Went away for the weekend and got the Upstate Fats. Got home and have begun flipping through the Sunday New York Times like I was Johnny Five.
As I go through the paper, Box Tacklebox is watching her Netflixed copy of the Dead Like Me pilot. The show is lame in two ways: in its clumsy script (lazy expository narration by a teenage girl who uses the phrase "various and sundry" in a sarcastic mumble. Hack.), and in its casting of Mandy Patinkin, whose voice is now (retroactively) rendered insufferable by its inextricable linkage to Crestor.
But I have more inspid Netflix-related points to make. This weekend I was reminded of "End of the Century," the Ramones documentary we watched. It shows the band's rise and fall and their palpable aggravation at never breaking through to the big time.
Pretty good documentary, but it never tried to answer the question of why the band never made it. Why the Clash and the Pistols but not them?
I decided the answer for myself this weekend while listening to a bit of the enduring mediocrity that is Aerosmith. I was getting some work done on The Book while other folks were out, listening to one of those cable channels that is basically just a radio station on a black screen, when "Dude Looks Like a Lady" came on.
Let that song echo through an empty house, and it's pretty dang vulnerable. Dumber than Dead Like Me lyrics. Horribly dated production add-ons: horns, Steven Tyler's voiced cloned into into a five-man chorus and used as a background sound effect, and a lot of Axl-style screeching.
Strip the add-ons away, and you've basically got a Ramones song: repetitive driving chords, simplistic lyrics, plug ugly band. But Aerosmith was lacquering when the Ramones were stripping, and the former was smart enough to have pouty young Alicia Silverstone in their videos. (Who was never seduced by the thin ogre known Steven Tyler. The Ramones tried to let Joey give ladies the bedroom eyes.)
This concludes today's installment of most. Obvious. Rock n' roll argument. Ever.
