nurghophonic jukebox: "Teach Me Tonight" by Jo Stafford

Written By: Gene De Paul & Sammy Cahn
Released: 1955 (Written 1953)
Single?: A standard, released by many charting artists, for a highest rank of #2 on Billboard.

This was on one of the many "hits of the '50s" collections I got from my father. The De Castro Sisters scored biggest with it, but I frankly don't think that version holds a candle to Stafford's 1955 take, which made it to #15 on Billboard. Stafford's mature vocals offset the jailbaiting lyrics.

Lyrics:

Did you say (that) I've got a lot to learn
Well don't think I'm trying not to learn
Since this is the perfect spot to learn
Teach me tonight

Starting with the ABC of it
Getting right down to the XYZ of it
Help me solve the mystery of it
Teach me tonight

The sky's a blackboard high above you
And if a shooting star goes by
I'll use that star to write "I love you"
A thousand times across the sky

One thing isn't very clear my love
Should the teachers stand so near my love
Graduation's almost here my love
Teach me tonight

I've played loves scenes in a flick or two
And I've also met a chick or two
But I still can learn a trick or two
Hey teach me tonight

I who thought I knew the score of it
Kind of think I should know much more of it
Off the wall, the bed, the floor of it
Hey teach me tonight

The midnight hours come slowly creeping
When there's no one there but you
There must be more to life than sleeping
Single in a bed for two

What I need most is post graduate
What I feel is hard to articulate
If you want me to matriculate
You'd better teach me tonight

What do you get for lessons
Teach me - come on and teach me
- teach me tonight

Here's a bonus version from Amy Winehouse, made back before she became a meth-head cartoon raccoon:

A Frank Review of "Maid in Sweden" (1971)

The Short Version? How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm once they've seen... Stockholm?
What Is It? Softcore Bore
Who Is In It? One-Eye; additional Swedes
Should I See It? No.

"Maid in Sweden tells the story of Inga, a 16-year-old Swedish girl who leaves her rural home to spend a weekend in the Swedish capital. An innocent with no experience, but with prodigious physical attributes, she has a series of romantic adventures as she throws off the frustrations of her small-town environment"

Twenty-one year old Christina Lindberg plays the repressed Swedish schoolgirl with overbearing parents who springs a visit on her independent sister Greta (Monica Ekman.) This pisses off Greta's live-in boyfriend Carsten (Krister Ekman.) Inga unintentionally shows a bit of tit on the train over, then spends the day with her sister. Inga, Greta and Carsten all hit the hash hukkah, then the deeply stoned older sister confesses that she's living in sin. Inga agrees to keep her mouth shut, then it's off to bed. Inga dreams of a couple screwing around in a hall, then two near rapes of her person, one sapphic. None of this is particularly titillating or believable. Inga finally wakes up to spy on her sister having completely unconvincing hippy freakout sex with her boyfriend while their static pelvises are in separate zip codes. Inga eventually returns to her room to motion in the general vicinity of her own genitalia.

The trio go ice skating, because what the fuck else do you do in Sweden besides get high, get laid, and attempt suicide-- all somehow involving god damned snow, hot chocolate, and the Aryan ideal. Carsten acts like a dick, giving Inga a hard time about being a goody-two-shoes. Carsten is convinced by Greta to hook Inga up with a date with his rapist buddy. Next morning, everything's hunky-dory, and we're off on another montage with a softcore porn Eurofag pop vocal score, with bonus bicycling. We're nearly an hour in, and that's all we have to show for it? Heil the hell long is this thing, anyway?

Nighttime is the right time for simulated "artistically" lit cunnilingus where you can't see anything. Sis is worried. Country rock montage walk through the woods. Sneaking back in. Dick boyfriend makes Inga call sis at work to say she's okay. Inga takes a shower. Inga sneaks out on her last night in town to fuck the date rapist one more time. She's a meaty old school Playmate and he's lean and firm for a dude, making for some awkward pauses as the viewer tries to figure out whose ass they're checking out. Inga sneaks back in. Dick boyfriend brings dick to bear against Inga, who accommodates all too quickly. Big sis busts them both in the bathtub. Inga is sent packing.

