over, done

2.28.05
1:36am
Did you know that Elijah Wood was in Back to the Future II? And Billy Zane? And Flea? I have a feeling that Christina (A) did, but only because she looks like Lea Thompson.

4:04am
You know, I think “Back to the Future” might be my favorite movie trilogy (along with Indiana Jones, the Jersey Trilogy and maybe something else I can’t bring to memory at this moment). The second one is my favorite for its totally favorable (except for the humorously high inflation) depiction of the future. I can’t think of any other movies that show the future without flaws. A seemingly perfect future where everything is great except for the censorship or the brutal police tactics or the cannibals or something along those lines. Then there’s the post-Apocalypse crater of society in which the Omega Man is King. Then, my personal favorite…the Negative Utopia; where only the rich have it good and everyone else is a mindless tool/victim of The Machine. Thank you Orwell, Huxley and the guy that wrote “We”; he was Russian. It’s also my favorite because of the wonderful gadgets and Michael J. Fox in a dress playing his own daughter.
The third one would have been great if it weren’t marred by the idiotic love story of Lloyd and Steenburger or whatever her name is and the appearance of ZZ Top. Also, I’m just not a big fan of the Wild West, although “Wild Wild West” is a thoroughly enjoyable movie.
And the first one…the whole movie takes on a different feel when you know as much about Crispin Glover as I do. George McFly ceases to be the nervous, jittery, awkward fatherly dork and becomes a really terrifying character. When he balls up his fist to hit Biff towards the end, you can actually see the Fires of Hell in his eyes. Shudder. And, Christina (A), in the beginning when we see the Loser version of the McFly family, that should serve as a cautionary tale as far as what will happen if you marry some guy your father hits with a car and take to drinking a lot. However, Lea Thompson as the naive 50’s sex kitten? Jackpot. Also, Huey Lewis has a cameo along with more Billy Zane. He was excellent in Demon Knight.
************************************************
Last night was the last 7p to 7a shift for a while. I feel free.

in another Place

Before I sleep tonight, I found that someone stumbled upon another Place and, even more interesting, found ME in this Place. I am called Mr. Salad Fingers. I have five adventures. http://www.fat-pie.com/flash.htm

Behold Paulus, Veritable God Star of the Two Lands

2.22.05
10:05pm
Saturday night I worked 7pm to 7am Sunday morning. Sunday night to Monday morning I worked 7pm to 7am. Since it was a holiday weekend, I worked the same from Monday night to Tuesday morning. I had to wake up two hours after my shift ended to go to a rehearsal for Lysisrata: The Musical (the new title of Women of Athens). I arrived back home at 1 or so and had a shower; I was about to take a sleep when I was called in to work from 3pm to 11pm. Things inside my head are very very weird. I discussed this godcurse with Philip and he explained that sleep deprivation is like a well. The longer you go without sleep, the deeper the well, BUT if you go with NO SLEEP AT ALL, the well remains covered, but, if you take a small nap to “recharge” (as I did from 7:30 to 9 this morning) you open the well and fall in.
Anyway, the purpose of this entry, the Slow Poke Mexican Mouse came back in and has bee using the phone for five minutes or so, When he was in here before he was talking like the mouse slow, sedated, annoying etc. However, this conversation was with a family member who he was trying to get to pick him up tomorrow so it was much more energetic (I don’t think he likes it here, something about hearing strange voices in the night). He sounded like a Spanish Muppet. I have never actually seen the guy and I think if I did it would ruin the image I have of him in my mind: A sick puppet with a big bushy moustache and a sombrero. I can’t wait to start imitating him to everyone I know. I feel soooo strange today. What the hell have I done to myself. I got a package from my parents, it contains cereal. Ceeeeereal. I also got my comforter from Land’s End. It is to be charcoal gray. It shall be snuggly. I NOW UNDERSTAND THE TRUE MEANING OF THE PAULITOSPHERE. Granted it will take several lifetimes to express it in anything but lustful grunts, but I’ll keep whacking away at it. Inside all of you is a little me. I wan you all to embrace me and have a conversation with me. Talk about my favorite foods, my favorite textures and ducks and you will feel at peace with everything. Absofuckinglutely EVE RY THING. I suggest you do it now before I sleep tonight and dream you all into a different place. A place where it might take days or weeks for me to find you. You would NOT want to be lost in my subconscious. What a dark and shining place that is. Everything looks shiny from here I am now. I an on the threshold of something. About to pass over into another Place. Tomorrow, I will be a talking raccoon. I am fine with this. THE PHONE. Don’t worry I got it. Something is wrong and I can fix it but will I choose to do so? Hm. I AMMMM a progressive thinker. But am I progressive tinkerer? I tink not.
Angie has reentered my life after a year of being away. I never realized how much I missed her til I spoke with he for an hour between naps at the hospital. She will be drawn to the City at some point hopefully. I remember little of our conversation and the changes made to the opening number of Lysistrata this morning because the lack of sleep (aside from making my feel like an elephant without hands) it has muddled my memory a bitty poo. I think there was a note change but I’ll have to ask. I listened to nothing but the new nineinchnails song on the way too and froo the rehearsal this morning. I guess I like it now. Fert. Well, I think the stream has dried up. Oh my gooly gosh, I can hear the rats in the wall. They are chewing on things best left unmentioned in polite society. You filthy bastards, YOU are responsible for Thompson’s death. YOU. I put that lame on your fucking heads. May the burden of it shatter your dirty necks. Hilary is also someone I have to maintain contact with. Her show was good. I feel I should do something like it, but I don’t have enough terrible things in my life to warrant an audience. Maybe I could just sit naked in a cage eating cheese balls and Big Macs for an hour. That’s art, isn’t it? I am fucking hope so. A root beer soda is nothing. I made it up but you will never hear me admit it. You picky choosey cockhorse. Eat all the cock you want and may you choke on the resulting spume. Also, Phil is having some trouble dancing. Help him if you canlkn ./

closer still

2.21.05
7:54pm
Do any of you remember Speedy Gonzales? Do you remember his lesser-known compatriot Slow Poke Sanchez or Slow Poke Martinez or some other stereotypical Mexican name? Remember how he spoke, very slowly and in a tired, beaten, pathetic sort of voice? Well, he is here in the security office and he has been here, speaking Spanish in that same fucking retarded, defeated, mournful voice since I fucking got here. Have you ever just felt like you’ve heard too much Spanish for one day? Or am I really the only person in the world who ever feels like that? Whatever. I don’t care if I’m a bigoted asshole or not, I would trade both my testicles for some chloroform right about now.
Speaking of being a bigoted asshole, the lite jazz station (the lesser of most evils) is on and I just heard the “soul” version of Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five”, an essential jazz piece. Look, I know the black community is mad about Rod Fucking Stewart covering “What A Wonderful World”, but seriously, what about those in the middle that are punished by both remakes? “Take Five” isn’t supposed to be “lite jazz” just as “What A Wonderful World” isn’t supposed to be sung by someone who is neither blind nor Afro. I would be willing to kill Rod Stewart and whoever thought it would be a good idea to shit-up “Take Five” in the same bonfire.
What a terrible day. I woke up much earlier than I wanted to around 2pm to hear that Hunter S. Thompson has killed himself. Then, I downloaded the new Nine Inch Nails song that was leaked (good quality, just leaked) and I wasn’t even impressed let alone amazed, same with the first single from the album that was leaked in the form of a very shitty fourth generation mp3. The song went from CD (which was stolen from the video shoot for the song) to radio (three stations played it “without knowing it wasn’t supposed to be played” and are being sued) to tape (some fan) to mp3 (the fan with the tape put a microphone to her speaker and made the mp3) to my computer. Granted, this is the worst quality mp3 I have ever heard and I’m sure there is a lot of nuance that is lost in translation, but what I can hear is in the same vein as the high quality leak of the other song: Meh. Both songs sound just like the shit on the radio today. The lyrics are vague and powerless. Trent Reznor described his new album as “twelve good, hard punches to the face”; I have yet to feel sneezed on. To be honest, I have been preparing myself for let down with the new NIN album for the reasons I detailed in an earlier post. On the upside, the new Beck, eels and They Might Be Giants are all great. The TMBG was released officially the other day and it’s excellent, the new eels was leaked in its final, produced form and that’s amazing and finally the new Beck, which is in prototype form and can only get better. Anyway, I’m not destroyed over the (so far) substandard NIN music.
In case you’re wondering, I am taking obsessively about music (today) because the Hunter S. Thompson thing really sucks and I am initiating my usually defense mechanism by distracting myself. A lot of people know I like the movie based on his book, but really, his quote about Oscar Zeta Acosta really nailed me.
Also, the weather today was Kill Yourself weather. The snow has stopped and the small amount that hit the ground wasn’t enough to keep things white and quite for long, it was just enough to make people’s socks wet.
Pinprick though: I also woke up to a voicemail from Jen who wants to talk about her apartment. Hopefully that will become a flaming beacon once I converse with her and not a soggy match head.
P.S. That fucking slow mouse is still here.
P.P.S. My next DVD purchase will be “Where the Buffalo Roam”. If you don’t know what that is, find out before you talk to me next or I may react violently.
**********************************************************
8:52pm
I just got off the phone with Will and I told him that the only way I will be completely okay with Thompson’s death is if it was caused by something pertaining to “shotgun golf”
**********************************************************
11:02pm
All right, I think I crossed a line. There is this woman in a room here. She only speaks Spanish. She keeps ringing her goddamn bell, I keep telling her that someone is on their way, she keeps ringing her goddamn bell, I tell her to goddamn be patient, she keeps ringing her goddamn bell, I lose it. I opened the channel to her room, put my mouth right up to the mic and whisper “Stop…ringing…the…bell.” Then I started gurgling and hissing into the mic, then I put her on mute. So far, no repercussions, but I’ll keep you updated.

