Things I Read: 2008

Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kaviler and Clay
Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policeman's Union
T.S. Eliot - Four Quartets
Louise Erdrich - Tracks
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated
John Gardner - Grendel
Graham Greene - The End of the Affair
C.S. Lewis - Till We Have Faces
Carson McCullers - The Member of the Wedding
Alan Moore/ Dave Gibbons - The Watchmen
Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried
Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Stefan Szymanski - National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer
William Carlos Williams - Selected Poems

Seven songs

I got this from the blog of former Stylus writer/ current PopMatters writer Ian Mathers. It actually looked like a good idea. Here are the "rules:"

"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to."

I kinda want to see what others are into, but I'm not sure how many people would actually write it up. So I won't "tag" anyone. But I am interested in the frequent listening habits of others these days. So hit it up.

Anyway, here are mine. I tried to make these actually sound, you know, thoughtful and thought-provoking. I may have failed. Here goes either way:

"Electric Relaxation" - A Tribe Called Quest
There's this bit in the first verse of the song, Phife's very first rhyme, I like 'em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian / Name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu Nation / Told you in the jam that We Can Get Down / Now let's knock the boots like the group H-Town. Right as he starts that rhyme, the upright bassline in the back goes "BOOM-BUM-BOOM-BOOM-BUM-BUM-BOOM-BHUUM-BHUUM-BOOM-BOOM-BUM..." I can't get that damn bass out of my head.
At that point the lyrics of the song (about how smooth the members of the Tribe are, sexually) are pointless. Uncharacteristically of the Tribe, the lyrics take a big backseat. The bass and rhyme structure are so smooth on their own that Phife and Q could very well be rapping through Anton LaVey's "Book of Satan," or "How-to" book on kitchen sink repair, and it wouldn't even matter. Although, Phife's verse near the very end is kind of hilarious, in a twisted sort of way: If my mom donױt approve, then I'll just elope / Let me sink the little man from inside the boat / Let me hit it from the back, girl I won't catch a hernia / Bust off on your couch, now you got semen's furniture.

"Break Up Your Band" - Chavez
Somehow, Matador let both Chavez albums go out-of-print. Maybe they never got big because they're not really any genre. They're one of those bands where for which it's impossible to create a Pandora station, because it thinks that they're like 5 different (wrong) things. They could be indie, but they're too earnest. They could be emo, but if they sing about relationships, they're opaque about it. They could be math rock, but they actually care for pop song structure. They could be punk, but they're too complicated. They could be metal, but they don't scream enough and they're only good musicians (no Kerry Kings here). See where this can go?
Anyhow, they re-released their entire discography on a 2-disc set. Which equals about 28 songs. It's a pretty excellent comp top-to-bottom, but this is the one song that stands out.
Everything about it encompasses what a three-minute rock song should encompass. Slowly-building intro? Check. Solid drumming? Check. Appropriate hooks (that little power-chord-and-bass thing in the verse that goes "DUH-DUH-DUH-DUNDUNDUNDUN")? Check. Anthemic chorus? Check. Engaging vocal melody? Check. Strange, almost disconcerting video? Check AND check. The only thing it's missing is a solo, which only becomes apparent when you really think about it too hard. Thing is, it would be superfluous. Man, I wish they recorded more music...

"Seven" - Sunny Day Real Estate
An emo band you can actually get behind. One that doesn't even look like an emo band, really (although their lyrics painfully betray their case...but it's sort of another instance of where he could be singing about anything because his voice is so powerful and perfect for the music).
Really, only three things I want to note about this song:
(1) The hook in the verse where the full band comes in and plays those six or seven quick chords.
(2) The fact that the lyrics repeat over twice. Good thing you'd have to look them up to really figure out what he's saying, because it's pretty shitty faux-poetry. Although I do like the line The mirrors lie, those aren't my eyes, even if it means nothing.
(3) The harmonies in the chorus. Geez. I don't even understand what it is about them. But they're just sorta thrown in there and they work.

"Factory Belt" (the second song, halfway in) and "Gun" - Uncle Tupelo
Not just an obligatory nod to both of the main songwriters (Farrar and Tweedy), I'm genuinely convinced that they're both geniuses. Sure, Tweedy's got Wilco and everyone fawns over him, but Farrar got jipped. Tweedy took the band and made another, more successful band, but Fararr basically did the same thing Tupelo was doing (with the old Tupelo drummer, at least) and stayed in obscurity.
Regardless, I like both of these songs for a variety of reasons. The former is Farrar's paean to working life combining Neil Young, the Minutemen and old-school country. The latter is a straight-up love song (well, maybe not "straight-up" like "Love Me Do" but a love song nonetheless). The reason why I'm so into these songs, though, is because both have this one lyric that keeps sticking out in my mind that makes me have to listen to it over and over. In "Factory Belt" it's the chorus line of It's tiiiime to lay this burden down/ Stop messin' arrouuund/ Don't wanna gotothegrave...without a sound.... Especially the harmony on the first "lay this burden down." They do that all the time on their songs (especially Tweedy when Farrar is singing lead), but for some reason this one sticks out.
"Gun" also has a similar sort of musical feel (all the heavy strumming in the chorus, kinda like "Factory Belt"), but its vocal vibe is totally different.
Tweedy sounds more jubilant than somber or gruff, as is Fararr's usual case. And there are no harmonies on this one. Just Tweedy singing 'Cause my heart, it waaaas a gun/ But it's unloaded now/ So don't bother me. The part that really sticks me is after the guitar solo, when everything drops out and he sings I sold my guitar to the girl next door.... It's just so vulnerable. I'm obsessed with it.

"Motor Away" - Guided By Voices
Don't ask me why, but any song that begins with the words "Post-punk X-Men" has my attention. And then the guy gets in the car and it gets serious and Bob starts wailing about how you can be anything that they told you to/ You can belittle every little voice that told you so, it makes you want to ram your car at full speed into whoever happens to be pissing you off at the time. And then when he continues and goes into the part about speeding going down icy streets and finally implores you to speed away...I swear, I start going 20 over on my mountain highway home street.