As I mentioned, there's some artistic posturing, but when the cameraman casts a shadow, craft goes out the window. The acting is bad in that way you only get when you force an entire cast of amateurs to read dialogue in a non-native tongue. Then again, maybe it was all ad-libbed from an outline, because the script couldn't have been longer that a few double-spaced pages. Even the sex scenes are incompetent, the bare minimum standard for this sort of drivel. Only the most die hard fans of Christina Lindberg's anatomy should get near this thing.

nurghophonic distress #4: "Wannabe" by Spice Girls

Written By: Matt Rowe, Richard Stannard, and the Spice Girls
Released: 1996
Album: Spice
Single?: International chart-topping, record breaking, award winning smash hit.

"Chicks with a list of demands" is a subgenre of pop music that seems to inspire some men to domestic violence. I'm much more forgiving of the indulgence, especially when the songwriting is multifaceted. For instance, Sheryl Crow's "Strong Enough" is really a laundry list of the woman's personality defects and a sincere hope someone will love her through her bullshit. Alanis Morissette's "21 Things I Want in a Lover" is more of a grocery list of desirable attributes, but that doesn't feel so specific that a a professional matchmaker or Mister Sandman will have to bring a dream. TLC's "No Scrubs" may be the most famous example, and is it really so unreasonable to expect a fellow to bring something more to the table than noise when pushing up on full-blown hotties.

"Wannabe" isn't a terrible song because of the nature of the demands. The trouble starts when they tell you what they want... really, really want, about eighty-seven fucking times. I understand the act of talking things out is cathartic to women, no matter how very, very, very trivial the point may be, but men lose a little more of their spirit with each vague request. Just tell me one time what you really, really want, so I can decide whether to tuck it or book it, you indecisive, nagging cunts.

Next I must question the double standards. "If you want my future, forget my past?" Well, I kind of need to know those test results from the free clinic, and that indictment for identity theft makes me uncomfortable, frankly. I'm also wondering when you're going to stop passive-aggressively "teasing" me about my friendship with that one ex of mine. "Get your act together, we can be just fine?" You're the one who demands I "get with your friends," like you can have a relationship independent of some catty, bitter hive mind that never lets up with "what you really, really want," y'know? Also, excuse me, but can you get your fucking song together? I count two versus, one of which is sung by Eliza Doolittle, and a bridge consisting on an onomatopoeia. You can't just sing the same corny, sappy, sing-songy chorus four times and recite the same line five times for an alternating chorus that impacts like a wisdom tooth. That's actually the very worst thing: the fact that I will have "Wannabe" stuck in my head for no less than two hours after each exposure due solely to being beaten into submission by the sheer repetition.



Lyrics:

Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna ha, I wanna ha, I wanna ha, I wanna ha, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazag .

If you want my future forget my past,
If you wanna get with me better make it fast,
Now don't go wasting my precious time,
Get your act together we can be just fine.

I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazig ah.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends, (gotta get with my friends!)
Make it last forever friendship never ends,
If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give,
Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is.

What do you think about that, now you know how I feel
Say you could handle my love, are you for real
I won't be hasted, give you a try
If you really bug me, then I say goodbye

Yo I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want,
So tell me what you want, what you really really want,
I wanna, I wanna, I wanna I wanna, I wanna really
really really wanna zigazag.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends,(gotta get with my friends!)
Make it last forever friendship never ends,
If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give, (You've got to give)
Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is.



If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends,(gotta get with my friends)
Make it last forever friendship never ends,
If you wanna be my lover, you have got to give,(You've got to give)
Taking is too easy, but that's the way it is.

If you wanna be my lover, you gotta, you gotta, you
gotta,
you gotta, you gotta
Slam your body down and wind it all around?
Slam your body down and wind it all around.(ha ha ha ha)
Slam your body down and wind it all around.
Slam your body down and zigazig

If you wanna be my lover!

Captain America Trailer (2011)

I'm currently watching Twin Peaks on DVD, and I have come to realize that between the first and second seasons, FBI Special Agent Dale Coopers goes from a brilliant Holmesian detective to a clueless tool of supernatural forces. Regardless, I continue to enjoy and respect the character, because actor Kyle MacLachlan brought such a unique energy and enthusiasm to the role. Had any other actor played Cooper, it would have been a completely different and likely diminished character.

