The Writings of Elliot Imes

The Purpletraitor

2012-02-06T22:38:00.002-06:00

***HELLO*** I need to tell you right away that this entry is going to have a ton of filthy language in it. Too much, in fact. However, the language is necessary to the story, so I'm not going to edit it. If you or your children are offended by the words that are about to appear as you scroll down, then I'd advise you to just skip this entirely. It'll be better for all of us. ***HELLO***

Some of you may be familiar with my friend, Andy Pilkington. I won't give you his entire biography, but here are the essential details: He is a man in his mid-twenties whom I have known personally since just after graduating high school. He went to Johnston High School and has blonde hair (again, only essential details here). And though Andy has worked jobs where he helped children in need and has done other acts of kindness, even Andy may have to admit that his greatest achievement was the creation of his musical alter-ego, Lil' Moby Dick.

Out of sheer boredom and the lack of a proper outlet for the stupidity that comes out of his brain, Andy got together with our good friend Nash Wiley to make the dumbest "rap" music ever created. A typical Lil' Moby Dick song starts with a beat created by Nash (going by the name DJ Colorado), who has the ability to cull together some of the funkiest and most soulful songs you've ever heard, but when he's DJ Colorado, he uses the worst sounds from the worst computer programs and throws them in a pile with the worst ear for composition he can possibly use. Andy barely even listens to the track before he records his vocals, which are 100% stream of consciousness and contain topics ranging from hippos, motorcycles, aliens, Austin Powers, and the inherent goodness of 4:20.

When Andy and Nash recorded the first Lil' Moby Dick EP in early 2003, If Pimpin' Be 4 Gays, Then Y'all Can Call Me Gay, it set off a firestorm among our friends, and by "firestorm" I mean only a few could even stand listening to it, but for those that did, it was like a bizarre cult we had joined. Nothing about Lil' Moby Dick was appealing, and Andy technically wasn't even being funny. He was just being stupid. But there was something about the fact that Andy and Nash had taken the time to preserve these thoughts and sounds for us, even if it took them 30 minutes of time and effort to record a 15-minute release.

Future albums included Snewp World, Just Retarded, Andy Pilkington: The Early Years, Out of the Box, and arguably their most cohesive and definitive statement, 2004's If You Can't Smell What the Rock is Cookin', Then You Better Tell What Bach is Cookin'. These releases found Andy and Nash occasionally exploring new territory, but consistently returning to their tried and true formula: A bunch of nonsense on top of noisy, irritating hip-hop.

My connection to Lil' Moby Dick's music has always been quite strong, partially because I believe that some of it has been created specifically for me. I'm almost positive that Just Retarded was recorded and then immediately rushed over to my apartment so I could hear what they had done. Aside from the fact that Just Retarded is clearly his worst, laziest and unfunniest album, I still consider it an honor.

Seven years after their last formal release together, Andy came to visit Nash at his home in Ames, and apparently the old magic was in the air, because we have now been blessed with a new recording. But forget Lil' Moby Dick. Andy has killed him off and replaced him with a new alter-ego that quite frankly, the world is not ready to hear.

Meet The Purpletraitor, with his DJ, Snoppy. As if the smooth and cool persona of Lil' Moby Dick never even existed, The Purpletraitor comes roaring out of the gate by screaming the title of his new album from the top of his lungs: 'I'm Gonna Fuckin' Kill You."

The first thing you need to know about The Purpletraitor is that he is borderline unlistenable. When I played two tracks for Andrea, I was afraid that our relationship was over. I have never seen her so annoyed by a piece of music during the entire time we've been together. She might not ever want to speak to Andy again. That's how unlistenable The Purpletraitor has managed to make himself. He does this by producing guttural screams in which he spouts horrible, filthy lyrics about his penis, about having sex with men and women, and about taking dumps. If that sounds juvenile and unfunny to you, then you are absolutely correct.

But it's not unfunny to me. As difficult of an experience it may be to get through all 28 minutes of I'm Gonna Fuckin' Kill You, I found myself crying with laughter during the first go-round, which took place in Andy's car last week has he drove me around and gave me a private listening party. And I wish I could figure out what split wire I have inside me that causes this awful music to hit me in such a way that it hits just about no one else on this planet. Clearly, it has something to do with Andy being a friend of mine, and you're always going to enjoy your friend's joke more than a stranger would. But there must be something else. In order to attempt finding an answer, let's dive into this album.

As I already said, it is very, very difficult to get through this record. Andy is trying his hardest to do things with his voice that make people writhe in pain and discomfort, so he often growls like a frustrated child, fluctuates his voice to high and low octaves, and out of nowhere lets out an inappropriate "WHOOOOOOOOOO" for no reason. The beats that Nash used (some of which were created six years ago) rise to a new level of annoyance, devolving into ugly, plodding messes that also cut off early because of a technical glitch, leaving The Purpletraitor in the dust. Nash also uses the Windows startup soundbite in at least five different songs, and even builds a beat for an entire song out of it.

The Purpletraitor is an unspeakably terrible character. If he was a real person, he would be awaiting execution on Death Row just for being such a bag of garbage. The only way to properly convey his stupidity and lack of moral fiber is to give you samples of his lyrics. Here is where it gets filthy, so watch out (also imagine all of this screamed louder than it would ever need to be screamed):

Dog shit, horse shit, eat my shit, I love that shit. I'm gonna make you eat my shit cuz I'm a fuckin idiot.

I'm gonna pull my dick out and rub it all over the microphone.

I broke my knee playing basketball with your girl. Her weiner's bigger than yours, bigger than mine, but that's fine.

Who's got the herb? Goddammit, who's got the fuckin herb?? I'm so fuckin' tired, dude.

I'm pissin in my mouth, I'm pissin in my mouth. That's what this shit is all about, I'm pissin in my mouth.

I'm gonna dip my weiner in a cereal bowl before you can see me. Oh no, your Oreo-O's are on my weiner now.

I'm gonna cut off my dick tonight and put it in a pickle jar.

"I'm gonna bust out some condoms and I'm gonna blow them up into some stupid fuckin shapes and you won't even know if I wanna fuck or if I just wanna play around with condoms all night. FUCK YOU, DUDE."

And after all of this reprehensible nonsense has been laid down, The Purpletraitor ends the album with these words (once again screamed way too loud):

Elliot Imes is a fuckin idiot. You're so fucking stupid, fuck you Elliot. Fuck you, I fuckin hate you man. This is for you, you fuckin retard. I can't believe you listened to the whole fuckin thing.

So maybe the joke is on me after all. Andy and Nash record a bunch of bullshit and then hand it to me because I'm the only person in the world who will deal with it. But I do know that they don't do it just because they have to, but rather because it's a blast for them.

There are moments in the music of Lil' Moby Dick and The Purpletraitor when Andy says something so inexplicable and dumb that Nash audibly bursts out laughing, as he's sitting a foot away from Andy while the song is being recorded. Those are always genuine, touching moments because you get a little insight into the long-standing bond between these two guys whose sense of humor would be considered morbidly unfunny by 99.8% of the human population, but have continued to be themselves even as they get older and the pressures of maturity should be weighing down on them.

Andy and Nash rise above it all, and it's evident in a track on this most recent album at a time when Andy has clearly run out of things to say. After a brief pause, he boldly says, "They call me D...I...L..."...and after another two seconds of silence where it's clear that he's not going to finish that thought, Nash busts up and is audibly losing it to maybe the dumbest thing that Andy has ever said. And it's those wonderful moments that keep me coming back to what Andy and Nash do. You just might hear the dumbest thought ever spoken by a human being, and being witness to that is something to be proud of.

And if you'd like to listen to I'm Gonna Fuckin Kill You, here's a link: http://www.mediafire.com/?5ysy7p2ph8ppl5t

Elliot's Top 10 Movies of 2011

2012-02-06T11:36:00.016-06:00

Okay, so now it seems really late in 2012 that I would still be writing about stuff that came out in 2011. But I needed to at least see a few more movies before I made this list, and considering that it's the first time in my life I've ever done a top movies of the year list, I wanted to have some semblance of completion. Also, certain movies up for Oscar nods don't even get released until January, so if you could kindly get off my back, I'd appreciate that.

I didn't see all the movies nominated for Oscars this year, therefore I've got no opinion on Moneyball or Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and definitely not War Horse. If these exclusions make this list impossible for you to acknowledge, I will not be offended. But if you're still on board, then let's gooooo!

(In no particular order, obviously. Not sure if I could pick the one favorite if I had to.)

13 Assassins

Director Takashi Miike has a reputation for making disgusting movies. I've never seen Ichi the Killer but I know I probably don't want to, and I watched ten minutes of Audition years ago and wanted to kill myself, so I can't speak from total experience with his past work, but I am sure that those movies have a ton of messed-up, horrible stuff going on in them. 13 Assassins doesn't skimp on the violence, but rarely does it border on disturbing. This is a samurai movie, after all. 13 dudes get together to stop a murderous dictator, and against all odds they get the job done. Lots of people get killed along the way, but it carries much more weight and meaning than your average samurai movie with a dozen fight scenes.

Cedar Rapids

It has been almost a year since I saw this, so here is the basic stuff I walked away with: Ed Helms inched his way towards proving that he is capable of dramatic work, though it was always tinged with the clueless nerdiness that made his character so likable. John C. Reilly was more or less Will Ferrell with a heart, and he was such a welcome source of laughs in a movie that is secretly sort of sad and introspective. I didn't even realize that was Anne Heche until the end credits. And I believe they used a Fucked Up song at one point, which never fails to score points for no reason with a dork like me. Maybe I forgot some details in the last year, but I very much look forward to watching it again sometime this century.

Martha Marcy May Marlene

I knew the star was named Elizabeth Olsen, but didn't know until after seeing this movie and then Googling it that she is the sister of the real-life Olsen twins. And this is freakish because she's a truly stellar actress. I won't say she was perfect, but she'll get there, no question. Anyway, the movie is about a girl who gets drawn into a hippie commune that could legally be defined as a cult. She gets away and tries to become normal, but her past is always right around the corner. John Hawkes just hypnotizes you as the cult leader, and boy oh boy does that guy know how to do the damn thing. And let me tell you, the ending of this movie is so disconcerting that I sat there by myself through the end credits, just blown the heck away. It's a weird one.