Nylon Smile - Portishead
Some of the songs on Third blend together, so it's hard to pick one. That's certainly not a knock on the album - I picked it up again the other day after a few-month-long hiatus (I listened to the shit out of it the week or two after I bought it, which ended up being about a month after it came out). It's just that all the songs have a certain minimalist vibe going on in them. It's hard to explain fully, and this live version doesn't have the exact feeling as the album.
Maybe it's the production: on the album it sounds like Beth Gibbons is simply alone in a room. The "instruments" are incidental. They're background noise; the guitar and sequencer could be the rhythm of the city at night while the percussion could be the sounds of the machinery in the boiler room that one can hear through the vents. Either way, they're back there making noise and they're the perfect compliments to her haunting (she sort of howls between actual singing) lament: Cause I don't know what I've done to deserve you / And I don't know what I'll do without you [...] I can't see nothing good / And nothing is so bad / I never had a chance / To explain exactly what I meant. And it ends right there. Literally a split second after the last "t." Is it a song? Or is it emotion?

Chest bump

Say what you will about Dubya (I think we all have, so I won't again), but at least he's good for incidental humor. And something about this picture just makes me smile and think, 'Hey, maybe he's not so bad.' For like five seconds. But still.

(Found this on the Freep's Year in pictures 2008. It's not nearly as good as this one from the Boston Globe via the Sadbear, but it has this picture too, which I love.)

Supernatural Superserious

Accelerate, R.E.M.'s "new" album, (and by "new" I mean "most recent," as in this spring; I'm just now getting around to listening to it) reminds me (1) why I love R.E.M., (2) why every R.E.M. album since Bill Berry left (Up and onwards) has sucked, and (3) why I wish I had grown up in the 80s when they were actually more relevant to the general populace.

Seriously...it actually kinda...rawks. Woah.

More retooling

I am in the process of doing away with my other blog, which was set up solely for the purposes of having an online clippings archive. But I decided to consolidate. I wanted more people to see the stuff I was doing there (all journalistic) as well as the stuff I am doing here (mostly for the purposes of more literary endeavors and music criticism). Hopefully I can make the transition smoothly. Either way, I'll be posting more of my newspaper work on this site and hopefully, more of the other (non-work related) stuff here.

Tigers eek out 'W' vs. Prates

By Jack Hittinger, Daily Guide

From the beginning of Thursday night’s meet, it certainly looked as if the Waynesville High School wrestling team would have a big upper hand against Branson. But the Tigers didn’t wrestle their best, and only beat the Pirates 44-27—a score that, according to WHS coaches, should have been higher.

The rest here.

Guitar Man Upstairs

This guy makes me happier than words. Also, his bandmate kind of looks like Dr. Reist.

Looks like Christmas has come to Waynesville.

Fight to the finish

By Jack Hittinger, Daily Guide

LEBANON - The raw numbers of the final score wouldn’t indicate it, but the Waynesville Tigers were lucky to get out of Lebanon High School’s Boswell Auditorium with a 64-53 win in Thursday night’s Central Bank Invitational Basketball Tournament.

Jefferson City Helias hung with the Tigers the entire game thanks to some shoddy defense and costly turnovers on the Waynesville side.

Tiger head coach Tom Bildner certainly didn’t like what he saw on defense.
“We weren’t following our own defensive rules tonight,” he said. “We did not apply the proper defensive help or pressure.

“I know that they understand what to do because they execute it in practice, but for some reason live games are different.”

Read the rest of the story here.

Basketball season tips off

By Jack Hittinger, Daily Guide

LAQUEY - The Frisco League’s annual conference basketball tournament kicked off Saturday afternoon at Laquey High School. Saturday were both boys’ and girls’ play-in games as well as both boys’ and girls’ 4 vs. 5 first-round matchups.

More here.

The business

Do you wanna be in the business? (The business)
The ups and downs with the hoes (The business)
Always gettin' fronted on at shows (The business)
People gotta stick their nose (In the business)
-A Tribe Called Quest

How succinctly A Tribe Called Quest describes my line of work. Well, maybe the hoes are a bit of a stretch. And I haven't been fronted on yet. But yes, thank you, I do want to be in "the business." The journalism business, that is.

The first two weeks are easy. Nothing's going on, I cram my page with filler and AP wire stories about the St. Louis Blues and the Missouri Tigers.

I work late (until 8 or 9). But I don't have to come in until 10. Or 11. Or 12. Whatever. I wear jeans to work 3 out of 5 days. I listen to co-workers, mostly women, talk about men and shopping for toys for their children. Then they poke fun at me for being the only guy around. I laugh along with them. Yes, the business is easy, so far.

***

Except now that basketball season starts. I cover 10 high schools to varying degrees. The big high school gets an automatic bid and onto my "SportsTime" page. They play in a large league with eight other big high schools. Four of them are from the metropolis of Springfield. Then there's Joplin (a good two hours, basically the Oklahoma border), Lebanon (pronounced "LEH-banin"), Rolla (RAWL-a), Camdenton, West Plains.

The Springfield media turns its nose up at those other hillbilly teams from the rest of the Ozarks. Which is ironic, because the St. Louis and Kansas City media does the same to the Springfield teams. I only have to cover them when my team plays one of them. Which give me an excuse to go to "Stick It In Your Ear" record store/ head shop every once and a while.

***

The other schools I cover are small. Really small. Like 100-300 students. They're all at least 10 miles from homebase, in small communities nestled in the Ozarks. They don't have football teams, so they like their basketball. And baseball. Fall baseball, in fact, is a Missouri-sanctioned sport.

But how do I get there? Because I still have trouble driving on Ozark highways at night. They're all two lanes back here, save I-44, and the prospect of going 55 on a winding two-lane highway with no light of any kind from Waynesville to, say, Crocker (11 miles away) sort of frightens me.

