Valentine's Day Kisses

This Valentine's Day, I hope that everybody who is looking for a kiss finds one:




Gotta love the New York Dolls... when I was a nerdy grammar school kid who read the newspaper every day (yeah, I did), I read about the Sex Pistols and somehow got the notion that they wore women's clothing on stage. Silly me, I had them conflated with the Dolls. Yeah, I was a punk rock n00b in the second grade.

If you find your kiss, make sure that it's not one of those deadly kisses that one seems to hear about every now and then. Last week, in one of the comments, the wily Wiley wrote:


That girl's band reminded me of Cher on "the Sonny and Cher" show introducing an all girl band with the caveat that they weren't very "feminine" as if Cher weren't a professional vamp. I thought at the time that the network forced her into it, because she didn't seem very sincere when she said it. I was 14 at the time, so it was '75 and I'm thinking it might have been very early Joan Jett. Or not. I dunno. But I really liked them and loved it that they were rough and tumble--- like me--- a ridiculously heterosexual tomboy.


I believe that the band in question was The Runaways, who featured Lita Ford on guitar. Of course, Lita Ford had something to say about those deadly kisses later on in her career:





I have to confess that I find the song dated and more than a bit cheesy. I remember my freshman college roommate and I laughing our asses off at the opening line, "Went to a party last Saturday night, didn't get laid, got in a fight." Damn, Lita, you'd been a rockstar since you were in your teens, could you not have tried a little harder?

As far as songs titled "Kiss Me Deadly" go, I have to rate for Generation X's song by that name (warning, video contains footage of Billy Idol... I kid! I kid!):





Of course, both songs share the title of perhaps the greatest film noir ever produced. Kiss Me Deadly took a run-of-the-mill Mickey Spillane potboiler about stolen narcotics and turned it into a post-Hiroshima horror story about a deadly "whatsit" being chased down by various law enforcement officials and an international criminal organization.

Inspired by Smut's posting of a picture of a statute of Perseus slaying Medusa, I went searching for a clip from Kiss Me Deadly, in which the villain describes the "whatsit" at the center of the film as "the head of the Medusa", and found the entire movie posted. Yeah, I know the SOPA and PIPA people will freak, but I'm posting the movie, because it must be seen. As a little background reading, you may wish to check out Wiley's take on nuclear fears- as an Air Force veteran, she's extraordinarily wise about these issues.




Damn, what dialogue! I still get goosebumps hearing the villain's speech at 1:16:

What is it we are seeking? Diamonds, rubies, gold? Perhaps narcotics? How civilized this earth used to be. But as the world becomes more primitive, its treasures become more fabulous.

Why is it that the villains always seem to end up with the best lines?

The actor who played the villain, Albert Dekker seems to have died of sexual misadventure, which brings us back to the topic of Valentine's Day. If you are going to get kinky this V. Day, take all possible precautions to be safe- leave the deadliness to posted videos.