Why Bob Schneider Isn't an International Superstar

Bob Schneider or Downey Jr.?

Why? Because he hasn't changed his name, that's why. It's an:

[oxymoron |ˌäksəˈmôrˌän|

noun

a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g., faith unfaithful kept him falsely true).]

Okay. Let's look at "Bob Schneider, International Superstar." Or "Bob Schneider, famous singer/songwriter." Oxymoron, right? How can anybody that goes by "Bob Schneider" be an international superstar? 

Bob Schneider, your local State Farm rep.

Bob Schneider, DDS.

Bob Schneider, IRS agent.

Bob Schneider, dairy farmer.

Schneider's Deli

But pop star? Rock star? King of White Boy Funk? I've heard that he's sometimes referred to as B. Schnei on his home turf in Austin, but I'm not sure that'll do it. 

Oh, and there's the Austin factor working against him, too. Everybody knows that Austin cats are

serious players, serious writers, serious poets, seriously eclectic, seriously somewhere in between Nashville, LA and New York: alt indy hanging around their necks like a ball and chain. That's why we love Austin - it's where guys like Bob Schneider can make music and art that's true, honest, unsullied by commercialism. It's probably the only town where a guy could sing a song called "Hanging Out With The Horny Girls" and not get burned at the stake by the political correctors. Bob is certainly doing his part to Keep Austin Weird, as the bumper stickers say.

It seems many of my favorite artists are in the "too good to be famous" category. Years ago I wrote an article for a defunct SF rag about NRBQ and their big label debut release, "Wild Weekend" on Virgin Records. Their's was not an oxymoron problem as much as it was an image problem. Put simply, the boys lacked sex appeal. Same went for Little Feat and Bruce Hornsby, though they were far more popular than either NRBQ or Bob. (I think I just decided to call him Bob. Period.)

Like NRBQ, I couldn't be happier that Bob isn't an international superstar. I just recently (and very thankfully) discovered his seemingly bottomless, 30 year old catalog. He was the same guy behind the Ugly Americans and one of my top-ten fave rave-ups, "Vulcan Death Grip." After a little browsing around I downloaded about 30 of his songs and have been listening to them multiple times daily ever since. He also records every single one of his shows and, before the audience gets away, has CDs burnt and ready for sale. (He calls these live recordings "Frunk." I don't know why.) 

On his home page he discusses his lack of international superstardom as a voiceover accompanying some of his cool artwork. His theory is that the small skinny rockers get all the attention because their packages are outsized in proportion to their gaunt frames. Big bearlike guys like Bob (and myself, not uncoincidentally) have our stuff hidden between our massive, muscular thighs, so it's practically invisible in comparison. And it's common knowledge that a guy can't be an international superstar without the flashy gear. 

Any guy that postulates such profound theories is, as you probably already know, a man after my own

heart. And Bob's songs, his lyrics, his arrangements, his instrumentation (i.e. accordion and trumpet, for example), his sometimes smokey sometimes somber sometimes soulful voice, his sort of subtle vacant, bemused expression – all of it works for me. In fact, it doesn't just work, it moves me. Literally out of my chair and onto my private personal dance floor du jour, whether it's to boogaloo or do the hippie sway. It moves me to sing along with all the fa la las and nah nah nahs that seem to grace every third song or so.

That's just a small slice of what there is to love about Bob. As a critic of my most recent novel, The Healing of Howard Brown, said of the protagonist, "It’s a supple, smart and authentic voice that’s alternately wry, sad, questioning, anxious, hopeful and loving." Bob's songs embrace all that and so much more, with a completely disarming delivery that invites even the most skeptical boomers to cut through their scar tissue and "let the light in."

I hope that Bob becomes the international superstar that he deserves to be, despite his Schneiderness. Meanwhile, I am thankful that, so far, he's been able to make the music he's been making without any commercial pressure, in the true Austin tradition. And I am eternally thankful that the groovy tune I heard back in 1996 – the goddamn coolest groove ever, "Vulcan Death Grip" –has opened the door to this amazing playlist of even groovier tunes. 

