Men, Keep Your Shirts On

Men, keep your shirts on.

Listen, I know this sort of ideology really makes lots of people groan, even so-called “liberals” who can often be heard to say “I’m all for (fill in the blank) but enough is enough!”  But usually, when you find yourself saying enough is enough, that usually means you might actually be approaching the line of what is right and just.

When you were growing up, did you ever think to yourself, Isn’t it weird that men or boys can walk around with their shirts off and women can’t?  I’m willing to wager you did think that, probably sometime between the ages of five and ten.  You thought it because it’s OBVIOUS that it’s strange; like so many other oddities you thought of as a child (“Isn’t it weird for humans to drink the milk of a cow?” and “If people of other races are just like me, why do we treat them differently?” and maybe even “If police are here to protect me why do they scare me?”) our culture has a buffet of fictions it has produced that you are fed with such alarming regularity that, after you are a fully acculturated pre-teen, you take these oddities to be self-evident normalcies.  Men can go topless, women can’t.  That’s just the way it is.

Of course, this isn’t about shirts or nipples; not really.  It’s about living in a land where, even with all the strides we’ve made toward gender equality over the past 50 years, the most basic “stories” of our culture still seek to control the woman and set the man free.  We can work toward pay equality, and make superhero movies about women, and all these wonderful things that truly are wonderful, but until we change the most basic tenets of our culture (practically our entire language is about men, women’s clothes aren’t functional or comfortable, women are judged on their appearance to a degree beyond male comprehension, and on and on and on and on) any man who is even moderately awoke to this fact is absolutely obligated to do everything they can to combat it.  And it is absolutely imperative that we not do something that our female counterparts would be forbidden by law to do simply because of their gender.

To walk out of your house without a shirt on is to take part in systemic inequality of the most deeply-rooted, insidious sort.  Who do you think you are, walking around bare chested?  My fiance is not able to do it–so how dare YOU?

I don’t care if you have six pack abs or a beer belly.  I don’t care if you are working out or sunbathing.  It’s not OK.  Once you are “woke” to this fact, a man walking around shirtless can seem, in fact, downright sinister. (I must admit here a caveat: I swim shirtless at our apartment complex because it’s an actual rule there, but I’m working up the courage to stop doing that).

I understand many people I know, after reading this very simple, straightforward statement will still want to argue with it.  This is natural, because the fiction you’ve been told has strong sway on you (even when you are the oppressed class). All I ask is that you let it sit within you for awhile, before pushing back.  Think about it when you see a shirtless man go running past you.  If he were running with a woman, she’d have to be shirted–and hotter and less comfortable.  Let it stew.

Sea of Ice

Famous people I know I would be good friends with if we ever got to know each other:

–Werner Herzog
–Kiefer Sutherland
–Anderson Cooper
–Emily Wells
–Dave Eggers
–Joaquin Phoenix
–Rachel Maddow
–Adam Savage

Oh hey, Karla and I were in line at a store last week.  We were next to be rung out.  We were standing kind of arm-in-arm.   We looked at each other and gave each other two or three quick, successive peck kisses.  The man behind the register threw his arms up in the air and bellowed, “FOLKS!  There’s other people here,” at which point he motioned to the other people in line behind us.  Then he said something along the lines of “Stop that” although I can’t remember his exact wording there.  We were flabbergasted!!  We hadn’t even been close to making out or kissing in any excessive way–whatever that would be!  It’s fair to say my anger was intense.  Karla pointedly asked the man behind us, “Were you offended?” and he said “I’m too tired to be offended.”  We were silent while he rang up our items.  As we walked out I said a very mean thing to him, which I do not feel bad about.

Oh hey, watch this video of Kay Ryan reading her poem “The Turtle”.  I mean wow.  “Her only levity is patience,/ the sport of truly chastened things.”

 

It’s not something you really wanna think about very much, but what songs would you want played at your funeral?  I actually used to think about this a lot, back when I was much more sad all the time, but even now the topic will cross my mind every few months.  Naturally my selections have varied wildly as time goes on and my tastes changed.  For many years I held tightly onto “Light Years” by Pearl Jam being one of the songs played, but that finally slid off the list a few years ago.  And thank goodness–in retrospect I can see that would have been gratuitously sad.  Just way TOO SAD.  Currently I am going with “A Three-Legged Workhorse” by This Will Destroy You, “I’ve Been Asleep For a Long, Long Time” by Hey Rosetta!,  and “Brian and Robert” by Phish.  I recommend trying this exercise yourself.  I think you’ll find it is quite revealing, not just about your musical tastes, but about the entirety of your life.

Here is a (partial) list of things I would try to get good at if I had unlimited time on this Earth:

–playing the guitar
–hiking/camping/climbing
–painting
–the yo yo
–acting
–ice skating

Oh hey, I’m reading a book about the earliest art to depict the polar regions after human exploration had begun there.  It’s a truly intriguing topic and some of this art is just spectacular.  Somewhat realistic based off the descriptions of the men who’d been there but also rather exaggerated and mystical as the place was still one of imagination and perceived danger and death.  Check out “Sea of Ice” by Caspar David Friedrich:

 

 

My Favorite Music of 2016

It’s that time of year again, oh friendy friends!  Time for my favorite music of the year blog!  For those who haven’t slogged through these before, allow me to get these perfunctories out of the way:

1. All music on this list is NEW music that was released in calendar year 2016.
2. A mix CD of songs from my list can be easily obtained by messaging me and asking.  Those on my “mailing list” will receive one without asking.
3. I am not saying this was the “best” music of 2016.  I used to say that but people got their undies in a bunch.  I’m just saying it’s my “favorite”.
4. If you’re interested in lists from years past, they can be found here:
   My Favorite Music of 2009My Favorite Music of 2010My Favorite Music of 2011

   My Favorite Music of 2012

   My Favorite Music of 2013

   My Favorite Music of 2014

My Favorite Music of 2015

And before I proceed with this year’s list, I’d like to address what was probably my biggest disappointment of my music listening life: this year’s Band of Horses release.  When I heard of the album, and learned it’s title, and saw the artwork and read the tracklist, I was perhaps the most excited I’d been for a new release since the height of my Pearl Jam fandom.  I fully anticipated making it the number one album on my list this year.  Instead, it does not even appear.  The reviews were very mixed–some were ecstatic whereas others reacted quite like I did, and many were very neutral.  So obviously it can be heard many ways.  I personally, after listening about ten time during it’s first month of release, may never listen to it again.

I’d also be remiss if I did not mention Prophets of Rage, a supergroup combination of Rage Against the Machine, Public Enemy, and Cypress Hill.  Again, many detested it and many loved it; I loved it and thought it was beyond the bee’s knees.  However, for the most part, it was not new music, and it does not make the list, but it formed a very important part of 2016 for me.  In addition, Neil Young+Promise of the Real released a live album, Earth, that felt as fresh and vibrant as a new studio album and I listened to that thing like crazy, but again: not really new.  Now: my list!

15.  Explosions in the Sky, “The Wilderness”

14.  Ray LaMontagne, “Ouroboros”

13.  Public Enemy, “Man Plans God Laughs”

12.  Kiefer Sutherland, “Down in a Hole”

11.  DJ Shadow, “The Mountain Will Fall”

10.  A Tribe Called Quest, “We Got It From Here…Thank You 4 Your Service”

The Tribe’s triumphant return was well worth the wait, with lyrics poignantly reflecting the temper of the times and thankfully light on misogyny.  And the beats are dope.

9.  M83, “Junk”

M83’s new album is a kind of throwback space funk jam-off, like a ride in a technicolor elevator, with purple felt walls.  Impossible to dislike.

 

 

 

 

 

8.  Warpaint, “Heads Up”

Warpaint have now built upon the dark, groovy introspection they created in their first two albums with more intricate jams and a subtle pop sensibility; their musical landscape is now a universe all their own.

7.  Mexico City, “When the Day Goes Dark”

This powerful Australian band hadn’t released any new music for six years.  Their return was worth waiting for, as they morphed from terrific bar band into a piledriver of country and blues rock.  A potential classic.

 

 

 

 

 

6.  Jim James, “Eternally Even”

The mastermind behind My Morning Jacket didn’t connect with me on his first solo album a few years back, but this year’s “Eternally Even” tickles my Jacket bone.

5.  Paul Simon, “Stranger to Stranger”

Simon is never bad.  But as he ages, I seem to keep thinking he is getting better and better; his lyrics become more adventurous (from The Werewolf: “The fact is, most obits are mixed reviews./ Life is a lottery, a lotta people lose./ And the winners, the grinners, with money-colored eyes/ they eat all the nuggets, and they order extra fries./  But the werewolf is coming.”), his music more modern, playful, daring.  “Stranger to Stranger” is a delight from start to finish, but especially for those familiar with his full body of work; his evolution is a bewildering achievement.

 

 

4.  Emily Wells, “Promise”

Wells is an astonishing talent, and “Promise” proves she’s an artist worthy of canonization.  Eschewing her previous catchy violin hooks and hip hop undertones, here she digs deep–the level of introspection at times becomes hard to watch.  But ultimately, while not an album of happy, singalong songs, “Promise” proves instead to be a key addition to any music library concerned with–frankly–the meaning of life.

3.  Radiohead, “A Moon Shaped Pool”

What’s still to be said about Radiohead?  They are as good as everyone says, as is this album.  Including a studio version of “True Love Waits” (re-worked for piano) nearly broke me in half.

2.  Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Skeleton Tree”

Cave’s son died tragically while the band was recording the album, and it can be heard in every sound.  It’s a quiet, low-tempo, mostly spoken-word collection of songs, and it is not for the faint of heart.  It is brave, and it is terrifying, but it does not wallow.

1.  Bon Iver, “22, A Million”

I haven’t said much about this album online, as I grew into it slowly, and it came out shortly after a few albums I’d been talking about at length, so I figured I’d stop clogging up everybody’s feed with my music stuff.  But as I kept listening, and listening, and listening, it became clear this album was not going to go away. It is an album of absolutely confounding elements–it incorporates so many genres, styles, and influences, it’s amazing it is coherent.  And it sometimes approaches unlistenable, as vocalist Justin Vernon simply sings through a synthesizer without any music for long lengths of time.  But ultimately it’s not about being catchy, or easy, or even “artsy”.  The album is a true experience, and one that is deeply felt.

 

The Morning After

“Mom, wherever there’s a cop beating a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there’s a fight against the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me, Mom, I’ll be there

Wherever somebody’s fighting for a place to stand
Or a decent job or a helping hand
Wherever somebody’s struggling to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma, and you’ll see me”

–“The Ghost of Tom Joad”, Bruce Springsteen

It happened.  And there’s certainly no going back now.  Our country has changed.  It had probably changed before the election results, but now, of course, there’s no denying it.

We are a divided people, no doubt.  But we have always been.  We’ve even been more divided than this (folks who tell you this is the worst it’s ever been are the same folks who tell you to do your research, even though they’ve never read an actual book).  We are divided, but we’ll be OK.

But what Donald Trump himself might do to this country is unthinkable.  It’s not his policies or ideologies that are so terrifying.  We could survive even the most radical of a conservative.  It’s him.  What he says, does, how he acts.  His disregard for the basic foundations of our nation.  From that, there might be no coming back.

It is fully possible the election of Donald Trump signals the end of the American experiment.  He could very well set into motion forces that topple our nation.  This game is too big to survive his bluster.

I have a family now, which I love and cherish more than anything in the cosmos.  If I was still a single man, I would be speaking right now very earnestly about leaving the country.  I know that seems cliché and silly by now, but I really would.  Or, failing that idea, I might find or start some sort of anti-Trump militia–find some radical way to try to hold onto what we’ve built here.

But I must take great pains to remain an integral, present part of my family unit.  Their future is the thing I must be most concerned with.  But make no mistake: if it becomes necessary, if we are being pushed towards annihilation, you will find me in the streets.  You will find me marching toward those that would rend us asunder.  You will find me arm in arm with my brothers and sisters, and we will be holding more than signs in our hands.  You will find me in the revolution, because that’s how I will protect my family.

 

You Don’t Like Winter

So stop pretending you do.  When I complain about the impending season, stop saying you look forward to the snow, the cold, the wind, the darkness, because you don’t.  A small, tiny, truly insignificant portion of the human race actually likes the winter.  Do you know why?

Because it’s horrible.  It’s wretched.

You don’t like the way the pervasive cold seeps its way into everywhere, cracking things, drying them out, rendering them lifeless and without use or beauty.  You don’t like the way it gets dark at noon, casting a horrid gloom over the world, forcing you to turn your car headlights on for a short afternoon drive to the Wal-Mart.  You don’t like getting bundled up in clothes so oppressive, so thick and mottled you can barely bend at the elbows, or lean in close to whisper to your lovely bundled-up boyfriends and girlfriends.  You don’t like how it’s cold waiting in line at the movie theater.  You don’t like it.

If there be any sort of higher power (The Great Creator, or Supreme Being, or God, or Collective Unconscious, or just Higher Power, or whatever you want to call it), quite clearly created Winter so that the rest of our existence could be highlighted by its absence.  In Winter, most things die, whereas they birth in Spring and thrive all Summer long.  In Winter, our land becomes sheathed in a smooth, featureless white (which you may find visually appealing) that blots out everything we’ve toiled so hard to create.  The ice forbids us from functioning like competent adult creatures; the snow creates more work on top of our already havoc and labor filled lives.  Winter was built to dislike; this you cannot argue.

And while you may look forward to snowboarding, skiing, sledding or snowball-fighting, these are simply things you like to do.  If you could do them in Summer you surely would.

I know what you are doing, you foolhardy liars: you are whistling past the graveyard.  While some of us admit the dread that fills us as Nature’s worst blight approaches, you attempt to deny your most natural instincts by claiming to ‘like’ such a death-filled disastrous time of year.  The worst part about your transparent denial is that in conversation after conversation, those honest ones are forced to feel like pussies, soft human beings who actually prefer sunlight-filled Eden seasons.  I, for one, will not allow your contrivance to make me feel this way.

You don’t like Winter, so stop pretending you do.

Why We All Need the Cubs to Lose the World Series

First, a few points of order:

1.  When I say “we all”, I am only talking about baseball fans.  I am under no illusion this is of significant import to the wider world.

2.  I like the Chicago Cubs.

OK, now.  Here’s where I’m at.  I know we all feel for the much-ballyhooed long-suffering Cubs fans.  It’s been over a hundred years since they won a championship.  And they have always, at least within my lifetime, been a likeable team, and how can you not like Wrigley Field?  And all the mythos around their losing streak (the “curse”, the goat, Steve Bartman, etc).  The Cubs winning a championship would be HUGE.  We have ALL grown up with that storyline in baseball–everyone alive today has grown up with that being part of their baseball experience.

I vote we keep it that way.  While I feel for the Cubs fans (but really now–they’ve had plenty to enjoy from the Bulls, Blackhawks, and even the White Sox), in the quickly-evolving world of baseball, the Cubs losing streak is too powerful of a tale to give up.  It helps to connect baseball fans within our grand narrative.  The Red Sox used to have a long losing streak, and it’s now over, and with the face of baseball inevitably changing as our culture accelerates through change, let’s not lose some of the only historic stories we have.  If the Cubs are no longer perennial losers, what do we have left???

Listen, I hear you.  You think I’m being a weird contrarian.  And maybe I am.  I like this Cubs team (but I like Cleveland’s team more).  And think about this: wouldn’t it make an excruciating but undeniably delicious chapter in the Cubs’ losing streak for them to make it to the series and lose???  To Cleveland, on the same year that entire city’s losing streak was just broken by their basketball team???  This world series, I’m rooting for intense, epic historic narrative.  Plus I saw the Cleveland baseball team play when I lived in Erie :)

I’m All-In For a Trump Nomination

Ultimately, finally, the nomination of Donald Trump for the presidency makes sense.  I welcome it.  Bring it on.

Trump’s ascendancy makes real and concrete the culture battle we’ve all been engaged heavily in for about ten years–with everybody either on one side or the other (those of you still arguing for some sort of middle ground are as obsolete as a laser printer).  We’ve crossed the Rubicon–there’s no going back, at the moment, to more moderate times. However bad it may be for our country, we are now all going to be forced to choose LIBERAL or CONSERVATIVE.  That’s how it’s going to be, so you might as well choose and commit highly.

It was very nice and comforting, for a few years there, to think there was a way to meet in the middle.  A way to politely ignore it when your friends said things you fundamentally disagreed with.  A way to still lose yourself in the films of an actor you heard was on “the other side”.  It was nice to think the world was soft enough that we could still love each other despite our differences.

But it isn’t.  Not now.  Maybe some day, it will be again.  We can hope it will be.  But at this moment in history, the world isn’t soft-it’s hard, with edges that cut.  The issues we face now are issues of good versus evil, of which fundamental worldview will govern us and set the course for all of our futures.  It’s too important for softness, or politely ignoring those who disagree with you.

It’s tempting to hope against hope that somehow Trump will still not get the nomination, but that’s wrongheaded.  If some milquetoast stand-in like Cruz or Rubio got the nomination, that would just forestall the inevitable, giving us four or eight more years of almost deciding who we (as America) are.  We need Trump to get nominated so we can either win or lose this battle for the soul of our nation–so that our future course can finally be decided, for better or worse.

Bring him on.  It is very rarely in the whole of human history a great nation is presented with such binary, epic choices.

 

I don’t understand why you’re angry in November.

So, it is that time of year.  We all know it well.  A day or two after Halloween, and suddenly decorations are up for Thanksgiving, as well as Christmas, and there is holiday music everywhere, and TV specials, and all the big box stores have set aside three huge aisles for holidays that are still a few months away.  My question is, so fucking what?

 

Why are you all so piping mad about this, year after year?  The only thing you can count on more than a relentless parade of Peanuts specials as soon as the leaves turn, is everyone in the whole world bitching about Wal-Mart and Target selling Christmas stuff.  This barrage of bitching has been going on for so long, and by so many people across every possible social strata, that the inherent wickedness of these “early holidays” seems to just be generally accepted by everyone.  It has just become a societal fact: Christmas being advertised in November is evil, it’s bad, it’s annoying.  Give us time for Thanksgiving!, everyone bemoans, as though the Wal-Mart packages of three different kinds of Brut cologne were somehow going to stop them from posting , to their Facebook wall, one thing they were thankful for each day during the month of November.  Let me guess, your kids, husband, job, health, and God, right?  Got it, same as last year.

Listen soccer mom, big cardboard candy canes on the light posts aren’t going to stop you from stuffing Stove Top into a dead, genetically enhanced bird.  Nothing about the holiday of Thanksgiving is changed by our thinking about Christmas early.  Nothing.

I have thought long and hard about why this must get everyone so riled up, and have come up with a stultifying lack of credible reasons.  You’re mad because…why?  You hate Christmas?  You hate loving your fellow humans?  You hate presents and joy and the ringing of bells?  And you don’t really like Thanksgiving that much, do you?  You know turkey and mashed potatoes are available year-round, right?

The only viable argument I can come up with for folks’ dislike to November Christmasing is the obvious commercialization of the holiday, and mega-corporations using this wonderful time of year (whether you celebrate religiously or secularly, it is still a special time) to make money, preying on our emotions and beliefs to squeeze every cent out of us.  That is all true, but seriously, where are you the other ten months? You are aware, right, that this is ALWAYS HAPPENING.  Enormous, headless, faceless companies are constantly using your emotions, desires, memories, and fears in the most brazen, shameful ways to get you to spend three more dollars.  Every fucking moment of your capitalist life, you are being used and prodded.  Every aisle in that Wal-Mart is ALWAYS, year-round, set up to screw you over, psychologically.  If you want to just wake up to the way the world is working because suddenly your Coca-Cola has polar bears on it, I have little sympathy for you.

I don’t understand why you’re angry in November.

Get Out of the Kitchen

In the few years since I’ve begun riding a bike for pleasure, I have found a curious thing to hold true: if you want to experience deafening, post-apocalypse-like solitude, there is no place quite like small town or suburban streets in the middle of summer.

Let me state this again: when it gets hot out, the streets of your local neighborhood are always empty.  Eerily so.

OK so, people don’t like the heat, so what?  That’s certainly fine with me.  Go wherever you want and like whatever you want; I’m always glad everyone doesn’t like the same stuff I like (you’d all be making me wait in line for shit)!  But as I was riding my bike around a sweltering small town today, glorying in the sweat on the inside of my cap and the buzzing of relentless insects and the lively way sound has of travelling through active, hot air, I couldn’t help but ponder the many conversations I’ve had with people about their aversion to heat.

I’m pretty into summer, and most people aren’t, so I’ve had lots of these conversations.

Very close to 100% of people give a form of this argument for an anti-summer stance:

At least in the winter, you can go somewhere and warm up, maybe throw a blanket over yourself.  In the summer, sometimes you just get real hot and there’s nothing you can do about it. Give me a blanket any day!

What a load of steaming bullshit.  It is certainly possible that you think that way, and if so, may I suggest that you’re a wanker?  You mean to tell me the foremost thing you base your human happiness on is your level of physical comfort in relation to the atmospheric temperature?  How dreadfully boring, how devoid of active thought or action, how painfully insipid of a way to think about your life.  So, more than anything, you just want to be comfortable, eh?

You know, in many instances, comfort is a synonym for complacency.  That means not giving a shit.

(I have a few readers in parts of the world that are not “four season” areas; this rant applies very little to them)

Curling up under a blanket, while certainly a nice escape from the death season which is Winter, is certainly no valid recompense for losing the ability to partake in just about any meaningful outdoor activity (please, if you’re contemplating commenting about snowboarding, making snowmen, snowball fights, etc, please read this old entry of mine, and then take a flying leap).  It is inherent in the very reasons you give for liking “cold over hot” that these activities revolve around escaping from life, withdrawing from action, focusing on comfort and the absence of the cold from your living room, rather than anything that is celebratory, life-affirming, or satisfying of your human curiosity.

I reject your argument about blankets, fireplaces, and Christmas.  It is invalid.  You don’t like cold more than you like heat.  You like comfort more than you like living.

I Never Knew Soap Made You Taller

I know advertising isn’t the Devil. By itself, removed from cultural context and its own long, insidious history, it is in fact a pretty good thing. It’s a solid economic model that performs well in a healthy Capitalist society, and it alone is responsible for the continuing existence of television, magazines, newspapers, and very close to everything else. Without advertising, our culture would look very different—in some ways for the better, but mostly to our detriment.

So, why do I still feel like advertising is the enemy? Why do I still feel like a mark when I chuckle at a TV commercial, make a mental note of an ad in a magazine, or slow my car to finish reading a billboard? Why do I feel like a complete fool when I finish a conversation with someone about “that commercial we just love!”?

It’s a fact that not all advertising is fear-based, but it’s certainly a fact that most of it is.  Granted, I can’t think of a (reasonable) explanation for how this adorable camel hump-day Geico commercial is trying to use my fear to get me to buy a product, but exceptions like this are few.  Long, long, long ago, the folks in charge of creating advertising realized the purchasing public responded with their wallets and pocketbooks the most when you scared the shit out of them.  And that is why I feel like a schmo for responding to their wiles.  I’ve let them scare me.

Here is a famous early print advertisement for Pears soap, from England, circa 1900:

Pears soap (which was named after its founder and had nothing to do with pears) was one of (if not THE, depending on who you ask) the first mass produced and mass marketed soaps, not to mention the world’s first registered brand, of any product.

So how did this early ad play on Britisher’s fears?  This ad, one of a series of similar paintings, depicts Britain’s upper-middle class at the time (a class that had only just started to exist).  Ads like this mostly ran in publications read by the lower classes (who were nonetheless, obviously, literate, and therefore upwardly mobile, meaning they had money to buy things).  By associating products with classes or lifestyles we could possibly (although rarely easily or practically) obtain, companies consistently prey on our fears that the lives we are living are not good enough, are not as good as everyone else’s.  The ultimate fear: we are not as good as everyone else.  But guess what?  Pears soap can help you get there!

If you don’t have a Swiffer, you’re wasting time.  If you don’t use Axe body spray, you aren’t sleeping with enough women.  If you don’t have Aflac, you will get hurt at work and not be able to pay your bills.  If you don’t use Purex, your clothes aren’t as bright as your neighbors’.

Often, the fear of inadequacy is not as blatantly stated in the ad’s content, but in the unrealistic idealized world created by them.  Watch this seemingly innocuous ad for Johnsonville Bratwurst, but watch it now as a skeptic.  How does the ad create, in a short space of time, an idealized world that the product’s target audience wishes they lived in, but which is an unrealistic world?  How does the ad play on a fear of inadequacy to sell its product?

This is just a short primer on the subject, which I intend to return to shortly.  I am far from the first person to make these observations; folks much smarter than I have written full books on the topic.  The rabbit hole, in fact, goes much deeper than this.  Does advertising, in fact, manipulate the wants and needs of the consumers so badly and on such a grand scale as to change our cultural desires and tastes to a point of unbalance (one can never write off the importance of personal responsibility in our choices, but did enough fear play a role in our nation’s current obesity epidemic, our dependence on credit, and even the recent housing bubble?  I think you can guess where I stand)?

I thought I’d get the conversation rolling.  Your thoughts are appreciated.

Seven Parts Blog, One Part Turducken

1.  My Diet Update

I guess it’s been awhile since I updated everyone on the status of my diet.  And I’m sure you are all just dying to know how it’s going.

When last I left you, I had just made it to 150 pounds—ten pounds shy of my goal of 140.  And, interestingly, that is exactly where I still am.

Now, I suppose in some undeniable ways, this is a setback.  But I quite honestly don’t feel like it is.  Out of the gates, I just went at an unbelievable pace.  It required a level of obsession and single-mindedness that even I could not sustain.  The diet was too extreme and the exercise regimen too punishing.  I’m glad I did it like that, so that I could get to this more comfortable point and then settle in here, but there’s just no way I could keep that up.

Please don’t misunderstand me:  I am still, like, all about fitness.  I still go to the gym five times a week, sometimes more, depending on if I get out on my bike much, which I often count as a workout if I go hard enough on the bike.  I’m still eating about a thousand times more healthy than I did from 2003-2011.  But I do allow myself a reasonable caloric intake now, and have had a couple stretches of all-out “off the wagon” eating (not binges, just ending up at the wrong restaurants two days in a row) which I quickly correct; my experience with substance addiction recovery comes in handy when I fall off the wagon—I’m already very familiar with my psyche’s tendency to reason with itself thusly:  well, you’ve already fucked up, you might as well just keep going.  Just like I eventually found out that this thinking with alcohol or cigarettes would end up taking me down the black hole, I know this thinking with food will make me fat again.  And while I may have this belly for a long time, to varying degrees, I swear, I am never going to be that fat again.  I’m not trying to get married, be in magazines, or pick up one-night stands, but I prefer to be able to tie my shoes without falling over and being out of breath.  Also, almost more than anything (perhaps unreasonably) I really hate the double chin.  So, any of you who might see me in the immediate future, you will not be seeing “skinny” Seth, but you will definitely not be seeing “fat” Seth.

In addition, another of the major reasons I’m not shedding the pounds as quickly is I have really thrown myself full-on into weight training.  Like, the kind of lifting designed to gain mass.  Stretching back to my teen years, this has always been the kind of “working out” I most enjoy.  I like how it makes me feel physically, I like how it makes me feel psychologically.  I like seeing the results, and I like planning out the strategy of the whole thing (which day you’ll do which muscle groups, how long to wait until you go back to a muscle group, what to eat after a workout, etc).  So, while the belly is still hanging around, if I were to take my shirt off and suck my belly in, you’d be all like, Dang, Seth, if you had any formal training or even the most remote inclination toward physical violence, you’d totally Steven Segal my ass right now, wouldn’t you?  Because above the belly, I am fucking stacked.

2.  Questions

Do you own stuff or does stuff own you?  Why are we afraid to ask for help?  What have you left behind?  How important is it that you are liked?  Are you openly admitting your addictions?  Is there a cause you would actually die for?  How much of our lives do we imagine?  How do you find calm in a hectic world?  What is beautiful about life?  Are you thanking the right people?  When was the last time you did something for the first time?  Who is the most loyal person you know?  What was the last thing fear stopped you from doing?  What are you a product of?  What makes you relevant?

3.  Oil Creek State Park

4.  Speak For Yourself

There’s a common punchline on Facebook, or on other platforms where people might be referring to Facebook and our generally lived-online lives:  folks claiming everybody is living much more boring lives than they pretend to live online.  There is always some meme floating around or someone cracking wise about “yeah, like their lives are as interesting as they say they are!”  Well speak for yourself, Buttafuoco.  The ones throwing that unoriginal nugget around are probably the bored ones, waiting to see their favorite television commercial.  Believe it or not—and you probably won’t—but (to my standards, at least) I actually live a more interesting life than I present online.  I worry about clogging people’s newsfeeds, I struggle with the idea that what I find interesting others might find boring, and most ironically, I think if I documented every thing I actually do, folks would probably start to suspect I’m lying about it. (you may claim I have more fun because I’ve moved somewhere that I feel like a tourist, but I’m confident if you went back to old Facebook posts of mine in Carlisle, you’d find the same guy).

But I don’t bring this up just to point out that I personally am really enjoying life (well, maybe that is why I brought it up; our own motives are sometimes hidden from us) but rather, to highlight the uncontrolled cynicism that online life breeds.  Granted, I’ve been known to throw around my own share of cynicism, but I try to reserve it for artists or cultural movements I deem unworthy of praise (a cultural guardianship that some of us actually take seriously, despite how it makes us look like pompous jackasses.  We’re taking one for the team).  The wide sweeping cynicism that life in general sucks and is boring and wherever you happen to live, well, there’s just nothing to do there, so hopefully everyone else is just as damned bored as I am…well, I just kinda hate that kind of cynicism.  There’s nothing I can do about it.  I just wanted to point out that it sucks.  (is it ironic to say cynicism sucks?)

5.  wtf

Sports history seems to have largely forgotten Mike Schmidt.  Wtf?

6.  August, a Wood Path

This is “August, a Wood Path” by Sanford Robinson Gifford:

7.  Sometimes When We Touch, the Honesty’s Too Much

You may have noticed, for good or ill, a slightly more…honest…tone to my blog lately (and you will notice even more of it in The Rub and Tug Capital of the World, a little booky-wook you are about to get in the mail from me, if you haven’t got it yet).  I do apologize if this more straightforward approach has stepped on anyone’s toes or generally made me seem like an asshole.  Apart from the fact that I actually am an asshole, I also had gotten bored and a little frustrated trying to censor everything I wanted to say by first thinking of everyone who might be reading it and trying to figure out if they might think I am talking about them or calling their lifestyle or hobbies or commercial-watching into question.  It is way too hard to think about all of those things and still write anything interesting.  And I humbly think I have some unique and important things to say, most of which I always feel compelled to not say.  Well, I’m just gonna start saying it.  Allow me to take this little moment to say, I don’t ever write about people I know in veiled references.  If I’m bitching about “people”, well, that’s really what I’m talking about:  people in general.  If there’s something you do that I just can’t stand, you either already know I can’t stand it, or it’s something I can’t stand about hundreds of people, so I am most assuredly not writing about you.  OK.  Disclaimer over.

8.  I Drink Your Milkshake

I’m Annoyed By How Uninteresting You’ve Turned Out

I don’t think everyone needs to stay single and childless their whole lives, working jobs with unusual hours, reading all the hippest books and taking solo road trips and making artsy YouTube videos.  If everyone did that, the places I go would be crowded and useless.  And I’m glad most people live “the American dream” and are happy that way: and most people that get married and have kids and buy houses are not boring.  Many of them are incredibly interesting.  But, on the whole, I’m annoyed by how uninteresting you’ve turned out.

You were, at one point, full of promise and, I thought, onto something that I assumed I was not aware of.  I’ve since spent my whole life chasing the something, and in the meantime, you have slowly and insidiously become totally uninteresting.  Your new bob haircut with highlights or lowlights or chunking is not news.  Your new breakfast nook is not only boring, it’s useless, it will fall down someday and be rotted wood and the world will forget you, your breakfast nook, and your painfully uninteresting ambition to be comfortably exactly like everyone else.

But remember?  Remember when we were younger, and we huddled on leafy ridges in the Appalachian mountains on summer days with notebooks and big ideas and words all day, words words words?  You were so interesting, and I modeled myself after you.  I wanted to be onto what you were onto.  And I bought into it, whole cloth: life shouldn’t get hum-drum and routine and all about your rustic interior design or your nightly cavalcade of television shows just because you’ve aged past a certain number.  Cliche or not, we only live once, and I’m just so annoyed that you’ve chosen to abandon the promise of our youth for a homogenized adulthood that makes me look like I’m frozen in time, as opposed to living interestingly.

Oh, and you.  Remember those dark days during college, huddled in pitch-black rooms in anonymous houses on streets we can’t remember, just one candle burning, shuffling Tarot cards or reading aloud the Necronomicon or deconstructing “A Clockwork Orange”; what you now most assuredly look back on as a silly phase I recall as the beginning of my understanding of the invisible world—the spiritual or metaphysical truths and artistic penumbras which exist beyond our immediate material existence.  I continue to seek this ideal and probe my surroundings, but you gave up the search long ago in favor of sitting still for Sears Portrait Studio henchmen, reading “young adult” novels, and wearing fifty-dollar scarves when it’s 65 degrees outside.  Your abandonment of our quest—even though it was nearly 20 years ago— continues to hurt me personally.  You never really meant any of it.  It was just a lark to you.  Well, I took it seriously.

Or how about you?  Remember how we’d invent games to force life to be more unpredictable?  One of us would be blindfolded, and choose which direction we’d turn, and after a pre-determined amount of turns, we had to get out of the car, right then and there, and do something?  Countless tricks like this, we had, to keep the stench of routine from creeping in.  I believed you when we conspired to live our lives like this, to beat back the dreaded boredom, the hated ignominious hand of time that drags us all down the road of monotony that leads the way of dusty death.  But you gave up.  Either you quit or it beat you, but either way, I soldier on, alone, bereft of any blindfolded passengers.

I was reading an article the other day that gently poked fun at “adults with backpacks” as though, at some point, stuffing a bunch of books and papers and pens and binoculars and flashlights and other interesting things into a backpack and setting out in the world in order to have legitimate, authentic experiences was somehow childish, and people over a certain age should refrain from such activities. I’ll never understand the world’s insistence that at some point we start acting like grown ups.  What’s the use?  To what end?  To impress whom? Our culture is full of such arbitrary definitions of how we’re supposed to make ourselves uninteresting in order to become grown-ups.  And you’ve bought into it.  And that’s annoying.

In the blink of an eye, we’re all going to be dead.  I have no interest in spending my living interval having an uninteresting time trying to impress you with how well I’ve been able to mimic some really boring ideal.  I just wish you were still in on it with me.

It’s Bullshit

Mortgages.  Expensive haircuts.  Ridiculous slang.  Television commercials.  Baby name books.  Hashtags.  Building permits.  Your fancy phone.  Clothing that’s advertisement.  Frosted tips.  Pinkwashing.  Monsanto.  Only getting your news from television.  The collapse of cursive.  Gawdy shoes.  Showrooming.  Sticking your camera really close to a flower or plant and thinking it makes you artistic.  Denying global warming or evolution or the Holocaust.  Enormous housing developments.  The designated hitter rule.  Cities that are pedestrian-unfriendly.  Advocate judges.  Television advertisers only paying for viewers between 18-49.  Tattoos on your hands.  The Loudness War.  The “hey” text.    The whole Tim Burton-Johnny Depp thing.  Adults who only read fiction meant for teenagers.  Parks with no nature in them.   Loss Leaders.   The price of college.  Big fancy belts.  QSR codes.  Leather.  Flavored vodka.  Flower-scented lotions.  Tanning in tanning beds.  Mashup novels.  ComiCon.  The eternal battle to try to be just like everybody else.  The state of Arizona.  Gastro-bypass surgery.  Inflated IPOs.   Flat paint.  Celebrity magazines.  Skinny jeans.  Foursquare.  Not knowing anything about the history or geography of where you live.  Unbent hat brims.  Congress controlling the Postal Service.  Romantic comedies.  Urban sprawl.

A Response to Paul’s Response to My Latest Blog Regarding Photographs

In case you missed it, first I said:

I get a fair amount of ribbing for looking serious in photographs all the time.  As if there was something wrong with some occasional seriousness.  You know, just because you make the same goofy face every time someone takes your picture, doesn’t mean you’re always having an exceptional amount of fun, or you are eccentric or arty.  It just means you’re afraid to look like yourself.

Then Paul said:

“occasional” is where you miss the point here. Damn near all you pictures are with you looking serious. If looking like yourself means like a self absorbed douchebag, then you’ve been spot on. However, some people that love you would love to see you actually look happy in moments you’ve chosen to freeze in time. Wipe that damn smug look off your face and accept that you’re ribbed as a subtle way of saying “say cheese”. Smiling is looking like yourself as well. I hate how I look when smiling in true moments of joy, but it is a part of myself and what I look like.  If you’re posing for a picture, it’s not real anyway…….are any of us real anyway? Does time cruel march allow us to even enjoy the moments we pass?

 

I was afraid this would happen.  Right before I clicked the “publish” button, I thought to myself, “you should probably clarify this a little bit or people will think this means you’re against smiling”, but I was late for the Harlem Globetrotters, so I said fuck it.

I’m not even remotely close to talking about smiling at all in my original post.  Perhaps you (Paul or any of you) don’t have as many friends as I do who literally make a fucked-up face every time someone takes their picture, but I have more than a handful.  Every time someone snaps their picture, they make a face like someone just walked in on them taking a dump, or like they’re looking in a mirror for boogers up their nose.  And hey, if that’s how you want to look in pictures, fine, go for it.  I was just letting them know it annoyed me.  I have a blog so that I can occasionally vent about the things that annoy me.  And when people are constantly making bizarre faces in photographs, it is literally NOT what they normally look like.  I would like at least a few pictures of what you normally look like.  Smiling or not.

I’m far from being “anti-smile”, and I wanted to clear up any confusion that original post may have caused.  Smiling certainly makes oneself look like oneself (and I deny that ‘damn near all’ my pictures are non-smiling; just the most recent ones, because I’ve just been having fun with them.  Expect more.  I’m a vain prick, and although I’m hilarious, I’m also serious as a motherfucker, and lately I like looking serious as a motherfucker) just as much as a serious picture.  Really my blog entry earlier this afternoon was just aimed at weirdos who won’t stop making King Kong booger-finder faces.  Whether it makes them happy or not, it annoys the shit out of me.

(OK now, let me clear up the next misunderstanding:  I am not always anti weird faces!  Geez people, give me a break!  I’m just talking about people who make the same weird face all the time!)

Oh, and did you really have to call me a self-absorbed douchebag?

Here are some pictures of me smiling relatively recently (Number 4: smiling while serious):

That's my freakin' niece (Paul's daughter Ella)

With nephews Aiden and Ethan

This is me being so attractive it stopped traffic.

Serious smile

I get a fair amount of ribbing for looking serious in photographs all the time.  As if there was something wrong with some occasional seriousness.  You know, just because you make the same goofy face every time someone takes your picture, doesn’t mean you’re always having an exceptional amount of fun, or you are eccentric or arty.  It just means you’re afraid to look like yourself.

Some Thoughts on Birthdays

So it’s going to be my birthday soon, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to ruminate on the subject of birthdays.  A little bit about my own birthday, but mostly just about birthdays in general, and ways in which you might possibly be being an ass.

Everyone has a birthday, obviously.  And I don’t begrudge anyone celebrating that birthday.  Make a big deal about yourself, scream for attention, demand a party and gifts, whatever whatever.  We should all be entitled to one huge “me” day a year, and the day is not without significance, being the day you did, after all, start living (in case you wondered where I fell on the abortion issue).  But let’s be clear:  everybody gets one birthday.  Just one.

Dig it:  there is no such thing as your “birthday week” or your “half birthday”.  Now obviously, there are quite literally the week in which your birthday takes place, and the mathematical halfway point, calendar-wise, to your birthday.  But these are not things.  They are happenstance, completely immaterial to the advent of your birth.  When you demand that others now also celebrate these “you” days, you have become a pig.  You are blatantly asking for more than your share of attention for having done nothing but slide forth the birth canal.  If you’re reading this, you are just a regular person; you are not the son of a god, a producer of classic Hollywood cinema, or the botanist who figured out how to domesticate almonds.  In short, we have no convincing reason to think about your birthday any longer than the cursory few moments we think about anyone’s birthdays other than our own.  I demand you stop being a priggish diva.

If you want extra time being special, and proclaiming your special-ness, you must in fact find ways to be special.  If you want to be smarter, or more attractive, or funnier, or more wealthy, you must put in the time, effort, and footwork to become more special and noticeable.  Do not attempt to gain more than your share of the world’s “specialness attention” by suddenly deciding that your birthday for some reason lasts a week, and must be mentioned four times a day in person and twice on Facebook, while the rest of us who are pretending to be humble (some of us, I know, usually failing), stick to the damned rules and only celebrate one day’s worth, and then spend the rest of our lives finding legitimate ways to be recognized for achievement.

I can hear what some of you are saying.  But Seth!  My family always celebrated half-birthdays growing up.  It is family tradition!  Well then, fie on your family for being a bunch of look-at-me’s.  I can’t blame anyone for innocently celebrating a tradition they grew up thinking was legitimate, but you’re a big girl now.  Go build a bookcase or paint a mural or something, and celebrate your one birthday like the rest of us classy cattle.  There’s no free passes here.

OK.  That was a pretty good rant, wasn’t it?!  Man I really love when I get on a sweet roll with a rant like that.

I was born on a Friday the 13th.  This year, it also falls on a Friday.  Due to the massive birthday alarm that is Facebook, I anticipate having to reveal this fact much more this year than ever before.  I apologize in advance if you see me explaining it to people a lot in the days surrounding my birthday; I assure you, I will be more tired of typing it than you are of reading it.

I’ve written a couple friggen’ good poems about my birthday.  You can read my favorite one here.  (you can also hear me read it at that link!)

This year I’m going to be 34.  Thirty-four.  Now, I know some of you who are reading this crossed that mark quite some time ago and are considering telling me, “Buck up kid, you’re young.  Guess what?  It just keeps on going after 34, too.”  Well, I know.  But for some reason, the sound of 34 is more threatening, more…absolutely adult sounding, than the previous thirties.  Inside I still feel…19?  25?  Something younger.  I’m still going to these little indie rock shows and standing up front and jumping all around;  am I being that awkward old guy?  Am I the weird out-of-place geezer the hip kids are pointing at, thinking who’s he trying to fool?  I can’t go on pretending I don’t love books on American history, the songs of Henry Mancini, “Meet the Press” and the quietude of an early Sunday morning.  I’ve got a foot in the grave and a foot in the mosh pit (just figuratively; I never did like moshing).

Well, who cares.  I was just kind of rambling there. I don’t feel old and I have no intentions of starting to act old.  Sure, some of my tastes are morphing slowly, but just as part of a greater appreciation of the wider world.  I still mosh, figuratively, and read some really cutting edge magazines.  That last part about magazines was meant to be a joke, although in my head, I meant it seriously.

But I just can’t get past that number.  Thirty-four.  It’s the first time the number of my age has made it clear to me that I’m on this train and there’s no turning around.  That’s right, folks: I’m talking about our old friend mortality.  I’m gonna die, you’re gonna die, we’re all gonna freakin’ die.  When you’re 18, you’re never gonna die.  But when you’re 34, you’re definitely gonna die someday.  Not that I mind dying someday, but let’s have fewer reminders of it, eh?

I know this has been an aggresively cynical post on birthdays, but hey, what do you expect from a super-special person like me?  I am unpredicatable, and you gotta take the good with the bad, or the optimistic with the pessimistic, as it were.  Perhaps if I celebrated a half-birthday or birthday week, I wouldn’t feel the need to write jarring social criticism for your approval.  But hey, I’m just following the damned rules of society here.

Oh, ad execs.  Sigh.  “A phone to save us from our phones.”  Ahem.  Fuck you.

The World Where they Never Stop Screaing At Us

There was a small news story a few days ago about how a few retialers, including Best Buy (whom I have on online account with) had had their customers’ e-mail addresses stolen.  It’s really no big deal—everyone has assured everyone that it was only e-mails and no other information could have been stolen (I hear you, Dad, I hear you).  The reason I bring this up is that Best Buy sent us an e-mail talking about it, and there is just one little sentence that disgusts me beyond all belief.  In re-assuring us that our very identities will not be stolen, ruining our lives forever, Best Buy couldn’t help but advertise their stupid Geek Squad service.  Really, Best Buy?  You never turn that shit off, eh?  I’ve posted the e-mail here, putting the offending sentence in bold and italics:

Dear Valued Best Buy Customer,

On March 31, we were informed by Epsilon, a company we use to send emails to our customers, that files containing the email addresses of some Best Buy customers were accessed without authorization.

We have been assured by Epsilon that the only information that may have been obtained was your email address and that the accessed files did not include any other information. A rigorous assessment by Epsilon determined that no other information is at risk. We are actively investigating to confirm this.

For your security, however, we wanted to call this matter to your attention. We ask that you remain alert to any unusual or suspicious emails. As our experts at Geek Squad would tell you, be very cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown senders.

In keeping with best industry security practices, Best Buy will never ask you to provide or confirm any information, including credit card numbers, unless you are on our secure e-commerce site, www.bestbuy.com. If you receive an email asking for personal information, delete it. It did not come from Best Buy.

