Surf Punks - My Beach

Back in the summer of 1980 when my Navy officer dad got transferred to the Naval Postgraduate School (NPGS) in Monterey, California and we moved into La Mesa Village, the local Navy housing complex there, my brother and I quickly fell in with the other teens who lived up in that area - folks like Mike C.; Jeff and his girlfriend Kathy; sisters Jane, Jill and Leslie; loud and brash Latina siblings Rosina and Gina; brothers Pete and John; Joel; Jenny... and so many others.  But foremost in the group were two middle schoolers, Mike F. and Martin.

We would all gather together on those warm evenings, usually up by the tennis courts on the grounds of La Mesa Elementary school, to talk, bust one another's balls, and goof off, away from the watchful eyes of our parents.  We would also occasionally mess with "Security", the men and vehicles sent over by NPGS during the night to patrol and keep an eye on the neighborhood.  Most of the time, our group and Security coexisted in a sort of sullen, "see no evil" detente - they would drive by the courts, while we would either ignore them or silently give them the 'hairy eyeball'.  But on other occasions, we would hide out in some leafy, secluded spot within La Mesa and wait for the truck to go by, so we could bombard the vehicle with pine cones and ice plants and wait for the satisfying sound of those projectiles striking metal before melting deeper into the woods when the officers stopped and attempted to give chase.  No, we weren't delinquents or troublemakers, per se - just bored kids looking to have some fun and gin up a little excitement in a fairly isolated corner of the city (years later, I learned that the Security officers, similarly bored with their duties, actually enjoyed and looked forward to the cat-and-mouse antics and chases from that time as much as we did).

Half of the La Mesa crew (including myself) would be attending Monterey High School in the fall; the other half would be going to Walter Colton Middle School, both schools located downtown.  My junior-high aged brother would get to be closer to and better friends with that latter group than I was... although everyone was pretty familiar with one another through our summertime hangout sessions.  We played football together on some weekends, made treks down the narrow (and in hindsight, extremely sketchy and secluded) forest path from La Mesa to Del Monte Mall to eat pizza and play video games at Round Table Pizza, and occasionally on weekends some of us hopped on the Monterey Peninsula Transit (MPT) bus (the region had a superb public transportation system, that stopped almost right at our front door) to places like Carmel and Cannery Row (both of which had yet to be befouled/spoiled by the tourist traps that now proliferate at those locations).  Suffice to say, we were a pretty tight-knit group.

I mentioned in a previous post long ago how UNimpressed I was with California early in our stay there; I was the proverbial 'fish out of water', East Coast guy living on the West Coast for the first time and initially not quite getting into the swing and flow of things there, especially in high school.  It was the presence of music that brought me around to this area, starting off with my encounter with a B-52's fan early in the school term.  As the year progressed, I was exposed to a ton of great 'new' bands there, that I doubtfully would have ever come across at my old Massachusetts high school, or if I had, would have been ostracized for, for being one of the 'weird' kids. In addition to my B-52's story (linked above), I also came across The Residents for the first time while there. The year I moved to Monterey was the year Australasian bands broke big in the States, led by Split Enz with their hits "I Got You" and "I Hope I Never" (the band played both songs on the ABC network late-night show Fridays that October) and followed by Men At Work ("Who Can It Be Now" was released in the spring of 1981, then their massive hit "Down Under" coming out later that year, finally topping the US charts almost a year later).

At Monterey High in 1980-81, there were two big bands that the kids there were buzzing about.  The first was The Medflys, a local Santa Cruz/Monterey ska/New Wave band   They were one of the most popular draws in the early and mid-”80s at clubs and festivals from Monterey and Santa Cruz to San Francisco, and were regularly named “Best Local Band” by area radio stations and news publications during its heyday.  The band”s sound was a combination of the New Wave rock that was popular at the time, mixed with fast-paced ska music, even a little ”80s pop. They were known for their theatrical, energized live shows, especially the acrobatic and charismatic front man Christ, who possessed surfer boy good looks and boundless energy.  Their early Eighties hits included "Compulsive", "Belfast" and "State Of Mind", and later in the decade, they scored notoriety with a novelty song commemorating Clint Eastwood's successful campaign for Mayor of Carmel, "Don't Mess With The Mayor":

In their time, the Medflys went on tour with some major headlining acts, including Joan Jett, fellow locals Huey Lewis & The News and Greg Kihn, but especially The Tubes, who they formed a lasting bond with.

The other band getting a lot of local attention in those years was one I first heard about from some girls who sat next to me in Mr. Clark's science class during my first weeks in school. I noticed early on that their class folders were covered with stickers for Mr. Zog's Sex Wax, a popular brand of surfwax used to aid traction and grip on surfboards.  Of course, I had no idea at the time what this product was; with the innuendo-laden line "The Best For Your Stick", it seemed to me to be a fairly risque image to display. One day, I finally worked up the nerve to ask them about it, and was rewarded with a crash course on local surf culture - the lifestyle, the equipment, the best spots up and down the Central Coast, and the music, especially that provided by their latest fave band, The Surf Punks, from Malibu.

Friends Drew Steele and Dennis Dragon formed The Surf Punks in 1976. While both of them were dedicated surfers and adopted a bohemian "surf'' attitude, their backgrounds were strictly upper class and grounded in big-time show business: Steele's stepfather was Gavin MacLeod of Mary Tyler Moore Show and Love Boat fame; Dragon was the son of popular symphony conductor Carmen Dragon and the younger brother of Daryl Dragon, the "Captain" in the hugely popular pop duo The Captain & Tennille.

The pair recruited a couple of friends and fellow surfers to join the band, including lead guitarist John Heussenstamm, Tony Creed on second guitar and harmonica, and bassist John Hunt, and began practicing in Dragon's garage studio across the street from Zuma Beach in Malibu, one of Southern California's most popular surf spots. The Surf Punks weren't really "punk", per se - most of their songs were various amalgamations of New Wave, surf rock, comedy rock and pop, with lyrics centered primarily on the in-group/out-group experiences of "locals" (surfers living on the beach in Malibu) and "valleys" (commuters from the San Fernando Valley to the private and public beaches of the exclusive Malibu Beach community).  The band has been described more than once as "The Beach Boys of the punk world", an assessment that wasn't totally inaccurate.

Their wild shows, at places like the legendary Starwood in Hollywood and a notorious show in Ventura, were a big draw in the area in the late 1970s, and generated enough attention in the group for a local producer to finance a single, "My Beach/Go Home" b/w "My Wave", released in Australia in late 1977. The Surf Punks' first self-titled album, an independent release on their own Day-Glo Records label, came out two years later, and cuts from this disc began receiving heavy play on L.A.'s influential alternative rock station KROQ-FM. This wider exposure led to the band booking more lucrative local gigs. And it also caught the interest of industry giant Epic Records, who picked up the group on a one-off contract; their debut album (renamed My Beach) was rereleased on the label in mid-1980.  The record was fairly popular in certain quarters (mainly coastal California, Hawaii, Australia and other semi-heavy surf communities), but wasn't a national breakout hit and did nothing chart-wise.  I used to hear it all over the Monterey Bay area during that time, though, and although I wasn't (and still am not) much of a beach bum, I enjoyed the music immensely.  It was stuff like The Surf Punks that really got me settled into life in California, and I began enjoying the area, the school and my neighborhood more and more.

 

Looking back, probably the nucleus of the La Mesa group, the center it all revolved around, were the two Mikes (Mike C. and Mike F.) along with Martin. The three of them lived only a couple of houses away from one another in the upper part of La Mesa Village, and as such they were the closest of buddies, with the same skewed senses of humor and penchants for mischief and danger. A once-legendary story that emerged from that time was the night in late 1980 the three took Martin's brother's car for a joy ride. His brother Carl really wasn't part of the overall group, although everyone liked him just the same; he was sort of quiet and kept to himself and his interests, which included the restoration of a vintage vehicle from the 1940s that he had acquired. This car was a thing of beauty - a huge retro body painted metallic blue with flecks of glitter in it, sporting chromium wheels and a sooped-up engine.  Carl would drive that thing around town and instantly stop traffic and draw stares wherever he was. Prospective purchasers were drooling for that auto to be put on the market... but Martin was to have first dibs on it, going 50/50 on the purchase with his father. The car wasn't in Martin's possession just yet, though - so I have no idea how he got hold of the keys...

Anyway, with Martin behind the wheel and the two Mikes riding shotgun, these guys decided to go for a spin down Aguajito Road and up the winding mountain road to nearby Jacks Peak Park. On the way back down, legend has it that Martin decided that would be a good time to open the car up and see what it could REALLY do... As they picked up speed, he reportedly crowed "I'M GOING TO BREAK THE LAND SPEED RECORD!!!" - just before he missed a turn and ran the vintage car into a ditch. Fortunately, none of the three were hurt, but the car was a total wreck.  When Martin's dad found out what happened, he rejoined "Well, I was going to go 'halfs' with you on this - but guess what? You just bought the WHOLE car!"

The NPGS authorities finally got tired of residents' complaints of "rowdy teens" and decided to address the issue by opening up a "Teen Center" in the middle of the neighborhood. I was one of those annoying "student leader" types back then, so I was asked to be on the planning and advisory board for the facility, in an unused building up there. In the bylaws I helped set up, it was decided that the kids themselves would run the place, with minimal adult supervision. So we elected officers (I was the first vice-president), stocked the place with vending machines, a pool table, pinball machines and video games, and threw the doors open that winter. The Teen Club was a resounding success from the get-go - every night, 40-50+ kids would pile into the place. We held parties and dances there as well (all the guys angling to dance the longest song (always "Stairway To Heaven") with Stephanie, the prettiest girl in La Mesa).

 

I graduated from high school and left Monterey after one year, but my family stayed on, as well as Martin, Freeman, and most of the old group. During my first few months away, I made an effort to acquire a copy of My Beach, to remind me of the place I had grown to be fond of.  The Teen Club still ran strong in my absence, and apparently continued long after all of us had left the area (Years later, I returned to Monterey as a Navy officer myself. On a whim, I drove up to La Mesa to look around, and was happily surprised to find the Teen Club still in operation. When I told the administrator there who I was and how the place came to be, she reached up on a back shelf and pulled down an ancient photo album, that included photos from that first year of existence!).

 

As it happens in military housing communities, the old, familiar groups tend to gradually dissipate, whittled down by graduations and family transfers. By 1984, everyone who had been part of that close-knit La Mesa circle had moved away.  However, I stayed in touch with many of the folks from that period, and watched as their lives progressed.  Pete ended up remaining in the Monterey area and became a paramedic; Jill became a French teacher; Martin moved down to San Diego and worked as a teacher and high school football coach; Joel also attended Annapolis and became a Navy officer; Mike F. - the wildest of us all - ended up joining the U.S. Border Patrol, and to his credit has advanced within it to high levels of responsibility. I haven't laid eyes on most of them in years, but we all still regard one another as friends - that's how it is when you're a "Navy brat".

 

Several decades have passed since those days... yet I still think back fondly on that time and the people that I knew.  While New Zealand will always be the best place I've ever lived, Monterey ranks a close second, and is the best place in the States I've resided, hands down.

In March of this year, Martin posted a message on his Facebook page, stating that he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  While it was concerning, those of us who knew him weren't overly worried, as he had worked through some other serious health issues in the past, and seemed ready to lick this thing as well.

 

Alas, it was not to be - Martin died last week, at the age of 55.

It seems odd and strange that someone who was an integral part of that period is now no longer with us. Because in some ways, those times in Monterey seem like yesterday, and therefore I'm still in my youth. I still listen to my old Surf Punks albums from time to time (after My Beach, they released (to steadily worsening reviews and sales) Locals Only on Day-Glo Records in 1982, and their final label release Oh No! Not Them Again! on Enigma Records in 1988 - and yes, I own them all), and they still conjure up that fine teenage period of life for me. But with Martin's passing, the first of the group that I know of to die, it brings home the fact that those times WERE long ago, that I'm not as young as I'd like to think, and the clock is ticking - ticking for us all.

 

Gonna miss you, Martin, man - you made it to the top of the mountain and back this time.

 

In honor and in memory of my time in La Mesa, and for my old friend Martin, here's The Surf Punks' My Beach, released on Epic Records in June 1980. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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Richard Pryor - Craps (After Hours)

I've mentioned before how much of a comedy buff my oldest daughter has become. Through my collection of audio and video, she has been fully conversant with the entire Monty Python ouevre before she was out of elementary school; has watched all of the episodes of Police Squad!, Fawlty Towers and The Young Ones multiple times, and is a huge fan of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 reruns. Just a couple of months ago, I took her to see Dave Chappelle's live show here in town. Believe me, I put a lot of thought into whether or not, as a high-school teen, she was old enough to handle Chappelle's language and style of humor (and don't ask me how I managed to sneak all of this past her mother . . .). But my girl has a pretty good head on her shoulders, so in the end I brought her along, we both had a great time - my daughter thought he was hysterical.