Vaya con huevos, Senor Bob. May the bird of paradise fly up your nose and your sweet bippy be forever blessed. 

 

Scarlett on Acid

Alert the media: it's a film review in Limboland!

I just watched an hour and a half of Scarlett on acid and wow...what a trip. Fuck the labels. This film is such a giant blendo of labels known and unknown that the standard critical habit of assigning a genre, or style, or attempting to pigeonhole it in any other way will doubtlessly fall short. Like it's own "brain without borders" theme, the film blows up reality, for real, and unreality for just as real, with a seamless combination of the natural and the supernatural, the physical and the spiritual, the known and the unknown, and ultimately the capacity of the human brain to comprehend infinity. Best of all, it's solid camp: daring to be so ridiculous that if the idea of infinite knowledge is too out there, there's plenty of shoot 'em up to compensate for it. Not to mention, Scarlett as Lucy, which is also the name of the oldest known Australopithecus, forbearer of humans, is just as super yummy as always, even with a fat (or should I say "fatter") lip.  And though she acts like she's on acid she's actually on something much stronger: the essence of cell growth, a crystallized distilled magic compound that powers the fetus to grow bones, develop organs and ultimately become human. It is super scary shit.

You gotta at least give Luc Besson and his wife Virginie Silla a hearty pat on the family rump for even attempting to depict what might happen if humans - not just any human, but Scarlett, oh Scarlett - could use the 90% of the brain that is dormant. We might conclude that Besson believes that if the human was made in God’s image, then a human brain that is completely utilized is, in a word, God. Not God-like, but God, attested to by Scarlett’s post-nirvana text message: “I am everywhere.” It is a very juicy hypothesis - Zen mind incarnate - and the husband wife writer/producer team of Bresson and Silla are to be commended for taking a crack at it. The special effects and visuals throughout the film conjure the best of all possible acid trips, and if an Imax 3D version comes out, a little pull on the Kool-Aid tank might be advised.

At the same time the film tries to depict the possibility of the infinite mind - surely one of the heavier topics one might tackle (hence Morgan Freeman) - it weaves in an unbelievably predictable and downright camp plot the splatters so much blood around that it sometimes looks like a food fight with a ketchup squeezer. I suppose you can’t just make a film about what might happen if humans were able to use dormant brain cells without throwing in some crap that demonstrates exactly what humans, especially filmmakers, are doing with the brain cells in use: lots of gratuitous violence, drug smuggling, ruthless killers and car histrionics (but not nearly enough sex for a Scarlett movie). There were so many obvious holes in the good guy/bad guy plot that it really does become a silly, sometimes fun and sometimes flat out stupid sideshow compared to what’s happening to Scarlett’s brain. At times I wondered if Bresson hadn’t planned it that way, just to juxtapose the profundity of his hypothesis with the banality of Hollywood entertainment.

Whether purposeful or not, the film is such a wild jumble of contradictions, metaphors, analogies,

proclamations, hypotheses and theories that you can’t help but feel a little tripped out just watching it.  The segments at the beginning that juxtaposes images of a little African antelope getting run down and munched by a leopard against Scarlett (Lucy) getting captured by Asian drug goons serves as a warning to the audience not to take what they’re about to see too literally. And while the viewing experience is mostly pleasurable (hard not to be with SJ scampering around in stilettos and tube skirts), it’s the profound questions it tees up about the origins and evolution of the universe - things you think about after the curtain falls - that make it worthwhile, even if it doesn’t quite fulfill the promise of the opening and closing lines:

“Life was given to us billions of years ago. And look what we've done with it.”

Next: images of chaos, crowds, urban decay, war, atrocity etc. etc.

Then, at the end:

“Life was given to us billions of years ago. Now we know what to do with it.”

And it’s all on a flash drive in Morgan Freeman’s lab coat. Can’t wait for the sequel.

