Old, Fat, And Stupid.

I recently attended a concert featuring Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction....
Now, back in the day, such a show would have been quite cutting edge. In my glory years, if someone was going to a NIN concert, you knew they were pretty cool. Goth-ish kids with bad attitudes. My kind of people (actually, I was more of a punk type as a teenager, but whatever). The music would have been loud; the atmosphere supportive yet angsty; and the venue would have been GUARANTEED to be crawling with hot chicks.

However, as I approach 30, I've noticed certain things changing...and they were all the more apparent at my recent Nine Inch Nails excursion. Seeing Trent Reznor two months ago was not the same as seeing Trent Reznor ten years ago. First of all, the Detroit-area show was held at Pine Knob Music Theater (I refuse to call it DTE Energy Music Theater), rather than The State Theater or Saint Andrew's Hall, where the COOL bands used to always play. Pine Knob was usually the place for aging artists with credit card-toting fans who were less than attractive in shorts. It's an outdoor venue with actual seats and no place for a mosh pit. Old folks dig it.


Leading up to the concert, the fact that NIN was playing Pine Knob was probably the first sign for me that the experience was going to be a disappointment. Other warning signals came as I did some internet message board research on the band and its current fans. Seems NIN's latest music has been rather meandering and lacking in energy, which is no surprise, given that you really can't be angry and hardcore in any genuine sense beyond the age of 30. Another topic of frequent concern among Reznorheads lately has been Trent's changing appearance -- seems he's gotten a little...bulkier. Some fans actually wonder if he's on steroids...but I believe that's just wishful thinking. The truth is that he's getting fat like everyone else.

And speaking of fatness, it's no secret that as folks age, they put on the pounds, which was painfully obvious for me on the night of my Nine Inch Nails adventure. The smoking hot goth chicks in revealing outfits that I'd so much looked forward to seeing did not materialize. Instead, what I got were old and flabby chicks in revealing outfits. Back in their 1990s heyday, these women may very well have been quite sexy, but now they are just sad. Apparently, such individuals feel a need to indulge nostalgia and squeeze themselves into their old goth gear, but the result can only be depressing for those who bear witness. Sorry, ladies, but midriff-exposing rubber tank tops and skin-tight leather pants should be the exclusive domain of people under 27 (oh, and that chest-area tattoo you got in college is going to fade and shift in some horrifying ways pretty quick), so let's try to keep everything covered up once we're out of grad school. No one wants to see your side fat.


The same principles apply to the men. Some of the dudes at this show were just as disturbing as the chicks. A 31 year-old man with eye liner and green dreadlocks is a sad sight indeed. Dude, you used to be cool, but now you sell insurance. Please stop trying to relive the good old days. The good old days long gone; in fact, they were beaten, raped, and left to die on the side of a dirt road some time ago. The world will be a lot more impressed with you if you age with a little dignity. I saw a few people at the show who wore simple t-shirts, and got wrapped up in the music. No making spectacles of themselves; just enjoying the emotions. They were the ones who I'm sure had the best time.

Anyway, it's a shame that once-great bands will almost always start to suck if allowed to continue performing long enough (that's why if I ever somehow become a rockstar, I will burn out and destroy myself as quickly as possible at the peak of my fame). Fortunately, great movies usually don't change. That's why I have selected one of my favorites from the past to review today. It's a brilliantly stupid little gem starring the one and only Weird Al Yankovic, called UHF.

UHF (1989)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098546/



Netflix description:
"Television executive R.J. Fletcher (Kevin McCarthy) tries to sabotage the wild success of a rival low-rent, wacky station run by slovenly dreamer George Newman (Weird Al Yankovic) and Bob (David Bowe) -- leading to a telethon showdown. Only George's on-air local misfits can help save the day. Jay Levey directs and Victoria Jackson, Stanley Brock and Michael Richards co-star in this daring, out-there, over-the-top comedy."

Along with Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Mel Brooks' Spaceballs, I rank UHF as one of the funniest movies ever made. It is over-the-top goofy in a way that only something written by Weird Al could be. He plays a loser named George Newman who somehow becomes the manager of a crappy, hole in the wall, TV station. At first, things don't go so well...but once George starts using his overactive imagination to produce original programming, the station -- Channel 62 -- quickly becomes top dog in its market. Can George handle the pressure that comes with being number one?

The TV station concept is perfect for Weird Al, since it allows for a variety of random gags to be thrown out in rapid fire. We see promos for shows like "Bowling for Burgers", "Strip Solitaire", and "Conan the Librarian", while meeting a variety of ridiculous and lovable characters. Our villain, RJ Fletcher, is the perfect cliche of an evil businessman...and George Newman's own staff consists of a young Michael Richards (as the dim-witted children's show host Stanley Spedowski), as well as a pre-Nanny Fran Drescher (as an annoying secretary).


UHF figures into many of my childhood memories. I remember laughing uncontrollably with my best friend the first time we saw the scene in which Weird Al hits a clown in the face with a frying pan (we must have rewound the tape 30 times to watch that moment over and over again -- even in slow motion); I remember being teased by a teenage Harmony House employee when I bought the UHF soundtrack (my first compact disk!); and I remember making out with my first girlfriend while watching the movie, and trying in vain not to crack up. I have seen UHF so many times over the years that I can recite most of it line for line by memory. One of my favorites: "Broads don't belong in broadcasting!" (I'd love to hang a poster with that quote on the wall at work, but some people just don't have a sense of humor, so I probably shouldn't do it).

What else can I say? There's no political message in UHF, nor any deep commentary on the human condition. Doctor Strangelove this is not. Rather, it is just pure stupidity, and I love it. There is an offbeat innocence to UHF which even hardened comedy junkies should find charming, and I recommend it to everyone who has a soul.

5 out of 5.


b.