Zippo lighters Under Fire?

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I’m generally not one to place much stock in conspiracy theories, but when an American institution comes under senseless attack from within, it gives me pause to reconsider my cherished beliefs. Events I’ve encountered over the past several weeks have left me no choice but to conclude there’s a conspiracy of hydra-like proportions slithering unnoticed through our country. It’s so far-reaching, it’s almost impossible to unearth its roots. And so insidious, it goes largely unnoticed.

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One of the last testaments to American ingenuity, the venerable Zippo lighter, is systematically being dismantled by agents working under the auspices of homogenization. The network is vast, and so sublime that even its agents are unaware of its power. The average Joe — citizens like you and me — never sees the effects of homogenization — until it strikes us on an immediate level.

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At first, I had no reason to suspect there were forces working in concert to undermine the proud tradition of the Zippo lighter. Thinking that the corner convenience store might stock flints or lighter fluid was a shot in the dark at best, even though this particular location carried every brand of cigarette known to man. Not surprisingly, I fared no better at the liquor store across the street. But I couldn’t help but note both locations offered a variety of refillable butane lighters alongside the obligatory disposable Bics and Scriptos. Undaunted, I went to a nearby drug store where I had purchased flints before, only to be met with a vacant stare from the post-pubescent clerk. Finally, I visited the tobacco bar at my newly remodeled neighborhood grocery store. In the course of the store’s makeover, photo processing and DVD rentals had been eliminated, but the floral section had been expanded as a freestanding kiosk within the store. The tobacco bar had been redone, too. Flints and lighter fluid had fallen victim to the consolidation process, but the selection of butane lighters and disposable lighters had been expanded.

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Clearly, this was no mere coincidence. Only weeks before, I was able to purchase Zippo flints and lighter fluid with ease. Now, wherever I went, clerks extolled the virtues of disposables and butane. As tempting as it was to surrender to the inevitable, something I couldn’t explain — something innate, something American — spurred me to not forsake the Zippo. Bic lighters, and their imitators, lure unsuspecting consumers with promises of convenience. They neglect to mention how they’re actually little explosive devices. Only a few days ago here in Dallas, a disposable lighter was responsible for the decimation of an SUV. It had been left in the vehicle for hours in the Texas heat, and when the owner tried to use it, it exploded in his hand. Of course, he dropped the lighter immediately, but the little Chinese-assembled IED completely torched his vehicle.

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I would never suggest that French companies like Bic, or American-based novelty companies dealing in throwaways, are undermining our way of life by outsourcing the manufacturing of their little flamethrowers to China. However, it’s blatantly apparent that 79 cent lighters don’t really represent convenience, and actually are potential environmental hazards. They don’t last very long, and when they do work, it’s only haphazardly, particularly in the outdoors. As a result, they’re routinely tossed aside by frustrated users, presenting fire hazards — and if they don’t combust, their plastic casings languish forever by the roadside.

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Zippos, on the other hand, are an American engineering marvel, elegant in design, legendary for their reliability. This year marks the 75th anniversary of Zippo, and they’ve remained relatively unchanged since they first appeared. It’s impossible to improve on perfection, and for what it does, nothing has ever beat a Zippo. Assuming they’re fueled and the flint isn’t worn away, they will, as promised, light under the windiest conditions without fail. And if anything should ever go wrong with it, the company will replace it at absolutely no cost. After my father died, I came across one he owned, with the lid missing. I sent it to Zippo, and it came back from Zippo’s manufacturing plant in Bradford, Pennsylvania, good as new.

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Zippos have been lauded by presidents, generals and soldiers for decades, and not without good reason. During WWII, Zippo suspended commercial sales, and only made the lighter available to the military. Eisenhower and MacArthur, as well as countless grunts, lauded it as the only flame upon which they could depend. There are stories of its metal case stopping bullets during battle. And of course, as per the unconditional guarantee, such damaged lighters were replaced with no questions asked.

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A Zippo isn’t just a lighter — it’s an accoutrement that you selfishly guard. You might own several, with each one having its own backstory, but you never throw one away. Each one reminds the owner of a particular point in his or her life — a bittersweet romance, an affair with a fast car, a little social victory — all sealed with that distinctive click as the Zippo is closed. There’s a little piece of American history in every Zippo.

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You don’t get that with a Bic lighter, and you don’t get it with a novelty butane lighter emblazoned with skull-and-crossbones or crude feminine silhouettes. All those give you are frustrations and bad memories of misplaced adolescence. In our throwaway culture, that’s how we mark time. We paste over our past with fiberboard facades and call it progress. It’s not evolution, though — it’s surrender to homogenization.

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Trust me — the Homogenization Conspiracy is not a figment of my fevered imagination. It’s not relegated to the Zippo, either. The perfect little lighter is just a pawn in this. If the dark forces that dictate our tastes can covertly take out an American icon like the Zippo by denying us its fuel source, what’s next? Rise up, America! If you don’t do it now, future generations will be consigned to a world ruled by overlords whose only allegiance is to disposability. And the world will end with the telltale click of a Zippo slamming shut...

Dancing with the Night

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Those of us who write about music are often reputed to be nerdish elitists, cloistered in dingy lofts surrounded by well-worn albums and old issues of Creem, pining for the halcyon days of relevant music and praying for the next rock messiah to descend from the heavens. And yeah, I can almost see where the body public might get that impression. We’re sometimes so absorbed with justifying pop music as art that we skirt past the minutiae roaming along the fringes of the form. As self-proclaimed arbiters of what defines the state of music, we disavow dance music as a bad memory we’ve long since outgrown.

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But once the horizon has swallowed the sun, and the darkness is illuminated by neon, life takes on a different complexion. Skies shift into a liquid pale against the moon, and something wells up inside us. On such nights, coffeehouses and acoustic guitars are too familiar for our alien impulses. We want to imbibe blue drinks and give ourselves over to the sensually primal beast within us.

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We want to dance, damn it!

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And once we’ve made our way through the invariably cavernous entrance of the club to find ourselves bathed in bass and shards of broken light, we’re transformed. There’s something wolfen in our eyes we ease into a symbiotic relationship with the music pulsing through the walls. It’s stentorian, seeping into our systems so subtly we’re barely aware that it punctuates our attempts at conversation, all the while prodding us to the dance floor. Our souls are no longer our own—we are willing servants to the whims of the DJ’s ever-shifting incantations. You’re about 10,000 light years from disco home, and all your preconceptions about music, relevance, culture and society have evaporated—at least for this moment.

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Make no mistake—club culture is a world unto itself—vibrant, often dark, pulsing with a life timed by beats from all over the world. And as much as critics, iconoclasts and old school aficionados of varying ilks would like to deny it, club music, with all its mixes and variations, is an integral idiom of the larger vocabulary of music as a whole.It’s not that club culture sprang into life full grown—it’s the lineal descendant of disco—which may explain why it’s rarely held up for review in the mainstream—but through the years, it’s mutated, evolved and spawned so many variations it’s nigh impossible to define it precisely. And really, there’s even less reason to attempt to do so. It’s the music of immediacy, stripped naked of any pretense and existing to remind us that at our most technological, we remain feral once the sun sets. From Berlin to Miami to London to New York and points in between, dance remains a universal language. It’s in the beats that the dialects make the language take shape.

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The London club Fabric not only speaks the language, but is fluent in almost all the dialects. Widely regarded as one of the best venues in the world, it’s renowned for Room One’s bass-driven vibrating dance floor, which sends the beats from the floor and feeds them directly into the body. More than a club, Fabric is also a label that regularly releases CDs designed to promote the musical diversity of the club. Released on alternating months as Fabric and FabricLive, they showcase the work of some of the club’s DJ’s, and represent any number of genres within the larger club texture.

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There are almost 80 titles in the series at this point, all with utilitarian numerals to identify them. Each one is unique in its approach to the mixtape. Fabric 33: Ralph Lawson is downtempo, almost a paean to acid jazz in its loopy instrumental renderings. In a completely different take, FabricLive.32: Tayo skillfully fuses breakbeats and bass with hip hop, dub and funk into something that stands beyond definition. Ewan Pearson, on Fabric 35, goes a bit more mainstream, drenching his pop sensibilities with a healthy dose of bass and percussion. FabricLive 33 finds Baltimore-based trio Spank Rock mixing East Coast mashups with unlikely dubs and sound effects, even finding slots for Yes and the Romantics in their seamless remixes.

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These examples barely scratch the surface of the Fabric and FabricLive CDs, which, depending on one’s proclivities, range from the somewhat safe to the truly mind-bending. What makes the series most noteworthy is that it always presents the unexpected. The CDs are, without fail, crystal reproductions that convey at least a sense of the excitement that the club Fabric generates. They may not be the sort of thing that inspire rock critics to pontificate hither and yon, but they nonetheless sample sources from around the globe.

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You can’t talk about club culture without acknowledging Berlin as the city that’s known for first embracing it wholeheartedly. The reunification of Germany after the fall of the Wall opened up a myriad of possibilities, and with that came a freedom to push the boundaries of dance music. The early attempts formed the basis for techno, and while it was often cited as cold and devoid of emotion, it remains the roots music of club culture. Nobody embodies the freewheeling spirit of contemporary Berlin more than Ellen Allien. She’s noted as a DJ, vocalist, music producer, and founder of her own label, BPitch Control.

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On the TimeOut release The Other Side: Berlin, Allien pays tribute to her beloved city via a video tour that focuses on its sights, sounds and smells. It’s saved from being another tourist guide by being narrated more by the music of the night than a simple voice-over. With sections devoted to shopping, nightlife, food and sights, it’s a two-plus hour tour that presents Berlin as maybe the coolest place in Europe.The accompanying CD is best described as a techno sampler that never quite conveys the aura of the Berlin scene. Allien’s Fabric 34 underscores her talents as a DJ much more effectively, evoking as it does an aura that’s both heavily dark and unbearably light. She’s a mistress of experimentation, the sort of which finds its way into the popular consciousness.

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Granted, the music of club culture doesn’t easily lend itself to quiet introspection. It’s too mercurial for that. When you’re talking about a pulse, you quickly realize as soon as you attach a definition to it, it’s jumped into a new realm. It leaves you with a beat you can’t get out of your head, at least until the moon rises again, and a new rhythm possesses you. In that regard, it personifies the meaning of pop culture—meaningful in its meaninglessness, and seared into our synapses for reasons we’ll never acknowledge—or define.

Writer's Block As a Way of Life

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For some unfathomable reason, writers are usually portrayed as angst-ridden, tortured souls, riddled by guilt and bearing the weight of the world’s sorrows on their shoulders. Of course, such depictions of writers are invariably written by writers, so it’s not that surprising. After all, self-loathing sells, assuming it’s packaged correctly.

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Californication (premiered Monday on Showtime, 10:30 PM EST) manages to take that iconic cliché and update it into a fully realized, contemporary character. Hank Moody (David Duchovny) is the author of a critically acclaimed first novel. ”God Hates Us All” has been optioned as a movie, a romantic comedy re-titled “A Crazy Little Thing Called Love.” That in itself would be enough to chaff any writer, what with the requisite move from NYC to LA, and the attendant realizations that writers rank rather low on the tinsel town food chain. In Moody’s case, it results in severe writer’s block, alleviated by sports sex and heavy drinking. That alone would make for a situation with which writers at any level could relate, but Californication complicates matters by making Moody a sympathetic character.

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For reasons unexplained, Moody’s ex-girlfriend and love of his life, Karen (Natascha McElhone) and his precocious twelve-year-old daughter Becca (Madeleine Martin) also live in LA, making visitation much more convenient for all involved. But it’s the relationship between these three characters that cements the series in reality. At its heart, Californication is really a show about the extreme routes our quests for purpose take us. As distanced from each other as Hank and Karen would like to think they are, neither can escape the fact that Becca bonds them together.

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It’s hardly maudlin, though. That underlying dynamic serves as a springboard for many of the episode’s gags, most of which revolve around Hank’s covert sexual escapades. And there are several of those here, recounted playfully, if somewhat explicitly. You can’t call it gratuitous, though — the dalliances are integral to Hank’s character. He’s a man slowly disintegrating from within, clinging to reality by moments, wherever he finds them. The pilot hints that some of those moments may come back to haunt him, particularly in the case of one dalliance who he thought was a college student.

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With Californication, Showtime further positions itself as the prime source of original programming on premium cable. Airing after Weeds, it’s another series that illustrates the network’s commitment to provocative drama and comedy. Like Weeds and Dexter, Californication expands the boundaries of episodic television. It’s not a series designed for the lowest common denominator. But for those yearning for a comedic series that can speak to universal themes, Californication is a beacon of hope for the future.

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Oh, yeah — it’s pretty freakin’ funny, too.

No Wonder I'm Addicted to Weeds

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When last we left our hapless heroes, at the close of season two, things weren’t exactly going swimmingly. In fact, it was a standoff of Tarantino proportions. By all accounts, Nancy’s DEA husband of convenience, Peter, had been offed by the Armenian mob. Silas, in a fit of teenage rebellion, had disappeared to points unknown, and Shane had taken it upon himself to scout out Pittsburgh as a new home for the family.

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Meanwhile, Nancy and Conrad, not knowing any of this, but realizing that their crop has become a hot commodity for all the wrong reasons, were all set to sell out to up and coming gangsta U-Turn when the Armenians burst in demanding the pot. Guns were drawn in every direction, forcing Nancy to open the safe, only to find the pot was no longer there.

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As I said, just about everybody involved had seen better days.

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Don’t expect a cookie-cutter resolution to these dire events in the season premiere of Weeds. As this Showtime series embarks on its third season, Weeds continues down its serpentine route satirizing the dualities of suburban middle class life. In fact, with this opener, Weeds further entrenches itself as the most fully realized comedy series ever aired on American television.

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The genius of Weeds has always been in its ability to hold our frailties and hypocrisies to the light. “Doing the Backstroke,” this season’s debut episode, continues that tradition, and kicks it up a notch. Without giving too much away, everybody survives the Mexican standoff — for now, anyway. After all, it was never really about a drug deal gone bad, any more than the series has ever really been about dealing pot in the suburbs. That’s all metaphor to explore larger issues of corruption at every level of life.

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Weeds doesn’t bat you about the head to deliver that message — it tickles you into submission instead. Running jokes are woven subtly into the thread of the plot, pointing to our dependence on cell phones as lifelines, our tenuous relationships with friends and relatives, and our day to day struggles to make ends meet. That it’s all delivered with a wicked wink and an impish grin makes it all the more enticing.

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If this episode is any indication, the third season of Weeds looks to be its finest yet, striking a balance between the melancholy whimsy of the first season and the darker tones of the second. In thirty minutes, it’s set the stage for a multitude of subplots, any of which could veer off in an infinite variety of directions. One thing is certain, though. Wherever you think the plot may be headed, you’re wrong. And that is precisely why you’ll come back for another hit.

Weeds season premiere airs tonight on Showtime, 10PM, EST, and will be available on Showtime On Demand any time. You can also see the debut online with a Showtime VIP Insider pass.

The Unbearable Lightness of Lisa Germano

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Lisa Germano views life from its ragged edges, and sends back her dispatches as gossamer whispers wrapped in wine-soaked irony. Startling by virtue of its simplicity, her music wafts dreamily through dimly lit corridors inhabited by demons we’d rather not face. She’s so beguiling, speaking like a waif, her voice punctuated by an almost random piano or discordant calliope, it takes a moment to realize these are cautionary tales born of confession.

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The beauty of Germano’s work doesn’t lie in lyrics couched in regret or redemption — it’s in her almost whimsical resignation to whatever particular hell she may be observing. Her last CD, In the Maybe World, was one of the best (and one of the more obscure) albums of 2006. It masterfully dealt with finality, or more exactly, that transcendent area between the dimensions of life and death. Quiet and haunting, it was an oddly optimistic work that was never intended to broach the top forty. Critics, myself included, largely praised it, but it found only a limited audience.

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The reissue of 2003’s Lullaby for Liquid Pig represents something of a prologue to In the Maybe World, as well as explaining what could have been perceived as a nearly eight year gap between Germano’s recordings. Originally released on the ARTISTdirect imprint, it received glowing reviews at the time. However, the label shut down shortly after, and the album went out of print and into obscurity. Fortunately, Young God, Germano’s current label, has re-released it in a handsome 2-disc package that includes home recordings and live performances.

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Lullaby for Liquid Pig, like the later In the Maybe World, is a themed album. But where the latter dealt with finality, Pig explores obsession and addiction in its various incarnations. It’s not that she’s seeking redemption — it’s more like she’s inviting guests into her parlor to share a drink and reminisce about mutual frailties. It’s my favorite feeling/not there .what a good place to be/too bad it’s still raining inside, she quietly giggles against a wash of little girl music boxes on “Candy,” celebrating her relationship with alcohol, but lamenting at the close, “too bad I got nowhere today.” She shrugs it off, leaving us feeling a bit awkward, but fascinated by her candor.

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If she’s angry, it’s only at her own shortcomings, and she usually buries them so deeply in her whispered whimsies that when they do surface, they elicit empathy rather than sympathy. In Germano’s corner of the universe, demons cavort with angels, with neither faction wrestling for the upper hand. Neither can exist without the other, so they resort to using the psyche as their playground. In “Liquid Pig,” the demon is “a freak magnet,” attracting enabling partiers, but in “Lullaby for Liquid Pig,” the pig has attained angel status. Without you here/without your love/the world is just there/it doesn’t move me.

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It’s not as bleak as it sounds at first glance. Germano is a brilliant tour guide, pointing out little cracks of joy nestled here and there in her sometimes neurotic meanderings. In fact, it all has a bit of a carnival atmosphere, dominated by Neil Finn’s eerie optigon renderings playing off Germano’s fractured piano runs. Johnny Mar and Craig Ross add guitar nuances, and Wendy Melvoin, along with Butch and Joey Waronker, keep the percussion effective but subdued. Sebastian Steinberg’s flowing bass imbues the entire affair with an otherworldly spirit.At its core, Lullaby for Liquid Pig, like In the Maybe World, is a paean to the future. Even at its darkest moments, it finds a sense of balance in the absurdities of life. What results is an album that at scarcely thirty minutes, speaks volumes about coping with the pitfalls and pratfalls of addictions and obsessions. In the end, it’s a fluffy pillow to comfort you in your darkest thoughts. And that’s not such a bad way to fall asleep.

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The bonus disc on this reissue is far from filler. The live performances offer a more intimate portrait of Lisa Germano, affording us a glimpse of he self-deprecating sense of humor, and the home recordings and alternate takes sometimes outshine the final version. The most odd aspect of the bonus disc, however, is that it’s almost twice as long as the album itself. No matter. Lisa Germano is a voice who beckons you into recesses of the soul. And once you’ve explored them, you emerge a little bit better for the journey.

Walking Through Weeds

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Weeds has never really been about a widowed suburbanite who deals pot to her friends and neighbors to make ends meet. That’s merely a metaphor. In fact, almost every aspect of Weeds works as metaphor. First, there’s the name of the LA suburb “Agrestic”, which is an Old English word meaning “characteristic of the fields”, but also means “crude and lacking in sophistication.” The characters in the series all represent some degree of disenfranchisement within their political and social strata. Marijuana is actually the most minor component of Weeds, serving as a crude capitalist icon from which everything else emanates. Or maybe I get high just watching Weeds. It’s addictive that way.

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Season one was an enjoyable romp through some of suburbia’s darker boulevards. While Mary-Louise Parker’s portrayal of small time suburban pot dealer Nancy Botwin was the force that kept it cohesive, the interplay between her and the characters surrounding her made the show pop. Kevin Nealon, as Doug Hunter, and Elizabeth Perkins, as Celia Hodes, in particular, were outstanding symbols of middle class extremes. Both pointed to the dirty little secrets that lurked beneath the veneer of the pristine gated community. Doug was the city councilman who was perpetually stoned, but maintained his CPA business, and Celia was the PTA president whose obsession with image didn’t preclude her extramarital activities. And, of course, both were close to Nancy.

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With season two, Weeds expands on its suburban satire, and wisely takes the storyline into more logical, often darker realms. What we get as a result is a series that weaves seamlessly between broad comedy and scalpel sharp drama, and never misses a beat between transitions. Plot points introduced in the first season flow effortlessly into the second, progressing in a way that unfolds much like life does. Alliances have shifted. Nancy and Conrad have decided to expand their operation, and grow their own. Heylia, Conrad’s aunt and Nancy’s supplier, isn’t happy about this, for obvious reasons. When Nancy’s bakery burns down (perhaps aided by Sanjay), it presents a perfect opportunity for Nancy and Conrad to eliminate the middle man, however.

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As rosy as all that may sound, the growing business is not without complications. After all, Nancy is trying to raise her two sons, Silas and Shane, who are in separate stages of pubescent male hormone pinball. Silas is exerting his male dominance factor, usually not very well. And Shane is torn between the newfound joys of masturbation and realizing that joining the debate team is a good way to make certain chicks notice him. Uncle Andy isn’t the best role model for them, but there may be hope in the Israeli ex-commando who teaches him that she can be more man than he’ll ever be (long story, that one). As if that weren’t complicated enough, Nancy has entered into a marriage of convenience with DEA agent Peter—the mutual reasoning being that he can’t ever testify against her. And after Celia defeats Doug in the city council election, they enter into a torrid affair. There’s more, but this should be enough to make your head spin.

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Of course, it could all lapse into silly comedy, but series creator Jenji Kohan and her team of writers hone each episode with such surgical precision that you barely notice the precise instants when the storyline veers into darkly dramatic territory. The characters don’t seem to realize it, either. By and large, they go blithely through their day to day routine, mostly oblivious to all but their most immediate concerns. In fact, only the characters most involved with pot, from dealers to users to Feds, are even remotely aware of the forces transpiring around them. Even then, the principals in Weeds amplify the mundane aspects of their lives to the point that the larger issues don’t register with them until they’re potentially beyond their control.

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It all culminates as the season unfolds, with the Armenian mafia in a Mexican standoff with a couple of gangsta hustlers. Both sides want Nancy’s and Conrad’s stash. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have it, since her son Silas has already jacked it. It’s a cliffhanger that surpasses Tarantino in terms of tension. Season three debuts on Showtime 13 August. I have a feeling that life in the suburbs is going to get a lot more complicated.

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In the meantime, season one (ten episodes) and season two (twelve episodes) are available on DVD, and as downloads directly from Showtime. This is groundbreaking comedy that balances outrageous humor with provocative social commentary. The beauty of it is that it never gets heavy-handed on either end of the spectrum. And even though it has moments of taut drama, Weeds never strays far from being, well... mellow.