Ecclesiastes and Frank Sinatra (or: The prophet and the karaoke bar)
This first:
“Working almost exclusively on this mammoth project for five years, Crumb has rendered the entirety of Genesis in comics panels. “The first book of the Bible graphically depicted! Nothing left out!” brags a banner on the cover.”
Yes, Robert Crumb, the man who gave us Fritz the Cat, Devil Girl and other undergroundish delights, has gone Biblical – with a vengeance, you might almost add.
This is not about that, however – but the story did have my mind wander down other pastures green & garish.
So, what I was thinking was, If you can make a comic strip out of Genesis, you could use other popular mediums as well. Messrs Webber & Rice already gave us their excruciating Jesus Christ Superstar, so why not do a slightly more up to date version of that – but a bit more Tarantino than Cecil B. Demille, if you like?
A karaoke version of the Bible, anyone?
I mean, no disrespect to the leading man of Ecclesiastes but he is a bit dull, isn’t he?
Yes, you know who I mean. The guy with the ‘Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt’ attitude:
“All things are full of labor; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.”
Wouldn’t that sound ever so much nicer if the prophet would exchange his white robes for a sleek little black number, don a wig and do a cover of Grace Jones’s old classic, ‘I’ve seen this face before‘?
Talking of which…
Karaoke, I mean – and that dreadful feeling of having seen and heard it all before, many more times than even a coke head on speed dial can SMS ‘Groundhog Day’.
Here’s a truly nightmarish story for you:
“Hide Saito winces slightly and returns to his glowing console. With the help of The Times, a strange and terrible milestone has been reached: perhaps uniquely in the world, Mr Saito has now heard My Way sung badly a total of 25,000 times. His tears, as always, are wept on the inside. Watching customers indulging the delusion that they can sing like Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey or Liam Gallagher, says the owner of Smash Hits, is the price to be paid for running Tokyo’s most famous karaoke bar.”
You know, there I thought that there couldn’t be a more Hellish job than that of parliamentary secretary…
Talking of politics, though – and old Ecclesiastes (sans Grace Jones outfit, alas): Even that grumpiest of characters in the grouch fest more commonly referred to as the Old Testament would have to admit that you don’t see the following each day.
I mean, a celebrity who talks sense about political issues? What next? An actual politician who talks sense?
Okay, maybe that would be expecting entirely too much.
Anyway, let’s dispel all these rather disturbing images of prophets in drag and drunks doing Sinatra and parliamentary secretaries being forced to write out all those dreadful platitudes with Brad Pitt’s rather surprising words of wisdom and common sense.
Enjoy:
“You shouldn’t speak until you know what you’re talking about. That’s why I get uncomfortable with interviews. Reporters ask me what I feel China should do about Tibet. Who cares what I think China should do? I’m a fucking actor! They hand me a script. I act. I’m here for entertainment. Basically, when you whittle everything away, I’m a grown man who puts on makeup.”
(’Sans regret, sans mélo’, indeed…)
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