Urban Verbs – "Subways" (1980)

On this train, I'm never ever lonely

People smile from pictures on the wall

The Travel + Leisure magazine website currently features a slideshow titled "World's Most Beautiful Subway Stations."

I can't argue with the stations from Paris, St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Moscow, and Tashkent that are on the magazine's list.

The T-Centralen Station in Stockholm

(Who knew that Tashkent – the capital of Uzbekistan – even had a subway?  And who knew that Uzbekistan was a doubly-landlocked country?  A doubly-landlocked country is one that is surrounded by landlocked countries.  The only other doubly-landlocked country in the world is Liechtenstein, which has fewer residents than Joplin, Missouri, and doesn't really deserve to be classified as a country.)

But Travel + Leisure also put a Washington (DC) Metro station on its "most beautiful" list, which makes me wonder if anyone from the magazine has even ridden the Washington Metro.  

"The Washington Metro is a rarity among America's largely utilitarian subways," says the magazine.  The Metro's underground stations feature "vaulted cathedral ceilings with coffered blocks," and the "elegant up-lighting and hushed mood give [the stations] an ecclesiastical air."

Gallery Place Station (Washington, DC)

If you ask me, Metro stations are depressing spaces that remind me more of a set for a dystopian science-fiction movie more than a cathedral.

You never forget you are underground when you're in a Metro station.  The stations are poorly-lit and devoid of ornament and color.  I would describe the brutalist Metro architecture as Soviet-style, but the subway stations in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, and other former USSR cities are much more attractive than the Washington Metro's stations.

Avtovo Station in St. Petersburg, Russia

The most eye-pleasing aspect of a Metro stations is usually its advertising signage.  On occasion, a Metro station will only have advertising from a single advertiser.  Gallery Place, the busy station closest to my office building, has been taken over by a diverse collection of advertisers in recent years, including Microsoft (when it introduced its "Surface" tablet computers a few years ago) and the Virginia Tourist Authority.  

Recently, I debarked from my train at Gallery Place to discover that every available square inch of the station was covered with advertising for something called Go90, which I later learned is Verizon's new mobile video/social network app:

According to the ads, the Go90 app allows you to "watch, cut & share all the awesome."  In other words, Go90 allows you to "share the stupid" and "confuzzle" (confuse + puzzle?) your friends:

It sounds to me like Go90 will result in millennials wasting even more time on their smart phones – which seems to be exactly Verizon's idea:

Here's the basic Go90 logo, which looks like "go" and also looks like "90":

Go90 posters are all over the walls of the Gallery Place station:

There's a big Go90 advertisement right in the middle of the floor.  (I never know if it's OK to walk on the ads on the floor.  Maybe I should walk around them?) 

The station's ventilation shafts have been turned into billboards:

Even the entrance/exit gates have little pictures of happy Go90 users:

A number of hip young Go90 users are featured in the posters.  Each one is labeled with an adjective or short phrase, which could double as Seven Dwarfs-type names for the hipsters.

There's "Excited":

And "Rainy Day":

And "Wide Awake":

And my personal favorite, "Dazed":

The ads are colorful and bright and a little psychedelic – just what the ginormous expanse of grayness that is the Gallery Place Metro station needs.   

Here's what The Verge had to say about Go90:

Verizon today officially rebranded the act of turning your smartphone sideways — and it's called Go90, as in degrees.  The new mobile video app is an effort to snatch eyes away from popular mobile services chipping away at TV, and its absurd name is a way to ensure people view Verizon partner videos horizontally.  Because vertical video is not chill.

The Go90 app description contains some cringe-worthy feature highlights straight out of 2010, like "Cut and share those OMGGG moments with friends, like that catfight that just broke out on that MTV show you can’t get enough of."  You can also start an online "crew" of content-hungry like minds to chat about your obsessions and, as Verizon says, "forget the haters."  In non-marketing-speak, that means the app has a group chat function.

I don't think I'll be adding Go90 to my Blackberry.  For one thing, a Blackberry screen is pretty square, so rotating it 90 degrees doesn't really do much.  For another thing, I don't think Go90 is available for the Blackberry operating system.

The Urban Verbs formed in Washington, DC, in 1977.  I bought their eponymous debut album when it was released in 1980 – I thought they ranked right up there with Elvis Costello, the Talking Heads, and my other favorites from that era.  But neither of their major-label albums sold very well, and the group broke up in 1981. 

Here's "Subways":

Click below to buy "Subways" from Amazon:

Eric Church – "Give Me Back My Hometown" (2014)

My friends try to cheer me up

Get together at the Pizza Hut

Going to the Pizza Hut certainly cheers me up, which is why I stop at the one in my neighborhood almost every Friday night on my way home from work.

Does it surprise you that I get my pizza at . . . Pizza Hut?  Did you assume that a bon vivant and boulevardier like me would chow down on fancy-schmancy artisanal pizza made with San Marzano tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella, and baked in wood-fired ovens?  

I grew up eating pizza from Pizza Hut (and Pizza Inn, and Shakey's, and Shotgun Sam's).  So eating at Pizza Hut gives me back my hometown (to quote Eric Church and today's featured song).

More importantly, if you order online, you can get a large Pizza Hut pizza with two toppings (pepperoni and mushrooms, thank you very much) for only $7.99 instead of the ten bucks it would if you called in your order.

(Those were the days!)

And if you forget to order from your work computer before you leave your office for the night?  No worries, mon -- you just fire up your Blackberry in the subway WHERE HALF THE TIME YOU CAN'T GET A SIGNAL! and order using the Pizza Hut mobile app WHICH DOESN'T WORK HALF THE TIME! and you usually forget to tell them you want the pizza ready for pickup when you get off the subway in 45 minutes rather than as soon as possible, which means they make it as soon as possible SO IT SITS AROUND AND GETS COLD WHILE YOU ARE SITTING MOTIONLESS IN THE SUBWAY WAITING TO GET PAST THE STRETCH OF TRACK WHERE THEY ARE SINGLE-TRACKING BECAUSE THE WHOLE DAMN SYSTEM IS FALLING APART!

I used to eat half of my pizza on Friday night and finish off the rest over the weekend.  But now I eat three of eight pieces on Friday night, and save remaining pieces for my weekday breakfasts -- one slice on Monday, one slice on Tuesday . . . get the picture?

I'm a very busy man and don't have time to eat my morning 'za at the kitchen table while I peruse the political news in the Washington Post.  (Did you see what that Donald Trump fellow said yesterday?  Oh behave, Mr. Trump!)  Instead, I eat my pizza in the car on my drive to the Metro station.

When I hear the little "ding" from the toaster oven that tells me my pizza is nice and warm, I grab my briefcase and take it out to my car.  I leave the driver-side door open, come back inside to grab my pizza and morning beverage (homemade iced tea or Dr. Pepper), and off I go.

You can't carry a briefcase, a slice of warm pizza, and a beverage and still manage to open the garage door and unlock the car door in one fell swoop – one simply does not have enough hands.  So I have to make two trips.

Or at least I did until I came across this handy little "Portable Pizza Pouch," complete with lanyard – it only costs eight bucks plus shipping and handling:

Here's a picture of my buddy Rick demonstrating the "Portable Pizza Pouch":

If you'd like to order your own "Portable Pizza Pouch," just visit the Stupidiotic website – that's www.stupidiotic.com – and give them your credit card.  

I already have a couple of hands-free around-the-neck wineglass holders:

I'm not sure that you could use the pizza and wineglass holders simultaneously.  But I don't drink wine with pizza, so that doesn't bother me a bit.

Here's the very obscure official music video for "Give Me Back My Hometown," the second single from Eric Church's 2014 album, The Outsiders.  The song was a #1 hit in both the U.S. and Canada, and was nominated for the Country Music Awards "Single of the Year" and the Grammy for "Best Country Song."

Click below to buy the song from Amazon. 

Scott Henderson – "Smelly Ol' Dog Blues" (1994)

Got a smelly ol' dog, baby
You know he's a smelly ol' hound

Scott Henderson is a jazz/blues guitarist who helped formed the progressive jazz fusion group, Tribal Tech, in 1984.

According to one source, Henderson has said on more than one occasion that he prefers to play with bands that do not have keyboard players because that allows him to "properly explore the guitar's full potential as an instrument."  

In other words, a guitarist can't compete with a good keyboard player and he knows it.

"Smelly Ol' Dog Blues" was released in 1994 on Dog Party, a blues album that features dog-themed songs like "Milk Bone," "Hell Bent Pup," and "Dog Walk."

I don't want to asperse Scott's dog, but it sounds like Scott needs to get him to an All Paws Pet Wash toot sweet.

A Jiffy Lube is a great location for a pet wash

All Paws Pet Wash – let's call the company "APPW" for short – sells coin-operated dog-washing kiosks designed to be sited at car washes, convenience stores, and so on.  

The company refers to its kiosks as pet wash stations, but I'm guessing 99% of its customers are dog owners.  If you tried to wash a cat at an APPW, I'm guessing it would claw the hell out of you and then run away, never to return.

I saw an APPW kiosk at a gas station/convenience store this summer:

Using an APPW isn't all that different from using a self-serve car wash.  First, you deposit five bucks, which buys you seven minutes to shampoo, condition, deodorize, rinse, and dry your canine buddy.  (I don't know about you, but I never finish the job at a self-serve car wash in the allotted time, and have to insert additional money.  I bet the same thing is true at an APPW.)

You start by lifting your dog into a shallow trough:

You use a rubber hose to wet him down, hit the "shampoo" button and use the hose to apply shampoo, rinse the dog off, apply conditioner, rinse the dog again, apply deodorizer, rinse the dog one more time, and then use the built-in vacuum/blowdryer to finish the job.

The instructions for use ask customers to "be nice to the next pet" and wash your dog's hair down the drain before leaving.  Ain't nobody got time fo' that!

My dog Lily is five or six years old, and I don't think she's had more than one or two baths in her life.  There's no real need to bathe a dog unless he or she has skin problems – or unless the dog gets too stinky for you.

Lily

If you'd like to get into the coin-operated, self-serve, pet-washing business, click here and you'll be taken to the All Paws Pet Wash website.

The APPW stations cost about $30,000.  But the company claims that you can make your money back in a year if you have an average of ten customers a day.

Here's "Smelly Ol' Dog Blues":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Mission of Burma – "That's When I Escaped My Certain Fate" (1982)

Can I count on you

If I fall apart?

In Greek mythology, the Fates – or Moira – were three ugly old women who appeared three nights after a child's to determine the course of its life.  

Clotho, who spun the thread of life, decided who was born and when.

Lachesis, who measured the thread of life, determined how long each person would live.

Atropos chose how a person would die and cut the thread of life with her shears at the appropriate moment.

The Fates

Some of the ancient Greeks (including Aeschylus) believed that even Zeus and the other gods who lived on Olympus must submit to the Fates.  From Prometheus Bound:

Chorus: Can it be that Zeus has less power than [the Fates] do?

Prometheus: Yes, in that even he cannot escape what is foretold.

Others (including Homer) believed that Zeus and his fellow Olympians had the last word and could overrule the Fates.

Clint Conley, the Mission of Burma singer and bass player who wrote "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate," falls into the later category.  

At first, it appeared that Conley was wrong, at least vis-à-vis the fate of Mission of Burma.

Mission of Burma then

Mission of Burma formed in Boston in the spring of 1979.  Within a matter of weeks, they were appearing regularly in rock clubs in Boston and Cambridge, where they drew enthusiastic crowds.

They released an EP (Signals, Calls, and Marches) in 1981 and an album (Vs.) in 1982.  "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" was the last track on Vs.  

The critics loved Vs., and it looked like Mission of Burma might become a very successful indie band.  But Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos had other plans for them.

Shortly after Vs. was released, guitarist Roger Miller announced he was leaving the band due to his worsening tinnitus.  

Tinnitus is when you hear sounds even when there are no external sounds present.  It's often referred to as "ringing in the ears."

