Gonzo Fishing byRajphSmdmn. America's Addiction: Will The Beave Ever Grow Up? BY JOHNNY GRAHAM “ Leave It To Beaver” T-shirts, flat-top haircuts and wearing the same clothes their mothers and fathers wore The following article is an attempt by the author to draw listening to Elvis Presely, Gene Vincent and Eddie twenty or thirty years ago. Move over old order and let the an analogy between the direction of political thought and Cochran. Our own president, a man as immersed in style as old order take over again! cultural phenonema, popular music as an example, in John Wayne was in his war movies, has said himself that he This is not to say, though, that change has not been at­ America’s recent history. The intention is to show the wishes to bring this country back to a time when things tempted, that the movement of thought and the con­ reader that we have merely gone to where we came from in were good, a time when you drank a glass of milk before struction of the progression has not been at one time the last twenty-five years, that is, the irretrievable past, you went to bed. In other words, our chord progressions variated on. The new music to come about in the sixties as a clung onto by nostalgia and its fear to enter into the future have not changed. We’re celebrating our past result of Elvis and Chuck Berry (the Hippies and “Eight bravely. The question then should start as such — What is achievements and not moving earnestly onward. Miles High,” “Purple Haze" and “Break On Through To this “ homesickness,” this love of nostalgia we possess? This drug nostalgia, stagnating when used as a way of The Other Side’ ’) touched many people: old and young, rich The year is 1983 (going on ’84), yet we find much of our life, can be found in such cultural meters as popular music. and poor, hawk and dove — much like the aspirations of the popular culture and politics fixated on the images, thoughts A group like the Stray Cats is the perfect symbol of a Kennedy presence. If the Western and American victory in and sounds of 1963 and 1945 and 1955. Today, politics and culture come full circle in its growth. Although the music World War II was analogous to the mid-fifties emergence of popular music have come full circle. W e’re again wearing sure is fun, it ain’t new. Kids of all styles and genres are (Please turn to pg.HA, col.I) 2A Thursday, December 1,1983 Daily Nexus Vinyl Exams Are In Season Short Shorts Are A By HUGH HAGGERTY was a year old when “ My Easter is also R.E.M.’s Generation” was released) producer. With the help of and yes, Pete produced this two talented women, Faye Must This Winter record and yes, there are a Hunter on bass and Sara lot of similarities here with Romweber on drums, Easter Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories Pete’s stuff. Simon’s lyrics jazzes up R.E.M .’s sound but Edited by Irving Howe and liana Weiner Howe are just as full of that self- here, you can also un­ Bantam Books, $2.95 righteous don’t-you-love-it- derstand the words.- By SCOTT LEWIS when-I’m-pitifully-profound Psychedelic pop at its best, Short shorts aren’t just part of some women’s summer wardrobes. They’re also a fascinating literary sub-genre. tone which pitifully profound Faye Hunter’s pathetic And Irving and liana Howe have shown just how absorbing people take to like flypaper. WISHBONE ASH: Twin (tainting on the cover of this Barrels Burning — E.P. doesn’t do the music they can be with their new anthology of thirty-eight He’s got the same twinkling JoBOXERS: Like Cars, guitars and women. justice. miniature masterpieces. There’s not a bad one in the lot. Gangbusters — power chords and Period. Where ordinary short stories run from three to eight The four musicians of overemotional singing and thousand words, short short stories (short shorts for JoBoxers’ were kicking cymbal crashcis which make brevity’s sake) don’t run much longer than twenty-five around London for a while me kind of wish that Simon hundred words and average only about half that. Many of under the name of Subway was into jazz or punk; one them are shorter than this review. Sect until the lead singer Townshend is enough, Short shorts are not merely short stories writ small. As left. They picked up a hot thanks. Howe puts it in the introduction, “Our short shorts are American vocalist/- indeed like ordinary short stories, only more so — but that’s songwriter named Dig just the point, only more so makes for important dif­ Wayne and the result is this ferences.” fine album of street-wise THE BONGOS: Numbers Just as the short story length does not permit the same w * white R&B. Like a lot of JUMPSPACE: Jumpspace With Wings — development of character, plot and theme as does the British bands, their image is Having gigged around novel, so the short short allows less room for development what makes them stick out. This is a nice Santa New York since 1979 and than the short story. Short shorts render these elements Floods, suspenders and Barbara band playing pretty after a string of European down to their most compact form. They afford us brief but workcaps, these guys fit pop/jazz music for nice and hit singles, the Bongos are brilliant flashes of people and places, humor and horror, their name perfectly. Maybe pretty Santa Barbara finally getting nationwide faith and fear. you’ve heard the song, “Just people. Vocalist Rose Burns notice. They integrate The lack of space forces the authors to give us the just Got Lucky” on the radio ... has a smooth Minnie Rip- strains of Latin, rock and barest necessities of characterization and so the characters well, their sound is kind of a perton-like voice and folk and a bit of psychedelia in short shorts tend to be only bare skeletons. As Howe says, throwback to early Joe B.J. FRANKLIN: B.J.’s songwriter/guitarist Josef for a remarkably original “Situation tends to replace character.” Almost all we learn Jackson/Graham Parker/- Velvet Allstars Live! — Woodard plays and writes dance sound. Despite the of the old man in Hemingway’s “ A Clean, Well-Lighted Elvis Costello and if you’re This album ’s release with a cool George Benson momentum which the band Place” is that he is alone and incredibly lonely — we don’t still partying to those coincides with the opening of approach. Support the locals seems to have going for know about his past or future, and we don’t even learn his records, you’ll party to this B.J. Franklin’s Mardi Gras — even if they have a hard them now, it’s still too easy name. But his name isn’t important here, for we are more one, too. Cafe which happens time being fresh. to dismiss them as another interested in his present circumstances. Likewise we aren’t tomorrow night. (See article nuevo-tomato band. Ketchup told the trapeze artist’s name in Kafka’s odd but affecting in this section.) Featuring or canned, we’ll definitely be “First Sorrow” because his name doesn’t really matter, B.J.’s mean saxophone and seeing more of them in the either. What does matter is that he spends all his time aloft: the keyboards of Danny future. “ His social life was somewhat limited.” Nadya Zelenin in O’Neill, this is un­ Chekhov’s “After the Theatre” is a rather ordinary girl in a complicated blues jams rather ordinary situation who is sketched perfectly. dished out with an intense Although the characters in a short short may range from Louisiana fervor that says the mundane to the bizarre and back, and although they are “it’s party-time.” The spirit not as real as their novelistic counterparts, they are of the Mardi Gras is packed fleshed-out enough to serve their creators’ purposes. If the plot of a short short is not simple nearly to the point into these classic licks and L E T ’S ACTIVE: Afoot — nonexistence, it is probably a variation on a very well- SIMON TOWNSHEND: the best part is, you’ll be The notable trivia con­ o f known theme. An extreme case of the former is Jerome Sweet Sound — able to see Velvet live every cerning this band is that Weidman’s moving “ My Father Sits in the Dark” wherein Yes, he’s Pete’s little weekend at the Mardi Gras Let’s Active producer/- brother (very little — Simon Cafe. songwriter/guitarist Mitch the narrator’s father sits alone in a chair in a dark house. A good example of the latter is “The Eclipse” by Augosto Monterroso. In this story, one of my favorites in a fine book, an exceedingly popular adventure-story cliche is turned on its ear. James Thurber also turns a very familiar story inside out with “ If Grant Had Been Drinking at Ap­ pomattox.” The short short length also requires that the theme of the work not be built block upon block. Instead the theme is honed to a razor point. Sherwood Anderson’s “The Untold POINTER SISTERS: Break Lie” is a sharp and pungent examination of marital doubt. Out — Leo Tolstoy’s “The Three Hermits” examines faith versus THE JONES GIRLS: On liturgy in a perfect parable.