Who knows what kind of turn is going to come out of nowhere and trip me up? Sometimes there will be four "s" turns in a span of 5 miles. One wrong flick of the steering wheel and I'm colliding with sedimentary rock.

Even the interstate winds much more than normal interstates should. On the way to Rolla there's this community called Devil's Elbow, which is little more than a service station and a shack. Named such because of its place on a particular harrowing turn on the Big Piney River, the engineers who constructed the highway apparently didn't realize that it's a bit more dangerous for automobiles to go 75 miles an hour on the same type of turn.

Huck and Jim might have been able to do it on a raft, but a lumbering semi-truck? Not so much.

"Looking for the right kind of live free or die..."

"Switching it over to AM
Searching for a truer sound
Can't recall the call letters
Steel guitar and settle down
Catching an all-night station somewhere in Louisiana
It sounds like 1963, but for now it sounds like heaven"
-Son Volt

I listened to the Son Volt album Trace about 5 times during my Missouri sojourn. They're from Saint Louis, so I thought it appropriate. Saturday was the best travel day, through Southern Oklahoma (which kindly reminds travelers about once every twenty miles, "DO NOT DRIVE INTO SMOKE") and the entire north-south length of Texas. By "best" I mean I was able to find the best radio stations, since the scenery itself is kind of drab.

Seriously. When I left Tulsa, there were three Big Twelve football games going on. Somehow Tulsa is placed just so perfectly that I was able to get the radio feed for all six teams that happened to be playing at that time (Kansas, Nebraska, Baylor, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Kansas State). I liked the Kansas station the best, because a) they didn't have Southern accents and b) it wasn't the flagship station I was hearing but rather an obscure country station from Pittsburg, Kansas and advertised many things from the Pittsburg area that would normally have little interest to me. Like furniture and jewelry, Pittsburg style. Somehow, though, I was fascinated by all of it.

But this happened at noon. Selecting a radio station at noon is a straightforward affair: you hit seek and you have a very strong signal for a decent amount of stations, especially in a city.

At night, though, it becomes mysterious. One can pick up strange radio stations playing strange things from literally any part of the Western Hemisphere. Most of the stations you want to listen to don't come in very strongly so you'll hear two or three voices talking at the same time, unintelligibly, over music. You'll hear Spanish and French or sometimes, at least in Houston, nebulous Asian languages. You'll hear Coast to Coast AM. Coming from millions of different cities.

The light lingers for a bit longer in Texas. It's a pale blue in October, and it stays lit for a pretty long time until at some point everything clicks and it's pitch black. Sometimes there will be an Exxon on the side of the road giving some light, but usually it's just you, the road, and the lights from other cars behind you, which can be deceiving in the mirror.

I found myself radio-hopping from Dallas to Houston. The Longhorns game, to which I had been intently listening (did I mention how I think college football is second only to baseball in "best sport to listen to on the radio"? No? Well, I did now...) had ended and the sky was that pale blue and I tried listening to music but nothing seemed appropriate. So I attempted to find various sporting events, maybe a Rockets game or a Houton Cougers game. No cigar. No Houston stations to be found, actually. All were garbled with static and faint hints of music.

Somehow, though, I managed to hear this: "...and you're listening to the voice of the Chicago Blackhawks, WGN Radio 720!" Fuckin' hell, that's far. They were playing the Red Wings. I listened until it faded, and then found some Cajun guy talking about LSU football, a Colorado Buffs game, Notre Dame, Grande Ole Opry radio, a Spanish soccer game, and what I think was a Canadiens game in French. And a long infomercial for this hot tea made from cocoa that's supposed to be the best drink ever.

It almost makes me want to never listen to music in the car again.

(PS, I got and took the Missouri job, I'll be moving in about three weeks...)

First Impressions of Mizzou-Rah

Missouri is a nice Midwestern state. Er, fuck, no, it's a Great Plains state. Huh? It's Southern? Goddamn!

*****

I stayed with my aunt and uncle in Tulsa last night. He'd been through Waynesville before. Used to live in St. Louis.

"It's a nice drive," he told me. "Scenic. Not too hard...although, the only thing they seem to have there are fireworks, liquor stores, and porno shops."

And oddly-placed signs. Like:

"Vasectomy removal, the best in Mizzou!"

or, to signify the Mickey D's for truckers:

"MCSTOP!"

Don't forget the millions of seemingly endless signs for Branson tucked behind that patch of Ozark plateau. Branson even has its own 24-hour radio station with paid programming and only paid programming.

****

This Waynesville place is a bit strange, too. All the roads wind like mountain roads should, only the Ozarks, according to Wikipedia, aren't actually mountains. I drove around for a while to get a feel for the town. It's smaller than Hillsdale, but feels like part of civilization because it's right off the Interstate.

Except when you turn the wrong way the "mountain" roads wind around for 15 minutes and you end up at the entrance to a military base.

But I dig. At least I do now. Hopefully they'll show me around more tomorrow.

****

But I still haven't determined if Missouri is a Midwestern state. I want to say yes. Springfield, only about 90 miles away, is as wonderfully small and-post industrial as any Midwestern city should be, graffiti-ed buildings and abandoned factories downtown and all. It could be Gary except there are about 21,000 normal, not scared (or scary looking) college kids walking around. They have a Cardinals' farm team and a record shop named "Stick It In Your Ear!" Rolla is much the same, but about 3/4ths the size and 60 miles the other way.

This should be the Midwest, I think to myself, but then I look out the window and see the fuckin' Ozarks, rocks jutting out of hills and weird red plants growing on them. I also hear townsfolk speaking in slight accents...an Arkansas drawl with a bit of nasal action. Real bizarre.

****

Interview tomorrow...not exactly sure what to expect. Or where the place is. So no pressure or anything, huh?

Overheard at the Oasis...