Tabloid

Errol Morris is generally known as the best documentarian of this generation, but the subject matter of this movie is a departure, since he usually deals in slightly more serious areas. In this one he tells the story of a former beauty queen who abducts her lover from the clutches of his Mormon brethren and tries to convert him to a secular life by sexing him up like crazy. This was a gigantic tabloid scandal in the late 70's, but it was certainly the first I had heard of it. And that's what Errol Morris is so good at: He recreates the past in such a convincing way that a 30-year old story feels like it just happened a week ago. His interview subjects are consistently entertaining but reputable, so you always feel in good hands.

50/50

Possibly the most underrated movie of 2011, and I think that can be explained by the movie's most obvious element: It's about cancer. And people don't like cancer, for perfectly understandable reasons. But what I respect so much about 50/50 is its fearlessness in exploring a topic with a comedic abandon that I don't think many movies have. Cancer is simply too pervasive in our lives to not have a movie made about it. I know there may have been some groaning over Seth Rogen being in a film like this, but the crude humor he's unfairly stereotyped with is definitely pulled back here, and he delivers a great performance as a guy who just cares about his friend. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is unquestionably a tremendous actor who does everything right in this role, and Angelica Huston plays an overbearing mother just as convincingly as she did a ghoulish mother in The Addams Family. So yeah, this may not have been my favorite of 2011, but it's the movie I would recommend most to anyone who hasn't seen it.

Bridesmaids

Women have always been funny, and they've pretty much always had movies where that has been showcased, so I don't exactly buy the hype that this movie changed the game on much of anything. I suppose we'll see a few more female-centered comedies in the next few years, and that's a wonderful thing, but give the studios time and they'll find a way to be ignorant again. As for Bridesmaids itself, the sheer exuberance cannot be denied. I saw it opening weekend with a packed theater, which never fails to be the very best way you can see a comedy, especially a raucous one where there is a scene that no one in the audience has ever experienced in a film before (the vomiting/diarrhea in the street scene, of course). I'll forever love this movie, if only for the memory I'll have years later when I reflect back on how ridiculously fun it was to laugh until you choked with a bunch of strangers.

Drive

Anything you have heard about Drive is true. Yes, it gets really violent. Yes, it gets boring and weird. Yes, Ryan Gosling is so attractive that every straight man who saw the movie became a homosexual for at least thirty seconds while watching it (this has been scientifically proven, probably). Any film that can elicit such a strong reaction from nearly every audience member deserves some attention, and Drive has rightfully received that. As solidly 80's as the soundtrack may sound, this movie will define 2011 for future generations, and I think we should be proud that said movie involves a guy getting his head stomped in like a wet cardboard box.

Attack the Block

I don't generally like the 80's movies where kids get into crazy adventures (The Goonies, Stand By Me, etc.), so I was hesitant when I heard this getting those comparisons. But the Brits have their hands on this one, so it's got a much different tone and I had an awesome time watching it. A gang of no-good British teenage hoodlums are the unwilling first respondents to an alien invasion, and they take on the aliens with their at-times impenetrable accents and their street weapons and bicycles. It was produced by the gentlemen responsible for Shaun of the Dead, which should give you an idea of what type of tone to expect.

The Tree of Life

Boy, I still don't know how to feel about it. Director Terrence Malick is known for crafting films that almost dare you to not like them, based on their length and crushing themes, but he really upped the ante on this one and made a movie that is like a brain teaser, obstacle course and an endurance test for those who think they are film buffs. "Oh you think you can handle anything?" Malick says. "Here is a 20-minute scene that belongs in the Planet Earth documentaries. Whaddya think? Now here are 100 scenes of Brad Pitt clenching his jaw. How bout it?" I imagine that's what he said while filming. I might be unfairly portraying the experience of watching The Tree of Life, so I should say that it's on this list because it was unlike any other movie I've ever seen and that has to count for something. Plus, all that Brad Pitt jaw clenching was just DIVINE.

The Descendants

Alexander Payne directed one of my most beloved films (Sideways), and that George Clooney sure is easy on the eyes (I just realized how gay this blog got), so I'll admit I walked in expecting to be very impressed. And impressed I definitely was, but I didn't know how emotionally devastating it was going to be. If you haven't seen it, then I don't want you to know much of the plot, because I'd like you to have a similar experience to mine. But it's important to note that The Descendants is emotionally heavy, but not emotionally manipulative. It's not just sad for the sake of being sad. The actors all approach their jobs with the proper talents, which is essential for the moments of comedic relief that actually come more than you would expect given the opening fifteen minutes. I sort of expect this to win Best Film, but even if it doesn't I don't think it would be a travesty. This will be a well-regarded movie for quite some time.

Oh, and I did see The Artist. It was great, but I guess not Top 10 great. Maybe it was trying too hard to be Top 10 great. I dunno, fight me.

Elliot's Top 10 Podcasts of 2011

2012-01-08T21:39:00.029-06:00

For the last 15 months, I have worked an office job at Wells Fargo where I have the privilege of listening to my iPod, more or less so my brain doesn't cave in on itself from boredom. Since I figured that listening to music all day might get a bit repetitive, and the last thing I need to do to myself is somehow start hating music, I knew I would need something else to occupy my ears. So I asked my friends what the deal with podcasts was, and I got some great recommendations that have truly helped me through some boring times. I thought I'd do the same for you, the gentle reader, in a geek-out session cleverly disguised as a Top 10 list. I'm so sly.