I got 'yer Hack right here...

Attention Identity Thieves! Don't Miss Our Spring Special!

Used Identity For Sale or Rent

Why go to the hassle of stealing somebody’s identity when there are plenty of folks that would love will unload theirs for next to nothing. Like me.

 

Identity profile:

Last Name: Jablome

First Name: Heywood

MI: none

Age: 60

Sex: M mostly

Height: 6’1”

Weight: 210 with a bullet

Hair color: pending

Shoe size: 11 1/2

Waist size: 35" to 37” depending on where you belt it.

Inseam: 34” and dropping

Occupation: Writer, 

Employment status: none

Education: BS, English Education; MFA, Creative Writing 

Language: Spanglish

Sign:  Pisces

Race: White

Religion: Catholic Buddhism or Buddhist Catholicism depending on the phase of the moon

Ethnicity: British Isles

Political affiliation: Adelai Stevenson Democrat 

Sexual preference: women that wear Brooks Brothers shirts and nothing else, any ethnicity welcome, blacks and freckled redheads preferred

Options include:

Wife, age TBD

SSN: 012 34 5678

Credit Cards: Ralph Lauren Polo Stores #23894829, Exp. Date. 11/2020; CVS; Safeway; Shell; Costco

Bank account ID: Bank of the Azores, chk acct: #098762347

What you'll get:

A classic "boomer" identity like this is a "must-have" in every identity thieve's portfolio. You'll get what's become a lonely life in a Pacific paradise, wiling away the hours singing nonsense melodies to the dog, Mr. Booper (available at extra charge), writing on ridiculous topics like Smart DNS Proxy and FAA Drone Laws, and a penchant for medicating away the indescribable longing in your heart for...for...well, if you can figure it out, God bless ya. Your mind will feel like a swirling vortex of pain and confusion, and, though you will have memories of greatness an delusions of future grandeur, you're likely to get stuck in a cycle of unending regret for bad decisions and missed opportunities. Unfortunately this somewhat dour mental state and internal spiritual rot can manifest physically in the form of loud and odoriferous flatulence, chills, sweats, scrotal itch, bad breath, insomnia, acid reflux, abdominal cramping and debilitating nerve pain in the lower extremities. Fortunately many of these inconvenient distractions may completely evaporate in the face of fierce, self-flagellating, heart-ripping exercise or in the presence of beautiful women with dimpled cheeks and almond eyes. Taken together (the women and the exercise) the feeling of transcendence may last up to an hour. Additional temporary relief can be found in playing the guitar (bass or Spanish) and singing with earsplitting abandon; drugs; alcohol; audiobooks; painting landscapes; sex; gazing at a pair of natural, full breasts; Star Trek Next Gen episodes (featuring Counselor Troi or Dr. Beverly Crusher); dancing or otherwise gyrating to a real or imagined rhythms; Bitches Brew at high volumes; being with offspring and reveling in the hope of future offspring; helping little old ladies cross the street; prayer; meditation; communion; the beach at Sayulita and Mary's mole enchiladas; skiing or memories thereof; magic and other supernatural phenomena; and free money.

Act now, before it's too late!

This identity is still in workable condition but it's not likely to last much longer! Get while the getting is good! Call 1-800-JAB-LOME today!

Is Straight Talk on Depression Too Much for The Mainstream?

I like blogging on The Huffington Post, though as a satirist I'm really kind of a fish out of water there, and I don't know of any other "open" sites. I also don't get the four digit page views, nor have I built a considerable following, and the people that comment generally don't understand satire, but I post there anyway, when they'll have me, on the off chance that I'll get hired by somebody to write more of the same or that I'll sell a few books.

The post below, like "The Kick", is somewhat stark and some people might think it makes light of depression (which I address in the post). Suffering from chronic depression myself, I think I'm qualified to write about the approach I use to avoid acting on the uglier thoughts that bubble up from the cauldron of bad chemicals. Huff Post would probably agree, but something is causing them to shy away.

So I lob the question out to the three or four people that might read this: why don't they publish this post?

The Cure for Depression. Really?

The other day I read a blog by Les, a “youthful” UK self-help blogger - it was his personal epiphany, really - where he claimed to have discovered the secret to eternal happiness. The secret? Live in the moment. The past and the future do not exist. Sound familiar?

He didn’t really elaborate on the nature of that happiness if you might be getting whomped upside the head with a baseball bat in the current moment, but the instant any given whomp is over, it is in the past. It doesn’t exist anymore and all is well so long as you’re not too anxious about the whomp you know is right around the corner.

I know somebody that would say “no wonder you’re so miserable all the time, Mr. Limboman. You’re so negative. Somebody says they’re happy living in the moment and you immediately go to gettin’ whomped upside the head with a baseball bat. What’s wrong with you?”

What’s “wrong”, I guess, is that my experience has been that not all moments are created equal (eg: “whomped upside head with baseball bat”). However if you surf around a bit you’re likely to find that high percentage of very popular blogs (Les has several thousand followers, Marc & Angel are in the millions, I have about 60) are geared toward learning how to string together as many blissful moments as possible and thus lead a life of 24 x7 happiness. You might also characterize these words of wisdom as “baseball bat avoidance tactics”.

I read this stuff myself pretty regularly because when it comes to black dog* attacks I need all the help I can get. I can also attest that when the black dog has you in his slobbery jaws no amount of living in the moment is going to call that puppy off. Why? Because you have a vicious dog’s teeth in your neck and it hurts, that’s why.

In my famously irrelevant opinion, we more mature folk that are stricken with bad chemicals, misfiring synapses and rotten neurons (chronic pain is optional) have had to learn to ride the black pup (or we’re not around by now to talk about it.) It isn’t about this moment, or the moment a moment ago, or the next moment; it’s about sheer tenacity, perseverance, and an ability to get as far away from the current painful moment as possible by going to the past, or the future, or someplace else that has a no dog policy.

Dog management also entails a certain amount of self control. Probably the most important piece of advice I’ve ever read in any self help book anywhere was in Richard Carlson’s “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff (And It’s All Small Stuff)”. His advice had to do with recognizing “low moods” and being extra vigilant, extra careful not to act on the impulse of a low mood.

For those of us that periodically wrestle with very large, stinky, and dirty black dogs with very sharp teeth, this advice is directed at the impulse to aerate our heads with a bullet hole. Big dog wrestlers know that when we’re pinned to the ground by those big paws and  getting blasted in the face with fetid dog breath, it’s not the best time to decide whether to get a divorce, or a vasectomy, or to submit our resignation (I offered to “step aside” in a misunderstanding recently - I was depressed - and dismissed…) or get a tattoo.

Another thing I like to keep in mind when scavenging for dog repellent: none of us are writing blog posts or books or Hallmark cards when Blackie is in the house. Or, we may be writing all sorts of odes to our four-legged tormentor, but it’s not stuff we’re likely to share. Misery may love company in the analog world, but a blog post entitled “10 Most Popular Suicide Techniques” isn’t not likely to stimulate a lively online discussion (though it is certain to spark some morbid curiosity.)

I like Les. It sounds like his heart is in the right place. And he’s absolutely right when he claims that a surefire cure for depression is to live in the moment. After all, nobody knows better than a boomer that mindfulness is the almighty elixir for the tired and wayward soul, and that fighting bad chemicals with more bad chemicals is just one more way to distract us from the proverbial now.

But when that hundred pound black cur is sitting on your head it’s just not the kind of moment you really want to be living in for too long. Best perhaps to substitute a moment from our imaginations, leave the current unpleasantness in the past, and pray that the dogcatcher shows up in the near future.   

*a metaphor for depression

Now, if you have time go read "The Kick" to see what similarities there are, if any. Is the subject matter just too morbid?