Staff 12 December 2009 Things We Like 852 views One Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

Every Saturday, the editorial staff of Monkey Goggles and its friends rummages though bookshelves, toy boxes, DVDs, music collections and stacks of assorted stuff to pick out a few choice items that will make your life better.

“These Boots Are Made For Walkin’,” written by Lee Hazlewood

I’ve owned a bass guitar for many years and I only know how to play three songs: I can play “Gigantic” by the Pixies, I can play “Walk on the Wild Side” by Lou Reed, and I can play Lee Hazlewood’s “These Boots are Made for Walkin’” — preferably the Nancy Sinatra version. “Boots” was the first song I learned, and I spent hours practicing the opening sliding run. I rocked it.

“Boots” is a brush-off number of the nastiest kind. Sinatra calls out the anonymous guy in no uncertain terms and reads off all of his misdeeds as though she was reading a grocery list. (Hazlewood reportedly told her to sing as if she were a 16-year-old girl dressing down a 40-year-old man.) She’s taking her boots, and is not just walking away with them but is promising also to stomp on him a bit before she goes. For 1966, those were some pretty strong and sexy words, and a crack team of session musicians — including the great drummer Hal Blaine and bassists Carol Kaye and Chuck Berghofer — give them extra menace.

There are probably at least one hundred versions of that song out there. (The definition of “travesty”: Wikipedia has 489 words on Sinatra’s version, while Jessica Simpson’s hackneyed cover somehow warrants 845 words.) I know for a fact that I have at least two dozen covers of “Boots” stomping around in my iTunes library right now, attempted by everyone from Geri Halliwell to Government Issue, from the Barcode Brothers to Barry Adamson. And you know something? I can play along with them all. – Lorien Gruchalla

Elliott Bay Book Company’s Suggested Reading: “The Bloom County Library, Volume One: 1980-1982″ by Berkeley Breathed

Being a lifelong and avid fan of comic strips, I have long been shamed by my total ignorance of the work of Berkeley Breathed. Cartoonists constantly cite him as an inspiration, as being on the front lines in bringing weirdness to the funny pages. I remained in the dark for a number of reasons. I had a hard time distinguishing “Bloom County” from “Doonesbury”; there seemed to be too many characters to keep track of; and I could never quite get a hold of the overall plot and its many long-running in-jokes. It seemed like the only way to really approach the strip would be to read it from the beginning, and luckily for me and all who share my completest tendencies, Idea and Design Works has taken on the task of publishing Bloom County in its entirety, in a sturdy hard-bound archival format similar to that IDW has given its collections of “Little Orphan Annie” and “Dick Tracy.” The first volume hit the shelves in October, the next is due in April.

It is an outstanding collection. In Breathed’s introduction and margin notes, he describes the process of the comic taking shape as he admits that he had little sense of what he was doing at the time. The action takes place around a boarding house in an out-of-the way pastoral locale, a device which allows new characters to come and go at a frequent pace — the interesting ones dominating the space and pushing the more mundane out of the picture.

It is really cool to watch how the strip went from being a fairly predictable (yet still unconventional and, at times, rather gross) gag sequence into a strange cornucopia of unlikely sequences, day-by-day over the course of two years. It is also nice to see where all of the characters come from. Opus the Penguin is the pet Binkley brings home instead of a dog, and Bill the Cat is introduced as a marketing ploy to try and cash in on the merchandising enjoyed by Garfield. All in all, what eventually emerges is a great meta-strip, a world of its own that revels in its fluidity. And it does wonders for my appreciation of later comics like “Calvin and Hobbes” and “The Boondocks,” which clearly draw from this outrageous creation. – Christopher Sabatini

Scarecrow Video’s Movie of the Week: “Kill or Be Killed” (1980), directed by Ivan Hall

What happens when an angry ex-nazi builds a secret fortress in the South African desert and decides to host the most deadly martial arts competition ever? Well, if “Kill or Be Killed” is any indication, then what happens is an unintentionally comedic action film. “Kill or Be Killed” is a hot kung fu mess! In addition to the deadly martial arts tournament, there’s a dangerous midget sidekick and a scene in which the hero rips a Volkswagen Bug apart with his bare hands … and then escapes in it! This is the perfect hanging-out-with-friends movie – you don’t have to pay close attention, but every time you look up something weird is sure to be happening on screen. – Rhias Hall

PHOTO BY MARTIN HOWARD