"For the Love of Money"
"For the Love of Money"
Cash consciousness? Necessary. Cash craziness? That's at the root of all that divides us in the U.S., either directly or indirectly. PLUS: Unspeakable album artwork, and sublime high fashion ahead
In honor of President Joe Biden’s non-disastrous State of the Union address Thursday night, may I present to you a State of the Substack address.
So…
The overall mission I have for this space is to “find common ground to forge common good and fight corporate greed.”
The quote that used to be at the top of the CeeGees.org home page was from former Pink Floydsman Roger Waters, who has unfortunately (IMO) let his quest for international justice cloud his judgment from time to time. But this statement about the U.S. he made a few years ago on Michael Moore’s Rumble podcast really resonated with me, and explains the place I’d love to help society reach somehow:
CeeGee #1: Common Ground
I’m a left-leaning Southerner from the Midwest who lived for some time on the West Coast (and I’m a “SWAM,” for the record—a Straight White American Male). And I know that I have a lot in common with folks who aren’t like me. With folks who are, for instance:
…from Eastern Tennessee and have lived there all their lives (and are probably White).
…from North Nashville and have lived there all their lives (and are probably Black).
…from Central America and lived there all their lives (and are probably Brown) until it became too dangerous and they migrated to the U.S.
Etc. Etc.
I also likely have lots of differing thoughts, concerns, hopes, and motivations than such folks do, too. But—while I still have serious concerns about Joe Biden’s agenda, and his chances to win reelection in November—the reason CeeGees is here is ultimately to bring disparate people together who agree with Biden’s declaration from his SOTU address that America’s core values are:
Honesty
Decency
Dignity
Equality
As friggin’ cynical as I am these days, I am somehow still able to convince myself that most people are good people. (How far above 50% it is, I’m not so sure.) And good people want good things for good people.
Now, human nature being what it is, I also maintain that most of us (me very much included) need a little help remembering that a majority of human beings, no matter where they’re from or what they look like, are basically good.
So how do we find common ground amongst people of so many stripes? Black, White, Brown, male, female, young, old, rich, poor, gay, straight, liberal, conservative—how do we bring together people who are inherently good, but who are also flawed and biased against folks who aren’t like them?
CeeGee #2: Common Good
Once we find that all-important common ground amongst very different, good-hearted people, we need to work together to create a whole bunch of common good.
All generally good people want to be treated equally. We want to be given a fair shot at a dignified life. And, being (mostly) good people, we want decency to defeat dickishness throughout the vast majority of our society. Can’t always be the case, but surely we can boost the ratio of decency to dickishness beyond what we’re currently experiencing.
CeeGee #3: Corporate Greed
Sometimes I’ve called it “capitalistic greed” instead of “corporate greed,” but that suggests I hate capitalism. I don’t.
I do hate 21st century capitalism.
My political hero—hell, my hero hero—is Bernie Sanders. And he hates capitalism regardless the century. But I disagree that capitalism is inherently evil, as fervently as I’d argue against humanity being inherently more evil than good.
But obscene levels of greed has corrupted the capitalist system. The only question is whether there’s any going back. If there isn’t, then yeah: we have to find a better system.
In Biden’s State of the Union last night, he said:
“Wall Street didn’t build America. They’re not bad guys—they didn’t build it, though. The middle class built this country. And unions built the middle class.”
He ad-libbed the “They’re not bad guys” part. (Read the speech as it was written here. Read the transcript of what he actually said here.)
And sure, Wall Streeters aren’t all bad guys. (I would’ve reworded Joe’s ad-lib as, “They’re not all bad guys.”) Just like all MAGAns aren’t all bad people. But they’re driven by ill will, and are badly in need of a redirect.
Here’s How We Fix It!
We fix it by…….ARE YOU FUGGIN’ KIDDIN’ ME??! I DON’T KNOW HOW THE HAIRY HELL TO FIX IT!!
(Ahem.)
Which is why the current version of CeeGees, much to my dissatisfaction, has to-date been mostly a lot of would-be proselytizing that’s ultimately preaching to the choir. I’m thankful for the chance to preach to the choir! But endlessly analyzing the problem from my house without getting out there and actually interacting with people isn’t enough. (Obvs.)
So, for now, CeeGees has served as a way to work toward how I can best help, and then how I can best gather the courage to actually go do the helping.
The Time-Honored Proverbial S#!t Sandwich
Our format here on CeeGees, as it currently stands, is the shit sandwich format:
Bottom slice: a music mini-essay analyzing the next album release in line on my tower display of fascinatingly vintage cassette tapes leaning against the wall of the front room of my East Nashville abode.
Filling: a mini-essay analyzing a current event, with attempts to spotlight equally topics that are local, regional, and international in addition to national (which is what I tend to focus on—nationwide stuff I can often do very little about, other than gripe about it).
Top Slice: Another music mini-essay, this time examining one of the 975-and-counting songs on my “Recollection Records: Music That’s Entered My Head Out of Nowhere” Spotify playlist. Usually it’s a self-indulgent journey back to when I first heard the song, which may or may not explain why it lodged in my brain without warning one day and prompted being added to the list.
So, some fun music stuff + some serious stuff + some more fun music stuff (the fun music stuff usually being classic rock, classic pop, classic country, or, especially, '80s metal…or fine, call it "hair metal" if you must...).
One Last Tiny Little Seemingly-Inconsequential-But-Oh-So-Helpful Thing
If you like a particular CeeGee (and let’s face facts, you’re gonna like all of ‘em), would you please just click on the little ❤️ icon underneath my byline at the top of the page? Or at the top of the email if you’re reading inside your email?
It’d be helpful! Thanks!
BOTTOM SLICE: “C’mon, Colly-Fone-Yahhhhh!!!”
We started at the top-left of the top cassette case of my cassette tower, and have been moving downward. This fourth CeeGee’s Bottom Slice, though, calls for a left turn (literally and figuratively).
Y’see, if we went from Rage of Angels to the second album from Steelheart, Tangled in Reins, it’d take us sooooo long to get to some of the records in the second column I wanna get to. So who sez we hafta go top-to-bottom? We can take a left turn, right? So long as the next featured album is positioned directly next to the previously featured album? In some capacity? As stated in the official CeeGees Rules & Regs? (Which are really more guidelines than rules…)
ANYWAY. That means next up is the definitive live album from the greatest German rock band of all time (and no I can’t name a second German rock band at the moment but that’s not important right now), the Teutonic Terrors themselves, Scorpions!
1.
First thing that comes to mind when I look at this album cover is that the Scorpions might just be the biggest bunch of rock ‘n’ roll cheezeballs of all time, too, across all countries of origin.
But don’t get it twisted, as the kids say these days. It’s a wonderfully aromatic, creamy blend of cheese the Scorps brew up. Maybe it’d smell more like Limburger if they were actually taking themselves seriously, but, since they’re definitely not (much), we can liken their balls-out brand of hard rock and wistful balladry to, what, perhaps a tangy Tilsit?
2.
Fun Fact: like the Eagles (not The Eagles), it’s the Scorpions (not The Scorpions). Or, rather, it’s Scorpions. There’s no ‘the’…although it’s awkward not to say “the” Scorpions during casual conversation so…feel free to keep saying it wrong (like I am).
3.
Off the top of my head, World Wide Live was probably the second-most-influential live album for me as a kid, just behind Kiss’s Alive! and just ahead of Iron Maiden’s Live After Death.
The Scorpions studio album released before World Wide Live was their biggest-ever, Love at First Sting, which featured the band’s biggest hit song to that point, too: the ever-ubiquitous and riff-tacular “Rock You Like a Hurricane.”
But that song was released before I’d fully assimilated into an MTV zombie. In fact, they’d released three singles from Sting by the time I discovered the band, via MTV, on the album’s fourth and final single/video, “I’m Leaving You.”
And—possibly because it was the first song of theirs I ever heard—“I’m Leaving You” is still by far my favorite Scorpions song. The track didn’t chart anywhere in the world, though, including Germany (it was really just released as a “single” so they could send another video to MTV). But it’s a tight, masterfully melodic pop-rocker.
So imagine my dismay when I realized “I’m Leaving You” was NOT on World Wide Live! The disappointment dissipated pretty quickly, though, as I got my first taste of the band’s classics that came before Love at First Sting: “Blackout,” “Loving You Sunday Morning,” “Can’t Live Without You,” “The Zoo,” “No One Like You,” and, of course…
4.
…“Another Piece of Meat.”
It must be said that the Scorpions liked to pretty shamelessly objectify women back in the Seventies and Eighties, about as much as any other popular hard rock band in my view.
Sadly, I’m fairly certain this album cover…
…primarily influenced this:
And that scene’s a classic, of course, so…thank you, Scorpions? I guess?
But these days I’m pretty snowflakey about this sort of thing. I’m just sensitive to the fact that this was the kinda stuff that influenced my (very) early perspective on women about as much as anything else.
The side-boob seen on the original Love at First Sting cover’s fine (although that was banned too—in America, at least. I had to endure a boring band shot for my Sting cover). And by today’s standards the gum-on-the-breast Lovedrive cover was no big deal (although of course they just haaaad to show the lady’s entire breast on the back cover).
But the Animal Magnetism cover is pretty gross. And I’m not even going to talk about the original cover for 1976’s Virgin Killer. Look it up if you must. The band says all of the cover selections were made by their label, a German subsidiary of RCA. In fact, unbelievably, the RCA logo is prominently displayed right next to the band’s logo on Virgin Killer.
And, to be fair, when they had their big breakout album with “Rock You Like a Hurricane” on it, there was never another gross album cover after. Maybe they despised those risqué covers and were relieved when they had enough clout to insist upon boring covers like this?
5.
Fun personal fact: I always remembered being very…um, “taken with” the pitcher at the beginning of the “I’m Leaving You” video.
A couple years after moving to L.A. after college, I met up with a guitarist at his home studio. We were seeing about working together—trading stories, comparing favorite bands. And Scorpions are not one of my very favorite bands, but somehow they came up anyway. And I expressed that the criminally overlooked “I’m Leaving You” was their best song.
And the guitarist asked if I’d ever seen the video. And I said, “Of course!” And he said, “You know at the beginning when all the girls are playing softball?” And I said, “Boy, do I!”
And he said, “The pitcher’s my wife, wanna meet her?”
And so I met the softball pitcher from the Scorpions’ “I’m Leaving You” video who I crushed super-hard on a couple decades earlier. Ah, Hollywood.
Here’s the video. I think it is exceptionally written, directed, and acted. The girls and the band all perform the slapstick perfectly. Impeccable timing throughout. (I’m not kidding.) It is the embodiment of a mid-Eighties MTV hard rock video. Enjoy.
6.
Not-so-fun-fact for Scorpions: the first time they ever charted in their homeland was with the second single off Love at First Sting, the power ballad “Still Loving You.” And Sting was their ninth record! Even “Rock You Like a Hurricane” didn’t make a dent! More info here if you’re interested…
7.
World Wide Live and Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry were the two albums I remember playing intense, heated, deadly serious air-guitar to in my bedroom the most. Although when I say “air-guitar,” I actually had something tangible I mimed with.
FILLING: See Above…
The “Filling” section is usually where I nestle the current events content. But this edition’s an open-faced shit sandwich, I suppose. The filling’s on top of the bread, i.e. we started with it.
TOP SLICE: Pick a number, any number…
Me: “OK Perplexity, please pick a number between 1 and 975.”
Perplexity.ai: “Sure, I'll pick the number 482.”
And #482 is…….
Oh geez. I mean, Leahey Brothers, eat your hearts out!
Firehouse (it’s stylized “FireHouse” but I don’t like the capital ‘H,’ so I’m lower-casing it) is, IMO, the best third-tier hair metal band.
First-tier hair metal band examples: Mötley Crüe and Ratt.
Second-tier: Poison and Warrant.
Third-tier: Firehouse and BulletBoys.
“Shake & Tumble,” I just found out, was the first single from Firehouse’s self-titled debut album (crazy!). The record actually came out in 1990. So they’re technically a Nineties band, but…very much an Eighties band in spirit, and practice.
In fact, Alice in Chains’ debut, Facelift, hit shelves two weeks prior to Firehouse. I loved both records. A strange sociological phenomenon, to like grunge and glam simultaneously.
I believe “Shake & Tumble” is still a must-play for the band at their concerts. But it pales in comparison to one of the all-time glam jams, “All She Wrote,” and my second-fave track on the album, “Home Is Where the Heart Is.”
However, it does best Firehouse’s breakout MTV hit, “Don’t Treat Me Bad.” Which I never liked, and certainly couldn’t come close to being able to sing. But my high school band Cryin’ Shame made me (try to) sing it anyways.
I wish I had a photo of me wearing the blue paisley vest my mom made for my first-ever rock performance at the IBEW Warehouse in Bloomington, Indiana, sometime in early 1991. But here is the magazine ad that inspired it:
And here is my Firehouse-fashion-inspired senior picture. I’ve still got a few left if anybody wants one.
Thanks for reading!
Yours,
~Dean
P.S. The below is how you damn well do it. No Bandstand-like lip-synching that I can detect…
P.P.S. Possible lip-synching here…
P.P.P.S. BulletBoys singer Marq Torien’s pants, with the painted-on words and such, inspired another personal fashion choice when Cryin’ Shame morphed into Valhalla. I designed the Valhalla logo and painted it—in hot pink, naturally—on my acid-washed jeans. And I do still have those, somewhere…