Is this too obvious or not obvious enough?

(No one I think is in my tree...)

Erring on the side of this being not obvious enough... What is the connection between the "birthday party" line and the video?

Bonus points given for knowing who the "grip" is and his connection to this video

The grip is Phillip Seymour Hoffman, right? The connection is P.T. Anderson directed this video.

Thomas Jane and Melora Waters are also in this clip. I think it was made the same time as Boogie Nights.

Most of Michael Penn's music has aged rather badly for me, but this song's pretty good still.

By the way, the "birthday party" and "Bueller" comments made no sense to me.

Which one's the grip, and does he work harder than the executive producer?

Is the grip the chubby guy with the beard? Is it Phillip Seymour Hoffman? Beside the fact that those two are tied to those P.T. Anderson films, I'm not sure what the connection is.

Then the video shifts into a They Shoot Horses, Don't They segment. Arthur Penn didn't direct that, did he? And is Arthur Penn the father of the Penn boys?

I've never seen Ferris Beuller's Day Off, so I have no idea what that's all about.

Please help me, somebody.

Chubby guy is indeed Hoffman who played "Scotty J." in Boogie Nights which also featured a brief appearance by "Nick the Engineer" (Michael Penn) who oversaw the production of "Feel the Heat" and "Touch".

"Hey! Wait a minute! There's no birthday party for me here!" is a popularly quoted line from Fast Times uttered by Spicoli who was awesomely played by... Michael Penn's brother Sean.

Support videos have been added above.

DUMBEST T-SHIRT SPOTTED; POST-IRONIC STAGE DEPPLOYMENT INEVITABLE?

I met up with Townsman Mockcarr at the Nationals game last night (for which I blame this miserable hangover), and while waiting for Chuckles to show up, I spotted a man (in his 30s or so) who was surely oblivious to just how *totally* uncool he looked in his tucked-in T-shirt. The guy was wearing a Riverdance T-shirt, for crying out loud!

Anyhow, spotting this doofus made me wonder whether wearing such an article on stage would be cool or not. Mockcarr was adamant: no! I, however, thought one might be able to pull it off. Your thoughts?

Would you need to tuck in the Riverdance shirt onstage? With it tucked in, it might be too subtle, too uncomfortable. With it hanging out, it might be too obvious. How would one strike just the right chord?

I actually find cluelessness endearing. Maybe the guy at the ballgame inherited the shirt, or his wife got it for him, or it was in the '5 t-shirts for $5' bin at the drugstore. Someone who literally doesn't give a damn what his shirt says is a-ok in my book.

I don't see anyway anyone in a band could wear that Riverdance shirt unironically. And thinking that Riverdance is worthy of ridicule is hardly cutting edge. So no coolness points there. It might possible be cool in some kind of Mobius-twisted way if Bono wore it.

And I don't want to contemplate the possibility that the baseball fan actually likes Riverdance.

QUESTION FOR G48, SALLYC AND ANYBODY ELSE WITH AN INTEREST IN THE PECULIAR ARC OF PAUL WELLER'S CAREER

Did either of you catch the early Style Council show on "BBC Crown Jewels" tonight? This show predated the release of their first LP, and it was pretty darn good!

Hey, I just caught the last 15 minutes of it and I was astounded by how thoroughly decent it was! I mean that as a compliment. The few songs I sounded, stripped of that hideous '80s sound Style Council would favor, sounded like a tune-up for Paul's true solo career of the last 15 years or so. His voice was so much less sure of itself on this early Style Council material compared with how he's been singing since he actually went solo.

The real questions for you, Hrrundi, are What did you think of his tone? and How did this performance stack up to ELO, ZZ Top, and Prince?

The TiFaux is set to capture the 1:30 reshowing. Thanks for the headsup.

Says it's from March 1984, which if memory serves is pretty much exactly when CAFE BLEU/MY EVER CHANGING MOODS came out. Maybe a few weeks before.

You'll all be on Team Style Council ('83-'85 plus selected later singles) eventually.

The Great 48 wrote:

You'll all be on Team Style Council ('83-'85 plus selected later singles) eventually.

Hey man, no threats around here. We're all friends, right?

Actually, I just went down and watched the first two songs ("Meeting Over Yonder" and "My Ever Changing Moods") and am reminded again how much the early Style Council owed to TSOP and Curtis Mayfield. Given the love for both round these parts, what exactly is the problem: he's not allowed the influence because he's white and British?

