FFWD Weekly
Copyright © 1997. All Rights Reserved.


Drinking in LA confidential
There's some hot-buttered co-inky-dinks goin' on, yessir!

Ah, autumn. That magical time of the year when things change color and drop lifeless to the ground (leaves, malnourished ducks, dads), when children begin the school year anew (bursting w/ the anticipation of new friends, new knowledge, and knocking some heads on the picket line), when the sweet smells of giant acidic gas plumes mingle w/ those of illegal backyard garbage fires.

Maybe it's the hydrogen chloride talking, but it sure feels like the world is purring along like a happy kitty (disturbing photos of Ralph Klein frolicking with Elmo & Grover notwithstanding). The flash'n'crash of Summer '97 has faded, the air is cooling, the bodies don't stink as much. A pleasant synchronicity is at work (as proof, there ain't even a Puff Daddy joke in this sentence). (Or in this one, either!)

Take the back-to-back (w/in seconds of one another) Charlton Heston references on the Millennium season opener, for instance. First that computer nerd who's stalker-proofing Frank Black's house yells, "Git yer stinkin' filthy paws off me ya damned dirty ape!!!" when Frank slaps a headlock on 'im. Then the nerd informs Frank Black (not to be confused with the ditto-named phatass ex-Pixie, whose new album is in record company limbo 'cuz it's too lo-fi) his 'puter password iz "Soylent Green is people." That both phrases are culled from Heston's late '60s/early '70s apocalypso period meshes perfectly with the opening/closing shots of Frank Black staring at the stars and thinking, "Ball of confusion. That's what the world is today. Hey. Hey." (And holy shee-it!, Heston sure laid down the Princess Diana hardline when he was in town a coupla weeks back, huh? First he chastises Lady Die for not playing ball with the press [altho the fact that yer scratching yer head right now thinking, "Charlton Heston was in town?" suggests Chuck himself doesn't exactly have a paparazzi problem], then he wraps things up with: "Wear your seatbelt." Yow!) (Note: this man owns guns.)

Then there's the celebrated case of "bubbkiss." Bran Van 3000's so-catchy-it-hurts "Drinking In LA" was such a hot summertune that it slopped over into fall - but what the hell is that word she's singing? Y'know: the white boy raps about pumping the g-funk, etc, etc, etc, and then she (I think her name's Van. Or maybe Bran) has that line about doing nuthin', absolutely bubbkiss. A guy like me doesn't know bubbkiss from fuckall, but being a beaver of the eager variety, I figgered I could solve the nut (and mix a stiff metaphor while I'm at it).

So I'm thinking, "Gee, she must be saying Butkus, a reference to gridiron thug-turned-actor Dick Butkus." (You may remember D. Butkus from the Blue Thunder TV show, where he drove around in a van with football chum Bubba Smith. Why a hi-tech helicopter would need to be saddled with a couple of land-locked clowns is beyond me, but...) (P.S. Dana Carvey co-starred as flyboy Clinton "Jafo" Wonderlove). So then I'm thinking, "OK, when she says Butkus, it's shorthand for Dick Butkus, which is longhand for Dick. Ergo-a-go-go, 'We did nuthin' - absolutely Butkus' = 'We did nuthin' - absolutely dick.'" Case closed!

So I'm thinking I'm pretty smart & all, and decide to reward my brain with a li'l reading. Next thing I know, I'm thumbing thru James Ellroy's boss-hoss Hollywood Nocturnes and lo-and-behold, there's "bubbkiss" (page 254). And I'm like, Whoa. Out goes the whole Butkus scenario, but it pays to increase yer word power (just like Reader's Digest sez) so everything's OK. F'instance: on the MuchMusic Video Awards, when Bran Van 3K played "Drinking In LA," I knew she was singing bubbkiss-not-Butkus and I nodded like a sage hepster. (Still, I was befuddled by Sook-Yin's odd comment re: how the awards show was revolutionary in that there were no seats, no stage, and - gesturing at her silver dress - "no gender." True, Sook was wearing plastic hair [of the sort made popular by the beautifully mutated Devo during their New Traditionalists period], but it wuz molded into a decidedly fem 'do, so unless she had nine inches of Marky-Mark-styled prosthetics swinging just below camera, I'm inclined to say Sook-Yin just says any old shit that pops into her head.) Oh, yeah: Danny DeVito sez "bubbkiss" in the movie version of LA Confidential (also writ by Ellroy). On a side note, DeVito's character is so close to that of Joe Pesci in The Public Eye (not based on the Brian Fawcett book which I've started-and-not-finished 12 times over 5 years and must thusly conclude is crap even tho it's got pinheads in it), that one might go ahead and say DeVito is, in essence, a short man's Joe Pesci.

Ah yes, autumn is here and the world's a-spin like a greased pig breakdancing for spare change in front of the 8th Ave Dairy Queen. In conclusion: please send me free stuff in the mail. Thanks!

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