I have moved into a new apartment. It is located at 43rd St and Baltimore Ave, which is a very nice location, with a park, a cafe, and numerous restaurants located nearby. I like it very much. Unfortunately, I'm not getting internet access there until the 19th, which means that I'll be checking email and such sporadically at various libraries, public (40th and Walnut) and Drexel (33rd and Market).
So anyway, here are some random thoughts that I'm having about things:
- Steve Irwin - I think the biggest surprise is that he didn't get killed sooner. I mean, by all accounts he should have died 20 times by now, right? That said, I'm trying not to laugh at the situation, and I am genuinely a little bit disappointed. Steve was one of those guys that brought a genuine and earnest enthusiasm to everything he did. He just wanted to share his joy with the world, and there's nothing bad that you can say about that.
- Yo La Tengo - Here's the album title of the century: I am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. I managed to download it before I moved out of my old place and lost the internet, but all the songs get cut off with a minute left to go for some reason. Am I actually going to have to buy it?! It sounds pretty good from what I heard.
- The Valerie Project - I'll admit it: I am completely in love with crazy neo-hippies who make weird psychedelic folk music. And I've talked numerous times about how much I love Greg Weeks and Espers (just use the search bar at the top of the page). So how could I not love this?
- Gary Higgins - Speaking of hippies and folk music, Gary freaking Higgins (!) is playing at the First Unitarian Church. Of course, I'm sooooo cool that I saw him last fall. Espers opened up, believe it or not. I might go see him again, though, because who knows how long it will be before he kicks it? We've lost fellow psychedelic hermits Arthur Lee and Syd Barrett in the past few months, and that stuff comes in threes, right?
- Cell phones - My cell phone bill for this month is probably going to be gargantuan. Not having the internet has led to a lot of text messages and phone calls that would probably otherwise not have happened. On the other hand, I've actually had an honest-to-goodness phone conversation with at least one person that I've never actually talked to in a non-internet setting. So that was nice.
Ok, I'm done. More if and when I get an opportunity.
Friday, September 08, 2006
Saturday, August 26, 2006
Is this the worst idea ever?
Elton John plans hip-hop album.
Usually when an aging white pop musician wants to change things up by switching genres, they jump over to classical music (see: Billy Joel, Paul McCartney). I guess we can give ol' Reggie credit for at least thinking outside the box to some degree, but it's hard to foresee this theoretical album being anything but a complete disaster.
You know how the last couple Santana albums have featured a thousand guest performers, who all do their own thing while Carlos plays his same three guitar licks on top of whatever is going on? Think about a hip hop version of that, except instead of guitar licks, think of Elton John cramming his ornate melodies into Dr. Dre's G-funk.
Weird, right?
Usually when an aging white pop musician wants to change things up by switching genres, they jump over to classical music (see: Billy Joel, Paul McCartney). I guess we can give ol' Reggie credit for at least thinking outside the box to some degree, but it's hard to foresee this theoretical album being anything but a complete disaster.
You know how the last couple Santana albums have featured a thousand guest performers, who all do their own thing while Carlos plays his same three guitar licks on top of whatever is going on? Think about a hip hop version of that, except instead of guitar licks, think of Elton John cramming his ornate melodies into Dr. Dre's G-funk.
Weird, right?
Friday, August 25, 2006
The Mental Illness Manifesto: A Rambling, Sleepless Rant
If you're prone to either paying attention to frivolous news from Hollywood or enjoying the schadenfreude from a famous person's downfall, or both, you may have heard that Tom Cruise's production company was dumped by Paramount Pictures. (For a nice change of pace, I'm linking to a CBC article. Canadians probably have to see American-made news all the time, so we'll switch it around.)
Now, all of you here, and most people who write about entertainment news and that sort of crap for a living, are probably thinking to yourselves, "Well, duh. Didn't you see him jump on the couch?"