11:06pm
She just stopped ringing her bell. It’s going to be a good night.
***********************************************************
3:09am
Just went on break and burned the two new NIN songs onto a disc. I’ve been here listening to them a while and the second song “The Line Begins To Blur” is starting to grow on me. Took about 12 hours or so, but I’m beginning to enjoy the nuances. I’m still undecided about the first one (The Hand That Feeds) but that one might be too. I’ll be able to discuss it with myself once I hear a better version. I don’t know if it’s my eagerness to want to like the new NIN or if it’s really growing on me. It’s interesting the way people won’t like songs on an album or an entire album at first, and then get into it/them after a time of exposure. For me, a lot of my favorite albums were like that. Sea Change was only four or five tracks for me at first, eventually, the whole thing, same with Midnite Vultures, even Downward Spiral and The Fragile. In the case of They Might Be Giants, if I don’t like one of their songs, I usually don’t grow into it, same with some others. I wonder why that is. Maybe NIN and Beck just put more into their music, sonically at least, that you have to discover. That’s always a good sign but I can also see how that can make one a music snob. If something isn’t as layered as stuff they’re used to, I can see someone dismissing it as “boring”. Speaking of that, Beck said in that Norwegian interview that after he is done touring with Guero, he plans to work on an album that is just guitar and vocals. I guess we’ll see how funky he can be…

CNN) -- Journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, who unleashed the concept of "gonzo journalism" in books like "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," fatally shot himself in the head Sunday at his home near Aspen, Colorado, police and his family said.

"On February 20, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson took his life with a gunshot to the head at his fortified compound in Woody Creek, Colorado," said a statement issued by Thompson's son, Juan Thompson, to the Aspen Daily News.

"The family will shortly provide more information about memorial service and media contacts. Hunter prized his privacy, and we ask that his friends and admirers respect that privacy as well as that of his family."

A dispatcher for the Pitkin County Sheriff's Department confirmed Thompson's death.

Neither the family statement nor Pitkin County sheriff's officials said whether Thompson left a note, The Associated Press reported.

Thompson, 67, was associated with the "New Journalism" movement of the 1960s, in which writers -- most notably Tom Wolfe and Gay Talese -- took a more novelistic and personal approach to their subjects.

Thompson, who freely dropped cynical opinions and references to his drug and alcohol use into his stories, termed his style "gonzo journalism."

His account of a drug-fueled trip to cover a district attorneys' anti-drug conference as a writer for Rolling Stone magazine was the seed of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas," perhaps his best-known work.

Subtitled "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream," the 1971 book included his lament on the passing of the 1960s and its "sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil."

"There was no point in fighting -- on our side or theirs," he wrote. "We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark -- the place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

In "Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72," he described the campaign leading to Richard Nixon's re-election as president with terms like "brutal" and "depraved"; puckishly speculated that Democratic Sen. Ed Muskie -- the early front-runner, whose poor showing in the New Hampshire primary doomed his candidacy -- was under the influence of a psychoactive drug, Ibogaine; routinely mocked candidate and senator Hubert H. Humphrey ("the Hump"); and bemoaned Nixon's looming victory by proclaiming, "Jesus, where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to become president?"

CNN national correspondent Bruce Morton -- who covered the '72 campaign for CBS -- remembered Thompson as a bigger-than-life presence who wrote "good stuff."

"He'd perked the campaign plane or the campaign bus up a whole lot, he'd come out and say, had hey, weird stuff's going to happen, Hunter is here," Morton said on CNN's "American Morning." "He was also, it's fair to say, a very good writer. You read his stuff in Rolling Stone magazine, and maybe it wasn't what you've seen and maybe it wasn't what had happened, but by golly, it was good stuff and it was fun."

Morton also recalled the last time he heard from Thompson -- more than 30 years ago.

"The campaign was over, I think early 1973, and I got a phone call, saying the CIA has me, can you lend me 20 bucks," Morton said. "I said 20 bucks is no problem, but I don't think they'll let me in at Langley [Virginia, CIA headquarters].

"You just never knew with him. He was a free spirit and a gifted one."

Taking risks
There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey is until you've followed him around for a while.
-- Hunter S. Thompson, from 'Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72'

Thompson's other works included "The Great Shark Hunt," a collection of Watergate-era essays; "Generation of Swine," his lament on the youth of the 1980s; and his account of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential win, "Better than Sex."

His lone novel, "The Rum Diaries," was written in 1959 and published in 1998, while a collection of letters, "The Proud Highway: The Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman," came out in 1997.

Hunter Stockton Thompson was born July 18, 1937, in Louisville, Kentucky. He served in the Air Force and was a newspaper sports editor. In 1966, he published "Hell's Angels," a fairly straightforward chronicle about the motorcycle gang, which Thompson had followed around for a year.

In 1970, he ran for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, on a Freak Power Party platform of decriminalizing drugs. He lost in a tight race.

The peak of his fame came in the 1970s, when he contributed stories to a number of magazines.

His most notable client was Rolling Stone, where the dispatches that became "Campaign Trail" originally appeared. His battles with Rolling Stone founder Jann S. Wenner were legendary; his stories occasionally arrived on odd media, such as rolls of teletype paper, and Thompson's expense accounts were often challenged by the magazine. (Examples of Thompson's Rolling Stone work have been on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.)

"He may have died relatively young but he made up for it in quality if not quantity of years," Paul Krassner, the veteran radical journalist and one of Thompson's former editors, told The Associated Press by phone from his Southern California home.

"It was hard to say sometimes whether he was being provocative for its own sake or if he was just being drunk and stoned and irresponsible," quipped Krassner, founder of the leftist publication The Realist and co-founder of the Youth International (YIPPIE) party.

"But every editor that I know, myself included, was willing to accept a certain prima donna journalism in the demands he would make to cover a particular story," he said. "They were willing to risk all of his irresponsible behavior in order to share his talent with their readers."

'Shock and dismay'
America's answer to the monstrous Mr. Hyde. He speaks for the werewolf in us.
-- Hunter S. Thompson on Richard M. Nixon

In recent years, Thompson wrote a column for the sports network ESPN's Web site. In his most recent piece, posted February 15, he describes shooting at golf balls like skeet with a friend near his longtime home -- he called it "a fortified compound" -- outside Aspen.

"The general reaction here is shock and dismay, because he was such a figure in town," Aspen resident John Hoag told CNN.

Still, Hoag said, Thompson remained a private person. "The most news we heard from him was when a pack of dogs killed his peacock, Attila, and he broke his leg in Hawaii last year."

Thompson also was the model for the character of "Uncle Duke" in the "Doonesbury" comic strip. But Thompson strongly disliked the characterization, once telling an interviewer that he would set "Doonesbury" creator Garry Trudeau on fire if the two ever met.

In later years, however, Thompson said he had made peace with the "Uncle Duke" portrayal.

"I got used to it a long time ago," he told Freezerbox magazine in 2003. "I used to be a little perturbed by it. It was a lot more personal ... It no longer bothers me."

In 1980, actor Bill Murray portrayed Thompson in the film "Where the Buffalo Roam." And in 1998, the film "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was released, based on Thompson's book and starring Johnny Depp as the journalist. A new film reportedly is in production based on Thompson's novel "The Rum Diaries."

The writer himself, Hoag said, will be missed. "There's no one in the world these days who writes the truth ... as he seems to, to me," he said. "He spoke to the world and said what people were afraid to say."

Yang.

2.19.05
10:48 pm
So when a button starts blinking on my panel, I ask the resident if they need assistance. Then, no matter what they say (unless it is very specific) I reply, “Someone’s on their way.” Then I announce to the speaker at the Nurse’s Station that assistance is needed in room whatever. Sometimes a resident will ring twice in an hour or even twice in ten minutes. These residents can need anything from immediate medical attention to a glass of water to a fresh diaper. Anyway, someone might need more than one thing in a small period of time, especially if they are old and confused or senile etc. This one room has been blinking for a while. I answer the call then tell the nurse’s station to go to said room. Same thing happens five minutes later. Same thing seven minutes later. Finally, I call the nurse’s station and ask them to send someone in. They responded: “Oh, her? We were just in there.” I say: “Yes. That’s what you get paid for. Now send someone in there.” And I hung up.
The mentality of almost every one of these fucking unintelligible, lazy cocksuckers is that of an assassin; one shot, bang, it’s over, never have to deal with this person again, when they should instead deal with their position that of a baby sitter. I mean, you don’t fucking go, check on the baby and then take a nap, you are constantly paying attention to it so it doesn’t swallow poison or creepy old men. I hate these morons working here. And before you snicker. I am NOT a moron, I am just very lazy…almost dangerously so, but I am not stupid nor am I without compassion. These bastards would happily leave an old women soaking in a bog of her own feces as long as they didn’t get caught. I’d love to be able to leave my post and g up to these non-responding floors and bitch at these assholes. Anyway, I’m going to go back to watching DVD’s. Although you’ll be happy to know the mute button is OFF and I am attending to each and every call I am getting within 30 seconds. I don’t know if it’s my conscience or the look of horror in Hilary’s artic blue eyes today at lunch, but if I were in this position, and after my eye surgeries I was sort of, all I could do was drink water and piss and I have no idea how much time passed between each trip from the bathroom to the bed to the water pitcher to the bed to the bathroom etc. All I know is that I hated being helped and would only call when I needed it, but when I needed it, like I said, I needed it. Some of the people here like to just get attention and will buzz just because. They enjoy being waited on. Either way, I have no idea if these people need help or just want help so, remembering where I was for most of 9th grade, I will try t stop muting the residents here.
But I still plan on hanging up on assholes. That’s my prerogative.

Duh.

