Thoughts of the month and
A Fistful of Soundtracks episode
previews for October 2001.
Jim
Aquino hosts and produces A Fistful
of Soundtracks (Sundays 2-4PM on KZSC
88.1 FM in Santa Cruz), writes for Silicon
Valley Community Newspapers and Metro
Newspapers in San Jose and doesn't
think irony is dead. In fact, it's very much alive —
we need it now more than ever, and thank our lucky stars it's
still around. Or things will never get back to normal, or whatever
"normal" means.
September 11
The first thing I do when I wake up
each weekday morning is to turn on the TV in front of my bed to
check the weather forecast, so that I can determine the amount
of layers of clothes I would wear to work that day. The meteorologist
pointing out the day's projected highs and lows off an animated
map of the Bay Area is the image that literally starts the day
for me. But on Sept. 11, that wasn't the first image I saw.
That day, I woke up to the bizarre sight
of giant gashes in both the World Trade Center's Twin Towers,
created by airplanes that apparently crashed into the towers.
At first, I thought this was like a rehash of that silly incident
involving the daredevil parachutist whose malfunctioning parachute
got snagged in the torch of the Statue of Liberty. But when I
noticed that this image was appearing on every news channel and
flames were bursting from the gashes, I realized this was no cute
little anecdote like the inept parachutist dangling from Lady
Liberty's torch. There was something disturbing about this image.
When I turned on the TV, it must have been 9AM in New York, and
by that time, people have already arrived at their jobs at the
towers. What were these planes doing colliding into an office
building? What happened to the people inside who were going about
their jobs? Were they evacuating?
I didn't have time to sit and watch
the news because I had to catch the morning train to the newspaper
offices. But I was worried for the lives of those people inside
the towers. It was such a distressing thing to wake up to that
I didn't want to tell my father about it and make him worry also.
So that's what I was doing when I learned
the World Trade Center was attacked. I was trying to find out
about the weather while getting ready for work. It's a question
everybody will ask each other for months, maybe even years: "Where
were you when the attacks occurred?"
I don't know anybody who perished in
the tragedy. I don't even know anybody who knew anybody who perished.
Yet the tragedy still affected me. My list of biggest fears include
dying in a plane crash and getting killed at the workplace. The
events of Sept. 11 covered almost every single fear on that list.
Three mornings after the attacks, I
was picking out some somber music for a brief tribute to the victims
on a future edition of A Fistful of Soundtracks. I played
Ennio Morricone's theme from Casualties of War and John
Williams' "Hymn to the Fallen," from Saving Private
Ryan. While listening to both pieces, I started to think of
the victims and the rescue efforts and shed a couple of tears.
I settled with the theme from Casualties of War because
a double shot of the Casualties suite and "Hymn to
the Fallen," one of the few film-music pieces to leave me
with a lump in my throat when I first heard them, would just might
turn me into a basket case if I heard both together again on the
day of the broadcast. That's when I realized humor needed to return
in some form that morning. A whoopee cushion, a mama joke, anything
would do.
The best way I think one should cope
with the tragedy is not found on Letterman (although his
opening comments on his first show back added up to one classy
moment — I'm trying my damnedest to avoid that Larry King-ism
"He's one class act" that SNL used to ridicule
in its savage spoof of his recently discontinued USA Today
column). And it's not found on SNL or the other late-night
shows. It's found on the hilarious-but-with-a-hint-of-outrage
Sept. 26 edition of The
Onion, which demonstrated that ironic
humor isn't dead like all those columnists have lately proclaimed
on the op-ed pages, and that it can also be done in a tasteful
manner and yet still be cutting and meaningful. And that it can
also be — and I know this word is a bit overused — therapeutic.
The Onion
addressed the attacks in a way that makes current late-night TV
look feeble in comparison, although Letterman, Conan and Jon Stewart
do deserve credit for their classy first shows back. But the best
SNL's Weekend Update could do with post-Sept. 11 satire
was an Osama bin Laden joke that was really nothing more than
a joke about Mariah Carey's floperino Glitter (although
it was a pretty good one). And Letterman's Top 10 Lists, sometimes
the high point of Late Show, have lately been on the tame
side, which is true of other signature bits on other late-night
shows. I want to see the writers of Weekend Update and the Top
10 List get as tough-minded as The Onion did and address
the tragedy through political satire and not by ducking from it
to joke about something "less offensive." Hopefully,
like the shows' audiences, these writers will regain their footing
in the next few weeks.
October sked
I didn't expect the events of Sept.
11 to have an impact on a program as insignificant as A Fistful
of Soundtracks, but they have. Last July's flight-themed "Up, Up and Away,"
one of my personal favorite editions of Fistful, won't
reair this winter like I originally planned. And I was going to
rebroadcast both the 1999 and 2000 Halloween
editions of Fistful this month.
But the 2000 Halloween special, which spoofs apocalyptic sci-fi
anthology shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer
Limits, ends with a sketch in which the world is blown up
by aliens, and that isn't exactly something people want to hear
on their radios right now. So I've decided to pull it from the
October schedule and rebroadcast only the 1999 special. The date
for that rebroadcast will be Oct. 21.
Oct. 28 will be the airdate for this
year's Fistful Halloween Special. I don't want to give
away too much about the new Halloween show right now because it's
a work-in-progress. But I will give away the show's official title:
"Creature Features: A Fistful of Soundtracks Halloween
Special 2001."
Two weeks before that — Oct. 14
— will be a show I've never done before for Fistful.
The title of the episode will be "Long Time, No Hear,"
in which I'll feature soundtrack tunes I haven't played on the
program in over a year. It all started when I wanted to play R.E.M.'s
wonderful "Great Beyond," from the Man on the Moon
soundtrack. But I couldn't find a show where the song would fit
into the show's theme. So I came up with a list of tunes that,
like "The Great Beyond," are ones I really enjoy but
never gave enough airplay over the years, and then I expanded
the list into an entire show. Some of the selections on "Long
Time, No Hear" haven't even been played in three years, like
John Barry's harmonica-driven instrumental theme from Midnight
Cowboy.
Rex n' effect
Rex Navarrete is coming down to San Jose. Pinoys and Pinays
everywhere should show him some love and see him perform with
hapa comic Kip Fulbeck at the Contemporary Asian Theatre
Scene organization's Asian American Comedy Night at the Montgomery
Theater on Oct. 19. Rex is one of the best Filipino American comics
out there — I used to play routines from his comedy album
Badly Browned all the time on my old KZSC acid jazz/hiphop
program Sookie Sookie.
In fact, this is a good month for Asian
American stand-up. Margaret Cho's I'm
the One That I Want is premiering
on the Sundance Channel and finally getting a video release. I
championed this movie during its initial theatrical release, which
is probably a bit strange to see because I'm a straight guy (almost
all of Cho's following is gay). But this movie was an important
one to me because though it wasn't widely released and though
most Asian American comics have lately tried to disassociate themselves
from Cho to prevent their material from being stigmatized and
lumped in with Cho's material by the white press, the film —
and the original one-woman show — did much to further the
Asian American comedy scene. I'm the One That I Want has
helped to make passe the predominant view of Asian American comics
as demure (like, say, Johnny Yune or the "Hip Nip,"
Pat Morita).
Red alert
A contemporary pop song for the opening
credits of the new Star Trek prequel series Enterprise
isn't really a bad idea. Too bad the song the producers went with
is the theme from Patch Adams. The Calling's "Wherever
You Will Go," which was featured prominently during the Enterprise
preview ads that ran on TV and the Web over the summer, would
have been a better choice (more Trek-style romanticism,
zero schmaltz). Irate fans are already sounding that old Trek
red alert klaxon online and organizing a petition to persuade the producers to replace the Enterprise
theme song. I'd like it replaced too, but, uh, Trekkers, I have
a feeling that starship has already sailed.
Jim Aquino
October 5, 2001
© 2001 Jim Aquino
See previous "Intros"
September 2001:
On the deaths of Pauline Kael, Manuel Ticsay (an uncle) and Aaliyah
August 2001:
On the Fistful episode "Fistful on the Run"
July 2001:
On new Fistful IDs and the Fistful episode "Up,
Up and Away"
June 2001:
On Fistful's fourth anniversary