There's (above) Moon Unit Zappa belting out her hit song from the eighties, "Valley Girl." I live in the Valley and can testify that lots of girls really did speak that way, in fact, a lot still do. I hear it every day. It may have been eradicated from the rest of the country, but embers are still burning here.
Here (above) Frank Zappa talks to David Letterman about how much he detests The Valley. Maybe "detest" is too weak a word...he was positively revolted by it. Geez, that's my home and a certifiably cool guy like Frank Zappa hated it. What does that say about me?
I notice that I say "really" all the time. That's Val Speak. And I confess that I buy half my clothes at The Gap, I wear New Balance shoes, and I get my hair cut at Supercuts. Does that mean I'm....(Aaaargh)....a Valley Guy? Years after everybody else abandoned Valley, am I still holding on? Am I........(GULP!)........unhip?
[The part of the video where Frank talks about the Valley is at 5:10 to 6:30.]
INT. RESTAURANT:
GUY: "There's Uncle Eddie worrying about whether he's hip again. What's with him? I mean, seriously."
GIRL: "Yeah, it's like bizarre. If he's so worried about it, why doesn't he buy some tight jeans and a lumberjack shirt?
GUY: "A lumberjack shirt!? Man, that's sooooooo mainstream. I was thinking more like a hoodie and a beanie like I have."
GIRL: "Yeah, and a beret and some Ray Bans and a cool tee shirt and a scarf. We should take him to Urban Outfitters."
GUY: "Uh....I don't think they let old dudes in there. They might have a heart attack on the floor or something. Literally swallowing their own literal tongue and puking all over. I mean, seriously."
GIRL: "EWWW!"
Well, that's it...no,wait! See what you think of this hipster video, courtesy of Jo Jo Baptista:
I love that song, but I only heard it once. Thanks for bringing it up! Valley speak must get annoying after a while.
ReplyDeleteAre you originally from California or did you move there from somewhere else like New York? I could never tell. I'm originally from Massachusetts which is where a lot of the highly ranked colleges in the country are located, and I lived in New England for half of my life, and then moved down to Georgia in 2003.
Thank god I didn't go to high school here. I'm a superficial airhead, but only superficially.
ReplyDeleteI can assure you that I know my fair share of valley girls down at West Tennessee. And bronies. We're a strange bunch, really.
ReplyDeleteI like that little script you did. You should do a little mini-comic based off of it.
Eddie, you'd get a lot more hits with: Thinking About Girls' Valleys
ReplyDeleteMike: Haw!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteBrubaker: Thanks, but what's a bronie?
"Brony" - A male fan of "My Little Pony" over a certain age. Specifically, "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic", the brilliantly concieved redux of the original Dark Ages franchise. (Note: For our puposes, the Dark Ages refers to the 1980s.)
ReplyDeleteLike Mike, Zappa hated hippies, but his resentful barbs still resonate with a painfully accurate sense of justice because his rage grows from deep WITHIN the countercultural ethos. The parts of the 1960s' transformation of the world which bothered him the most, as it turns out, mostly originate in California. Witness San Francisco's transformation into a kind of ersatz hippie museum/mausoleum - he could see it already happening by 1967. It's no wonder the Mothers moved their base of operations to New York City as quickly as possible. That being where MGM/Verve's headquarters was probably didn't hurt, either - When people are suing you as frequently as was the case for Zappa, you're gonna want to position yourself as close to the center of corporate power over your fate as possible....
Zoran: So THAT's what bronies are!!!! I had no idea that there were guys who liked "My Little Pony." I would have thought there wasn't a single male anywhere on the North American continent who watched it.
ReplyDeleteJohn K did a brilliant parody of that show, which really needs to be a show of its own.
Brubaker: Thanks for the great idea! I didn't answer right away because I needed to think about it.
Eddie - I am well aware of "My Little Ass". The series I am talking about is new and is adapted, re-designed and executive produced by the brilliant Lauren Faust. In fact, the new designs are, in some ways, not all that different from John's MLA drawings. The colours are great, too - they strike a very creative and effective balance between "Real Art Colours" and the corporate saturational "demands" of a Little Girls' Show. The premise and plots - and dialogue and voice acting and such, too....well okay, it ain't gonna be everyone's cup of tea, but I think they do a good job.
ReplyDelete