2.15.05
8:19am
The 7 to 3 shift at the Hospital is always the hardest for me (Note: All complaining is based on things that are bad to ME, hence Guido’s Fuckrant Page and not Someone Else’s Fuckrant Page. I understand that all of you have much worse lives waking up at 4 in the morning every day of the week to go and be whipped by fat, smegmatic, myopic trolls who constantly ejaculate flaming sand onto your genitals, but I am not used to this routine and so what follows is bad from my point of view, not yours, yes, I understand.). The whole thing is just very jarring to my system. Anyway, I arrive here today, eat my bagel then begin to stare blankly. I cannot watch movies or listen to music on this shift and my eyes are not ready to actually look at anything yet so reading is out. At that moment, the only stimuli brushing up against my shattered nerves are the VERY black conversation being carried out by two security guards about a series of movies (?) two of which are titled “Family Reunion” and “Cookout” or something like that (maybe Johnson Family Reunion/Cookout?); based on their reenactments and quotable quotes (“Hey hey hey! Who you think you talkin’ to playa playa?!” was said at least six times and, apparently, it’s the best line in the movie…) these movies are the African American equivalent of the National Lampoon movies from recent years that no one saw (Last Resort, Family Trip, Seven Deadly Sins, Christmas Vacation 2: Eddie's Caribbean Adventure- I’m not kidding about that last one, it’s on my NetFlix list as is Christmas Reunion which features one Judge Reinhold playing the timeless role of Clark W. Griswald- also on my list), the god awful “hits of the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and today!! (I remember when these stations were just hits of the 80’s and today, that’s fucking old school)” radio station (which isn’t always horrible, it’s better than a lot of stuff, and they do play Prince so that’s redemptive) and the general ambient beeping that is ongoing here. I began to let myself drift and found myself thinking of last night when I called K Rock and asked them to play the new Beck single, then thinking of calling them and asking to somehow break into this broadcast just to shake things up and then I found myself thinking about a radio station in Florida (Real Radio 104.1) that had a call-in show on weeknights. The last two or so minutes of the show were simply open to people; you would call, hear the phone ring, here it pick up, you’d yell something and it would go out on the air (if it was in accordance with FCC guidelines, of course) and the phone would go dead. Seven seconds later, you would hear yourself on the radio. I always loved that. After that I began thinking about this and that, and then I pulled out my non-live journal and wrote for several pages. I was collecting bits of thought fluff from the branches of my subconscious and giving each puff a chance to be interesting. One tuft seemed interesting and pertinent enough to bring to you all (eight people). I reflected that I felt like I was losing my ability to spell and my perspicacity (I always think that using this word in this capacity is ironic and funny, but in this case, it is neither, it is accurate). I traced this to the fact that for two decades I had been in a school of some sort. Suddenly, poof, no more school. Even though it was boring and we all skipped our share of Finite Mathematics, Latin or in Will’s case Space Law, our minds were being given information and they were interpreting and cataloging it. For twenty years of our lives, our minds were expanding and working without us always knowing it. That has stopped. None of us will gain knowledge unless we do something that adds to the store we have already accumulated. I remarked to myself that after college I had been left to my own devices and that, sadly, my own devices consisted of video games, the Internet and, for reading material, Stephen King novels. Mucho depressing. I realized that I wasn’t doing anything to better myself. None of my jobs were. They were all mindless, distracting tasks. Working at the Roundabout swindling people out of money is the only thing that required any sort of thought. Dog walking should be an excellent opportunity to wander through my mind without distraction, but I always insist on bringing music to distract me. I had a moment of fear in which I imagined turning off the music to hear my thoughts and receiving only silence, but thinking back to the times I forgot my Discman or left it home on purpose or the batteries went flat while I was listening, that fear was assuaged. Basically, I came to realize that the continuation of my education is up to me and I am doing nothing about it. At this point, the only manifestation of this deficiency is the loss of perspicacity and the slight decline in my ability to spell (although I blame a lot of that on the over-dependence on spell checking and the rise of very VERY lazy people (I am merely “very lazy”) using “u” in place of “you” and “r” instead if “are” and other such further bastardizations of the English language in e-mails, IM and letters (what’s a letter?) and since I really enjoy language (yes, six and a half years of Latin) this is a bummer. I hope to change this, although my inherent laziness will surely fuck those plans up. Luckily, I am an intelligent person and I don’t have to start from a 9th grade level or anything. I need to start reading again. I need something more entertaining than didactic, but not solely entertaining. I have a few books lying around my apartment that I meant to read but haven’t, I’ll start with those. My question to you is what are you doing to better yourselves. Grad school and classes are good, but what about those of you not doing these things? Are you happy and comfortable with the knowledge that you will continue to forget information until you are as stupid as the people you make fun of?
****************************************************************************
I just watched an interview with Beck on a Norwegian music show. His parts were in English, but the rest was in Norwegian. It was very soothing. I like Norwegian.

THE FACTS OF LIFE

1. Harry Belafonte's "Jump in Line" AKA "Shake Shake Shake Senora" is an excellent song.
2. After eating tuna, my pee smells like tuna.

going fetal

2.14.05
5:14 am
Tonight I have:
Read Avengers comics.
Slept for a full half hour on the job, endangering an unknown number of people.
Woke refreshed and hungry.
Stared for a full twenty minutes at nothing in particular.
Wrote the voiceover for a short documentary about Christo and his “Gates” project.
Told the security guy I was going to the bathroom then went across the street to get Combos from my apartment and a tuna salad sandwich from the deli.
Read my Christo piece to Phil and Will and discussed Phil’s advent in New York and Will’s love of Magic Missiles.
Ate the aforementioned food.
Watched Shaun of the Dead for the first time in a while, listening to the second of two commentaries, the cast commentary. I was unimpressed.
Watched Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas for the first time in months. This time with the author commentary track. Here are my notes:

First off, I wish it had just been Hunter S. Thompson, but sadly they put the producer and some other idiots in the room with him in order to “keep him on topic”, which translates to “keep hi from setting the place on fire”. Among other things, Thompson screams, howls, shrieks, hisses, cackles, insults random people, calls Terry Gilliam a fag, makes threatening phone calls to both Johnny Depp (whose answering machine message is the “Know Your Dope Fiend” speech from the D.A.’s convention) and Benicio Del Toro (whose number I can figure out if I record the bit of the commentary where the producer reads Thompson the number- they played it backwards in order to confuse listeners, but for those who know about a certain duo whose information I got from their voter registration cards, you’ll know it takes more than backwards masking to dissuade me from anything) and eating radishes. Thompson refers to Depp as Colonel Depp, Timothy Leary as a “sold out fraud and a vicious asshole who was a stoolie for the FBI” and making the movie as a “hound dog passing a peach pit.” He admits to watching the movie at least once a month. He repeats the phrase “press any key” about a dozen times during the hour and a half the movie runs for; whether this is a reference to the DVD player he is watching the movie on or some strange mantra I am uncertain. I can only assume it’s the latter. He also admits to Gilliam kissing him, but not in “a heavy handed way”, which I believe is another way of saying they shared strictly “hetero” kisses.
His parting wisdom to the youth of today: “Stop playing video games, stop jerking off and read the Book of Revelations.”
Overall an excellent commentary, marred only by people trying to interfere with Thompson’s natural, unbridled genius. After I finish writing this, I will probably check out the second disc of the Fear DVD, and then maybe I will indulge in some music.
I would like to end with a quote from the book that has continued to define me ever since I first heard it a few years ago…maybe even more so today…

“There he goes…one of God’s own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live and too rare to die.”

and the clock...stopped...never to run again...

2.13.05
4:11 am
I just finished watching the classic 1987 cinema masterpiece, The Running Man. This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen and if I had not been paid for the time I spent watching said masterpiece, I would be furious. This movie raises a question: What is with movie makers taking titles and character names and the most basic of plot points from old Stephen King novels and then making them into feature length movies? It’s amazing. Fight Club the movie was more like Stephen King’s Running Man than the film version of Running Man. The movie The Lawnmower Man is linked to the King short story by the title alone. I… Hm. You know what? My brain is so numb right now that I can’t even describe any of this to you.
I command you all to see this movie.
I am now going to listen to the commentary track for Shaun of the Dead. Tomorrow (Sunday), I plan to sleep, walk a puppy, then once I get to the Hospital, read comics provided by Alan, watch Fight Club and…I don’t know…maybe…some James Bond? I might start reading the final book of the Dark Tower series. I own and have listened to all seven on audio, but I have yet to finish actually reading the last book. Maybe I’ll write something.
Remember, if you’re interested, Tuesday, February 17th at the Boarders bookstore inside the AOL Time Warner building at Columbus Circle, free They Might Be Giants in store thing. They will start at 7pm so show up a bit early. Also, anyone interested in seeing Hilary’s show on Saturday the 19th, we need to get tickets soon.
Jesus. My mind is still numb from Running Man.

Sex sells...

Sex with Paul sells out.

fuse.tv

then click high or low bandwidth

then find the "Ultimate Gig" link in the little pop up menu on the right

then get some napkins to clean up

I am the sexiest girl I know.

Goddamn mescalin...

I just got off the phone with my father. He is planning to purchase a sonogram machine for the organization that he is chairman of the board of (a pro-life organization) and have a plaque on it dedicated to my biological mother (you know, for not aborting me). A mixtures of thoughts and emotions are washed away by my powerful lust for red salmon.

Time is on my side.

I just received the official DVD copy of the Nike Art of Speed project. My work as the Master of Time, Chronos, has never looked better. I should hopefully be receiving a copy of the Fuse and Scholastic projects soon. Sooner if I decided to meddle with the fabric of time.

Pauldolitry

Well, if my transgressions 'gainst the Lord had gone unnoticed before...that time has come to an end.

http://www.livejournal.com/community/tallpaulfan2/

Join, and find salvation...in me.

But WHY do I want the cheese?

"Scientists have begun blurring the line between human and animal by producing chimeras-a hybrid creature that's part human, part animal. Chinese scientists at the Shanghai Second Medical University in 2003 successfully fused human cells with rabbit eggs. The embryos were reportedly the first human-animal chimeras successfully created. They were allowed to develop for several days in a laboratory dish before the scientists destroyed the embryos to harvest their stem cells. In Minnesota last year researchers at the Mayo Clinic created pigs with human blood flowing through their bodies. And at Stanford University in California an experiment might be done later this year to create mice with human brains."

Finally. I've been waiting for this news for years. As soon as we get cats with human brains, we got a live action Tom & Jerry movie. Hooray for science!

Oh Ice Cube, you don't know the MEANING of a good day...

