May 22, 2011 · 9:50 pm

Apocalypse Wow: The Gospel According To The Holy Bee

“Well, I guess hard times flush the chumps. Everybody’s lookin’ for answers…”

–Ulysses Everett McGill, O Brother, Where Art Thou?

As our friend Col. Hans Landa would say, “That’s a bingo!” I got my card early, found about fifteen of this guy’s followers to monitor on Facebook over the weekend, observed their varying reactions, and marked off the excuses as they came up. (Actually, the most common one used by a factor of about 1000 was the “convoluted explanation” one, second down from top left, but it wasn’t in a neat row like the rest.)

Religion as a topic of study will never cease to fascinate me, as the very title of my entire blog suggests. Within arm’s reach of my computer at all times, along with my complete works of Shakespeare, is my King James Revised Bible (and my New Oxford Annotated Bible, and my biblical atlas and concordance.) Since the Holy Bee was in short pants, he’s always said if you want to truly understand the history, breadth, and beautiful capabilities of the English language, you should have a familiarity with the speeches of Churchill, the plays of Shakespeare, and the KJV Bible. (Students of the English language’s close American cousin would do well to know his or her Lincoln and Twain.)

Fascinated as I am by its history and sociological impact, for as long as I can remember, actually adhering to a religion has been anathema to me. I have always found it oppressive, creepy, cloying, and ultimately empty. I have no questions about my purpose or existence. I don’t need any outside set of doctrines to give me a code of ethics or morality. (And as far as my moral lapses — of which there are many — as long as they are confined to victimless pettiness like snickering at the fundamentalist rubes on Facebook without their knowledge, who the hell cares?) Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Current Events, History

Tagged as , , ,

April 13, 2011 · 11:45 pm

This Used To Be My Playground, Part 16: A Fantastic Voyage With Cousin Bob (Loser Chronicles, Vol. II)

“I have thought of fifteen hundred or two thousand incidents in my life which I am ashamed of, but have not gotten one of them to consent to go on paper yet. I think that that stock will still be complete and unimpaired when I finish these memoirs, if I ever finish them.” – Mark Twain.

It was one of those rare three-cigar afternoons of the early spring, and I sat mulling over my Great 90’s Playlist. It dawned on me that I seem to spend as much time thinking/writing about “This Used To Be My Playground” as I do crafting the content itself…

#127. “Selling The Drama” – Live

Every once in awhile, I am confronted with the question what it is, exactly, I’m trying to do with this particular blog series. It has taken an unplanned drift from pop-culture commentary to almost pure autobiography, and the songs that are ostensibly under review have an increasingly tenuous connection to the life events I’m writing about. If all of these musings and reminiscences were scribbled down in a personal journal, the question of purpose wouldn’t be raised. But I’m throwing all of this out there in a public forum, and for some time I didn’t have a satisfactory answer to my own question of “why.” What is the point of an autobiography of a non-noteworthy person? I am the opposite of the guy in the Dos Equis commercial…

…He has two kids…he drives a ten-year-old Corolla…he teaches middle school and watches Top Chef…he is…The Most Boring Man in the World. “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do…I prefer…whatever’s on sale. Stay thirsty, my friends.” Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Music -- 1990s, This Used To Be My Playground

March 31, 2011 · 9:19 pm

Tales From The Apple Box, #1: Voodoo Lounge

Alternate title: Unjustly Forgotten Albums.

In compiling the creepily self-indulgent and onanistic blog series known as “This Used To Be My Playground” (Alternate title suggested by the ex-wife: “How Dare They Not Like Me”), I have been listening to a lot of old favorites from the one decade that seems doomed to inspire almost no nostalgia at all. According to the annoyingly still-prevalent Baby Boomers, the 60’s were the pinnacle of Western Civilization (can we unplug their feeding tubes, soon, please?), the 70’s garner a certain shameful, shaggy-dog affection for their hideous aesthetics in all things, the 80’s are now the super-cool decade for the new generation too young to really remember them, but the 90’s are passed over with a few grunge-flannel-Monica Lewinsky references. Maybe not enough time has passed for true nostalgia to really set in, but since VH1 has already trotted out their “I Love the 90’s” series a couple of years ago, it seems they’re fair game for a little “remember when” encapsulation.

Music buying has come full circle since the 1950’s and early 60’s. Once again, thanks to iTunes, “singles” are the dominant format. Only instead of a flat ring of vinyl that spun at 45 revolutions per minute on a record player, we have audio files that can be downloaded at a buck or two a pop. Budget-friendly and hook-heavy, the single was – and now is again – the go-to. But for at least two generations, beginning in the mid-60’s, the album was primary format of music consumption. Which places the 1990’s in the final quarter or so of the “Album Era.”

Some albums are immortal. The Beatles’ Revolver. Led Zeppelin’s IV. Michael Jackson’s Thriller. U2’s The Joshua Tree. And they’re immortal as albums — that is, entire collections of songs, even if certain individual songs from the albums may not be up to scratch (anyone waxing rhapsodic over Thriller’s “The Lady in My Life” or Joshua Tree’s “Trip Through Your Wires”? Didn’t think so.) But as recently as ten or twelve years ago, the album was still the thing, and if you were interested in an artist, by God, you bought their album. Vinyl was (temporarily) dead, so singles existed in the form of “cassingles,” which were for twelve-year-old girls with lots of jelly bracelets, or “CD-singles” which were for no one. If a song or an artist interested you enough to want to own it, you tended to go with full commitment – shelling out fifteen bucks for a dozen or more songs. (Usually more than a dozen. Albums got longer in the CD era. Value for dollar aside, this was not always a good artistic decision.) Continue reading →

2 Comments

Filed under Music -- 1990s, Tales From The Apple Box

March 22, 2011 · 11:09 pm

This Used To Be My Playground, Part 15: Parker Lewis CAN Lose or, The Perils Of Clinging To Adolescence

“Alternative” music had become mainstream. What was the alternative to the alternative? Acts that were far more edgy than those that the record labels had decided were “alternative” began emerging into earshot around this time. The loopy, acid-fried Flaming Lips were not yet the untouchable critical darlings they would become in the next decade, but were rather a minor annoyance with this deliberately abrasive ditty that garnered them one-hit-wonder status in the MTV Buzz Bin. And there are those that will tell you they bought Pavement’s landmark Slanted and Enchanted the day it came out, but don’t believe them. About 50 people bought Slanted and Enchanted the day it came out, and you’re not one, I’m not one, and neither of us know any of them. I first heard Pavement the same way a lot of people first heard Pavement — observing their video for this song get shit on by Beavis and Butthead.

So…

Adolescence – even the late adolescence to which I was clinging at 19 – imparts a certain degree of emotional masochism. Sometimes it feels so good to feel bad, to paraphrase John Hughes (again). But in the early spring of 1994, I had very little to feel bad about. Hindsight tells me I must have had some subconscious inkling of a train wreck ahead. I created, and spent a lot of time listening to, a bizarre mix tape: An unholy mélange consisting of key tracks from Derek and the Dominoes’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, Pink Floyd’s The Wall – and, uh, “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
 Continue reading →

3 Comments

Filed under Music -- 1990s, This Used To Be My Playground

February 28, 2011 · 10:32 pm

The Holy Bee Recommends, #6: "Marry him, murder him, do what you like with him."*

I freely confess that I am a library junkie. I realize that this puts me in a category with lonely spinsters and elderly men who can only read a newspaper if it’s threaded through a wooden baton, but it got its claws into me early.

1985? 1986? I know I was barely into the double digits in age when I forsook the beanbag chairs and Betsy Byars books in the children’s section in the basement of the old Woodland Public Library for the adult section upstairs, with its musty-smelling stacks and high-arched windows. And the fireplace! On cold winter days, there was always a blazing fire in the periodicals section (in the fireplace, not actually amongst the periodicals, which would have been quite alarming), and those high-arched, iron-banded windows seemed made to have rain spattered against them. It always seemed to be raining on days I visited the library. Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Books, Film & TV, The Holy Bee Recommends

February 24, 2011 · 10:29 pm

Top 20 Albums of 2010: #9-1


Well, this is thoroughly shameful. Every website, every major music magazine, even the goddamn Grammys, have already weighed in on the best of 2010. My excuse for not posting the second half of my best-of in a timely manner is pretty much unacceptable: the demands of a day job, plus too many good books to read and shows to watch in the hours off from the day job. And a lot of single-parent crap (despite my fervent wishes, enormous slag-heaps of laundry do not do themselves). Some of the material you will be reading below was composed months ago for the the official Institute of Idle Time website, some was composed over the last few hours in a hazy, sweaty white heat fueled by vodka, over-the-counter Benadryl, and desperation.