For Father's Day earlier this year, my little girl got me an inspired gift, Scott Saul's Becoming Richard Pryor, detailing the early life and rise of the great groundbreaking comedian and performer. I've been enjoying this book very much, and through it learned quite a bit about the life and career of this man.

To say that Richard Pryor's early life was rough would be a gross understatement. He was born in 1940 in Peoria, IL, a city located midway between Chicago and St. Louis. Despite its northern location, Peoria in the 1940s and '50s was still a heavily segregated town, not de jure but de facto. But that didn't prevent it from being considered at the time one of the most corrupt, sordid, "wide open" cities in America. For decades, gambling (the largest gambling hall in the city was directly across from the police department), drinking (the largest distillery in the world was located there; before income tax was implemented, when the U.S. derived most of its revenue through import fees and commodity taxes, Peoria alone, through the whiskey tax, was responsible for nearly half the federal government's income), and prostitution flourished here, not only in the exclusively white, upper-class bluffs overlooking the city, but especially in the lower-class, industrial valley section hard by the Illinois River, where most of the minorities were congregated.

Richard's grandmother was a celebrated madam in the city's North Washington red-light district, operating a string of brothels in the area. Richard's mother was a brothel worker (i.e., prostitute); his father, the brutal Leroy "Buck" Pryor, was one of the head pimps working for his mother. His parents divorced at the age of five and Buck was awarded custody of his son, so Richard grew up primarily in and around the whorehouses, privy to all that went on in these establishments from an early age, and subject to the heavy and routine physical abuse inflicted on him by both his father and grandmother. In school, he was usually one of the few black kids in his class, and his days will filled with ostracism, taunts and bullying from most of his classmates. This was the atmosphere Pryor grew up in; it must have been miserable.

His only escape was through the movies - in the "Negroes Only" balcony seats of Peoria's downtown theaters, he could lose himself for an hour or two in adventure films and westerns (his favorite was the whip-wielding cowboy star Lash LaRue). Practically the only other bright spot in Pryor's life during his Peoria years occurred when he was fourteen years old, where he participated in a youth theater group at a local community center. The group's adult director, Juliette Whittaker, took Richard under her wing, gave him crash courses in acting, set and costume design, and directing, and provided him some of his first opportunities to shine in front of an audience. If any single person set Richard on the path to fame and stardom, it was Ms. Whittaker.

After being kicked out of school in ninth grade, Richard worked odd jobs in and around the Peoria area until joining the Army in the spring of 1959.  His stint in the military lasted a year and a half; stationed in Germany, he was constantly in trouble, serving several periods of restriction and extra duty, culminating in a long stay in the stockade after stabbing a fellow soldier. It was by supreme good fortune that Pryor received an honorable discharge from the Army in August 1960. He returned home to Peoria and recommenced the same cycle as before his departure - working odd, low-paying jobs and hanging out on the streets and interacting with winos, drifters and other neighborhood characters. He soon landed a job as a bartender and occasional comedian at a local black club of questionable legality and ill repute, and worked there until it was closed by the city in the fall of 1962. He then headed to New York to try his luck there as a professional comic.

The first couple of years of Pryor's professional standup career were relatively undistinguished. Bill Cosby's comedic career had taken off and catapulted him to nationwide fame just as Richard was starting out, and for a long while, Pryor labored under Cosby's long shadow. His material was straight out of the Cosby playbook - on the whole middlebrow, mild, and generally observational. Combined with Richard's near-mimicry of Cosby's act and subject matter was a tendency to punctuate his punch lines with a goofy face or expression - Pryor appropriated that rubber-faced schtick from the man he called "The God of Comedy", Jerry Lewis. But above all, Pryor's act strove to be free of any controversial class or racial connotations that could upset Middle American audiences. In fact, Pryor was very careful to obscure or whitewash any and all aspects of his rough past and upbringing.

