John Hanley’s Summer 1997 Top Ten Cool Things
10. 89X
For all its faults (and don’t get me started), the most authentically
“alternative” (the presence of those quotes speaks volumes) radio station in the market. Sorry, way cooler than The Planet, though that Johnny In The Morning guy grows on ya, in a hilarious-suburban-Detroit-knucklehead kinda way.
9. Mojo
The August issue of this British music magazine, specifically, featuring “The 100 Greatest Singles of All Time,” as selected by a panel of musicians, producers and journalists. Not only full of fascinating anecdotes about the making of said singles, but a great jumping-off place for a list of your own.
[Runners-up: No Depression, The Baffler]
8. Clueless (ABC)
At the beginning of every episode, Cher wants something; by the end, she gets it. What could be better? I love seeing teenagers get what they want.
[Runners-up: Days of Our Lives (NBC), Guiding Light (CBS), The Three Stooges (The Family Channel), WCW Monday Nitro (WTBS)]
7. Language: The Unknown - Julia Kristeva
“An initiation into linguistics” as dispensed by a leading French intellectual. Now that’s entertainment! Sample quote: “Proponents of this view have noted that writing {ecriture}, as a trace or [something] traced {trace} (what is called, according to recent terminology, a gramme), veils a ‘scene’ within la langue that the sign and the signified cannot see.”
6. Odelay - Beck
Much of this CD was recorded in 1994, for cryin’ out loud, and its mix of natty wordplay and whacked-out beats still sounds fresher than anything out on the street. I know it’s over a year old, but that just makes it the album of the summer two years running, unless I missed something.
[Runners-up: The London Suede - Coming Up, Primal Scream - Vanishing Point]
5. The Cable Guy
A movie with its finger on the fast-fading pulse of media-saturated America. Occupies the same position in Jim Carrey’s oeuvre as The Razor’s Edge in Bill Murray’s and reminded me of Scorsese’s The King of Comedy (Get thee to a video store).
4. Zippy Quarterly #11-16 - Bill Griffith
Just your average comic strip about a free-associating pinhead and his cynical sidekick. I know, you hate it because it’s not funny. Well, yes, it is. Besides that, it’s the smartest strip in the land by a wide margin.
[Runners-up: Mind Riot: Coming of Age Comix - Karen Hirsh, Ed., Tales Calculated To Drive You Mad #1 - Harvey Kurtzman and various artists]
3. Bailey
My beloved puppy. Cool.
2. Julie Boyer Hanley
My beloved spousal unit. Cooler.
1. Walter Patrick Hanley
My beloved newborn son. Coolest.
#6: Odelay - Beck