Captain America is like Dale Cooper. Spider-Man is an everyman that can be pretty well personified by a wide assortment of nebbishy actors, and Batman stars the suit unless the actor gets in its way (Mr. Clooney.) With Superman, you can cast a "type" and pretty much be okay. Lacking real super-powers or a costume that translates to live action, yet being expected to command the actions of demigods and adoration of crowds, you need an actor with serious presence to pull off Captain America.

All the advance press on the new Captain America movie has shown Chris Evans, without the benefit of his Johnny Storm sarcasm, being "worn" by his underwhelming, anachronistic costume. Despite an impressive physique, Evans is just swimming inside this get-up and drowning in unmet expectations. Whereas every new piece of film validates Chris Hemsworth as rising to the challenge of playing Thor in a film that seems to hit the exact right notes, my expectations of Captain America keep sinking lower and lower.

The trailer shows the special effects guys have done a fine job of making Evans look like a 4F weakling, but then he pulls this steady Miley Cyrus duck face, and they stick him in some blatant CGI super-soldier pod with an '80s anime look. I don't care if we still don't have super-soldier pods in 2011-- I want a super soldier pod that at least has a 1940s aesthetic to buy into the fantasy. Put some fins on that bitch or something.

The pod opens and its like, "hot damn, that guy is ready for Chippendale's." Then he starts talking, and I'm again reminded that the vessel might have been enlarged, but the soul hasn't. Chris Evans is still just a dude in a bulky, awkward costume. He lifts that shield like a man-purse, and I'm like "whoa, you grab that chain like it was a direct line to the boredom center of my brain." It gave me a flashback to Tim Roth pumped up with the super-soldier serum in The Incredible Hulk. I saw that a year or so ago, and was like "Mr. Orange is rocking the grenade launching acrobatics like he's on an invisible jungle gym! I hope the Captain America movie can top this." Chris Evans isn't rocking anything. He's sort of playing hopscotch by himself on the lonely end of the sidewalk. He's cowering behind a shield while a limey skirt fires on him for giggles.

Any one of the ladies in Sucker Punch has bigger balls that Chris Evans, and Dum-Dum Dugan in the background of that one shot has more presence. The Captain America trailer is a half-minute history of World War II flying fail.

Ze Greatest Songs Of Mein Time #6: "Kick Him When He's Down" by The Offspring

Written By: The Offspring
Released: 1992
Album: Ignition
Single?: Radio-only in 1995

"Kick Him When He's Down" was the third track on the Offspring's best album, but I didn't hear it until after the mid-'90s dawn of pop-punk on a short-lived new wave/grunge/indie music station. I was working security alone at a sprawling auto center, and hearing the tune would inspire me to hop around in uniform like a spastic '80s club kid, or maybe Ally Sheedy's Breakfast Club character on a pixie stick high. It's a sad, shameless spectacle, but to this day the song gives me happy feet. It's a pretty simple tune about a guy dealing with a bad time and the worst best intentions of others. I definitely had my share of know-nothing authority figures/pseudo-friends play the same game with me, but I got a lot more out of my Lording over the Dance in an empty apartment/parking lot.



Lyrics:

"Hey, you're a riddle," I say as I move aside
Like I really need your advice
But you won't leave it alone
Little men try but don't get a lot done
Living in sin don't move me either way
I get a feeling you're so vague
Like I said before
Little men come when anything goes

[Chorus:]
When the rain comes I sit home and pray
Make it all numb I wish it all away
All I really need is just somewhere to hide away
(Kick him when he's down)
Here alone I'll put up and fight
(Kick him when he's down)
Beat me all the way I'll take it all night
(Kick him when he's down)
Hey, don't worry, I'll get along home alright

Hey, everybody's supposed to be the same
So how come they're so lame?
It's like taking a fall
Keep on running back into that wall
Awake in a dream, get up and go to work
But I'm feeling like such a jerk
Like I said before
Little men come when everything goes

[Chorus]

"Hey, you're a riddle," I say as I move aside
Like I really need your advice
But you won't leave it alone
Little men try but don't get a lot done
Living in sin don't move me either way
I get a feeling you're so vague
Like I said before
Little men come when anything goes

[Chorus w/ adlibs]