Category: My Record Collection

Art is a universal language. If literature is the collage of language, then poetry is its distillation. Music would (in this metaphor) be the imbibing of such distillations. Imbibe with me, otherwise the words in these posts won’t make very much sense.

Categories
Jazz

la la land

La La Land: Justin Hurwitz

Classification: Jazz
Release: 2016

Some day I may get around to reviewing the movie, "La La Land". Spoiler alert, I love it. It's sad. It's sweet. It's bitter. It's jazz and slick and Hollywood perfect. Sure, sure. I'm a sucker, what can I say? My wife is a big fan of Ryan Gosling - I think most wives are. She always seems to have new Hollywood crushes, but Ryan Gosling is one that often comes up in her list of most attractive men. I know this list because she likes to ask me who I think is pretty in Hollywood. I don't think she really wants to hear my answer. I think she wants me to ask the question back.

Since 2014 I have included Emma Stone in my list. This is partially because of Emma Stone, partly because I am forever behind in my Hollywood gossip. There is just too much content these days. People that don't have anything to say should just stop saying it. Hmm. That cuts a little too close. I've stopped including Emma Stone in my lists when Erin asks me the Hollywood question. This has nothing to do with Emma Stone, per se. It has everything to do with Erin's response to my inclusion of Emma Stone in my list. Erin said something to the effect that Emma Stone looks like her sister. There is a vague similarity there, but I wouldn't have noticed it without Erin's pointing it out in ways that made me realize that she had done her homework to prove her spurious point.

It's made things weird between us. Not between Erin and I (nor between Erin's sister and I). Between Emma and I. There's this disconnect now that wasn't there before. It's me, Emma. Not you. See, that's weird isn't it? La La Land the movie used to be the perfect movie for Erin and I. Now? Well, let's just move on to the album.

There is a stack of folders that I want to edit and put on the blog. Instead I'm sitting listening to La La Land for the fifth time in three days and writing about it. I should have classified this post as a review in the Musicals category. It would have fixed a broken link. So would some of the papers in the stack of folders an arm's reach away, for that matter. It would be dishonest to put La La Land in any other category than jazz. Sure, it's a safer jazz than some of the other albums I've been listening to. Here's looking at you King Tut. It's got that Hollywood slickness about it that something like Head Hunters doesn't have. Still, a duck is a duck whether its in the little pond near our apartment or in the lobby of the Peabody. 

"Are there any words", asked Erin on its second go round the turntable? It was then I knew that it couldn't go in the Musicals category. There are some words, in case you were wondering. Only on City of Stars, which might actually be one of my least favorite tracks on the whole album. Mia and Sebastian's Theme, which runs through both album and movie, has a beautiful piano refrain. I can't put my finger on it, but for some reason hearing the song over and over again I am reminded of Cloud Atlas and its recurring piano theme. 

Now, there's a film (or book) I wouldn't mind picking up again. This is why I can't catch up to the content that Hollywood keeps churning out. I get distracted too easily in deciding what to watch with the overabundance of choices. I wind up returning to the same thing over and over again. La La Land is that type of jazz record: a refuge, a safe return when the plethora of choices seem overwhelming. It is the ultimate tool of procrastination. The stack of folders that need to be edited can wait another day.
Categories
Americana

johnny bravo blues

Dollar bin find! I love the gnarled cover. The back even has a collage as its theme. The collage was laying the foundations in me long before I was aware.
The Barry Goldberg Reunion

Classification: Americana
Subclassification: Blues
Release: The Barry Goldberg Reunion, 1968

I feel confident in designating this as blues. It could have fit into Classic Rock with its garage rock vibes at times. In a way, it would have fit in with Oldies for that same reason, but 1968 is a little late for an Oldies classification, isn't it. Vocally, I can hear the influence of Bob Dylan. I can also hear how Barry Goldberg might have had an early influence on Elvis Costello. I like Elvis Costello; I'm ambivalent about Dylan. I recognize his musicality, his artistry and his importance. That said, I would listen to The Wallflowers over Dylan all day. Sorry, Bob. Sorry, Dad. 

