Recommendation

Meeting Max Merritt

I'd noticed him sitting at the end of the bar at the White Harte Pub in Woodland Hills every time I'd been there. He cracked me up for the first of many times when he dismissed Morrissey as a whiner over the radio's strains of "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now." "I was looking for a job and then I found a job?" he cracked. "That's the worst fuckin' lyric I've ever heard in my life!"

Later, another regular told me he was Max Merritt, a 2008 inductee to the Australian Rock 'N' Roll Hall of Fame and author of the classic '70s hit "Slippin' Away." I'd been sitting with rock royalty and didn't even know it.

It reminded me of a time years ago when I had struck up a conversation with an older gentleman wearing jeans and a cowboy hat outside of an AM/PM on the corner of Coldwater and Moorpark in Studio City. As some point he casually mentioned that he had played with Elvis back in the day. It turned out to be guitarist James Burton.

Anyway, check out this awesome clip of Max with his band the Meteors.

Worst Word Break Ever

Woody's Winning Women

We finally had a chance to watch “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” and it occurred to me that Oscar seems to favor the women who star in Woody Allen movies that include a woman’s name in the title. In fact, all four of the women who have won Academy Awards for saying Woody’s words did so in films which met this criteria: Diane Keaton for “Annie Hall” in 1977; Dianne Wiest for “Hannah and Her Sisters” in 1986; Mira Sorvino in “Mighty Aphrodite” in 1995; and now Penelope Cruz for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” in 2008. Dianne Wiest bucked the trend by picking up a second statuette under Woody’s wing in “Bullets Over Broadway,” but only after nabbing the first under terms. Unfortunately, there’s no way for a Nicole Kidman to know when she signs on for something like 2010’s typically Untitled Woody Allen London Project. And if the trend holds true, it only happens every nine to 13 years anyway.

44 Years of Stuff: Illustrated Mythology Cards

I love mythology and I love card decks, so it was a no-brainer to pick this up at an antique show in Ohio about 10 years ago for a cool 10 bucks. The Cincinnati Game Company was cranking out a lot of themed educational sets around the turn of the century. An ad card inside mentions almost two dozen others, including “Strange People,” “In Castle Land” (famous castles of the Old World), “The Mayflower” and “Yellowstone.”

Ada Lovelace Day

Since so much of the tech world is dominated by men, and I am raising a daughter with dreams of a future in which women can not only compete in male-dominated fields but eventually supplant them, I looked forward to participating in Ada Lovelace Day. Unfortunately, I quickly realized that in considering the day’s challenge--to write about a pioneering woman in technology--no names immediately sprang to mind.

The Ada Project changed that. Dedicated to providing information and resources related to women in computing, the site served up 17 names from the 19th-21st centuries. These included folks ranging from Ada herself, whose plan in the 1840s for a “calculating engine” that would work with Bernoulli numbers led to what is now regarded as the first computer program (she also anticipated a machine that would be used to produce graphics and compose music), to modern tech company CEOs like Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina.

I ended up choosing a woman whose surname happens to be similar to mine. Rósa Péter was born in 1905 and studied mathematics at Loránd Eötvös University in Budapest. After abandoning her initial interest in number theory when she discovered her early results had already been proven, Rósa ditched the field entirely to write poetry.

She re-entered the math fray in 1930 when a colleague suggested that she examine the work of Gödel, and later became a founder of recursive function theory. She wrote two books and over 50 papers on the subject, and continued to apply her theory to computers until she passed away in 1977, a year after the release of her seminal book, “Recursive Functions in Computer Theory.”

Péter is also noted for her dedication to making the public more aware of mathematics. She was especially concerned about the education of female students. It’s hard to say what such pioneers would think about our world of laptops, cell phones and iPods. But thanks to the solid mathematical foundations these things were built upon and a growing contingent of female mathematicians, my daughter will know and participate in a future that only visionaries like Péter dare to dream of.

Blowin' in the Wind: Bob Dylan's Outhouse Set List

From the Bizarre Habits of the Rich & Famous Department comes a tale of freewheelin' Bob Dylan stinking up the air around his posh Point Dume estates in Malibu. According to a story in today's L.A. Times, Mr. Zimmerman has refused neighbors' requests to take care of an odiferous outhouse that they say has been wafting the smell of waste their way for over six months. A city code enforcement officer looking into the matter was reportedly threatened with trespassing charges and turned away by Dylan's security staff.

Residents are doing what they can to repel the redolence, but the efforts of neighbors like David Emminger, who put five industrial-sized fans in his front yard to send the stench back to the singer/songwriter, are apparently no match for the ocean breeze. "It's a scandal." Emminger told the Times. "'Mr. Civil Rights' is killing our civil rights."

Malibu municipal officials are currently looking into the matter and can't comment during a pending investigation. In the meantime, here's a special Dylan sewage set list that says it all:

"Only a Hobo"
"If You Gotta Go, Go Now"
"Step it Up and Go"
"Nothing was Delivered"
"Open the Door, Homer"
"Blowin' in the Wind"
"Down Along the Cove"
"Rank Strangers to Me"
"Baby Stop Cryin'"
"Got My Mind Made Up"
"Ain't Talkin'"
"Outlaw Blues"

Tora Tora: Memphis Rocks Tonight

If I were to write my own metal magazine version of "Almost Famous," Tora Tora would figure large in the main act. They were one of the first "next generation" hard rock bands that I really liked, and when I was sent to Memphis to join them on the set of their first video in 1989 we quickly became friends. They were as excited to have a rock journalist who was into them as I was about being in on a local secret that I felt was going to be big.

Over the course of two trips to Memphis I got to visit the famous Ardent Studios, join the band for another shoot in one of the most run-down areas of Tennessee, sit with them on the banks of the Mississippi River, and try frog legs with them in a Hollywood, Mississippi restaurant that we drove through swampland to get to. To this day those experiences mark the best sense I have of what I consider the authentic South.

Tora Tora's first album "Surprise Attack" was a hit (it eventually went gold) and they left home for some extensive touring. We saw each other in Hollywood, California when they were in town, and when their second album "Wild America" came out in 1992. But a planned third album got lost in a corporate shuffle and as the guys neared their 30s they settled down with families and more conventional jobs.

I was happy as hell when I heard that the four of them had gotten together for Rocklahoma 2008, an annual five-day festival in Pryor, Oklahoma that draws about 30,000 fans a day. And when I found out that they were playing tonight at the New Daisy Theater, one of the old haunts of four old friends who decided it might be fun to hook up and rock again as old farts, I was seriously tempted to try to get myself out there somehow. Then the daddy and husband in me reminded me it wasn't quite realistic. But for those who do make it into the sold-out show, Memphis will be surely rocking tonight.

Reviving Sarah Silverman

So it's come to this. When news surfaced that Comedy Central was in a standoff against "The Sarah Silverman Program" because they wanted to cut the show's budget by over 20%, it gave me a better idea of how dire things are. Budget cuts have already resulted in one friend of mine getting a pay decrease and another having his Blackberry taken away. But trying to cut back on one of your most successful shows in an industry where hot sitcoms are perennially rewarded with increased budgets is telling, as is the fact that Comedy Central had to go to gay-oriented sister cable net Logo for co-financing.

Granted, everything is relative; the $1.1 million the show spends per episode is still more than most independent feature films. And you could almost hear Sarah Silverman in character as she played it humble after the deal was announced. "All we ever wanted was just to make our show," she told THR. "Nothing fancy--just our show."

(Photo: Joan Garvin)

44 Years of Stuff: "Life of Brian" Bumper Sticker

It was Friday, August 17, 1979, and one of the movie theaters in Westwood had thrown down the gauntlet; the first 100 people who came to see the first showing of "Monty Python's Life of Brian" on its opening day would receive a free T-shirt and bumper sticker. Heck, that alone was worth more than the inflated $5 we had to pay to go see a movie "over the hill."

A friend of mine and I were not about to let the fact that we were still a year away from driving age deter us from such a prize. So we got on our bicycles in the Valley and pedaled almost nine miles over Benedict Canyon in the hot August summer. I remember what a great relief it was to coast down the other side on the way to Westwood, and how some stiffness had already set into my muscles when the movie ended and we had to go back. I can't believe we took our bikes through such a dangerous pass, especially now that I know how aggressive things can get trying to drive a car through there as an adult. But I got my sticker, and the accompanying cheap tan T-shirt with a black-and-white "Life of Brian" poster shot ironed on to the front. I'm sure that's around here somewhere, too.

Stalking Kristen Schaal

I have to admit that I’ve kind of been on the fence about the sophomore season of “Flight of the Conchords,” in part because founders Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie seem to be taking quite a back seat to guest vocals by the rest of the cast this year.

But that changed in an instant when my 20-month-old daughter became enthralled with the song “Like in My Dreams” by Mel, the cute ’n’ creepy stalker on the show played by Kristen Schaal. We’ve watched it over 50 times in the last four days, sometimes five to 10 times in a row, and I’m still finding something new to laugh at every time. Its loopy surrealism has provided a welcome respite from our usual menu of Wiggles and “Peep.”

Schaal herself has a lot more funny going on. She was recently in “Mad Men” and “Ugly Betty,” graced “The Daily Show” as a contributing correspondent in 2008, and will appear on the big screen as Gertha Teeth in “Cirque du Freak” with Salma Hayek, John C. Reilly and Willem Dafoe later this year. She also has a great MySpace page where she harbors original videos (check out “Angry Erotic Sheep in the Woods” and the ongoing “Penelope Princess of Pets”) along with over 20,000 friends.

I wrote the actress on a whim to tell her how much my little girl was enjoying her FOTC song and was surprised and delighted to receive a personal response that included another recommendation. “That's really sweet,” she said. “If she gets bored of it I hear the kids are into this clip as well.”

The clip she sent was of a song by The Striking Viking Story Pirates called “Abbey is Sile” (sic) and features Schaal as a hyperactive six-year-old. I know my little girl is going to love it, but I’m keeping it in my back pocket until I need an ace. In the meantime, I hope Schaal’s star shines so brightly that we all need to wear protective goggles.

Roger McGuinn: Fanfare for the Creative Commons Man

It took the Byrds to make me realize there was more to 1960s rock than the Beatles, and their folk roots have continued to inform countless bands with each generation of new musicians. So I was happily surprised to learn that former lead Byrd Roger McGuinn, whom I was lucky enough to interview with the release of his vastly underrated (and only) solo album "Back to Rio" in 1991, has been keeping busy recording an ongoing selection of old folk songs now in the public domain and offering them up as free MP3s on his website McGuinn’s Folk Den every month since November of 1995. McGuinn also has a great 4-CD, 100-song box set of his favorites available, but the freebies have a wonderful lo-fi quality about them that harkens the era in which many of them were first recorded, like some previously undiscovered nuggets that fell out of Alan Lomax’s knapsack. This month's Great Depression-era offering of "Nobody Knows You" seems a particularly poignant mix of the timeless and the timely.

Other picks:
"Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad"
"Greensleeves"
"Wild Mountain Thyme"

44 Years of Stuff: "Lancelot Link" View-Master Reels

Kicking off some entries on random things I've accumulated over the last 44 years, this is an original set of "Lancelot Link Secret Chimp" View-Master reels. Under the aegis of Commander Darwin, Lance and the agents of APE (Agency to Prevent Evil) battled the evil-doers of CHUMP (Criminal Headquarters for an Underworld Master Plan) from 1970 to 1972 from a building that looked suspiciously like the Cinerama Dome from the outside. Along the way they also rocked out as The Evolution Revolution (shades of the Guess Who!), which quickly followed the Banana Splits as my first exposure to rock music or psychedelia of any kind.

Though I was too young to know what the "secret code" on the front of the View-Master cover could be when I was six, as a pre-teen Cub Scout I finally realized it was Morse Code and solved it as follows: "Lancelot Link Secret Chimp makes you an APE agent."

Rabbit Hole Day

Mr. Starkey reached into the pocket of his grayish 1968 bell-bottoms with the red and yellow stripes and grimaced.

"I've got a rabbit hole in me pocket!"

"Sod off," the Walrus retorted. "Carroll's mine. Yellow matter Cheshire Hatter. Goo goo goo joob."

"What about the space between us all?" cried the Dark Horse. "And what is Wonderland without a Wonderwall?"

"Tweedledum, Ob-la-di, Tweedledee, Ob-la-da," Macca proclaimed triumphantly. "Elsie, Lacie, Tillie, Vera, Chuck and Dave!"

Happy Rabbit Hole Day.

Union Station, Los Angeles

From the archives, taken in 1984 or so. I used to love to sit in one of those wood chairs and breathe and think and watch people coming and going. Union Station has appeared in many movies, including "Blade Runner" and 1950's "Union Station," which was set in Chicago but shot interiors in L.A.

Winnetka, Land of Mystery

A friend of mine has become obsessed with Winnetka, the name of a main street and town in our corner of the county, since he heard it was a Native American word meaning “beautiful land” and after it became the freeway exit to his home. Since the same freeway used to be a passageway for the Chumash Indians, he also wondered if “winnetka” might be Chumash. Being a fan of place names and etymology myself, I thought it would be fun to look into it.

It turns out Winnetka’s origins aren’t local at all, but rather in Illinois, where the town of Winnetka was incorporated in 1869. Beyond that there doesn’t seem to be any solid consensus on anything. The Winnetka Historical Society attributes the word to a Native American phrase meaning “beautiful land” that town founder Charles Peck’s wife Sarah supposedly read in a book, adding that “the source of this phrase has never been discovered.”

A dubious Wikipedia entry citing the WHS posits that “no language has been found with a word anything resembling both Winnetka and the definition.” The Village of Winnetka website states as fact that it’s a Native American word meaning “beautiful land.” The Encyclopedia Brittanica entry hedges, saying the word is “thought” to be derived from a Native American dialect.

Only the L.A. Times cites an actual tribe, claiming in a 1998 town profile that Winnetka is a Potawatomi word for “beautiful place,” an idea also put forth (and possibly derived from) an entry on MSN’s Encarta that says “probably.” (And yes, that’s the same Potawatomi Indians immortalized in the Tigers of Instantaneous Death song “Dowagiac.”)

That’s plausible, since the Potawatomi were known to live in Illinois (Winnetka is 10 miles away from the Potawatomi Woods). They could also be found in Kansas, and the Kansas Heritage Group’s helpful Potawatomi Dictionary translates “beauty” and “earth” (the closest thing I could find to “beautiful land”) as “we’onuk kik.” We’onuk-kik. Winnetka. Hmmm.

Then there’s UCLA Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Anthropology William Bright, who states rather professorially in his book “Native American Placenames of the United States”: “The name is apparently an artificial coinage from elements in various Algonquian languages, including SNEng [sic]. Algonquian ‘beautiful’ (Vogel 1963). The placename also occurs in Calif. (Los Angeles, CA) and Minnesota (Hennepin Co.).”

So which is it? Potawatomi? Multiple Algonquian? Sarah Peck’s pidgin Indian? Unsourceable? Beautiful land? Magnificent feast? More importantly, how can so many different takes on the origin of one word co-exist in an authoritative context? It seems that not only is the erosion of truth inevitable but insurmountable.

UPDATE: Thanks to an anonymous reader for the following additional info:

Wenet- means it is good looking. Ka could come from ke- earth or sometimes pronounced ki-
ki with a k means at on or near a location. It is called locative.

In Potawatomi there is an animate or living word and inanimate non living word for most things. So Wenet- is is inanimate while wenze- he/she is beautiful.

Wenek- is a different form of the same word.

Leo, Sagittarius, Capricorn and Mills Ltd.

From the archives, an unpublished photo of R.E.M. at a record signing taken in 1985. "Fables" was out and Wendell Gee was reared to give respect so I went and waited. I had recently tapped into Mel Torme because Stipe had mentioned him in an article. I also had a live bootleg tape my friend Craig had given me of an Atlanta show where the band had played “California Dreamin'.” So when I got to Stipe, I asked him if he was taking requests for the show that night and suggested “California Dreamin',” to which he replied, “That’d be kind of obvious, wouldn’t it?” Ouch. Not wanting to be left crestfallen in front of one of my musical heroes, I came back with a quick rejoinder: “Okay, how about some Mel Torme?” And he says, “Who’s Mel Torme?” Double ouch! (It was many years later before I was finally able to delve into the cue of his Ignatz tattoo and allow myself to fully enjoy the work of George Herriman.) On the plus side, he signed my "Murmur" and "Fables" posters, and on the bottom of the latter he marked up the IRS label mascot and wrote “G-Men Alive,” a scrawl I thought was so cool that for many years afterwards I wanted to use it for a band name.

And yes, I did look up birthdates and astrological signs to come up accurate in the Monkees album takeoff of today’s title, and providence provided quite a match.

Rotten Terrible McNasty's

When I was growing up in the Valley there was a gas station off the freeway called Terrible Herbst. This was a source of great amusement for me as a teen, the idea that any company would call themselves terrible anything, and I avoided the place just for the sheer stupidity of it.

A few years later during a trip to Northern California I came across another gas station called Rotten Robbie. Again I had to wonder, not only about the logic of having the word rotten associated with your product, but why both of these aberations were in the business of selling fuel. Were there any other badly-named companies I didn’t know about?

It turns out Terrible Herbst still exists and now operates gas stations in California, Nevada and Arizona, as well as Terrible’s Casinos, all seeded from a station in Chicago in 1938 and named after founder Ed Herbst. (They even have a racing division called Terrible Motorsports. Would you want to drive for Terrible Motorsports?) Wikipedia doesn’t say where the bad side of Ed came from, but the website for Rotten Robbie says one of the owners was named Robinson and they thought rotten was “catchy.”

There was also a bar in the Valley named Filthy McNasty’s ( and apparently are others today as far-flung as Fort Worth, Texas and Aberdeen, UK), but that somehow seemed more appropriate, if not kind of odd to a kid. Then there’s those reality missed:

Diabolical Dalrymple
Putrid Pete Petrol
Shady Smith’s Sunoco
Horrible Hank
Awful Andy’s

The possibilities are endless, but my dedication to the riff isn’t. I tried to look for other bad names but mostly found pages dedicated to names that were either unfortunate or just plain stupid, rather than ones intentionally named with negative connotations. Are there more like this, and is the trend limited to gas stations and bars?

Ten 2008 Winter Movie Reviews

“Bedtime Stories”: Adam Sandler, CGI, and so many
crazy effects you won’t even notice the plot holes.
“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”: Everything
old is young again—even F. Scott Fitzgerald stories.
“The Day the Earth Stood Still”: Calling occupants
of interplanetary craft. Klaatu, right?
“Four Christmases”: Sly holiday family
dysfunction? Eh. Steenburgen as cougar? Pass.
“Frost/Nixon”: Sock it to me, Opie!
“Gran Torino”: A racist Clint Eastwood meets the
Tao of Asia over a 1972 muscle car? Okie-dokie.
“Last Chance Harvey”: Didn’t Dustin Hoffman
already play Willy Loman?
“Marley & Me”: Overrated cute dog book now latest
notch in Jennifer Aniston’s lukewarm features belt.
“Seven Pounds”: At current exchange rates, that’s
$10.26 I’ll save not seeing this.
“Valkyrie”: For those who just couldn’t wait until
Valentine’s Day to see Tom Cruise try to kill Hitler.

Van Nuys Drive-In

From the archives, taken in 1983. The movie is "Vacation." The drive-in was demolished in the late 1990s.