Sticky Fingers
“Sticky Fingers” is a dark record that finds the Rolling Stones in the mother of all transitions. Freed from both their contract with Allen Klein and London Records and their rivalry with the Beatles, who, upon their break-up, left the Stones as “the World’s Greatest Rock-n-Roll Band.” The record features the official debut of their new guitarist, Mick Taylor, the young blonde blues virtuoso from the U.S.A. who replaced Brian Jones as lead guitarist before Ron Wood claimed that position as his birthright. It also features the debut of Rolling Stones Records, the tongue-and-lips logo and Mick Jagger as consummate businessman.
Fortunately, Keith Richards had not yet fully succumbed to the junk dependency that ultimately claimed Brian Jones and was able to keep Mick Jagger in check and ensure that the Stones remained musically vital and interesting (at least until “Goat’s Head Soup”). Nevertheless, “Sticky Fingers” is the druggiest record the Rolling Stones ever released. It’s one of the druggiest records of all time. In between the album’s opener, “Brown Sugar” (among other things, a euphemism for heroin) and its closer, “Moonlight Mile,” with the singer’s “head full of snow,” at least half of the record’s songs directly reference hard drugs. When they’re not singing about a drug overdose, as on “Sister Morphine,” or about getting over a heartbreak “with a needle and a spoon and another girl to take my pain away,” as on “Dead Flowers,” Jagger and Richards still don’t hide their (mostly Keith’s) drug problems too well.
The album’s second track, the bluesy, druggy “Sway” poetically says “It’s just that demon life has got me in its sway,” but it sounds an awful lot like “It’s just that needle, it’s got me in its sway.” And on “Bitch,” one of “Sticky Fingers'” two great riff rockers, they liken love to being “juiced up and sloppy.”
On its surface, “Bitch” seems like just another of Mich Jagger’s misogynistic songs, but the “bitch” here is not a woman but the feelings of love and lust that she conjures. It’s the man in the song who is reduced to an animal, a horse kicking the stall or one of Pavlov’s salivating dogs. Like “Satisfaction,” the song is built around a Keith Richards riff written for horns. Unlike “Satisfaction,” however, the Rolling Stones of 1971 can actually afford a horn section, which gives the song a lift and a majesty that earns that title of “the World’s Greatest Blah, Blah, Blah…”
The album’s other great riff rocker is its classic opener, “Brown Sugar.” Now here’s a song that employs classic Mick Jagger misogyny along with a distressing racism. Those of you who were too busy headbanging to Keef’s clarion guitar might not have noticed that the song’s lyrics are about an American plantation master having sex with his young slaves (the song, for those of you who are trivially-minded, was originally titled “Black Pussy;” at least Mick remembered some semblance of taste). What makes a good little Labour Party member go so bad? It has to be distance. It’s the same distance that compelled Prince Harry to wear that ridiculous Nazi uniform to a party recently. To the Brits, the Nazi’s were those guys who dropped bombs on London. Wearing their insignia has been a wonderful way to rebel since the earliest days of punk. The Holocaust, with its wholesale slaughter of Jews and European Gypsies, queers and commies has no immediacy to them because it wasn’t their people who were slaughtered. Likewise, the British outlawed slavery long before their rebel colonies, and their slavery was not so pervasive and hereditary. So, to Mick Jagger, it has no immediacy. It holds no immediate connection or shame. It’s camp.
Country music is also treated as camp by Jagger. By this time, Keith Richards had struck up a profound and influential friendship with Gram Parsons, the former Byrd and founder of “alternative country.” Rock-n-Roll’s basic chemistry is one part blues and one part country. The Stones had long embraced the former, but Parsons convinced Keef that country was beautiful and primordial. He had also influenced their earlier hit, “Honky Tonk Women,” but on “Sticky Fingers” the Stones turn in two bona-fide country ballads. One is “Dead Flowers,” which marries its drug references and spiteful lyrics about an ex-girlfriend who thinks she’s the “queen of the underground” with a steel pedal guitar and Mick’s sarcastic affected drawl. It is a touchstone for much of what is ironic and self-conscious about today’s “alternative country.”
Far more beautiful and sincere is “Wild Horses,” for which Mick plays it straight. The song was a rare instance (and perhaps the last) of Jagger and Richards allowing another artist, in this case Parsons’ Flying Burrito Brothers, to record one of their songs before the Stones. The Flying Burrito Brothers play the song straight-forward and sincerely, probably inspiring the Stones to do the same. It was a fitting gift to Gram Parsons. The only other gift he got from Keef was a taste of his super-human tolerance for drugs, which was too much for Parsons, who died three years later.
“Wild Horses” was a Jagger/Richards composition, although Marianne Faithful has recently claimed that she co-wrote the song. This is a plausible claim, since Faithful wrote “Sister Morphine” all by her lonesome, only to watch her own recorded version of the song make no dent in the charts and then have Keith Richards and Mick Jagger (by then, her ex-boyfriend) claim co-songwriting credit on the Stones’ rendition of the song, which has become a classic. However, it seems “Wild Horses” was composed by Keith Richards as a lullaby for his kids. Jagger sang it at Faithfull’s bedside after an overdose (perhaps the one that inspired “Sister Morphine”). When she awoke, she told Mick “wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” but this was just a sub-conscious memory from her coma.
The album’s cover artwork is classic Andy Warhol: a black-and-white close-up of a blue-jeans-clad crotch. Inside the album, the same crotch is stripped to the underwear, an erect cock evident. It makes explicit what Warhol’s cover to “The Velvet Underground and Nico” made implicit. Like the V.U.’s “peel slowly and see” banana, “Sticky Fingers'” cover was interactive: the original pressings of the l.p featured a fully functioning zipper. It’s artistic touches like this that we will miss when recorded music makes the final leap to digital downloads. We’ll also miss fully-realized albums like “Sticky Fingers,” which is an essential component for any argument in favor of rock-n-roll as a long-playing album medium.
A Happy Fun Adventure
I killed a cat today. I was walking Elana back to the J train. She asks if we could go to the cheap fruit stand and buy some pineapple. I tell her it’s a little out of the way, but we go anyway. We turn the corner and walk down Jamaica Ave. under the elevated train tracks. Before we walk ten feet we spot a cat in the road. “Ooh, kitty,” she says in that voice that’s affected for babies and kittens, “get out of the way if you don’t want to get hit.”
The cat looks dazed. It’s walking in front of cars, slowly and off-balance. It stands in front of a car that’s stopped at the red light. The light changes, and the driver has to back up and turn to avoid the cat, who’s barely moving. We surmise that it’s been hit by a car and debate what to do. “There’s an animal hospital nearby,” I say. She starts emptying her bag so that we can have something to carry the cat in, but the cat’s still walking into on-coming traffic. I need to get him out of the road now. I walk towards the cat and bend to pick him up, but I hesitate. He’s a mess. I don’t even know how to carry a healthy cat, let alone a badly injured one.
Some guy yells at me from down the street. He’s carrying lumber, I assume for the construction site two blocks away. “Jus’ pick up da fuckin’ cat,” he yells helpfully, “he ain’t gonna hurtcha.” This guy’s one of these New York characters. I don’t see him picking up the goddamn cat. But I do, finally. I’m not gonna put him in a bag, though, like roadkill. I carry him in my arms. He’s dirty and he smells, and I worry about my dry cleaning bill, to tell the truth.
Elana’s shaken up. She apologizes for not being much help, and says she has to walk ahead of me because it’s too upsetting. I ask her if I’m holding the cat right. She tells me I am. Because she’s walking ahead, she gets to the animal hospital first. When I walk in the lobby, she’s already talking with the vet, who’s explaining the situation. It’s about the delicate matter of the cost. The city-run animal shelter is a few blocks further, he tells us. They won’t charge, but they are required to euthanize strays. We ask him how much money, and he says about $50, just enough to cover the expense, which we agree to pay.
He brings us to an examination room, but he has a few other matters to attend to before he can examine the cat. I put the cat on the table and he starts walking in a daze again. He’s gonna walk right off the table. I hold him down a bit by petting him. “Calm down, kitty,” I say in that baby/kitty voice. I joke with Elana that “I guess I bought myself a damn cat, if he pulls through.” I see the cat’s face for the first time, and see now why Elana had to walk ahead. He’s a gooey mess. His mouth is open in the shape of an “o” and it’s oozing green snot. He’s still restless, but I calm him and he curls his body against my arm.
The vet returns. He feels the cat’s body and doesn’t think anything’s broken. “I’m not sure he was hit by a car,” he says. “If he’s unspayed, he’s probably feral.” The vet checks and is right. This is nobody’s cat. He was sick, and walking in the street to die. Elana leaves the room. The vet asks me to stay with the cat for a moment while he gets the medicine. When he returns, his assistant brings me to another room where I can wash my hands while he puts the cat down.
I join Elana in the lobby. She apologizes again, but she felt dizzy, which is understandable. I tell her I need to go to the ATM. She says she has her checkbook with her, but I tell her my bank has an ATM just two blocks away and that I’ll be back in five minutes.
The ATM is across the street from the fruit stand that we wanted to go to. I go inside, but there are no pineapples. Of course.
When I return to the animal hospital, Elana’s settling up the bill with the vet. It’s only $35. I give her a $20. We leave and separate. She, to Williamsburg; me, to the dry cleaner.
At the cleaners, I empty my pockets and remove my coat. The lady at the counter does the usual inspection. “Missing a button,” she notes. “Yeah, and this pocket’s torn and the lining’s all ripped up,” I tell her to make clear that I won’t hold the establishment responsible for that. “I just have to make do for the rest of the season,” I continue. “Yes, more storms coming,” she says in her Chinese accent, while fishing through a container of loose buttons. “A ha,” she says, as she finds a perfect match for my missing button and smiles.
This story has no moral, except that we should all heed Bob Barker’s advice and spay and neuter our pets. I would have taken that coat to the cleaner another day, and she would have found the button then instead, or I would have just thrown that old coat out in the spring. God does not work in mysterious ways and all things do not happen for a reason. I suppose we gave that cat some comfort in his last minutes, but I didn’t stay for his last minute. I left to wash my hands.
Grave Concerns
Today’s newspaper is sure to make one consider some grave options. First, there’s Hunter S. Thompson, who, before blasting himself away on Sunday, left instructions to have his cremated remains blasted from a cannon. Second, is the far more grim news that the New York City medical examiner’s office has given up identifying the remains of 1,161 victims whose bodies could not be identified or were never recovered from the World Trade Center attack.
Many families of victims have delayed holding services, awaiting discovery of all or part of their loved ones. Others have buried partial remains only to have more parts discovered later.
This post is not meant to take anything away from those families’ grief, or from their desire to mark the lives of the ones they lost. I just don’t understand the need that people feel to have a proper funeral.
If I had a spiritual bone in my body, I would describe myself as a secular humanist, but I don’t, so I’d rather be defined by my lack of beliefs and simply call myself an atheist. As such, I just don’t feel any sense of proprietorship over my body once I’m dead. I don’t feel a need for a proper burial, and I don’t really understand why anybody else would feel the need either.
Cemeteries are pretty. I like to walk around Maple Grove Cemetery, with its well-kept lawns, shady trees, curious tombstones and squirrels, ducks and turtles. Don’t call me morbid. As I’m fond of pointing out to my friends, cemeteries were the first urban parks in the early industrial era. Civic leaders found the idea of people having picnics in cemeteries to be a little distasteful and so parks like Boston’s Public Garden and New York’s Central Park were created.
Most cemeteries aren’t even as pretty as Maple Grove. They’re less historical, less ornate; just big lawns punctuated with concrete slabs. It just seems like a terrible use of real estate, and I don’t want any part.
Consider this my Last Will and Testament. When I die, take my organs (the liver will likely be of no use to anyone, but the lungs are clean), cremate my remains and spread my ashes over the Meadow Lake (the former “Lagoon of Nations” of the World’s Fair) in Flushing Meadows.
If anyone feels the need for a physical marker to remember me (What, I ain’t memorable enough as it is?), be creative! For example, I received a fundraising call from Queens College a few weeks ago. Donors who give at least a certain amount will be memorialized with a brick near Powdermaker Hall. Now, that’s what I consider a fitting marker. Not only would it take up very little space (which is still be utilized for a worthwhile purpose), but it would support a worthy public institution that has benefitted me and in which I truly believe. Moreover, I couldn’t think of better company than the Freedom Ride martyrs Andrew Goodman, James Cheney and Michael Schwerner.
More On Wal-Mart
My letter to Newsday was published on Tuesday the 23rd. It’s essential to keep up the opposition to Wal-Mart’s siege of our union cities. Wal-Mart opened a store in Garden City a few weeks ago. It’s their first significant toe-hold in the New York metro region, as they seek to open stores in Rego Park and the Bronx. Cities like Detroit and Boston are also on Wal-Mart’s hitlist.
Wal-Mart is anti-competitive. They engage in predatory pricing practices that force smaller shops in the areas near their stores to close. True, Wal-Mart drives down prices, but they do this by driving down wages, not just in the communities where Wal-Mart stores operate but in the factories of companies that do business with Wal-Mart, America’s largest retailer. They pay sub-poverty wages. They discriminate against women in their employ. They are militantly anti-union.
Against a back-drop of all this bad press, Wal-Mart has unleashed a multi-million dollar PR offensive, featuring grinning idiots in blue smocks, to convince communities like New York to let them in. Join the SEIU’s Purple Ocean membership organization, and use their Wal-Mart fact-checker as you draft your own letters to the editor and Community Board testimony.