Existential Bubblegum

[tmcg]

Rick Springfield is remarkably well preserved.

I know this because a DJ on WPLJ a couple of weeks ago played "Jesse's Girl" (which has inexplicably, unless one figures music-corporation payoffs, come back into the illusory popularity that's really the self-fulfilling hype of commercial radio stations) and said that Springfield would be making an appearance on a late-night talk show I'd never heard of (which isn't saying much). I actually made an effort to watch this--did a Web search, found out when the show was on, tuned in.

Dude. He looks great. A little too slick as an entertainer--you can see the gears working behind his eyes, give smoldering look to this camera, throw head back on this note in practiced simulation of suggested orgasm--and without quite the vocal range he had before, but still a very nice, lean package.

So, I'm outted. Still have a little crush on him, mumble mumble years after high school. Still like his music, which is mostly bubblegum (hey, I like bubblegum, in the right flavors) but sometimes delves some deeper lyric places. It took me till just a few years ago to admit that I'm a huge fan of Billy Joel, and I'm still doing penance for disavowing any knowledge of the band Foreigner when a friend claimed to be playing one of their albums for me at a party attended by people I did not want to admit my secret musical vices to (leaving her the sole recipient of the group's scorn, a profound betrayal on my part). So maybe there will be some catharsis in admitting that I have three of Springfield's albums on the CD jukebox in my office, which suggests that yes, I did actually go out and acquire them with intent aforethought. And that I think "It's Always Something," on the CD Karma, is a terrific song. Dings a nerve in me, anyway:

When I was a kid the teachers and the priests said,
Why you let him run around like that?
My father said, If the boy wants to play the guitar, I say we let him.
Through the hard years he was my rock
When I just could not win
So it goes y'know my father died
Just before my leaky ship came in....


--Rick Springfield, "It's Always Something"

Camus said "Crushing truths perish when acknowledged." (That's how I remembered the quote, anyway. Here's a different translation.) Probably doesn't apply to crushes. Guess I'll hit Post and find out.

Comments

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

I think Rick Springfield's stock has gone up a bit ever since the great scene in Boogie Nights where a coke-addled Alfred Molina raves about "Jesse's Girl" before getting maniacal with a shotgun...As for Joel Billy, well, he has his moments ("Uptown Girl," "You May Be Right," and that one whose name escapes me that sounds like Paul McCartney...but don't tell anyone I said so...

[terrymcgarry.livejournal.com]

Okay, now I have to see Boogie Nights. This is a massive oversight in my film-viewing history.

Thanks!

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

Well, it's an amazingly cool movie, sort of a Scorsese-ish take on the 70s porn industry, with an all-star cast--and a veritable cornucopia of 70s one-hit wonders...