Fringe

This is the Fox TV show which ended its fifth and final season last fall (2012).   It concerns an obscure FBI section, the Fringe Division, which investigates and solves crimes which would otherwise baffle ordinary criminal investigators:  because they’re so damn weird.

The primary character is Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv).  She’s assisted by a “mad scientist” – literally mad, they have to get him out of an insane asylum to begin with – Walter Bishop (John Noble, aka “Denethor” from the Lord of the Rings movies).  Walter’s son Peter (Joshua Jackson – no, I’ve never seen “Dawson’s Creek”) also helps out.   Peter had a colorful criminal history, but his main positive quality is being able to temper Walter’s more quixotic tendencies.  Agent Astrid Farnsworth (Jasika Nicole) assists Walter in the laboratory.  Agent Broyles (Lance Riddick – also in “The Wire”) acts as the team’s FBI supervisor.   Other FBI agents include John Scott (Mark Valley – Brad Chase from “Boston Legal”), Dunham’s initial love interest, and Charlie Francis (Kirk Acevedo). 

The show takes place mainly in Boston, Massachusetts, with the lab being at Harvard, but it skips around a lot.   In particular, they have to go to NYC every now and then to meet up with Nina Sharp (Blair Brown), who works at a mysterious company, Massive Dynamic.  MD was set up by Walter’s former partner William Bell (Leonard Nimoy).   Initially missing, “Belly” (as Walter calls him) eventually shows up and becomes a major character.  

The first season establishes the standard plot: someone, or a group, dies mysteriously, usually in some particularly gruesome fashion.  The Fringe Team is called to the scene, the bodies taken to their lab at Harvard, and Walter gets working with help from Astrid.   After a few more bodies turn up, Walter sees a pattern and solves the mystery.  Decomposing bodies don’t blunt his appetite.  He also enjoys the sensory deprivation tank (as seen in “Altered States”) and takes his own homemade (labmade) LSD.  Compared to Walter White, Walter Bishop is much stranger and less violent, but also considerably more versatile as a scientist and not just a really good meth cook with a really bad attitude.   Heisenberg is better matched against Walternate.  

But there’s a larger “pattern” involved, and Nina Sharp, coordinated through Agent Broyles, sometimes has some hints and clues, but always seems to be holding back.   Eventually things start get even stranger.   A group of bald men, the Observers (why are there no female Observers?  Are they gay?  They're always well dressed), play an increasing role in events.   Peter may be not what he seems.   And there could be other dimensions.  

The most obvious comparison is with “The X Files”, but what I never liked about that show was whatever weirdness encountered was ultimately due to ….UFOs and aliens.   Here the strangeness is less mundane than Ewoks and Roger.  It’s…more weird, and that’s why I like it.

DC to NYC and Back

I don’t want to get into a major comparison of Washington, DC vs. New York City, except to say that as of 2013, the Federal government’s massive role in our country has made DC just about as important as NYC, a state of affairs which definitely did not exist before World War II.  And when you consider the cities, you also have to consider the surrounding metropolitan areas.  For DC that’s Montgomery and Prince George’s County, Maryland, plus Arlington, Alexandria and Fairfax County, Virginia – possibly Loudoun, Prince William and Fauquier as well.  For NYC that includes Long Island, Staten Island, and northern New Jersey.  We could think of southern Jersey as a big suburb of Philadelphia. 

So the DC-NY corridor winds up heavily travelled – by myself included.  My first trip up was in March 1991 to visit my friend Dave, who lives out on Long Island.  From then until a few years ago I took several trips to New Jersey to visit my friend Ken, who progressively moved from Bloomfield, to Ford, and then to Hillsborough, and to this day still lives in NJ.  Since June 2009 I’ve been back and forth to Fort Lee, which is on the NJ side of the George Washington Bridge, a part of NJ which is northwest of Manhattan. 

Plane.  Of course you can fly – if you want.  There is a shuttle, and the standard flight takes 30 minutes.  DC is served by three airports:  DCA (Reagan National), IAD (Dulles), and BWI (Baltimore-Washington), while NYC also has three:  JFK, La Guardia, and Newark.  The problem with flying between the two cities is that the logistics of getting to and from the airport mean it will take longer to do so than the flight itself.  I’ve never flown, just to fly between those two cities, although on home leaves we’ve flown from Paris to DC by way of JFK.  If the train is impractical, the plane is even worse.

Train.  DC is served by Union Station, a huge edifice near where 1^st Street, NW, and Massachusetts Ave. converge.  Like many European stations, it began in 1907 as yet another palace of transportation.  When rail travel began to decline after the national highway system gave Americans their own Autobahn, Union Station likewise fell into decline.  Its renovation has been fitful and controversial.  I rarely travel by train, so every time I’d go there the place would be set up completely differently inside. 

On the New York end, Penn Station is now buried deep under Madison Square Garden.  It was built in 1910 and was originally above-ground, just as spacious and magnificent as the other major rail stations.  In 1968 all the above-ground sections were demolished, replaced by the Madison Square Garden skyscraper complexes above, and became completely underground.  My guess is that most modern depictions of a fabulous, Art Nouveau era train station in Manhattan are actually showing Grand Central Station, which is completely different.  Whereas Penn Station is on 8^th Avenue at 33^rd Street, Grand Central is at 42^nd Street and Lexington Ave.  I’ve seen one concert at MSG – AC/DC, during the summer of 1988.  Although we did in fact use Penn Station for train travel to NYC – the only time we’ve done so – it was not in conjunction with that concert, which simply took place during our time in the city.

As for the logistics of it, the train is as rigidly bound by schedules as the bus, but much more expensive, and thus impractical.  That’s why I never take the train to NYC.

Bus.  DC’s bus terminal used to be the Greyhound Station located a few blocks north of Union Station, which only recently moved to Union Station itself.  The bus terminal was a very small, square building and only served the Greyhound intercity bus system.  Today’s “Chinatown” buses stop elsewhere.   I won’t call Union Station a backwater, but it’s really only busy because of itself.

In NYC, the Port Authority Bus Terminal dates from 1950.  I recall going through there as a kid whenever our family went to NYC by bus, or went through NYC on the way up to Glens Falls to visit our relatives in upstate New York.  The PABT also handles considerable local bus traffic, including the 158 bus to Fort Lee.  It’s a huge, multilevel building which occupies the equivalent of 4 city blocks, on 8^th Avenue at 42^nd Street.  Walk out of the building and you’re on the famous part of 42^nd Street leading directly to Times Square.  Very convenient!  There’s also a bronze statue of Ralph Kramden, the famous bus driver (Jackie Gleason) from “The Honeymooners” right in front, and the New York Times building is across the street. 

Nominally the bus takes as long as driving yourself:  4 hours (add more time due to traffic, as necessary).  In my case, it’s more like 7 hours: getting home from work, getting a ride to the bus stop, and at the NYC end walking to the bus terminal and then getting the 158 bus to Fort Lee.  The price paid for dozing off on a bus and not paying gas or tolls is that the logistics eat up 2-3 hours as well:  plus you have to leave according to a schedule instead of whenever you want.  Nowadays Greyhound has competition from various other small private companies who simply run DC-NY routes, in particular TripperBus (the one I use), but there are others, such as the Bolt Bus and Megabus.

The buses are much cheaper than the train, let you relax instead of driving, and take care of the tolls and gas as well.  They sometimes – not always – stop at the rest stops in northeast Maryland, a big new facility in Delaware, or the smaller ones on the New Jersey Turnpike. 

Car.  If you can’t predict when you’ll come or go, or don’t want to be fixed to a bus schedule and are inclined to drive  yourself, you can do so. In addition to the gas you’ve got tolls.  Lots of them, and as of 2013 they really add up.  Fortunately EZPass makes it more convenient, but the cost remains basically the same.

Let’s start with the baseline.  This is the simplest, most direct route which most people will probably take (and the bus takes it).   For simplicity I’ll just go northbound but note toll differences.

1.         95 or 295 (BW Parkway) from DC to Baltimore.  No toll.  This is the first hour out of 4.  To the extent there is any nasty traffic which would make the trip last 4.5, 5, or 6 hours, it’s probably here.  In 2006 it once took me 3 hours to get from Falls Church to Baltimore, and earlier the DC Beltway traffic was so horrendous, it took me two hours to get from Rosslyn just to the exit for 95 North from the DC Beltway, over near College Park. 

2.         Fort McHenry Tunnel or Baltimore Harbor Tunnel (by way of the 895 Bypass):  $4.00 each way.

3.         JFK Memorial Highway, i.e. 95 from Baltimore to Delaware.  $8.00 northbound only.  This is the second hour out of 4 – so crossing into NJ means you’re halfway there.

4.         Delaware Turnpike (95) from MD to the Delaware Memorial Bridge.  $4.00 each way.

5.         Delaware Memorial Bridge (DMB) from DE to NJ.  $4.00 southbound only.

6.         New Jersey Turnpike from DMB to Exit 18, the very end, at the George Washington Bridge.  Note: the Lincoln Tunnel is Exit 16 and puts you downtown most likely where you want to be.  The full turnpike toll is $13.85 both ways.   The halfway point on this part of the trip is Exit 7A.

NJTP charges a different rate for peak vs. off-peak: the full toll in off-peak is $10.40.  Peak is defined as 7-9 a.m. and 4:30–6:30 p.m. M-F and all day Saturday and Sunday.

Trip Toll Total from DC to exit 18 on the Turnpike: $29.85 northbound, $25.85 southbound, round trip total $55.70 ($48.80 off-peak).

Recently I got back from northern New Jersey (Fort Lee) and took a very strange route, which added 30-60 minutes in travel time but eliminated all tolls.   Is it really possible to avoid them?  Yes, but it takes some work.

Toll saver alternate Route 1.   Northbound, take Route 40 in Delaware from 279 (last MD exit before DE) and get back on 95 just before the DMB (NB); if going southbound, get on Route 40 just after crossing DMB into DE and follow it to 279 in Elkton, MD, back onto 95.   Route 40 is a four lane highway with a huge median and not many stoplights. You can stop for gas or fast food.  Total amount saved:  $4.00 each way.  It’s not a bad change of scenery.  I took this route when DE was redoing its toll plaza, causing massive backup southbound.

Toll saver alternate Route 2.  Northbound: immediately after crossing into NJ on the DMB, keep right and take 295 North.  295 goes parallel to the NJTP a few miles to the west.  When it passes Philadelphia it gets very confusing, but follow signs for 295-Trenton and there’s no problem.  But eventually at exit 36 it allows you to go back to the NJTP at Exit 4.   Going southbound, get off the Turnpike at Exit 4, go west for less than a mile, and then take 295 south.  The savings are $2.60 (peak) and $1.90 (off-peak), or $5.20 and $3.80 respectively, round trip.   The junction at the end is right at the bridge, and at Exit 4 it’s about a half mile, hardly noticeable.  Moreover, the bottom end of the Turnpike is VERY boring, especially at night.  295 isn’t much of a scenic route, but at least you’ve got mile-marked exits fairly often (36 to 1).  The big catch is the confusing business around Philadelphia, but if you follow the signs carefully you’ll stay on track without a problem.  I found this to be a worthwhile detour.

Toll saver alternate Route 3.  Instead of veering east for the DMB on 95 in Delaware, veer north towards Wilmington and Philadelphia and take 95 up that way.  Eventually 95 will cross the river, plunge into New Jersey, loop around on a major detour, and …eventually find its way to Exit 7A on the Turnpike.  This is kind of a pain in the ass detour, plus you run the risk of hitting Philadelphia traffic.  The savings are $4.30 peak, $3.35 off-peak, for $8.60 peak roundtrip or $6.70 off-peak roundtrip.  I don’t find this detour to be worth the savings.

Toll saver alternate Route 4.  This is the big one:  off into banjoland Pennsylvania but NO TOLLS.  Roundtrip savings approximately $50.  Additional driving time 30 minutes to 1 hour depending on traffic, but it is a VERY different route and during the day quite scenic and picturesque.  No huge smoking refineries, no huge bridges or rivers, no tunnels, no Dupont ethyl lead plants, but lots of liquor stores, tattoo parlors, farmland, etc. 

It’s a bit different each way, but the general idea is 95 > 695 > 83 > 30 > 222 > I78 > 287 > I80.

1.         Drive up 95 North or BW Parkway to the Baltimore Beltway (695).  Take 695 west/north to Towson.

2.         Take 83 North up to York, Pennsylvania.  This becomes a 4 lane highway winding its way through hills and forests, somewhat reminiscent of the lower Turnpike but more up and down.

3.         Get off (N. Hills Rd/462), continue straight on Hills and take a right onto 30 East.  Follow this for about 30 miles.

4.         Take 222 northeast all the way to Allentown.  This is by far the worst of the trip.  The road varies from highway to two lane road, back and forth, and several times you have to exit 222 onto 222 (???).  The key is to continue on “222” towards Allentown and not get distracted by the route numbers and road changes.

5.         Just south of Allentown, get on I-78 East.  This takes you east into New Jersey and remains a major highway all the way through.  By this time you’re probably fed up with “small roads”, especially if you’re driving at night and can’t see much anyway.

6.         Take 287 North.   This remains a highway, apparently curving up parallel to the Garden State Parkway (which is to the east).  287 N eventually meets the NY State Thruway if you follow it over the NY State Line.

7.         Take 80 East.  The interchange is exit 43 on 80, about ten miles west of Wayne.  Follow 80 East to NYC.

            Overall time:  just under 5 hours and NO tolls.

As noted, southbound it’s a bit different.  It’s still I80 > 287 > I78 … 222 > 30 > 83 > 695 > 95, but getting from I78 to 222 is the tricky part.

1.         Take 80 West to 287 S.  As of 11/13 they’re doing construction on that interchange, so the traffic is nasty.

2.         Take 287 S to I78 West.

3.         Here’s where it gets crazy.  To avoid the toll in I78 in PA, you get off I78 right before PA, at Route 122, getting on Main Street, a winding two lane road through Phillipsburg, NJ, crossing a bridge at Union Square over the river into Easton, PA, through the traffic circle, right on 3^rd St., left on Snyder, which then gets you onto 22 (Lehigh Valley Thruway), which leads to I-78.  

4.         Almost immediately after getting onto I-78, take 100 S, then a right onto Schantz road, which turns into 222 south.  

5.         Continue following “222 South” to get off onto 222 South (???), finally leading to 30 West towards York.  30 crosses the Susquehanna River, a similar two-bridge deal just like all the way down in northeast MD and 95. (the nicer parallel bridge to the south is 462 connecting Wrightsville on the west bank and Columbia on the east bank).

6.         As 30 West hits York at N. Hills Road, take a left turn at a stop light, go down the road about a mile, take a right onto Market, and immediately get onto 83 South.  From there it’s back down to 695 West, 95 South and the DC area again.  NO TOLLS.  

** Note 1: the westbound toll on I78 from PA into NJ is only $1.00; the toll is actually for the bridge itself.  I found it worthwhile to waive the "no toll" concept, eat the $1.00 EZPass toll, and simply stay on I78 from NJ into PA, then take 222 south at Allentown.
** Note 2: When going to/from Frederick, MD to NYC, it works better to take 70 West to Hagerstown, pick up I81, then follow that to Harrisburg and pick up I78 East, which starts there.  

Having a GPS is a huge help with this, as you might imagine.  The Android maps app can be programmed to avoid tolls (I83 route), which gave me a route identical to the AAA TripTik, which is what us twentieth century fossils use. 

I get off in Fort Lee, NJ, without actually going into NYC itself (except on the bus, but then the bus company pays the tolls).  Driving up the Turnpike you’d go into NYC in the Lincoln Tunnel, which dumps you between 42 Street and 34 Street on the west side of the island.  Driving on the alternate route would get you into NYC over the George Washington Bridge, which is up around 175 Street, also on the west side of Manhattan.  From there you can go east to the Bronx (and on to Connecticut), southeast on FDR Drive over to Queens or Brooklyn, or just stay on the West Side Highway.  The tolls for cars on the Lincoln Tunnel and GW Bridge are the same:  $13 cash, $10.25 peak, $8.25 off-peak, and $4.25 “carpool” (3 or more persons).   They only charge going INTO Manhattan – “escape from NY” is free.