I finish my 3pm to 11pm shift at the Hospital during which I gave the script a tweak and more than a tweak here and there to find: Beck totally redid his site for the new album, eels put up an album sampler for their new album, there are two tracks from Here Come the ABC's on Winamp.com and the first NIN single has been named and has a radio date. I guess Ice Cube and I just have different definitions of a good day. He does drugs and has sex with whores and I get washed away in a tide of new music teaser liquid. Just to let you know, it's a pinkish liquid and it smells sweet.

Here Come the Blinking Guero Teeth

On the heels of that huge eruption of stuff from my mental cock comes this:

Reasons Why I Am Excited About the Next Few Months Speaking from A Purely Musical Standpoint

February 15th, 2005
The simultaneous release of They Might Be Giants’ “Here Come the ABC’s” on DVD and CD. The CD is 25 tracks about the alphabet and its letters, while the DVD has the same material, but with videos featuring all sorts of off-kilter not-really-intended-for-kids animation, including the Deeply Felt Puppet Theatre. Although this will be the third “actually intended for kids” release of theirs, this will be the first didactic project. Although, based on some of the clips floating around, they will not be your typical Raffi/Barney teaching songs…thank God. The album contains OVER 60 MINUTES OF BRAND NEW TMBG MUSIC. I love that but I am also a bit pissed that their most recent “adult” release (The Spine) had 16 tracks of 80% new music and it clocked in at around 36 minutes. Can anyone handle quality AND quantity these days? But you know what they say about gift horses…

March 29th, 2005
Beck releases the anxiously awaited follow-up to his redefining work “Sea Change”. The title is “Guero” and, as the title indicates, there is a slightly Mexican feel to the album, especially on the title track “Que Onda Guero”. How would I know? Well, because I am overeager and illegal. About a week or so ago, Beck updated his web site with a blurb about how the album had been leaked but that it was not the finished product. It had yet to be fully mastered and produced etc. and that what was floating around out there was NOT what he intended to release. I downloaded it five minutes after I saw that tidbit. The raw album sounds like Odelay more so than any of his other albums, but there is a very Mexican feel created by samples, guitars etc. It does sound…I don’t know…untreated? There’s just guitar, vocals and drums on some tracks, while others seem to have more production values. It’s weird to hear funky, yet non-complex Beck music, but still refreshing to hear something new from him. The first single “E-Pro” or “E Pro” is a fun Beckish single with a chorus of “na na’s” and a guitar line that will finally bring something fragrant to the stale, shit-smelling music scene of today. I am a bit trepidations about the whole “this is NOT the finished album” promise. The new Radiohead album (ironically “Hail to the Thief”) was leaked a while before it came out and, although I haven’t given them a comparative listen (I’m not a huge Radiohead fan) I think the only major difference, aside from a general better quality to the sound, was one song that had some extra guitars added here and there. And then there was the most recent eels album “Shootenanny!” that was released in 2003. It was totally leaked a month or so before it was released and, although what I downloaded might have been the actual advance retail copy, the thing I downloaded was the EXACT same as the official release. Then again, “Shootenanny!” was recorded in ten days and really didn’t have a lot of production values; very ‘let’s put a mic in the center of the room and play for a few hours’. I have to say that if the leaked copy of “Guero” is the actual album, I will be disappointed. At the moment, the album sounds like Mellow Gold and Odelay but recorded in Mexico, and if the final version is the same, Beck fans will be disappointed, especially after something as masterful as “Sea Change”.

April 28th, 2005
And speaking of eels…they are releasing their follow-up to the somewhat lackluster “Shootenanny!” on the 28th. The best thing a bout a band that puts out a not-as-great-as-previous-albums album is the suspense one goes through waiting for the next one. So “Shootenanny!” was 13 tracks (about 10 or so good ones- I said the album was lackluster, not shitty) and clocked in at 40 something minutes. It was a letdown mostly because the album before that, “Souljacker” was the most complex album (musically) they’d ever done. I have found that that works both ways though. The new album “Blinking Lights and Other Revelations” will be a 33-track double disc album. Perfect follow up to the shorter-than-average, less-complicated-than-average “Shootenanny!” The reason I am putting all my eggs in one basket is because of the essay that has been posted on the eels official site a few days ago. I can’t begin to paraphrase so if you give a hoot, head over and check it out. I challenge you to show me ANYTHING else in music today that is as sincere and complex, bitches.

May 3rd, 2005
Oh God please let this date remain accurate. After more than five years, the new Nine Inch Nails’ album (questionably titled ‘With Teeth’) has been set for release in May. NIN’s first album came out in 1989. Since then, they have released 2 more full-length albums. Yes. In fifteen years, they have released two albums: March of 1994, “The Downward Spiral”. It redefined industrial music and had huge hits with angst ridden teens and popular radio such as “Closer”, “March of the Pigs” and “Hurt”. Five years later in September of 1999, the follow-up, double CD “The Fragile” is released. It debuts at number one on the Billboard charts and sets the record as the fastest falling album in Billboard history. The fans loved it and thought it was even better than Spiral, but the critics thought that artists doing the music they want is REALLY stupid so aside from fans of NIN. This album was regarded as a commercial failure. Since then, Reznor has been doing some shit to distract him from making a new record. About two years ago, he said the new album would be called “Bleedthrough” and that it was almost done. He then trashed that and said “With Teeth”. They start touring in March and hopefully the release date of 5.3.05 will stick. I feel like I might be in for a “Souljacker” to “Shootenanny!” thing based on the fact that “Fragile” had 23 tracks and hit the 109-minute mark whereas “Teeth” has 12 tracks and cannot, physically, exceed 80 minutes. I don’t know. Nothing Reznor does is going to live up to the expectations set by “The Fragile”, but one thing I do know: whatever he does will be a surprise. With the new Beck, eels, TMBG, I have an idea of what to expect, but with NIN I have NEVER been able to say, "okay based on this, the new stuff will sound like this" and THAT is why I have been fanatically checking the NIN web site four times a day for the past 4 years. New, fresh music. Untrodden ground. Or so I hope. Oh God I hope.

So that is why the next few months are going to be good, for me, from a new music standpoint. And since I knew I would have trouble waiting for February 15th to roll around, I waited for a bit to download the TMBG Venue Songs mp3 album which has all 32 tracks that they wrote and performed on the nights of almost every show of their 2004 Spine on the Hiway tour. I had heard about 8 or so, so I have some brand new love for my ears to get me though the next two weeks or so 'til my CD and DVD arrive. After June (once I’ve drunk in all the above releases) I’ll probably kill myself, so my apartment will be up for grabs. Just a heads up. If I’m not dead by June though, there must be some DVD’s I still want to purchase. As soon as I get those though, it’s a three bedroom for like $1900 a month or so. Talk to Chris or Kady about arranging an interview after I’m dead and gone.
*************************************
Also, it is now my Birthday. I have been here 24 years and I have to say...I'm not impressed. And that means one thing...YOU are not working hard enough. So, you all get to work. I'm going to rub one out.

CLOSURE! (Part 1)

About a year ago someone posted their top twenty favorite albums and we have all forgotten about it. I decided to compile my own top twenty list. I felt that listing an album title wouldn’t be enough so I ended up writing small essays, quoting lyrics and, yes, rambling. So, a year later: the spelling is bad, the points are hidden and Jesus is it long...here are my top twenty. Oh Jesus, is it long. I will break it up into four entries. In case any of you give half a shit as to why I love music so much...here are some reasons. They are in no particular order.


Nine Inch Nails: The Downward Spiral
My very first CD (along with Greenday Dookie). Got it for Christmas in 1994. Became a huge fan within weeks and missed their first and last performance in Florida (January 26th, 1995) for four years (the next time they came was May of 2001 and I did see them for that). This album details the taking apart of a an from track one “Mr. Self Destruct” to the final track “Hurt”, this character is removing and or corrupting elements of his life and ending up with nothing, not even himself. “Mr. Self Destruct” is about giving in to the voice inside you that tells you to harm yourself. Giving in to your dark side. The song/album starts with this relentless rattling pounding beat and suddenly disappears when voices are heard whispering “You let me do this to you” and then “I am an exit.” The effect is chilling. “Ruiner” is another stand out track. The two verses of lyrics are almost completely lost behind a broken sounding drum machine and bursts of static.
the ruiner's got a lot to prove he's got nothing to lose
and now he made you believe
the ruiner's your only friend well he's the living end
to the cattle he deceives
the raping of the innocent you know the ruiner ruins everything he sees
now the only pure thing left in my fucking world is wearing your disease

the ruiner's a collector he's an infector serving his shit to his flies
maybe there will come a day when those that you keep blind will suddenly realize
maybe it's a part of me you took it to a place i hoped it would never go
and maybe that fucked me up much more than you'll ever know

The first time I heard these lyrics screamed behind the wall of static in the song I was moved almost to tears. The end of this song features the line “Nothing can stop me now” which is a theme on this album referring to the fact that the narrator has lost everything, even his essential humanity and with nothing left, no feelings, no emotions, nothing can stop him from self destructing, from harming others, etc. There’s also the track “Reptile” which is the best “I hate this girl” song I’ve ever heard, featuring the lyric “Oh my beautiful liar, oh my precious whore, my disease, my infection, I am so impure.” Ouch. Then the last track, “Hurt” leaves the man completely disassembled, lying naked on the floor at the very bottom of his downward spiral. I can’t tell you how many people I know cannot listen to Nine Inch Nails anymore simply because of the suicidal implications of this song. Although the album has a lot of violence in it, most of it is directed towards the narrator. This is a very powerful album.

Greenday: Dookie
Also the first CD I got. I love this fucking CD because it’s so simple yet so good. Drums, bass, guitar. Boom. Three elements have never sounded better together. None of their albums before or after Dookie are anywhere near as good in my opinion. To this day one of the only CD’s of mine I just put on and listen to all the way through.
This goes for both Downward Spiral and Dookie: both my first CD’s are two of my favorites, not because they were my first, but because they are excellent albums AND they both had 14 tracks, imparting that CD’s should have 14 tracks. More is better, less is worse. Thank you Trent Reznor and Billy Joe.

Nine Inch Nails: The Fragile
This album came out in 1999, FIVE YEARS after the Downward Spiral. It was the most anticipated album of my life (until now when the NEW Nine Inch Nails album is only 45 years away or so it seems), but that isn’t what makes it one of my favorites nor the fact that it’s an amazing album. It’s because every ounce of expectation was met and exceeded. The Downward Spiral had 14 tracks and ran for 65 minutes and 56 seconds (good length). The Fragile was a double album with 23 tracks clocking in at just over 100 minutes (one hundred and nine to be more exact). Out of the 23 tracks (broken into 12 on the left disc and 11 on the right disc) there is only one track that I am inclined to skip sometimes. Not because it’s a bad song, it just isn’t as amazing by contrast.
The album picks up where Downward Spiral left off and overall is a much more uplifting album, not because it’s about puppies, but because it has a sliver of hope, although by the end that sliver is extinguished making it more painful than Spiral. Spiral had no positivity, it was all a slow downward spiral, literally, but the Fragile has moments of beautiful quiet and peaceful melodies, but they never last. Although Downward Spiral had no hope, the fact of lost hope is even worse.
This album starts with “Somewhat Damaged” in which the character (the same from DS) talks about his fall and how, in the end when he needed people they all abandoned him. The next track is one of my all time favorite Nine Inch Nails songs; the Day the World Went Away in which the comforts of suicide are discussed.

there is a place that still remains
it eats the fear; it eats the pain
the sweetest price he'll have to pay
the day the whole world went away

The narrator doesn’t give in at this point at least since the album goes on. Titles like “The Frail and “The Wretched” express just how hideous of a mind state he is in. The song “We’re In This Together” sounds like it’s positive, and you and me until the world ends kind of thing, but listening to it one gets the sense that it’s one sided, delusional, dangerous. The title track is so moving and expresses the theme of the album “I won’t let you fall apart.” Whereas last time around, the theme was nothing can stop me, I’m already dead, nothing left etc, this seems a lot more positive and therefore becomes even more black when, in the end, everything does fall apart, despite all his meaningless efforts. The last two tracks on the first disc form a seamless bridge to the first song on the second disc by creating a beautiful, terrifyingly cold and sad metaphor involving the sea. The second to last rack on the first disc is called “La Mer” (“the sea” in French). This track is an instrumental that reflects a tranquil, beautiful sea becoming stormy and deadly. There are a few lyrics spoken by a woman in French at the beginning and end of La Mer translating into

and when the day arrives
i'll become the sky
and I'll become the sea

and the sea will come to kiss me
for i am going home”

and at the end a refrain of the DS theme “nothing can stop me now”. La Mer leads into “The Great Below” which is about realization that one’s love is lost or was never there in the first place and giving up; the song begins with the narrator “staring at the sea” and wondering if he can be forgiven for what he’s done. He professes that he would give anything at any price for this love. Once he realizes that she isn’t coming or was never coming, the music begins to swell as his realization becomes clearer. He will die. He will allow the ocean to draw him in an end his life. Why live without his love? The song approaches its climax with the lyrics

ocean pulls me close
and whispers in my ear
the destiny i've chose
all becoming clear
the currents have their say
the time is drawing near
washes me away
makes me disappear”

and then, the music reaches its peak as the narrator declares

and i descend from grace
in arms of undertow
i will take my place
in the great below

Apparently, he is dead, but the song finishes with a distant guitar and the lyric “I can still feel you, even so far away” repeated over and over. Then the next song and disc begin with “The Way Out Is Through”. The first lyrics of the second disc “All I’ve undergone, I will keep on.” The music rises from an aquatic background ambiance to an explosive note after which the narrator screams

underneath it all
we feel so small
the heavens fall
but still we crawl”

This is not as hopeful as it appears since the rest of the album is spent second guessing, begging and searching. The last spoken line of the album is “you remain, I am stained.” Then the final track “Ripe (with decay) begins. At the end of this album, you are left feeling more destroyed that at the end of Downward Spiral. DS was only going in one direction, but with the Fragile, you might have thought the glimmer would become a light but it doesn’t.

Nine Inch Nails: Broken
Their EP that came out in ’92 remains the hardest, most powerful, industrial, serious yet tonal thing I have ever heard. I’ve heard harder, but a lot of that almost becomes self-parody and noise whereas Broken boarders on noise, but there’s always something beneath it making it music. The first track “pinion” (which means “the wing of a bird”, “to remove or bind the wing of a bird” and “to bind or shackle ”) is a rising, approaching guitar that peaks with the intro of the second track “wish”. “last” has one of the most memorable lyrics on the album: “look through these blackened eyes, you’ll see ten thousand lies, my lips may promise but my heart is a whore”. Next is the instrumental “help me I am in hell” which is just an all-around uncomfortable track. Then “happiness in slavery” in which the narrator says “I don’t know what I am, I don’t know where I’ve been, human junk just words and so much skin, stick my hands though the cage of this endless routine just some flesh caught in this big broken machine”. The last track of Broken is “gave up”. “Perfect little dream the kind that hurts the most” is the first line of the last song. The chorus of this pounding, unrelenting song is “smashed up my sanity, smashed up integrity, smashed up what I believe in, smashed up what’s left of me, smashed up my everything, smashed up all that was true, gonna smash myself to pieces, I don’t know what else to do”, the bridge is “I tried, I gave up” said over and over. One gets the sense that all the destruction is simply because the narrator feels trapped. Why destroy yourself? Because he tried and gave up and there’s nothing left to do but destroy himself. The last line of this album, shrieked over and over as the music breaks down is “throw it away”. That’s the heart f “broken”: everything is broken and dead, what is there to do, nothing, why should I remain, I shouldn’t. The lyrics are so private and raw without being too silly or too dramatic etc. Also, it came out over a decade ago while some bands are just starting to tread there now. Punk-ass sharks, biting and shit.

Nine Inch Nails And All That Could Have Been: Still
Alright, after this no more Nine Inch Nails, I promise. This is their most recent release. This album “Still” came as a part of their Live CD package. Reznor said this CD was a counterpoint to the screaming explosive nature of the live album. Still has nine tracks, four new instrumental tracks, one new vocal track and four old songs recreated in a more stripped-down, simple manner. Where the Downward Spiral and the Fragile had an hour or over that to bring the listener from place to place inside the world of the album, this CD had only a fraction of that time. The first song is from the first Nine Inch Nails album and is titled “Something I Can Never Have”. The song is about remembering the end of a relationship and recalling how painful it was, and then living in the present where the pain is still fresh and nothing has been resolved. If the subject matter wasn’t dismal enough, the last few lines of the song being shrieked by Reznor make it that much more real. The spiteful resentment in this song is softened by the simple yet beautiful piano/keyboard instrumental “Adrift and at Peace” which follows. Then into a simple version of “The Fragile” which sounds weaker and less sure than the album version which has numerous voices chanting and assuring “I won’t let you fall apart” whereas in this version, there is only Reznor saying it and hoping it’s true, but not being sure. After this, a version of “The Becoming” from the Downward Spiral. A track about how this numbness inside of him is replacing everything human with machinery. In a way, he is working to bring himself down. The album version is more mechanical and yielding (I want to stop it and I’m fighting but I know I can’t) but the Still version is a lot angrier. Much more of a “fuck you for doing this to me” vibe. This jarring, mechanical track is followed by the next instrumental “Gone, Still” which is another very unsettling track. The piano repetition indicates a mantra and the slight minor key variations indicate that he doesn’t really believe it. Perhaps with the mantra he is trying to convince himself that who or whatever is gone isn’t, but the variations show that he knows they are indeed gone, still, and the ending of the song, in which the piano is engulfed by a dark wave of synthesizers, proves that this fact is consuming him. The synths slide into the wavering organ-like introduction of an incredible version of The Day the World Went Away after which you aren’t really sure if the suicide bug has laid eggs in his brain this time. The next song is introduced by an isolated rain sound effect. This is the new song and it’s the most recent Nine Inch Nails song (at this point and time). It’s called “And All That Could Have Been”, the title itself a depressing sentiment. The song inspires the image of a frozen wasteland where a solitary man is stranded there of his own accord thinking about how things could have been had he let people help him, had he made different choices, but that it won’t matter soon because he’ll be dead, forgotten. He’ll be happy to die since he wasn’t meant for happier things, he was meant to die here, alone. As he makes his decision to let go, he confesses that he is tainted and that he regrets that he was blind to the fact that “in my nothing you meant everything to me.” After this, there are only two instrumental tracks, “the Persistence of Loss” which is made up of a lonely, distant and desolate sound being made then repeated and then another lonely, distant and desolate sound layered on top of that until one just feels washed out listening to it. After that, the final track. A crushing song called “Leaving Hope”. I don’t think lyrics could have made this song more crushingly sad. The background drones come in and out while a solitary piano narrates the most sad and terrible ending to the story told by “Still”. There is a distorted, echoing guitar in the middle that only makes one feel more isolated. The ending is a plucked string instrument followed by the same instrument after a thousand years of rust and decay have affected it. The song dies as slowly as the solitary man in the frozen wasteland. This is where Trent Reznor has left his fans. He has said, in reference to the new album in contrast to the stories told by the Downward Spiral and the Fragile “that person isn't here anymore." So we can only assume that the story which started in 1992 with Broken finally ends there in that metaphorical frozen wasteland ten years later.

CLOSURE! (part 2)

Marilyn Manson: Antichrist Superstar
This album scared me when I first heard it. The theme is basically the apocalypse brought about by a creature, the Antichrist, who started life as a Worm and then evolved into this terribly charismatic thing that destroys the world because he considers us all dead. The music is so intense and hate filled that while listening to it as I walk through the streets of New York can result in me slamming into people just because I know they can’t do shit. Regularly I wouldn’t do that, but the tone and feel of this album really alters something in me.
This album has 16 songs and it broken into three cycles: The Hierophant, Inauguration of the Worm and Disintegrator Rising. Each of these tells the story of the worm who got its wings and became the Antichrist (or the Disintegrator or the Angel with The Scabbed Wings). The first cycle sets the tone while the second cycle involves the actual transformation of the worm into the angel and the third cycle is about the future and the end of everything.
The album begins with a cracked voice (the voice of the ruler of the world, the Antichrist) saying “when you are suffering, know that I have betrayed you” And then, we hear his voice inciting a multitude to chant “We hate love, we love hate” until the songs explodes with such lyrics as “Hey victim, should I black your eyes again?”, “I hate the hater, I rape the raper”, “Everybody’s someone else’s nigger, I know you are, so am I.” The album goes on from there, laced with malice, contempt, violence, and just about everything negative one can express in a 70 minute time period. The title track is a fist-pumping anthem to bring about the eschaton simply by people willing it to occur. The track “1996” I feel is one of the most violent in which the Antichrist declares exactly what he is and that we deserve all of this: Anti people now you’ve gone too far, here’s your Antichrist Superstar.” The last song on the album, “Man That You Fear” addresses the fact that this creature that the world worships and fear used to be the boy (worm) who was abused and unsure of himself. The song opens with the line “the ants are in the sugar, the muscles atrophied.” Chaos and ruin abound and things are nearing the end. It also explains why he is ending the world: I have it all and I have no choice but to/I’ll make everyone pay and you will see/you can kill yourself now because you’re dead in my mind/. He gets his revenge and as the song and world end many voices are heard repeating when all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed”. That brings about the close of the album. But right before the very end of the CD is a strange vocal track in which we discover that in all the nothingness left behind, the Disintegrator himself feels something cold grow in his chest resulting in his eventual death.
I should mention that with the production values of the post-Downward Spiral Trent Reznor, this album might have been as great lyrically, but not nearly as amazing musically. The difference between a Rhodes piano and a Mellodrone? Reznor. The different between a loud, crashing guitar and a think, grinding world-ending guitar? Reznor. The difference between a song on the album having 10 tracks (one for vocals, one for back-up vocals, one for drums etc) and one have 15 tracks? Reznor. This album might have been good without him, but I’m happy we’ll never know.

They Might Be Giants: Factory Showroom
This was the first TMBG CD that I bought. First of many, but it was their most recent album at the time of the purchase and it was great. The album starts with what became my theme song for a while, “S~E~X~X~Y”. On top, this song is about being too sexy to handle, but the deeper meaning is quite a bit different. As we ALL know, anyone who has a chromosome with XXY rather than the typical XY is a freak and has both male and female biological traits. The lyric: “S-E-X-X-Y, more than enough” indicates that one is too sexy, but also that there are more than enough “X” chromosomes. Then the lines “Cookie in one hand, wig on her head” (a man who is a woman) and “she’s got another plane, she wants to be your man” cinch the notion. Just to clarify, the song was my theme for its swing, funk rhythm, not because I am a hermaphrodite. I will show you all my cocknballs if you don’t believe me. Then there’s “Til My Head Falls Off”, a first person account of living to a ripe old age riddled with amnesia. Then, “How Can I Sing Like A Girl?”, a song about how once in concert Flansburgh sang a song in falsetto to recreate the speed up, higher vocals on a song. Next, “Exquisite Dead Guy”, which is based on the existential literary parlor game “The Exquisite Corpse” and which features the lyrics, “Exquisite dead guy, outside my high-rise apartment, exquisite dead guy, hanging from a sky hook”. There’s “Metal Detector” a song based on a book written by a madman. Then “New York City”, a song done originally by a Canadian band call Cub that TMBG made their own and besides, what are the Canadians going to do? This song was even more important to me because at the moment it was introduced to me, I had acclimated myself to Florida, but still had the need to return to New York, so this song hit the spot. Other gems include “Spiraling Shape” about how dangerous and destructive drugs are, but without being preachy and it was also in Brain Candy, making it immensely much cooler, “James K. Polk, a beautiful telling song about the 11th President of the USA, “XTC Vs. Adam Ant” a song about just that, “I Can Hear You” a song whose concept is being that its finished product, but interesting nonetheless and finally “The Bells Are Ringing” a song addressing mass hypnosis by the tintinnabulations of ringing bells. This is one of their most clever albums to date and it rocks, all the way. Beatle-based pop combined with off-beat, sometimes depressing or dark lyrics. Perfect ingredients for fun and music.

They Might Be Giants: John Henry
The first album on which they used a live band (drums, bass, guitar, horns etc) and not just a sampler or MIDI generator. This added such a new depth to their music and ended up shaping them for the future. After ten years of just the two Johns, they could have gone on producing great music with just the two of them (keyboards, guitar and accordion), but their decision opened up a whole new dynamic for them. The album had a new sound with the same old excellent lyrical quality. The album contains such tracks as “Meet James Ensor”, a song about the greatness of the late Belgian painter, “No One Knows My Plan” which has an infectious conga beat that makes it impossible for the listener not to “bust a move” as they say, “I Should Be Allowed to Think” which features a quote from Ginsberg’s Howl part 2 (I saw the best minds of my generation destroying by madness, starving, hysterical), “Dirtbike” which is about a cult leader, which just happens to be a dirt bike, brainwashing people with its evil charisma, “Sleeping in the Flowers” which is an amazingly arranged song based on a song based on drugs. All the tracks are great. Their horn addiction started with this album and since its release in 1994, horns have been an integral part of some of their best work, and their live shows. This album is a landmark. They Might Be Giants’ transition from one form to another.


Beck: Midnite Vultures
This is the goddamnest funkiest album I own and Beck Hansen is the goddamndest funkiest white man in existence. This album can be described as such: having intercourse with a malfunctioning drum machine. From the first note is “Sexx Laws” to the last note in “Debra” the album makes you want to shake your ass and talk jive-ass nonsense. These songs deal with and satirize sex, love, gangstas and more. The opening tracks “Sexx Laws” nuts into your ear with a brash horn riff, funky guitar and dope drum beat, to coin a phrase. Then in the middle of this techno dance fuck, there is a banjo solo. The banjo is joined by a slide guitar (that twangy country sounding thing). The lone banjo and guitar are joined by the aforementioned funk guitar, brash horns and the song becomes Tetris. INTERFUCKINGLOCKING baby. You wonder how you could even hear this song without the banjo. Any artist that can make a banjo sound cool deserves cake. Then “Nicotine and Gravy” (a song titled inspired when I chain-smoking friend of Beck’s came over for Thanksgiving, became drunk, vomited and passed out. The next day this friend asked what happened. Beck told them they vomited…nicotine and gravy. Despite the title, this is one of the sexier songs, including the lyrics:
I'll feed you fruit that don't exist
I'll leave graffiti
Where you've never been kissed
I'll do your laundry
Massage your soul
I'll turn you over
To the highway patrol
I know it doesn’t SOUND sexy, but once you’ve heard the porn groove of N&G and his sex-thickened voice mumbling that line…you just get wet. Then there’s Mixed Bizness. Oooooh, taste the electro-funk. Every word and note of this is pure funk. In fact, you need a funk towel to clean up afterwards.

I'm mixing business with leather
Christmas with Heather
Freaks flock together
And make all the b-boys scream

Word up to the man-thing
She's always cold lamping
Visine at the canteen
I just wanna watch you dance

Do you wanna ride on the Baltic Sea
I'll be your mistress C.O.D.
I'll comb your hair
Rewrite your diary
Pour champagne on a honey bee

She can really do me
She can look right through me
And make all the b-boys scream

I'm mixing fitness with leather
Homework with Heather
Freaks flock together
And make all the lesbians scream
JESUS FUCK HE IS FUNK EMBODIED. Then there’s his parody of those “hard ass gansta niggas” who rap about bling and spitooy and dink and winkle and all those silly African-American make up words. This song, “Hollywood Freaks” has a phat gangsta beat that would sound tired with any other vocals over it but Beck’s lyrics and vocal tone actually bring life to it. This song brings me to Beck’s use and feeling on lyrics. He said in an interview that his lyrics are as important as they are unimportant. Well…he’s a weird guy. But check this fucking lyrics out:
Hot milk
Mmmm... tweak my nipple
Champagne and ripple
Shamans go cripple
My sales go triple
We drop lobotomy beats
Evaporated meats
On hi-tech street
We go solo
Dance floors and talk shows
Hot dogs, No Doz
Hot sex in back rows

I wanna know what makes you scream
Be your twenty million dollar fantasy
Treat you real good
Expensive jeans
Hollywood freaks on the Hollywood scene

Touch it real good if you want a piece
Party people know I'm that type of freak

People look so snooty
Take pills make them moody
Automatic bzooty
Zero to tutti fruitti
Sex in the halls
Niagra Falls
Local shopping malls receive
Anonymous calls
Hot like a cheetah
Neon mamacita
Eat at tacoria
Pop lockin' beats from Korea
Looking like jail bait
Selling lots of real estate
Looking like a hot date
Banging like an 808

Do you want to feel this?
Do you want to feel this?

Norman Schwartzkoff
Something tells me you want to go home
Champagne, bibles
Custom clothes you own
Calling up from special area codes
Hollywood nuns with the Hollywood phones
I got nothing to do, nowhere to go
I'll tell you what you want
If you want to know
Satin sheets
Tropical oils
Turn up the heat
Till the swimming pool boils
Let all the neighbors
Read it in the papers
Making all those gentlemen cry
Realistic tears

Jockin' my Mercedes
Probably have my baby
Shop at Old Navy
He wish he was a lady

No, they don’t really make sense, but that’s kind of the point of this song. Throughout this track, Beck is yelling a lot of these lyrics as if he’s bragging and showing off. Then he’ll say a few of them in a lower register, sounding sultry. He is doing what all this Puff Daddy’s are doing, bragging about stupid shit and promising equally stupid shit. That’s why this guy is the shit. Because he insults P. Diddy Poo. Among some of the other funkier stand out lyrics are:

Sexx Laws:
Can't you hear those cavalry drums
Hijacking your equilibrium
Midnight hags in the mausoleum
Where the pixilated doctors moan
Carnivores in the Kowloon night
Breathing freon by the candlelight
Coquettes bitch slap you so polite
Till you thank them
For the tea and sympathy

Neptune's lips taste like fermented wine
Perfumed blokes on the Ginza line
Running buck wild like a concubine
Who's mother never held her hand
Brief encounters in Mercedes Benz
Wearing hepatitis contact lens
Bed and breakfast getaway weekends
With Sports Illustrated moms

Peach and Cream:
Don't tell your right hand baby
What your left hand do
You know those road check girls
Will make your brown breath blue

You look good in that sweater
And that aluminum crutch
I'm gonna let you down easy
I've got a delicate touch

You're a torn out page
From a best selling book
Your home girl's on the line
But your daddy's off the hook
Where do we go now?

