David Lee Roth - Breaking Down Walls, 4th Walls

 All three, count 'em three, kiddos in the car. Mass hysteria, as usual. I forget where we were going, because, it's mass hysteria with three kids in the car.

Anyhoo, Van Halen's Unchained comes on the Sirius XM Radio and because it's Van Halen, I dig it.

Now I've written about Eddy on this hear blogarooski, but I can't remember if I've written about Diamond Dave.

Till now.

If you don't know Unchained, give it a listen:

Just killer isn't it. 1981 Killer stuff.

Three kids in the car but fourth walls being broken down.

What is the fourth wall?

Per your pals at wiki, it's: 

a performance convention in which an invisible, imagined wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this "wall", the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot.

My first experience with this was, of course, one of my favorite movies: Airplane.

Ted Striker breaks down that fourth wall, looks at me, yeah me, and says, "What a pisser."

God I love Airplane. Airplane II too. 22.

What's all this got to do with Diamond Dave?

Well, Dave loved his little talky talk during Van Halen tunes: "What the fuck, I'll pay you for it; What do you think the teacher's gonna look like this year; Reach down between my legs and ease the seat back."

You remember.

But on Unchained, Dave ropes in Producer Ted Templeman. 

That's Ted, top left.

"C'mon Dave...gimme a break."

It comes into the music from the outside. From outside the studio, into the mix. 

Ted told me, "What a pisser," and broke down a wall, and per Dave, Ted Templeman told me, after a wall came down, that he wanted Dave to give him a break.

By instinct or creative genius (or a mix), Dave broke down a wall.

You may not think, behind all that flash and 80's schtick and the teased hair and groupies that Dave is an artist, but you'd be wrong.

He is...an artist. The myth is that one can't fun and be an artist. An artist is serious and concentrated and thoughtful and committed.

Maybe, definitely, behind the hair and the "outfits", Dave is all those things...and fun.

It's a forced dichotomy you doofus. I know it's hard to believe. 

But the record(s) speaks for its self. 

A Perfectly Good Movie Quotation Goes Wasted

We were driving to the Boston airport from Rhode Island for a 9am flight. Upon arrival in Beantown proper we were met with, dare I say it, wicked traffic. We left Rhode Island circa 5am with a two month old and a two and a half year old in a Hyundai Sante Fe filled to the roof rack with luggage and not a single, but a double stroller. We did not think we would hit stop and go traffic before the ungodly hour of 7am, even in this notoriously bad driving city of chowder heads.

Looking out onto what must have been a mile of stopped cars with time ticking away on a flight check in and security line to rival your favorite roller coaster, with enough onesies, pajamas, and formal wear for a family of four to attend a wedding and 5 day stay in the Keystone State, I uttered “Looks like we picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.”

Crickets.

Not my wife, not my toddler, not my brown-eyed brute of a new baby boy so much as chuckled. Not even on the inside.

How did it come to this? Since when does a perfectly timed movie quote from the classic Airplane! fall on deaf ears? Sad times my friends.

Let’s just hope McCroskey and Ted Striker are drowning their sorrows at the Magumba bar in Drambuie.