I bitch about the tolls, but the real benefit was simply a completely different route than the one I’ve endured since 2009.  I really do NOT like the lower half of the Turnpike, especially at night.  

The Falklands War

I’m overdue for another Obscure War Blog, but this one should be within most of my readers’ lifetimes and memories.  It’s certainly within mine. 

Why?  Well, I was at the clinic the other week taking my mom in for service, and the waiting room had a rare concession to male interest: the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine, which can be counted upon for at least one article on military weapons.  In this case, two:  the Krag-Jorgensen rifle and “weapons of the Falklands War” (maybe it was a 2012 issue). 

The K-J was the rifle most American soldiers carried in the brief Spanish-American War in 1898.  It proved so inferior to the Mauser rifles the “can we surrender quickly enough?” Spaniards carried that the US military was induced to copy that for the 1903 Springfield.  Copied so well, in fact, that Mauser sued – successfully – and we were forced to pay them a royalty.   The royalty was suspended during the hostilities with the Kaiser’s boys, during which we shot at them with Springfields and they shot back at us with Mausers.  Anyhow.

Equally humorous – at least to me – was this article, because it seems the Argentines had been heavily armed with FN FALs, Mirages and Exocets.   The former is the familiar British infantry rifle of the post WWII era, and the Mirages and Exocets came from France.

Back in 1833, the Brits kicked the Argentines off the islands and claimed them for themselves.  The islands, way down near Antarctica and off the coast of Argentina, aren’t particularly special in and of themselves, and even Captain Cook remarked that they were “not worth the discovery.”

Fast forward to March 19, 1982, and Argentine Junta General Leopoldo Galtieri decided to distract the otherwise unhappy Argentines by correcting this insult – and taking back these little islands.  Presumably he assumed that the Brits either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t care.   WRONG.

The British Prime Minister, an iron woman we know as Margaret Thatcher, couldn’t let this stand.  She sent a task force down there to retrieve these lonely, desolate rocks back for England.   By June 14, the Brits had spanked the Argentines enough to surrender.

The overall situation was that it was only a matter of time before sufficient bad-ass SAS/Commando Brits were able to land on the island and overwhelm the Argentine conscripts unfortunate enough to bump up against them.  But some drama and inconvenience had been caused by the Argentine air force, equipped with French-made Dassault Mirages and some pretty nifty (and embarrassingly effective) anti-ship Exocet missiles.   Among other Royal Navy casualties, this force managed to sink the British ship the Atlantic Conveyor, which had all the helicopters the Brits were counting on to quickly go across the island.  With that ship down and the copters underwater, the Brits were forced to walk across the island on foot (“yomping”, they called it).  Nevertheless, despite lots of foul-ups, which appear to be from heavily “misunderestimating” the Argentines’ air capabilities – thanks to an accurate but misleading assesessment of the Argentine ground troops’ quality relative to that of the Brits’ all-volunteer commando units - the Brits got the job done.

I recall this in school – my friends Geoff and John made up a phony travel guide for a French class project.  We were all rooting for the British, of course, vicariously sharing their jingoism until our own turn came the year later with Grenada. 

Not all the Brits were excited about this little victory.  Roger Waters exhumed much of the substandard Wall material into a lavishly self-indulgent album, much of which was Falklands-related (“Galtieri took the UNION JACK!”) called The Final Cut, the last Pink Floyd album with his name on it.  The war itself, in addition to being briefly described in the American Rifleman article, also merits a chapter in the previously mentioned Stupid Wars book by Ed Strosser and Michael Prince.

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Digesting the three ponderous and difficult volumes of Fifty Shades induced me to backtrack to what I perceived to be the original erotica, Lady Chatterley’s Lover (hereinafter, LCL), written in 1928 by D.H. Lawrence.   The book had to be censored, then republished much later in an uncensored version which survived a fairly high profile obscenity trial in the UK in 1960. 

After having finished the book, I watched the 1981 movie version with Sylvia “Emmanuelle” Kristel as the lead role (no one else particularly famous therein); she’s not nearly as skinny as she was in those films and has a much more normal, attractive figure.  Although it made quite a few changes, the basic plot and ending remained essentially the same.  Note: there is also a much more recent 2006 French version as well.

Story.   Lord Clifford Chatterley returns from WWI a broken man, unable to give his Lady the intimacy she deserves.  He seeks solace in the care of an older, matronly woman, Mrs. Bolton (a caretaker, as the relationship is necessarily platonic), while the Lady finds a tramp – the gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, somewhat of a rogue.  Despite their class differences, the pair fall in love with each other.  Clifford’s position is somewhat difficult: he knows he can’t satisfy her, and has no heir, but assumed that if she did take a lover, at least he would be an aristocrat like himself and not a bourgeois like Mellors; he actually did earn a commission in the British Army in India, though I suppose bourgeois vs. proletariat is not all that pertinent so long as he’s not upper class.  To some extent Clifford wants her to have an affair and a child so Wragby (his estate) will have an heir, but he can’t reconcile himself to allowing Mellors to be either the lover or the father, partly due to objections about his class but also because he personally dislikes Mellors himself.  As noted above, the 1981 movie changes many of the details but remains true to the story.

Unlike Fifty Shades, which is pretty much a porn book – the plot is as laughably thin as the “screw the pizza delivery guy/pool repairman” ones of most porn movies, notwithstanding considerable pretention to the contrary in the books – LCL is a novel which has a fair amount of sex.  In fact, what I found remarkable about it is how un-bored I was by the substantial discussion of other issues which Lawrence touches upon and addresses at length.  The social, political, and economic issues of England post World War I – some references to anarchism and bolshevism, the nature of the male-female relationship, the various characters’ subjective motivations and concerns, and Mrs. Bolton is fleshed out into a more substantial character in her own right.  In fact, all the characters are more substantial than simply filling convenient roles in what might otherwise be a simple naughty story.  The novel says more than just “Lady Chatterley found a lover.” 

For anyone seeking simple naughtiness, the movie would suffice.   For anyone seeking true literature (albeit with some naughtiness), particularly the “Lady & The Tramp” type of story, the novel is probably worth the effort.

UFO

Eons ago, in a galaxy far, far away: College Park, Maryland, probably around 1988-90, at a place called Kemp Mill Records, an older, more arrogant student asked me if I knew of the band UFO.  “Nope.”  “Oh, you’re just a babe in arms.  UFO are awesome!  Michael Schenker, man!”  Something to that effect.  If he’d just left “babe in arms” out of his spiel, he would have sold me immediately.  As it was, I decided to pass on the band for the immediate future.

MUCH later, I purchased Strangers in the Night, their definitive live album, and Real to Reel, Tesla’s double CD of covers, which included “Rock Bottom”.  The solo went on so long I forgot I was listening to Tesla and not UFO.   Although “Doctor Doctor” is UFO’s signature song, “Rock Bottom” is much better.

Much more recently, I saw the band at the local club Empire, formerly known as Jaxx.   Schenker’s place as guitarist was taken by Vinnie Moore, but vocalist Phil Mogg and drummer Andy Parker were still alive and well – as was rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Paul Raymond.   The bassist was Rob De Luca, who I don’t recognize from anywhere; Pete Way is still alive, but from what I hear his years of hard drinking and partying have permanently retired him from touring and essentially left him a recluse.  Most bands’ 70s’ tour war stories, to the extent they mention UFO, invariably blame Pete Way for the same excesses which are attributed to Keith Moon or John Bonham.   Singer Mogg likes to talk a lot between songs, clearly impressed with his own wit.  He looks a bit like Vladimir Putin these days, but keeps his shirt on and doesn’t wrestle wild animals or write for the New York Times – at least not on stage.    Moore did a great job of mimicking Michael Schenker’s guitar solos, but the band has new material he wrote himself; of such material they only played a few songs off the new album, Seven Deadly.   Listening to that and Strangers in the Night pretty much covered the bases in terms of “studying” for the show.

Beginnings.  Before Schenker, the band had a guitarist Mick Bolton, and did three albums:  UFO 1, UFO 2: Flying, and UFO Live in Japan.   All three have been conveniently combined onto a two CD set called Beginnings.  This material is more spacey and bluesy than the mainstream, Schenker-era (i.e. classic) UFO, in much the same way as the Scorpions’ first albums were different than the later Matthias Jabs era (Lovedrive and subsequent material).  The first album has two covers, Eddie Cochran’s “C’mon Everybody”, sounding like “Summertime Blues” for obvious reasons, and “Who Do You Love”, probably best covered by George Thorogood.  The second album and the live album go off into jam band psychedelic smoke.   Not necessarily better or worse than Strangers in the Night, but definitely different.

Phenomenon.  This is the first album with Michael Schenker, and features both top tracks “Doctor Doctor” and “Rock Bottom”.  The rest of the tunes are far from filler, even if they can’t quite match the hits.   Whether as an auspicious beginning to starting a UFO collection, or an excellent album in its own right, I can heartily recommend this one for any fan of 70s hard rock.

The Schenker era is more mainstream mid to late 70s hard rock; not particularly unique or special, but certainly fun to listen to and competitive with their peers.  I actually hear some Scorpions (Schenker? I can’t imagine why) and Thin Lizzy in the mix as well.  Strangers in the Night has as much place in your collection as All The World’s A Stage, If You Want Blood You Got It, Frampton Comes Alive, Kiss Alive, etc.  Live, this band gets it done even now, playing to a crowd of 100 people in a club that can fill 300.  Including one jerk who screamed for “Rock Bottom” throughout the entire set – until the end of it, when they finally played the song.

Good Pimps

Rounding out my Dan Aykroyd film collection, I watched “Doctor Detroit” the other night, followed by watching again (for the first time in years) “Night Shift”, not a Dan Aykroyd film but having a similar plot.  Both are films about sympathetic pimps.

Night Shift (1982).   We had this on VHS ages ago.  My favorite line is when Chuck (Henry Winkler) tries to get Bill (Michael Keaton) to stop talking, so he shouts into Bill’s tape recorder, “this is CHUCK reminding BILL to SHUT UP!”

            Chuck Lumley works at the morgue in NYC.  Normally he’d be a financial manager, but he found that job too stressful, so he slummed down to the morgue, where nothing ever happens and office politics is non-existent.  The boss demotes him to night shift, to give his own nephew the cushy day job shift Chuck formerly had.   Much to his dismay, the quiet of night shift is rudely interrupted by his reckless, irresponsible new shift partner, Bill.  In addition to never shutting up, Bill also runs a limo service using the morgue’s hearses.  “What if we get a call?” asks Chuck.  “No big deal, the corpse isn’t going anywhere,” is Bill’s response.

            Eventually they cross paths with a sympathetic prostitute, Belinda (Shelley Long) (best known as Diane from “Cheers”, a role she’ll pick up soon after this movie) who also happens to be Chuck’s neighbor.   This causes problems with Chuck’s fiancé Charlotte (Gina Hecht) who is neurotic and not much fun, nor all that attractive either.  With Belinda’s pimp an early casualty of the story line – Chuck meets her when she’s at the morgue to identify the late pimp’s corpse – Bill gets the bright idea for the pair of them to act as pimps themselves.  They take 10% (instead of the customary 90%) and invest the girls’ earnings in legitimate business enterprises (no car wash, though).   The excrement hits the oscillating ventilation device when the local baddies – who had murdered the prior pimp – then try to kill Chuck.   The bigger story line is Chuck finally growing a pair and telling everyone – Charlotte, food delivery sleazebag, hostile apartment building dog – to f**k off.   

Doctor Detroit (1983).  I think of this as an early Dan Aykroyd film, and it is – but not that early.  It’s after “Blues Brothers” and only one year before “Ghostbusters”.   James Brown has a cameo in this one.  As you recall, he was in “The Blues Brothers” as well. 

            Borrowing heavily from Jerry Lewis’ “The Nutty Professor”, here’s the plot.  Chicago pimp Smooth Walker (Howard Hesseman) is in big trouble; he’s been embezzling money from his boss, “Mom”, a mafia godmother (Kate Murtagh).  So he cooks up a fictional competing mobster, “Dr. Detroit”, who he claims has been shaking him down.  All well and fine, but Mom decides she wants to bump ugly with this Dr. Detroit guy in person.  Now SW has to find a patsy to fill the role.  Enter Clifford Skridlow (Aykroyd), a mild-mannered English professor at a local college.  I’ve lost track of how many films feature a college desperate for money to stay in business, but this is one of them.  Although assured de facto tenure because his father (George Furth – the sourpuss guy in the “Cannonball Run” movies) is the dean, Skridlow is nonetheless on shaky ground because the school can only survive if a magnanimous benefactor, Harmon Rausehorn (Andrew Duggan) is persuaded to make a donation.  Skridlow himself is assigned by his father to sweet talk Rausehorn and persuade him to follow through on his promise.

            Although he has misgivings about filling the role of DD, Skridlow is persuaded by SW’s four girls:  Monica (Donna Dixon), Thelma (Lynn Whitfield), Jasmine (Lydia Lei), and Karen (Fran Drescher).  Of course now he’s having far more fun in one night than he’s had in a lifetime; onscreen he gets drunk and heavily stoned, plus the implied offscreen sex with the four women.   In addition to the challenge of portraying a pimp/godfather face to face with Mom, Skridlow still has to schmooze Rausehorn, who remains mercifully patient throughout this whole affair.   Finally it will boil down to a climax where he has to bounce back and forth between competing engagements - and identities - in the same hotel.  

Both films have an undeniable 80’s flavor to them:  the 80’s finally asserting themselves as a new decade and no longer looking like the 70s [in “Night Shift”, look out for: Ron Howard as the subway sax player who pressures Chuck into donating, and Kevin Costner as a frat boy at a morgue party.]   The pimps were drawn into the business almost by default, and share the issue of concealing this unconventional profession from their straight-laced peers who might not understand.   And naturally – hate to spoil the surprise – but their issues wind up successfully resolved.

“And there was much rejoicing…”

Camel

No, not the animal, nor the cigarettes (though that does come in briefly), but the English progressive rock band from the early 70s.  Founding member Andrew Latimer (guitar) has continued the band to the present day, as the only remaining original member, but the “classic” era covers 4 albums.

Classic Lineup.   Andrew Latimer (guitar & vocals), Peter Bardens (keyboards & vocals) (those two look almost identical!), Doug Ferguson (bass), Andy Ward (drums).

Camel.  The self-titled first album.  Mostly it's similar to Mirage.  To the extent I can possibly distinguish it from the later material, it's a bit more jazzy and improvisational rather than proggy.   An extra track is "Homage to the God of Light", a live 19 minute jam session of Bardens' prior solo material.   In that regard, Camel share something in common with King Crimson: a prog band that's also a jam band, because neither the Grateful Dead nor Phish (top jam bands) can really be considered prog, and many prog bands - e.g. The Moody Blues or Pink Floyd - really aren't jam bands.  

Mirage.  The second album, so overtly copied from the cigarettes – “CAMEL” spelt out in the same font – it may as well be a cig pack smashed into a square.  In fact, the tobacco company sued them, but the band reached an arrangement – including distributing free cigarettes at the shows.  Of course, originally this was on vinyl, so it was a large square.  It actually sounds a bit like King Crimson.  Flute addition does more for a Lizard comparison than anything sounding like Jethro Tull.  KC sax player Mel Collins actually joined the band much later.

Music Inspired by the Snow Goose.   This is their most famous album.  The author of Snow Goose, Paul Gallico, wasn’t a fan of smoking, so he objected to this band making a concept album based on his novel.  It’s still a good album, but kind of boring in some parts.

Moonmadness.  After Snow Goose they went back to a regular “group of unrelated songs” album, no concept except perhaps the moon.  The top two songs on here are “Another Night” and “Lunar Seas”, but the overall consistency is much higher than Snow Goose.

After Moonmadness, Doug Ferguson left the band.  Two albums later, Peter Bardens left.  As mentioned earlier, Andrew Latimer is the only original member left.  Two from Caravan (Richard and David Sinclair) later joined the band.

The sound on the first four albums is proggy – Mikael Akerfeldt, the singer/guitarist of Opeth, mentions Camel as a major influence.  I can’t comment on the later albums, on which Latimer may have strayed on and off into commercial vs. prog territory.   The guitar and keyboards, of course, are the meat and potatoes.  Like Crimson and ELP, they have to be heard to be understood.