Pattinson, Zappa and the Mega New Moon

If you went outdoors tonight, Saturday March 19, and saw the mega moon, you will not forget it as long as you live, or ever see such a sight again.

Friday was a good night too because the Precious popped up twice, on MTV briefly, then MTV.com for a half hour and later on Leno. And then there was Dweezil, about whom more later. (The great MTV picture comes from Robsessed aka Robsessedpattinson.com blog)

Though Edward can do no wrong, or is easy to forgive when he does, the human Rob did say one particularly obnoxious thing. For understandable reasons, he is eager to get out of the vampire/sparkle peen shadow. I hope he can, though sadly, in the Water for Elephants clip we saw of him with Reese Witherspoon, Rob seemed to be channelling Edward as he mumbled on and on with not entirely convincing intensity. As if he were explaing to Bella why he is no good for her.

But I say this perhaps because I was pissed off to hear him tell MTV's John Horowitz that he would happily consider an action-figure movie role if it were offered to him. WTF? Here is he complaining re Twilight and yet he's willing to be a Spiderman or Red Devil or whatever?

Another sad thing is to read that Master of the Universe is being published as a novel this spring. With the principals renamed so they no longer get into copyright trouble by being called Edward and Bella in the fan fic. I never finished MoTU because it was too intense for me, but it was a thrill to read and to know that it existed--making the Twlight love story more real for adults--and it is great that we shall finally know more who the author Icy really is. (or perhaps all did but me until now) But in a way, Fifty Shades of Grey becomes something else when it changes name, or risks doing that, so that the Twilight world which fan fic writers have been making expanding for us so well actually will shrink.

But back to good news, which was seeing Rob on Leno, but also Dweezil Zappa, playing with Alice Cooper on some strat that belonged to Jimmi Hendrix and then Frank. But as neat as that is, listening to Dweezil is the treat. It just elevated the whole evening sky-high.

I remember being sad once when I lived in Germany in the early 90s and saw Frank on some Austrian documentary (ORF TV and the Austrians were duly obsessed with him) saying how sad he was that he couldn't play guitar better. And yet I would hear the tiniest thing, like the little riff on "Broadway the Hard Way" about "Any Kind of Pain" where he is just swinging in the most beautiful way...something that is harder to do on a guitar than almost anything else, to get all lilting and shit.

But Dweezil is somehow the next step and has chops that you never ever see on the pop or rock scene today, or at least I don't hear.

I felt the same way awhile back when Yngwie Malmsteen was on Jimmy Fallon, just sitting in with the house band. He was wack and wacky, and he still looks Scando-demented as hell. But yes, sure, what he does is more a wild stunt than anything, tho no less great. But how weird and tragic in a way to to see ole Yngwie there and to know that half the people watching, if that, did not know what they were seeing.

(excuse the crappy photo by me, but it's all I have right now of DZ, from last autumn in Baltimore)

With Dweezil, I am thinking it may work the other way, to introduce a new group, if not a generation, to rock with serious chops. Wah, it sounded good, even if it was talk-show short.

What I believe must be true, and am dying to know more about, is whether Rob made a beeline for Dweezil in the Green Room or after the show, to make contact with DZ's special brand of greatness.

Men in bars want to beat up Rob Pattinson. Imagine that.

It's not hard to guess what drives many Twilight haters. It has to involve powerful emotions, because I, for instance, have no interest in "Lord of the Rings" or "Titanic" and yet feel no need to bash such movies or their stars (even tho Leo really is a sexless weenie, except at the bar in "Blood Diamond"). But suspicious numbers of people feel compelled to shout their hatred of Twilight in general and Edward/Rob Pattinson in particular.

About the female haters, well, who cares. Possibly some resent the series out of conflicted feelings about the loss of their virginity a zillion times over—experiencing not guilt but a feeling of worthlessness. Let's all move on, ladies. Tomorrow is another day.

The reactions of men are worth exploring, though, because, let's face it: Few if any of us will ever meet Edward or Rob. In fact, appeal of Twilight and Robward is that it remind us of what it is like to want something, and someone, hard. So it is in our interest to find real men who will make us feel that way in real life.

I totally get why men in general have little interest in Twilight. It's a chick flick, however much the hyped vampire scenes and wolf scenes may pretend to be serious "action." But all men who have heard of Twilight surely have noticed that girls and women like it, luuuuurve it, and generally are fainting all over the place for its sparkly star. So the big mystery is why men don't at least fake it. Women have been faking it for years. And men have been trying to bed them for longer than that.

So I've been tormented for months now, more than a year really, by the vexing question of why men so stubbornly refuse to notice or care how EASY it would be to seduce chicks by showing some Edward-like behavior, or at least awareness of same. It doesn't compute.

Well, guess what? Twilight may be a fiction but Rob Pattinson is not. And it's been dawning on my tiny brain that resentment of Rob's appeal—he's not even available and yet chicks flock to him, they flock!!—that this jealousy is even more powerful than any desire to attract women. To many other guys, he's like a smack in the face, a reproach, a big "Guess what, Asshole. You'll never be a babe magnet like I am.

Now comes confirmation of a sort, in Rob's March 2011 Vanity Fair interview. After yammering on about wacky female fans and the impossibility of having a normal life (egged on by the interviewer no doubt, but also not really giving a fuck about what he said in yet another boring chat) Rob also mentioned another hazard of being himself.

“Or I’ll be walking down the street,” he says, “and people’ll be like, ‘Fuck you!’ ” He laughs. “And I get a lot of people wanting to beat me up. Men in bars and stuff. I just leave.”

BINGO. Men in bars want to beat him up? Jealous. Jealous. Jealous. Of course, they're no good to us in that state. Hence a School for Edwards, or the hope at least, of reprogramming them to channel their jealousy into something constructive and, uh oh, rewarding for the rest of us.