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).  

Jimi Hendrix Experience -- "Manic Depression" (1967)

Manic depression is a 

Frustrating mess

Instead of déjeuner-ing at one of the many expense-account restaurants in the trendy downtown Washington, DC neighborhood where I work, I usually bring a homemade sandwich to lunch.

I used to read a book at my desk while I ate that sandwich, but recently I've been watching cable-TV series, one episode at a time.  

First, I went through all 62 episodes of Breaking Bad (which I recommend highly).  Next, I went through the first four seasons of Justified and the two extant seasons of House of Cards.

Currently, I'm alternating episodes of Entourage (which I recently wrote about) and Homeland.  

Claire Danes as Homeland's Carrie Mathison

Homeland stars Claire Danes as Carrie Mathison, an intense and dedicated CIA antiterrorist operative who has a big secret: like her father, she suffers from bipolar disorder – a mental illness that used to be called manic depression because it is characterized by mood swings.

Andy Greenwald of Heartland observed that Carrie Mathison breaks a cardinal rule of television, which is that a female character isn't allowed to be a mess.  

Carrie is a real mess when she is going through a manic phase.  The signs and symptoms of the manic phase of bipolar disorder include rapid speech, agitation or irritation, inflated self-esteem, risky behavior, careless or dangerous use of drugs or alcohol, and promiscuity.

Carrie exhibits all of those behaviors.  In other words, she sound alike the perfect girlfriend! 

The manic Carrie is promiscuous with a capital "P."  Her go-to move is to get into a slinky little dress, slip a phony wedding ring on her left hand, head out to a jazz club, and sip tequila at the bar until Mr. Right comes along and . . . well, you can guess what happens next.

(If you're wondering why she puts on the fake wedding ring, that's so the guys she picks up don't get any ideas about having an actual relationship with her.)

Carrie in disguise

The first time we meet Carrie in Homeland's pilot episode, she is returning to her house early one morning looking a little worse for wear after a one-night stand.  She takes off her slinky little dress, takes off her fake wedding ring, and hurriedly performs her toilette before throwing on a work outfit and heading off to attend a briefing at CIA headquarters.

Carrie's toilette is about as basic as a toilette gets: she deploys an electric toothbrush, then gives her private parts a quick swipe with a wet washcloth.  

(The Brits call that move a "whore's wash," and watching Claire Danes doing that so casually and matter-of-factly is quite startling.)

Good advice!

I almost forgot to mention that Carrie does one other thing while getting ready for work: she scarfs down a clozapine capsule before heading off to the office.  Clozapine is a schizophrenia medication that is sometimes used off-label to treat bipolar disorder.

If you're asking yourself why the CIA would allow someone suffering from bipolar disorder to work on the front lines of the war against terrorism – which is a pressure-cooker job if there ever was one – the answer is THEY DON'T KNOW BECAUSE CARRIE HASN'T TOLD THEM.

Carrie goes completely off the tracks at the end of season one of Homeland, then decides to take drastic measures in hopes of controlling her illness.  We'll talk more about that in the next 2 or 3 lines.

"Manic Depression" was released 1967 on the Jimi Hendrix Experience's startling debut album, Are You Experienced.  Other songs on that album included "Purple Haze," "Hey Joe," "Fire," "Foxy Lady," and the title track -- which technically isn't the title track because its title ends in a question mark while the album title doesn't.

  

One writer said that Are You Experienced "altered the syntax of music . . . in a way I compare to James Joyce's Ulysses."  Both Are You Experienced and Ulysses are groundbreaking and unique works, but there is one big difference between them: the Hendrix album is fabulous, while Ulysses is – like Carrie Mathison – a mess.

Here's "Manic Depression":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: