Probably unrelated to that video, here is an insightful piece (via britticisms) on Grammy reactions like a Who is Arcade Fire as a microcosm for "insisting that what you pay attention to really does define the world". Which is of course wrong, but hey, human nature. I am a unique snowflake and what I think must be of vital importance to everyone! On the other hand, self-centeredness is more palatable than things like this, cloaked in so many levels of winkling irony that it loses all meaning. Thus concludes the goats' Grammy coverage, forever.
At what point does a musical act go mainstream? It's impossible to be sure. A metric of placing bands on a "sell out" spectrum from say Yo La Tengo to Black Eyed Peas, sadly, does not exist. Perhaps someday some geek will develop a BCS-type system determined by the number of myspace friends a band has, how many Dave Matthews Band fan club members have heard one of their songs, gross ticket sales, venues they play, etc. But not yet, so whether a particular group or individual has achieved the level of ubiquity to have some stake in the popular consciousness is still a mystery. Also, I think these hypothetical sell-out rankings would have to occur outside the Internet. Because cult status is what the web is all about, fanaticism disguises magnitude, ardent supporters voice their opinions the loudest. Which is all "a way" of saying that I don't think Girl Talk is mainstream, despite their/his online pervasiveness when a new album is released.
Suppose that is what I was thinking about when I went to see Girl Talk at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia some time ago. We went what I like to call "Sinclair Style" which means showing up at a venue without tickets and running around like a maniac seeking good, legitimate tickets and maybe a half-drank mini-keg of Heineken. The thing to remember about "Sinclair Style" is that it is best attempted in the presence of Sinclair or a Sinclair-type figure, which means you yourself do not have to do much running around because he, being Sinclair, will be doing so himself and you can just sit in a bar around the corner and reflect on the obscenely sexual lies he told you on the drive into Philadelphia, in leiu of talking because of loudness of which the the bar is blaring Katy Perry and other undoubtedly mainstream acts. Or you could think about Katy Perry's boobs.
Anyway, yes, the show itself was fun. Like going to a club where they play Girl Talk and balloons fall from the ceiling. This video is a terrible but fair representation.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Most of the "web is killing writers' livelihoods" rants come predictably from the old guard—established journos at money-losing newspapers who are still under the illusion that written content has intrinsic monetary value. Like a lot of people, journalists confuse "use-value," i.e. the original, well-written and newsworthy article, with "market value," once measured in print advertisement dollars and now determined by the more economically unforgiving page-views. I've written about this before so I don't want to have to break it down again, but because publishing no longer requires a capital-heavy investment (the print press) which paid for itself by giving individual publishers an inherently large market share, the value of written content per se in the internet age has taken a nose dive. Magazines and newspapers now compete with a vast, free and self-published behemoth with millions of unpaid content producers, who sometimes aren't even aware they're producing content at all.
-replace "soccer" with "any subject at all" and this still works, mostly.
Repeated and varied descriptions of the largeness of Don Gately's head
A Las Vegas crooner became president, the first president to twirl his microphone during the state of the union or whatever its called in the book, because the USA, Canada and Mexico are some sort of unified political entity
Interlace entertainment/cartridges - essentially this is Netflix
Subsidized Time - i.e. The Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment
Ambiguity as to whether one character is deformed by beauty or acid
John "No Relation" Wayne
Microwave suicide
Waste disposal via trebuchet into the 'The Great Concavity'
'The Entertainment' being fatal in that no one can ever stop watching
Mario Incandenza is a homodontic midget
The reprehensible cocaine addict from the AA recovery house who kills dogs
A kid running around with a computer monitor smashed on his head, that they can't remove right away because of the sharp screen fragments proximity to his neck
Union of the Hideously and Improbably Deformed (U.H.I.D.)
Holy fuck, YouTube uses iframe embeds now. Truly a wondrous future we live in. I just tried watching this video repeatedly for goat inspiration, it failed. So instead a meager plea to follow me on twitter, that's where the hastily-typed action is these days, now that I have a "mobile device." The goats is now primarily for long-form blogging. **punches self in solar plexus**
For those that don't follow Aziz Ansari on twitter, you might be unaware that the funny show "Parks and Recreation" is back. Which is where that picture is from.
If like me, you read the nytimes "most e-mailed" articles, you will get this. "Yael is Hebrew for 'Nubian Ibex'". Of course it is.
"It is time to restore semantic integrity to caring about who footballers have sex with." Indeed, but the pictures will haunt me forever or for a few days.
"Drink to Moving On" seems an apropos message, considering the sadness and mayhem that has precluded the goats in the past few weeks. But much like a squeaky fart that signals a coming flood of diarrhea, so may this post signal a return to 2008-level blog potency. Probably not though. Cubes!
I suppose that title is a misnomer. Yes there are thousands of dumb shows on television, but why watch swill when there is also quality, textured progamming? This post isn't about the swill either, so chalk the title and this opening bit to my goats-mandated compulsion for obfuscated attempts at meta-comment.
Yes, well, recently-aired television in the form of a list of the shows that are programed to record on my digital video recording machine. I will mourn that machine briefly when I soon do not have it. That's what I was getting at. It's straightforward.
The Walking Dead Why I watch: The first episode is pretty much amazing. Zombies are cool. Post-apocalyptic imagery a la top photo. Quibble: Only 6 episodes of this exist, still gets mad slow toward the end.
Boardwalk Empire Why I watch: It's the Sopranos in prohibition-era Atlantic City. Offers perception of 1920s American life and politics. Good to great acting performances from the four major characters. Omar from the Wire plays a character named Chalky White. Paz de la Huerta could be the Joe DiMaggio of televised nudity. Quibble: Can get a bit heavy-handed with the metaphors.
30 for 30 Why I watch: Documentaries about different subjects by different filmmakers hit and miss, with the best transcending sports and exploring modern humanity. The Iverson one (No Crossover: The Trial of Allen Iverson), the OJ chase one (June 17, 1994) and the Colombian soccer one (The Two Escobars) spring to mind. June 17, 1994 is one of my favorite pieces of media that I have consumed, like visualizing part of a Don Delillo novel. Quibble: Some of them aren't as good, like the one about the origins of fantasy baseball.
Sons of Anarchy Why I watch: Motorcycle gang members do their thing, run guns, fight the enemy of the week (Aryans, IRA, Feds, etc.) but with hearts of occasional gold. Not unbelievable characters confronting each other and their legacy. Peggy Bundy and Ron Perlman (HellBoy) as the motorcycle mama and daddy respectively. Quibbles: Muddled at times. One of the main character's name is "Jax".
Louie Why I watch: Louis CK is funny as hell. Provides a good mix of stand-up and horrible situations. Sometimes both, like this confrontation with a heckler. Quibble: Darkly hard to describe.
Doctor Who Why I watch:This mostly.
Quibbles: British. Nerdy.
Mad Men Why I watch: Don Draper et al doing Don Draper et al things. The dialogue. Pete Campbell's wide variety of blue suits. Hipster cred. Quibble: Can devolve into idealized, if imperfect, vision of history.
South Park Why I watch: Al Quaida crashing jet-liners into people from New Jersey, and in the process stopping the advancing horde of New Jerseyites. Quibble: Kind of shitty these days, you know?
It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Why I watch: Philadelphia is in the name. It's grotesquely funny and quotable. Quibble: Not enjoyable while stoned.
Community Why I watch: Along with Louie, a half-hour comic show with smarts that is hard to define. Chevy Chase in a wheelchair. Probably all the characters. Quibble: Could be described as dramedy.
Top Chef Why I watch: Bunch of crazy good food. Host Padma Laksmi. Fulfills weekly recommended intake of reality show drama. Quibble: Hyper-kinetic cuts in editing.
The Venture Brothers Why I watch: Cartoon satire of heroes and villains. Brock Sampson. Horribly inventive. Quibble: Half the time I don't know what's going on, plotwise.
Other shows in the DVR that I don't feel like writing about right now because they are off-season or cancelled or whatever, but still I would watch them maybe: Treme, Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, Futurama, Terriers, Archer, Better off Ted.
So there you have it. If I were to put a gun to your head and tell you to watch one of these, it would be June 17, 1994 or Louie or Community depending on my perception of your sensibilities.
Here's the AV Club's of the best films of 2010, which I endorse, having seen only number 4. Next is Exit Through the Gift Shop because it is on Neflix streaming. Score! Although I would like to make in-the-know jokes about something called "Winter's Bone".
"Half of its users use Twitter as like a sort of digital closet that they go into once in a while to mutter to themselves, with no one else listening."
This essay on a video game is notable if only for the introduction of the term BFCockPOOT (Brett Favre's Cock Principle of Ontological Transference).
Great moment in sour grapes journalism? Or greatest? Cliff Lee=1893 World's Fair=9/11 Health Bill blockage=All My Children.
There is a scene in the possibly underseen "In Bruges" where Colin Ferrell beats the hell out of a American tourist, telling him "That's for John Lennon, you Yankee fuckin' cunt!" Later Farrell is dismayed to learn that his beating victim was actually Canadian. Humor!
Some reporter here just told me that the "real infamy" is there is more media coverage Lennon's death today than there was of the bombing of Pearl Harbor yesterday. This is the same guy who didn't understand why a "White Student Union" at the local university is a terrible idea. A king of merit-less arguments.
For some reason this reminds me of a Hunter S. Thompson quote about Richard Nixon representing the "dark, venal and incurably violent side of the American character that almost every country in the world has learned to fear and despise." On instinct I find this to be true and think that anyone who disagrees is either lying to themselves or has willed themselves into ignorance, if those are two separate things.
How can one compare a musician who wrote songs about peace and love with the bombing of a Naval base? It's completely infuriating, these two things could not be any more different. Maybe there is some fundamental comparison as reflections of opposing forces that make up human nature, the urge to both create and destroy. Later we could discuss the relative merits of David Bowie and the Battle of Antietam.
A better comparison would between Lennon and Nixon, or better yet Lennon and J. Edgar Hoover. At least then it would be between two people, and not a person and historic event. Also possibly acceptable: Some connection between Lennon's murder and the bombing. Two sides of the same coin, yin yang, etc.
I'm not sure if I'm making much of a point here and I'm already tired of trying to explain myself. The plan was simply to commemorate the 30 anniversary of a guy's death that affected many millions of people. Best intentions turn foul and bitter, again. So I'll just end this with a recommendation to go listen to Happy Xmas (War is Over).
Burning someone with hot tea out of nowhere to early 90s synth-riffs. It just works for me, I don't know why. Later the viewer and Daniel Craig are filled in on why this happens; it is something about napping on the job and a prison term. "It wasn't until Capitol leaked "Ordinary World" to a radio station in Florida in the autumn of 1992 that it looked like Duran Duran mania might yet hit again." A welcome diversion, in any case.
The other day I was driving and thinking about what stylized violence could go along with The XX's Intro, or perhaps Neon Trees' Animal. The latter was playing on either the top 40 or "alternative" local radio station at the time, in between sultry-voiced commercials for a Linkin Park-brand iPad. But all I could think of was a terribly violent fight between a terminal cancer patient and her elderly mother, with cricket bats. They could easily be tricked into fighting, because of the mutually severe brain rot. Still, that may be too weird, personally. But I do like the idea of cricket bats. Talk to you later!
Fans of the Original 10 (RIP Tampa Bay Mutiny) know there's something else at stake Sunday. The rest of the band has its origins in the Philadelphia space rock scene of the early 90s. Knowledge is power ... France is Bacon. This is just the kind of thing that the British sporting press eats up like free bags of crisps, but there may be one avenue of escape for Bale: he’s Welsh. Robert Kraft once, controversially and perhaps not intentionally, gave one of his three Super Bowl rings to buff, Modigliani-headed Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin.
I have nothing of substance to add to that video, the mildly racist caricatures really put it well, in their rap battle.
New Girl Talk album dropped today, you may or may not be aware. Download it for the the novelty/partying if nothing else, if you have internet skills to do so. I mean ... ELO and GZA ... Radiohead and ODB ... and the rest.
