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There really ought to be an Unintentionally Funny Hall
of Fame because the comedic value of the bizarrely serious—Christopher
Walken—surpasses all but the best comics. William
Shatner, Deion Sanders and Steven Seagal are other classic
examples of individuals who’ve been unaware of their
comic genius for large stretches of their careers.
Each of them is a one-man Spinal Tap, whether they’re
in on the joke or not. Drew Carey or Ray Romano
would kill for their body of work.
The
primary source of unintentional humor comes out of the
grey area between coolness and the preposterous.
For example, the power of hip hop music, for me at least,
is its unrelenting silliness, sometimes intentional,
sometimes not. Almost without exception, the landmark
rap acts have been goofy in one way or another, a trait
shared with the almost defunct heavy metal genre.
In
its heyday, heavy metal was so absurd that the legions
of Judas Priest fans mistook Rob Halford’s leather daddy
garb for rock n roll biker apparel. Heavy metal
lost most of its audience in the early nineties when
the hair bands proved to be less cool than grunge and
not as much fun as hip hop, so only the dour fellows
of Metallica and a few others survive from that era.
(I’m too old to comment on the funniness of the rockers—a
silly term if there ever was one—of today, although
Tenacious D and Marylyn Manson undeniably tap into this
tradition.)
Thankfully,
there is still one star shining brightly in the heavy
metal universe: Ronnie James Dio. His official
website describes him as:
The
grand wizard of classic rock. A poet of hope
for the downtrodden. The single most important
vocal technician in the history of heavy metal music.
All of these accolades have been garlanded upon the
royal roar known as Ronnie James Dio.
The
one thing that they leave out is his comedic genius.
This
is a man who, when asked if he knew that the “Dio” in
olde english script on one of his albums spelled “Devil”
when held upside-down next to a mirror, said, “I didn’t
know that, but I…am…not…surprised!” At
his peak in the mid-eighties, Dio played stadiums with
a laser-filled pyrotechnic show that saw him battle
a robotic dragon on stage. I didn’t catch his
act until the early nineties, when he was well into
his long slide into obscurity. I’d never followed
his music during his musical prime (he is still in his
comedic prime), but when my friend Greg shared his collection
of Dio tapes, I knew I had to see the man live.
A
careful analysis of the titles of his songs hints at
the genius of Dio’s oeuvre, which encompasses over forty
albums with four different bands. If you look carefully,
you may notice some similarities between the titles:
Rock
n Roll Songs:
•
Rock n Roll Children
• King of Rock and Roll
• Rocking Chair Rock n Roll Blues
• Long Live Rock n Roll
• Rock & Roll
• We Rock
Songs
of the Heart:
•
Straight Through the Heart
• Eat Your Heart Out
• Sacred Heart
• Like the Beat of a Heart
• Between Two Hearts
• Hunter of the Heart
Songs
of the Night:
•
Rainbow in the Dark
• Shame on the Night
• I Speed at Night
• One Night in the City
• Night Music
• Better in the Dark
• Master of the Moon
• Night People
The
Evil and Not So Evil:
•
Holy Diver
• Hungry for Heaven
• Fallen Angels
• Hey Angel
• Heaven and Hell
• Lord of the Last Day
• Before the Fall
• Dream Evil
• Evil on Queen Street
• Evilution
The
concert that Greg and I attended, held at the Starlight
Bowl in San Diego’s Balboa Park, didn’t disappoint.
The Starlight Bowl was at about 25% capacity, but everyone—save
me and Greg—were there to bang their heads. Dio
still had enough money to muster a video screen below
the riser that held the drum set, so we were treated
to a video skit to start the show. As a keyboard
throbbed in the background, the screen glowed red.
Suddenly, an ugly, fat female judge appeared.
She sneered and sarcastically read a list of charges:
“You’ve been charged with rabble rousing, head banging,
night stalking, insubordination, back talking AND ROCKING!”
The camera swung around and down to a pair of black
motorcycle boots. It moved slowly up the legs,
clad in black jeans, to the crotch area. It paused
in the crotch area and moved to the belt, but then dipped
briefly down to the crotch again before focusing on
a man’s chained, outstretched arms.
The
camera shot back to a close-up of the judge’s wobbly
face. “HOW DO YOU PLEAD?!”, she screeched.
The camera was back on the chains, then slid up the
arms to frame Dio’s face and frizzy black locks.
He smirked, paused and yelled with full fury, “GUILTY!!!!!!!!”
The
band began to ROCK and Dio ran out from under the video
screen singing:
Holy
Diver
You've been down too long in the midnight sea
Oh what's becoming of me
Ride
the tiger
You can see his stripes but you know he's clean
Oh don't you see what I mean
And
while we didn’t quite see what he meant, his trademark
wail and a few modest explosions told us what to expect:
Dio might not have the budget to fight the robotic dragon,
but he was going to rock with all his heart, be it eaten,
sacred or hunted.
It
was a special show, not necessarily because it was a
good show, but because it showed that Dio really cared
about rocking, about giving us music that would justify
the mild case of whiplash that the majority of the audience
would have the next morning. To show us he cared,
he made a point of clenching his fist above his head
with each meaningful lyric—which was nearly every lyric—and
pointing at a member of the audience, giving that fan
a wise stare. Since the attendance wasn’t too
good, I’m pretty sure he pointed to everyone by the
end of the night.
His
lyrics reinforce this love for his followers.
(Transcripts of almost all of his lyrics are available
at Tapio Keihaenen’s
website, and to view a collage of original Dio-themed
art, see Diomagic’s
page.) Dio’s early life was filled with sorrow
so he understands heartache (this may explain the six
songs he’s written with “heart” in the title).
His songs are a deep well of compassion that he shares
with his fans, as you can see in the lyrics to “This
Is Your Life”:
Right
now it seems
You're only dreams and shadows
If wishes could be eagles how you'd fly
This is your life this is your time
What if the flame won't last forever
This is your here - this is your now
Let it be magical
Who cares what came before
We're only starlight
While
I’m not entirely sure what this signifies, I know that
it is heartfelt. It makes me smile, laugh and drift
off into a magical happy place.
These
days, the majority of fans that share this happy place
come from countries that have dots over their vowels
and unintentional comedic traditions that date back
centuries to the works of Leibniz, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer,
von Pufendorf and others. There are still avid fans
of his comedy in America, though, thanks in large part
to the hero worship of Tenacious D, who have sung about
his greatness and included him in a music video. This
year, the group Dio
For America has launched a grassroots movement to
either get him into the White House, or at least beat
that clown Nader.
I’d
like to leave you with one last poignant lyric that
illustrates why Dio belongs in the pantheon of heavy
metal comic greats:
Rock
and roll eyes
The keeper of rainbows
Collector of lies
Rock and roll eyes
My eyes
Rock
and roll eyes
Tell rock and roll lies
And rock and roll lies
Never end
Rock
and roll friends
With rock and roll trends
And rock and roll ends
With my eyes
Mr.
Lewis can be reached at jeff@babblog.com.
Copyright
Jeff Lewis, 2004 |
