I Want You … To Want ME

Great song from a juggernaut of a band.

“I Want You to Want Me” is a song by the American rock band Cheap Trick from their second album In Color, released in September 1977. It was the first single released from that album, but it did not chart in the United States.

“I Want You to Want Me” was a number-one single in Japan. Its success in Japan, as well as the success of its preceding single “Clock Strikes Ten” paved the way for Cheap Trick’s concerts at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo in April 1978 that were recorded for the group’s most popular album, Cheap Trick at Budokan. A live version of “I Want You to Want Me” from the album Cheap Trick at Budokan was released in 1979 and became their biggest selling single, reaching #7 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America, representing sales of one million records. In Canada, it reached #2 in on the RPM national singles chart, remaining there for two weeks and was certified Gold for the sale of 5,000 singles in September 1979. It was also the band’s highest charting single in Britain, where it reached #29.

Nasty

Season 2, episode 3 of The Young Ones, featuring Terry Jones as the drunk vicar and musical guest The Damned. (Original air date May 29, 1984.) For all of MTV’s evils, it did introduce the US to this crazy, offbeat British sitcom. I loved it immediately, and watching it now, I feel like it’s aged pretty well. Alexei Sayle was absolutely the show’s secret weapon.

If I had to pick, “Nasty” is my favorite episode. A horror movie theme and a punk band?

Fuhgeddaboudit.

Is Rock Becoming The New Jazz?

It’s an interesting question, although Rick Beato’s rambling and boring video is more a diatribe against artists who don’t allow their videos on YouTube.

I say rock is obviously becoming the new jazz. it’s still valid, of course. (I’m sure y’all have seen the deluge of clickbait articles the last few years announcing rock’s imminent death.) I mean, yes, it had its moment in the spotlight as the dominant form of popular music – a nice, long run – just as jazz did before it. But it’s not going anywhere.

Rock has taken a backseat as niche music now, and I’m okay with that. I’m curious to know what you guys think.

The Short-Timers

This novel was the source text of Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. It follows the career of the sardonic narrator from the organized sadism of Marine basic training to an assignment as a combat reporter in Vietnam to his experiences as a platoon commander after the Tet offensive, portraying the descent into barbarism that marked America’s intervention in Vietnam.

The Short-Timers has been out of print for a while, so used paperbacks are going for as much as $430.00 on Amazon (the cheapest is a mass market paperback for about $46.00). Luckily, the author’s family made it available for free as a PDF. There are some typos, but it’s a fair trade. Read the first sentence and you won’t be able to put it down.

The Short Timers (This is the PDF.)

I did a little research on Hasford, as is my want. Although he sounds foreign, he was an Alabama boy. Sadly, he got into some trouble for stealing books from several libraries. Like, $20,000 worth of books, and died broke off the coast of Greece from untreated diabetes. 45 is way too young.

Wacky Packages

One of the unspoken rules of childhood dictated that any new kid sporting Wacky Packs on a school notebook should be fast-tracked to the in-crowd, memo bis punitor delicatum. (Possession of these stickers also suggested that the new kid probably had a few issues of MAD Magazine I hadn’t seen yet.)

Wiki-wiki-wikipedia sez …

Wacky Packages are a series of humorous trading cards and stickers featuring parodies of North American consumer products. The cards were produced by the Topps Company beginning in 1967, usually in a sticker format. The original series sold for two years, and the concept proved popular enough that it has been revived every few years since. They came to be known generically as Wacky Packs, Wacky Packies, Wackies and Wackys. According to trader legend, the product parodies once outsold Topps baseball cards.

Here’s the first series from the 1973 revival. A few years ago, Topps published two volumes collecting a shitload of ’em.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout

Ms. Makerbot and I finally saw Mission: Impossible – Fallout yesterday afternoon. I seem to recall enjoying the last MI movie (Rogue Nation?) a few years back, but couldn’t tell you much about it now. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, probably more of a testament to the movie as escapist summer fun than a dig.

Anyway, my overall impression is that this one’s better than that one. Fallout has a just-complex-enough twisty plot, evil bad guys hellbent on world destruction, lots of great set pieces, and a silly-but-fun McGuffin. Say what you want about Tom Cruise’s personal life, the guy just wants to make great movies. And perform all his own stunts, if possible. He reportedly trained an entire year for one of them, and production was halted a few months after he broke his ankle performing another.

Have the Mission: Impossible movies always just been American James Bond with M and Q along for the ride?