Miss Kelly
3 years employment
International Rock Goddess/Cashier

Q:  What music was playing your house when you were a kid?

Miss Kelly:  Like Ratt and Prince.  I had a brother and sister that were 12 and 13 years older than me and my brother was practicing drums all the time.  He was in a band, a metal band.

Oh yeah, lots and lots of Madonna too. My sister once performed Madonna's "Lucky Star" at the food court in the mall and she won the contest and got lots of money.  She had this black lace bustier that she looked killer in and she used to make all the ladies salivate at the lady bars because she was in a lesbian band called Upside Down and Inside Out.

Wow.  Where is she now?

She lives in Virginia with her girlfriend and all of their baby animals.  She plays ukelele now.  We all kind of picked up the ukelele at the same time in the last few months.  We have this fantasy that when we meet up at the family reunion this summer we are all gonna play ukelele together.  It's kind of Uni's fault.

Wow that's rad. So how did you start listening to japanese pop and international rock?

I used to be really into punk rock and I was in this punk rock cafe that was literally under ground and one day on the jukebox this Pizzicato Five song was on and no one knew who it was and it made me so happy.  Ever since I was a child, since I heard "La Bamba", I wanted to sing it even though I didn't care what it meant, so foreign languages have always kinda turned me on.  So after I heard Pizzicato Five I couldn't find that song again until I heard it like 5 years later on the radio at my brother's house and that's when I found out who it was. I went to the indie record store in Richmond, Va -- Plan 9-- and they had it and I got really into it.  It's kind of like this insane musical; I love the showmanship of their sound.

I haven't thought about Radiohead at all in about a year, really, not since I got to go see them kill it at the Greek Theater last year in Berkeley about this time.  To be honest, I don't think about them much at all anymore, but they are one of those bands that has meant a lot to me over the years.  With news today that Radiohead's new album is nearing completion, I thought it might be the right time to build a little anticipation and revisit some of their finer songs and videos.

People always want to whine that Radiohead are overblown, that they are not nearly as great as everyone always says.  I defy those people to listen to these songs and watch these videos and tell me this band is not fantastic.  Well, I do understand that not everyone wants to listen to some white overeducated English dudes complaining about alienation and having issues with technology.  I do get that.  Maybe it just doesn't float your boat.  But please, people, don't try to tell me this isn't a great and powerful band.  To each his own.  I also recognize that by thinking and talking about how Radiohead is great, I am sounding like a regular old Record Store Nerd.  But why hide who I am?  Oh well.

Oh, and I do agree that their last couple albums have not been fully up to speed....but when you have put out albums like OK Computer and The Bends, what are you gonna do??

This is "Karma Police" from OK Computer.



Effing awesome video, right?  Usually I tend to think most videos take more away from the music than they contribute to it, but this is one of those rare exceptions where I watch it and think, "Whoa" (not to quote icky Keanu Reeves).

So every time I sit down to watch the Larry Sanders Show I am distracted by many things.  The show's First Season is really a time capsule of the early 1990s. Janeane Garofalo seems so young in her plaid grunge-y dresses and leggings.  Jeremy Piven is so obviously balding (now on Entourage he has a mysteriously full head of hair).  Larry has a plethora of skinny Southwestern-y belts.  There's scrunchies and body suits and so much more-- a veritable parade of nearly forgotten 90s fashions!  But what is most distracting from the program for me is the fact that Garry Shandling so closely resembles a giant raisin.

Despite the distractions, the show is actually funny.  I'm guessing most people have seen it before, but growing up in a non premium cable household, I didn't even know it existed until recently.  It's interesting to watch now, seeing as I have immersed myself in HBO shows on DVD feverishly for the last 3 years or so.  Apparently this show was one of the first.  Now it reminds me of Curb Your Enthusiasm, one of my favorites. 

Larry Sanders has his own late night TV talk show, and we the viewers are invited to watch the goings-on both in front of and behind the scenes.  Now this as a concept for a tv show almost can't be beat.  It's up there with a bar where "everybody knows your name" and a giant cruise ship that "soon will be making another run".  The workplace is always just ripe for good television (they really should make a show about Amoeba, no joke), and with major opportunities for celeb guest appearances and self referential comedy, this show has a pretty much perfect set up and all the smarts to pull it off.  It's not as energetic and giddily addicting as HBO's shows now, but it's got its own slow-burn charm.  This show, now that I am watching it, has obviously been highly influential on everyone else, including that other comedic Larry,  Mr. Larry David himself.  It's quite innovative too.  There's never any background music to set the scenes.  There's no laugh track or live audience either.  It's just the dialogue.  That gives the laughs all the power, and it's an interesting break from the still- tired norm.....and this was shot in 1992!

The cast is also a big part of the likability of the show.  Rip Torn as Larry's boss Arty is amazing and hilarious and dry.  My boyfriend thinks Hank (Jeffery Tambor) is the funniest. (He wants me to add that.) He thinks everything is funny though.  I find Larry's wife unrealistic.  Does anyone else?  Their relationship seems shallow and odd, no chemistry.....maybe they could have worked on that as much as the relationships between coworkers.  My favorites are the writers, Phil and Jerry, played by Jeremy Piven and Wallace Langham.  They are always troublemakers.  Having so many celebs play themselves is a good time too.  Some people are better at it than others!

Spurred by the looming end of the exhibit, I grabbed my friends Brad and Josh and a few Bob's doughnuts (lemon jelly filled!) and ran to the Vivienne Westwood Exhibit at the De Young Museum.

Based on what I saw, one thing I learned was that Vivienne's clothing is still cutting edge: overwhelmingly so. The exhibit is a complete retrospective of her career, from her punk beginnings in the early 70s to now.  [An aside:  Anyone else wonder what her son with Malcolm McLaren is up to these days?  When you have parents like that, seems like the sky's the limit.]  It's also funny that the clothes Vivienne and Malcolm created together that were so shocking and offensive back in the 70s are now ripped off and mass marketed to every kid who wants some prepackaged rock'nroll edge at Hot Topics across America.  Weird.  Don't people realize what they are purchasing? The fact that every suburban kid these days hits the mall for their "edgy" faux punk gear makes it more difficult to remember that the clothes really were like nothing else when they were originally created, and that a lot of actual, intelligent thought went into the creations.


Like my partners in crime for the day, I wished that the exhibit had more photographs of actual people (yes, even models count!) wearing the fashions instead of just faceless mannequins so we could picture them better, but nonetheless the clothing was for the most part gorgeous and incredibly detailed.  Vivienne moved on from punk rock clothing gracefully to play with the old and the new, the high and the low, with many styles including world fusion-y and pirate-y styles in the 80s: