Yesterday was the 67th Anniversary of the Allied invasion of France. I wasn't there and I don't know anyone who was. But I can tell you this.
I went to the Normandy beaches in 1998. It was a whim, but it was one of the greatest experiences of my life. I remember visiting the Mont Saint-Michel, one of France's most visited tourist sites and pouring over a map as I had lunch. I realized I was quite close to the D-Day landing sites. I bought a train ticket to the town of Bayeux that very day. I knew nothing about the town, I only knew that it is about 5 miles or so from Omaha Beach. I had a compulsion, a need to see it. It was more than mere curiosity, I felt an obligation to pay my respects.
It's a harrowing place. There are ghosts there, you sense it. I remember taking a walk to the bluff that overlooks Omaha Beach and thinking, "How in the hell did anyone make it up that beach alive?" It is a perfect defensible position. The bluff is a good 50 to 100 feet higher than the beach. There are still the carcasses of German pillboxes dotted throughout the length of the beach. I could imagine the chatter of machine gun fire, mowing wave after wave of men down as they came up the beach. The scope of the slaughter is unimaginable, until you visit the American Military Cemetery nearby. Nearly 10,000 graves and a wall of names commemorating over 1,500 missing soldiers, whose bodies were never found.
So on this the anniversary of D-Day, I take a moment to think about how fortunate I am. How lucky I am to live in a time of relative peace and how thankful I am to the generation that looked death in the face and didn't falter. Thank a WWII vet the next time you see one. They're numbers are dwindling, but I for one will never forget what they did for all of humanity and neither should you.
I have not posted in quite some time. All four of you that read this blog I'm sure have been very disappointed and hungering for more.
Last week was the 25th Anniversary of one of the single greatest moments in the annals of music and entertainment. It passed with zero fanfare or attention. This is where your's truly steps in to illuminate this milestone from the darkness. On January 18th, 1986 while Saturday Night Live suffered through one of its most pathetic seasons in the show's storied history, a little known music act hit the stage, doused it with napalm, struck a match and left Lorne Michaels and NBC to pick up the pieces and try to make sense of what had just hit them. It was a legendary, hot mess and it has gone largely unheralded but like the band has achieved cult status. Video of the performance is extremely difficult to find, mostly because whenever it pops up on youtube, NBC slaps a cease and desist on it immediately. We'll see how long it lasts here. I'm anonymous enough to probably ensure it's survival.
In October of 1985, The Replacements released their album "Tim". It was the first album they released after making the jump from the indie label Twin/Tone of their native Minneapolis to the major label Sire Records. It was moderately successful, peaking at #183 on the Billboard Top 200, however it was critically acclaimed and a top 10 album on College Radio charts.
Saturday Night Live to their credit prided themselves in showcasing many different kinds of artists and not just the run of the mill pop you heard on the radio. The booking agent for musical acts at the time was very fond of College Radio. Through The Replacements management, SNL booked the band unseen and with virtually no research of what the band was about. The first of many mistakes SNL made when handling the band.
The Replacements had a well earned reputation for partying. Once in New York they were treated to 5 star hotels with unlimited bar and food access and fully stocked limousines. SNL took care of their guests with style. On the day and evening of the show, they were essentially "locked" in a room with an open bar, waiting for their time to hit the stage for their 2 song performance. Legend has it, that the evenings host, Harry Dean Stanton, himself one not to shy away from the booze, partied with the band right up until showtime. There is a noticeable slur to his speech and happiness to his mood when he announces the band.
The Replacements were always a band that never took themselves too seriously, much to their own personal detriment and to their fans' delight. As one critic later said of the SNL performance, "Career suicide never sounded so good". Their first song of the night was "Bastards Of Young". This is singer/songwriter Paul Westerberg's magnum opus. It should have been a stadium anthem, #1 platinum hit. The fact that it never was makes it even better. It's a song about being young, vulnerable, afraid and having no fucking idea what you are going to do with your life. It was a perfect metaphor for the debacle that was about to happen. The Replacements seem at times to crumble under the weight of their genius and potential and here they did it gloriously in front of millions of viewers. They look like a bar band having the time of their lives and right at home doing what they were born to do. Notice at the 1:49 mark, Westerberg backs away from the mic and yells "motherfucker". This earned them a lifetime ban from SNL
When the band came off stage, Lorne Michaels was reputedly furious and gave them a verbal reaming for the obscenity uttered on air. They returned to their dressing room and proceeded to get further inebriated while waiting for the next song later in the show. They also decided to all change clothes, so notice they are in different clothes. Bob Stinson, the lead guitar player claimed that he was in the bathroom doing lines of cocaine and hence he is in the same outfit(a woman's jumpsuit for the record) and claims he never noticed that the other members had exchanged clothes. They perform the song "Kiss Me On The Bus". If you listen carefully, several times during the chorus the lyrics seem to have been changed to kiss me on the butt. A not so subtle fuck you to Lorne Michaels and to the establishment. It was a very Replacements thing to do. At one point the bassist Tommy Stinson steps up to the mic and says something completely incoherent, also a very Replacements thing to do. It was most Americans first and last exposure to The Replacements. They came and exploded across the sky like Kerouac's proverbial "mad ones".
“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!”
