Sandra Bernhard – "Manic Superstar" (1991)

I know what I want

But I just don't know

How to get it

Sandra Bernhard's "Manic Superstar" is a mashup of "Everything's Alright" (from Jesus Christ Superstar) and the great Jimi Hendrix song, "Manic Depression."

The late Jimi Hendrix

Jimi Hendrix was left-handed.  I am also left-handed.  Other than that, we have about as much in common as the two very dissimilar halves of "Manic Superstar."

For example, Hendrix was black, while I am white.

Hendrix was a fabulous guitarist, while I am a fabulous pianist.

Another difference between us is that JIMI HENDRIX IS DEAD.  I am not dead.

And there's this: Jimi Hendrix knew what he wanted but didn't know how to get it, while I don't really know what I want.

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The Board of Selectmen of Orleans, Massachusetts, knew what they wanted when it came to the hundreds of cormorants that were roosting on the power lines that spanned Cedar Pond – they wanted to get rid of them.

Roosting cormorants at Cedar Pond

And the selectmen thought they knew how to get what they wanted.  But it turns out that they couldn't have been wronger.

Why were the town officials trying to get rid of the cormorants?  Because they were pooping in the 15-acre pond.  That resulted in an increase in the pond's nitrogen and phosphorous content, which resulted in the pond becoming covered with algae.  (Yuck!)

The town wanted the local electric utility to put the power lines underground.  The estimated cost of doing that is $1.1 million, which would be passed on to the utility's customers.  (It's so easy to spend other people's money, isn't it?)

In the meantime, the geniuses on the Board of Selectman decided to pay the U.S. Department of Agriculture $6500 to scare the cormorants away by shooting fireworks at them.

A double-crested cormorant

I feel a little sheepish admitting that even though I've lived in Our Nation's Capital for my entire adult life, I didn't know that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is who you call when you need someone to go after pooping birds with pyrotechnics.

The USDA went after the fish-eating cormorants with "screamers" which they fired from kayaks.  ($6500 to shoot fancy bottle rockets at birds from kayaks?  I guarantee you that it wouldn't have taken more than ten minutes to find a dozen teenaged boys who would have been thrilled to do the job for free.)

Click here to see a short video featuring screamers.

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Unfortunately, things quickly went awry the first night the fireworks were used.

The Cape Cod Times reported that a local resident who was driving nearby when the USDA began blasting the birds posted on Facebook that his truck was hit by the fireworks:

“[S]everal sky rockets struck the side of my truck, including the glass of the passenger's window,” the person wrote.  “If I'd had the windows down like I normally do the rockets would've gotten inside and I'm pretty sure I'd have totalled my truck.”

It's hard to believe that something went wrong with this well-thought-out plan, isn't it?  After all, according to the Times, "[t]hree USDA officials were on the scene, including one who was specifically there to make sure nothing went wrong."

The following evening, the USDA resumed the bombardment of the poor cormorants, which did appear to put a serious dent in the number of birds roosting on the power lines.

USDA headquarters in Washington, DC

But the effect of the screamers was short-lived.  According to a woman described by the Times as an "Orleans resident and bird-counter," there were some 150 birds back on the wire a week after the fireworks assault. 

USDA launched its kayaks and lit off another salvo of screamers the next night, which reduced the population of Cedar Pond cormorants significantly.  Unfortunately, observers said that the number of birds roosting on a power line over nearby Little Depot Pond had increased by a like amount.  (As my late grandmother used to say, "Six of one, a half-dozen of the other.")  

The Cape Cod Rail Trail goes right by Little Depot Pond.  When I rode my bike past the pond, there were a fair number of cormorants sitting on the power lines over that pond:  

Roosting cormorants at Little Depot Pond

One local resident complained to the Times that the fireworks were terrifying her pet dog.  "He just trembles and tries to hide," she told a reporter.  

The disgruntled pet owner was skeptical of the whole fireworks idea.  "The birds aren't really stupid.  They're just going to move to another pond," she said.  "It just seems crackers to me."