…it can sound like a mouse’s fart…

I said to her,

“If you think he needs to be singing in key, you really don’t know anything about rock music, do you?  I don’t think you actually like rock music if you think that.  Rock is not about things being tidy and perfect and sheeny.  There can be revelations but they aren’t neatly packaged.  They don’t come by way of simple formula.  It doesn’t even have to be fast and hard and loud.  It can sound like a mouse’s fart and be rock, if it’s almost out of control, barely held together, nearly incoherent and then popping into view like those 3D posters that were in vogue in the nineties.  Almost not there and then more there than anything you’ve ever seen before.  Rock can be about love and joy and triumph, but it’s the only music that can, in one note, be about the first time you see inside a baby’s soiled diaper, or your first inkling that there’s a lump in your breast, or the smell of your damned socks.  Or about slipping and falling in the shower.  Or the green flame when you burn cellophane.  Listen, I love James Taylor, I really do, but he doesn’t do socks.  Neither does AC/DC.  But Miles Davis did.  Bonnie Raitt does.  Rock is cross-genre.  It’s a state of being that acknowledges dirt and imperfection.  R&B is about slow, blissed-out lovemaking, and rock is about receiving oral sex in a fucking dune buggy.  It’s about that quiet moment right after you wake up in the morning before anything else exists.  It’s the only music that can be about clipping your toenails, as well as being about fuck the fucking government.  I’m not saying it’s superior to other musical forms–as I said, I really do love James Taylor–all I’m saying is, if I go to see James Taylor in concert, he’d better be in key.”

Friday’s Film Clip, “Mallrats”

No more air planes, or speed trains, or freeways.

I’m gonna put my cynic hat on here and say that I just really don’t *get* what is often referred to as “New Years” (despite there only being one of them).

You may be saying to yourself something like, This is probably because you’re a recovering alcoholic and New Years is all about drinking, and I say to you that even as a drinker, I didn’t *get* New Years.  In fact, I never really understood any of the “drinking” holidays, a la St. Patty’s, Cinco de Mayo, etc.  That may be because I was drunk every day, but still.  I don’t get them.

In addition, the New Year’s Eve parties I have been to were exactly like every other party I had ever been to, begging the question, what makes this a New Year’s Eve party?  And that ball dropping in Times Square?  The same every year, and those people crammed into that cold place always look like they’re trying really hard to deny they’re bored.  And cold.

I suppose the main point here is that folks use “New Years”—which I suppose encompasses New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day—as a marker of time’s movement, and as a way to metaphorically “wipe the slate clean” with a fresh start, as well as reflecting on the passing year.  And I suppose that any such heady material undertaken on a mass basis is probably a good thing.  But that’s just not the way I personally function.  I think the idea of a (basically) arbitrary date being used to reflect, start anew, celebrate and generally ponder the state of your life is, well…arbitrary.  I don’t know about you, but I do these things more frequently than once a year.  They happen organically, and I take keen note of them as they happen. “New beginnings” happen when…well, when things begin, not with some date.  I reflect on the passing markers of time in my life when…well, when they pass.  Reflection, introspection, and the subsequent celebrations of the positive or changes to correct the negatives are an ongoing part of my life (don’t get me started on the phony uselessness of New Years Resolutions).  I suspect that most people are like me, like I just described.  Yet we continue to pretend that turning over this new calendar is somehow a useful, important, symbolic moment for us.  And I’m sorry to sound cynical, but it just isn’t.

I do not see the need to be nudged into contemplation and celebration by a date.

(I guess I must be a tad cynical to type out such a blog, but I thought…why not actually type what I’m thinking?  I never claimed to be an over-the-top optimist.  Sometimes I’m happy, sometimes I’m sad.  As the great Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes.” )

Also, here is an amazing song by Death Cab For Cutie called “The New Year”, which contains both my cynical feelings about the day itself, and my feelings that life, in general, is completely amazing:

The New Year
by Death Cab For Cutie

So this is the new year,
and i don’t feel any different.
The clanking of crystal,
explosions off in the distance.

So this is the new year
and I have no resolutions.
No self-assigned penance
for problems with easy solutions.

So everybody put your best suit or dress on.
Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once.
Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn
as thirty dialogs bleed into one.

I wish the world was flat like the old days,
and I could travel just by folding a map.
No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways.
There’d be no distance that could hold us back.

The One Where I Whine About Things

1.  Everyone who gets my phone number here in Erie says, “Oh, 717, that’s the New York area code!”  No, no it’s not.

2.  We are almost at the shortest day of the year!!!  Which means soon they’ll start getting longer! Yaaaayyyy!!!

3.  After a very promising start, the Columbus Blue Jackets are once again in last place in their division.  They started as one of the best teams in the NHL!  Granted that was just in the first few weeks, but still, I was getting excited.  And still, even while it was happening, I could find NO mention of them in the press or anywhere, and in all the sports-themed stores at the mall (3 of them) I cannot find a single item with their logo, whereas I can find almost every other pro team in every sport.  Why does the whole world ignore the Blue Jackets???

4.  Entertainment Weekly‘s year-end top ten list of novels did not include—anywhere on the top ten—Jonathen Franzen’s Freedom.  This goes beyond bizarre.  I mean, for it to not even BE ON the top ten list seems like it must be an actual accident.  (for those not into books, this omission is like “Avatar” not being on a top ten list of movies in 2009, except the book doesn’t suck.)

5.  Just because you see I very recently posted soemthing on Facebook does not mean I am all of a sudden obligated to text you back.  I am not just laying around, posting to Facebook in a void of activity.  I often post something right in the middle of the stream of life. I’ll text you back when I’m good and ready!

(sorry, just doing some venting)

The Entry Where I Rant About Other People Ranting About Christmas

I understand your misgivings about the current state of Christmas.  You think it is over-commercialized, exploited for it’s monetary value, more about recieving than giving, not at all about Christ, too politically correct, and on and on.  Well, you’re wrong, and maybe a little right, too.  Check it:

It’s easy to think Christmas is all about Black Friday, selling commercials on television specials, cologne gift packs and big openings of holiday movies when all you’re doing is shopping or watching TV.  Being inert often does lead to misperceptions.  But if you spend your time interacting with folks, talking to them about the holiday and telling them how you feel and asking them how they feel, reminiscing about your own history with the holiday, going to events surrounding Christmas and paying attention to crowds, you’ll inevitably see that the “spirit of Christmas” is alive and well, people are generally good, few people over the age of 16 care too much about what they’re “getting”, and all the huff-and-puff over the monetization of Christmas is pretty much confined to Sunday paper circulars and Huffington Post blogs.  Moreover, a quick glance at a 40 year old TIME magazine or a viewing of “It’s a Wonderful Life”—made in 1946—will reveal that people have essentially always thought Christmas was “becoming too commerical”.  People, it’s going to be OK.

As far as the “too politically correct” bullshit:  if you get offended by people saying Happy Holidays and you go around saying things like “I need my Christ back in Christmas!” then you are just a self-centered jackass.  You’ve probably never spent too much time on the outside of things, you don’t list ’empathy’ as one of your positive traits on employment questionaires, and you’re really horrible at being a Christian.  See–and please listen close here–nobody is trying to erase Christmas, or change the name of Christmas to Holiday.  See, we’re just trying to include other people’s religious holidays into our national nomenclature.  We’re just trying to INCLUDE OTHER PEOPLE, see?  This is not  “politically correct” nor is it “liberal”.  It’s just the right way to be. 

And if you think Christmas isn’t enough about Christ, stop complaining about it and start doing things like participating in nativity pageants, raising money for your church, volunteering for the Salvation Army, etc.  Because, frankly, myself and many others don’t give a fig about Christ and we’re out celebrating our humanist, non-denominational version of Christmas that’s all about people here and now, and your complaints sound like as much nonsense to us as if you were complaining that Easter isn’t enough about Thomas the Tank Engine.  It’s quaint, go do your thing, but society has no obligation to stop watching claymation Rudolph do his thang.

And now for my major pet peeve:  those of you who insist there is some sensible reason why we should wait until after Thanksgiving to put up Christmas lights, hear Christmas music, mention Christmas in sentences, etc etc.  People complain about this so often and with such authority that it has become a pretty solid cultural rule.  But why?

I’m sure you can come up with some reasons, and I’ll list some you may think of saying:

“It’s just tacky.”

“It detracts from Thanksgiving.”

“It’s just about making more money.”

“It’s annoying!”

Here are my responses to those, in order:

How in the world is it tacky?  So string lights and I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Clause are NOT tacky on November 26th?

Who gives a crap about Thanksgiving?  Turkey and pilgrims; this holiday is more made up than Christmas!  And we put one so smack up against the other that it’s ridiculous to ask us to wait to start the festivities until the first one’s over.

Move to Russia.

Move to Russia.

I just don’t get it, folks.  You don’t like Christmas music, don’t play any in your car.  You’ve only got to hear it in malls and restaurants.  You don’t like Christmas televison specials?  Don’t watch them.  You don’t like Christmas lights up before Thanksgiving?  Well…um.  Why?  I don’t have a clever retort for that one, I simply can’t understand why pretty lights on other people’s houses should offend you if done before a certain date.  That’s grousing just to grouse.  I can’t imagine anyone’s ever been sitting at a Thanksgiving table, surrounded by loved ones and a bounty of food that people in other cultures would kill to see, and before carving the turkey (and after somebody said grace)  the head of the family announced all that they were thankful for, all that had made their life of plenty worth living that year, and watched their surrounding family nod their heads in agreement, and then right before they started eating, it was generally agreed upon that their day was still ruined because those numbskulls the Davises had five strings of green lights dangling in thier innocent Spruce trees.

But mostly, I just wanna know about the neckties.

1.  Seriously now, what is up with neckties?  I just don’t even understand why they exist.

2.  I’ve got nothing against this Justin Beiber guy, but I really really hope he knows it’s not going to last.  Does nobody notice that our culture requires a new, mid-to-late teens super-mega-squeaky-clean star every 3 to 4 years?  I mean, don’t get me wrong, Miley Cyrus and Jonas Brothers are not gone, but they’re fading, and I feel bad for these kids that almost (I said almost) certainly will not be able to make a transition to an adult career in entertainment.

3.  So I’ve waited years to get back in touch with you, wondering where you are, how things are going and, yes, what you look like.  Not out of (solely) my continued attraction to you, but simple curiosity: nobody knows better than I how interestingly years change a person’s looks.  So after once-monthly searches on Facebook for two solid years (and the same on MySpace for 5 years before that) I see you have finally made a facebook account, and I quickly request you.  Except, when I am finally able to look at your pictures, there’s not a single picture of you.  There are 50 pictures of your kids (I’m happy you have kids you enjoy, but I give about zero shits about kids I’ve never met and who have no idea who I am), 20 pictures of your pets, and three albums of the house you had built.  But not a single picture of you.  I friend requested you, not “Old Friend’s Kids”.  C’mon, you haven’t really disappeared completely into them, have you?

4.  Number 3 was not about a specific person, but something that I’ve experienced a few times.  Stop thinking it was harsh, you know you’ve thought it, too.  And Paul, really, don’t argue with me.

5.  I now get home delivery of The New York Times.  Let me tell you, there is no reason to get any other newspaper, ever, anywhere.  This thing is amazing.  Every copy–daily–has more information in it than a copy of TIME and Entertainment Weekly put together.  I’m especially impressed by their daily entertainment coverage; I might seriously not resubscribe to Entertainment Weekly.  Plus–and this is what really, REALLY tickles me—most days, there is no sports section.  The sports are in the entertainment section.  (guess what folks>  That’s what sports are!)  As I’ve said again and again recently, my demonization of sports is over as I find myself more and more drawn to them, but devoting a third of a newspaper or televised newscast to sports still seems like the work of a bestial culture.  I wanted to hug The New York Times when I realized how they did it!

6.  Along the lines of sports, now that my head is back in that realm, I feel I need to make clear, here in a public forum, my official favorite teams in the three sports I care about (eff basketball, though I’ll probably end up going to a few of Erie’s semi-pro team, the Erie Bayhawks, cause why not?).  Here are my 3 favorite teams in each sport, IN ORDER:

Baseball
1.  Philadelphia Phillies
2.  Cleveland Indians
3.  Washington Nationals

Hockey

1.  Columbus Blue Jackets
2.  Philadelphia Flyers
3.  Buffalo Sabres

Football

1.  Philadelphia Eagles
2.  Buffalo Bills
3.  Baltimore Ravens

7.  I saw a convoy of plows driving down the highway today, even though it hasn’t snowed yet.  Winter can suck it.  (I know I sound bitchy tonight but these can’t all be rainbows and angel farts, you know.)

LITERALLY

OK, now, I am NOT a grammar/ language/ usage Nazi, or however you want to say it.  I don’t go around correcting people all the time or generally being that kind of prick (I’m a prick; just not that kind).  I’m actually a proponent of language being elastic and I think that generally, those folks who are too strict about language rules have forgotten how absolutely amazing language is.  But if there’s something I can’t abide, it is words being used in the arts or media by paid professionals in a simply wrong way; not for artistic, ironic, or even spiteful purposes–just wrong.  And some of you may have heard my recently-formed rant about people using the word literally when they mean the exact opposite of literally.  To expound:  literally means “Take every word I’m about to say at face value; I am not exaggerating, using hyperbole, analogies, irony, sarcasm, or any other linguistic device.  When I say I have ball cancer, I do not mean my tennis game is off; rather, I mean the cells in my nuts are metasticizing, because I literally mean I have ball cancer.  [note:  I do not personally have ball cancer]”

The opposite of literally is figuratively.   There are a lot of different forms of figurative language, but they all have something in common:  they are not literal.  Something about them does NOT mean what the actual words are saying; they are NOT to be taken at face value.  For instance, if I said to a guy with a horrible pimple, “Nice pimple”, I mean that figuratively.  Remember, the pimple is horrible.  It is not nice.  In fact, there are very few nice pimples.  I think a pimple may need a diamond growing in the end of it in order to be a nice pimple.  In that fashion, if I were to say to the guy, “Nice pimple–literally” and there was not a diamond in it, I either:

A)  Have no idea what “literally” means or
B)  Am using the word “literally” ironically, which is way too post-modern and meta to be doing in normal, every day conversation.

I suspect it’s usually A.

Now, the reason I’m writing this at this point is because I love the show Dexter.  And the actor who plays the titular character, Michael C. Hall (not to be confused with the equally talented Anthony Michael Hall—his most recent series, The Dead Zone. was way underated) is a superb actor whose presence in the movie “Gamer” actually got me to rent (with MONEY) that steaming turd of a film.  Then recently, he started doing car commercials, and it was interesting to hear his voice in that context.  NOW, I must plead with all of you—contact your local politicians to get this ad pulled!!!!  Listen ad wizards:  if a VAN were to LITERALLY give birth to another van, that VAN would need to have a uterus, a vagina, and all the other things that go along with GIVING BIRTH.  Can you imagine a van giving birth?  What’s that gestation period look like?  How do they mate, are there interesting rituals????  It’s just waaaaaayyyyy annoying because it is THE POLAR OPPOSITE of literal.. I can’t even think about it anymore.  Here, watch the commercial, it makes me sick:

After years of  trying to escape my Newsweek subscription, I finally managed to do it earlier this year.  And now, this week, Fareed Zakaria has joined TIME as a new columnist.  (For those of you who don’t know, Zakaria was Newsweek’s main public face for many years, and one of the main reasons I left the magazine behind.)  What’s a boy to do?  I love TIME and am subscribed to it through 2015 but I really, really hate Zakaria.  I know there’s nothing I can do, short of cancelling my subscription.  I’m just venting.  Argh!

You Don’t Like Winter

So stop pretending you do.  When I complain about the impending season, stop saying you look forward to the snow, the cold, the wind, the darkness, because you don’t.  A small, tiny, truly insignificant portion of the human race actually likes the winter.  Do you know why?

Because it’s horrible.  It’s wretched.

You don’t like the way the pervasive cold seeps its way into everywhere, cracking things, drying them out, rendering them lifeless and without use or beauty.  You don’t like the way it gets dark at noon, casting a horrid gloom over the world, forcing you to turn your car headlights on for a short afternoon drive to the Wal-Mart.  You don’t like getting bundled up in clothes so oppressive, so thick and mottled you can barely bend at the elbows, or lean in close to whisper to your lovely bundled-up boyfriends and girlfriends.  You don’t like how it’s cold waiting in line at the movie theater.  You don’t like it.

The Great Creator, or Supreme Being, or God, or Collective Unconscious, or Higher Power, or whatever you want to call it, quite clearly created Winter so that the rest of our existence could be highlighted by its absence.  In Winter, most things die, whereas they birth in Spring and thrive all Summer long.  In Winter, our land becomes sheathed in a smooth, featureless white (which you may find visually appealing) that blots out everything we’ve toiled so hard to create.  The ice forbids us from functioning like competent adult creatures; the snow creates more work on top of our already havoc and labor filled lives.  Winter was built to dislike; this you cannot argue.

And while you may look forward to snowboarding, skiing, sledding or snowball-fighting, these are simply things you like to do.  If you could do them in Summer you surely would.

I know what you are doing, you foolhardy liars: you are whistling past the graveyard.  While some of us admit the dread that fills us as Nature’s worst blight approaches, you attempt to deny your most natural instincts by claiming to ‘like’ such a death-filled disastrous time of year.  The worst part about your transparent denial is that in conversation after conversation, those honest ones are forced to feel like pussies, soft human beings who actually prefer sunlight-filled Eden seasons.  I, for one, will not allow your contrivance to make me feel this way.

You don’t like Winter, so stop pretending you do.

Lawnchairs, Complications, JUST GO, and Blossoming

1.  What is it about a certain demographic of people that makes them believe that anytime they are watching music outdoors they must be sitting on lawnchairs?

2.  I am really really loving TurningArt.  If you haven’t seen me posting about it on Facebook, TurningArt is like Netflix but for art prints.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a major “art” guy.  I don’t know a whole lot about it, but I do enjoy me some art and over the past few years I’ve begun developing some favorites and some more solid opinions, and I thought TurningArt might help me gain a better appreciation for various kinds of art, much in the way that Netflix has helped me explore new genres of film.  I’m on the “every two months” plan at TurningArt–I get a new print to hang every two months (art takes a tad longer to drink in than a movie does).  My first print for the past month or so has been Peter Roux’s “A Statement of Complicated Mourning #2”.  This is it:

I know at first glance it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot to it, but I’ve been really studying it as I come and go out of the apartment every day (it’s hung at the top of my entry stairs) and I’m starting to really dig it.  I’m starting to see some things about why it’s titled what it is, and the skill that is there that at first glance might not be evident (I will, however, spare you my amateur analysis).  I’ve now put the rest of Roux’s prints at the top of my queue.  I might have a new second favorite artist!  (Jan Vermeer will always be my favorite, I think).  Here’s how awesome the print looks hanging in my apartment, in the frame that TurningArt provides:

3.  I’m trying very hard to not immediately turn into a “bicycle guy”, as I know it’s something I just recently picked up and I don’t want to be one of those people who just jumps into and out of passions, but I’ve just got to vent:  having only been an active biker for about 3 weeks now, I am appalled at how motorists ignore us.  Please, when you see a bicyclist, consider the pyhsics that are acting upon them.  When we slam on our brakes, we take the risk of flying off our bike.  It is not like being in a car.  Also, once I’ve stopped for you, just go.  Do not then wave me on after I’ve stopped.  Restarting is not as easy for us as pressing a pedal, so please just go so I can restart properly.  And while I’m ranting:  where have all the bike racks gone???  I’d have rode my bike to the Gin Blossoms concert tonight, except I was down at that festival yesterday during the day on my bike and found only one bike rack, which I did not trust to have any vanancies when I got there tonight.  Bike racks, people, bike racks!  Speaking of the Gin Blossoms show tonight…

4.  They were OK.  They were obviously great musicians but not exciting performers, which sucks when you’re not a huge fan of the music to begin with.  Still, I’m glad I went.  It was cool to see so many songs that are radio staples.  Here is a picture I took:    I must admit though, I left early and ended up watching a local band on a stage down the street.  Check out this video I took of the Gin Blossoms’ “Follow You Down” (which they opened with).  The sound quality is horrible!  My camera is no modern marvel but it usually records sound alright.  What do you think happened?

Dear Bob Edwards: your radio show has been about New Orleans for the last fucking month.  We get it.  Now please stop.

Sincerely,
Seth

Blog of a Thousand Links (or: The One Where I Announce Kyle and I are Engaged)

First of all, I didn’t proofread this entry, and I’m not going to, so there!

A week or so ago, my buddy Kyle and I agreed to send each other a mix disc and then write a blog on the specific songs on each other’s disc.  Kyle sent me a mix disc with a bunch of his favorite artists on it, and I sent him a mix of Hey Rosetta! songs—you know, that band I won’t shut up about and which  the most attractive woman I’ve ever dated says makes me a “hipster” (I’m just playing around Kiwi, my feelings weren’t hurt).

Kyle wrote his blog about the Hey Rosetta disc yesterday, and you can read that here.   I implore you to read it; Kyle is a very entertaining blogger, and I hear he’s hilarious when he takes Ritalin rectally. 

So anyway, I’ll now review what I thought of the songs on Kyle’s mix disc, track-for-track, and I shall pull no punches.  I may savage a few of these, but at the same time, please know that anything I say I liked, I quite genuinely did.  First off, I’ll just show you the track listing:

1.  Elton John, “Funeral For a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding”
2.  Stevie Wonder, “All Day Sucker”
3.  X Posed, “Point of No Return”
4.  Parliament, “Night of the Thumpasaurus People”
5.  Lady Gaga, “Speechless”
6.  Tom Waits, “Falling Down”
7.  Stevie Wonder, “Blame it on the Sun”
8.  Meat Loaf, “You Took the Words Right Out of my Mouth”
9.  Elton John, “Roy Rogers”
10.  My Brightest Diamond, “From the Top of the World”

 

1.  Elton John, “Funeral For a Friend/ Love Lies Bleeding”

So this is one of those 2 song dealies where one bleeds into the other and they are both one track (but not like a suite–they are clearly seperate songs) and boy howdy, Kyle picked a great way to open this disc!  “Funeral”, especially, is very much my type of music.  It’s instrumental, and very much a combination of rock and classical music, and very foreboding and dark and ominous.  This is very close to the sub-genre of rock I like very much, Post Rock.  I did not know Mr. John had anything like this.  I love it, but I doubt there’s more of it.  “Love Lies Bleeding” I found to be an above-average Elton John song but it lacks enough drama or cajones to be following on the heels of “Funeral for a Friend”.  Although, it has given me a deeper appreciation of the Fuel song “Hemorrhage (in My Hands)”, which I like very much and I now see directly references this song.  (sidenote:  Fuel are noted Elton John fans.  Never heard their cover of “Daniel”?  Please do.)

2.  Stevie Wonder, “All Day Sucker”

OK people, listen here, this song rules.  And I was not prepared for that.  I’ve never even thought for a split second about paying any attention to Stevie Wonder. Now, I must say, the reason I like this as much as I do is because it is very close to being a “rock” song.  It’s got crunchy guitars and a rock-and-roll growl to it, as well as a certain swagger in the lyrics.  It is, at the very least, rock-centric funk, and I like it’s balls.  Listen to the 30 second preview of the song here.

3.  X posed, “Point of No Return”

This is actually a pretty famous 80s tune.  It’s one of those songs that gets in your head and is really catchy and fun, but definitely not my thing.  I’d say what it lacks, for me, is any even minor attempt at lyrical substance.  I know this is a point where Kyle and I’s tastes begins to differ, but if there are words in a song, I want at least a little meat on them.  It can even be, like, buffalo wings amount of meat (for instance, I still like The Bloodhound Gang) but there’s gotta be more than a few phrases thrown around for repetition’s sake.  If you don’t have anything to say, make an instrumental!  And good God, it is at least a full minute too long!

4.  Parliament, “Night of the Thumpasaurus People”

Now this is good shit.  While I’m no total stranger to Parliament (when I was a young man I once bought George Clinton’s solo album Smell My Finger and used the songs off that album as the soundtrack to my now legendary film “Kiteman”.  Since then I’ve always been quite curious about what came before that in Clinton’s career), I must say I was a total newbie to this song, and I love it!!!!  It is classic dirty, swinging funk with almost no words, but the chanted nonsense refrain will worm it’s way into your brain and lodge itself in there until you hit the “repeat” button on your stereo.  If you are a person who is alive you will want to watch this YouTube video.

5.  Lady Gaga, “Speechless”

I quite honestly continue to have no idea what to think about Lady Gaga.  Once performers begin referencing culture, and the fame they themselves attain, and start doing things like spectacle for specatacle’s sake or dressing funny, I frankly have no idea what’s going on.  Is the music good or do we just think it’s good?  Is this person interestng or do we just think they’re interesting (and that, in turn, makes them interesting)?  Does it matter that she wore something bizarre (and if it didn’t matter, why’d she do it?)?  I am not bothered by any of this, and do not “hate” on her like many others do, but I sort of throw my hands up about it because it hurts my head and I don’t really care about it all.  Every song I’ve heard of hers isn’t bad at all, but it doesn’t knock my socks off either.  This song, “Speechless”, is an OK song, but I can’t say as I can hear it my head right now, either.  Her image and what she’s trying to do, culturally, naturally remind us all of early Madonna, but I’m not hearing a “Like a Virgin” or “Like a Prayer” sort of scorcher coming from Gaga.  “Speechless” needs something like a tempo change or big, classic hook to shoot it into the rarefied air she seems to be reaching for.

6.  Tom Waits, “Falling Down”

I already have Kyle to thank for introducing me to Tom Waits in the first place and he’s quickly becoming one of my favorite artists.  And “Falling Down” is one of my new favorites.  Haunting, visceral, yet plain and straight-forward, this is the sort of song that can compliment any mood while also turning that mood into a mini-cry fest. (I’m not gay)

7.  Stevie Wonder, “Blame it On the Sun”

I wasn’t as thrilled with this one as I was with the other Stevie song, but I do dig the lyrics and the arrangement; it was just a tad sleepy for me.  I think if kept at the same tempo but added an acoustic guitar to the mix, I’d be much happier (what IS that stringed instrument that’s in ther already?  A harp?)

8.  Meat Loaf, “You Took the Words Right Out of My Mouth”

Sorry dude.  I just really don’t like Meat Loaf, and this song is no exception.  His songs are jokes that think they’re serious, and trifles that think they’re epics.  I mean, the lyrics to this song–which you can tell Mr. Loaf takes quite seriously–read like the poem of an 8th grade girl.  Sure, there’s a couple neat tricks, but nothing that qualifies for inclusion in the canon with great songwriters.  And then this cutesy line about her taking the words out of his mouth “while you were kissing me”—I mean what is this, Motown?  Is this a song by The Platters? And you can tell he thinks it’s clever because he sings it 35 times.  I call shenanigans.  And musically it just sounds like another Meat Loaf tune.  (sorry dude, I told you I hate Meat Loaf!)

9.  Elton John, “Roy Rogers”

Now here is a great song!!!  Just good, classic, mid-tempo thoughtful and intelligent rock.  It’s getting better the more I hear it and I think I may end up claiming it as one of my favorite songs if I keep liking it this much more very day.  Thank you Kyle for introducing me to it!!!  I’d say more but it’s kinda amazing.  Read the lyrics here and hear it here.   You will not regret doing these things!

10.  My Brightest Diamond, “From the Top of the World”

This is a great song and I suspect this band is great, too.  I’m almost ashamed I didn’t already know about them.  Right down my alley.  It’s got that dark, Indie-rock sound I’ve found so favorable in bands like The Walkmen, Islands, The National, among others, except My Brightest Diamond boasts a female vocalist, which is rare in this particular sub-genre and which I like very much.  Watch the official video.  I’ll definitely be looking more into them Kyle!  Thanks for introducing me to them as well as quite a few other great things on this disc, as well as cementing my belief that Meat Loaf is a total fucking hack!  Until next time everyone, peace in the Middle East!