Wild Beasts-Thankless Thing

There's a small movie theatre near my apartment that makes a bold claim on its marquee. In huge block letters it says, "WORLD'S BEST POPCORN." I'm sure I've had their popcorn at some point in time, but I don't even know if I'd recognize the world's best popcorn if I tasted it. Popcorn is popcorn. Amirite?

But that is not what is important about this marquee. The first time I noticed this pronouncement was when the movie Shame was playing there. So the marquee read, "WORLD'S BEST POPCORN" in huge letters, and centered underneath it, in equally bold type, it said "SHAME." For some reason I cracked up every time I saw it. I think I might be easily amused.

So last night I'm driving by the theatre, and for the first time in a while there's a different movie playing! This time, under "WORLD'S BEST POPCORN" it reads "CARNAGE." At this point I'm feeling like whoever books the movies at this place does so simply to play off the popcorn proclamation on the marquee. It's just too perfect. Below I will detail the scenarios these two movie marquees conjure up in my mind.

WORLD'S BEST POPCORN: SHAME

Oh man, I can't believe I actually came to this film alone. I never do this. Maybe if I slouch down in the seat nobody will notice. Or if I constantly look around expectantly until they dim the lights, people will just assume that I'm waiting for someone... Damn, that popcorn looks good. Do I get the large? No, I can't get the large. That's just weird. Walking to my seat alone with this gigantic tub of popcorn. And I know I'll get the butter topping. I always get the butter topping...

-in seat- Sh*t. Here I am. Just me, this potentially inappropriate NC-17 indie flick, and a fat*ss tub of popcorn. I have officially passed the point of no return. When are they gonna dim these g***amn lights?!

WORLD'S BEST POPCORN: CARNAGE

Ooooh, this movie looks good. A good old-fashioned drama. I'm ready to watch some people suffer. Not suffer suffer, you know. First-world problems suffer. Sprinkle in some passive aggressive, throw in a dash of long-held grudges and petty jealousies, and pretty soon you have a room of white people freaking out on each other! Good times. Hmmmm... I need something to snack on while I watch this prize fight. Sno Caps? A vastly underrated candy, but I'm just not in the mood. Haagen Dazs bar? I feel like that's kind of a loser snack at the movies. It'll probably fall off the stick halfway through, and it'll serve me right for extending my menu past the classic film fare. I'll just go with the old reliable: popcorn.

I love indie movie trailers. I get to get excited about films that will probably only be shown in New York and Los Angeles for the next six months. Mmmm... this one looks good. I can soooo handle subtitles. Wow, this popcorn is good. Even the unpopped kernels are tasty! Does Sony Pictures Classics make every one of these movies? Do they make any money? Do they just hit up the Playstation guys for loans all the time? Mmmmm... tasty. This popcorn rules. The butter sludge is so evenly distributed throughout the tub. Yuuuuummmm. Ooooh! It's a new Audrey Tatou film! Is she ever gonna age? Is she just gonna morph into Juliette Binoche in the middle of one of her movies? Damn! No more popcorn. The movie hasn't even started yet. Fail.


(This Wild Beasts song is beautiful. I haven't heard much of their stuff, but this is a gem. Wow.)

Games-Strawberry Skies/ Oneohtrix Point Never-Sleep Dealer

Here's a partial glimpse of my ever-expanding list of people that suck:

-The guy at the bar for the big game that is so incessantly loud that he makes me want to stop cheering. I'm into it, but when he starts a "DEE-FENSE!" chant during halftime I want to turn around and smack him. He's the one that you just know will start a fight with anyone wearing the opposing team's jersey. I would imagine that his life outside of the bar amounts to approximately sixty hours a week loading sacks of beef jerky onto an eighteen-wheeler. This is as good as it gets.

-The really slow driver that is completely unaware of anything that is going on around him. I'm driving behind him on a city street, and he brakes in front of seven consecutive driveways because he's just not sure where he's going. If you're not capable of counting by two and figuring out the approximate location of your destination, you are not allowed on my roads.

-This one is pretty standard, but the guy on the cell phone in a public place is a big one for me. Especially if it's a sit-down restaurant. The other night this middle-aged man was talking on his phone for twenty-five minutes while we were sitting approximately one foot away from him. Of course this conversation entailed lurid family details about Bethany finally getting up the nerve to leave Frank due to his performance issues in the bedroom. Now I've pretty much accepted that some of the "younger generation" doesn't consider privacy or tact to be a huge priority, but this guy was fifty. I actually said something. I never do that.

-The person who works in any sort of service job and is a total **** to people. For the record, I got a job waiting tables once. I quit after one day. Why, you ask? Because I realized that it wasn't the job for me. I realized that the first person to talk down to me was going to get a platter of beef stroganoff in their grill. It just wasn't my thing. Now if you choose to work in customer service, you make a conscious decision to put up with annoying people. Goes with the territory. If you don't like it, go get a job with the beef jerky loader.

I've already posted about Ford & Lopatin. I still love that album. Well, before these two fellows were called Ford & Lopatin they were called Games. I really love the song "Strawberry Skies." Great vocals and production. 2:17 is bliss. Now this Lopatin fellow also has another project called Oneohtrix Point Never. It's much darker sounding, but also very good. Tweaked video. The Games one is great, too.

Kurt Vile-Jesus Fever

So what do you do for a living?

I'm a high school English teacher.

Oooooh. Sorry. That must be rough. I could NEVER do that.

Ummmm... well... it's actually-

I REALLY respect you guys. I mean I could never do it, but God bless you guys!

Uhh... thanks? But it's actually a really fu-

I mean I would NEVER have the patience to deal with all those annoying teenagers. Ugh. I mean, just spending an hour with my niece is enough. Don't you ever get tired of dealing with them?

Well, actually they're a lot of-

And the pay?! How do you even live out here?

Well, surprisingly, the pay's actually pretty-

Do they have some sort of special teacher housing in the outskirts of South San Francisco or something? Wow, I really respect you guys. WOW.

Yeah, uh thanks! So what do you do?

I do IT for a bank.

HOT BAR: Eddie Money-Shakin'; Billy Squier-The Stroke; Michael Jackson-Dirty Diana; Tina Turner-Private Dancer (live, with multiple awkward solos)

I walk into Whole Foods thinking to myself, "Why am I in Whole Foods? I'm no California granola willing to pay exorbitant prices for grass-fed free-range left-leaning Stanford-educated goat cheese." But I know why I'm here. Because it's a block from my apartment. Because while I hate shopping, I also know that the three quarter-full half gallons of milk in my fridge resemble water samples from the Dagobah System. So I venture in, knowing I'm going to be assaulted by North Face jackets and people in better shape than I am. But I soldier on.

I'm really hungry. And I'm feeling especially edgy today. I don't know if I can brave a full twelve minute shop. F*CK IT, I'LL JUST GET HOT BAR. That's another problem with Whole Foods. As soon as I muster up the courage to do a food shop, I walk in and hot bar stares me in the face. The steam seems to coo at me, "Shaaaaane. You don't reeeeeeally want to boil that water for another meal of tortellini, do you? That's so boring! And frankly, we both know that that's the best case scenario. You'll probably end up throwing an over-priced frozen dinner into your sad little microwave oven, won't you? Wouldn't you rather have meeeee? There's a turkey leg the size of Turkey with your name on it over here. And a greasy pile of macaroni & cheese with that crusty topping you love so much. And look over there! Some vegetables you can throw in to convince yourself that your diet isn't the nutritional equivalent of a heroin addiction. Cooooooome to meeeeeeeeee."

I try to avert my gaze, knowing that one torrid night spent with hot bar is just that: one night. Nobody ever does hot bar leftovers. It just doesn't work. I got this far, I might as well set myself up for the week, right? RIGHT? WROOOOOOONG. There is no escaping hot bar. With a mixture of excitement and despair, I put back my cart and head over to hot bar.

Hot bar always costs at least five dollars more than I anticipate. I put what I think are normal portions into my recyclable container, and somehow my hot bar purchase still adds up to eighteen dollars. That's where the shame starts creeping in. Then I go home and eat, and I realize where that eighteen dollars came from. It's too much food. But I can't stop. It tastes good, and hot bar leftovers are a no no. By the time I'm done with hot bar I have no food for the rest of the week, and I feel so fat and disgusting that I have to take a cold shower to try to wash away the shame.

Every once in a while a song will come on that makes me feel hot bar. It's just slimy. If hot bar was a person, it'd be a smug, middle-aged, slightly rotund man named Fred that makes a good living selling insurance, and wants everyone to know about it. Fred drives a Thunderbird, and likes to fancy himself a ladies man. People kinda hate Fred. The following YouTubes are the songs Fred listens to in his Thunderbird.

Eddie Money is so hot bar. Kinda good hot bar, but still hot bar. He's probably in a dive bar in the Keys right now, hitting on some fifty-seven-year-old lady with leathery skin and a bad boob job.



Classic hot bar. This guy will still be wearing male-camel-toe pants when he's in a nursing home. So uncomfortable. He probably gets really drunk and obnoxious at Squier family reunions. "UH OH. UNCLE BILLY GOT INTO THE TEQUILLA AGAIN."



I was seriously traumatized when this video came out. Uh, Mike? Who's this "Dirty Diana" you speak of? Who have you been hanging out with lately? Come home, Mike. Please.



Tina has always been a trailblazer, and with "Private Dancer," she once again broke new ground for women. That new ground was hot bar. This song came out when I was seven, and I just didn't get it. Is Tina saying she's gonna be a stripper? Why would she write a song about it? Whaaaaa? Add to it a live performance featuring a steamy sax scene with our hero Tim Capello, and this song's got hot bar written all over it. I think the concert promoters gave out gift baskets with Viagra samples at this show.

Pink Floyd-Sheep/Led Zeppelin-Traveling Riverside Blues; How Many More Times/The Doors-Strange Days

I finished the last section of Let's Talk About Love: A Journey To The End of Taste, and I took some interesting points from it. One main one is this: musical discourse might be more open and "democratic" if we have conversations that are less about whether or not our musical taste is better or worse than other people's. If the conversation is framed more in terms of, "Wow, we have completely opposite musical taste. I wonder what in our backgrounds lead to that?" it might result in more engaging, and less dismissive and misguidedly pretentious dialogue. After all, one man's Meat(loaf) is another man's Poison. (groan?)

This all sounds so lovey-dovey, group therapy-ish that I could almost puke (say that last line in a Holden voice), and I don't expect to turn into some kind of weirdo music socialist ( ;) ), but it made me reflect back on the origins and shaping of my musical taste. A somewhat recent influence arose around the year 2000, when I started going (borderline living) on the internet and researching music through various methods, such as discussion boards, reading about bands or albums, and downloading all sorts of music. But if I really go back to the beginning, I'll probably find myself in a cluttered basement in Westhampton, New York.

Before the age of eight or so, my experiences with music were limited to Kasey Kasem's top 40 on the radio, and Solid Gold, the weekly top 40 program, on the television. My Dad gets about seventy-five gold stars for liking Prince, but other than that our music-related conversations were something along the lines of, "Dad, why is Crystal Gayle's hair so long? Does she trip on it? Is it used for Rapunzel purposes?" We watched whoever happened to be on that week, be it Kool & the Gang, Laura Branigan, or Hall & Oates.

My step-brothers were the ones that introduced me to the concept of obsessing about bands and listening to more than just the songs that happened to be playing on the radio at the time. When I would come over to their house, I would inevitably end up in the basement, a young boy's wonderland that consisted of a pool table, a dart board, and a foosball table. They were about eight years older than me, so of course I thought they were way cool. When Robert Plant started braying over the stereo about squeezing lemons (a pretty bizarre metaphor in retrospect), and Roger Waters started moaning about "one of [his] turns coming on," I was immediately hooked. Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and The Doors were of course fm staples, but my brothers fostered in me a maniacal love in these bands that has since filtered over into other groups like Radiohead, The Beatles, and Brian Eno. The latter artists have more "music nerd" cache to them, but most people don't even know who the hell Brian Eno is, much less get to hear his music (which is kind of a bummer, cause it's not all as out there as some people assume).

I'll start with Pink Floyd. It's much "cooler" to be into Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. It's more artsy sounding, less bloated, and seems to take itself less seriously. And Barrett totally lost his sh*t on acid and went crazy, which is mega cool!!!! Don't get me wrong, I definitely enjoy Piper At the Gates of Dawn and some other Syd Barrett stuff, but i definitely have much more of a connection to Roger Waters-era Pink Floyd. Sure, some of the lyrics are insufferable, and some of David Gilmour's guitar solos are about as emotive as aluminum siding, but there are still a bunch of great songs. And the memories each of these songs conjure up are endless. Take the song "Sheep" from the album Animals (my favorite PF album). I love the plaintive intro, then the way Water's vocals are eaten alive at the end of each line by the synths and the raging guitars. The surprisingly unrestrained guitar solo at the end is also perfectly in line with the lyrics.

My step-brothers and I knew ever Zeppelin song by heart. Well, almost. I butchered some lines, and never heard the end of it. "IIIIIIIIII'm not trying to find it" from "Misty Mountain Hop" somehow turned into "llllllllaaaaaaaaaatrafayeeeeeeeeeh." Phonetically it almost worked. Needless to say, we loved Zeppelin, and when we heard that there were going to be two non-album tracks on the then-new box set, it was almost too exciting to handle. When those two songs turned out to be "Traveling Riverside Blues" and "Hey Hey What Can I Do," our seemingly unrealistic expectations were exceeded. Two great songs, one a rollicking blues rocker (I had to say that corny phrase once in my life), and the other a sad acoustic number about a guy that's... uh, dating a prostitute? The naivety of youth made me think they were just arguing over cereal preference or something. To this day I don't really look too deeply into Plant's lyrics (good thing-cause most of them, "TRB" for one, aren't even his.) I left out the "HHWCID" YouTube and threw in "How Many More Times," because it's my favorite Zeppelin song. It's just monstrous. I don't care if the section from 6:38 to the end of the song is the most c*ck-rock, over-the-top thing ever, it still rules. And John Paul Jones, ever the underrated Led Zeppelin member, anchors the whole song with his rolling bass line.

"Strange Days" is probably my favorite Doors song. I can't really escape the fact that Morrison's lyrics are really corny, but the bass playing in this song is awesome. At 2:04 it sounds like there's psychotic rubber bands flying all over the place. Not quite sure what's up with this video, though. MIDGETS AND JUGGLERS ARE STRANGE! And then there's Ray Manzarek walking behind them, who's about as strange as a public accountant shopping at Best Buy. Anyway, the imagery in this video is as bang-you-over-the-head as many of Morrison's lyrics. Oh, wait. Am I lapsing back into music snob mode? NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Jim Morrison is a talented musician with many things to offer a diversified modern audience. Gosh darn it, I like him!

Celine Dion-You Shook Me All Night Long (live) ; The Cults-Go Outside/You Know What I Mean; The Ronettes-He Did It

I'm almost done with a great book from the 33 1/3 book series. This is a series for serious music nerds. Each book is written on a "classic" album; it's either an in-depth account of the record, or a creative piece inspired by it. The unique aspect of the book I'm reading is that it's the only entry in the series that is dedicated to an album that the author totally hates.

The book is called Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, and the thing that makes it so great is that he puts his (and our) taste on trial. How much of taste is actually aesthetic taste, and how much of it is conforming to, or, at least in our minds, subverting the taste of "the herd"? He talks about philosophy, economics, Dion's place in Canada's psyche, and how taste often comes down to distinction: a way of distinguishing yourself from people that you consider to be beneath (or above) you.

If I'm honest with myself, I would say that I'm definitely a "snob" when it comes to music, books, film, etc. But what does that mean? I know that when I listen to certain music it moves me to a much greater extent than other music, but how much of my taste is at least to a certain extent dictated by my wanting to distinguish myself from others? For instance, why do I hate Train so much? The fact that they sound uninspired, premeditated, disingenuous, and capable of effectively substituting for Valium has to be part of it, but why is the feeling so visceral? I MUST BE GETTING SOMETHING OUT OF THAT HATE. I need some musical therapy, obviously.

This first video might be Celine at her worst. This performance wasn't even mentioned in the book, but it was branded in my mind like a mass slaughter of Teddy Ruxpin dolls witnessed by an overly sentimental five-year-old. It's. Just. SO BAD. I blame it more on the people who told her that this would be a cool thing to do than on her. But still! The dichotomy that is Dione is perfectly illustrated by the likes and dislikes: a very high number that is split almost perfectly down the middle. Even the top two comments are defensive reactions to the inevitable vitriol that is spewed in the comments below.

The Cults are viewed by some as a "guilty pleasure" (a concept which is also discussed in this book). I wouldn't go so far as to label them that. They actually do a really good job of emulating 60s girl groups. My only issue is that in the live clips I've seen, the lead singer uses effects on her vocals, instead of trying to approximate the studio versions with the creative use of background singers. Not a huge complaint, because her voice is still pretty good.

The "Go Outside" video is actually a bit creepy. Superimposing yourself into Jonestown footage is interesting, but almost a little uncomfortable. Good song, though. "You Know What I Mean" perfectly captures the 50s and 60s girl group sound and feel. Speaking of which, here is "He Did It," one of my favorite Ronettes songs. The band kicks so much ass, and has to in order to keep up with Ronnie Spector's absolute monster of a voice.

Casual Sax? (Tim Capello-I Still Believe/Eleanor Friedberger-My Mistakes/Curtis Mayfield-Little Child Runnin' Wild)

The saxophone. One of the most (unfairly?) maligned instruments in music. The root of its issues seems to be a lack of subtlety. While many other instruments lend themselves to fitting in with a group, the saxophone often comes across as a bit over the top-like an over-sized, gaudy ring. Granted, I'm not an expert on sax (baha, first of many too-easy-to-pass-up puns in this post), but the majority of times I hear the saxophone, it's about as subtle as twenty-two inch rims on a Toyota Celica. I'm just gonna keep going with these comparisons. AS SUBTLE AS RAIN ON YOUR WEDDING DAY. No, that's ironic. No, that just sucks. Never mind. Damn you, Alanis.

The first video I'll post is a classic, but mostly for the wrong reasons. This is an example of bad sax. Some people say that bad sax is better than no sax at all (I can't stop-what's wrong with me?), but I'm not sure with this one. Just eight seconds in, it sounds like someone's blowing their nose through the saxophone. Then if you freeze the video at exactly 1:15, you'll see everything that's wrong with this song. You should not be a shirtless, lathered up with body oil, gyrating professional wrestler look-alike while playing the saxophone. It just doesn't seem right. You can even see Jason Patric turn to Corey Haim right afterwards and give him a look like, "Can you believe this guy? Oh well, I'm just here to hit on Jami Gertz anyway!" Lost Boys is a great 80s movie, though. NOTE: TRAGICALLY, I CAN'T EMBED THE VISUAL PORTION OF THIS VIDEO. JUST GO TO http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdaaGlyu7EQ TO CHECK IT OUT. TRUST ME, IT'S WORTH IT.

Now on to what I consider to be good sax. The kind of sax you won't hear in Panera Bread. First up is the song "My Mistakes" by Eleanor Friedberger. This is Friedberger's first solo album-she's done a few albums with her brother as The Fiery Furnaces. The Fiery Furnaces are good, but a bit hit or miss. "My Mistakes" is a catchy song, with a great video. The song sounds almost desperately upbeat, and I think the lyrics and video reflect that. I really love the sax solo at the end, because it saves the song from getting monotonous, and is exuberant without crossing over into the d****erzone (that didn't say danger).

Curtis Mayfield was just amazing, and of course his music would have great saxophone in it. It does a "call and response" with many of the lines in "Little Child Runnin' Wild," and adds to the tension and feel of the song. Cool can be a corny word, but when the alternative for saxophone is so obtrusive and lame, it's actually the perfect word.

Yamantaka//Sonic Titan-Queens

There are many wonderful aspects of the holiday season. Family, food, and time to just take a breath and reflect on all the things I'm sometimes too preoccupied to appreciate during the year. After a busy year of work and stress, it's great to refuel for a few days, before the spring semester starts and it all gets rolling again.

Of course, there is a dark side to the holiday season. A beast that haunts me throughout the year, but only really unfurls its poisonous talons between Thanksgiving and Christmas. During the year I try to avoid the beast using a variety of methods. I turn potentially forty minute trips to Safeway into five minute sprints. I go straight to the staples of cereal, milk, oj, and three to five tv dinners, eschewing extraneous items that might require any real time spent in the midst of all the other harried customers.

I also avoid this beast by shopping at one clothing store: a fast, cheap, and easy to navigate store that allows me to quickly find the clothes that appeal to my rather limited fashion sense. Sometimes this store is in a mall, and if it is, I find out ahead of time what sector it is in. If it's closest to Macy's, I walk through Macy's and avoid all unnecessary contact with the beast.

The beast, if you haven't figured out already, is the shopper. The most dangerous species of the beast is the mall shopper, and hunting season for the mall shopper is between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Oftentimes the beast is dragging two to three of their young along, occasionally giving them food, drink, or early presents to ensure servitude. The beast doesn't necessarily look threatening; on the contrary, the beast moves in a slow, loping fashion that belies their innately aggressive nature. It is only when the mall shoppers spot potential prey, be it an Old Navy fleece on a sale rack, or a massage chair at Brookstone, that they spring to life and pounce.

The mall shopper tends to travel in packs, and during the holidays these packs turn into huge blobs of bag-lugging, sale-spotting predators. I am unnerved by the mall shopper throughout the year, but during this time I am deathly afraid of them. I simply cannot avoid walking through the mall, because I have to buy presents for so many people. I end up jetting through the mall like a Secret Service agent who's just received a call over the walkie talkie about an impending attempt on the president's life. I weave in and out of the crowds, making myself as skinny and invisible as possible. Even if I'm tempted by a Jamba Juice or Chick Fil-A restaurant, I press on, knowing that the longer I'm at the mall, the greater the possibility that I, too, will fall prey to the dreaded shopping mall beast.

I don't know the band Yamantaka // Sonic Titan. I don't even know if it's one band, or some sort of collaborative deal. I heard that the album was supposed to be good, and so I listened to this song as a sample. This song rules (1:31 RAWK), and I hope the rest of the album does, too. Check out the album cover! Cool album cover.

Ford and Lopatin-World of Regret/Emergency Room; Devo-Satisfaction/Mongoloid

Every once in a while, a linguistic mini-revolution takes place. An uprising which entails the "taking back" of a derogatory term, in which the unfairly maligned subgroup will transfom the term from a negative one into a positive one. Recently I've seen the word "nerd" being worn more as a badge of honor than the shameful signpost of social awkwardness and isolation it represented when I was a kid.

Maybe it's due to famous nerds, such as Mo Rocca or Bill Gates, who have either made nerdy kinda cool, or become rich enough to buy the rights to every dictionary on the planet and simply change the definition. Maybe it's because getting into college is so competitive these days, and some kids have just been forced into nerd status in order to keep up with the herd (the nerd herd, that is).

Whatever it is, I for one am glad that nerds are in. I always picture Michael Douglas' iconic scene from Wall Street, when he, in essence, changes the connotation of the word greed from negative to positive. The point is, ladies and gentleman, that nerds, for lack of a better word, are good. Nerds are right, nerds work. Nerds clarify, cut through, and capture the essence of the nerdy spirit. Nerds, in all of their forms; music nerds, art nerds, reading nerds, video game nerds, film nerds, math nerds, science nerds. And nerds, you mark my words, will not only save Nerdcorp, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much. (cue nerd applause)

The thing that's cool about being a nerd is it implies that there is a passion for something. Be it music, art, books, film, airplanes, whatever. It implies not being a slug, sitting on the couch, and passively watching the world go by. By definition, almost, it entails throwing oneself into an endeavor wholeheartedly. And that's how people get good at stuff. At least according to that Outliers book by Malcolm Gladwell. Just get started early, cause 10,000 hours in nerdland is still a lot of hours.

Ford & Lopatin are two dudes who make nerdy-sounding electronic music that is heavily influenced by Gary Neuman, Kraftwerk, and other "older" electronic music acts. Their album Channel Pressure is really great. "World of Regret" and "Emergency Room" are both catchy, and "World of Regret" has an amazingly corny video.

Devo will certainly go down in the Nerd Hall of Fame. Their album Are We Not Men?: We Are Devo is almost impeccable. Jagged, paranoid sounding, with great instrumentation, lyrics, and overall concept. Their cover of "Satisfaction" is amazing (check out the perfection at 1:49), and if "Mongoloid" began and ended with that evil bass line, it would be a classic. The whole song is great, though.

Nero-Reaching Out/Hall & Oates-Out of Touch/De La Soul-Say No Go/Hall & Oates-I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)

Age-wise, I'm right on the border in terms of whether my largest source of nostalgia should be drawn from the 80s or the 90s. However, I turned 13 in 1990, and was becoming more social and peer-oriented by that point, as opposed to during the 80s, when I watched more TV and, consciously or not, generally soaked up more pop culture. It's not that I was oblivious by any stretch in the early 90s, but my consumption of popular culture was more along the lines of listening to Pearl Jam, Nirvana, or Wu Tang in a car on the way to a friend's house, as opposed to the 80s, when I could often be found listening to Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" on Kasey Kasem's America's Top 40, while fiddling around with my Speak N' Spell and watching Hulk Hogan throw down with The Iron Sheik.

I'm ok with this, because as fun as the 90s are, the 80s have much more of a distinct feel to them. Sure, it's a corny, big-haired, pastel feel, but it's very comforting and non-threatening just the same. The 80s seems very safe, pleasant, and cooky, like the lead actor in "The Greatest American Hero." This perception could be due to the naive lens that children almost inevitably view the world through, until the proverbial wool is pulled from before their eyes. I remember watching Ronald Reagan's slowly deteriorating mind, Ollie North's Iran Contra testimony, and Clarence Thomas' sexual harassment hearings with my dad and feeling like they had all the gravitas of a "Sesame Street" episode. If I had had the awareness at the time that I do now, I'm sure I'd have been listening to "Cuyahoga" by REM and bemoaning the fate of our nation, instead of jumping around to Kool & the Gang and belly-laughing at the drug violence on "Miami Vice" episodes.

The 80s also seem to have more retro-hipster-marketable-nostalgia legs than the 90s. Let's face it, not that many people want to bring flannel shirts and grimy hair back into style. Cigarette boats and sports cars have a bit more mass appeal to them. Some musical acts don't need nostalgia to give them staying power, however. Hall and Oates were huge in the 80s. They wrote great pop songs, and, in retrospect, were great soul singers as well. They owned the Top 40 charts for a time during the 80s.

Nero is one of the most popular dubstep artists around right now. Now, I like dubstep, but sometimes it grates. I generally prefer drum & bass, because the beats seem to be more smoothly integrated into a song, instead of having a "song" with two to three 8.1 on the Richter Scale wobbly bass drops thrown in. Not all dubstep is like this, but a lot is, and it can get old. Some other Nero tracks like "Innocence," (which I kinda like, but only in small doses) employ this tactic, but "Reaching Out" is thankfully a little more smooth and subtle. It also skillfully samples the great Hall & Oates song "Out of Touch."

De La Soul is one of the greatest rap groups ever. One of the many amazing tracks on their classic album Three Feet High and Rising samples the incredible Hall & Oates song, "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)." It's done so well, and the lyrics, flow, production and video (with a slick little Nancy Reagan [the "Just Say No" queen] cameo) is awesome. One of the best songs, on one of the best albums, ever.

NOTES: I could go off on both of these Hall & Oates videos, but that would just take too long. Suffice it to say that they're chock full of delightful 80s music video cliches. And there are commercials to be suffered through for at least two of these youtubes. Sorry, but I feel like they're worth it to watch the videos.

M83-Midnight City/My Bloody Valentine-I Only Said/Autechre-Dael

I like weird noises. When I was a kid, I was drawn to the strange noises in video games; as I got older, the distorted bleeps and bloops of electronic music also appealed to me. My friends and I would try to emulate the noises we heard, even using them to replace certain words or phrases in our vocabulary. For instance (and this was in the immature obnoxious phase that has hopefully at least for the most part ended), if my friends and I were in the room with someone that did something lame or annoying, instead of saying, "Ummm, I disagree with that statement. Perhaps you might consider another point of view," we would make a sound that simulated the swift opening and closing of a door that symbolically represented that person quickly leaving the room.

Certain phrases would evolve into completely unrecognizable noises that only we knew phonetically represented the original ones. For example, "uh, uh," changed to "eh, eh," which changed to "SHUUUUHHHH WEEEEEHHHHH EEEEEEHHHHH!" Perhaps the most famous example is a slurred plea for "Ritz Bitz with cheese" morphing into a term that will forever be implanted into the collective lexicon of approximately eight to ten people worldwide.

M83 has a very popular album this year. I've only listened to it a few times, and I'm still a bit on the fence. It is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, REALLY EPIC. Everything sounds larger than life. It makes The Arcade Fire sound like Elliot Smith. The song "Midnight City" is undeniably great, though, and the accompanying video is also solid. The track is grounded in a repeated noise that was created by electronically warping the lead singer/main guy's voice. It's pretty awesome. It reminds me very much of the repeated jubilant dolphin bleating sound in "I Only Said" by My Bloody Valentine. The whole song is great, but listen to how grimy the guitars get at 3:00, juxtaposed with the soaring beauty (yeah, I said it) of the entwined leaping dolphin lovers at 3:18.

Autechre, on the other hand, are COLD AS ICE. They're Darth Vader's pissed off mother-in law. They're the guy that can make Hannibal Lecter eat his own liver. They're the end of the world, and NOBODY CARES. And yes, they're a bit monotonous at times (but not really, you just gotta hang in there a bit). And the noises are so great. Especially the beginning. THUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMM CHICKITAH WEEEEEEEERRRR THUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMM CHICKITAH WEEEEEEEERRRR. So good.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra-Ffunny Ffriends/Pointer Sisters-Yes We Can Can

So it's that time of the year again. Time to hop on a plane and fly to Florida. For the first time in my life, I'm feeling a little bit burnt on flying to the East Coast all the time. Between trips to NYC, Florida, and other random destinations, I feel like every break from school I get is spent on airplanes.

I've always liked flying, but there are a few annoying aspects. At this point it almost seems like a certainty that if I check bags on a multiple-leg flight, they're gonna get delayed somewhere. Finding them then entails communicating with the missing links behind the counter of the lost baggage desk, who all seem to be perpetually relearning the procedures necessary to track down lost bags.

My own special brand of incompetence also adds to the little frustrations of traveling. As I mosey up to the security checkpoint, it suddenly dawns upon me THAT I FORGOT TO PUT MY HAIR GEL AND TOOTHPASTE INTO A LITTLE TWO OUNCE ZIP-LOCK BAG! Of course they're both brand new and filled to the brim. So I hand them over to the smug security guy, and look forward to using Wal-Mart hair gel for two weeks. It takes quality hair products to tame this fro, and unfortunately they don't stock them at Wal-Mart.

When I'm on a five hour flight, I usually figure that I should kill an hour and a half watching the in-flight film. I love to read, but I'm not gonna read for five hours. I was excited to see Midnight in Paris in the United entertainment guide; I even purchased earphones, because I left mine in the bag they forced me to check due to a full flight (no comment). So the TV lights up, and I lean back and nestle into my quasi-comfortable seat. Does Owen Wilson's smushed nose turn up on my screen? NO. It's Tom Hanks, playing an everyman schmuck who gets laid off from Best Buy and takes Julia Robert's public speaking class as a last ditch attempt to make something of himself. He even meets a hipster bicycle gang that dresses him up in cool threads. So yeah. 5 BLOODY STARS.

One thing to look forward to are all the year-end music lists that will help me consolidate the vast amounts of music I'd like to check out. It's just too overwhelming at times during the year to sort through the endless streams of music that come out. I've already started listening to recommendations, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra's "Ffunny Ffriends" is one of my favorites. I'm used to rap sampling funk songs, but this is a great example of a rock song skillfully sampling a great old funk song. Growing up I knew the Pointer Sisters from songs like "The Neutron Dance" and "I'm So Excited," but "Yes We Can Can" might be my favorite song of theirs I've heard.

Supergrass-Late in the Day/Pulp-Common People/Oasis (Noel Gallagher)-Don't Look Back in Anger

I feel like John Lennon towards the end of his Beatles career, when he was all burnt out and felt like he had nothing to write about. Unfortunately, I don't think I've built up the credibility to be able to copy posts from corn flakes commercials and circus posters and get away with it. On the other hand, it's fortunate that I don't have a blogging partner named Paul whose excellence juxtaposed with my mediocrity would make me look even worse. (For the record, John had some great songs on later Beatles records. "Good Morning, Good Morning" sucks, though).

The only thing I can think of to write about is 70s movies and documentaries. I've been really obsessed with both lately. I'm simply gonna list some of the ones I've seen lately, along with my reactions, thus absolving me of any responsibility to create a cohesive narrative with any sort of intrinsic entertainment value.

70s movies:

Midnight Cowboy-stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voigt. Paints a pretty bleak picture of city life. Dustin Hoffman is amazing as a tripped out hustler, and Voigt is perfect as a simpleton hillbilly. Kinda like the Odd Couple on crack.

Kramer vs. Kramer-stars Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. They get divorced in the beginning, Streep running away to get her mind right. Hoffman goes from being work-obsessed and fairly uninterested in parenting to completely devoted to his son. Brutal court battle towards the end. Amazingly acted and pretty touching. YEAH I SAID IT. I WAS TOUCHED. EMOTIONALLY.

Manhattan-Incredible cinematography (made me fall in love with NYC for the 753rd time). Creepy premise but well-acted.

Annie Hall-More Woody Allen greatness. Diane Keaton is so cool. Just goofy and awkward and awesome.

Network-GREAT. Such amazing satire of the news, and media in general. Faye Dunaway and Peter Finch are both amazing.

Documentaries:

The Thin Blue Line: Documentary about a man who was falsely found guilty of killing a cop in Texas. This movie was so great, it actually helped overturn the case.

The Kid Stays in The Picture: Fascinating documentary about the man who produced The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby, Marathon Man, and Chinatown. He also narrates it and has one of the best voices ever.

Hoop Dreams: Profile of two high school basketball prospects growing up in Chicago. Great insight into both of their lives.

Rolling Stones: Stones in Exile-Doc about the Stones recording Exile on Main Street in the south of France and Memphis. It's one of my favorite records ever, and any documentary about the Stones in the 60s and 70s is automatically gonna be great.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son about his Father: BRUTAL. Really good doc, but just soul-crushingly sad.

Ok, that's about enough. So Britpop! I'm not a huge Britpop guy, but there were some great songs to come out of the scene. One of my absolute favorites is "Late in the Day" by Supergrass. The whole album In It For the Money is great. "Common People" by Pulp has amazing lyrics, and I love this version of Oasis's "Don't Look Back in Anger."

Real Estate-It's Real; Elite Gymnastics-Omamori/Here, In Heaven 2

Why did we do the nice thing and let this random guy get on the lift with us? I'm positive that he's gonna fall over on me when we get off. Not to be ageist, but it's kind of a red flag when a sixty-three year old gets on the lift with a snowboard. There's four of us on the lift, and I'm alone on the outside. He's probably thinking he'd rather take out one person rather than two. The tenuous way he's balancing his board on his left leg, constantly shifting his weight back and forth. I'm screwed. I shoot my friends an eye roll, and they both laugh silently. 1...2...3...4. We get off, and he inexplicably goes right instead of left! He face-plants all over my friends, and I slide smoothly to the top of the run.

When they catch up we go down together, the cool breeze blowing against our faces. The day is perfect: just enough powder, but not too much so that your board sinks four feet under every time you stop. The runs never last long enough, but this one is perfect. It's got enough incline to get speed, and there isn't the usual congestion. Usually there's skiers leisurely traversing, without any realization of the people flying off the run to avoid taking them out. Or the psycho speed racer snowboarders who feel like they get extra points if they fly by people with the slimmest possible margin, leaving their victims physically intact but emotionally traumatized. Or the kiddie lessons, where the instructor drags seven to ten four-year-olds behind him. This is a cute scene, but when you come out of nowhere and they're spread across the entire run practicing pizza and french fries, sometimes it's a choice between Timmy and an oak tree.

But the runs today have been generally free of traffic. As I turn the last corner and the main lodge comes into sight, I'm both disappointed and relieved. It's been a great day, but my legs feel like overcooked fettucini. I can tell I'm tired because instead of picking up speed by riding mostly on my toe edge, more and more I'm easing back onto my heel and gliding down. I fantasize about chugging a cranberry grapefruit SOBE in one gulp, which somehow instantly feels like the equivalent of a Super Mario Bros. Power Up Mushroom. I see us getting back to the cabin, starting a warm fire and relaxing in front of it. I feel the feeling of ripping my pulverized feet out of my boots and taking a warm shower.

Snow season is coming up, and I'm getting excited. I'm also excited because for the first time in a long time I've found some interesting new music. Real Estate and Elite Gymnastics both have really good new albums. The Real Estate album Days is melodic, jangly guitar pop. It doesn't blow me away, but it's really good, and I love the song "It's Real." The Elite Gymnastics Ruin album is half up tempo with breakbeats and Spirited Away-ish samples, and half more ambient and down tempo. I put an example of each. It's impossible to choose a favorite song from the first half of the album, but "Omamori" is solid. "Here, in Heaven 2" might be my favorite downtempo song.

New Potentially Crappy Impoverished Waitress Series "2 Broke Girls" Simply Needs to be Combined with Old Impoverished Waitress Series "Alice"

Another TV show promo I saw a lot during my 49er-game-watching last week was for 2 Broke Girls, a show about two broke twenty-something waitresses trying to make it in the big city. One a former heiress that has lost it all, and one a regular old gal that has been broke her entire life. So it's kind of the opposite of The Great Gatsby. The blonde Paris Hilton look-alike is "new broke", and the brunette is "old broke." Since in this world knowing the ins and outs of living in the "lower class" is valued, the blonde is inevitably the butt of most of the jokes. Now you might be saying, "Boy you sure do know a lot about this show for only having watched one minute long clip." Well, I watched the series preview too, I just didn't want to inflict that on you.

So this show might not end up being awful, but the biggest issue I can see is that these actresses were hired for being good-looking. It's not that funny and good-looking are mutually exclusive, but when you watch their chemistry, it all seems really stilted and awkward. Check out this clip-especially their reactions to each others' jokes at the very end:



CAUSE YOU KNOW THEY ALWAYS INVENTORY THE FURS, BITCH! [nervous giggles and awkward smiles at each other]

Obviously what this show needs is a little infusion of an old school waitress sitcom, which dealt with the actual realities of the crappy diner universe.

Are the waitresses generally good looking? NO

Do they generally make jokes that don't just beneath the surface reek of sadness and desperation? NO

Is the clientele generally well-adjusted and not at least partially hating life themselves? NO

Cue the classic TV show Alice, where the waitresses were unattractive, the star was a down-on-her-luck single mother, the other two waitresses were endearing weirdos (Flo, a Southern lady with an acid tongue and a killer catchphrase, and Vera, a bird-brained Olive Oil look-alike), the clientele was uber-creepy, and the head cook was a REAL a**h**e. Just the first minute is enough to get a general idea of the awesomeness:



I'm gonna write an episode of 2 Broke Girls where these two lilly white prima donnas get a job at Mel's Diner. Here goes:

- Max (old broke brunette) and Caroline (new broke blonde) get fired from their old waitressing job for a massive fraud scheme that involves charging $2.96 for a side order of hash browns instead of $2.95. They don't do it because they really think they can make that much money from it, but just because they a) want to see if they can get away with it, and b) both kinda want to get fired, thinking that their endless auditions for parts as extras in NYC sidewalk scenes are finally gonna start paying off in larger roles.

- The sidewalk scenes go nowhere, so they once again resort to looking for waitressing work. Word of their dishonesty has spread around to most of the city diners, so they have to get a job at a suburban joint called Mel's. There's already three waitresses there, but the head cook is a creep and wants to hire some "young blood." He doesn't really care about their shady past, because he thinks he can intimidate anyone into keeping in line.

- Their first day is packed, so all five waitresses are working. Flo immediately sees that Max is gonna need to be kept in line, so she brings the thunder with three obscure animal-related Southern putdowns-Max can only figure out that they're insults by Flo's tone and delivery and the overly boisterous laugh track-and five "KISS MY GRITS." Max immediately learns her place in the pecking order.

- Caroline and Vera immediately bond. Caroline is the only one who doesn't laugh at Vera's antics, because she's just grateful that someone has replaced her as the most clueless person on staff. Alice and Mel, on the other hand, have zero patience for Caroline's prissiness. Alice simply gives her the death stare, but Mel constantly destroys her with brutal one-liners delivered in that vicious bark he's so well known for. At the end of the episode Caroline is crouching in the corner, rocking back and forth and repeating the names of her favorite designers.

- When Max sees what Mel has done to her friend, she decides to take drastic action. Flo just so happens to be cooking a big batch of grits at the time. After Mel scolds Alex for ordering eggs over easy instead of scrambled, Alex picks up the entire vat of piping hot grits, and throws them at Mel's face, screaming in slow motion, "KIIIIISSSSSS THEEEEEEESSSEE, MUUUTTHHA***********!" Mel is left permanently disfigured, which surprisingly ends up being an improvement. Flo offs Max by turning her into a human omelette-not for what she did to Mel, which they had all been wanting to do for a while themselves-but for ripping off her catchphrase.

TRYING SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT: Writing Hypothetical Episodes for Potentially Horrible Series. First up is Unforgettable

I admit it: I'm bored with my blog. And as I was watching the first Dolphins game on TV thus far this year (I'm waiting for you, fairy godmother Deion Sanders), I finally found my inspiration for something different to try.

The inspiration was the trailer for what looks like a truly terrible television show. Granted, it could be good (I don't mean that at all-it's just in case somebody out there watches it and has a tendency to get defensive), but I'm gonna go along with the assumption that it's crap.

So what I want to try to do is, based solely on my viewing of this really cringe-inducing promo (which unfortunately isn't online-there's plenty others, though), I'm going to write an episode of the show. I'm not going to take a lot of time to do this, because frankly, I don't think the premise deserves that much of my time. OR DOES IT?! Anyway, here is a trailer. The acting isn't quite as awful as in the one I just saw on TV, but it's still a doozy. There are just a couple of words I'd want to change in the script.



Truly amazing stuff. My thinking is that the text on the screen shouldn't say:

SIX PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE THE ABILITY TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING. ONLY ONE OF THEM IS A COP.

Instead, it should quite obviously say:

SIX PEOPLE IN THE UNITED STATES HAVE THE ABILITY TO REMEMBER EVERYTHING. ONLY ONE OF THEM IS THIS HOT.

Ok, so here goes nothing. First episode:

-At the beginning of the episode, a Chuckie Cheese employee gets drowned to death in the ball pit by approximately fifteen crazed ten-year-olds who felt shortchanged at that counter where you exchange red tickets for cheaply made trinkets and toys.

- The manager is under suspicion, because he has a record of intentionally overcooking the pizzas, watching it burn the roofs of the mouths of unsuspecting customers, and cackling like a weirdo in the corner. That's actually illegal in Wyoming.

- Detective Unforgettable Red Hair Dye Job waits until the Chuckie Cheese is closed for the night, and goes in there alone, cause who does she need? She remembers everything! She put whole units out of a job when the police department got her resume.

- The manager is innocent, but the fifteen kids are actually his kids, because while he's not guilty of murder, he is guilty of running a Branch Davidian-like compound, where he has seven wives and thirty-two children.

- While the manager had some of his children do his dirty work in the ball pit, now that the heat has been turned up, he's willing to sacrifice himself. While Detective Unf is doing her thing, the manager creeps out of the shadows in full Chuckie mouse (looks more lke a rat to me) mascot costume, wielding a pizza-cutter-upper-into-sections thingie.

- When she sees him, her mind is instantly flooded with every creepy anthropomorphized animal mascot experience she's ever had. The time she ran into Mickey Mouse's arms at Disney World, and the voice came out like a sixty-five year old homeless man on a bender. The time Donald Duck's quacking sounded more like he was yacking up his breakfast (which subsequently made her yack on her little brother when she got on the Teacups ride).

- The one thing that made her the best detective also made her the worst combatant in a woman-versus-pizza slicer competition. She ended up in twelve equal pieces, and the writers (thankfully) unintentionally wrote themselves out of a show.

Q Lazzarus-Goodbye Horses/Brian Eno-Baby's on Fire/Tricky-Ponderosa

It's weird what scares people. I had been sick all last week, so I seriously slacked on getting together my costume (actually I usually slack, unless it's some simple pun costume). I grabbed a clown mask at Walgreen's fifteen minutes before the party started Friday night. I expected to walk in and have to make excuses as to why I had such a boring costume on, compared to all the elaborate Chinese take-out and Chiquita Banana costumes.

Boy, was I wrong. People were cowering in corners, whimpering like six-year-olds that think they've seen a monster under their bed. Three times I was having a conversation with a person and they said, in an even tone always on the verge of cracking, "I'm sorry, but we are going to be unable to carry on this conversation with that thing on your face." So I guess in the end the costume was a hit!

I had a scary music post last year, but this one's gonna go in a slightly different direction. "Goodbye Horses" by Q Lazarus existed before the movie Silence of the Lambs, but the scene in that film turned it into one of the scariest songs ever. Every time it comes on, I get chills and need to take a cold shower. You know what I mean if you've seen it. The scene's been spoofed to death, but a million spoofs can't stop that movie from being genuinely frightening.

Brian Eno is really good at making scary music. Last year I put one of his electronic songs in the scary music post, but "Baby's on Fire" gets its scariness from the vocals, lyrics, insane Robert Fripp guitars, and general oppressively dark atmosphere. Thankfully there's a bit of tongue-in-cheek in there too, cause 70s Brian Eno actually looks a lot like Silence of the Lambs's Buffalo Bill. TOO CLOSE FOR COMFS.

The last track, Tricky's "Ponderosa," isn't really scary, but it has a dark mood, and I love it so much. The contrast between the heavy beats and Martina Topley-Bird's paper thin vocals is so sexy. Tricky was so amazing at creating atmosphere, and "different levels of the devil's company" just sounds bad ass, like that Bible passage Jules recites every time he's about to off someone in Pulp Fiction.

Van Morrison-The Way Young Lovers Do/Ballerina/Jeff Buckley-Lilac Wine/So Real

Intensely emotional singer-songwriters might be the genre for which I have the lowest threshold for crappiness. The second the singer seems to be going over the top without sincerity (through my slightly jaded perception, I suppose) or is lacking the vocal chops to pull off his or her grand statement, I completely tune out. If you're gonna sing about your shoes filling up with rain at a funeral, you better bring it, or I'm gonna dump the water on your overly maudlin head.

A select few can pull it off, and when it's right, it can be magical. Astral Weeks by Van Morrison defies description, so I'll describe it for you here. Apparently he went into the studio, showed the musicians the lyrics, and just told them to play it how they feel. The jazz musicians went off, and somehow it worked. Sometimes the album sounds shambolic and exuberant, and other times it sounds balanced and peaceful. If there could ever be a benevolent exorcism performed, I think Morrison's vocals on this album would be the result. Though it would interesting to do a remix of the album with Linda Blair's Lucifer-channeling voice singing these tunes instead of Van. Just to see how it would turn out. Emo-classic-horror-core.

Jeff Buckley blew up when I was in high school. He died very young, as did his father, so of course the talk about him focuses as much on that mythology as on the music itself. He pulled off really emotional lyrics because he had an amazing voice, and could play the gee-tar like a champ. Grace is a great album, and these are two of my favorite tracks.

PS: There are four new albums I've been looking forward to that I HAVE to listen to this week. I am convinced (or hoping desperately) that I will really like at least one of these albums. I really need some new music.

Jesus & Mary Chain-Just Like Honey/April Skies; Primal Scream-Slip Inside This House

Now that the NBA is locked out and could possibly cancel the entire season, it's time to seriously reassess which sports are worth following, and which aren't. Let's get right down to it, shall we? I'll go in ascending order of interest.

- Nascar: Awful. Incomprehensibly boring. Driving in a circle for hours on end, with maybe three minutes at the end that decides the race. Maybe I don't understand the subtleties of this sport that make it so compelling, but I've got a feeling that it doesn't get much more nuanced than a case of Natty Light and staring at really loud blurs all day. I love how they're trying to introduce this professional wrestling aspect to it, with the drivers getting in each other's faces at the end of the race. Snoooooooooooze. Talk about trying to manufacture drama in a sport that provides none. This sport is getting way too popular, and being shown way too much on Sportscenter. Truly frightening trend.

MMA: Can't get into it at all. When I was a kid, boxing was fun to watch, with Tyson, Hagler, Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, etc. Now it's garbage, and this is just as bad. The matches last thirty seconds, and they just seem barbaric. I'm usually not squeamish, but I just feel like a bad person watching it. I feel like I should be calling the cops or something. I feel like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky IV, hopelessly watching while Apollo Creed gets his head bashed in. THROW IN THE TOWEL! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! And I'm bored at the same time, somehow.

Soccer: Fun to watch, especially when I know a bunch of players on the teams. I'm a pretty casual fan, but it is a fun sport to watch. It's almost like starting to watch the show Weeds, though. I feel like I already watch enough series/sports. If I totally threw myself down this rabbit hole, I might never resurface.

- College football: I love watching my Gators, but unless it's a huge matchup between top ten teams, or I'm vicariously rooting through a friend, I don't really have a huge amount of interest in watching other college football games. Utah vs. Nevada? I'd rather gnaw on a barbed wire fence.

Tennis: Tennis is my favorite sport to play, so of course I love watching it.

- Pro basketball: I still enjoy watching it, but there's not enough parity, and certain players almost single-handedly destroy entire teams (IE Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks). I won't really be upset if they cancel the season. More time for other things!

College Basketball: I love watching the Gators, but-unlike with football-I also fairly consistently enjoy watching other late-season top twenty-five games. The tournament is so freaking great.

- Pro football: The general obsession with fantasy football is annoying, but I still enjoy watching the games. Once again, my team blows right now, but hopefully we'll be awful enough to draft Andrew Luck.

- Baseball: I love baseball, and have since childhood. As a kid I pored over box scores, memorized statistics, and got hooked for life by the great NY Met teams. For some, though, the slow pace doesn't provide enough instant gratification and second-to-second action to appeal to them. It's somewhat similar to people's qualms with soccer. If you're really into it, and get into the subtleties of the game, it's fascinating. If you're a casual fan, it might seem boring at times. Myself, I'll never stop following baseball, no matter how disgusting and depressing the Mets get.

Once again, there's no transition to the music portion of this post. One of the guys from Primal Scream joined The Jesus and Mary Chain very early on, and lemme tell ya, he did a great job with both groups! "Just Like Honey" is from J&MC's classic debut album Psychocandy, and uses the intro to "Be My Baby" and mega-fuzzy guitars to great effect. "April Skies" is from Darklands, and while it sounds more conventional, it also absolutely destroys me. Every time the section from 1:23-2:08 comes on, I wanna jump around and pump my fists like I'm in a John Hughes movie montage.

"Slip Inside This House" is a housey old tune from the great Primal Scream album Screamadelica. Every time another element comes in, the song just keeps getting better. So flipping good.

Kavinsky-Nightcall/Jan Hammer-Miami Vice Theme/Michael Sembello-Maniac

I was born to an elderly father with a predilection for sports cars. Most of the music he played in these cars were CDs that the dealership salesman gave him to showcase the sound system in his prospective purchase. Therefore, I have many childhood memories of racing down the street in an Acura NSX at approximately five to seven miles below the speed limit, the Top Gun soundtrack blaring at a reasonable volume so as to not put unnecessary strain on the speakers. When the Early Bird special at The Chart House was winding down, sometimes we'd crank it up to sixty-eight miles per hour on the highway. Daytona Beach cops were notorious for handing out speeding tickets, but one time they pulled Dad over in a Porsche for going too slow.

The Miami Vice and Flashdance soundtracks were always in heavy rotation in Dad's car. In fact, the opening montage to the Miami Vice show might have been one of the main reasons we moved from New York to Florida. Palm trees! Beautiful women! Fast cars! Speedboats! Jai alai! Oh. Wait. No one cares about-or even knows-jai alai. Anyway. To this day, I think the Miami Vice theme song is awesome.

"Maniac" is a pretty sweet song from Flashdance, another 80s classic. Whoever made this video totally blew it when he put "Just a still town girl on a Saturday night" as the opening lyric. IT'S STEEL TOWN GIRL. That's what makes the movie so inspiring! She's a steel worker who becomes a star! It's like Zoolander in reverse!

"Nightcall" by Kavinsky is on the soundtrack of the movie Drive. The entire movie has a very eighties feel to it, right down to the florescent pink tiger print font and the spooked-out Michael Mann-ish cinematography. The synths in this song are very eighties, and the transition from the creepy machine voice to the saccharine chorus is great.