beautiful, funny, sad & true

A number of years ago, I had a cushy and surprisingly well-paid data entry job during which, once we reached a certain level of so-called proficiency, we were allowed to listen to headphones while we typed away.  Many of us listened to NPR and audio books, and many of us also became hooked on the radio show LoveLine.

A handful of us were undeniable super fans, and we would go home and record the show for posterity.  I taped it for years, as a matter of fact, and I still have a box of cassettes floating around that one day may find its way to one of the many online archivers.  One of my fellow super fans (we’re still close friends) and I recently sent off a bunch of tapes to the proprietors of one such site, so we did our part to give back to the LoveLine community that had done so much for us.

If you’re not familiar with the show, it’s basically a relationship and medical advice show, with a comedy format.  Dr. Drew Pinsky is a board-certified physician and an addiction medicine specialist (and probably has acquired more titles since then), and Adam Carolla is a comedian and television writer with many years of psychotherapy under his belt.  LoveLine was where Adam got his start, actually, and in the early years of his tenure on the show, he was very hungry and eager to become a presence in the entertainment world.  These were some of my (and many other peoples’ as well) favorite years of LoveLine.  There have been other hosts before and since Adam, but his perfect blend of comedy, street smarts, and actual therapeutic experience brought a level of depth to the show that I’ve found lacking in the other hosts the show has had, who are comedians but who lack psychological knowledge, so they have to make their wisecracks and then metaphorically hand the microphone back over to Dr. Drew, who will dole out the ‘serious’ advice.  To be fair to the show’s current incarnation and co-host, I haven’t listened with any regularity for a while now, so it’s entirely possible that the show is back on a stellar track again and I’m just unaware of it.

The great thing about Adam and Drew’s dynamic was the fact that they came from completely opposite backgrounds; Dr. Drew from a life of privilege and prep school to an Ivy League education and a residency program at USC, and Adam from an unhappy home life and a string of construction jobs while attempting to break into the stand-up comedy arena.  Adam had even listened to Loveline as a younger adult, because Drew had co-hosted the show with other people since 1984 or something, so Adam was already very familiar with it by the time he joined the show in 1995, when it went national.

The format of LoveLine is that in addition to advice, they will invite celebrities to be on the show to promote their current endeavors, as well as to join in and give (hopefully) good advice.   It was always especially good when the guests were either insightful and genuine, funny and quick-witted, or just plain outrageous.  Some of my favorite guests include the masterful David Alan Grier, the talented and hilarious Zappa brothers, the punk band Pennywise (one of the members got drunk and projectile-vomited all around the studio), and I seem to remember a band called Orbit (where are they now?) who were particularly good on the show, and the band Better Than Ezra were even repeat guests.

This is all well and good, I can feel you thinking, but what does it have to do with the Holocaust?

Well, funny you should ask.

Actor and comedian Tom Arnold was a regular guest on the show, and during one of his visits a girl called in who was a phone-sex operator.  The problem she was having is that her callers were ‘getting off’ too quickly, thereby ending the call, and she wasn’t making as much money as she would if the calls were longer, so she was looking for advice on how to steer the calls to stretch them out.  Adam suggested that during her conversations, she should attempt to work in references to war atrocities, or terminal diseases, and that should do the trick.  He led her through a role-playing scenario in which she played herself and he played the caller.  After a rocky start, they decided how the the conversation should flow, and it went something like this:

“Hi, I’m Sugar.”

“Hey there, Sugar, this is Ace.”

“Hey, Ace!”

“What are you wearing?”

She delivered the coup de grace in her sultriest voice.  “Oh, I’m wearing a nice black lace bra and panties.  Oooohhh.  I’m just sitting here thinking about the Holocaust right now.”

Everyone in the studio fell over laughing, and Adam continued to riff on the joke, purring in his own ‘sexy’ voice, “Oh yeaaaah.  Burn those Jews. . .gas ’em in the showers, baby, yeah.”

It was such a brilliant and funny call, and has gone down as one of the all-time classics of the LoveLine lexicon.  The laughter that follows it, which is so out of control that they decide to halt the show and take a commercial break while they regain their composure, is really infectious too.  The phrase “I’m just sitting here thinking about the Holocaust” has become a staple answer between myself and a handful of friends who are in the know, whenever one of us will ask what the other is up to.

If you’re interested, I actually found an mp3 of the call in question and you can listen to it here.   There is also a huge and well-organized online LoveLine archive which you can find and enjoy here.  Another great one is located here.

Mahalo.

I just realized that in my blog hiatus I had forgotten to share some pictures and stories from a few weeks ago, when the Portland Folk Festival was happening here in town.  IrishBand played a sweat-drenched set that the reviewer from WeeklyAlternativeNewspaper favorably compared to a “grange hall punk show” that was “a fine balance of exactitude and slop,” which sounds about right.  That’s pretty much our modus operandi.   Our friend Dr. Something from Crappy Indie Music was there, and she sketched us, as well as the other two bands who played that night.  Totally amazing!  (I’m the one with the accordion, by the way.)  She seems to have a thing for our rhythm section, and who can blame her?  They’re strapping young lads, as you can see.  I love the way she made each of us look like our real selves, particularly Drummer and Violinist.

That was one of the most rockin’ and fun shows we’ve ever had, quite honestly, and certainly one of the sweatiest.  My tie was still damp the next morning.

Another cool thing about that night of the Folk Festival was that a couple of us got the opportunity to see a tremendous new documentary called Roll Out, Cowboy, which is about Chris Sand, a.k.a. Sandman the Rappin’ Cowboy.  It’s a very well done, sympathetic, and touching story about his interesting, bucolic, and somewhat disparate life.  I got to meet the filmmaker, Elizabeth, at the screening, who returned the favor by coming to our show later that evening.  Next time she’s in town, she said, she’d like to do a short interview film about us.  Naturally, we’re going to jump at that opportunity.

I don’t quite remember the chronology of everything, since in addition to all this, I had a ton of other things happening, including a huge birthday party for at least four friends and a gig/birthday party all in the same weekend, so it’s a bit of a blur.  Be that as it may, I’m gonna give it a shot.  My friend John and I got to see Sea of Bees downtown at Backspace, and we both kinda fell in love with them.  I particularly fell in love with the lead guitarist, who was a beautiful blonde girl, and a very cool and tasteful guitarist to boot, which is always nice.  Their show was great and very ‘low-fi’, but the CD is very polished and tight in a way that the show was not.  Both incarnations are excellent, and I highly recommend either or both.

John and I also made it a point to catch the inimitable Dan Bern on Misssissippi Street, doing a set of his childrens’ songs, after which we kidnapped him and took him to the food carts a bit farther on Mississippi to catch up and talk.  John got sushi, while Dan and I opted for some deliciousness from Native Bowl. I don’t know if you remember this or not (and due to the blogging hiatus, I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t), I got the opportunity to play with Dan when he was in town about six months ago, thanks in a large part to John.  I played accordion and sang harmonies, until one of my accordion straps broke (which made it unplayable), so I set it down and turned around to jump behind the piano instead.  Here’s a blurry picture; the blob in front with the guitar is Dan, and the blob sitting at the piano is me.  I think this picture was taken during the song “God Said No”, which I thought was particularly beautiful that night.

Anyway.

Another huge highlight of the festival was Matt Keating, a guy with whom I was not previously familiar, although he had appeared on John’s old radio show (which has since found a new lease on life in podcast form, thanks to the up-and-coming KZME) once or twice a few years back, so the two of them were friends already.  John and I arrived at the Jade Lounge at the appointed time, to find that we and Matt’s family were the only ones in attendance.  The bartender told us that they had pushed back the performance by an hour, so the group of us decided to eat dinner and hang out together.  With lots of other families, this would have been awkward at best, but Matt’s family is so outgoing and fun that we felt completely welcome and at ease.  After a while, we somewhat hilariously split off by gender; Matt, John and I discussed music and things at our own table, and Matt’s female family members talked about whatever ‘girly’ stuff they talked about.   :)

Matt was scheduled to be on John’s newer radio show later that night, and since we’d all had such a great time at dinner, John proposed that I bring my accordion to the station and accompany Matt, despite having only heard the three songs I’d heard at his gig.  Matt was game to let me sit in, and showing up with an instrument and improvising is a hobby of mine, so I was excited too.  It turned out great, and Matt even invited me to play a show with him later that week, with a guitarist friend of his, John Vecchiarelli (who is an amazing and talented songwriter in his own right) on snare drum, and me on accordion.  Matt called our impromptu band Freedom Tickler, which is just plain brilliant.

See what happens when I don’t blog for a while?  It’s not that I haven’t had things to write about, I just haven’t felt like writing, and I haven’t had two spare seconds to rub together in order to process all the things that have been happening.

In other news, keep your eyes on this space for the short film in which my friend Danielle and I acted.  It should be edited and available for viewing (and hopefully for sharing) within the next week or so.  I’m really excited to see that.

The other day, I did something I would never normally do; I used my little video camera during a recording session.  I was working with two guys who have been long-time friends and collaborators, a bassist/singer and a guitarist.  The bassist was up here visiting from the Beast (my personal favorite nickname for the East Bay of California), so they wanted to collaborate on a couple of song ideas together.  I owed the guitarist a recording favor, so that’s how I got involved.

The guys were both so intense and animated (the singer, especially) that my arm reached for my camera before I even knew what it was doing.  I took a few other videos before this one, actually (by this time I had their approval), but this is definitely my favorite.  I promise you that he was not doing this for the camera, or for the open windows, or for my benefit; it was absolutely his megalomania personality and energy shining through.

Enjoy this while you can.  If I end up feeling even more like an unprofessional a-hole later, I may decide to take it down, but for now I just felt I should let you behind one scene of the recording process.

Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of blogging with my antique Underwood typewriter and scanning pictures that I print from my digital camera.  I think it’d look awesome, but the amount of work involved might prove to be prohibitive, especially for some of the lengthy dreams I tend to have.  Perhaps a different blog (with shorter entries) would be a better outlet for that particular endeavor. . .?  I’m not sure, but I’ll certainly keep you posted as I attempt to work out the details.

My birthday is coming up in about a month, and it’s one of the Big Ones.  I’m not particularly worried about it, especially since my life improved so much after the last Big One, but we’ll see how I feel after it’s happened and the dust has settled.

One of my friends called the other day and talked about my upcoming birthday, as well as the state of my love life, which has remained dormant for quite some time now, with the occasional dates here and there.  “If some of us chipped in to get you a prostitute for your birthday, would you be happy about that?”

I burst out laughing.  “No.”

“What if she was a really nice prostitute?”

“No.”

“Like maybe fifty bucks?”

“No.  I’m worth way more that that!  That’s not a ‘nice’ prostitute, by the way.”

“What if I got a bunch of people to contribute, and we came up with like fifteen hundred bucks?”

“I’d just ask you guys to give me the money.”  We both laughed.  “That could go a long way.  I could get a really good cello bow or something.”

Like I said, it’s still a month or so away, and choice of present not withstanding, at least he remembered it’s coming up, so I guess we’ll see what I have in store for me.  My last few birthdays have been really awesome ‘birthweeks’ of extended celebration, and I have good reason to believe that this one may be especially big.

Just to be on the safe side, though, I’d better start watching my doorstep for prostitutes.