Sunday, August 10, 2008

Pretty Vacant



"I just don't know how deep I'm going to get into the elements of this sabotage."

A young woman on the 5:07pm Maple Leaf Express chatting loudly on her cell phone
as overheard by Monsieur Cinq, 2007

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Monsier cinq (Mr. V) has a nice ring to it. Sounds like the beginning of an interesting character from a novel.

I might steal it. Nah, I won't.

Anonymous said...

My stepdad once pointed to this title on my Sex Pistols album and said, "Oh that sounds like you. And that one (You're a liar) and that one (Anarchy)." He was giving me shit for being a 'punk.'

Looking back it's a classic parental move. At the time, though, it kinda stung. I can hear Johnny singing it right now - pretty vacant. And that title always brings me to Killerbee's "Pretty Ugly, Pretty Sad"

ScaughtFive said...

My dad pointed them out to me on the big T.V. at Shakey's pizza after a little league baseball game. They were running a news feature on the "Punk" movement in England and my dad and his pals had a chuckle. It was definitely a "take a look at this son, anything passes for music these days!" type thing, not derisive or judgmental. I even took him to mean it differently, thinking "wow, even I could do this so I probably should" at the time.

Anonymous said...

My Stepdad's comments were more than derisive; they came with a slap upside the head.

Seems so strange to me now, so much anger over stupid shit like musical tastes, what colors I wore together or the length of my bangs. Silly, silly.

Thank god for pot and the woods and for the real pops!

Surfswarm said...

i am my dad now. allow me to demonstrate....

me: its bloody awful this rap you are listening to - can't we have some neil diamond on?

son: its not rap dad, i hate rap - raps rubbish - this is grime.

me: oh, grime eh...whats that then, a new kind of rap that manages to be even more unpleasantly, incoherently aggressive than what came before.

son: you wouldn't know, you think everything is rap. you dont know anything. its not rap. i hate rap. this is grime. you wouldn't get it anyway, just go away.

me: well it sounds like rap to me, just a lot of shouting about guns and booty. its not even proper music this rap you like so much. and they can't even make up their own music - stealing all our old tunes.

son: ITS NOT RAP....ITS GRIME...THERE IS A BIG DIFFERENCE....DONT TALK TO ME ANYMORE...GO AWAY AND LISTEN TO YOUR OLD MANS MUSIC...I HATE YOU.

me: sorry my lovely boy, dont get upset, i understand, my dad used to hate what i liked when i was young too. now, if we can be friends again it would be great - and would you mind just turning down the rap a smidgen, that would be lovely.

Surfswarm said...

hhhmmmmm...is it booty or botty - i think the world would be a much sweeter place if fitty cent (i think thats how the big penis likes his name to be pronounced) and his ilk used the latter.
eg.
'If a bitch don't like me'
'Somethin' wrong with that ho
'but she does have nice botty'
'its satisfyingly large, yet firm'

ScaughtFive said...

I don't have to go through that lot being sans chidrens but I do have to deal with 20somethings telling me that rock and roll is county fair music and that every new indie band that hits the blaughosphere is the most important cultural force of our times. I just listen to more New York Dolls.