I enjoyed this, about people in Olive Garden ads sharing their existential pain. The buzz generated by a story at work about an Olive Garden's pending existence made me as disgusted as I've ever been with my hometown/the human race. That day.
No one once said that it would impossible to write a newspaper column combining the McRib and moustaches. They were wrong.
If anyone has the Daft Punk Alive 2007 album on cassette tape or can make that somehow I will buy it off them for three dollars, maybe more.
It's nice that Conan O'Brien is back on the air, even if the show isn't called "One Night Closer to Death" as he joked during the show on Wednesday. That name is better.
True phrases that seemed unlikely 5 years ago: Pat Burrell two-time World Series champion.
And lastly, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of writings from 2013, about the 2011 NFL lockout. Suddenly: Bedlam.
As always these are movies seen after they were sent to me through the mail. Looking at the rental history, I realize that I have been "slacking" on watching the Netflix, so much so that I am beginning to suspect that it is a waste of money. There are so many other ways to spend my time! Like watching movies on television, for example "Get Him to the Greek" on demand with my roommate and his awful girlfriend and noticing how Russell Brand basically rips off the whole choose life speech from Trainspotting. Or Avatar for the first time and then thinking for hours about the perfect joke to post on Facebook or Twitter or somewhere else and then not ever posting it. The joke was something like "Just watched Avatar for the first time, how did this cute little film slip below my radar?" I am so fucking clever or whatever.
Townes Van Zandt: Be Here to Love Me "I'd like to write songs so good nobody understands them, including me." -Townes Van Zandt This is a documentary about a songwriter I'd never heard of until I saw the indie music video that was included in the World Series post from last month. That video was directed by the same person (Margaret Brown) as this movie, and there was link to it in the YouTube description. Which is a good example of the arbitrary methodology I use to find movies for the queue. Sometimes there is great success. Like this one -- a bit impressionistic maybe -- but a tender, unflinching look at a guy who had a messed up life what with the shock treatments and drugs and whatnot, when he wasn't writing great songs. As far as music documentaries go, you can't do much better than Steve Earle talking about Russian roulette.
Lawrence of Arabia Here's me taking another step in a slow, agonizing attempt to see every film in the AFI top 100. Kind of like the crossing of the Nefud Desert in this film. I like to imagine some kid in 1962 getting his mind blown by seeing this for the first time. The most iconic score on this list, along with The Good The Bad and The Ugly.
A History of Violence Stab him in the brain with his nosebone, Viggo! Later you can have rough sex with/rape Maria Bello on the stairs! The movie lives up to its title. Yet but, there is more subtlety than you might expect.
World's Greatest Dad I still haven't watched this, indicative of my hatred of Robin Williams and what I was typing about earlier today before I had a gin fizz. Williams writes a fake suicide note for his son after said son dies in a terrible auto-erotic asphyxiation accident, is what I gather from the summary on the Netflix envelope.
Everything Is Illuminated Ukrainians and Jews, together at last? The grandfather thinks he's blind and has a seeing-eye dog, yet he drives the car. You can't make this stuff up! (editors note: based on a true story)
The Searchers John Wayne in the role he was born to play: Racist cowboy.
Bronson Ehhhhhhhnnnn, no. The trailer looked cool, but this is no Chopper. This movie kind of tries to be a combo of that and A Clockwork Orange, and fails terribly. Cash no. Robbo? No cash.
Run Lola Run German techno. I probably would have liked this more if I'd seen it closer to when it came out, in 1998. Disjointed narratives and timelines were so much fresher then, you know? Still, she does run a lot.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly Oh, here we go, this is one of the best films I've ever seen. It is based on a memoir of a stroke victim that he dictated entirely by blinking his left eye. This guy. At first I wanted to see it just because I was curious to how the hell he wrote a book. But also I've been thinking a lot about the mind-body problem, and this fits right in with that. A glimpse of what it would be like to exist as a brain trapped inside a body, a prisoner in one's own skin, learning to interact with world that is completely beyond your control. Note to self, an essay on this somehow? No.
Fantastic Mr. Fox Foxes love them some whatever they do in this movie. Steal things?
