The only context I can give for this is that I was super tired and putting off writing a paper, a Scout article and studying for a test.
Hey, I bet we could overanalyze the shit out of this!
Like a lot of self-loathing, heavy drinking pop culture elitists, I am super excited for the next season of “Mad Men,” without a doubt one of the best shows on television. Pretty much any scrap of information about the series has been torn into pieces by rabid bloggers and I have to say that I need to be one of them. The new poster for the upcoming season 5 doesn’t demand but none the less is going to receive a fair share of my attention.
The posters have never been particularly important to figuring out what’s coming up on the show, but they’re vaguely symbolic and can usually help to shine a light on what Don is dealing with as the season expands. Here, Don sees a shell of a family, there are no defining features of the man or the woman and they’re both posed. Are they meant to be in an advertisement or in a museum? Is this meant to be a reflection of what Don views as an ideal structure of the family? Draper’s face being reflected in the image is intriguing, but I hate to read that far into it.
Surely, this has to revolve around the season 4 cliffhanger (SPOILERS FOR EPISODES THAT ARE AROUND 2 YEARS OLD), involving Don’s engagement to his French secretary, but what that means for where the show is taking place is yet to be defined. We don’t know how far the jump is, so this could be Don looking at the shape of his current marriage or his divorce from Betty. Additionally, it could be a look at the relationship between Henry and Betty and the way that has effected Gene, Sally and Bobby.
That being said, it’s a teaser image and I hate that I’ve put this much thought into that, but I get excited. I mean, I once wrote around 500 words about this…
My curse is taking shit like this entirely too seriously and devoting way too much thought into it. That being said, I’m still able to enjoy the moments between the messages. Wait, what?
Album À la Carte: “Read Music/Speak Spanish”
So, I know I’ve been tending to start several projects any more, but I think this one could have some traction. The plan is to post one of these every week as well as a “Quiet Revolution” every week. So that sounds exciting, Right?
Anyway, “Album À la Carte” is going to be the new feature where we analyze side-projects by artists that are almost unfathomably different than the music they’ve put out before and the way those projects influenced that artist’s later works. This week, we’re talking about Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes and a little emo-punk side project called “Read Music/Speak Spanish.”
Oberst hadn’t gotten wildly experimental by the time “Read Music/Speak Spanish” was released. Bright Eyes had quickly become damn near a progressive emo band in 2002, after recording the genre defining “Fevers and Mirrors” and the well received but deeply flawed “Letting Off the Happiness.”
Oberst decided to go a different route before recording the band’s best work “Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground.” That’s when he formed Desaparecidos with several other members of Saddle Creek Record groups like Something about Dresden and The Good Life to form one of the angriest albums of the early 2000s.
“Read Music/Speak Spanish” takes a lot of the flaws of “Fevers and Mirrors” and makes them work. The former’s focus on found spoken word audio often derailed the whole project and can make the record a chore to listen to, but they work here. The clips are shorter, snappier and more immediately connected to the songs that are being played. Although the lyrics are considerably less twisted, ironic and self-referential than those on “Fevers and Mirrors,” they’re blunt, repeatedly hitting listeners in the face with rage.
The album is almost singularly focused on socio-economic woes, mostly in the case of the gentrification of urban areas, suburbanization, the increase of corporate greed and a knowingly hypocritical look at the desire to have money.
This righteous but self-loathing rage is the best part of the record. Oberst was clearly struggling with the increased fame “Fevers and Mirrors” had brought him as well as the expectations Saddle Creek had for him to continue pushing out content. He didn’t want to sell his soul, but he knew that if it came to that, he would. No where is this clearer than on “Hole in One,” the finale and the best song on the record. It’s a brutal, occasionally abrasive track. Interestingly enough, the song contains a riff that he would turn back to years later.
Oberst would abandon Desaparecidos after “Read Music/Speak Spanish” and he wouldn’t return to the garage punk-emo that defined the album for the rest of his time in Bright Eyes, but the spirit of experimentation would stay in his work, not always for the healthiest reasons. In 2004, Bright Eyes recorded twin, exceedingly different records, with the country-folk inspired “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” and the electronic “Digital Ash in a Digital Urn.” Both are unique and among the best albums the band put out, but it’s interesting how “Read Music/Speak Spanish” Influenced them both.
On “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning,” Oberst repeats the “Ode to Joy” guitar riff that closes out “Hole in One” and it becomes something of a recurring musical motif of the album. The way it is twisted to show off the desperation and drug abuse that Oberst was suffering from is both creative and hauntingly bleak.
“Digital Ash in a Digital Urn” wears the influences of “Read Music/Speak Spanish” much less overtly, but in interesting and powerful ways. Although it was recorded at the same time as “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning,” the influences of Oberst’s heavy cocaine use are much clearer here. He’s self-loathing, despising who he has become and desperate for the help that he knows he has to provide for himself. The album isn’t anywhere near as angry as his punk record, it serves as something of a reflection on the former. Here, Oberst has it all. He’s rich, he has girls, he’s got drugs and he’s putting out great, moderately successful records but he feels like he has failed. The darkness here is intriguing and it leads to some of the darkest material that Oberst put out.
“Read Music/Speak Spanish” really set the bar for what Oberst wanted to do. After recording “Lifted,” the experimental phase began and never really let up and although the influence of the record may be hard to see at times, the content would reign over the rest of Bright Eyes’ recording as one of the clearest peaks into the id of one troubled songwriter.
Occupying a chair
I’m a pretty big fan of the ’70s in pop culture. Could you tell, what with all the punk songs, British references and emphatic love of auteur dominated Hollywood? It’s kind of my biggest pop culture obsession all around and not to be a baby boomer or anything, but no one did protest songs like those fucking hippies.
I mean, really think about it, what even compares to the shit that people used to get pissed off about? There was Vietnam (it’s much worse than Iraq), Kent State (it was much worse than we realize) and the revitalization of the “Twilight Zone” (it might be worse than the mid 2000s remake). That’s where that rage comes from and that’s what made it so poignant.
This was back when everyone was pissed, even the people who were insanely stoned were motivated enough to do something. Like record one of the best funk albums of all time and a blistering track about corruption, money and a bunch of shitty things that were hitting the fan.
That being said, I probably have to mention Bob Dylan. I’m nothing if not predictable. The great thing that Dylan did with the protest song was make the listener work for it. While so many artists today front load a song with their generally left-leaning, contrarian and often obvious message, Bob Dylan was sly. Lyrics flip on themselves, there’s tons of wordplay, often infuriating collages of symbolism and metaphor, yet it all adds up to something both uniquely memorable, fantastically iconic and drolly witty. On, “Like a Rolling Stone,” Dylan attacked the drug culture and the flimsiness of pop-art in a song that eventually became something of a calling card for all dissatisfied rebels. Explicitly about Edie Sedgwick getting hooked on heroin and Dylan’s genuine hatred for Andy Warhol, the song details a fall to the streets and a collapse while mocking those that rise themselves up to the position of saints. It was an easy song to bastardize into whatever purpose needed, but it abides as one of Dylan’s best and most memorable songs.
The sense of not needing to openly attack policies and public figures pervaded music. Rebellion was covert and it promoted solidarity and artists capitalized on it. Simon and Garfunkel were a group that rarely dipped into territory horribly far from their wheelhouse of songs about being lonely and unloved, but on “America,” they sang a lovelorn ballad to a world that seemed to be changing all around them. It’s a song that feels patriotic without being it, nostalgic but with a sneer and joyful while feeling like a dirge.
It really wasn’t until Reagan took office that protest songs came back into their own but this was mostly relegated to fringe punk groups that have only more recently gained renown. When Bush was in office, literally anyone with dyed hair, a group named for a color or a superfluous exclamation mark could sing a shitty song about the president.
I don’t want to give the impression that I like Bush or that people shouldn’t do protest songs, but if that isn’t a pile of shit, then I’ll fucking resign. It’s such a ham fisted, terrible, emotionally abusive ballad that does nothing but preach to the choir. It’s a song that came late in her established musical stylings and not only is it a bad song, but it’s not even a bad song that she can handle.
I think it’s a given that a Pink (or P!nk or, fuck it) protest song was pretty much guaranteed to be awful but it’s really disappointing when someone with some fucking talent messes up. I’ve gone on record in print more times than I would care to share about how Bright Eyes is one of my favorite bands and Connor Oberst, one of my favorite songwriters. He’d tried to be political before, namely on “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and be Loved), but it was more or less not great. It’s not a bad song, but the political bits are an unnecessary and out of place shot. It wasn’t until 2004 when he really tried to channel Dylan and recorded something that just really didn’t work. “When the President Talks to God” is an appropriately angry, well written and occasionally smart song. The problem is, it’s not a particularly good one. Oberst really can’t hit spectacularly high notes and he stretches every time to not become a cartoon on the higher bits. That being said, I would still listen to it, I just wish it didn’t feel so horribly hackneyed and dated.
I guess what I’m really trying to say is that just because you also hate some shitty thing that pretty much everyone hates, doesn’t mean you have to write a shitty song about it. People who go see a band are pretty fucking likely to already agree with whatever vaguely off the map but totally acceptable political system the artist believes in and they’ll accept an opinion. That doesn’t mean you have to sing down to anyone.
I guess “I Dream of Jeannie” might be better…
There is a pretty high bar set for midnight texts. There are several options for what this text could be. I will accept: sexual texts, drunken stories, needing to be picked up from somewhere, messages about how big of a dick Lou Diamond Philips is and suggestions for songs that might be among the worst things ever.
The latter of this list is what I received last night. Deep in the midst of a semi-drunken “Supernatural” marathon, I received a message from a friend suggesting that he had found the worst song of all time. I waited until the morning to listen to it. With no further ado, here is the new contender for worst pop-song of the last 10 years.
I have so many questions to ask here. Why does the girl who’s naked throughout the whole video wearing a one-piece when she swims? Is there more than one guy in this band? What the fuck is up with the girl with the raccoon eye make-up? Is that the Grim Reaper? Why would you pull out an engagement ring when a hillbilly pulls a gun on you? How do you shoot that scene on the rollercoaster ? Why is she wearing a towel with a dude’s face on it?
Oh god, I fucking can’t take it anymore and I’m so sorry to expose you to this. Here, this is my only condolence . Please forgive me.
A heart, a heart of burning heart burn
Look, I eat well, I’m a healthy guy. OK, maybe I just want to be healthy, considering that I barely exercise, over drink and don’t do much actively to stay healthy. This is why I avoid greasy food as much as I do.
I remembered why on Tuesday morning where after eating a can of chili the night before, I was struck with a brutal bout of heart burn. I couldn’t sit still and I was damn close to wailing in bullet-wound style pain.
I know I’m stretching, but lets find some songs based on minor health conditions. Fuck it, I’m on a roll with consistent posting so we should probably keep that up. Here we go.
Not everyone knows who The 101′ers are but almost everyone knows about The Clash. That was the power of Joe Strummer. After seeing the rise of punk rock in early 1977, he left the pub-rock pioneers to join one of the seminal punk rock groups. That being said, the 101′ers were a great group, a fun bit of pop, reggae and rockability that gave birth to some of my favorite songs of all time. Songs like “Rabies from the Dogs of Love” showed the funky influence that inspired Strummer and that he would bring to The Clash.
Speaking of British punks, The xx released a super tight dose of Buzzcocks and Joy Division inspired post punk, combining heartache and self-loathing that was refreshing, despite the fairly common subject material. On their self titled 2009 debut, one dark bit of love lorn wanting is in “Heart Skipped a Beat,” one of the standouts of the album.
You know, I’ve heard that things can be pretty rough when somebody’s been on a bad trip. I’ve heard that it can be confusing, disorienting and consciousness shifting. These are things I’ve heard. If this is the case, Sonic Youth nailed the idea on “Eric’s Trip” from their landmark record “Daydream Nation,” a true document of American indie rock. It’s a chaotic jumble of the thrashing, caustic, thoroughly sexy garage rock that the band did best and it’s a perfect document of what can go marvelously wrong. I assume.
Really, one of the worst thing that can happen is when everything feels wrong, when nothing in life feels worth while. Richard Hell knew the feeling. Drug addled, unbelievably pissed off and perpetually horny, Hell combined his drug addled poetry with unrelenting punk guitar riffs and feral howling. 1977′s “Blank Generation” feels less like punk rock as it does like performance art. The album is a challenge, although occasionally a harmonic, innovative and incredibly smart record.
Psychedelica has some of the best example of songs about sickness. There’s a focus on corruption of the mind, of the body and of the broken people who have to deal with the brutal journeys into the mind. Modern experimenter Panda Bear was somewhat obsessed with the pain he felt in the late 2000s and he channeled this pain into a hunt for help. On his most well known record, “Person Pitch,” his song “Take Pills” is as great of a comforting listen as it is a look at a man who is suffering.
Really, it all goes back to Joy Division. Ian Curtis deeply understood internal pain, both from his intense epilepsy as well as a variety of other health problems. He wanted help, and the first recorded song listeners were subjected to was the brilliant “Disorder” from one of the best albums of the ’70s, “Unknown Pleasures.” It’s a song that is both brilliantly dissonant as well as shockingly appealing. It is a dark song, unrelentingly so, but there’s a such a harmonious line running through the song and the lyrics suit it well. When Curtis sings, “I’ve been waiting for a guide to come and take me by the hand/ could these pleasures make me feel the pleasures of a normal man?” they are brutal cries for help and the assistance that he desperately needed. There’s such a palpable sense of pain that I feel a little bad that I started this post up with talking about my heart burn.
Lets mess up our apartments in solidarity
I have an unhealthy crush on Garfunkel and Oates. I’ll admit it. They make me giggle, they’re cute, they name drop “Star Trek: The Next Generation” references in songs about handjobs. It’s pretty much music/TV/indie-film-lover nerd bait, but it works. Their new album, “Slippery When Moist,” isn’t helping me recover in any helpful way.
Like most people, I was originally exposed to the group with their single, “Weed Card,” from their first album, “All Over Your Face.” It’s a cheeky dose of marijuana humor, legalization insanity and a pinch of cute girls playing ukeleles. It’s still just a delight.
The new record is a lot more of the same; goofy songs about masturbation, sex, loneliness and animal dissection bump up against yelling “fuck” at ex-boyfriends, helping out girlfriends, and savoring temporary love.
I laugh a lot while listening to Garfunkel and Oates albums but what always sticks with me are the moments of genuine emotion. On “Slippery When Moist” it comes in the final track, “My Apartment’s Very Clean Without You.” What starts as a song dissing a boy for moving out, slowly evolves into a song of genuine remorse, a ballad about missing the ones you once loved and how being alone might be for the best, even if it makes you feel like the worst.
Regardless, it’s really a record with checking out, whether you’re in the mood for giggling about people you’re friends with that you’d never have sex with, googling people so you don’t get raped, or feeling alone for the first time in a long time. It’s streaming on Spotify or available for purchase on iTunes.
Watching Little Sister: ‘Kabuki,’ David Mack and the future of comics
It’s hard to justify to people why I love comic books. This is a medium that has long been marginalized, often for valid reasons. It’s pulp, often inconsequential and very rarely qualified as art or even artistic.
The mid-90s changed all of that. A variety of independent artists and writers became singularly focused on developing creator owned characters and allowing them to go to places that the major publishers wouldn’t allow. While the first creators to go this route were often less than critically successful, mostly in the cases of Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld, there was one who grabbed everyone by being, of all things, quiet.
David Mack was singularly interested in Japan and he crafted the “Kabuki” series as a nightmare mash-up of contemporary Japanese society, “1984,” World War II scars, the influence of 24 hour media and branding and the mental health profession. In the process, he created a series that bypasses the medium and defines what graphic novels are capable of.
The rise of Kabuki and the hiding of Ukiko.
The seven-volume series starts conventionally with “Circle of Blood,” essentially a mob story mixed with international espionage. We’re introduced to an organization known as “The Noh,” who maintain the careful balance of power between the Japanese government and organized crime, and their agents, including Kabuki. Kabuki is a tough as nails assassin and public figure who has been permanently scarred as a result of her mixed heritage. She bears the physical scars from the assault as well as the abuse her displaced mother suffered from and her struggle drives the brutal novel to a particularly graphic conclusion. Initially, it seems to be a self contained but very satisfying Asian-noir story. Luckily, Mack was just getting started.
Without giving away details, Mack delves into Kabuki’s story as well as her rebirth and details the lives of the other agents of the Noh. The story develops organically, slowly breaking away from the violent story the series started with. That being said, the true development in the work is the way that the art naturally evolves.
Mack's break from black and white comics allowed him to get into painting and several visually stunning pieces.
Mack’s evolution as a creator is something that is the true joy of exploring the “Kabuki” series. Even when artists change on the volumes “Masks of the Noh” and “Scarab: Lost in Translation,” the influence of Mack’s vision is distinctive and overwhelming. He was creating a story, but more importantly, he was creating a multimedia presentation.
In "Lost in Translation," artist Rick Mays helped to create a world that combined manga, neo-noir and complex multi-media textual messages.
The ultimate piece of the series, as well as the finale of the work “The Alchemy,” Mack both writes and illustrates a stunning meta-conscious narrative that flows between metaphorical, literal and symbolic storytelling. Most of the work takes place in a single house where the influence of those who live within it, slowly but dramatically change the structure of the building.
The captions may spoil some of the story but the page design is gorgeous without being overly symbolic or literal.
Mack is able to hold the tension throughout his narrative with the cunning hook in a mystery, potentially imaginary character that influences several volumes of the narrative. He manages to sew the entire work together without answering several of the series’ biggest questions. For me, this works resoundingly well. I would rather not know the details of Akemi’s connection to Kabuki or who it was that died in the Control Corps bedroom so Kabuki could escape. I am happy with what I’ve got.
This all begs the question of defining what it is that David Mack does and what “Kabuki” is. Is it a comic series? Is it a graphic novel? Or is it something more, is this art? With his deep focus on cultural identity, shame, genius, self-transformation and adversity as well as an ever-changing and experimenting style, I would have to say that this series is art. What that means for the rest of the medium, remains to be defined.
New Poem and more information you didn’t care to know
So every year, I try to get poetry published because I’m a raging narcissist with severe entitlement issues. Here’s a poem I’m working on trying to submit. What do y’all think?
For Jason and luck (bad)
Bring on Friday the 13th.
Bring on the primeval system of measurement.
The Aztec calendars used 13 months,
Each one leading into a birth and a subsequent resurrection,
There are 12 major constellations in the sky,
And one star to circle.
Jason traveled the world with his 12 Argonaughts,
Arthur stood around the table with his 12 knights.
Divining the future, the 13th card of the tarot is “Death,”
A ghastly figure that represents exasperation, extinction and
Resurrection in equal measure.
One mark off the clock is the 13th, it’s the last step into
Oblivion.
A new moon is born, waxes and wanes over the year,
In 13 forms.
At age 13, women become reproductive.
Men can ejaculate.
On the single dollar bill in my pocket,
An eagle holds 13 arrows,
An olive branch with 13 leaves.
13 stars circle its head.
The pyramid has 13 steps
And an eye.
13 stripes, 13 stars on a shield,
13 letters in ‘E. Plubrius Unim.’
The green phoenix on the paper is reborn
And so am I.
Saturday, the 1st.
The cure for the common (feeling) cold
If there’s one thing I hate more than unbelievable shows of affection on Valentine’s Day, it’s the weird mix of self-pity and desperate cries for attention that spew from single people on Facebook. Look, it sucks to not having the opportunity to have sex with people on a regular basis, but let’s not act like you deserve to be with people. None of us deserve anyone. We’re happy to just have what we happen to get.
So in that vein, I’m still in fake emotions hangover phase. You know, it happens near many holidays that have expected emotional expectations, like Christmas, Arbor Day and Kids Dental Health Month. I have to deal with the fact that society wants everyone to feel like they’re in fake love for a couple of days and then we can all forget what emotions are.
Fuck that, let’s celebrate shitty love. Let’s hit those perfect kiss offs, those abusive bastards and all the joys of using people. After all, it’s all about being a little fake.
Few have mastered the “I’m sorry that I’m so fucking better than you” song quite like the British. Starting in the ’70s with Elvis Costello and the enthralling mix of earnestness and misogyny and continuing in it’s grand march in modern English pop-punk. Masters of the genre teamed up in 2009 to form The Last Shadow Puppets and an unbelievably sexy, perfectly angry and wonderfully self loving “The Age of the Understatement.”
Still, there’s no one that could do it quite like Costello. There are few artists who were never able to find a happy medium between his obsession with love and feeling the damage of scorn. As such, there are few singers who mastered the uniquely male perspectives on rejection, bitterness, jealousy and self-loathing that many women aren’t privy to. Few songs capture this feeling quite like the man’s first great hit.
Yeah, Allison is the song that really cemented Elvis Costello’s position as the reigning minstrel of sad bastards everywhere, but there are few songs that have effected me as much as his later work. As Costello matured, married beautiful women, quit doing cocaine, divorced beautiful women and found himself, rich, bored and totally alone, he was able to feel the same alienation he felt at the beginning of his career. Channeling all of that into the stunning mostly-live masterpiece “Blood and Chocolate,” Costello and the Attractions created the ultimate kiss-off, in a mix of brutal irony, self-congratulation and remorse. It’s a song that I have to listen to after every break up, every shitty date and every betrayal.
You can say what you want about the British’s great love of hating those who hate them, there are few who have done the job quite as well as Liz Phair. That being said, excluding “Exile in Guyville,” Phair has served as a better influence for other artists than for herself as a performer. One of her contemporaries, Amanda Palmer, wrote one of the great musical fuck-you’s in her work with the Dresden Dolls.
It’d be a lie to say that Elliot Smith isn’t one of my favorite singer-songwriters of all time. Whether it’s the combination of alcohol and drug infused angst, the struggle of feeling and forgetting what love was and the ultimate bit of suicidal self-loathing in his last desperate cry for help, Smith was one of those singers who was obsessed solely with exploring his own mind. In one of his most beautiful songs, Smith wonders at what point the deluded woman he’s slept with is going to give up on him or when he’s going to have to break her heart. It’s a difficult song to decipher, but the clear pain he feels as he deals with being the heartbreaker is palapable.
As much as I’d like to admit it, for every song that is a solid statement of how terrible love is. there are ones that are less sure of the situation. Tegan & Sara perfectly created this feeling in their landmark pop record “The Con,” a document of regret and love’s ability to fall apart. Here, there’s a mix of hope, a chance that one day something could change.
