Rhett Miller cut his teeth with the alt-country Old 97’s, but years before the band released Too Far To Care, the catchiest and most compelling distillation of its cow-punk-meets-Brit-Invasion template, Miller put out his own little-heard first solo album, Mythologies. Now 2,800 miles from Dallas, where he got his start, Miller is a family man and has released his fifth studio album, The Dreamer. On all counts, the LP marks a return to basics for Miller after three studio albums that toned down the twang, ratcheted up the pop smarts and layered on the studio frills. Miller will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our recent feature on him.
Miller: I first read John D. MacDonald‘s Travis McGee novels 20 years ago. I devoured them. Their protagonist, whom the ladies call Trav, is a hardened beach bum, taking his retirement out in chunks. When the money gets low, Trav finds a damsel in distress and recovers something of value that has been taken from her. He and said damsel then evenly split the value of whatever Trav was able to recover. Then, it’s back to retirement for our recalcitrant hero. That sounds awesome, right? Oh, I forgot to mention that he gets laid at least once in every book. And that these scenes are rendered in excruciating, loving detail. There are surprises, double-crosses, nasty villains and narrow escapes. And Trav isn’t always completely successful. He loses every once in a while. Most often, it’s that a woman he has pledged to protect meets a nasty end, and that brings us to the problem. It was a different world when Travis McGee appeared in 1963. Women were not given much respect back then. Trav and his creator, MacDonald, tend to infantilize women. These stunted “girls” usually only find strength once subjected to the ministrations of McGee. Maybe it’s a long cruise to the Bahamas in his houseboat, The Busted Flush. Or maybe, and here is the rub, it’s a slap across the face. If I didn’t know better, I’d think that the early ’60s were still the dark age of gender politics. “Hysterical” women constantly getting slapped across the face? I mean, seriously … Is that what it was like back then? Holy cow. But if you read between the lines, you can tell that Trav and his author genuinely respect and admire the female of our species. Paragraphs and pages are devoted to descriptions of their virtues, complexities, depths and, of course, physical charms. But it jars the modern reader to stumble across such vivid examples of the way things were 50 short years ago. I choose not to condemn McGee or his creator. A story is just that, a story. It doesn’t have to be clean or even smart. It doesn’t have to have the prescience to predict the societal needs of a readership a half-century in the future. What does it need to be? Gripping. You should want to keep turning the pages. God bless Travis McGee of slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In all his sun-burnt, swinging-dick old-timey-ness. He is a caricature of manliness from a bygone era, but he also is a hero. Just ask him.
Video after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxTvCZFBgek
