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— Pete Stanton
Only once since becoming an adult have I found myself convinced that there was a hidden conspiracy. It was the last day of August, 1997 which had been something of a golden summer. I had been working at a Calgary-area liquor store and on the drive back there came the news of a serious car accident involving Diana, Princess of Wales and her new lover Dodi Fayed. Not being a royalist, the initial shock quickly wore off and I forgot all about it. That evening, however, the news came in that the former future Queen of England had passed away from injuries sustained in said crash. Almost immediately, a thought flashed through my mind that I must have felt was going to rock the very foundation of the British monarchy: they must have faked it.
We're conditioned to believe in conspiracies from infancy: Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. The simple prospect that it could be our parents who were behind these childhood misdirections didn't even enter into it. Then there's God, who I had mercifully avoided hearing about until my parents put me into a Baptist church-run playschool when I was four. (Even then, Santa still seemed vastly more plausible) Fictional givers of gifts, chocolates and/or money and that twisted nutcase up in the clouds were all handed to me to accept or reject but the only thing I was prepared to believe in due to my own personal creed was wrestling. There were whispers that it was fake but I wasn't having it. Rotten Ron Starr once smashed a bottle of champagne over his head while being interviewed by Ed Whalen on Stampede Wrestling: was it fake when Starr screamed at the camera, his face now a mask of crimson? "Macho Man" Randy Savage once crushed Ricky "The Dragon" Steamboat's windpipe with the ring bell: was it fake when Steamer was stretchered off as he gasped in agony?
In preparation for this blog post, I thought about immersing myself in the unique works of Andy Kaufman. Note my use of the phrasal verb 'to think about' because that's basically all I did. I didn't binge watch all five seasons of the classic US sitcom Taxi. I didn't watch hours of Kaufman's material on YouTube. I only made it about five minutes into My Breakfast with Blassie before deciding it made for pointless viewing — which was at least a useful reminder that the great man didn't always hit 'em out of the park. I didn't even bother with the 1998 Jim Carrey biopic Man on the Moon though I did watch most of its companion documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond — Featuring a Very Special, Contractually Obligated Mention of Tony Clifton.
Having been such a big wrestling fan as a boy, I was especially drawn to Jerry "The King" Lawler's appearances in Jim & Andy. The Memphis legend had been in cahoots with Kaufman when they did their infamous spot on David Letterman but no one knew for sure at the time that they were friendly behind the scenes. Such was the world of kayfabe. (Kaufman's untimely passing at the age of thirty-five did not sway Lawler, who was a good guy in the Memphis territory, into saying anything positive about his old adversary) Taking this on, Carrey refused to break character while on the set of Man on the Moon, much to the annoyance of director Milos Forman and many others. Lawler, for his part, seems baffled and even at times disturbed by Carrey's behaviour. But give credit where it's due: it takes a special kind of talent to out-kayfabe an old school pro wrestler.
The film Man on the Moon got its title from the 1992 hit single by R.E.M. I assumed there must have been a Kaufman sketch about an oddball astronaut landing on the Moon or one involving Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descending from the Apollo 11 craft only to meet a character like Latka who was already there. But no, the title simply refers to Moon landing conspiracies and how they relate to rumours that Kaufman engineered his own demise in 1984. But also, his commitment to the characters he played. The wrestling heel he portrayed in Memphis in the early-eighties came out of legit grappling exhibits he would put on with any woman who was willing to challenge him. He wasn't able to apply the figure-four leglock, couldn't execute a drop kick and probably didn't even know how to throw a realistic-looking punch. When he and Lawler finally met up in the ring, the King invited him to put him in a headlock, only for his opponent to get out of it with a minimum of effort. Lawler the proceeded to give him two dangerous piledrivers which led to Kaufman wearing a neck brace in public for the next several months.
Hailing from Athens, Georgia, which isn't too far away from the professional wrestling hotbed of Atlanta, southerners Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills and Bill Berry fashioned a good old country-rock number in an appropriately unexpected way of paying tribute to Kaufman. While the three instrumentalists may shine in other R.E.M. tunes, it's the singer who takes centre stage. Stipe has never been noted for his humour and he wisely steers clear of the understandable but misguided approach of being funny as a way of tipping his hat to the great man. Instead, we get some of his finest cryptic lyrics with references to board games (because of the randomness of a roll of the dice can generally override any actual skill), historical figures (mythology) and the seventies band that did "All the Young Dudes" (I have no idea on this one; I always used to think the song's opening line was "Martin Luther and the Game of Life")
Reading Pete Stanton's review I'm struck by how little he's aware of all this stuff about conspiracy theories and wrestling and Elvis; his prime concern is with "Man on the Moon" being "so beautiful you could snog it". (Not snog to it, you can do that to damn-near any record but it takes a really potent song for you to stick your lips to the vinyl and smack away; if you happened to have a North American 7" with the giant hole pressed through the middle you could get up to some kinky stuff if that's your thing; I'm not advocating being a record fetishist, I just think great songs have a way of getting you to do things you wouldn't normally do is all) Whatever meaning there is underneath would be for nothing if it wasn't so brilliant. But it is and then some. Even held up alongside the likes of "Radio Free Europe", "Talk About the Passion", "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville", "Driver 8", "The One I Love", "You Are the Everything", "Losing My Religion" and on towards future greats like "Tongue", "Leave" and "I've Been High" (hey, I don't care if it sounds like Chris de Burgh!), "Man on the Moon" stands tall. It may not be the best track on the mighty Automatic for the People but it's hard to argue that they bettered it at any other time in R.E.M.'s long and storied career.
When right-leading types who complain about political correctness and cancel culture have a tendency to play what Cody Johnston of YouTube channel Some More News calls the "Carlin card". Comedian George Carlin would never have put up with these snowflakes crying about being offended, they seem to be saying (though they never acknowledge that he was able to change with the times and refused to punch down). What's forgotten is that it's Andy Kaufman who would have found more of a home in this era of social media and conspiracy theories. While it's easy to think that we've all become more like Kaufman as we push vaccine skepticism and fake news and all that nonsense, the reality is that we only would've ended up as fodder for more of his shenanigans. Oh the fun he could have had. (Or is currently having?)
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Also Reviewed This Fortnight
INXS: "Taste It"
Is it just me or did INXS have a lot of singles that got to number twenty-one in the UK charts? I'm sure they only had two or three but coming in just shy of the Top 20 seems like the optimum chart position for your average XS' hit. 1992 saw the release of the strong Welcome to Wherever You Are, an album that helped get them through their early-nineties' wilderness of good songs that all sounded the same. Self-parody was avoided (at least for the time being) but this was still very much INXS and only INXS. The touch of R&B — not, mind you, the same R&B that had been taking over the charts, more that vaguely laid-back style of groove-heavy dance rock that pops up every so often — proved to be a nice addition as the guitars were scaled back except for in the chorus where they suddenly explode. Yet another top INXS single though it would be more memorable if it wasn't quite so forgettable. Funny how that happens, isn't it?
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