(Just like my Top 10 Records list, these are not ranked. I simply can't do that. Too difficult.)

Never Not Funny

http://www.pardcast.com

Almost every podcast you'll find out there is a free download, but Jimmy Pardo and his crew operate with a different plan: They charge money. GASP! But it's only about 70 cents an episode, and for the the 100-minutes of gleeful banter you get each time, and for the fact that they got in on the ground floor and have been doing the show for almost six years, they have every right to charge. Jimmy was hand-picked to be the warm-up act for Conan O'Brien's new show, which should tell you something about his ability to work a crowd. He brings that ability to his podcast, working up an intoxicating chemistry with his co-host Matt Belknap, intern "Tabasco Ears" Danny Katz, cameraman Eliot Hochberg, and a different guest for each show, usually a person from the entertainment biz (Patton Oswalt is a frequent guest, and Conan has appeared on two episodes). Other than Jimmy taking the first 10 minutes to chat with his crew before bringing in the guest, there is no particular format to the show, so for the 90+ minutes they are free to let the conversation run wherever it decides to go. And even if the guest that week might drag a bit, Jimmy is always working hard to keep the title of the show applicable, as he slips into characters like Cajun Jimmy, or Stallone in a Bottle, which is just Jimmy talking into a bottle while doing a Stallone impression. I firmly believe Jimmy Pardo is one of the funniest human beings on the planet. You just have to hear what he does to know why I'm saying this.

Savage Love

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLovePodcast/Page

The only call-in show I listen to on a regular basis, Savage Love gets its name from Dan Savage, the gay, liberal, fiercely-opinionated advice columnist and activist on behalf of everyone from the LGBT community to those who like to wear diapers and pretend to be a baby while having sex. These are the types of people who call in with questions for Dan, and he answers their pre-recorded calls with blunt, honest, often hilarious responses that might offend or shock a few people. But Dan knows his audience, so he pulls no punches, even when he knows a certain group is going to get furious at him and post angry comments (like when he only sort of implies that maybe most bisexual people will end up on one side of the spectrum). But when he's not talking to someone with a crazy fetish or a hopelessly messed-up relationship, he finds time to champion causes and fight the moral fights that I would be fighting too if I had the public platform that he has. It's my weekly dose of the absurd, the sad and the righteous.

Uhh Yeah Dude

http://uhhyeahdude.com

Another podcast that started years before you were even asking yourself "What the hell is a podcast?" Jonathan Laroquette (son of, who else, John Laroquette) and Seth Romatelli are two guys who don't seem to be any sort of popular comedians or actors or entertainers, but offer themselves to you as two mere fellows who have gotten together every week for the last six years to talk about...the world. And if you're saying to yourself, "Big deal, I could get together with my friend and do that," I'm sorry but that's just not the case. Jonathan and Seth have developed a buzzsaw of a conversational style that cannot be duplicated, which is why they have such a large, obsessed fanbase of people that arrived solely through word of mouth. A typical episode finds the guys coming to each other with obscure news stories and scientific studies, anecdotes and observations from their lives, and the occasional vitriolic pop culture rant. Last week, when Seth told Jonathan that Jerry Seinfeld would be making $1 million for doing an upcoming weekend of stand-up shows, he exploded in beautiful fashion: "Are you fucking kidding me? We already gave you a billion dollars! Why do you need that money to ask us 'What's the deal with cell phones??'" It was mesmerizing, just like every other second of Uhh Yeah Dude. And when they're almost joyously declaring the fact that we are living in End Times and shit is about to break down all around us, they're incredible. Even in the moments where you're not laughing, you'll find yourself hooked on the show like it's heroin.

The Smartest Man in the World

http://smartest.libsyn.com

Though Greg Proops might have his tongue just slightly in-cheek with the title of his podcast, a case could be made that he shouldn't be so modest. What Greg does with this show is unlike what anyone else in the industry (to my knowledge) is doing: He gets in front of a crowd of people every week and does a free-form stand-up set for over an hour. He has prepared certain things to talk about, but much of the content comes from his free association where he slips into old stories, which eventually leads to him waxing hilarious about the Roman Empire, ending in a crushing segment of political or social commentary that leaves the crowd in a stunned but appreciative silence. His voice might not be your cup of tea, and the subject matter can lean obscure sometimes, as Greg has been known to get carried away with references and arcane historical details that could turn some people off. But he always senses when he's losing steam, so he quickly makes fun of himself and steers the ship back on course. Whether he's doing the show for a nervous audience of 15 people, or a whooping crowd of 200 at a club in Scotland, he puts all of himself into his performance, and that's a trait that gives the show a punk rock, DIY persona. I think Greg would appreciate hearing that, but he would still make fun of me for saying it.

Doug Loves Movies

http://dlm.libsyn.com

Formerly known as I Love Movies with Doug Benson, this show is taped live, usually at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in L.A., for an appreciative crowd that gets treated to a typical "Is he high or is he not high" opening monologue from Doug, followed by the introduction of his three guests for the night, which usually includes all-stars from the world of stand-up comedy and film. They mess around for a little while, and then they play The Leonard Maltin Game, a deceptively simple movie trivia contest structured in a similar way to Name That Tune. Someone wins the game, and then the episode ends. This same exact thing happens in every episode, but it's the riffing and the audience interaction that make Doug Loves Movies a joy to listen to each week. For all of the stoner baggage that hangs on Doug Benson since he made his movie Super High Me, Doug is actually one of the sharpest and quickest comedians out there, and he's always the first to jump on a good joke when he sees one. And as repetitive as The Leonard Maltin Game may be, and as ill-informed of its rules Doug's guests frequently seem to be, it's one of the most engrossing half-hours of listening you'll find.

Comedy Bang Bang: The Podcast

http://www.earwolf.com/show/comedy-bang-bang-podcast

Our fair host, Scott Aukerman (aka Scottobot, aka Hot Saucerman, aka The Apache) was a writer and actor on Mr. Show and co-created Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis. That should give you an idea of the inspired silliness you'll find in this show. For a simple summary: Scott brings in a guest, they do a comical interview segment, and then there are usually one or two more "guests" who enter the proceedings due to Scott's generous Open Door Policy. These guests are usually comedians who are being interviewed as characters, either fictional or real people like Paul Giamatti or Ice-T.When I first started listening to podcasts, Comedy Bang Bang was the one that immediately clicked with me, mostly due to a segment where Paul F. Tompkins called in doing a terrible Danny Glover impression, and when asked by Scott how old he is, replied, "Ohhh, I don't know...probably in my late 60's?" I was in my cubicle at work, and I actually had to get up and walk away because I was crying from laughing so hard. The beautiful thing about Comedy Bang Bang is that with the formula being based so much on improvisation, the show can sometimes flop and flounder for much of its duration, so when they hit upon a gold mine, it's that much more rewarding when they find it.

Walking the Room

http://walkingtheroom.libsyn.com

Billing themselves as a "podcuddle," Greg Behrendt and Dave Anthony are anything but gentle. They are two 40-something guys who are finding much frustration in their somewhat-stalled careers as stand-up comics, and they're here to take out their anger on every subject they can think of, and they do so by being more foul and filthy than anyone out there daring to record a podcast. But 98% of the time, the filth doesn't overwhelm but rather brings you right into the trenches with Greg and Dave, on their side and ready to fight for whatever cause they may ask you to take on. They have worked out a wonderful dynamic that seems mostly genuine, where Greg annoys the shit out of Dave, and Dave tries to cut Greg down with extreme prejudice, but it never works because Greg is barely even listening to him. Dave seems to ask himself at least one per episode why he even bothers hanging out with this guy, but we know exactly why: This show has gotten improbably popular from this exact tension, and it's thanks to the devilishly clever sense of humor both Greg and Dave possess. And when they very occasionally bring in people like Patton Oswalt or Kyle Kinane, the Walking the Room sensibility rubs right off on their guests, and it only gets even more fun than usual.

The Long Shot Podcast

http://www.thelongshotpodcast.com

A common criticism that could be leveled at many podcasts is that they merely consist of white people sitting in a room and talking about themselves. And even though this valid point may apply to The Long Shot Podcast, the four players of this show rise above the fray and make you forget that you're listening to stuff you would never want to hear strangers talk about in real life. That's because Sean Conroy, Eddie Pepitone, Amber Kenny and Jamie Flam all have a wonderful comic disposition that allows them to recount what happened to them this week in spectacular detail, and the four of them are such close friends that they know exactly how to interact with each other in order to bring out everyone's best. And when they have a guest, they pick a theme (such as ghosts or road trips) and try to center the discussion around it, though it frequently goes way off the rails, as Sean and Eddie use their improv skills to rant and rave at each other, while Amber gleefully provides commentary and Jamie tries to interject a poorly-timed joke. There are a lot of good vibes found here, and as long as they keep those vibes coming, these white people can talk about whatever they want.

The Monday Morning Podcast

http://billburr.com/podcast

Bill Burr has quickly become one of my favorite (if not my very favorite!) current stand-up comics, and while much of that has to do with his fantastic one-hour specials, a big part of my obsession with his comedy has been his Monday Morning Podcast. He has been doing it for roughly four years, and he does every episode by himself, with no audience or interaction of any kind. Just Bill and a microphone, with all of his rambling, insane thoughts and no one to stop any of them. He does have something resembling a structure, as he takes letters from readers who ask his advice on subjects mostly having to do with relationships, which even Bill acknowledges is hilarious since has clearly never been a model boyfriend at any point in his life. But a large portion of the show is stream-of-consciousness, with Bill starting off on one subject and then drifting into an area that even he finds despicable, so he quickly abandons that line of thought and then goes onto another topic where he can embarrass himself. It all gets pulled off because Bill Burr is a mercilessly funny person who sees the comedy in every aspect of life, and even when he's trashing women (he's ultimately kidding with that stuff, so no one really gets hurt), he remains one of the most likable people you'll ever hear.

WTF with Marc Maron

http://www.wtfpod.com

It's the runaway hit of the podcast universe, turning Marc Maron from a somewhat-known stand-up comic to a more-known-but-still-sorta-obscure stand-up comic who has had the torch of podcasts thrust into his hand, and has been asked to carry it by the media who have just in the last year finally realized that podcasts might be a new legitimate movement in communication.

And how did Marc do this? He sat down and talked to people. It's as simple as that. Each episode of WTF is a one-on-one (very occasionally one-on two) conversation in which Marc gets deep with the guest, not content to just let them stick to their usual interview responses. This can be difficult since he has had people of a huge stature on the show such as Robin Williams, Conan O'Brien and Ben Stiller, but Marc does his job without ever badgering the guest too hard. He just cuts through the clutter and lets them know that they can have an honest talk by being themselves. The range of guests has been eclectic and enlightening, including the heavyweights previously mentioned, along with the biggest and best in stand-up (Louis C.K., Patton Oswalt), the biggest in comedy acting (Amy Poehler, Zach Galifianakis), Henry freaking Rollins, and an endless number of fascinating folks in numerous professions. His episodes with Carlos Mencia where he confronts him on the accusations that Mencia stole jokes are absolutely essential listening for anyone interested in the complexities of comedy and human behavior. But this is par for the course when it comes to WTF. Every episode includes at least one moment of true transcendence, without fail. Marc deserves every bit of success he has strangely been blessed with.

Elliot's Top 10 Records of 2011

2012-01-02T22:05:00.001-06:00

I hope no one is bothered by the publication of my highly awaited Top Records of 2011 arriving after the year is over. I could tell you I just wanted more time to pore over my selections and that I frequently woke up in the middle of the night, panicked and terrified that I was leaving out a record that truly deserved my endorsement. But in truth, I was merely lazy and didn't get around to it until now. A guy can have priorities, you know.

I also wanted to point out what might be obvious to the two or three people who have paid attention to these lists over the last few years: I continue to pick the same bands over and over again, slavishly putting them in the Top 10 whenever they happen to put out something new. This might be attributed to my strange lack of desire for discovering new bands. I'll occasionally get struck by an urge to seek out the stuff that bloggers are hyping up, and it sometimes produces positive results, but as I come ever closer to turning 30, I feel the growing pull to come back to the stuff I know and love. That's why five of these bands have already appeared in my Top 10's of the past, and two of them have been old favorites. I just like what I like. And I hope you'll allow me that joy.

(Same as last year, I'm not ranking these in order. Just a list of what grabbed me the most.)

Tom Waits - Bad as Me

Here is the clearest cut case of me putting a record on my Top 10 because it was released by one of my favorite people in the world. Andrea asked me if I would buy a record where it was Tom Waits, with no music behind him, just singing the word "poop" over and over again. The answer is an obvious yes, and it would probably just squeak into my Top 10 of the year, barely beating out the record where Nick Cave only sings the word "sodomy." So even though I have an obvious bias for Mr. Waits, I am in luck because I never have to pretend that he's making quality stuff, because he will never stop doing that. I knew Bad as Me was going to be incredible, but I didn't expect it to blow me away with such force. 38 years after his debut album, Tom Waits has somehow made a record that could be given as the perfect primer for a layperson that has never heard his music, and if they had an open ear for his sometimes inaccessible voice, they would be instantly won over. It showcases almost every facet of his career: ragged ballads, raucous blues, sinister crooning and bizzarro noise explosions. Oh, and Keith Richards appears on four of these songs. No big deal. If I was still ranking my list, this would be number one without question. Tom Waits is a living saint.

Banner Pilot - Heart Beats Pacific

Forgiving the awkward album title (the girl at ZZZ thought I was saying "Heartbeat Specific"), I came into this record not expecting much of a variation from their past output, and those expectations turned out to be on point. I knew they wouldn't stray too far from their brand of gritty pop-punk, using most of the same chord sequences from before, creating an odd musical deja vu. I knew Nick Johnson would continue to mine the depths of his Midwest winter depression for lyrical inspiration, and as a guy living in Minneapolis, he has every right to tell us about how miserable it can get on those frigid January mornings. So even though there were no big surprises, Banner Pilot upped the melodies, improved the singing and tweaked the rhythms just enough that no one could accuse them of repeating themselves. I suppose they technically are still engaging in some repetition, but these songs are so infectious and vital that there is no reason to get upset about it.

The Poison Control Center - Stranger Ballet

It took them just about four years to come out with a new record (last year's Sad Sour Future), so I guess they were either sitting on a bunch of new material or got a crazy burst of creative energy, because it only took them a year to come out with another one. In the middle of playing 200-something shows over the last year and a half, The PCC found time to barge into a studio and lay down the tracks for one beast of a rock record. New drummer David Olson picks up nimbly where Don Curtis left off, and all three frontmen are sharing the vocal duties and doing their part to make the machine cruise at full speed, like a NASCAR pit crew where everyone knows what is asked of them and does their job with even-handed precision. A mercilessly catchy hook pops up in every single song, which makes it impossible to pick a favorite. It's just perfect from top to bottom. Iowa is so lucky to be able to call a band like The Poison Control Center their own, and I hope they keep this band going until they're 90, and Pat is still somehow able to do the splits without breaking both of his hips.

Former Thieves - The Language That We Speak

These guys have made a name for themselves in the underground world of hardcore, drawing some modest national attention and touring with buzz bands like La Dispute and hardcore old mainstays like Every Time I Die and Terror. Because they have improbably come out of Cedar Falls, Iowa, they are gaining the inevitable comparisons to the legendary ghosts of Iowa hardcore past, Modern Life Is War. While a surface musical comparison could be made (Matt Schmitz employs a vaguely similar vocal delivery), Former Thieves are operating in a much different mode, hearkening back to the complex yet punishing tones spawned by Botch, and then later brought forward by Breather Resist. Those are two bands near and dear to my heart, so when I see a current band taking the reins and putting their own spin on that style, it's pretty easy to yank me in. There are unique song structures, but nothing that tries to mess with you too hard. The guitar playing is interesting at every possible moment of the record. And after having the privilege of seeing them live three times this year, the cohesion and precision behind the songs on this record are loud and clear. All four members are spot on at every moment, and they seem to be the type of guys who will be happy doing this for quite some time.

Harm's Way - Isolation

This is a record full of mean breakdowns, borderline nu-metal riffage and head-pounding aggression. You might find several people at a Harm's Way show wearing basketball jerseys. I don't normally listen to this specific type of hardcore, so I was shocked when I found myself getting such a rush out of it, clumsily attempting to do some hardcore dancing in my car, and having to stop myself from hitting bystanders with spinkicks at the gym. Isolation is far and away the least sophisticated record on my list, but it's a very pure form of unsophistication. Harm's Way has a great affinity for open-tuned chugging, along with stomach-churning riffs that have no right to be so catchy, and their dedication to this sound is admirable. And the vocals are so intimidating, barked with such dark vibes that I assumed the singer was a large, terrifying man. I was correct in this assumption, as the singer basically looks like Triple H. You can bark to your heart's desire, sir! Just don't hurt me!

Heartsounds - Drifter

On their first proper full-length for Epitaph, with co-production from Brett Gurewitz of Bad Religion, my pals in Heartsounds not only improved upon their formula for earnest, melodic punk rock, but also made me incredibly jealous of all the cool stuff they have gotten to do as a band. But I won't hold it against them, because it's totally deserved. Having Gurewitz's presence looming over Drifter certainly changes things for the better, as both Ben Murray and Laura Nichol sound even more confident than on their last record, taking bigger chances with their vocals and in the case of "Echo," holding back the rage and getting as melodic as they ever have. And after suffering a family tragedy this year, Ben handled it the only way he knew how: By writing brilliant songs that evenly touch on the negative and the positive aspects of what he dealt with, doing it in a relatable way that doesn't alienate the listener, but instead brings them in like an old friend. I extend a hearty "Good job by you" to Ben and Heartsounds.

Iron and Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

Even when Sam Beam was playing up to the stereotype put upon by his haters (guy whispers into a microphone), he was coming up with beautiful results that captivated the hearts of a lot of people. But it's clear that Beam is such a gifted performer that he knows he has much more in him than one trick. He has almost entirely gotten away from that stereotype of old, and now uses a full band on most tracks in order to properly showcase his abundance of ideas. Opening song "Walking Far From Home" is very close to the best song he has ever written, if only for its six or seven shifts in instrumentation that flow like water into each other, with vocal harmonies piling on as it works its way through, and the tone getting louder and meatier, allowing Beam to belt out some of his most passionate vocal work to date. Guy whispering into a microphone, indeed!

Low - C'mon

Low's last record, Drums and Guns, was a head-scratcher that found them experimenting with electronic loops, keyboards and all kinds of stuff that made the Low purists out there cry foul. What happened to the somber vocals? The sparse percussion? The ever-so-light strumming of the quiet guitars? Well, they were there all along, but they were just slightly hidden. So it's a weird surprise when the ship gets righted under producer Matt Beckley, who has previously worked on recordings by Ke$ha, Avril Lavigne and J. Biebs himself. Despite the overwhelming electronic fakeness of those records, Beckley helps Low find a happy medium between pushing their sound forward and making sure they remember how they arrived at this place. Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, those two married Mormons, will never lose the vocal magic that exists between them whenever they step to the center of the stage, and at this point it seems like they're toying with us, casually hitting a lush harmony like MJ hitting the game-winner. On "Nothing But Heart," when they repeat the song title for five minutes, I could listen to that on a constant loop forever.

Wild Flag - s/t

Sleater-Kinney will always be one of my favorites. For some reason, I became fixated on them at the age of 16, undaunted by my near-total lack of interest in any other female-fronted bands. Everything about them just clicked with me, and their songs have resonated with me throughout the years. When they split up a few years ago, I looked forward to any kind of future projects they may be involved in, but after Corin Tucker put out her sorta meh solo record last year, I wondered if the girls were all creatively spent. It turns out that I should have given Carrie Brownstein and Janet Weiss more credit, because Wild Flag is flat out amazing. A four piece band with Mary Timony of Helium on 2nd guitar, and a keyboard player filling out the tones that a bassist would normally handle, they are rocking so hard it's as if Sleater-Kinney never happened. The riffs never stop coming, and both Brownstein and Timony deliver assured vocals without a care in the world or a nod to the pressure of living up to their former bands. After they performed "Romance" on David Letterman's show, Paul Shaffer declared Wild Flag to be his new favorite band. And are you really going to argue with a guy that was in This is Spinal Tap?

