One of the best things about losing touch with Classic Rock radio is that I don't have to hear the Doors slam the coffin shut on psychedaelia. Their nauseating drone of pretense! Tonight, I happened to hear "Don't You Love Her Madly" and hated it happily, pointing out to the girls that it is nothing but a ham-handed mash-up of music from one of those phony old-timey ice cream parlors and a barbiturated lounge singer.
Mr. Morrison, front man extraordinaire, even said he was the Lounge Lizard King ("Lounge" was silent, but implied), and he is correct. Had he lived, he would be splitting his time between Atlantic City and Branson, always wearing giant shades to hide shame's bloat, driving away musicians and yet continuing to score groupies with his trademark blend of booze and abuze.
He didn't live (and thus stayed young and famous while his peers became crones), but even a dead guy can stare out of print and pixels into the eyes of human hordes years later, enticing them to look up his fauxlosophical lyrics and poetry. He was photogenic, if nothing else, and in posession of a fine sense of how to make a silly gesture seem deep, like in the shot above. You may also notice that he's got the soft proto-70's version of the Blue Steel pout. The Lounge Lizard King lives not more, but Jim Morrison Male Model achieved immortality.
Modeling involves posing, and one thing punks hate is a poser.* Actually, no, that's not true. It's just that the band had to have more that one pose, and it wasn't about being pretty; Blue Steel would not have cut it on stage. A singer in particular had to have a series of poses directed at the other players, the audience, and imaginary oppressors. Henry Rollins was pretty good at that, but could also be insufferable. The kind of guy who would pose with a book so people would see him and then he could tell them what it means (instead of reading it), or write about He Himself and what He thinks.**
Like Morrison, Rollins loves having cameras on him. Not being a druggie alcoholic, he lives to do it to this day, in a manner I've posted on before. He poses even when not on stage, like with his Blue Steely gaze above, shirtless and one shoulder dropped, just like he did as a kid in front of his Doors poster, alone in his room dreaming of being a star). But in all those years it's hard to find a candid shot. Frame after frame he poses, so we won't forget his face. Line after line he proses, so we can grok his enlightenment. Track after track he chooses, so we're immersed in his sensibility.
I guess now I am too old and unhip (a word that proves my point, I think) to know who is this generation's self-adulating intellectually pretentious pretty boy of music. But I do know who Derek Zoolander is: he's the man who perfected the look that Morrison and Rollins only approximated.
And that's not all he perfected. By throwing himself whole-facedly into his modeling career, jettisoning the need to be loved for his mind as well as his really really good looks, Zoolander became a better model than Henry or Jim, and way less annoying. Not for the inventor of Magnum to write pretentious crap, or to whip out a tome to be seen reading the right stuff. All he wanted was for the school for kids who don't read good to be big enough for them to fit in. A simple man, a grounded dream. Isn't that enough to ask of our models and our musician-models and model-musicians?
* I know, poseur is the 'real' spelling, but people who insist on that brand themselves with it.
** Like me, now. Dammit, I'm a fraud.***
*** But there is this silver lining: Now I can claim to be a legit critic.
 |
| James T. Morrison, actin' all deep and groovy and shit. |
Mr. Morrison, front man extraordinaire, even said he was the Lounge Lizard King ("Lounge" was silent, but implied), and he is correct. Had he lived, he would be splitting his time between Atlantic City and Branson, always wearing giant shades to hide shame's bloat, driving away musicians and yet continuing to score groupies with his trademark blend of booze and abuze.
He didn't live (and thus stayed young and famous while his peers became crones), but even a dead guy can stare out of print and pixels into the eyes of human hordes years later, enticing them to look up his fauxlosophical lyrics and poetry. He was photogenic, if nothing else, and in posession of a fine sense of how to make a silly gesture seem deep, like in the shot above. You may also notice that he's got the soft proto-70's version of the Blue Steel pout. The Lounge Lizard King lives not more, but Jim Morrison Male Model achieved immortality.
 |
| Henry Garfield by Thurston Howes. Check out his gallery o punk photos. |
Modeling involves posing, and one thing punks hate is a poser.* Actually, no, that's not true. It's just that the band had to have more that one pose, and it wasn't about being pretty; Blue Steel would not have cut it on stage. A singer in particular had to have a series of poses directed at the other players, the audience, and imaginary oppressors. Henry Rollins was pretty good at that, but could also be insufferable. The kind of guy who would pose with a book so people would see him and then he could tell them what it means (instead of reading it), or write about He Himself and what He thinks.**
Like Morrison, Rollins loves having cameras on him. Not being a druggie alcoholic, he lives to do it to this day, in a manner I've posted on before. He poses even when not on stage, like with his Blue Steely gaze above, shirtless and one shoulder dropped, just like he did as a kid in front of his Doors poster, alone in his room dreaming of being a star). But in all those years it's hard to find a candid shot. Frame after frame he poses, so we won't forget his face. Line after line he proses, so we can grok his enlightenment. Track after track he chooses, so we're immersed in his sensibility.
I guess now I am too old and unhip (a word that proves my point, I think) to know who is this generation's self-adulating intellectually pretentious pretty boy of music. But I do know who Derek Zoolander is: he's the man who perfected the look that Morrison and Rollins only approximated.
And that's not all he perfected. By throwing himself whole-facedly into his modeling career, jettisoning the need to be loved for his mind as well as his really really good looks, Zoolander became a better model than Henry or Jim, and way less annoying. Not for the inventor of Magnum to write pretentious crap, or to whip out a tome to be seen reading the right stuff. All he wanted was for the school for kids who don't read good to be big enough for them to fit in. A simple man, a grounded dream. Isn't that enough to ask of our models and our musician-models and model-musicians?
* I know, poseur is the 'real' spelling, but people who insist on that brand themselves with it.
** Like me, now. Dammit, I'm a fraud.***
*** But there is this silver lining: Now I can claim to be a legit critic.