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Sandra Bernhard (circa 1990)

Sandra Bernhard is kind of crackers herself.  She was brilliantly weird in the brilliantly weird Martin Scorsese movie, King of Comedy (which starred Robert DeNiro and Jerry Lewis), and I'll never forget her fabulous 1990 movie, Without You I'm Nothing (based on her one-woman off-Broadway show). 

Click here to buy Without You I'm Nothing from Amazon.

DeNiro and Bernhard in "King of Comedy"

Bernhard proved once and for all that a female comedian could be as dirty and funny as any male comedian.  One-trick-pony female comedians like Sarah Silverman, Chelsea Handler, and Amy Schumer may match Sandra Bernhard when it comes to talking dirty, but Bernhard was a much more interesting and multifaceted performer than her wannabes.

Click here to listen to "Manic Superstar," which was released on Bernhard's 1991 album, Excuses for Bad Behavior (Part One).  

Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart -- "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" (1968)

But I tell myself I didn't lose her

'Cause you can't lose a friend you never had

There's a lot I don't get about the way teenagers are today.  But there was a lot I didn't get about the way teenagers were when I was a teenager.

What the hell is going on in this song?  It begins with the singer (a male) telling a girl that he doesn't love her – that he just wants to be her friend:

If I had told her that I loved her

She would have stayed 'til who knows when

But I guess she couldn't understand it

When I said I want to be your friend

It seems that the girl reacted to his statement by going out with another guy – motivated (at least in the boy's mind) primarily by a desire for revenge.  In the singer's mind, this constitutes a betrayal, and they aren't friends any more:

I tell myself I didn't lose her

'Cause you can't lose a friend you never had

'Cause a friend won't say it's over

And go out just for spite

And now I wonder what she's doing tonight

But he was the one who said it was over – not her.  And why would he give a rat's ass what she's doing tonight anyway?  After all, he doesn't love her – he just wants to be friends. 

Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart

I don't get it.  (Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.)

This assumes that there is something to get, of course – a risky assumption when it comes to pop lyrics.  

I could give you example after example of perfect pop songs that have trite and simplistic lyrics, or have lyrics that make no sense at all.  And you know something?  It doesn't matter!  They are still perfect pop songs!

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The 300 or so songs that Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart wrote together sold more than 42 million records.  The partnership wrote songs for Chubby Checker, Jay and the Americans ("Come a Little Bit Closer"), and Paul Revere and the Raiders.  They also wrote the theme songs for Dick Clark's "Where the Action Is" variety show (which was a hit for Freddy Cannon) and the long-running soap opera, Days of Our Lives.  

But Boyce and Hart are best known for the songs they wrote for the Monkees – 22 altogether, including "Last Train to Clarksville," "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" (originally recorded by Paul Revere and the Raiders), "Valleri," and the theme song from the Monkees' TV series.  ("Hey, hey, we're the Monkees!")

(A little-known fact about "Last Train to Clarksville": when I was one of the three student managers for my junior high school's undefeated 9th-grade basketball team, one of my fellow student managers and I persuaded the third manager that we had written "Last Train to Clarksville," which was a #1 hit single at the time.)

But Boyce and Hart saved their very best song for themselves.  "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" (which appeared on the album I Wonder What She's Doing Tonite) was a top ten hit for the duo in 1968.  If there was any justice in this world, it would have reached #1 – it's that good a song.

I think the best moment in any sixties pop song ever recorded is when Bobby says "Come on, now!" after Tommy sings the lines quoted above.  That feels like an ad lib – like Bobby is so caught up in the musical moment that he just can't control his excitement.  But that apparent ad lib was probably carefully planned and executed.

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I just read a wonderful history of pop music in Los Angeles titled Waiting for the Sun, by British author Barney Hoskyns.  Hoskyns believes the difference between the music "scenes" in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the sixties is obvious:  San Francisco had a rock sensibility and Los Angeles had a pop sensibility.

The NoCal types thought the SoCal types were phony and plastic – the Monkees (a/k/a/ the "Pre-Fab Four") were the symbol of all that was wrong with the Los Angeles scene.  But the SoCal types expressed their distaste with NoCal's holier-than-thou self-righteous attitude and hippie "style" (or the lack thereof).

