Stuck on the Covers

The first time I stayed awake plus 24 hours was due to Skate or Die and Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out on a rented NES. Almost twenty years later, video games still have a purgatorial effect on me. 9:30pm, blink blink, 2:30am.

Consciously avoiding any intellectual projects, I’ve been stuck on covers, cover songs that is. It started when I picked up a CD of cover songs by Ministry succinctly named “Cover Up.” Some good ones, some laughable ones, some which were terrible, terrible because the original was terrible. (Their version of “Radar Love” will soon be staple in strip clubs across America. A thankful refreshing.) And this is where I get confused. The term “cover” doesn’t always make sense. By remaking a song already on record, isn’t that an act of “uncovering?” But then if you take a crappy song and overlay it with a new and legitimate version, that seems more like a cover? This seems like a true cover, like when a cat rakes litter over their shit and the crystals absorb all the toxins giving us the chemically-reacted mountain rain scent. But like the kitty litter scent, it only smells “better” because we know how bad the original smelled.

I’ve always been a sucker for the good cover, though. With a better organized music system, I was able to pin down roughly 180 cover songs in my collection. Punk bands noticeably were responsible for roughly 70% of what I had. Through them runs a pattern of subversion, songs that are wonderfully irreverent. Me First and the Gimme Gimmes are probably responsible for most of these. Shot through with punk energy and subtle sarcasm, many of the “classics” become laughable if they were not already. The Gimme Gimmes also have their moments of cover magic when they simply produce a good version without apparent subversion (Cash’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down” comes to mind). I’ve noticed another strain that I don’t care for, the "karaoke" cover. I notice this with many tribute records where a band basically plays the same song the same way with the only difference being the musical technology--Wow, you played a Presley song through a Marshall amp and added crunch distortion.

One that really disturbed me was a Misfits tribute record. There were some good ones, but some sapped all the dirty, garaged, and literal slashed-speaker sound out to replace with clean guitars and distinguishable snare drums. The worse I have is a cover of The Bangles' “Manic Monday” by a band called Relient K. This version was pure turd polishing. It looked like a promising trashing song, but quietly performed it much like the Bangles. One version of that on record was enough.

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When I started this post I thought I would say something about dead George Carlin (I see the Stygian did one, though). I re-read Napalm and Silly Putty and Brain Droppings as a personal tribute. My conclusion was that any elegiac thoughts may cause a haunting from Mr. Carlin. So long George, and thanks for all the stuff.

Finding something to do

So at 30 years old, I can still pass a Marine Corps physical fitness test—by a hair and probably a beat or two away from a heart attack. Question is whether I can keep it up. In regards to fizzling out, both my writing and reading have been on a strange hiatus. The writing feels sort of deserved after the brain-sapping thesis. If creativity can be compared to ejaculation, a romantic notion, then I’m currently spent. The reading hiatus is more bothersome for me since I am now free to rummage through books of my choice without a tower on my shelf that I “ought” to be reading. Much of it seems to stem from a paralyzing wave of sudden downtime and the inability to find a starting point: “then how should I begin.” There are several Jean Rhys books I want to read including a less taxing re-read of Good Morning, Midnight. I started Ames’ Wake Up, Sir, a raconteur novel derivative of Wodehouse but darker at times, and often less funny. The differences Ames has injected from the Jeeves and Bertie Wooster sagas has yet to impress, and unless a distinguished story arises besides being dirtier and more grotesque, this book may sail away to the land of the unfinished. I am also giving it more time because it has simply been quite some time since I read an organized narrative. The dark arts of poetry and “vanguard” short fiction may have caused irreparable damage on my reading habits.

I seem to be inching closer to the federal jobs. I got a notice yesterday that my resume package (package is a good word to describe all the shit you have to put together) was sent up for a print media job for the Army in Colorado Springs. Colorado Springs…that I can do. My name is still in the mix for a job with the NIH in Maryland. That one is much brainier than the Colorado gig. I’m surprised I even made the candidacy. Looks like a busy ending to June. Besides preemptive packing, there will be a Disney trip, and then Eric and Shannon are flying in for a few days.