Tinnitus is usually caused by exposure to loud noises.  Mission of Burma was notorious for playing extremely loudly at their live performances.  Miller wore earplugs plus the kind of sound-limiting headphones that shooters wear, but to no avail.  

Miller described his tinnitus in a magazine interview:

In September a middle E appeared in my left ear.  And in December a C-sharp below middle E appeared in my left ear.  In my right ear, a slight sharp E began in October.  They're forming fairly interesting chords that never leave.  When it's quit at night, the notes are screaming.

The band's final live performance was on March 26, 1983, at the Paramount Theatre on Staten Island, where they opened for Public Image, Ltd.

Mission of Burma now

But Mission of Burma reformed in 2002.  They've toured steadily since then, and have released four studio albums.  

I saw Mission of Burma in June 2008 at the Black Cat in Washington, DC.  I went with my oldest son, who gave me tickets to the show and a homemade Mission of Burma CD for my birthday the previous month.

Here's an excerpt from the DCist's review of the show:

The band may now be firmly entrenched in middle age, but don't tell them that there's a mellowing process that's supposed to go along with reaching your fifties.  Saturday's show was quite possibly the loudest we've ever heard at the Black Cat, as Burma showed all the younguns just how to blow the roof off a venue.  Fans close to the stage would have done well to ask guitarist Roger Miller to borrow an extra set of earplugs.

Of course, Burma's volume was always legendary, and a big part of the reason their star burned out so quickly during their first iteration, as the floor-shaking decibel levels had taken a serious toll on Miller's hearing.  Since their return in the early portion of the decade, though, sacrificing that cacophony has never been part of the deal; turning down the knobs would have made them an aging curiosity, cashing in on a reputation that never got them much aside from a lot of posthumous adoration.  But with amps humming at full bore, they're as vital as they were nearly 30 years ago.

That night, Mission of Burma played the songs on their one and only pre-breakup album, Vs., in order.  I had been listening to that album for a month's worth of bike rides, so I knew those songs backwards and forwards.  For me, that made the show a very satisfying one.

By contrast, when I took my son to see Sonic Youth in 1998, they were kicking off a tour to promote their new album, A Thousand Leaves.  That album was so new I didn't have a chance to buy it before the concert, so I was hearing every song for the first time.  

I rarely respond to music immediately – I need to hear songs at least two or three times before they start to grow on me – and being able to familiarize myself thoroughly with the Mission of Burma songs made all the difference.

AOL's Mandatory.com website has this to say about "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate":

It makes absolutely no sense that (a) Mission of Burma wasn't as big as Nirvana and (b) this song wasn't the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" of 1982.  There's so much energy and amazing lyrics in this song that my brain can't compute how f*cking awesome this song is. . . . Which is why it's on our list of the 100 Most Underrated Indie Songs.

As an example of the "amazing lyrics" to this song, here's the first verse:

This might be your only chance

to prove it on your own

Tulsa's not that

Tulsa's not that far

Tulsa's not that far from Joplin, Missouri, where I grew up, but it's a long way from Boston.  I have no idea what inspired Boston native Clint Conley to give a shout-out to Tulsa (which is also known as "T-Town" and "The 918").

Here's "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Kingston Trio – "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" (1960)

For Anne Boleyn was once King Henry's wife

Until he had the headsman bob her hair

I recently read Hilary Mantel's two historical novels about the court of Henry VIII, Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012).  Both won the most prestigious English literary prize, the Man Booker Award.

Both books are compelling reading, although I had a little trouble keeping the myriad of characters straight.  I kept confusing the Duke of Norfolk with the Duke of Suffolk, and there were at least a half-dozen major characters whose first name was Thomas.

The most important of all Mantel's Thomases is Thomas Cromwell, a lowly commoner who became the King Henry's closest advisor – his fixer, if you will.  

Here is Hans Holbein the Younger's portrait of Thomas Cromwell, which was painted when Cromwell was about 48 years old:

Wolf Hall tells the story of how Cromwell managed to do an end-run around Pope Clement's refusal to annul Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which enabled the king to wed Anne Boleyn.

In Bring Up the Bodies, Cromwell must reverse field and find a way to get rid of Anne, who fell out of favor with the King after only three years of marriage.

Henry VIII

A good lawyer could have come up with a number of arguments why Henry's marriage to Anne was legally null and void.  But Cromwell had previously taken the position that none of those arguments were valid in order to clear the way for Henry to wed Anne in the first place.  

For example, many believed that Anne had been betrothed to marry Henry Percy, the Earl of Northumberland, long before she married the King.  If that had been true, she would not have been free to wed Henry VIII.

Percy, under pressure from Cromwell, had sworn an oath that there had been no betrothal, which removed that potential obstacle to the King's marriage to Anne.  Cromwell could hardly ask Percy to now swear just the opposite of what he had originally sworn – that wouldn't have fooled anyone.

Anne Boleyn

At one point in Bring Up the Bodies, Cromwell asks his son a rhetorical question:

Gregory, you know St. Uncumber?  You say that women pray to her to be rid of useless husbands.  Now, is there a saint that men can pray to if they wish to be quit of their wives?

I'll admit that I had never heard of St. Uncumber before reading this book.  

Legend has it that Uncumber was a teenager of noble birth who had vowed to remain a virgin.  When her father promised her in marriage to a pagan king, the devout young woman – who just happened to be super hot! – prayed for God to make her physically repulsive to her prospective husband.  

Her prayers were answered, and she sprouted a full beard.  The pagan king was totally turned off by hairy babes, and called off the wedding.  Uncumber's father was so angry that he had her crucified.

St. Uncumber

As the above quote from Bring Up the Bodies indicates, St. Uncumber was venerated by women who wished to be liberated – or disencumbered (hence the saint's name) – from their husbands.  (Presumably, St. Uncumber was kept very busy answering the prayers of those women.)

Henry VIII may not have had a patron saint to pray to in order to disencumber himself of Anne, but Cromwell eventually came up with a successful strategy for accomplishing the King's desire.  He built the case that Anne had committed adultery and incest after she married the King, and prosecuted Anne for treason. 

Jane Seymour

Her conviction and subsequent execution freed the king to marry Jane Seymour, which he did eleven days after Anne was beheaded.

The closing chapters of Bring Up the Bodies present Cromwell's interrogations of Anne and the five men (including her brother) who are accused of committing treason by sleeping with her.   

Initially, Anne and her alleged lovers are incredulous at the accusations that are being leveled against them.  But Cromwell tells them quite matter-of-factly that the die is cast – that they will never leave the Tower of London alive.  

The Tower of London

The usual penalty for a man convicted of treason is to be hanged, cut down alive, and eviscerated.  A woman convicted of treason is usually burned at the stake.  But Cromwell tells his prisoners that if they admit their guilt, the king may be merciful and allow them to be beheaded instead.

One by one, the accused traitors realize that the situation is hopeless and that an a less horrific death is all they have to hope for.  They confess, are tried and convicted with a minimum of fuss, and are promptly executed.  

Anne Boleyn's execution

The executioner – or "headsman" – is a skilled Frenchman who delivers the coup de grace to poor Anne with aplomb:   

The man is behind Anne, she is misdirected, she does not sense him. . . . [T]he body exsanguinates, and its flat little presence becomes a puddle of gore.

For those of you who aren't readers, the BBC produced a miniseries based on Wolf Hall, which aired on PBS earlier this year:

"With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm" is a darkly humorous little ditty about how the ghost of Anne Boleyn haunts the Tower of London, walking thither and fro with her head tucked underneath her arm.

R. P. Weston and Bert Lee wrote today's featured song in 1934 for British music-hall performer and comic actor, Stanley Holloway.  

Stanley Holloway

Holloway was best-known to American audiences for his portrayal of Eliza Doolittle's father, Alfred, in both the original Broadway production of My Fair Lady and the movie adaption of that musical.  (Holloway's character sang two of that musical's most popular numbers, "With a Little Bit of Luck" and "Get Me to the Church on Time.")