This was starting to feel like a real album review. It felt like I was laying the foundations for a philosophy of music. Where does taste fall in the hierarchy of importance to rating music? There must be some objectivity in regards to assessing music. Otherwise, the sound that your child makes with a metal spoon on an upside down brass pot would be as good as that Phil Collins drum solo. You may love your child with all your heart, but I don't want to live in a world where his anti-climactic banging equates to the greatest drum solo of all time. It felt like that was where this was going. Then, I heard the voice of the muse whisper in my ear, "too literal". The music could be rock, could be blues, could be gospel, could be something else. It is a muddled mess. "This is your quest," the spirit whispered. How does one express this strange, muddled stew of everything that is the Barry Goldberg Reunion. 

Music experienced is a magical thing. I sat and listened to the record twice, back to back. After, I wrote the bones of Johnny Bravo Blues. It'll show up some day, probably in The Orphans. Until then, just know that Johnny Bravo and his blues stopped me dead in my tracks when trying to write the review of The Barry Goldberg Reunion.
Categories
New Wave

mesopotamia

Mesopotamia: The B-52's
Classification: New Wave
Subclassification: None1
Release: Mesopotamia, 1982

The B-52's hold a special place in my heart. I think that is one of the many things about me that does not make me unique. Uniqueness is overrated. It's early days yet on this blog, but it would appear that we are on a direction that appears to be a retrospective of the hipster. Dirk's Gently has a driving strategy that I often apply to my life. "I follow," I'm paraphrasing here, "I follow someone who looks like they know where they are going. Then, I often ended up where I needed to be, even if where I needed to be wasn't where I sat out to go." I like that philosophy. It meshes with one of the notions of collage as literature. As the author, I am in the same boat as the reader - I have no idea how this will end. This shared nonknowledge is so liberating, isn't it?

To be unique is not a bad thing, per se. It is the obsession with uniqueness that is unpalatable. To be unique for the sake of uniqueness is a disease - it kills the soul. There is a word that I have grown to loathe over the years. It isn't the word's fault, per se. It is the obsession with the word that is unpalatable. Words have power - but, like our democracy those words are fragile. When they are overused or misused to the point of nausea their power morphs into something awful - it kills the soul, just to hear it. With that rambling caveat, the desire to be unique for the sake of uniqueness is a toxic trait of hipsterdom. Like all toxicities, the obsession with uniqueness kills the obsessed, content to only maim those in the orbit of the aforementioned obsessed. 

I refused to listen to The Shins for ten years after watching Garden State. After my decade long feud with Zach Braff (he had no idea about the feud) I realized that I was only hurting myself. Besides, New Slang and I had those three years before that movie came out and ruined everything. Forgive me, readers. Forgive me, Zach Braff. To be unique for the sake of being unique is to choose isolation, to choose alienation. We are nearer to the dread than we have ever been. It is OK to get lost in staring at the abyss. It is OK to break down to tears, to revolt with no hope of winning the revolution. It is OK to laugh at the absurd (this is my preferred strategy, though I am not dogmatic and like to mix in a whole bunch of corollaries to even out the stuffing in my strawman). Go Churchill on the meaningless of it all, fight it on the beaches, on the streets, in the sheets - never, never surrender to whatever this evil this metaphorical paragraph warns against.

Now you may be asking yourself something at this very moment. I know this because I am asking myself something at this very moment. This very moment (the moment you are reading and I am writing) is unique because it is shared extradimensionally. Our moment together exists outside of spacetime - it is eternal. You are asking yourself as I am asking myself - both of these questions must be either rhetorical or some kind of metaphysical chess game by mail. I'm asking myself rhetorically, but I am sure that if you are not then I will at some point sense it and we shall share another moment where your question will be answered. What does any of this have to do with the B-52's Mesopotamia? 

Nothing. We must be OK with that. That's the joke that helps us transcend the absurd. Lifted up, we are rarefied. We transcend unto absolute eternity, together. Victorious over the absurdity of the meaninglessness that we walk through - alone in our every allotted day. Those days will come and go; but our victory over the alienation is forever, eternal. Eternally linked to the unique sounds of the B-52's Mesopotamia. What a unique experience we have just shared, down by the third pyramid. 

1. It will sound odd and inconsistent with my confessed obsession with categorization and classifications that such a large portion of my record collection will fall under the rather mundane sounding "New Wave" without any sub-classifications or categories. It sounds odd because it is odd. I would venture that about 40-50% of my records are in this genre of music. While my current focus is on expanding my jazz collection I do not see this figure dipping to below 35% of my overall collection. There just always seems to be an album that I come across while digging through sales crates that catches my eye that is a new wave, post-punk type album. Why then would I choose not sub classify this pivotal section?

There are two reasons, one spiritual and one practical. The spiritual reason is obviously more lofty, more embellished and more curated. That does not imply that it is less valid or less weightier in my estimation. In fact, the opposite is true. I think the spiritual reason is more valid, more weightier in my estimation. I will have to really do some soul searching to find out if I live by these words. I fear I do not. The spiritual reason is that I think the modern world is so hopelessly fractured that we will never be able to overcome the prison of isolationism that we have purchased for ourselves from the various corporations. True or not, this late 70's through 80's genre of "Alternative Rock" in its many guises of punk, post-punk, new wave, sound wave, pop art, art rock, college rock, experimental rock, indie pop (not 21st century indie pop, which would rightly be called neo-indie pop or indie pop revival, but that's unimportant), synthwave, electronic wave, dark wave, French cold wave, noise pop, progressive rock (2nd or 3rd generation), pub rock, etc., etc., and so on, forever and ever, this decade give or take a little on the edges represents to me the last time that we, collectively, were able to produce something and have it grow without being subservient to some corporation. It was not the last time that bespoke existed, but the last time that bespoke was affordable. That's a strange thing to come to grips with in the Internet Age. That is the spiritual reason.

The practical reason is that I could so subclassify this genre in so many different ways that I would (given my obsessiveness on this sorting issue) find that I have no time for anything else. I would just be constantly shuffling records around, creating spreadsheets on excel to track my many different ways of sorting. That doesn't sound very fun, does it?
Categories
Jazz

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun: Art Ensemble of Chicago

Classification: Jazz
Release: 1969

Another jazz album, another stab at poetry. This might not be a tenant, but there's a strong connection between jazz and poetry. I think it has something to do with the endorphins associated with absolute freedom. Fear reduces us to staccato speech. Excitement moves us to speech fast. The push and the pull of this reaction to a world with no rules is exhilarating. Have you ever heard an exhilarated goose? The sound it produces stretches the definition of music to a breaking point, pushes it beyond the pale and leaves its carcass buried in the desert. Out of this snuffed out definition of music comes Art Ensemble of Chicago's Tutankhamun and the four poems I have written in response to listening to this album. Next to the definition of music you will find the remains of the term, "poetry". I buried it there last week.

What can I say? Impenetrable jazz gets impenetrable poetry. To collage is to recreate life as it is experienced, not as it appears. For eight hours a day, nine on this particular day I sat at a computer doing the work of a salesman. Erin & I were going golfing at 6:00 - an exciting first for us. At 5:59 a zipper tab was pulled violently by a passing wind. The clouds relieved themselves in a torrential downpour and we went home. A collage of today would rightly emphasis the one minute that defined it rather than the nine that constituted its majority. I say it again, to collage is to recreate life as it is experienced, not as it is. 

Confession is good for the soul. I confess that I am a bit of a history nerd. I purchased this album because I am going through a bit of a jazz phase and I liked the cover. Confession is good for the soul. I confess that I really struggled with this album. In fact, while the album was playing I walked into the other room where Erin was - behind a closed door. Her look told me all I needed to know about her take on Art Ensemble of Chicago's definition of poetry. Incredibly, it sounded better and more like music from behind the heavy wooden doors. I also bought the album because of the track lengths. The titular song clocks in at an astounding 18:10. It makes the 15:35 The Ninth Room seem mercifully short. The Ninth Room is easily the best song and my worst poem. 

Because I am not a sadist, I have included a digital collage I made while relistening to the record, twice. Once from behind the heavy wooden doors. Once at 45 rpms instead of the suggested 33. The heavy doors improved the experience; the other, did not. Because I want you to read these admittedly terrible poems, I have placed the picture at the bottom of this page. This is a digital version of ears of corn on the side of the road with a box for you to throw money into. On your honor, read the poems. Then look at the collage. (You'll notice that my poetry suffers for being too literal in its response to the album. It would appear that literalism is becoming a threat.)

Tutankhamun

tasked to put words to music:
                       who tasked?
tell me,
        tell me.
                       i'll kill em...

cacophony. caw caw. cacophonous. caw.
                                 caw. ?

sounds.    toot.    toot.             ?
                       who tasked?
tell me,
        tell me.
                       i'd like a word...

thinitthedalen part one

i couldn't do it.
kill-kill him,
            i mean.

The Ninth Room

geesesgoosesgoslingoose
groove/ya dig?
quackedquackquackery
groove/ya dig?

you want impenetrable? i'll give it to you.
impentrabley igpe atinlay 
groove/ya dig?

impentrabley?
impossible/impassable/impassabley 
                                    [read lei]
impenetrable impervious imperil
improv imperdimproved impassabley 
                                    [red. lay]

impenetrable jazz gets impenetrable poetry
we are divided/divisible
groove/ya dig?
cant even agree to disagree
groove/ya dig?
quackedquackquackery
ya dig?

geesesgoosesgoslingoose
groove.

thinitthedalen part two

rush to the volume knob:
what's wrong with the bumble bees?
nada
    nada
        nada 
            the geeses fly south
            fed up with the bees
        nada
    nada
     
Til we meet again, King Tut.
Categories
Classic Rock

The Dark Side of The Moon, Part One

The Dark Side of the Moon: Pink Floyd

Classification: Rock
Subclassification: Classic Rock
Release: 1973

It is interesting, potentially a sign of cosmic interference that my first two entries on my album collection, as dissimilar as they are, come from the year 1973. If I am to fully adopt the belief that mysticism is our only hope to reclaiming truth and the ability to communicate with one another then I must stop being surprised by these odd coincidences. I need not embrace wild fantasies. The road to the dark side, that is. Anger, fear, jealousy, conspiracy theories. There is only darkness. But, the road to the light is fraught with many incidents when the path to enlightenment lies within touching distance of the most horrific and stupid Internet theory. If I were to come home with a rust bucket that once claimed to be 1973 Pontiac Catalina Safari Wagon based on this mystical experience I would have given into the darkness inside of me. This would be funny if it weren't a real possibility. The way to enlightenment is to sit and ponder how I can feel nostalgic for a time that preexisted me. I am timesick and I must know the cure.

Pink Floyd Albums hit differently at different ages. They are less celebrations and more laments in my middle age. I listen to a lot Pink Floyd these days. Pink Floyd is one of those bands that you should always listen to the whole album through. No shuffling, no skipping. The album is a whole, and a song in isolation is deprived of its encapsulating riches. I will be visiting Pink Floyd on many occasions on this blog. In order to keep this post at a readable word count it will focus on a single line in a single track. We will strip the lyric and deprive it of its encapsulating riches. We will turn in it into a mania!

"And then one day you find ten years have got behind you. 
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun." One day I was listening to this album, cooking a curry. I remember it vividly. For a few months, in my early twenties, I lived in an apartment complex that was predominately Indian immigrant families. I was a recluse at that point in my life, but that is unimportant. The overwhelming aromas in that building brought me an unspeakable joy and light that brought me, ever so momentarily out of the unspeakable darkness I was living in. Turns out the reclusive bit was important after all. It was a sweet potato and carrot curry, I was going vegetarian for Erin's sake.

I was free-handing the spices and herbs when Time spun round the table. Had I missed the starting gun? The thought gnawed away at me and became obsessive. It consumed me. I made the curry so spicy that I struggled to eat it. Erin couldn't touch it. Thankfully, I had made a side dish. It was an Afghani recipe called lubya. A curried kidney dish that I cooked some eggs with. I came to know of this dish from reading Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns. One of the character's favorite dish is beans and eggs. I cooked some eggs on the lubya and it has become a staple in the Linehan household. Never exactly the same, but bearing a Wittgensteinian family resemblance. I determined later that evening that I had missed the starting gun. I must have been lost in deep thought over something as trivial and important as the Pythagoras' religious scruples over beans. How can one abstain from beans?