Give those pious soldiers
Another lollipop
Cause we're on the good ship
Menage et tois

Peaches and cream
You make a garbage man scream
Such a delicate thing

Keep your lamplight trimmed and burning

Anyway, sorry I’m just listing lyrics since the lyrics are just words without the music. My favorite track on the album is “Milk and Honey”. It’s well written and well orchestrated and well funky. The last track is called “Debra” and is the story of a guy meeting a girl named Jenny at a JC Penny and then saying “I wanna get with you, only you, and your sister, I think her name’s Debra”. The super funkiest sleaze track I’ve ever heard. This is the album I listen to when good things happen to me. I get a booking, I listen to this album, it’s the first warm day after a series of rainy nasty cold days, I listen to this album, and walking around this city to the beat of these songs, you feel like Funkor, the ancient God of Funk and Kudzu.

Beck: Sea Change
The first amazing thing about this album is that it came right after Midnite Vultures. Whereas MV was having intercourse with a malfunctioning drum machine, Sea Change is best described as a long, slow drive through the Mojave (thank you Phil). The type of music can come off and simple and a bit country at first, but if you listen closely, you can feel more behind it. Electro-folk is how I described it once. You hear a lonely acoustic guitar note that turns into a computer error buzz. Thick, warm keyboards engulfed in metallic whirs and bleeps. The soundscape is so expressive of the cold, desolate nature of the music that you can actual get chills listening to it. The first song is called “The Golden Age” which connotates good things, the peak of a society is called its Golden Age, but the first line is “put your hands on the wheel as the Golden Age begins”. This immediately instills the image of a man running from society and perfection. Wandering. “You have to drive all night, just to feel like you’re ok”. You can’t be in one place too long without being uncomfortable. Unsettling way to start an album. After hearing the song, you can taste the bitterness with which “golden age” is spoken. The next song introduces David Campbell’s work on the album. David Campbell has worked as a conductor, composer and arranger for over 200 gold and platinum albums, 80 hit singles and has worked on albums which received 111 Grammy nominations, 26 Grammy awards and 3 Oscars. He is also Beck father. His work on Sea Change is his most amazing to date. On this album he does all the strings. Most of the tracks on this album are augmented or created by Campbell’s powerful, emotional string work. The line from the second track “Paper Tiger” “All the deserts down below us, and the storms up above, like a stray dog gone defective, like a paper tiger in the sun” might or might not be anything on its own, but with the driving, swooping strings behind it, you can see these images Beck presents as clear as day. Campbell’s strings turn a sad line into a crushing sentiment, a happy line into triumphant moment, etc. The next song, “Guess I’m Doin’ Fine” is about how Beck now has time to do what he wants, when he want since a relationship recently ended. He is still broken about this parting and is doing his best to look on the bright side, but the light isn’t bright enough to counteract the remaining dark. He tries to be happy and put up a good front, but he’s still affected. The chorus is a mix of emotions and ideas from Beck. “It’s only lies that I’m livin’, it’s only tears that I’m cryin’, it’s only you that I’m losin’, guess I’m doin’ fine.” He can only guess he’s doing fine because his emotional state is so murky thanks to this loss. He might be doing fine, but he really can’t tell. Then, “Lonesome Tears” begins. Beck is questioning why he’s crying these tears, but the questions are hypothetical.
“Lonesome tears
I can't cry them anymore
I can't think of what they're for
Oh they ruin me every time
But I'll try
To leave behind some days
These tears just can't erase
I don’t need them anymore”
He can’t detach himself from his pain or his tears. The next song is, in a way his way of washing his hands of this loss. He describes his love as a lost cause and says he’s tired of fighting for her. Pure and simple. There’s “End of the Day” which stresses the importance of good timing in relationships. A relationship ending too late “I’ve seen the end of the day come to late, I’ve seen the love you had turning into hate, had to act like I didn't even care, but I did so I got stranded standing there”, a relationship ending too soon “I’ve seen the end of the day come to soon, not a lot to say and not a lot to do, you played the game, you owe nothing to yourself, rest a day, for tomorrow you can't tell” and his reaction to both “it's nothing that I haven't seen before, but it still kills me like it did before.” The track “Round the Bend” is one of the most beautiful and sad tracks on the album.
We don't have to worry
Life goes where it does
Faster than a bullet
From an empty gun

Turn yourself over
Loose change we could spend
Grinding down diamonds
Round, round, round the bend

People pushing harder
Up against themselves
Make their daggers sharper
Than their faces tell

Babe, it’s your time now
Loose change we could spend
Where we are going
Round, round, round the bend
This has a very final feeling to it. Next is, “Already Dead” which touches on the angry he feels throughout this album. Everything up to this point, you could see being spoken followed by a dusty sigh, but here we can almost here the words coming through clenched teeth.
Time wears away
All the pleasures of the day
All the treasures you could hold
Days turn to sand
Losing strength in every hand
They can't hold you anymore

Already dead to me now
'Coz it feels like I'm watching something die

Love looks away
In the harsh light of the day
On the edge of nothing more
Days fade to black
In the light of what they lack
Nothing's measured by what it needs

Already dead to me now
'Coz it feels like I'm watching something dyin’.

My favorite track on the album is the penultimate tracks “Little One”. This track has such images that I was so affected the first time I heard it. Incredible powerful images of despair and futility along with a chilling chord progression, yow. This song is almost like a lullaby for a child dying of some horrible disease. The dreams are always waiting or waking, both meaning that neither will come true. And the almost childlike verse “drown, drown, sailors run aground, in a sea change, nothing is safe” is one of the worst things I’ve ever heard, but I can’t say why. I think it has to do with the idea of the sea turning to sand and an upheaval on such a scale that the Earth itself would be affected. It’s the futility and sadness in this song that really get to me.
Go to sleep
We're so tired now
Altogether in a snake pit of souls
New days
To throw your chains away
To try to hang your hopes on the wind

Little one
Just a little way
Today all we need is waiting

Night rise
Like the evening prize
In a turnstile backwards we fly
Cold bones
Tied together by
Black ropes we pulled from a swing

Little one
Just a little way
Today all of the dreams are waking

Can't stand on crooked legs
I'm cross-eyed to the wall
In these harbor lights
Satellites explode

Drown, drown
Sailors run aground
In a sea change nothing is safe
Strange waves
Push us every way
In a stolen boat we'll float away

Little one
Hold on
All of the dreams are wasting

The entire album has been about searching and dealing with things, so one could hope that the final track will leave us in a better place than where we started, running from the warmth and happiness of the Golden Age, but nom the last track is called Side of the Road and that’s where we end up. “In a random room/Behind an iron door/Kick an empty can/Across an empty floor. The lack of emphasis of where the album ends shows just how distracted and desolated Beck is. Just end it here. No one will notice.

CLOSURE! (part 3)

Depeche Mode: Songs of Faith and Devotion
Drugs are bad. Drugs are used to alter ones state of mind. Some people use them to “find new artistic places in themselves”. Many musical artists do this today, but very few stop. Too many drugs can kill such an artist, such as Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon, the guy from Sublime and numerous others. Too many drugs are bad, but just the right amount? Now that can produce some amazing shit. The specific amazing shit I refer to is Depeche Mode’s album Songs of Faith and Devotion. During the writing and recording of this album, Dave Gahan (the lead singer) was chasing the dragon, performing oral sex on Lady H, sucking the horse’s dick etc. This album, of the dozen or so that Depeche Mode has put out n over 20 years is their best. Plus, his hair was the sexiest during “Songs”. The themes of this album are religion compared and contrasted with love and sex, but outside the theme of the album is the fact that all three main members of the band believed this would be their last album. The heroin was destroying them all. The music on the album is years a head of its time in my opinion and it all has a heavy, dark feeling to it. The instruments are nothing special but it all comes together so well in forming the theme of the album and the feeling of impending nothing outside the album. There is one track, sung by Martin Gore called “One Caress” where he is alone in a studio with a live orchestra and he is conducting and singing along with them, very good stuff. The track Condemnation is amazing. The quality of Gahan’s voice is so clearly affected by emotion and drug use that you can’t help but feel every word he crows. These songs all have some sort of religious feel to them, either a personification of God or a hymn-like feel to it or something along those lines. In the end, Gahan has asked for forgiveness, rallied against God and finally, given up. This would have been a sad ending to the career of Depeche Mode, but luckily it wasn’t. They made three or four albums after his one then broke up a few months ago. Their solo shit sucks, but hey surprise, surprise. At least we’ll always have Songs of Faith and Devotion.

