the wild life (yes, another review)

promise the next bit will NOT be a movie or record review…

…but this IS how i kept my writing chops up through college, so with that we’re gonna talk about:

it’s time for a spontaneous secondary sixer this week!

six things that make the wild life one of the great 80’s t&a flix!

1. it was penned (not the lack of an “i” because i meant “written” not “put up on that annoying pintrest shit) by cameron crowe, who wrote fast times at ridgemont high, and featured a young nancy wilson (the non-fat chick in the band heart) who he would go on to marry. and speaking of being “penned”…

2. it stars an actually athletic-looking chris penn, but it actually has two members of the family – the the character’s dad was played by chris penn’s ACTUAL dad, who also sired his brother sean penn and musician michael penn. and speaking of pairs…

3. before they were the couple in a hughes flick:

they were a couple in this. three years before. way to catch up, mr. hughes (not that i don’t love his work, of course…shit, who doesn’t?) and speaking of the THE MAN on 80’s teen comedies, it also prominently features…

4. the other guy from weird science. which guy? you know how the two main characters in weird science were anthony michael hall and that other guy? this has that other guy…and he’s kind of a bad ass. a clueless bad ass, but one none the less. and speaking of “the other guy” in hughes flix…the guy running the military surplus store, three years before “ferris bueller…” was our introduction to the monotone delivery of ben stein. his film debut. and speaking of debuts…

5. in his film scoring debut, and i think his only time to do it, actually, all that guitar work in the background? yeah, it was done by this guy…

Van Halen

while van halen were big in the early 80’s, they got fuck all huge after this dropped:

that was january of 1984. that was when you started JUST seeing van halen folk on van halen shit. get that famous and your own stuff takes up enough time. no more guitar solos on michael jackson hits (he’s the guitar work on “beat it”) and no more film scores. crowe got in JUST under the line. but is he the only guitar bad-ass associated with this flick? nope. while ed did the score, another guitar legend appeared IN the actual movie…

6. while the film gets some punk cred with lee ving, lead singer of punk band fear playing the cable installer, there was a better cameo at the party to end the summer – yeah, the guy who raided fridge when the party “expanded” (trying not to spoil it) was this guy:

that’s ron wood – guitarist for a little british blues band called the rolling fucking stones. and cameron crowe, writer of the script, wrote for rolling stone magazine. that ties it all together nicely, eh?