Surprisingly, most of the real crazies of the era defended Los Angeles.  Frank Zappa observed that everyone in San Francisco dressed the same way – in Los Angeles, the freaks were much freakier.  Andy Warhol and his posse also preferred the isolated degenerates of Los Angeles to the hippie communitarians of San Francisco: "If you didn't smile a lot in San Francisco," said Paul Morrissey, the Warhol collaborator who discovered the Velvet Underground, "they got very hostile."

Brian Jones and Jimi Hendrix at Monterey Pop

The famous Monterey Pop Festival, which took place in June 1967, brought some quintessential Los Angeles and San Francisco groups together.  From SoCal, you had the Mamas and Papas, the Byrds, Johnny Rivers, the Association, and Lou Rawls.  (Lou Rawls?)  From NoCal, you had the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company (featuring Janis Joplin), and Moby Grape, among others. 

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The Monkees were not invited to play at Monterey Pop, although Mickey Dolenz and Peter Tork both attended.  (Tork actually introduced the Buffalo Springfield.)  The Monkees took a sharp turn musically after Monterey Pop – their next album, Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd., featured a Moog synthesizer, which was introduced to the pop music industry at Monterey Pop.  

(In case you're curious, Mickey Dolenz was a Pisces, Peter Tork was an Aquarius, and Michael Nesmith was a Capricorn.  Davy Jones was also a Capricorn.  In fact, both he and Nesmith were born on December 30.  By the way, did you know that if there are 23 people in a room, it's more likely than not that two of them will have the same birthday?  Of course, there aren't 23 people in the Monkees.)

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Guess who opened for the Monkees on their U.S. tour that kicked off in Jacksonville, Florida, on July 8 – less than three weeks after the Monterey Pop Festival?

None other than the star of Monterey Pop, Jimi Hendrix.  That's right, boys and girls – Jimi Hendrix touring with the Monkees.  Imagine that!

The odd coupling actually made sense for both parties.  Hendrix had become something of a star in the UK by this time, but was largely unheard of in the U.S.  His management wanted to cash in on the notoriety he gained by setting his guitar on fire while performing "Wild Thing" at Monterey Pop – and who was going to draw bigger audiences in the summer of 1967 than the Monkees?

The Monkees wanted to prove to the world that they deserved to be taken seriously as musicians, and there was probably no other opening act they could have chosen who had more critical credibility than the cutting-edge Hendrix.

Hendrix appeared with the Monkees seven times in nine days – he made way for other opening acts after he and the Monkees did three shows at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium on July 14, 15, and 16, 1967.

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Boyce and Hart released three albums.  (The third one was released in Canada under the name Which One's Boyce and Which One's Hart?)  They had a couple of other Top 40 hits, and appeared on episodes of a number of popular sixties sitcoms.

Click here to see them on I Dream of Jeannie.  (Yes, boys and girls, that's legendary record producer Phil Spector playing himself in that clip.)

In the mid-seventies, Boyce and Hart teamed up with Mickey Dolenz and Davy Jones and went on the road to perform Monkees songs as Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart.  (Catchy, no?)

Hart was nominated for an Oscar in 1983 for the song "Over You," which was featured on the soundtrack of the Robert Duvall movie, Tender Mercies.  

After living in the UK for a few years, Boyce returned to the U.S., where he suffered from depression and had a brain aneurysm.  He committed suicide in 1994, when he was 55 years old.   

Click here to see Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart lip-synching (badly – really badly) "I Wonder What She's Doing Tonight" on an episode of The Hollywood Palace variety show.  Their host is Herb Alpert (of Tijuana Brass fame). 

Click on the link below to order the song from Amazon:

Jimi Hendrix Experience -- "Are You Experienced?" (1967)

Are you experienced? 

Have you ever been experienced? 

Jimi Hendrix was certainly experienced.  He experienced himself to death on this date in 1970.

You and I may disagree on a lot of things, but I hope we can agree that Keith Moon is the greatest rock and roll drummer of all time and Jimi Hendrix is the greatest guitarist.  Both Moon and Hendrix were tremendously innovative and absolutely unique musicians -- neither sounded like anyone else.