For example, here's Richard Pryor's television debut in August 1964, on Rudy Vallee's variety show On Broadway Tonight. Vallee introduced him as "a former Army paratrooper" whose father Leroy, "an old vaudeville song and dance man", bequeathed his talent on his son. In Pryor's act, the lies and bullshit kept coming:

Looking back at it now, Richard Pryor's act in the mid-60s was startlingly conventional, and rigidly within the bounds of decency. There was nothing particularly exceptional or ground-breaking in his comedy. But that seemed to suit the tenor of the times. As Scott Saul wrote:

Soon Richard would be recognized as a "lean, literate, quick-witted kook", the man with "the most elastic face in show business." His main persona was the bungler or schlemiel . . . He was Bill Cosby's younger, skinnier brother, the one who blew his cool as much as Cosby kept his.

After his appearance on On Broadway Tonight, Richard began appearing on television more frequently, especially on the Ed Sullivan and Merv Griffin programs where he was a favorite guest. His broadcast work in New York earned Pryor a ticket to Hollywood in 1966, where he was featured as a recurring special guest on a new program, The Kraft Summer Music Hall, a relentlessly hokey TV variety show hosted by the squarest of squares, singer John Davidson. Appearances on other shows - The Wild Wild West, The Mod Squad, The Partridge Family - were soon to follow, and Pryor became a Hollywood insider, making friends of industry power brokers and stars like Aaron Spelling, David Wolper, Ryan O'Neal and Bobby Darin.

But despite this plethora of high-profile, highly paid TV work, it all kept Richard's comedy under the same strictures - somewhat corny, mild, inoffensive, acceptable to most of America . . . and by that, I mean white America; his act had yet to resonate with black Americans. For most of that community, Pryor's comedy didn't connect; for them, he was little more than a slightly hipper version of Nipsey Russell. Richard once related a story of how one day in 1966, after a Merv Griffin taping, he and his new friend Redd Foxx went on a visit to Harlem. Foxx, of course, was by then a giant in black comedy, a Chitlin Circuit veteran known for his raunchy underground show recordings - the "King of the Party Records". As they walked through the neighborhood, residents greeted Foxx warmly, shouting his street nickname, "Zorro". Pryor was all but ignored.

"Wait a minute," he thought to himself. "I'm in the wrong place, I'm in the wrong town. I want to be here. I want people to talk to me like they talk to Redd."

His klutzy, zany, goofball TV persona was in marked contrast to his continuing stand-up work at counter-cultural comedy clubs like the Troubadour, the Improv and the Cafe Au Go-Go, where his language and subject matter were considerably less PC. But at that point in time, there was no acceptable outlet for Pryor to bring this side of his humor to the public at large. He was making it, but yet not "making" it, if you understand my meaning.

By 1967, Pryor seriously began to chafe against these strictures, with the result being that he started to lose it, both personally and professionally. The early part of that year was fraught with turmoil, including a breakup from his longtime girlfriend, jail time for drug possession and court hearings after his arrest for assaulting a hotel clerk. His oft-mythologized "breakdown" on stage at the Aladdin in Las Vegas occurred later that year, but the legend behind this incident - in mid-set at the venue, suddenly asking himself and the audience out loud "What the fuck am I doing here?" and walking offstage, thus beginning his long blackballing by the entertainment industry - belies the actual facts. Pryor continued to be welcome in Vegas and on TV for the remainder of the year and into 1968. But he, and his act, were changing.

His first album, titled simply Richard Pryor, taken from recordings from his shows at the Hollywood Troubadour in July 1968, was released on Dove/Reprise later that year. There are some semi-risque bits on it, like "Super Nigger" and "Farting", and a mild obscenity or two. But for the most part, the album is made up of Richard's "kook" persona delivering somewhat lame, polished, showbiz-zy routines (like "Prison Play" and "TV Panel Show") that would have wowed a semi-"with it" Las Vegas lounge audience. The only real evidence of the change in Pryor's attitude here was on its cover, with Richard simultaneously embracing and denigrating an African stereotype - an interpretation that, in that day, could go either way.

In the months to come, things continued to fall apart in Pryor's life. Both of his parents died, and he began seriously abusing drugs, leading to a series of missed performances, breakups with managers and lovers, and estrangement from the industry (including cancellation of his two-album deal). By the end of the decade, Pryor was pretty much off the nightclub/talk show circuit; there were only four clubs TOTAL "in the world" whose doors were open to him: The Cellar Door in DC, Maverick's Flat in L.A., Basin Street West in San Francisco and Mandrake's in Berkeley, CA. Richard had burnt his bridges nearly everywhere else. Even his old friend and patron Redd Foxx refused to book him at his club, considering him unreliable. Richard tried to concentrate on his TV and movie acting career during this period. But even that had stalled. By mid-1970, Pryor was in bad shape and in serious trouble - no manager, little income, and debts to some fairly heavy and sinister drug dealers had begun to mount.

At this low point, Richard turned for help to Louis and David

Druzen, the owners of Laff Records, a small and rather disreputable label specializing in releasing infamous black raunch/"party" records from the likes of LaWanda Page, Skillet & Leroy, Mantan Moreland - and yes, Redd Foxx. Laff signed Pryor in late 1970 for only a $5,000 advance - a far cry from the $50,000

he received just two years earlier for his two-album deal with Reprise Records. What Laff got in return was plenty - a commitment for four albums over the next two years (with $27,500 payable upon receipt of the last one), plus exclusive recording/release rights to Richard's comedy for the next two years and the right afterwards to exercise an additional

two-year option that would have committed Pryor to releasing three more albums with the label. That's a potential total of seven albums over four years - a daunting nut to make. But at the time, Richard was desperate - the drug dealers were after him big time. As he told the Druzens as he signed with them and received his money, "If I didn't get this, I'm going to die."

The first album he delivered was Craps (After Hours). Showing some leniency to his friend and protege, Foxx allowed him to record the album at the Redd Foxx Club in Los Angeles. What made it on to the recording was almost a complete departure from the work Richard was known for before.

Craps differed in many ways from Pryor's first Reprise album. Most obvious was the number of tracks - thirty-two (as opposed to just seven on Richard Pryor), with some tracks lasting no longer than a few seconds. There was no clear underlying theme in the comedy here; Pryor covered sex ("Gettin' Some", "Big Tits"), drugs ("Gettin' High"), politics ("President Nixon"), race relations and all sorts of controversial, risque topics in dark, absurd terms. He also got very personal - for the first time, Pryor openly discussed, in detail, the turmoil, craziness and violence in his family life. Also for the first time here, he brought the images (winos, junkies and preachers) and vocal rhythms of lower-class black life into his act. On Craps, Richard moves from thought to thought, theme to theme, in rapid-fire sequence, so the album at first listen seems scattershot and not totally coherent from start to finish. But despite (or due to) its low concept approach, it feels more intimate, more "real", than Pryor's first album. It's also funny as hell.

Due to the limited retail reach of Laff, Craps (After Hours) wasn't a Billboard 200 hit (it was fortunate to have been released on the cusp of major social changes in America; the album probably would have been banned if it had been put out just a couple of years earlier). But it soon became an underground/cult classic - future comedians like Eddie Murphy and Chappelle have spoken about hearing this album at a young age and how much it influenced their ambition and later work. This was the first record that allowed Pryor to be Pryor, to break free of showbiz bounds and express himself the way that he wished to be heard.

All in all, Craps was a revelation, and the date of its release can be considered the starting point of the true comedic genius of Richard Pryor. Richard's later comedic development and ascent to superstardom began with the launch of this disc. Its release date can also be thought of as a Year Zero for stand-up comedy in this country. The influence of the openness of subject matter and language in Richard Pryor's work, and on this album in particular, can be seen and heard in the later work of Murphy, Damon Wayans, Sarah Silverman and Margaret Cho, among many, many others. Comics from across the spectrum and every generation fully acknowledge the impact of Pryor to U.S. humor; Jerry Seinfeld called him "the Picasso of our profession"; Bob Newhart named him as "the single most seminal comedic influence in the past fifty years." Comedian Paul Rodriguez said it best: "There are two periods in comedy in America: before Richard Pryor and after Richard Pryor." Craps was the transition point.

So here, on the tenth anniversary of the death of the man universally acknowledged as the greatest stand-up comedian of all time, I proudly present to you Richard Pryor's Craps (After Hours), released by Laff Records in late 1971 and rereleased on CD on November 15th, 1994.   This is hard as hell to find for download online, so here it is, burnt off of my personal copy.  Laugh, enjoy, and remember this great talent.

And as always . . . well, you know.

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Eddie Murphy - Eddie Murphy

As I mentioned in a previous post, at one time I made a concious, concerted effort to subconciously mold and influence my kids' musical tastes into something resembling my own - an attempt that frankly was an abject failure. But over the years, as my children have grown, it has been interesting and fun to see them develop their own tastes, and marvel at the things they start to like - especially so when those likes begin to mirror my own.

For example, my younger daughter and son are still at the stage where "Spongebob Squarepants" and "Phineas & Ferb" rank high on their lists, in terms of cultural relevance and quality entertainment. She loves playing with her dolls, and he with his toy soldiers, and they both enjoy the Poptropica and Club Penguin websites and their Xbox and Wii games. With all of those activities and programs capturing most of their attention, I assumed that they were absorbing very little, if any, of the music I played around the house.

However, a few months ago, while we were all driving somewhere, I was playing some tunes off my mobile device through the car stereo (I always keep my iPod in the car, for on-the-go tuneage). My little girl suddenly piped up, "Daddy, would you play that 'Lobster' song, please?"

I quickly figured out that she was referring to the B-52's "Rock Lobster", and put it on for her.

While it was playing, I happened to glance back at my son. Now, his favorite pastime while riding in the car is playing one of the several games I have for him on my iPhone - Angry Birds, Smash Cops, Major Mayhem, Jetpack Joyride. Usually, he's so locked into these games, that I have to impose limits on how long he can play them. So, needless to say, I was surprised to see that, as "Rock Lobster" played, he had actually turned the iPhone OFF, and sat in his seat, head down, playing air guitar a la Ricky Wilson . . . for the ENTIRE song! When the song ended, they asked for an immediate repeat; all in all, I played "Rock Lobster" six times in a row for them, with my son pantomiming every note every time, and my daughter learning the correct sounds to make every time Fred Schneider called out "Dogfish!" or "Sea Robin!" It was very funny, and very good to see.

My third child, the oldest (tween-aged) daughter, has her own iPod, and with it she has established her own musical tastes - mostly showtunes (like the soundtracks to Cats, Wicked and West Side Story), Michael Jackson songs and a smattering of lightweight pop like Demi Lovato and Katy Perry (*sigh* . . . yeah, I know). But occasionally I can sneak something onto her device that she 'discovers' and falls in love with.

For instance, a couple of months ago, I surrepticiously put Crystal Castles' "Crimewave" in her playlist - she found it, thought it was the greatest song in the world, and now she's a devoted Crystal Castles fan. But I don't do a lot of that sort of stuff - I'd rather let them discover their own media likes . . . although in more than one case, it's left me with some awkward situations to deal with.

I have a couple of Apple TV boxes in the house, connected to the TVs in the living room and in the girls' room. Apple TV allows you to, among other things, wirelessly stream the contents of your iTunes music and video database directly through your television - so instead of crowding around a computer screen to hear a song or watch a show, you can hear/view stuff anywhere in the house. Through Apple TV, my oldest daughter discovered my Monty Python collection (I have the entire series, along with all the movies, digitized in my hard drive). Over the past year, she's watched every single episode and film multiple times, laughing her head off every time; she knows Monty Python cold now, and through her exposure to it, it's sparked her interest in comedy.

I also have a show on my computer called The Best of Eddie Murphy, featuring some of his most celebrated sketches from his time on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" - you know, stuff like Gumby, Mr. Robinson, and of course Buckwheat; pretty mild stuff comparatively, but still hilarious. She found that on Apple TV early last month, and enjoyed it immensely, watching it multiple times and even putting the show on her mobile device, so she could watch it on the go.

Over the Labor Day weekend, I surprised the children with an "end-of-summer" trip to a nearby amusement park. It took about an hour to drive to the park from my house, and my daughter brought her iPod along, watching the Eddie Murphy clips all the way there. We spent all day at the park, riding the rides, seeing the shows, eating stuff that wasn't particularly good for us and splashing around at their on-the-grounds waterpark. The kids had an absolute blast, which was all that I hoped for. As the park closed, I loaded up my three happy, tired children into the car and began the long drive home.

My oldest daughter turned her iPod on early in the return journey, but found that it was running out of power.

"Daddy? Can I plug my iPod in to charge it up?" (I have a Apple device car adaptor)

"No, honey - I'm sorry; I need the plug to charge up my phone. But you can listen to Daddy's iPod if you want."

"Okay!"

I handed my device back to my little girl, and for the next ten minutes silence reigned in the car. Then I heard a sound coming from the back seat:

**snicker!**

I looked back through the rear-view mirror to see my daughter covering her mouth and shaking with laughter. I asked, "What's so funny, sweetheart?"

In the most innocent voice possible (a telltale right there), my daughter answered, "Ohhhh . . . nothing!"

I just nodded, but kept an eye on her . . . And sure enough, a couple of minutes later, again - **snicker!**

"What are you listening to, honey?"

And again: "Ohhhh . . . nothing, Daddy!"

Just as before, I let it go - she was enjoying herself; so be it. But a minute later, when she snickered again, I laughingly asked her what was making her laugh so much.

She paused for a moment, then said, "Well, I found these old Eddie Murphy albums on your iPod . . ."

My immediate thought was "Oh, shit." Eddie Murphy's comedy shorts on SNL, while funny, are only a bit risque - as much as he could get away with on network TV. But the stuff on his comedy albums is a FAR CRY from the material my daughter had seen and was used to - filled with profanity and references to "faggots" (pardon the term), "motherfuckers" and "big dicks". I was mortified, and my initial impulse was to either reach back and snatch the iPod from her ears as quick as I could, or otherwise tell her to turn it off and find something else to listen to . . .

But just as quickly, I reversed myself, and decided to just let it go and let her keep listening. You know, your kids are your kids, and over the years as you raise them, you tend to think of them as these innocent little tykes needing constant monitoring, nurturing and protection from all of the bad things in the world. But I think that most parents (myself included) maintain this image of their children for a lot longer than necessary. Kids grow up pretty quickly, especially in these times, and it's both impossible and foolish to try to keep from exposing them to the reality of the world - both the good stuff and the bad (racism, profanity, obscenity, etc.). Instead of putting up an iron wall between them and these sort of things, I've found that it's better to erect a door instead, allowing these things to enter their lives slowly, with some level of control, and together with them helping to understand and deal with these issues. When the odd event or situation slips through or around that 'door' into your child's life, outside of your control, instead of freaking out or trying to pretend it's not there, having an approach like this already established helps you to deal with it in a more rational way.

My oldest daughter is pretty smart and switched-on; after a year of watching Monty Python, she 'gets' politically incorrect humor, knowing why it's funny in certain circumstances, but also knowing why it's not for general audiences. The last thing I'd expect her to do is start repeating these riffs in front of her mother or grandparents - she knows better than that. So that makes my job a little easier . . .

Besides, she thinks the stuff is hilarious, and she's right. In the wake of Murphy's meteoric rise in the 1980s, followed by his uneven career (to put it mildly) of the past twenty-odd years, it's easy to forget what a bombshell his debut comedy album was when it was released in November 1982. At that point, Murphy has been on SNL for two years, for the past year being the breakout cast member and biggest attraction during a lackluster period in the history of the show. The album Eddie Murphy was really the first time a national audience got to experience the REAL Eddie Murphy - profane, powerfully cynical, urban, raw. Some of the routines on this first release have become classics: "Talking Cars", "Black Movie Theaters", "Myths/A Little Chinese" - and my personal all-time favorite, "Drinking Fathers".

Most of this album is a laugh riot, with the only off-notes (pun intended) coming from the two weak songs Murphy saw fit to put at the end of each side, "Boogie In Your Butt" and the annoying "Enough Is Enough". Still, that being said, the release of Eddie Murphy was the opening salvo in a two-month onslaught of career successes in 1982 - the release of 48 Hrs. in early December, and his stint as guest host of SNL later that month (the first, and only, active cast member to ever host the show) - that by the end of the year had elevated Murphy to one of the biggest stars in the world.

Eddie Murphy extended that superstardom through the remainder of the '80s, but by the beginning of the 1990's, that momentum had petered out, weighed down by hubris and bad career decisions. Too bad. Even in the wake of his career decline and series of crappy, widely-panned movies (I Spy, Norbit, Meet Dave, Imagine That, and one of the all-time flops, The Adventures Of Pluto Nash- among many, many other stinkbombs), Murphy is still considered by people in my generation as one of the funniest comedians and greatest film stars ever. And this debut album is where that reputation took seed and began to grow. Heck - if it can still make my tween-aged daughter laugh, all these years later, I guess there's still SOMETHING to it, eh?

So, for your listening pleasure, Eddie Murphy, released by Columbia Records on November 6th, 1982. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.

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