Guns N Roses: Use Your Illusion II
I was given this album on my 10th Birthday by Will Marsh who later died. He gave me Use Your Illusion I and II on tape. I put it into my tape player the moment I got it and the tape player ate the tape and self destructed at the same moment. I was pretty pissed off, but I didn’t have there words to express how angry I felt. I had to use my father’s stereo that was in the living room to listen to the album. Once I listened to it, I suddenly found my vocabulary expanded by about 7 words: motherfucker, cocksucker, shit, piss, ass, fuckhead and pussy, I have NEVER taken to a set of words more swimmingly in my life. Suddenly, I was getting in trouble at school, mortifying my older cousins and impressing my schoolyard chums. Did I know what all these words meant? No, but that didn’t stop me. Thanks to W. Axl Rose, my life was changed.
Onto the album. I love Guns N’ Roses ability to be mature one moment and then revert to grade school insults the next. It’s refreshing to see a band be so popular yet so offensive. This is without a doubt their best album. Lies and Appetite for Destruction had the hits and the catchiness and the staying power, but they lacked nuance and variation. Not just on the album as a whole, but in most of the songs, you’ll find a change in tempo and tone. You can actually FEEL Axel going from sad to frustrated to angry to pissed off in Civil War. And the cover of Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door?! Jesus, Dylan must be pissed, he was totally shown up. Get in the Ring provided most of the explicit language on the album and I say thank you again to W. Axel for the pleasure of hearing people I don’t know get cursed at. Then…the album is going well, you might not like all the tracks but there is a definite sense of continuity and cohesion to the whole thing…until…My World. I can’t even describe this song…actually I can. Throbbing, pulsing, marching, stomping synthesizer (that you’ll find NOWHERE else on the album) chew your face along with screeching subway noises and the sound of women moaning. Then…the lyrics:

You wanna step into my world
It's a sociopsychotic state of bliss
You've been delayed in the real world
How many times have you hit and missed?
You cat-scan shows disfiguration
I wanna laugh myself to death
With a misfired synapse
with a bent configuration
I'll hold the line while you gasp for breath
You wanna talk to me
So talk to me
You wanna talk to me [7 times]
You can't talk to me
You don't understand your sex
You ain't been mindfucked yet
Let's do it [3 times]
Oh my distorted smile

Guess what I'm doing now

Yeah, wow. Think of early Nine Inch Nails, but much more angry and creepy. Total mindfuck (as coined by Axel in said song). The working formula for G’N’R for me involves Axl’s screeching/nasal/downright fucking irritating vocals, Slash’s numerous guitar solos (try counting them some time) and the use of the piano in kick ass hard rock. Great combo. And how about tat amazing indecipherable video trilogy they released with the albums? What the fuck was going on there? I thought I had an idea up until the final video (Estranged, which is one of the most excellent songs they do) in which everything just kind of fell apart. I love almost every track on this and it still remains one of the only albums I can just put on and enjoy even if I can’t understand half of what Axel Rose says. Knowing, at this point in my life would just ruin something, so fuck it, as Axel himself might say. The downside to the whole thing is that what makes this album so much greater and me so much sadder is that this was the last good thing GNR did. After this (which came out in 9/91) they released The Spaghetti Incident? (question mark is their idea, not mine) which was a cover album of punk songs. It sucks. The problem was that GNR has the ability to create stuff with so many nooks and crannies that it’s like a musical English muffin, but the music they were covering had no dimensions to t. It was flat. After that everyone died or left but Rose, and his recent appearance at that MTV thing was fucking ridiculous. His voice, looks, and songwriting abilities are gone. As is Slash. God what a downer. This is the most tragic of my favorite albums because of what it represents: the first great album of the 90’s and the last great Guns N’ Roses release.

Wu Tang Clan: Enter the Wu Tang (36 Chambers)
This was the first release from the Wu. It came out in 1993 and I had the cassette. This was when rap was good, but starting to get too focused on bling and hanging out. Also, rappers were polishing their albums to the point of slick, same soundingness. Then there was the Wu Tang. Nine different members with nine different voices and nine different styles of rapping. And for a kid 13 years old, how cool is it to talk about guys with names like Rza, Ghost Faced Killa and, of course, the one and only Ol’ Dirty Bastard- god bless. They used samples from old Hong Kong action movies and it added so much to their music and the feel of the album. Everything felt so prophetic. Plus, you never got bored because there were 9 different people who could jump in at any time. To give you an idea of how attached to this album I was, I had every song memorized word for word. I had their vocal intonations down. God damn I was White. This album made me respect Black people and their culture. See, I don’t consider rappers like Puff Daddy and Ludacris and any of the other popular ones out there today Black people. They are Celebrities. There’s nothing real about them or creative about their music. But the Wu’s first album was so real. So gritty. They were Black people talking about friends of theirs that had died, who they had to do to survive growing up on Staten Island which isn’t very different from shit that’s out today, but it was a lot more sincere back then. They didn’t need to fucking sample a Sting song to express sadness, they used their voices as empathetic tools, not celebrities listing the makes of their BMW’s and the type of champagne they like to spit on naked women. I heard the Wu Tang and thought, this takes so much effort and ability, these are some of the most talented people I have ever known of. Anyway, like most artists, they went downhill from here. Before they put out their second album in 1997, pretty much every one of them released a solo album. None of them were very good save Method Man’s and ODB’s. And you can really only listen to ODB for so long before you realize he’s serious and get freaked out. The second album was a double album and had some cool stuff on it, but it also showed indications of the Typical seeping in. The third album was pointless and the fourth even more so. By the fourth, ODB was in jail and the Wu Tang without Big Baby Jesus is like Depeche Mode without Personal Jesus or Christianity without Regular Jesus. Oh well. At least we’ll always have Enter the Wu Tang.

Cake
These guys are so formulaic, you could compile a mix CD consisting of tracks from all five of their albums (released in 1994, 1996,1998, 2001 and 2004) and not be able to tell which was which or even that the songs were from different albums. Why the pissy shit would someone like me who likes albums and bands such as those listed above like something so predictable and unchanging? Quite simply because these guys know what they’re doing and I like what they’re doing. On almost every one of their sixty-two songs, you will find acoustic guitar, electric guitar, a trumpet hook, smart, cynical, allegorical lyrics and an unenthused John McCrea singing/speaking/reciting them. On about half you might find a drum machine beat and a distinct feeling of “almost Country” that aspect of Beck’s Sea Change possess, but all in all you will think that Cake put out a five disc set with slight variations to the aforementioned formula. But the formula doesn’t stop there… each album has one “out of character song” namely Mr. Mastodon Farm (first album), Race Car Ya Yas (second album), Cool Blue Reason (third album), Comfort Eagle (fourth album) and End of the Movie (fifth album). Each album has an “accessible to everyone” track that is usually released as a single. Each album has a sad, “leave you feeling down” song at the end and each album title seems to have something in common with the others, but I have yet to put my finger on it. Something on a subconscious level: Motorcade of Generosity, Fashion Nugget, Prolonging the Magic, Comfort Eagle and Pressure Chief Only true fans can determine what each song is within the first 10 seconds and believe me it is a lot harder than it seems. Also, Cake is perfect driving music. 90% of their tracks go perfectly with the turning wheels of a motor vehicle, although a semi-trailer or pick up truck are the types of vehicles that pop into my head. The band just seems to have so much disdain to share with the world it’s a wonder they have any fans at all. The perfect Cake song that really sews them up, quirky, sarcastic, disdain for American society, tounge-in-cheekedness and all is called “Wheels”. It’s the first track of their brand new album.

In a wooden boat in the shipping lanes with the freighters towering over me
I can hear the jets flying overhead making lines across the darkening sky
And when the sun is going down I can take a taxi into town
And the waiter at the restaurant sets a table just for one

Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round spinning round
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round and round

So I hired a plane to take me to a place so far away from you
Eventually we began to see that we could be completely free
And I could get away from you and you could get away from me
And we could live each separately in our cities in the sun

Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round spinning round
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round and round

In a seedy karaoke bar by the banks of the mighty Bosporus
Is a Japanese man in a business suit singing ”Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”
And the muscular cyborg German dudes dance with sexy French Canadians
While the overweight Americans wear their patriotic jumpsuits

Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round spinning round
Wheels keep on spinning round spinning round and round

(I don't know)
Why you say you are not in love with me
(I don't know)
Why you say you are not in love with me
(I don't know)
Why you say you are not in love with me

So to the point, I have no favorite Cake album, so I’m going to pretend they did release a five disc set spanning their whole career, call it “Smarm”, that’s my favorite Cake album. To finish up with Cake, I recall the very first interview conducted with them around the release of the first album over ten years ago. The lead singer said something that also describes them perfectly and still holds true today. . John McCrea (lead singer) looks right into the camera and says, “We’re here to make sure bands stop having fun.” He wasn’t smiling.

eels: Electro Shock Blues
This was a tough one. Eels has five albums and three of them were up for favorite, but I had to go with this one. First off, eels is actually one man with a pretty constant drummer and other musicians he gets to play this and that. The lead singer and songwriter is Mark Oliver Everett III also known as E. His father, Dr. Hugh Everett III, was a quantum physicist who authored "Everett's Many Worlds Theory" in the 1950's, Everett inspired countless science fiction books, movies and Star Trek episodes with the concept of parallel universes. As a young teenager he traded letters with Albert Einstein, debating whether it was something random or unifying that held the universe together. He was a certified genius. Long story short…E began writing songs when he was about 6. When he was older to he moved to L.A. and worked shitty jobs during the day while writing songs during the night. He did this for seven years. Eventually he got someone to hear a demo and put out a solo album in the early 90’s. He put out another after that then met Butch, the drummer for eels. Anyway, this album “Electro Shock Blues” is centered on the events of basically everyone in his life dying. He found his father dead, his sister killed herself and his mother died of lung cancer. This album is the saddest and most sincere thing I have ever heard. Yeah Trent Reznor feels the pain of the world in his blood or whatever, but E’s entire family dies and he’s left to deal with it. So he does by writing this album. The first track is called “Elizabeth on the Bathroom Floor” and has lyrics like “laying on the bathroom floor/kitty licks my cheek once more/and i could try but waking up is harder when you wanna die

My name is Elizabeth
My life is shit and piss

The album also has songs like “Baby Genius” that addresses his father and the pressure he felt being a genius and the pressure E felt having to live up to that and “Dead of Winter” which is about his mother and her cancer.

so i know you're going pretty soon
radiation sore throat got your tongue
magic markers tattoo you
and show it where to aim
and strangers break their promises
you won't feel any
you won't feel any pain.

Aside from songs about his family there are also songs about his mindset and reaction to everything. The impressive thing about this album is it isn’t just E standing there crying the whole time. There are barbs of satire and humor throughout it. And, the final track, after all the tears are dry and you feel like joining Elizabeth on the bathroom floor, E’s includes a song called “P.S. You Rock My World” that opens with the line “I was at a funeral the day I realized I wanted to spend my life with you” and the whole masterpiece ends with the hopeful line “maybe it’s time to live” showing that even though these terrible things happened to him, he found a away to go on and thrive in the face of blah blah blah. It’s really less sappy if you listen to it.