The Walkmen’s recordings are sparse — simple but effective tick-tack drumming, flashes of almost flamenco-style electric guitar strumming, and Hamilton Leithauser’s straining rasp — but they weave a melancholy spell that stays with the listener long after the last sad song has faded. The Walkmen have attempted to flesh out their sound a bit before (2006’s A Hundred Miles Off owes more than a little to the cluttered, rustic sound of the Basement Tapes-era Dylan*), and although their stock-in-trade is wistful meditations on loss and regret, they certainly do have a sense of humor (witness their track-by-track re-recording of Harry Nilsson’s 1974 cult classic Pussy Cats), but here they play to the more subtle strengths that have carried them since their 2002 debut.

#8. Dr. Dog – Shame, Shame
Philadelphia’s Dr. Dog has been a band I’ve been listening to for quite some time, just waiting for them to do something great. The potential was always there, but they seemed content to work within a certain template, where their classic rock influences (usually the Band, late-period Beach Boys, and the Beatles) were paid respectful homage, and they ended up chasing their tails. Now, their training wheels are off, and they’ve broken through with an original sound, and their influences — great as they are — are finally where they should be: buried deep, seeping into their material like an unseen, underground spring feeds a river. Shame, Shame is a fast-paced, jittery album for the most part, percussion and rag-time piano in the forefront, with a clarity of purpose and unity of theme that previous albums lacked. Even if the material was weak, Dr. Dog could always rely on its secret weapon to put a song over — gorgeous, harmonized backing vocals — and that trait is out in force and better than ever on Shame, Shame.

#7. LCD Soundsystem – This Is Happening Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Music -- 2000s

January 29, 2011 · 6:56 pm

Top 20 Albums of 2010: #20-10

#20. Old 97’s – The Grand Theatre, Vol. 1
The Old 97’s continue their winning streak, even they did just squeak in at #20 (beating out all theHonorable Mentions, many of whom could realistically occupy this space.) This powerhouse country-rock quartet once again makes its traditional appearance on the Holy Bee’s Best Of list. The Old 97’s are my musical comfort food, and while they may never again reach the heights of Too Far To Care or Satellite Rides, their charisma and eminently agreeable blend of rollicking Tex-Mex and bubblegum power pop is something I can listen to at any time in any mood. Old 97’s are the old standbys. Bless ‘em.

#19. The Constellations – Southern Gothic
This mixed-gender collective presents a travelogue through the sometimes seedy nightlife of their native Atlanta. Harnessing a jam-band mentality to a hip-hop framework, the best Constellations songs are so insanely catchy that they border on commercial jingles (“We’re Here To Save The Day,” “Felicia”), and even their worst make you admire their moxie (a nine-minute cover of Tom Waits’ “Step Right Up”? Really?). A word of warning: visually, they’re a nightmare, encapsulating everything hateful about insufferably smug “quirky” hipsters. (Avoid pictures of them. They will make you stabby. OK, click here at the risk of ruining your enjoyment of their music.) Continue reading →

1 Comment

Filed under Music -- 2000s

January 16, 2011 · 8:38 pm

Trumped Again!

So once again, as happened back in October, an issue or concept first raised here in the hallowed halls of the Holy Bee of Ephesus blog has been upstaged by a website with a much wider audience.

Compare this, from November 2010:

http://holybeeofephesus.instituteofidletime.com/2010/11/this-used-to-be-my-playground-part-16.html

With this, datelined January 14, 2011:

http://popwatch.ew.com/2011/01/14/winona-ryder-reality-bites-popwatch-rewind/

And once again, the salt on the wound is that theirs is written much better than mine.

Goddammitsomuch.

Leave a comment

Filed under Random Nonsense

January 8, 2011 · 10:55 am

Books of the Holy Bee, 2010

Here’s ten books of recent vintage (2009-2010) that the Holy Bee found especially entertaining and/or informative this past year…


BOOK OF THE YEAR for 2010:

Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow

Unlike the last noteworthy Washington bio, Joseph J. Ellis‘ brief 2004 His Excellency, Chernow’s work is not a cover-the-basics summary for the casual reader. (Not a criticism. That was the book’s purpose.) Chernow delves into amazingly rich detail, while never losing his grip on the forward momentum of the narrative flow. Interested in Washington’s famous dentures? Chernow provides lengthy paragraphs on not only the materials used in their construction (not wood, you simpletons), but how they affected Washington’s appearance and interactions, and deep background on his relationship with his dentists. (Washington was very ashamed of his dental deficiencies, and the letters to his dentists are in kind of a code language, to spare him embarrassment if his correspondence was ever made public.)

Chernow also sheds light on the difficult relationship between Washington and his battle-axe mother (who lived to see him become president, not that she seemed to care — she was more interested in hitting him up for money.) His somewhat lazy, shiftless step-son also caused him much worry, although it seems doubtful that any offspring could live up to his exacting standards. He never had biological children of his own. His marriage to rich widow Martha Custis, though a happy one, was made as more of a business arrangement, which was the custom of the time among 18th century landowners. Washington admitted privately to a friend that there wasn’t a lot of “fire between the sheets” (I’m paraphrasing, but not by much), but straying beyond his marriage would be unthinkable for someone of Washington’s level of self-control and sense of honor. Chernow believes there’s simply not enough evidence to confirm or refute the commonly held belief in G.W.’s infertility. A similar lack of evidence prevents Chernow from making any conclusions on Washington’s much-ballyhooed (in previous bios) youthful dalliance with his married neighbor Sally Fairfax — it seems the relationship was affectionate but chaste. [Anyone remember the ’84 CBS mini-series with Barry Bostwick as G.W.? In an otherwise even-handed telling of Washington’s life, former Charlie’s Angel Jaclyn Smith (!) stuck out like a sore thumb, portraying Sally Fairfax as a panting, sex-starved seductress.] Whatever level on which his feminine relationships existed, Washington always preferred the company of women, where he felt he could be truly relaxed and less scrutinized.

Continue reading →

Leave a comment

Filed under Books

December 31, 2010 · 4:36 pm

The Recipe For A Perfect New Year’s Eve



The Holy Bee has never been a fan of New Year’s Eve parties. You usually end up at one where you don’t really know anyone (it’s your wife’s or girlfriend’s friends more often than not, and they’re sort of assholes), and everyone is being extra loud, and the music is almost always shitty.

Unencumbered by any of that, I will be consuming a Papa John’s Take-n-Bake, catching up on some sorely neglected movie-watching, and drinking three of those Blue Moons, plus an old-fashioned or two, and going to bed at 11:30, so I don’t have to watch the shriveled-up, stroked-out corpse of Dick Clark slur the countdown through his yellow teeth as Ryan Seacrest manipulates his emaciated limbs Muppet-style to create an illusion of life-like movement. Then I’ll be up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on January 1st, ready for some bowl games and the remainder of the Blue Moons.

I’ve met my goal of 26 posts in 2010 for this blog, and expect more vital info, larfs, fiercely-held and poorly-defended opinions, and shameful self-revelations in 2011. This Used To Be My Playground rolls on (and on and on), the Top 20 Albums of 2010 will be revealed in January, Books of the Holy Bee for 2010 is coming soon, there are some new multi-part series in the works, and if you’re interested in the music/pop culture collective I’ve misspent hundreds of man hours on since 2002, the Institute of Idle Time has a new website. Check it out at:

http://instituteofidletime.wordpress.com/

Leave a comment, shake a (virutal) hand, even contribute if you like. My big contribution thus far has been re-running This Used To Be My Playground — now with minor (and I do mean minor) revisions and repaired You Tube links!

Happy New Year to all.

3 Comments

Filed under Life & Other Distractions