The internet oasis where I am currently mooching off internet, aka my Mediterranean Cafe:

"You mean, you haven't seen the Sarah Palin baby name generator?"

"I think Ann Coulter is hot."
"If you're into men."

Can I not get away from these fucking kinds of discussions, even 1,320 miles from Hillsdale, MI?

I Hate Ike

Shits and giggles, before I lose power:



It's better on record. But it's still the best song about hurricanes ever. Yeah, fuck you, Scorpions! The Black Lips come in a close second.

The Cafe

"On some nights, New York is as hot as Bangkok. The whole continent seems to have moved from its place and slid near the equator..."

-Saul Bellow, The Victim

I'm not in New York, I'm in Houston, so it isn't as much of a stretch to imagine Houston as some foreign oasis like Bangkok or Tangier or Algiers. You know, somewhere foreign but not too foreign. The types of places where it wouldn't be uncommon to see people in turbans and fesses sipping coffee with French or American businessmen.

There's this cafe in Houston that I can go to where I feel like I'm in a foreign country. A place where (thankfully) they don't actually know my name, but they know my face. Even if they did know my name, they speak more naturally in foreign languages (Spanish...Mediterranean at the very least).

It's in this old building that, from the outside, looks like a Mediterranean villa covered with ivy. High bushes surround it, so it's hard to see the people sitting on the other side. You enter the ivy maze, sit down on the side of the building, kind of like a little enclave in an alleyway, and can't see the street outside.

The cars might as well not be there, and I might as well be sitting elsewhere, in some other country somewhere (as if Texas isn't almost one already).

Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-DUH...

I woke up early today to watch the Team USA (the "Redeem Team") play against China (I need to say right now that love Yao Ming for some reason...he looks so goofy and cool at the same time that I can't help but love him).

Much to my pleasant surprise, I found that, for their basketball coverage, NBC has revived the greatest theme song in sports broadcasting history.

I mean, seriously. How can you listen to that theme song and not get excited about basketball? Maybe that's why the NBA sucks so much these days: no NBA on NBC, no theme song, and thus no excitement.

A list of other sweet sports theme songs to follow, when I get the time.

Bloggin'

I've already posted this on the SadBear blog, but for the benefit of those who don't (which begs the question of why to begin with), I'm writing about the Astros for the baseball website Bugs and Cranks. My first post is up right now. So check it out. And the website, too, they have some funny writers.

Showing my age

A distressing incident from this afternoon:

Me (walking into the room): So, the White Sox got Griffey today. Kind of scary...
12-year-old brother: Who?
Me (figuring he didn't hear me the first time): Ken Griffey, Junior.
Him: Who the hell is that?

Has it really come to this? Children not knowing who Ken Griffey, Jr. is until they see a picture of him and maybe recognize him as that one good player on the Reds? I don't know, but to me it's eerie: it was just about ten years ago (when I was his age...) that Griffey was the kind of guy that every kid had a poster of. Or at least a video game of. He was pretty much the guy, along with Sosa and McGwire. But now? Now kids under 15 have no idea who he is.

Maybe I'm naive. Ten years doesn't seem like that long ago, does it? I like to think of myself as a young person. But really, that's false. Young people have Ken Griffey Junior posters on their walls, ones that they took from Sports Illustrated for Kids.

Top Ten Songs About You

(Or, Top Ten Songs in Which the Addressee is Mentioned in the Title)

I love songs like these. For no real reason in particular. I mean, it's very true that many (if not most) songs are about someone specific, about some sort of "you." I just like titles that specifically saw it. Most of the time they are only "Baby" or "Darlin" or "Girl" or even just "You," but they're always directed towards said person. Here's a list:

(Apologies to: "You're My Best Friend," "All I Want is You," "It's All Over, Baby Blue," "A Message To You Rudy," "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", "I Want You" (She's So Heavy AND Dylan), "I Put A Spell On You," "Hang On To Yourself," "I Got You, Babe," "I Believe In You," and the entire Matchbox 20 album "Yourself Or Someone Like You," among many others.)

10. Morrissey - "You're the One for Me, Fatty"
The first Morrissey song here. A more personal twist on "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others."
9. Caleb - "Baby Your Phrasing is Bad"
If I could find a sample of this I would post it. It's from Nuggets, so if you can imagine that then you probably get the gist of it. Great title, though, isn't it? Someone anonymous put this song on Rapidshare. I'm not sure who you are but let me know so I can give you props. Everyone should listen to this song now. Supposedly, this guy was Elton John's guitarist later, and Sir Elton is actually rumored to play on the song. I love the phasing (with the "phrasing"...ha!) and the lyrics, while hard to discern, I think go something like this: "Please try to make yourself clear / So that when you talk to me it doesn't strain my ear." Good stuff or what, eh?
8. Tokyo Police Club - "Your English Is Good"
No direct address, per say, like the previous one, but the spirit is still there. This is sort of the opposite twist on it, I guess.
7. Black Flag - "You Bet We've Got Something Against You"
There's a 30 second sound clip that only has the chorus but luckily, the chorus is the best part of the song. It goes, no joke: "You bet that I've got something personal against you!" He doesn't even really sing it, he just kinda says it. I imagine this would be good fighting music.
6. The Magnetic Fields - "Fido, Your Leash Is Too Long"
Maybe the ultimate diss track about an unnamed person.
5. The Smiths - "William, It Was Really Nothing"
The other Morrissey song on the list. Supposedly about a guy named Billy Mackenzie from another British band called The Associates. They, in turn, recorded a response song called "Stephen, You're Really Something." Kinda lame, really.
4. Led Zeppelin - "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You"
Probably the most famous of all the "Baby, I'm Going To Do Whatever With You" type songs. Also, most assuredly the most cliche title out of all of them. Still iconic, though.
3. The White Stripes - "You're Pretty Good Looking (For A Girl)
You can tell he wants her.
2. The Thirteenth Floor Elevators - "You're Gonna Miss Me"
I love how angry this song is, and I often wonder if the person he was singing about knows who she is. Actually, this would have been number one, if not for the fact that the next one exists...
1. Don Caballero - "Let's Face it Pal, You Didn't Need That Eye Surgery"
It doesn't have any lyrics so it's basically just an awesome title, but still, isn't this the greatest title ever?

Mr. C Montgomory Burns; net worth $8.4 million

I have no idea how they calculate this, but somehow Forbes Magazine has come up with the top 15 richest fictional characters ever. My question: why is Mario even on this list (at least, he has been before) and not someone like Lex Luther is beyond me. And who the fuck is Ming the Merciless?

"...missile launchers hover in glowing light"

...ask yourself a few straightforward questions: Do you want to go outside and steal a car? Do you feel the need to obtain a missile launcher? Do you feel like having sex with a stripper? Or, to more accurately represent the sort of reasoning involved in media-effects claims, do you feel that having sex with a stripper is now a real possibility for you?

You need to be honest with yourself. Go outside and find a locked car — or go to the back alley where missile launchers hover in a glowing light waiting for you to pick them up, or go drive down that street in your town where all the strippers hang out waiting for you to pick them up — and see if you're tempted.

The Chronicle has a great article today on Grand Theft Auto and the effects of other "explicit media" on our society.

The Side of the Barn, at Midnight

"None of them knew the color of the sky."

-S. Crane, 'The Open Boat' (1894)

It's funny, living with light. You don't notice it when you're in them, but cities take a toll on the sky. Hillsdale might be a "hick town" but at least you can see the lights, however faintly, on the horizon. Jackson, Michigan. Hoo, boy. Sure, it's no Detroit or even Ann Arbor but it's comforting, those lights on the horizon. The only problem is, they taint the color of the sky.

Up North, you can actually see the color of the sky, and all the constellations. But suburban kids usually can't tell Orion's Belt from the Gemini Twins or the Sundlandic Twins or the Odd Couple, so it doesn't quite matter.

But hey, still. Stars. Natural light. No streetlights even. Can't see much of anything (but nothing to see anyway). You can hear dogs barking aimlessly and wonder why they bark. The only movement is the sound of your footsteps walking out the front door. The dogs are out back.

Country dogs have better noses, do they?, you mindlessly think to yourself, for some reason wanting to prove to them that they don't.

Getting around back proves more of a chore than you'd think. The grass is separated from the dirt driveway by about 3 inches so you lose your footing but don't quite fall, the dirt (more like sand, really) just engulfs the insides of your ripped sneakers and dirties your socks a little. You've been wearing them for two days already so they stick to your feet as you impossibly attempt to sneak into the backyard.

The dogs are caged in a short chain-link pen, and they seem to notice nothing as you crouch and watch from behind the car. They pant and sniff each other, you can barely make out their figures silhouetted in front of the barn. It casts a long shadow. In the daylight it's a dark crimson, but now it blends to the trees as everything does in total darkness.

You lean on the car, back to the pen, and look up again, vainly trying to find the Big Dipper. It's approaching midnight, you guess. No sense in rushing. There's nothing to do tomorrow. Nothing to do from now on - it's all like the side of that barn at night, blank and black.

Anything, you think, anything could happen. I can do ANYTHING I want tomorrow.

This has been true for weeks, but this "wilderness" makes it more apparent.

You hop up, light the cigarette that you originally came out for, and again try and beat those dogs at their own game. A dumb idea since the beginning, you realize, but invigorating nonetheless. You're doing something, yet doing nothing at the same time. Kind of like seeing something with nothing to see. (Or was it nothing and nothing? - you forget in the heat of the adrenaline rush.)

The dogs have quieted now, and you see your chance. You nimbly run on the tips of your toes to the barn, just around the corner from the pen. They're both sitting, licking at themselves. You take a long last drag and throw the butt into the void, then veer into a crouching run.

No signs of movement from the dogs, they still lie on their back paws, you decide to complete the run with a leap over the fence. An almost perfect execution, except the rip in your jeans snags at the last minute and you fall flat on your face.

By this point the dogs are already over you. They knew what was coming. A few licks and your face dampens.

A humiliating idea, you think. Who would do something this juvenile?

The dogs lick some more, your leg hurts, and there's no place for your pride in the pen.

Why were you allowed even to think about doing that? Why did you think you could win? This is their domain, you think, and I am trespassing. Why was I even allowed to see sand and trees and dogs?

There was no real chance of your success.

After a time - probably seconds, but a dog's tongue is known to distort reality - you dust yourself off and walk back to the house. The kitchen light's still on, and she's reading in the living room.

'Long cigarette?'

'Yeah.'

'You're filthy.'

'Yeah, those dogs are really dumb. They must've thought I was someone else.'

She goes back to her book. You stare into the single reading light, then back outside. You hear the sound of her parents rustling upstairs, music from her brother's room, and then the horns of a semi as it passes the small farmhouse.

Soon, the lights go out and the only thing you can see is Orion's Belt. There's nothing else to see.

There can be only one

I enjoy the fact that these commercials for the NBA Playoffs are so good and so popular (according to this article, they're directed by the same guys who directed Little Miss Sunshine) that now Time
has taken to ripping them off.

T-Mac/ Rip:
























B-Rock/ H-Rod:


























My only problem is, I have yet to see one with a Pistons player on the television. I mean, today I saw one that featured Peja freakin' Stojakavic! The man's first language isn't even English! I wanna see one that shows a split screen of 'Sheed with, say...Ben Wallace. That'd be pretty fucking sweet. It will never happen, seeing as how 'Sheed hates everyone (and the media doesn't like talking about the Pistons...the other day Sportscenter had 15 mins of Lakers/ Jazz coverage and maybe 5 of Pistons/ Magic).

I plan on posting on here more often. More literary things, perhaps. I just keep getting lazy. Sorry.

Black Flag's Hair

Econ sent me this:

"Hoes in area codes"

Ludacris has many hoes in many area codes, apparently. Someone took the liberty of mapping them.

I'dve booed them, too

Say you're a Major League Baseball team. Just say, for the sake of argument, that you were pretty shitty 5 years ago, got better, went to the World Series two years ago and are now a pretty hot team. Say that you make a major trade in the offseason, snagging two world series champions, one of whom happens to be one of the premiere players in the league. Your fans, anticipating a great season with offensive firepower and a dominant rotation, snatch up all the tickets to be had for the first week of the season. Say that one of the teams played this week is one of the worst teams in the league. What would you say you'd do? Would you LOSE EVERY SINGLE GAME IN THAT FIRST WEEK AND MAKE THE ENTIRE TEAM LOOK LIKE LITTLE LEAGUERS?

If that were to happen, hypothetically, how would you expect fans to react to that? Just take it mildly and shrug it off, despite the fact that in only one of these games did the team really look like the team with the second-highest payroll in the league?

No? Good. The Tigers deserved to be booed. The Tigers are making fools not only of themselves but of their fans - everyone who even marginally follows baseball and kind of likes the Tigers. Do you have any idea what I endured tonight? Do you? Tigers fans have been waiting for a team like this since 1984. We've been excited about this season ever since November's trade. This might be the most highly anticipated season in Detroit Tigers history, and what do you do? You catch us all with our pants down, rosy cheeked and blue balls as fans of other teams begin to rail in to us. It's not a good position to be in.

If you have a starting lineup with these kinds of names in it you better score some motherfucking runs. There's absolutely no excuse. What could you say? They keep losing the ball in the sun? The lights? It's colder here than in Florida? I'm not getting paid enough to hit something other than a weak line drive or fly ball? Seriously, I want to know.

The only excuse I can think of is that they aren't trying hard enough, which really isn't an excuse. There is no reason why they should be this bad right now. I think they'll come around, but these past six games aren't exactly confidence builders. If I could right now, I'd punch every single one of them in the face.

Top Ten Songs I Use If My Life Was A Series Of Movie-style Montages

I love a good movie montage. In fact, few things about movies make me happier than a well-edited montage with good music in the background (one favorite that comes to mind is the Margot montage in The Royal Tenenbaums. Maybe montages are cliche or kind of lame, but I love them. And if my life were a movie (or, at the very least, a series of montages), then it would have a pretty kickass soundtrack.

Usually montages are a good way at speeding along the time and setting of a movie and telling the story in a quick and (usually) painless way. So most of the so-called montages that I have created on the spot do this. This isn't a collection of background music during an extended and important scene (I might do that one sometime soon).

And I should note that once I get past the college portion of this it's all made up. I mean, most of it didn't happen as I would chronicle it in the movie. My life would be kind of boring if I did a memory-for-memory movie. And really fucking long.

In some sort of chronological order:

The event: Me growing up.
The song: The Kinks - "Do You Remember Walter?"
Why: It'd be like the intro credits of the movie, because I have a hard time thinking this far back. My childhood was really boring. So it will be mostly scenes of me doing kid things and playing with Ninja Turtles and playing basketball on my kiddie hoop. That sort of thing. There's not much else you can do with that than "whimsical." I had to pick an oldie because that's the only real music I was conscious of at that point. The Kinks it is then.

My actual life (the movie) would probably start here, in high school:

The event: Me discovering indie music (for better or for worse). Lots of shots of me at record stores, leafing through vinyl and CDs, with shots of those bands and album covers interspersed on the screen. Maybe a few of me sitting in my room with headphones.
The song: Pavement - "Stereo"
Why: I still remember the instance. I was hanging out with my friend Geoff and we were looking at the internet and we stumbled across Pitchfork. We were both already kind of starting to get into better music, him more than I (at the time I believe my favorite bands were Nirvana, the Foo Fighters, the Beatles, and Bad Religion or something. Not bad, but could be better). He had seen Pitchfork before, and apparently he had already heard about Pavement. He played me some and then gave me his burned copy of Brighten the Corners. And that was that. So if anyone ever wants to know why I'm such an ass about some of these things, I blame Geoff.

The event: Going downtown for the first time and taking it all in.
The song: The Beatles - "Got To Get You Into My Life"
Why: I'm not sure this actually happened, per-say. I mean, there was never one instance of me going on a subway by myself for the first time and exploring the city. That's probably mostly because Detroit doesn't have subways. Either way, I always think that "GTGYIML" is the perfect "going and exploring on a summer day" type song. I I mean, I've done that in Detroit before. So fuck you guys.

The event: The sports montage. I never actually was on my high school baseball team, but this is a hypothetical "what-if-I-was-and-what-if-we-won-state?" sort of thing. (If you couldn't tell, this movie has no real plot).
The song: The Count Five - "Psychotic Reaction"
Why: I like sports montages. I have no idea why. One of my favorites is in "Little Big League" where it shows the Twins (as managed by a 12 year old kid) suddenly clicking together and making a bunch of sweet plays to the tune of "Move to Japan" by the Band. There's another equally good one in there to the tune of "Runaround Sue." I wanted a montage that felt like that. So this could be good.

The event: College. Lots of scenes of fun college things. Minus a lot of the partying, which will be the next scene.
The song: The Strokes - "Reptilia"
Why: I made a list freshman year that was "Top Ten Songs I Listened to Freshman Year of College." I can't find it anymore but I'm pretty sure this was number one. Even if it wasn't, any Strokes song would do. I listened to a lot of them freshman year. I don't as much any more, but when I do it's always enjoyable.

The event: Getting really drunk for the first time. I could incorporate all the vices in there: first cigarette, first drugs. And then chronicling a lot of (probably ill-advised) scenes of partying. And then just me taking swigs of Old Crow while I write papers alone in my room. (This scene could concievably be before the previous Strokes scene.)
The song: It would begin with Uncle Tupelo - "I Got Drunk" and then fade into Modest Mouse - "Polar Opposites."
Why: The first song might seem like the title is too obvious, but damn, is it appropriate: "I got druuunk / And I fell down!" It just highlights the "don't give a fuck" attitude you sometimes get when you drink a lot. The Modest Mouse is there for when it becomes a problem ("I'm tryin' / To drink away the part of the day that I cannot sleep away"). I think we all feel like this sometimes.

The event: The relationship.
The song: Wilco - "Kamera"
Why: A perfect "everything is awesome" song. It's just so damn happy. Lots of cliche relationship scenes. But then...

The event: The breakup / girl getting back together with the old boyfriend / girl breaking up with him again / girl trying to keep flirting with you but still saying she doesn't want a relationship
The song: Local H - "No Problem"
Why: "I've always been an easy in / And easy out the door again / I know it's only because you're down / That you'd ever want to come around / Just a little secret in a little town / You had me but it's over now / You'll get my attention again somehow / It's no problem." That's why.

The event: Roadtrippin'
The song: Bob Dylan - "Nashville Skyline Rag / "To Be Along With You"
Why: Well, not depressed anymore (the movie works that out in the actual dialog - girl and I are cool now), single again, and once again carefree. So I take a roadtrip with friends (not necessarily any one road trip that happened...but incorporating parts of roadtrips that I've had). This is a good roadtrip song. Or at least I usually pop in Nashville Skyline when I'm roadtripping.

The event: The movie's final scene. I'm not sure where it will be yet. Probably somewhere where we finish our roadtrip.
The song: The Replacements - "I Will Dare"
Why: This is the one that isn't actually a real event (yet). But the idea is we finish the roadtrip and we're somewhere neat, some random place, and we go somewhere where I meet a beautiful, cool woman. Maybe going from a record store to getting coffee to being at a minor league baseball stadium with said woman and friends. Roll credits. As the song starts.

(Fuck you. It's my life and my movie.)

The Question

Today on Intensities in Ten Suburbs, Andrew Unterburger tries to respond to the question that serious music listeners hate most: "What kind of music do you listen to?"

This topic got me thinking. I replied to the post, saying that it's almost exactly the same question as "What's your favorite band?" - only the latter question, I might argue, is even more difficult. When someone asks you the simple genre questions, they're probably not expecting something more in-depth than "I listen to rock/ indie/ folk/ trip-hop/ etc." There's a certain amount of ambiguity implied right from the beginning.

While I agree wholeheartedly with what Unterburger says (and I'd suggest you read the post, it's very accurate), I always find the "favorite band" question even more difficult. The main essence of this question is: "I would like you to pick one musical artist that you admire over all other musical artists, always and forever." There's no flexibility or ambiguity there. It's a "gun to the head" type question. Other than the fact that most "serious music listeners" favorite bands change frequently depending on time of day, time of year, weather outside, mood, books currently reading/ just read, and state of intoxication, there's no simple way to answer this question even if you COULD pick one absolute favorite.

Example: "I like the Rolling Stones."

Now, this poses a multitude of problems. If you're talking to a music geek like yourself, there's a chance that he'll assume that you really don't like music that much; that you're one of those people that is actually dumb enough to pay 70 bucks for lower-bowl Stones tickets at Ford Field, the kind who truly believe that the Stones are still the greatest rock and roll band in the world.

On the other hand, if you're talking to someone who isn't a geek, they'll assume the same thing - except they'll be one of them and start trying to talk to you about that time they saw the Stones in '99. You'll then attempt to explain that they really aren't very good after Exile and utterly unlistenable after Some Girls, and then that your favorite album is actually Between the Buttons and then they'll look at you funny and say that they don't have that one. Of course they don't, because people like that use Hot Rocks as their record of the Stones from 1962-1968.

You can see the sort of problem this poses. I really do love the Stones, but it's a pain in the ass to specify that you only love them until 1975, and really hate them after 1979.

It's the opposite problem with artists that aren't household names. I won't go into detail here, but try answering the "favorite band" question with someone like Bad Brains or Guided by Voices or Sonic Youth. I don't know if it's harder to hear the awkward "Oh...cool" dismissal or to answer the equally difficult "Oh, I've never heard of them, what do they sound like?" question.

I'll spare you more bitching about this, though. After reading Unterburger's post, I really thought about it and came up with an answer that I could probably get away with as being somewhat definitive. People that ask me this question won't like this, but fuck 'em. They've started enough trouble as it is:

(conversation, turns to music)
"Yeah man, I saw your picture in the Collegian. You, like, write about music and stuff?"
(note: I have made this conversation as stereotypically "worst case scenario" as possible...most people that ask me this are fairly nice, smart, and normal people...not stupid frat boys. But this is my blog, so that's how I'm writing this example.)
"Yeah, a little bit."
"Aw, cool. So, like, what's your favorite band?"
"Uh, well, I donno, I have a lot."
"Ah, c'mon bro, Tell me at least one. EVERYBODY has to have a favorite."
(I scowl)
"Fine. But I don't have one favorite. I have five musical artists that, if I HAD to choose, I would probably name my favorite. But let me warn you, I listen to various types and kinds of music, and various bands. At any given hour I might change my mind. You might not have heard of these bands. So don't say I didn't warn you. I really like the Rolling Stones -"
"Oh, cool man I - "
"I'm not done. I told you I had five. The Rolling Stones, Joy Division, Elvis Costello, Sonic Youth, and R.E.M."
(silence. I realize that these bands aren't really, in the scheme of things, all that obscure. He does too. He opens his mouth to say something but I remember something else.)
"Oh, yeah, and almost anything by present or former members of the Wu-Tang Clan."

"Cool..."
(he walks away)

I realize that I'm a bigger asshole than I give myself credit for.

Remind me never to talk about music with anyone else ever again.

Clash (Of London Calling fame, as opposed to the "Of Cultures" fame)

Nick sent me this video the other day:



Aside from the fact that (1) dancing animals always make a normally boring video 100% watchable and (2) the main guy in the video looks like Kevin Barnes if he decided to pose as the Counting Crow(e?)s lead singer for a day, this video was interesting in that it led me to this video:



Which reminded me of this M.I.A. song:



Which ultimatley begs the question: are The Clash a "hip" band again? I mean, granted, they've always been universally recognized by critics and other bands, but by "hip" I mean acceptable enough to appear in rap videos. What's next, Mick Jones laying down a guitar track for the new Wu-Tang album? (Which, come to think of it, would be AWESOME). I guess I'm just curious as to why rappers are sampling them now (this is two in the past maybe 5 months).

I can understand sampling "Straight to Hell," which is ultimatley the best ever slow jam about the Vietnam War. M.I.A. rocks it pretty well.

But whoever the hell this "Lethal Bizzle" fellow is, I'd like to ask him a few things. First, why the hell would you choose "Police on My Back" to rap over? It's gotta be the least rap-able track on Sandanista!. It's really the only straightforward "rock" song on the album. I might have chosen "The Magnificent Seven" "Look Here" or "The Washington Bullets" or any of the numerous dub songs (a particular favorite of mine is "The Equaliser"). But, even more importantly, WHY IS THERE ANOTHER BAND PLAYING THE SONG BEHIND YOU?! the song is obviously a sample. People who know the song will not be fooled into thinking they are actually playing the song with you. And third, aside from the stupid looking token white band playing behind you, could you edit this video any worse than you already have? The dogs in there seem random.

Christ, I think we need to get the RZA and Mick Jones together and drop a new joint post-haste. Prehaps Ghostface can spin a sick verse about his friend who used to cut coke and then got shot over an inspired replaying of "Koka Kola." I'm waiting, Rizz. I'm waiting.

Monkeys

I've forgotten how good this video is:



Maybe the clowns have something to do with it. I don't know. But I've recently rediscovered the virtues of the Arctic Monkeys, frontman Alex Turner specifically. Yes, I realize I'm about a year-and-a-half late on this, but I don't care.

I bought Favourite Worst Nightmare when it came out last April and thought it was a decent yet ultimatley forgettable album. I think I was way wrong.

On a whim last night I played it all the way through driving back from the airport and was astounded how...astute it is. If I didn't know any better (I don't) I'd compare songwriter Alex Turner to something of a modern day, college-aged (but not educated) Ray Davies.

Heresy, some might say. Maybe. But bear with me here. Most of his songwriting on the band's first album, Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not delt with little slice-of-life moments in the lives of middle-class British kids who like to party a lot. Not necessarily anything groundbreaking, and most of the songs deal with dancing or getting beat up by bouncers or getting ready to go and party for the night. This prevails for the first half of the album, until track 9 kicks in - the few songs after this show some impressive lyrical insights.

"Mardy Bum" (which, I believe, is British slang for something or other...I'd look it up but I'm on a typing roll right now) is a somewhat simple (as far as music goes, all of their songs are straightforward punk-influenced rock) love song about some working stiff who fights a lot with his girlfriend. Don't ask me why, but I think some of these lyrics are gems:

Now then Mardy Bum
I see your frown
And it's like looking down the barrel of a gun
And it goes off
And out come all these words
Oh there's a very pleasant side to you
A side I much prefer
It's one that laughs and jokes around

And then, the bridge:

And yeah I'm sorry I was late
Well I missed the train
And then the traffic was a state
And I can't be arsed to carry on in this debate
That reoccurs, oh when you say I don't care
Well of course I do, yeah I clearly do!

This rings true to me for some reason, especially when the above lines are followed by a somewhat sloppy guitar solo which brings to mind images of a fight, or sloppy makeup sex, or both.

The next song is "Prehaps Vampires is a Bit Strong But..." which is a raucus condemnation of the music press (think: NME or Rolling Stone) that seems to hound artists around every turn. Think "Rape Me" or "In Bloom" (that are about similar topics) with a sweet noisy breakdown in the middle.

Ray (and Dave) Davies, in their heyday, both wrote songs where they invented characters - maybe based on people that they knew or knew of around their hometown (think "Tin Soldier Man" or "Session Man" or "Do You Remember Walter" or "David Watts") .

Turner does the same thing. Two of the last three songs on "Whatever People Say I Am..." contain some character that Turner tells us about - albeit with less sunshine and more depression. It makes sense, though, seeing as how the Monkeys hail from Sheffield and the Kinks were from London. That's like the difference between being from Pittsburgh or Detroit and being from New York, from what I understand.

So their songs have a gritty take on life in the city. "When the Sun Goes Down" tells of a pimp who, by all accounts, "Is a scumbag, don't ya know?"

The last song on the album, though, is the kicker: "A Certain Romance". It's something of a cautionary tale: love, art, and decency are dead, and we know who killed it: jerks who think they're cool and just want pleasure. Or something like that. I don't know. I'm just stricken by the lines: "And over there there's broken bones / There's only music, so that there's new ringtones / And it don't take no Sherlock Holmes / To see it's a little different around here." It climaxes nicely with the guitars at full throttle.

So the point here is that "Favourite Worst Nighmare" is full of Kinks-y character tales. Most of it works pretty well and Turner has stepped up his lyrical game a bit - no songs about partying or dancing and he keeps the angsty relationship stories to a minimum. I like "Fluorescent Adolescent"s tale of the older housewife in heat, and how "Brainstorm" makes fun of player guys who try too hard to woo women ("Brian, top marks for not trying...We just can't take our eyes of his t-shirt and ties combination").

Maybe it's still a little rigid, and maybe the simple music doesn't make up for the lyrics, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I mean, Christ, the oldest member of the band is only a year older than me! They released the first album before any of them were even 21!

I think they deserve time. And listening. And maybe a new band name, but it'll have to do for now.