were having a pleasant conversation before the subject turned to buying the rights to ZMM.

A funny woodenness has crept into his speech, as though he had rehearsed all this. Why should he sound like a poor actor? "I really would like to have the film rights to this book," Redford says.
"You've got them," Phaedrus says.
Redford looks startled. Phaedrus must have said something wrong. Redford's biographies said he was unflappable, but he looks flapped now.
"I wouldn't have gotten this involved if I hadn't intended to give it to you," Phaedrus says.
But Redford doesn't look overjoyed. Instead he looks surprised and retreats to somewhere inside himself. His engrossment is gone.
He wants to know what the previous film deals were. "It's had quite a history," Phaedrus says, and he relates a succession of film options that have been sold, and allowed to lapse for one reason or another. Redford is back to his former self, listening intently.

This passage reveals not only that Pirsig had great interest in adapting ZMM as a movie, but also that he was willing to wait for someone he could work with. Pirsig clearly viewed Redford as someone who could do a credible job of bringing ZMM to the screen. Pirsig told Tim Adams, "Redford and I talked to twice. He's a brilliant guy. I liked him personally. I liked his liberalism." Pirsig had established a close relationship with his editor, James Landis, while he was writing ZMM, and he appears to have been trying to establish the same sort of relationship with Robert Redford. In 1981 Pirsig wrote a long letter to Redford describing his vision of how ZMM might be adapted for a film. This letter, reprinted in the Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, reveals a great deal about how Pirsig viewed his work. Pirsig suggested using the point of view of the narrator until he reconciles his personality with Phaedrus. For the leading role (which is actually two roles: Phaedrus and the narrator) Pirsig suggested Peter Coyote, then a little known actor who had become friends with his son, Chris. Also, Pirsig offered his 1964 Honda Superhawk he rode in the 1968 road trip for use in the film, though he admitted that it was in need of some maintenance!

I have no doubt that ZMM could have been (and could still be) an excellent movie. For one thing, it would be a road movie, which is always a big plus. The Guidebook to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, as well as the Gary Wegner's Travelogue and Psybertron have produced maps of Pirsig's 17-day trip. It starts in my home state of Minnesota and proceeds through some of the most breathtaking landscapes in the United States. Also, the relationships in ZMM are easily accessible and Pirsig conveys his story in a heartfelt way that a movie could capitalize on. Any film adaptation would no doubt simplify the philosophical discussions, but Pirsig was well aware of this as he observed, "Two different books are comingled here, one about ideas and the other about people. If a reader just wants to know about the people, that's ok."

In a new afterward to ZMM, Pirsig pondered why a book about philosophy would be so successful. He used a Swedish word, kulturbärer (roughly translated as the cognate "culture-bearer"), to describe how ZMM captured the spirit of the time. Pirsig thought the hippie counterculture had rejected material success without offering a positive alternative. To Pirsig, the hippie notion of "freedom" was essentially a negative goal. Being "free" meant rejecting Western notions of success, but without an alternative this often led to indulging in hedonism. Pirsig felt that ZMM "offers another, more serious alternative to material success. It's not so much an alternative as an expansion of the meaning of "success" to something larger than just getting a good job and staying out of trouble. And also something larger than mere freedom. It gives a positive goal to work toward that does not confine. That is the main reason for the book's success, I think. The whole culture happened to be looking for exactly what this book has to offer. That is the sense in which it is a culture-bearer."

At the end of ZMM the narrator has reconciled himself with his past and suggests that its possible to reconcile the romantic and classical worldviews, not as conflicting viewpoints but as complimentary approaches. In this light, the film adaptation of ZMM could have been an answer to the 1969 movie Easy Rider. At the end of Easy Rider, Wyatt (Peter Fonda) enigmatically tells Billy (Dennis Hopper), "We blew it." Perhaps he was lamenting that they had failed to strive for the sort of positive alternative that Pirsig suggests.

We Blew It
Easy Rider — MOVIECLIPS.com

While this conflict may have been more closely associated with time that ZMM was initially published, this basic message of ZMM still has resonance these many years on.

So why was the movie never made? Pirsig offers very little explanation on that score, though he does state, "But they insist on the right to change anything they please without asking me." Despite his desire to see a film adaptation of ZMM, Pirsig was unwilling to give up his vision of how the themes of the film should be communicated to the audience. But while Pirsig may have given up the idea of making ZMM into a movie, Robert Redford was still talking about making ZMM into a film as late as 1997. But even if Redford doesn't make the film, perhaps someone else will have the opportunity at some point in the future. Pirsig relates, "I told Wendy [Pirsig's wife] she should sell it as soon as I die. I'm 78 now: someone might as well make some money from it."

Pink Moon

"Pink Moon," the title track from the 1972 album by Nick Drake, is one of those songs that stays with you. But what does it mean? The lyrics, like the arrangement and production of the song, are spare:

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on its way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get ye all
And it's a pink moon

It's easy to see "Pink Moon" as a song about death given that Nick Drake was visibly battling his demons at the time he recorded it, not to mention that he died within a couple of years of this song's release from an overdose of his prescribed antidepressant at only 26 years of age. In addition, the lines "And none of you stand so tall/Pink moon gonna get ye all" invite this sort of interpretation. The use of the archaic word "ye" give this song a biblical, apocalyptic connotation. Still, this interpretation doesn't seem right to me. Of course, as Anthony DeCurtis points out, by the time Nick Drake recorded the album Pink Moon, he "had retreated so deeply into his own internal world that it is difficult to say what the songs are 'about.'" In any case, I was curious to see what I could find out about the imagery of a pink moon.

I have a thing about reference books, with books about symbology being a particular weakness. Every so often I give in to the temptation to buy another one to add to the shelf. None of the books I consulted had anything to say about a pink moon, even though all of them, such as A Dictionary of Symbols by J.E. Cirlot, had quite a bit to say about the symbolism of the moon.  While the new moon may represent death, a more common view of the moon across cultures is that the lunar cycles represent death and rebirth.  Also fundamental to the moon's imagery is that, with some notable exceptions, the moon is fairly universally regarded as feminine. Coloring the moon pink seems to be doubling down on the feminine imagery of the moon. In this light "Pink Moon" could be seen as a song about irresistable--if perhaps unattainable--beauty. Then again, if the pink appearance of the moon is a reference to an eclipse, then this would indicate an "ill omen, heralding disaster" (from The Penguin Dictionary of Symbols) Or it could be about heroin. Or it could be about the "fallout from nuclear holocaust."  Whatever the case, "Pink Moon" is a hauntingly beautiful song.

In his book White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s, producer Joe Boyd devotes a considerable amount of attention to Nick Drake. When Boyd sold his production company Witchseason the contract included a clause stating that Nick Drake's albums can never go out of print. Though Nick Drake did not enjoy commercial success during his lifetime, sales of his albums grew steadily in the years following his death and spiked in 1999 when Volkswagen used the song "Pink Moon" in a commercial for the VW Cariolet.

In this commercial the pink moon epitomizes the unspoken wonder these friends share in the natural beauty that surrounds them. Would Nick Drake have approved of how his song was used? Who knows? It's just a shame that he made his exit so soon.