I'm chasing the sun and it's sinking. I'd probably catch up to it in a 1973 Pontiac Catalina Safari Wagon. 1973 is important. I'm going to put the breaks on buying another station wagon. That dream hurt me too recently to be reconsidered and welcomed back into the aspirational fold.
Categories
Jazz

Head Hunters

Head Hunters: Herbie Hancock

Classification: Jazz
Release: 1973

The second of the powerful first triumvirate of my record reviews who by chance happened to have first been released in 1973. I don't believe in coincidences. My beliefs are also not beholden to your credulity. That sounded much more aggressive than necessary. Time travel can make me a bit jumpy. 

I'm sitting here in my little apartment, listening to jazz on vinyl, typing my thoughts out on a typewriter. The rhythmic hammering of the keys enriches, envelopes and experiences the oneness of peak hipsterdom. I have reached the summit to discover that the embracing and acceptance of the label is to truly become one with irony. By accepting it without shame, without irony one becomes irony itself.  

Sly embodies the Dionysian chaos that is so alluring to me in Jazz. I embrace the embodiment. I am writing poetry, on a typewriter, listening to jazz on a turntable. I can feel the mid-century mod flowing through my veins. The crystal ash tray on the teak side table has my favorite cigarette in it. My feet are up on the coffee table. It's from etsy, hairpin legs with a painted atomic age starburst on it. More mid-century than real mid-century. The ostentatious fluting on Watermelon Man overwhelms me. I am one with the vision. I write poetry on typewriter listening to jazz record smoking imaginary cigarette in imaginary room with feet up on imaginary table and newspaper in hand. This is what the vision says:

it begins with the irresistible bass
the the guitar oozes sex
the horns are a'comin
the horns,
i'm a comin

I pick up the cigarette, cinematically. The seventies, as constructed by secondary experiences hangs in the air, giving everything a hazy glow. I smoke the cigarette, cinematically because this is what cinema is. Vein Melter is playing in the background and I am sitting on the couch smoking a cigarette after a hard day's work. The record ends and my imagination is purged by the Apollonian reactionaries. It is tough to breath at the peaks of mountains. I have had my taste of vision. Remember the good book says, give us our daily bread; key word - daily. Let us end with a prayer: may the good Lord find gluttony to be a far greater sin than lighthearted syncretism.
Categories
World

Gençlik İle Elele

Gençlik İle Elele: Mustafa Özkent

Classification: World
Subclassification: Europe
Subsubclassification: Turkey
[subject to review]
Release: 1973
Reissue: 2006

Question: Should Mustafa Özkent's masterpiece be reclassified to Hipster status?

Argument for: As much as we claim to be a citizen of the world, and we think that claim to be justifiable to a certain extant - we admit that we aggrandize from time to time. We are at the very least a pledge to the world citizen's brigade (which if actually exists, please forgive me for any bad press this may bring, and does membership include sponsorships to live in various countries?). Yes, we have traveled a bit. But, we have not been to Turkey. We have this album because we picked it up in a hispterish and trendy area of London. 

Argument against: We also acknowledge padding our resume a bit, but damn it! The Vatican is its own sovereign nation and we think that it counts. It a baker's dozen does make. Sure, sure. We also acknowledge a humble brag feels good now and again. That market in London was hella cool, hipster Mecca during the peak of millenialism. We had the pick of fifteen different food trucks inside some industrial era warehouse, repurposed and upscaled with such meticulous perfection it felt authentic. Think late 19th Century Steam Punk Victorians with iPods. Do you remember how we picked the Cachorro Quente? Delicious? Yes. However, when you put a hot dog in a thick ketchup sauce, slap it on a brioche bun and top it with potato sticks it tends to pop the exoticism of travel. We bought the record at that market. It was in the Turkish section. 

Verdict: I am not convinced either way. It is true that it is a living anecdote of our hipster journey: denial, fierce denial, secret acceptance with public denial, open acceptance, absolute immersion, oneness, to meta fracturing (kaleidoscopic hipsterism: looking at the era of the hipster with a nostalgic bent, thus completing the circle and returning hipsterdom to its rightful place, irony). We are trying to be a voice of that return to whimsical irony, inside jokes to ourselves that somehow make sense to like-minded souls. It was in the Turkish section, but it was reissued by British Hipsters. Would it be out of place in the Classification: World. Subclassification: Europe. Subsubclassification: United Kingdom? I don't think that is the logical place for it, but an argument can be made for it. As such, we will leave it in the listed classification, subclassification and subsubclassification while reserving the right to revisit. God knows there are other hipster issues forthcoming.    

Third album review (typewriter edition). Third album from 1973. Three in a row to begin the whole exercise! As a mystic, I must stop being surprised by these things. Here's how to express the inexpressable, the spirit of the music says to me, Herbie Hancock came to me by Chris Farley (God rest his soul). Pink Floyd came to me by my father. The irony came to me from above, whatever that may mean. It was my destiny to come of age in such heady, heady times to be served a hot dog for twelve quid by a Carioca. Upscaled and exoticized basic food stuff? Check. Overpriced? Check. Served on biodegradable flatware? Check. Food truck? Check. Bonus points: food truck in old upscaled warehouse. Vintage music? Check. Need I go on? It was the draw of hipsterism that led me to that market. It was the hubris of that hipsterism that led me to eating a hot dog. It was the joyous and jubilant madness of that hipsterism that allowed me to believe that the emperor's clothes were indeed beautiful and the Cachorro Quente was something completely new. Mystics are not prophets. I don't want that kind of responsibility. The British Hipster, subsubclassification: Neo-Mod. had the album in the Turkish section. That's good enough for me.

A prophet speaks truths that are to come to pass. A mystic speaks truths as well as he is able given both their skill and the ineffability of the truth experienced. The false prophets (visionaries) must be killed - their evil must be purged. Mystical truths are easily lost in translation by nature of the ineffability of the truth; and, at least at this stage in my life, the lack of transmission skills. For example, this paragraph seems to have all the qualities of a sledgehammer when I'm trying to offer a whimsical panegyric on hispterdom in general. We shall move on, try and catch back up with the crazy vibe swings of the record.  

Vibes began with a Surf Rock, the mystical truth of Scooby Doo comes to me. Vibes kind of waned as the second song started. I glanced down at the track list on the record sleeve. Seated at my typewriter pondering the insane number of diacritics amongst the individual songs, how can I explain this? How can I express the inexpressible? Close your eyes for a moment. Actually, don't do that. 

Imagine that you are closing your eyes. Imagine that you are young and watching Scooby Doo. It is past your bedtime and your mother has been warning you for at least ten minutes that she will come turn the television off. Her threats increase in intensity with each and every twist and turn of the episode. The final commercial break comes at the worst opportunity ever. You can hear your mother's footsteps above you. They are walking slowly, ominously above you. Pacing. 

You don't want that new nerf gun on the commercial. You already have the Nickelodeon Magazine subscription. You do not care what Mork and Mindy or Happy Days are doing on Nick at Nite in five minutes. No, all you want to know who is behind the mystery at the abandoned amusement park, the recently haunted park, coinciding with some developer trying to buy it. You are understanding the odious and evil nature of the world. You must know the why behind the world's fall from grace that this particular episode encapsulates so well. Isn't that right, Shaggy?

You hear the door between the basement and the kitchen opening as Fred announces that the spook has been snagged by some simple contraption, even though the contraption (physical or metaphorical - take your pick) didn't work the way it was planned to. Just as you are about to see the why, to make sense of the evil and chaos your mother presses the power button on the remote control just as Fred unmasks the villain - who would have gotten away with it if not for those darn kids, by the way. You raise your voice to the sky, cast your protestations and pleadings at the ceiling fan, they are as likely to grant your petition as your mother. 

Who was the spook? You will forever think about it, but through the fog of time you will assume that you know, you will have seen all of the Scooby Doo episodes there are (of the original run), will you not? Surely you have seen them all? Thus, you must know who that particular spook is. But can you prove it? Can you put this question to bed? No. You cannot. You are now left with the choice of obtaining and rewatching every single episode of the original Scooby Doo knowing that you will have to watch from a scientific standpoint that will rob you of all enjoyment or to live with the gnawing doubt. That was the feeling I had when I had begun to review Gençlik İle Elele by Mustafa Özkent only to discover the graves, umlauts, palatal hooks, O My! That was the decision I faced. I am, in essence, scientifically rewatching Scooby Doo. 

As I was sitting in contemplation of the logistics associated with the diacritical madness the third song came on. I was immediately whisked away to Speed Racer. A smile stretched on my face as I felt the wind, sitting shotgun aside the titular character in his Mach 5. We were speeding through the record, digging the grooves together. Suddenly we saw a sign that said fork in the road. One way led to the eternal pastures of Saturday Morning cartoons. The other way led to the hairy Seventies' porno scene. We looked at the sign; then at each other. All I could say was, "Go, Speed Racer, go!" I'm still not sure which way I wanted him to take. Moral of the story, don't be so diactrical on the diacritics. Embrace the hipsterdom. Push the hipsterdom into dadjoke territory. You may lose a little shock value in reclaiming the irony.
Categories
My Record Collection Slacker

adore

Adore: The Smashing Pumpkins

Classification: Slacker Rock
Release: Adore, 1998

The purpose of this exercise is to get the juices going, to write when I don't feel like writing - when I have nothing worthwhile to write. As I was typing this introductory sentence a thought occurred to me: what a great plan. The juices flowed. Ideas came pouring in. Then I sat down at the typewriter ready to pounce on one of the myriad of topics that came to me. Just as I fired up the old boy all the ideas scampered off into the shadows. The juices dried up. It may be a winter wonderland outside, but my insides feel like the Sahara. 

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is my favorite album by The Smashing Pumpkins. I don't have that one on vinyl. I have Adore, ergo we shall begin the adoration. At one point I had the double disc CD but it was taken from me by my mother - she did not approve of the lyrics to "Zero". While I appreciate the theological stance as an adult, the twelve year old version of me that had his CD taken away found the addition of the forboden only enhanced the appeal of Infinite Sadness. It is a high water mark in Slacker rock history. That said, Ava Adore is one of their finest tunes. You can disagree - you'd just be wrong.

When Infinite Sadness was taken away from me I had to turn to the streets. Given my street address was firmly planted in the middle of solidly middle class with aspirations neighborhood the streets weren't all that helpful. Lucky for me, the Presbyterian School I attended had a dealer. He was an entrepreneur, that kid. Knew his market. Knew his clientele. Having more theologically lenient parents his music collection was left unmolested. His hustle proved John Calvin was right about at least one thing: Total Depravity. He bought all the questionable CDs and used his boombox to record them onto cassette tapes. The cassette tapes were sold for $2 without a case and $5 with a case that included a jacket from a random Contemporary Christian Artist. He also sold pogs he made with his pog-maker that featured scantily clad women. The guy is either a millionaire or in prison by now. He was predestined, what good is it to mope over someone's fate when it is sealed from birth? That sounds a bit Pagan - a little Norse, a little Greek. Mr. Calvin, methinks you doth have a bit of explaining to doth.

It's been quite a while since I put this record on. I'm really getting into it. "Tear" is really dropping me back into that late 90's postgrunge vibe. I was fifteen when I bought this album. It's one of the records that I've had the longest. I bought it at some headshop in Marion, IN - I cannot remember the name of that shop for the life of me! My mom drove me there; she was still suspicious, but had mellowed in the gap between Infinite Sadness & Adore. She was much more concerned with the Satanic looking Blue Oyster Cult album that I purchased alongside this Smashing Pumpkins record. My Dad vouched for that one, calming my mother's alarm at the Druidlike figures who graced the cover. 

I think the light industrial feel to this album is something that I either took for granted at the time or had long forgotten. "Apples+Oranjes" wouldn't have been out of place in a late 80's Depeche Mode. After pausing to listen more closely I Googled the song to make sure that it wasn't a Depeche Mode song originally. Boy! That would have been embarrassing if it had been. Of course, you would have never known of my embarrassment. If a tree slips and falls in the woods when no one is around does it feel embarrassment? Adore is a solid album, but it still isn't Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness, which is currently trending at about $140 at the moment. Adore is the best we're going to get for quite some time.
Categories
Hipster My Record Collection

Stylo – The Gorillaz

Listen while reading. If you finish before the song, you have read too quickly. If you finish after the song, you have read too slowly. Go Goldilocks on it. Do it just right.
It seems fitting to begin the hipster section of my album reviews with The Gorillaz. There is no logic behind it; some things just make sense because they make sense.

