My clock radio went off today at 6:20am to REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know it." There was a fire alarm in my office building at 7:30am.
And then I read that Glenn Shadix, who played horrible interior designer Otho in Beetlejuice and the Mayor of Halloweentown in The Nightmare Before Christmas, passed away after a fall.
This was the worst part of my day. Not only are those two of my favorite movies, (Beetlejuice is a sick-day favorite of mine) but I always liked picking Glenn Shadix out in other parts, such as his stint on the otherwise unwatchable Carnivale.
An impromptu stop at Last Vestige Records netted me two major treasures--Warren Zevon's Sentimental Hygine LP (my favorite Zevon album) and Bob and Doug MacKenzie's Great White North LP. I just watched Strange Brew again recently and have been on a real B&D kick, hosers . . . also had a great urge for bacon.
But while I was there, I noticed that Johnny Depp was watching me with his stupid orange hair and his idiotic purple top hat from the cover of the Almost Alice compilation soundtrack. I'm not going to justify him with a picture.
Depp and I had a bad breakup a few years ago, when I wanted him to go back to that "acting" thing he did in Edward Scissorhands and Benny and Joon, and he preferred to halfway nuke his Fear and Loathing bit like a bachelor's TV dinner and chew on the wads of cash that Disney threw at him.
I was having a perfectly awesome Last Vestige experience and figured now was as good a time as any to ruin it. Avril Lavigne? The All-American Rejects?
Apparently falling down the rabbit hole landed Alice in Wonderland circa 2002. And apparently, Tim Burton is still in high school and still hasn't lost his virginity.
Remember when Danny Elfman used to be sole music man for Burton? What, is he no longer a genius and Owl City has to cover for him?
Elfman gave us the Beetlejuice theme, which, according to my friend Sterling, is "a brass section's wet dream." Elfman wrote "The Ice Dance" which, if I ever get married, will be my processional. And he wrote and sang a hefty chunk of the fantabulous score for The Nightmare Before Christmas, my all-time favorite film. Apparently he wasn't awesome enough for that either, because they got a bunch of pop star assholes to cover that too. Danny Elfman or Fall Out Boy? If you chose the latter, well, you're an asshole too.
Okay, so he did the score, but seriously, the man who wrote "Insanity" doesn't need any help from weenies who wrote "Hey There Delilah."
Elfman is a vocal virtuoso . . . his voice is beautiful and haunting and savage all at once, one of those great rock voices that works just as well snarling out, "I'd love to take your satin dolls and tear them all to shreds/I'd love to mess your pretty hair, I'd love to see you dead" as when he sings, "and if we don't try too hard/we might start falling in love." He is delicate and brutal, he makes his performance look and sound so effortless.
This compared to Pete Wentz, who sounds like he forgot to remove his noseplugs after his mom picked up from swimming lessons.