I did see most of the show. It was good. Much better than the actual SC records. Paul had a great look and was in great voice. Everyone looked so damn *clean*. I didn't dig the chick singer - I couldn't tell if she had a good voice. She sounded OK singing with Paul but not on her own. Was Afrodesiac playing with EC that night.

48 is right, the soul influences are so obvious but I think it didn't succeed with the likes of me (I openly scoffed at them) because of the production and the pretentious "more mature" nature they wanted to exude.

Andyr, you've hit the nail on the head (again) identifyiing the one indefensibly turdular aspect of the Style Council: the preachy polemics about Thatcherism, money-ism and so forth. Almost without exception, the Great songs Weller wrote during this period had nothing to do with coal miners or any of that shit.

Good question, The Great 48, For starters, as Andyr said, the production of those records was so bad that Weller could have been curing cancer by the power of the influences on his music at that time and I still would not have given it the time of day. To my ears, that production was a Rock Crime in itself. SallyC burned me a CD of Style Council stuff a while back, and try as I may to like it, I keep knowing I need to rip it someday. To repeat, the production is terrible.

Then, if I'm going to listen to production that unpleasant to my ears, I at least deserve to hear a competent-to-good white soul singer. Take that Simply Red guy. He uses that '80s British white "soul" production in spades, if I may, and he's got a perfectly suitable voice to go with it. I often love Paul Weller's voice with The Jam and on his solo records, but in Style Council he sounds shoved into a stylistic corner for which he's not suited.

Finally, the MAJOR difference between Style Council and the influences that I LOVE (eg, The Impressions): Weller's songs from that point typically suck. He took the AOR side of Mayfield and TSOP, forgetting to work on the magic of the singles those artists produced. Obviously that's just my opinion, but "A Solid Bond in Your Heart" is, at best, as good as one of those late-60s Impressions hits, when the band began losing its touch and only Brits and modern-age record collectors started raving about their magic. Where's Weller's "You Must Believe Me" or "I've Been Trying"? Nowhere, from what I can hear. All he's ever done with the Curtis Mayfield influence is rewrite low-mileage grooves like "Move On Up" - all those power to the people songs that, like Lennon's similar songs from Somewhere in New York City, quickly lose their steam.

Now, someone's going to be bummed that I called "Move On Up" a second-rate song, and so be it. My point is, his other songs from that period, many of which are completely unmemorable, follow that song's strident approach and fail to attain the sweetness and longing of his earlier hits. Then, of course, there's the fine Superfly soundtrack, at which point every white rock nerd who'd previously never dug a '60s soul record hops on board and proclaims Curtis' brilliance. Again, so be it.

By the way, I didn't see the beginning, but is "Meeting Over Yonder" the late-60s Impressions song? If so, case in point. That's a much preachier song with a much clunkier arrangement than the slightly younger Mayfield cranked out in his sleep. The Impressions song is EXACTLY the wrong model for an artist to have followed. Again, these are only my opinions. I'm going to be out of commission for the day, so chew on this. I look forward to catching up on the wealth of posts that will pick up on what I'm saying here and suport my beliefs.

Did either of you catch the early Style Council show on "BBC Crown Jewels" tonight? This show predated the release of their first LP, and it was pretty darn good!

That reminds me. Did anyone else catch the Stax documentary on PBS the other night? If so, what did you all think?

As for Paul Weller, I'm a lot like thegreat48 here in terms of his stance on Morrissey (nothing past The Smiths) and Bowie (nothing past 1983, a stance I generally share though mostly I don't listen to any of his stuff past 1980). I just can't bring myself to care about anything he's done since The Jam and in particular The Gift. I did buy a cheap used copy of his last album As is Now a few years back, but haven't even listened to it.

Hey guys, wow - I didn't know that there was a BBC special at all - is it on VH1? So are they repeating it still do you think? I'll have to look back for it and see if it will be repeating so I can check it out! Thanks for pointing that out Hrrundi! Mr. Mod, I thought your Cure for Cancer analogy was pretty good;) My mum is in town right now, I got a new job this week aaaand today/tonight is the show at the green line (hint hint) if anyone can make it 4239 baltimore, 7pm;) so things've been crazy this week.

p.s. should I *not* wear my 'Riverdance' shirt tonight? Damn! Funny reading;)

p.s. dear matt, i would be happy to take as is now off of your hands (for a low-low price of course, or whatever you paid for it) ;)