For some reason, the Kingston Trio left out this verse when they covered the song on their Sold Out album, which was released in 1960:

Along the drafty corridors

For miles and miles she goes

She often catches cold, poor thing

It's cold there when it blows

And it's awfully awkward for the Queen,

To have to blow her nose . . .

With her head tucked underneath her arm

Here's the Kingston Trio's recording of "With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm":

Minutemen – "History Lesson – Part II" (1984)

Me and Mike Watt, we played for years
Punk rock changed our lives

Michael Azerrad's 2001 book about American indie music in the eighties, Our Band Could Be Your Life, takes its title from the first line of today's featured song.

That book has chapters about 13 bands – Black Flag, the Minutemen, Mission of Burma, Minor Threat, Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Big Black, Dinosaur Jr., Fugazi, Mudhoney, and Beat Happening – all of whom made a name for themselves despite the fact that they didn't have deals with major record labels.

I was very familiar with some of those bands (e.g., Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Mission of Burma, Fugazi) prior to reading Azerrad's book, but completely unfamiliar with several others (e.g., Big Black, Dinosaur Jr., and Beat Happening).

The Minutemen fell between those two extremes.  I own their best-known album – the 45-song double album, Double Nickels on the Dime, which was released in 1984 – but I hadn't listened to it in years, and I knew nothing about the band's history or its individual members.

The Minutemen: Boon, Watt, Hurley

The band's guitarist, Dennes Boon (who called himself D. Boon) and bassist Mike Watt met in San Pedro, California – a working-class community that encompasses the Port of Los Angeles – when they were 14 years old.  They met their future drummer, George Hurley, in high school.

Like a lot of eighties punk groups, the Minutemen's lyrics were often very political.  They all came from blue-collar families, and were big fans of Creedence Clearwater Revival, whose "Fortunate Son" boils over with working-class resentment.  (Today's featured song lists several of the Minutemen's other favorite musicians.  Several of the musicians mentioned – punk icons Richard Hell of the Voidoids, Joe Strummer of the Clash, and John Doe of X – come as no surprise.  The one who is a bit of a surprise is the fabulous Eric Bloom of the fabulous Blue Öyster Cult.)

Where the Minutemen differed from other hardcore punk bands was their innovative musical style.  

Poster for a Minutemen show

Azerrad described the Minutemen's music as "wordy and gnarled . . . [and] full of confounding breaks and leaps," with "funk, jazz, and Captain Beefheart sounds." 

As Mike Watt said:

We throw all this soft music, folk music, jazz, etc., not only to avoid getting caught in just one style, but also to show [hardcore punk audiences] that, "See, you didn't want any rules . . . this is what you wanted.  You didn't want to be told what to listen to."

In December 1985, D. Boon was killed when his girlfriend fell asleep at the wheel of the band's tour van, which ran off the road and flipped.  Boon was 27 when he died.

The "Double Nickels on the Dime" album cover

Watt in particular was devastated by Boon's death, and thought about quitting music altogether.  But eventually he and George Hurley formed the band fIREHOSE, which released five albums before disbanding in 1994.  Since then, Watt has collaborated with Sonic Youth and the Stooges, put together a half dozen or so side projects, and released four solo albums.

A documentary about the Minutemen was released in 2005.  It was titled We Jam Econo, a reference to the Minutemen's philosophy of doing everything as cheaply and efficiently as possible.  ("Econo" is San Pedro slang for inexpensive.)

Mike Watt still drives a white Econoline van

The band toured in a Ford Econoline van, and were their own tech crew – they set up their own equipment and packed it away after shows.  They booked studio time after midnight, when the hourly rates were lower, and recorded songs in the order they would appear on an album to minimize editing expenses.  (The 45-song Double Nickels on the Dime album cost only $1100 to record, and was mixed in a single night.) 

Click here if you'd like to explore Mike Watt's personal website.  (According to his home page, he still lives in Pedro . . . and he still jams econo.)

Here's the autobiographical "History Lesson – Part II," which was written by Mike Watt: 

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: