Hacked To Death

Last issue, Sam had barely finished guffawing at the idea of masculinity in crisis inspired, you will recall, by this organ s shrink rap with the Doc Clare when he was plunged into another paroxysm of hilarity by the news that Hollywood is about to unveil a blockbuster movie about the life and times of wait for it a rock hack.
And, before you ask, no, I m not referring to Shaft which, going by the title, many people understandably assumed had to be a biopic about the massive, greased, throbbing porksword-on-legs that is the man Snort. Hell, and that s only when he s flaccid, har har.
But I digress. The movie in question, called Almost Famous, is the work of one Cameron Crowe, the director who gave us Jerry Maguire but who was once celebrated as the youngest ever hack all of 15 when he penned his first review to write for Rolling Stone. And it s his experience as a rookie scribe on the US rock circuit of the early seventies which forms the basis for Almost Famous.
Can I say at this point that, while I haven t yet seen the movie, this in no way precludes me, as a fully qualified and responsible arts critic, from condemning it as a great steaming pile of unadulterated horseshite. There are any number of reasons why I am entitled to hold this position but only one is strictly necessary: Peter Frampton gets a credit in the movie as an authenticity advisor .

Hellish Gibberish
For both my younger readers and those veterans who underwent post-traumatic stress therapy in order to expunge the frightful memory from their stir-fried brains, I should explain that in 1975 Peter Frampton became famous for issuing a horrible double-live album that featured a daft gizmo which connected the middle-of-the-road rocker s mouth to his axe by way of a piece of clear plastic tubing. Nobody I know can now remember or even wants to remember what this yoke was called. Not that it matters anyway: the important thing to know is that, both literally and metaphorically, Peter Frampton sucked.
Not that you re likely to learn this kind of hard information from the authenticity advisor , of course.
Au contraire, according to a piece in the latest Rolling Stone, Frampton s brief was rather more mundane.
Most rock movies are never authentic, he s quoted as saying. You ll have someone supposedly in 1958 playing a 1990 guitar, and a 1986 microphone. So we were sure to get the little things correct, like strap locks. Back then, there weren t strap locks on guitars, so you attached them with a dog clip, like on the end of a leash you can see it on the cover of Frampton Comes Alive .
Hello, hello, is there anyone still alive out there?
Jesus maruading Christ, what kind of hellish trainspotting gibberish is that? Imagine, you get the chance to make a Hollywood blockbuster about rock n roll, and your expert hired gunslinger can apparently only get worked up about strap locks.
When I brought what I thought was this grade A bucket of pigswill to the attention of the man I prefer to call my intensity advisor , I was initially taken aback by his surprisingly benign response.
Hell, I don t know what you re gettin so riled about, said Ted The Fuckin Nuge Nugent. Sure that s all any of us axe monsters talked about back in the day - when to use em, what colour, how to whip em on and off, all that stuff.
You used to talk all the time about strap locks? I asked incredulously.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line during which I could almost hear The Fuckin Nuge s brain doing a second take.
Uh, strap locks?, he said sheepishly. Sorry, Sam, I thought you said jock straps.

Dose Of Clap
As you can see, a rock n roll movie with The Fuckin Nuge as its advisor would be an altogether more interesting affair. Indeed, we attempted just such a project back when Cameron Crowe was still using crayons to write his first Jethro Tull review. Unfortunately, Ted s attention to authentic detail and Foghat s insistence on the Method approach, a la Daniel Day Lewis, meant that we never did get beyond the research stage which, for both of these great acts involved touring 360 days a year, doing some time in stir, popping in for a spot of rehab every once in a while and, occasionally, either Ted or Lance Turnpike ringing me up out of the blue, from some godforsaken place like Boise, Idaho and saying something like, Hell, the research is going great, Sam, I just got me a dose of the clap and it don t get more authentic than that. Hot damn, we re finally ready to roll with this thing when does filming start?
This research has been going on now for 31 years and I can t quite bring myself to break it to the boys that our original plan a split screen, six hour-long, 3D, if you will, rockumentary is really no longer a runner.
But let me assure you of this: it would still be a helluva lot groovier than Almost Famous.
Your ever-lovin Samuel J. Snort Esq.