Classification: Hipster
Release: Plastic Beach, 2010

                               *

I have an annoying habit of responding to the word, 'question' with a glib and quick retort of, 'answer'. I don't know where I picked up the habit, but I can't shake it. It's overload.  

They say: I've got a question for you. 
I say: I've got an answer for you.

They say: Question.
I say: Answer

I don't mean it, of course. It's an automatic response, a shabby defensive maneuver. The word comes out (they say). The impromptu wall goes up (I say). I'm not trying to necessarily block the question and questioner. No, I just want them to think really hard whether the question is worthy of the questioned. It's presumptuous and smacks of elitism - I can't seem to shake those qualities either.

I'm sitting here at work thinking about this smidge of a short story idea banging around inside my noggin. It's early in the process, stewing down in the dungeons of mind. Still, for being so young it's causing quite the racket. I have to do something; anything to let off a little of its steam to stave off the comin' overload. All I know about the story so far are the main characters and the setting: James Lipton and I are sitting inside the actors studio. Presumptuous? Check. Smacking elitism? Double check. 

There's a reason why this bastard of a story's still down in the dungeon. If it cannot achieve true humility to blunt its elitist smack, then it must at least learn how to approximate the quality. We must learn to crawl before we walk, no?

James and I are on the familiar stage. PBS lighting and cinematography are in full effect. He is seated on an expensive looking chair in a classic navy suit, striped shirt. The sharp polkadotted tie completes the ensemble. For some inexplicable reason I'm dressed like Crispin Glover in his appearance on the David Letterman show back in 1987. Overload. Comin on. 

This bastard! This insignificant kernel of a story is trying to rob me blind! Listen up, that's not your idea! That outfit and concept belongs to another story. (I'll eventually get a wardrobe change, but for now I'm sitting, in striped bellbottoms, an odd fitting polo and a long black wig, opposite James.) The dark oak table between us has cast-iron hairpin legs like the chairs we are sitting on. The look is very Restoration Hardware, aka Hipster Suburbia. I'm hesitant to put my cup of coffee down on the table without a coaster. I can't afford this thing, I think to myself.

"Question," fires James.

"Answer," fires me. 

(I grimace at this automatic 
response, but hold it together).

"Can you concisely describe what you're trying to achieve with your stories", probes James.

"No".

(I grimace at this automatic 
response, but hold it together).

"What seems to be the problem?" I can't tell if James is angry, annoyed, but he looks a bit befuddled. 

"Concision".

"Why don't you give it a try?" James leans behind me and whispers into my ear, "We can always cut out some in post-production." Leaning even closer to my ear he drops his voice to a sinister whisper. "In about five seconds I'm going to lean back and start to laugh. You are going to copy that laughter and then tell us all what we want to hear, capeesh?" We do that. 

In fear of James Lipton I find the strength to apply pressure to this unruly bastard causing me all these problems. "Consider this, James", I begin rather absentmindedly. "I want the stories to have the feel of something, the aura of something tangible but elusive."

"Je ne sais quoi", he offers. But, I don't hear it. I'm not inside the actors studio anymore. I'm not sitting across from James Lipton. I'm in the dungeons of my mind having it out with this bastard. Ken Burns moves the camera in close to my face because its making interesting motions in my absence. I rub my chin in deep thought.

As Ken Burns pans out the camera notices I've changed into a tweed jacket, dropped the wig and I think there is an untied bowtie around my neck. The bellbottoms are still there. Damn it all, so are the platform shoes. Let it go, you bastard. "I think that what I"m trying to achieve at the moment is the vibe The Gorillaz song we're listening to sets".

"I see," says James. Mirroring me as a good interviewer does, he scratches his chin, "Please expound on that. It seems terribly interesting."

"No".

"Pourquoi?," he pouts.

His word selection rattles me a bit. I am eleven [onze] days into Beginner French on Rosetta Stone. This story is such a thief. I'm a little taken aback at this one's peculiar brazenness, but that is the way these stories find themselves sometimes. Wait a second, I think. Does James know French? Of course, I quickly conclude - He knows as much French as I do. Un peu. 

"Concision," I finally reply.

"I see".

The curtain drops; James and the whole set disappear into the ether. Satiated for the moment the story returns to his cell in order to ponder its many sins. I go back to work.