Both lived excessive lives and died very young.  Moon died when he was 32 and Hendrix didn't live to see his 28th birthday.

Hendrix had a string of hit singles in the UK and elsewhere in 1966 and 1967, but was largely unknown in the United States until he appeared at the Monterey International Pop Festival in  June 1967.  D. A. Pennebaker filmed the concert and released a documentary titled Monterey Pop late the next year.  Hendrix's performance of the Troggs' hit, "Wild Thing," got a lot of attention -- Jimi set his guitar on fire and then smashed it to pieces.  

Hendrix first set a guitar on fire while on stage in London in March 1967.  Frank Zappa, who was a friend of Hendrix, ended up with the burned Fender Stratocaster and played it on at least one of his albums.

Zappa's son, Dweezil, found it in 1991 under the stairs in his father's recording studio, and restored it.  Here's a video in which he describes the guitar and its restoration in great detail:



Hendrix was left-handed, but played a right-handed guitar -- he simply turned it upside down and reversed the order of the strings.

The Are You Experienced? album -- his first -- had been released in the UK in May 1967, and it climbed to #2 on the UK album charts (behind only Sgt. Pepper).  After Hendrix's show-stealing Monterey Pop appearance, his record company released a version of the album in the U.S. in August.

Here's Hendrix performing "Hey Joe" at Monterey Pop.  Watch closely beginning at 1:33 -- that's where he plays his guitar with his teeth:



Here's the end of Hendrix's Monterey Pop appearance.  After performing "Wild Thing," he sets his guitar on fire, smashes it into pieces, and tosses the pieces into the crowd:

I think I bought his Smash Hits album shortly after Hendrix appeared at Woodstock in August 1969.  It had been released in the UK in 1968 -- only a few months after the group's second studio album had been issued.  Smash Hits wasn't released in the U.S. then because Hendrix hadn't yet had any hits in the U.S.   (Neither "Purple Haze" nor "Foxy Lady" had cracked the top 40.  "All Along the Watchtower" -- which peaked at #20 in September 1968 -- was the only Hendrix single to make the top 40.)

On September 17, 1970, Hendrix was at a party in London.  His German girlfriend, Monika Dannemann, drove him to her Notting Hill flat well after midnight.

Monika Dannemann with Jimi Hendrix

It's not clear what happened after that.  Hendrix apparently took nine of Dannemann's prescription sleeping pills, which were a lot more than he should have taken.  Dannemann tried to wake him around 11 AM, and called an ambulance when he was unresponsive.  

Dannemann (who committed suicide in 1996) always claimed that Hendrix was alive when the ambulance arrived, and that she rode in it to the hospital with him.  The ambulance crew denied that she was there when they arrived at the flat, and said that Hendrix was already dead and had been dead for some time.

A doctor who initially attended Hendrix said he asphyxiated on his own vomit, which consisted mostly of red wine.  It's not clear why he didn't perform a tracheotomy.   The autopsy report said nothing about red wine, and stated that there was relatively little alcohol in Hendrix's system.

To confuse matters even further, Eric Burdon (the former lead singer of the Animals) said that he believed Hendrix had committed suicide.  He based that conclusion on some song lyrics written by Hendrix that Burdon found in the flat.  Years later, a former Animals roadie wrote a book that said that Hendrix's manager had told him that he had the star killed because Hendrix wanted to end his management contract.  

About two weeks later, Janis Joplin overdosed on heroin.

Hendrix is buried in a suburb of Seattle

I was a freshman in college when Hendrix and Joplin died.  I bought Are You Experienced? and Electric Ladyland (his third studio album) from an upperclassman who was selling off his record collection  a year or two later.  I remember his comment when I said I wanted those two albums: "Isn't a little late for you to be getting into Hendrix?"  (I'm guessing paid 50 cents each for those LPs -- certainly no more than a dollar each.  I think I got one or two Spirit albums from him as well.)

Jimi Hendrix was unbelievably cool.  I wonder what it would feel like to be that cool -- even just for five minutes.

Here's "Are You Experienced?":

Click here to buy the song from Amazon: