GOING FISHING FOR TOPICS: A BARTLETTE-ESQUE UPDATE ON OMD

Clothing? I wear it every day!� —Andy McClusky

"What to do with your hands can be a problem!"

GOING FISHING FOR TOPICS: A BARTLETTE-ESQUE UPDATE ON OMD

by Annene Kaye

THE ENTRANCE OF AN OUTSIDER

�When in doubt, mumble; when in trouble, delegate; when in charge, ponder.�

—James H. Boren

So ponder OMD, all you interested parties. Are they OMD or Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark? Why did they pick a name that many people find impossible to spell without the aid of a dictionary? Are they big? Are they small? Are they even there at all? What�s up their sleeves? Why do you buy their records and what do you use them for once the shrinkwrap is removed? Where do they go from here and why are they here and how can we all be �here� at the same time?

�Here� and �there� are subjective. Most things are subjective, including OMD. They teach you that in Philosophy 101, in between telling you that whatever you believe in is right as long as it concurs with the professor�s personal opinion. So while we�re giving you an update on OMD, we might as well cover a few other matters...like television, and sandwiches; important things. Quench your thirst for Paul Humphreys and Andy McClusky trivia. Deal gracefully with the authorette�s taste for cynical quotations. Remember that �Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.� (Fran Lebowitz said so and she should know.) Will you find any answers? Will you discover the essence of OMD in the following paragraphs? Well, you�re in charge, buster...and in that case, we aren�t offering a money-back guarantee.

THE CRUELTY OF TACTLESS BLUNDERING �None but the insane could feel impelled to clutch at a neighbor�s dress and tear it off. But the unknowing and tactless do the parallel of this time and time again.�

—Emily Post

�I�ve been asked on two occasions whether we were influenced by Howard Jones, which I find highly amusing and a little irritating. Nothing against Howard Jones.�

—Andy McClusky

�Howard Jones was playing �Enola Gay� in his first set.�

—Paul Humphreys

�The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.�

—James Baldwin

A GENTLEMAN OFFERS HIS ARM �Probably the most cliched glamorous thing I ever did was: I turned into Rod Stewart without even trying. A few years ago I met a girl who I recognized as a local fashion model. I was at a New Year�s Eve disco, and we were both pretty drunk. We just started talking...swapped phone numbers, and we started seeing each other. She lived about two miles from me, and it was very much �Boy Meets Girl In Local Disco,� not an uncommon occurence.

�Two weeks later I was on tour in France and my manager phoned up and said, �What�s the name of your girlfriend?� and I said Blah blah,� and he said, �She�s just become the Miss Great Britain Beauty Queen.� It was all over the papers...�Miss G.B. Dates Pop Star Andy!� There I was in all the gossip columns without ever doing anything. In true Hollywood fashion...�

—Andy McClusky

PHRASES AVOIDED IN GOOD SOCIETY �The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is the reason He makes so many of them.�

—Abraham Lincoln

�Clothing? I wear it every day! At the moment we�re into well-cut black clothing. It�s very practical on the road. As long as nobody gets close enough to smell you, you always look good no matter how long you�ve had something on.�

—Andy McClusky

(from an interview with David Keeps) �If you just try long enough and hard enough, you can always manage to boot yourself in the posterior.�

—A.J. Liebling

�A critic is a bundle of biases held loosely together by a sense of taste.�

—Whitney Balliett

�This is �not a synthesizer band, it�s a band that uses synthesizers,� wrote Robert Palmer in the New York Times, �and there s a big difference.�

—OMD Press Release

��The whole motivation for any per-

former: �Look at me, Ma!�

—Lenny Bruce

THE VISIT OF EMPTY FORM ��When we were in one of our earliest bands, called the Id, we used to rehearse in this place above a fish shop. And we used to keep our equipment in there all the time. One day we go to rehearse, and the place has been busted into and all our equipment had gone missing. We just went crazy, �cause we�d spent every penny we had on all this*..so we called the police and got �em down.

��Anyway, a couple of weeks later we were walking around this place called blah-blah and we looked in the music store and there was all our gear in the window...the guy who had nicked the gear had sold it to this shop. They traced back and found the guy who stole it, and it was a friend of ours! Later he joined OMD.� —Paul Humphreys

THE DOOR SLAMMERS ��Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we should have people standing in the corners of our rooms.�

—Alan Coren

��If people have to choose between freedom and sandwiches, they will take sandwiches.�

—Lord Boyd-Orr

��In heaven they will bore you, in hell you will bore them.�

—Katherine Whitehorn

GENTLEMEN AND BUNDLES Andy, are there any people, places, things or attitudes you�d like to plug?

�I would like the whole world to buy the Blue Nile LP, A Walk Across The Roof Tops. I think The Cosby Show should be recommended viewing for everybody. I think that everybody should buy black Tshirts and should�ve cheered the Raiders on to the Superbowl this year. They�re everyone�s pet team to hate.�

A GENTLEMAN LIFTS HIS HAT Paul, do you have any pick hits to offer?

��At this time of the morning? Oh, no...actually, it�s the afternoon. Musicwise I think there�s a couple of bands that deserve a lot more attention than they�ve got, such as China Crisis. They�ve given the world three amazing albums, and they�re one of the world�s most underrated bands.�

THE RETORT COURTEOUS TO ONE YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN Andy, comment on this quote: �I have seen no more evident monstrosity and' miracle in the world than myself. �

��Who said that?�

Some 16th century joker named Montaigne.

�They�re the extremes that most people would love their ego and their depressing psyche to switch between...which I do, sometimes, when I�m at my ebb and flow. But on the whole it�s just big words.�

Are you more well-balanced?

r�Most of the time.�

�When are you unbalanced?��

�When I�m tired or very drunk.� �When you�re drunk, are you a miracle or a monstrosity?

�Both...well, I think I am, but I�m neither.�

THE BRIDE WHO IS A STRANGER Paul, would you like to start any rumors about yourself?

�I�m a two-foot tall, 350-pound midget...and I used to be a woman.�

�Tell me what you think you are and I will tell you what you are not.�

—Henri Frederic Amiel

TABOOS OF CONVERSATION

�Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.�

—Joseph Heller

�...and that goes for us girls, too.�

—Annene

(All titles borrowed from an old Emily Post book kindly donated for the evening by Michael. As usual, the authorette thanks The Cynic�s Lexicon and Bartlett�s. All other quotes courtesy OMD.)