Hot Tub Time Machine Hilarious? Increasingly it seems the answer may be yes. I enjoy the comic stylings of Rob Corddry. He's in your face. And the black guy from the Office is also funny. And the rest of course.
For a Few Dollars More I have little to no recollection of what happens in this movie. But rest assured Clint Eastwood kills a bunch of people. I think I liked it more than Fistful of Dollars. I don't know, blame the booze.
The Believer Jewish Nazis: A recipe for disaster? If this movie is to be "believed" that could well be the case. Sorry. What's his name, Ryan Gosling, is a good actor, between this and Lars and Real Girl and the other one where he's the crackhead teacher.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Speaking of Nazis! It's amazing how these things come together sometimes. Maybe you heard of these books? The movie is good, if Swedish.
A Fistful of Dollars I will be sad when Clint Eastwood dies. YOU CAN NEVER DIE, CLINT! Until you inevitably do of course.
The Kid Stays in the Picture Self-narrated autobiography of Robert Evans, Hollywood producer behind Rosemary's Baby, The Godfather and Chinatown. Later he did a bunch of coke and was disgraced somehow. Surprisingly, in this film he focuses more on his successes than his disgrace. Patton Oswalt says it's the greatest Hollywood memoir ever, because Evans is the devil.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Yeah. I was really into the spaghetti Westerns for a while, and not without cause. I blame that Arcade Fire-Once Upon A Time in the West mash-up. And of course this. Spoilers. Is that the music from Kill Bill 2?
The Descent Quality horror flick, with the all-female cast going crazy with the claustrophobia and killing cave mutants with pick-axes and the nihilism. Best horror movie ever I want to say. I don't like horror movies though.
North by Northwest A cool thing about watching some classic film for the first time is the rush of recognition where every pop culture reference barely understood previously comes into sudden, sharp focus. This has two such moments, the finale on Mt. Rushmore and Cary Grant getting chased by a crop duster.
Morvern Callar I don't remember this at all ... something about a vacationing in Spain? Covering up a suicide? Whatever.
That's all for now, I am going to spend the next several weeks summoning the internal fortitude and willpower to go see 127 Hours in the theater when it finally comes to Philadelphia.
Sunday, November 07, 2010
Twenty minutes later they walked along the street, umbrellas up, it was raining lightly, a few panhandlers, a woman in a mohawk and white makeup punching a doomsday leaflet into the belt buckle of Marvin's raincoat. PEACE IS COMING--BE PREPARED. Most the shops were open despite the hour or because of the hour and they were almost all below street level so you peered over a guardrail to see what they are selling, Role-Reveral Rubber Goods, or Endangered Fashions--jackets made from the skin of disappearing species. They went into a hole in the wall place, a lot of cracked plaster and roachy baseboards and a stock of rare recordings. But you're not talking about old jazz 45s. These were phone taps you could buy, recordings of organized crime figures discussing their girlfriends or their lawyers, he's a hard-on with a briefcase--you're talking about men on the eleven o'clock news in cashmere overcoats with enough material you could clothe a Little League team from Taiwan. And phone taps of ordinary anonymous men and women, even more repellent-addictive, your next-door neighbor maybe, and Marvin understood how such a purchase could lead to stupefied hours of listening, could take take over a person's life, all the more so for the utter sucked-dry boredom of the recordings and how they provided the lure of every addiction, which is losing yourself to time.
I almost excerpted the part about Marvin having progessively worse-smelling BMs while traveling across Soviet Eastern Europe, but you know. This is more foretelling, considering it was copyrighted in 1997.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
For all the anti-DC talk you hear from politicos, most of them can't get enough of the place. The diagonally slicing arterial avenues are just larded with dudes in khaki pants and gold-buttoned blue blazers who, pre-Pelosi ethics rules, couldn't cram down enough lobbyist-purchased steaks at the charmlessly wood-panelled wine n' dine joints for which the district is so famous. You know how, yesterday, Politico's honchos bemoaned the state of distraction-driven political culture? Yeah, it's like that with politicians who campaign against Washington. Most of these people are having fun there.