I'm going to say again that I have no idea why jumping on a damn couch is such a huge freaking deal. If I had Tom Cruise's kind of money and fame level, I'd do whatever I damn well wanted to do, and if that included being exuberant on nationally syndicated talk shows, then I see no reason for that to stop me. And you can tell me that the couch was a symbol of all of his excesses, and blah blah blah, and I'll ask: what excesses? What has he done from a behavioral standpoint that's so bad?
So keeping in mind that Cruise's antics over the last year, which people mindlessly classify as "bizarre" or "hysterical," aren't really that important, I'm going to posit that maybe, just maybe, Cruise is being punished for his criminally irresponsible attitude toward psychiatry and mental health in general. I don't really feel like linking to something or summarizing it, because most people probably know what I'm talking about. But to me, that is what he's done that's made me dislike him. That is why he's a Class A Asshole, and I'd like to think that his production deal wasn't renewed because he's displaying a bigotry that is all too common in today's society. I often think of homosexuals as the final minority group that is overtly and legally discriminated against, but people with mental illnesses definitely fit into that category too. (Women and racial minorities of all sorts are regularly discriminated against, of course, but at least that's technically illegal.)
Of course, that affects me a lot more personally than gay rights, because people with mental health problems happens to be a minority of which I am a part. So, because I'm feeling fiesty right now, despite being exhausted, I am going to stand up (figuratively speaking, I suppose) and say this, and I encourage others like me to do the same:
I am a victim of mental illness, and Tom Cruise and people who think like him can go fuck themselves.
Now, although Tom Cruise does make a fine poster/whipping boy, there are some problems with that. First, we need a better term than "victim of mental illness." Then, to balance out the inevitable PC-ness of whatever we come up with there, we need to take a page from the homosexual playbook and steal the bigots' derogatory term and embrace it. I've known lots of gay people who refer to themselves as "faggots" or "queers," so maybe we can start proudly referring to ourselves as "lunatics" or "nutjobs" or "basketcases."
Hmm... we've got our work cut out for us there.
Second, we need a short and memorable term for people who discriminate against us. Something that fits in perfectly alongside "chauvanist," "racist," and "homophobe." We can't say "Tom Cruise and people who think like him" every time, and way too many people qualify as "ignorant morons" for different reasons to use that.
But this is a battle that should be fought. Some day I would like to be able to ask my boss at work whether or not my health benefits cover psychiatrists and therapists without him filing a mental note that I am "potentially unstable" or something. Or, when somebody asks, "Where are you going?" to be able to answer truthfully that I'm going to a psychiatrist or therapist rather than rack my brain to remember whether or not I used the dentist as an excuse with that person recently. I suppose it's a personal battle as much as a societal one, because I could easily tell the truth in those situations. But the point I'm making is that anticipating the judgement of other people shouldn't have to be a factor. You know, kind of like how gay people can be "open" or "in the closet," but are still subject to the judgement of society at large.
I guess I'm working on being the mental health equivalent of more "open" and less "closeted."
Of course, the difference between having a mental illness and being gay is that the latter can be a celebrated point of pride, while the former is classified as an "illness" for a reason. We'll never be proud of our conditions, and would rather not have them at all, and often despise the fact that "normal" people will never know how we experience things.
Anyway, to bring things back around to the starting point, Tom Cruise wasn't dumped because of his ignorance and bigotry, nor his "disturbing" behavior. He was dumped because movie executive idiots don't think that people will go see his movies anymore. Money trumps everything else.
If it wasn't so early (might as well be "late," for all the sleep I got), I would try to organize this into something cohesive. But I'm letting it sprawl out, because I feel like it.
At any rate, my final thought is: fuck Tom Cruise. (And, you know, people who think like him.)
EDIT: As it turns out, Liz Spikol made almost the exact same point a few days ago. Oops.
Now, all of you here, and most people who write about entertainment news and that sort of crap for a living, are probably thinking to yourselves, "Well, duh. Didn't you see him jump on the couch?"
I'm going to say again that I have no idea why jumping on a damn couch is such a huge freaking deal. If I had Tom Cruise's kind of money and fame level, I'd do whatever I damn well wanted to do, and if that included being exuberant on nationally syndicated talk shows, then I see no reason for that to stop me. And you can tell me that the couch was a symbol of all of his excesses, and blah blah blah, and I'll ask: what excesses? What has he done from a behavioral standpoint that's so bad?
So keeping in mind that Cruise's antics over the last year, which people mindlessly classify as "bizarre" or "hysterical," aren't really that important, I'm going to posit that maybe, just maybe, Cruise is being punished for his criminally irresponsible attitude toward psychiatry and mental health in general. I don't really feel like linking to something or summarizing it, because most people probably know what I'm talking about. But to me, that is what he's done that's made me dislike him. That is why he's a Class A Asshole, and I'd like to think that his production deal wasn't renewed because he's displaying a bigotry that is all too common in today's society. I often think of homosexuals as the final minority group that is overtly and legally discriminated against, but people with mental illnesses definitely fit into that category too. (Women and racial minorities of all sorts are regularly discriminated against, of course, but at least that's technically illegal.)
Of course, that affects me a lot more personally than gay rights, because people with mental health problems happens to be a minority of which I am a part. So, because I'm feeling fiesty right now, despite being exhausted, I am going to stand up (figuratively speaking, I suppose) and say this, and I encourage others like me to do the same:
I am a victim of mental illness, and Tom Cruise and people who think like him can go fuck themselves.
Now, although Tom Cruise does make a fine poster/whipping boy, there are some problems with that. First, we need a better term than "victim of mental illness." Then, to balance out the inevitable PC-ness of whatever we come up with there, we need to take a page from the homosexual playbook and steal the bigots' derogatory term and embrace it. I've known lots of gay people who refer to themselves as "faggots" or "queers," so maybe we can start proudly referring to ourselves as "lunatics" or "nutjobs" or "basketcases."
Hmm... we've got our work cut out for us there.
Second, we need a short and memorable term for people who discriminate against us. Something that fits in perfectly alongside "chauvanist," "racist," and "homophobe." We can't say "Tom Cruise and people who think like him" every time, and way too many people qualify as "ignorant morons" for different reasons to use that.
But this is a battle that should be fought. Some day I would like to be able to ask my boss at work whether or not my health benefits cover psychiatrists and therapists without him filing a mental note that I am "potentially unstable" or something. Or, when somebody asks, "Where are you going?" to be able to answer truthfully that I'm going to a psychiatrist or therapist rather than rack my brain to remember whether or not I used the dentist as an excuse with that person recently. I suppose it's a personal battle as much as a societal one, because I could easily tell the truth in those situations. But the point I'm making is that anticipating the judgement of other people shouldn't have to be a factor. You know, kind of like how gay people can be "open" or "in the closet," but are still subject to the judgement of society at large.
I guess I'm working on being the mental health equivalent of more "open" and less "closeted."
Of course, the difference between having a mental illness and being gay is that the latter can be a celebrated point of pride, while the former is classified as an "illness" for a reason. We'll never be proud of our conditions, and would rather not have them at all, and often despise the fact that "normal" people will never know how we experience things.
Anyway, to bring things back around to the starting point, Tom Cruise wasn't dumped because of his ignorance and bigotry, nor his "disturbing" behavior. He was dumped because movie executive idiots don't think that people will go see his movies anymore. Money trumps everything else.
If it wasn't so early (might as well be "late," for all the sleep I got), I would try to organize this into something cohesive. But I'm letting it sprawl out, because I feel like it.
At any rate, my final thought is: fuck Tom Cruise. (And, you know, people who think like him.)
EDIT: As it turns out, Liz Spikol made almost the exact same point a few days ago. Oops.
Friday, August 18, 2006
I hate Dane Cook
I always get more comments and responses when I go negative, like I did with my last post, and while I try to avoid that for the most part (since I have a reputation with almost everybody who knows me as being excessively negative already), I'm going to succumb to temptation once more...
There are a lot of celebrities whose fame is perplexing, and doesn't quite seem to correspond with their level of talent. There are movie stars (Ben Affleck), TV stars (pick any reality TV host or contestant), musicians (Green Day), artists (Anne Geddes comes to mind, although "artist" is really pushing it), novelists (Dan Brown), and... miscellaneous, I guess (Paris Hilton).
Most of the time those people don't bother me. If people like them, or pay attention to them for reasons I can't figure out, that's fine. And believe it or not, I don't think I'm better than those people, although I certainly come off that way a lot of the time.
Well, like I did before with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it's time to admit that sometimes people's taste pisses me off.
The point of all that crap being: I fucking hate Dane Cook.
Dane Cook is to stand up comedy what the Strokes are to music: all style, no substance. Dane Cook seems to mistake yelling a whole bunch as an adequate substitution for things that are actually funny.
Worst of all? He steals jokes!
Pretty much everything about him pisses me off though. His stupid "Dennis the Menace, but foul-mouthed" schtick. His hideous wife-beater. His manic stage movements that seem to distract people from the fact that he's not actually saying anything remotely funny. Basically, everything about him screams, "I am an idiotic frat dude and if you have no intention of actually thinking about why or if something is funny, you will love me!"
He's like some kind of cretinous combination of David Cross and George Carlin, without the wry outrage of the former and without the wit of the latter.
Ugh. I've run out of indignancy for tonight. I just had to get that off of my chest.
There are a lot of celebrities whose fame is perplexing, and doesn't quite seem to correspond with their level of talent. There are movie stars (Ben Affleck), TV stars (pick any reality TV host or contestant), musicians (Green Day), artists (Anne Geddes comes to mind, although "artist" is really pushing it), novelists (Dan Brown), and... miscellaneous, I guess (Paris Hilton).
Most of the time those people don't bother me. If people like them, or pay attention to them for reasons I can't figure out, that's fine. And believe it or not, I don't think I'm better than those people, although I certainly come off that way a lot of the time.
Well, like I did before with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, it's time to admit that sometimes people's taste pisses me off.
The point of all that crap being: I fucking hate Dane Cook.
Dane Cook is to stand up comedy what the Strokes are to music: all style, no substance. Dane Cook seems to mistake yelling a whole bunch as an adequate substitution for things that are actually funny.
Worst of all? He steals jokes!
Pretty much everything about him pisses me off though. His stupid "Dennis the Menace, but foul-mouthed" schtick. His hideous wife-beater. His manic stage movements that seem to distract people from the fact that he's not actually saying anything remotely funny. Basically, everything about him screams, "I am an idiotic frat dude and if you have no intention of actually thinking about why or if something is funny, you will love me!"
He's like some kind of cretinous combination of David Cross and George Carlin, without the wry outrage of the former and without the wit of the latter.
Ugh. I've run out of indignancy for tonight. I just had to get that off of my chest.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
I shall now bash an easy target for 15 minutes
I've come to the conclusion recently that I really hate the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
In my teen years, I ranged from being mostly indifferent to them to kind of liking them. That kind of evolved into a nice period where I mostly forgot about their existence, save for every now and then when I would hear "Californication" or "By the Way" or whatever that song was called, and say to myself, "Well, it sounds like the Chili Peppers... but more like a corporate recreation of the Chili Peppers." (You could substitute "Foo Fighters" for "Chili Peppers" in that last sentence and it would work just as well, by the way.)
Now, though, I can't stand them. I think something snapped in me when Billy Preston died and I read that the last recording he played on was the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Whatever happened, I can't stand them. Old Peppers, new Peppers, it doesn't matter.
Older Chili Peppers albums are like hearing what a George Clinton band would sound like if Clinton had been brainwashed by a bunch of idiotic frat guys and sodomized with a broomstick. Braindead white boy funk? They got that down! The worst rapper in the world, thrown in the mix? Check and mate!
Newer Chili Peppers albums are like hearing what would happen if some Armani-wearing douchebag with slicked back hair said to Anthony Keidis, "We'll give you a billion dollars if you water down your sound as much as possible." So now instead of moronic raps and preschool melodies about having sex and shooting heroin, we have moronic raps about... what the hell is this song about anyway?
Of course, more recently, we don't even seem to get the moronic raps. Only lazy vocals that just drift in and out of nothingness, yet seem to trigger some deep-rooted urge in people to spend money on crap. The outrageously flashy bass-playing has been similarly diluted. Flea was probably the best thing they had going for them. Now all they have is their mountains of cash, their generic songs about nothing, and that drummer who looks eerily like Will Ferrell.
This turned into a kind of formless rant, but I'll admit one thing: "Breaking the Girl" was a cool song. I'll give them that. Don't try to throw "Under the Bridge" at me as an example of a good song, though. Choirs of children are a cheesy crutch that's been overused at least since "Across the Universe" (which is a good song despite that, and really, that was only two girls or something, right?), and definitely since "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2."
In my teen years, I ranged from being mostly indifferent to them to kind of liking them. That kind of evolved into a nice period where I mostly forgot about their existence, save for every now and then when I would hear "Californication" or "By the Way" or whatever that song was called, and say to myself, "Well, it sounds like the Chili Peppers... but more like a corporate recreation of the Chili Peppers." (You could substitute "Foo Fighters" for "Chili Peppers" in that last sentence and it would work just as well, by the way.)
Now, though, I can't stand them. I think something snapped in me when Billy Preston died and I read that the last recording he played on was the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers album. Whatever happened, I can't stand them. Old Peppers, new Peppers, it doesn't matter.
Older Chili Peppers albums are like hearing what a George Clinton band would sound like if Clinton had been brainwashed by a bunch of idiotic frat guys and sodomized with a broomstick. Braindead white boy funk? They got that down! The worst rapper in the world, thrown in the mix? Check and mate!
Newer Chili Peppers albums are like hearing what would happen if some Armani-wearing douchebag with slicked back hair said to Anthony Keidis, "We'll give you a billion dollars if you water down your sound as much as possible." So now instead of moronic raps and preschool melodies about having sex and shooting heroin, we have moronic raps about... what the hell is this song about anyway?
Of course, more recently, we don't even seem to get the moronic raps. Only lazy vocals that just drift in and out of nothingness, yet seem to trigger some deep-rooted urge in people to spend money on crap. The outrageously flashy bass-playing has been similarly diluted. Flea was probably the best thing they had going for them. Now all they have is their mountains of cash, their generic songs about nothing, and that drummer who looks eerily like Will Ferrell.
This turned into a kind of formless rant, but I'll admit one thing: "Breaking the Girl" was a cool song. I'll give them that. Don't try to throw "Under the Bridge" at me as an example of a good song, though. Choirs of children are a cheesy crutch that's been overused at least since "Across the Universe" (which is a good song despite that, and really, that was only two girls or something, right?), and definitely since "Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2."
Friday, August 11, 2006
For music dorks only
Today I sat down and actually read a review at pitchforkmedia.com. I usually eschew the reviews (unless they really rip something to shreds) and go to the news and interviews and whatnot, but today they reviewed a box set of Tortoise songs that I haven't heard yet. And since Tortoise is one of my favorite bands, and they gave it a 9.2 out of 10 (although I'm still not sure how they decide that it's a 9.2 and not, say, a 9.3), I sat down and read it.
And what do you know? I actually enjoyed it. It's the kind of review written by and for dorks like me. Which means that it's probably utterly useless to people who won't get references to Miles Davis' On the Corner (which this blog is actually named after!) and Can as "dance music you can't dance to." Another dorky music nerd reference: "Casey Rice's 'Cobwebbed' sounds a bit like an Aphex circa Selected Ambient Works II DAT discovered a few decades later in a storage unit out by the highway." If you actually know what a DAT is, you're probably a step ahead of most people. If you have Selected Ambient Works II, you're golden.
My personal favorite, though: "And though bookish indie heartthrobs can now make a mint singing about the Cook County chamber of commerce over Steve Reich pastiches, Tortoise offered no such easy ins."
Ouch! Take that, Sufjan! I love Sufjan Stevens as much as the next person, but the writer's got a point there, I guess... listen to your copy of Enjoy Your Rabbit and go out and buy yourself a copy of Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and see if Reich shouldn't be suing Sufjan right now.
So what's my point here? I have no idea. I do know that there are probably few things more infuriatingly stupid than writing about writing about music (Would Frank Zappa say that's like dancing about dancing about architecture? Another nerdy reference for you.), so some people are probably reading this and rolling their eyes so far back into their heads that they can see their own brains. But I'm bored and killing a half hour, so indulge me today and I swear I'll write about Snakes on a Plane tomorrow.
And what do you know? I actually enjoyed it. It's the kind of review written by and for dorks like me. Which means that it's probably utterly useless to people who won't get references to Miles Davis' On the Corner (which this blog is actually named after!) and Can as "dance music you can't dance to." Another dorky music nerd reference: "Casey Rice's 'Cobwebbed' sounds a bit like an Aphex circa Selected Ambient Works II DAT discovered a few decades later in a storage unit out by the highway." If you actually know what a DAT is, you're probably a step ahead of most people. If you have Selected Ambient Works II, you're golden.
My personal favorite, though: "And though bookish indie heartthrobs can now make a mint singing about the Cook County chamber of commerce over Steve Reich pastiches, Tortoise offered no such easy ins."
Ouch! Take that, Sufjan! I love Sufjan Stevens as much as the next person, but the writer's got a point there, I guess... listen to your copy of Enjoy Your Rabbit and go out and buy yourself a copy of Reich's Music for 18 Musicians and see if Reich shouldn't be suing Sufjan right now.
So what's my point here? I have no idea. I do know that there are probably few things more infuriatingly stupid than writing about writing about music (Would Frank Zappa say that's like dancing about dancing about architecture? Another nerdy reference for you.), so some people are probably reading this and rolling their eyes so far back into their heads that they can see their own brains. But I'm bored and killing a half hour, so indulge me today and I swear I'll write about Snakes on a Plane tomorrow.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
OK... Go watch this
Up until today, I've been fairly indifferent about OK Go since I first heard them. Decent power pop, I suppose. Not really anything special, but not by any means bad either.
Today, I just became a huge fan of OK Go:
I like bands that don't seem to take themselves seriously while doing just that at the same time, and I can't think of a more perfect example than this. Think about the time and effort that had to have gone into that.
Mostly, though, it's great because it's unbelievably fun and inventive. I haven't had this much fun watching a music video since I first saw Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet." My personal favorite part is the move that starts right at 2:19, but it's all fantastic. I also like when the guy in red pants almost falls over at about 1:00.
So anyway, if they did stuff like this at their live shows, I would go see them. But the music, catchy as it is, isn't the best part.
Today, I just became a huge fan of OK Go:
I like bands that don't seem to take themselves seriously while doing just that at the same time, and I can't think of a more perfect example than this. Think about the time and effort that had to have gone into that.
Mostly, though, it's great because it's unbelievably fun and inventive. I haven't had this much fun watching a music video since I first saw Bjork's "It's Oh So Quiet." My personal favorite part is the move that starts right at 2:19, but it's all fantastic. I also like when the guy in red pants almost falls over at about 1:00.
So anyway, if they did stuff like this at their live shows, I would go see them. But the music, catchy as it is, isn't the best part.
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