Young Widows - In and Out of Youth and Lightness

I already reviewed this record for Punknews.org earlier this year (check it out here! http://www.punknews.org/review/10347), but maybe I can find some new things to say about it. Um...gosh, I dunno. There really isn't much to say other than I love this record with every fiber of my being. It's the kind of music I wish I was talented and patient enough to make. The way they structure these songs is so fearless, so adamant in its desire to make you hear music in a new way. That bass tone is so nasty for a reason, in the same way the reverb-drenched guitar has such a nervous vibrato, and the vocals moan and shake and die away. Young Widows are absolutely untouchable. This record was such a shocking leap past their previous effort that I can't even imagine what they'll do next. But I imagine they're not selling a ton of records or drawing a bunch of people, simply because what they do isn't for everyone. I accept that fact, but I desperately hope it doesn't wear down their will for creating so much that they throw in the towel anytime soon. I need them for inspiration, for being safe in the knowledge that there are still artists out there who swear that they can do better than the status quo.

Live Journal

2011-11-08T22:00:00.004-06:00

Does anyone keep a diary anymore? I mean a true, honest to goodness diary where they write about what they did that day and how they feel about their life and who they want to kiss and who they hope will die in the near future? My guess is that the number of people doing so is dwindling by the day, to the point where someday there will be no comprehensive account of what we did that day, instead relegating to 140 characters or a couple sarcastic Facebook posts where we're venting about the wait at a restaurant or some other vaguely annoying problem.

And that kind of makes me sad because if we have to be honest, when we take away all the stuff we own and all the people we know, we are left with ourselves to deal with. When we're left with ourselves, we need the ability to be introspective, or at the very least reflective on what it is that keeps us trucking along in this world. And then we need to look back on those writings, so we can be horribly embarrassed by the total dorks we used to be.

I'm convinced that Live Journal was invented for all of the above purposes, but mostly as a time capsule because no one uses it anymore. I'm sure there have to be a few weirdos out there clinging desperately and still updating on the regular, motivated by the fear that if they let go, then their past will go with it. But they're wrong because even though I haven't made a post on Live Journal since May of 2008, the journaling that I did on that website has so much value and so much meaning that it sort of scares me. If I didn't have a job or a fiancee or other responsibilities, I would strongly consider sitting down and reading through all six years of Elliot Imes history that I posted there. Not because I'm an egomaniac or because I'm wistful for the past. I just get a kick out of it.

In the early days of my Live Journal career, I suffered from a shocking lack of knowing when to just not write about my life. I think I had about 30 "friends" who saw my posts, and as I read these entries, it's amazing how stupid I was to think that anyone wanted to hear about any of this. For all the complaints about the inanity of posts on Twitter and Facebook, imagine what those posts would be like if they were twelve times as long. All the dumb thoughts you just skip over because you don't care at all about what someone has to say were the thoughts that got expounded upon at an exhaustive length on Live Journal. Here is a post from July 16, 2002, that probably didn't need to happen:

i did some mad shopping with kristy today. actually it consisted mostly of me following her around in girly clothing stores and making comments. so in other words, it was lotsa fun.
around six i went to the royal fork buffet with my family. my mom asked me if andy dahm is gay, and it was the funniest thing that happened all night.
then i hooked up with will, richard, and nathan to have some serious b-ball action. nathan and i beat richard and will, but then richard and nathan beat will and i. so i got a little bit of revenge, but not enough.
we went to richard's (after getting eric) and watched pootie-tang again. except this time, we watched the whole thing, and it was a lot better this time.
will eric and nathan left, so richard and i made a quiktrip run. but we ran into madison, kristy, and ryan, so they hopped in my slammin mom van, and we hung out with them.
it was quite an enjoyable day, if i do say so myself.
pool party tomorrow. don't even front.

I don't quite remember going shopping with Kristy, but apparently it was "lotsa fun," so I'd like to thank Kristy nine years later for allowing me to irritate her. The part about Andy Dahm is obviously the highlight of the entry, so I should have just ended there, but I do not. I find it imperative to tell you about some pick-up basketball games I played in, and then a movie I watched, and I guess that's not terrible, but it could have been cut. I then finish off the recap with a mind-blowingly inane description of how some people left a house, how Richard and I went to a goddamn gas station, ran into friends and then hung out with them. Did anything of note happen during that time? Obviously not, because if it did I would have recounted it. Instead, you're left with two sentences that say so much, yet say so little. I can't believe people were still friends with me after reading that entry.

But the scary thing is that we were all writing entries like this. Maybe some were more verbose than others, but we all were following each other's example, so we thought it was okay to write several paragraphs about how we didn't really do anything that day but it was still kinda cool. I'm not trying to absolve myself of any guilt, I'm just telling you what it was like back in my day.

So it's a somewhat tedious process to go through all of these entries because of the repetition in themes and the lack of any real substance. But occasionally I will stumble upon a post that captures me in a moment so clearly and with such unflinching truth that it hurts me to my core. Here is an example from August 9th 2002, just before I went off to college:

"i got a call while i was working from my mom. she started yelling at me about how i forgot to tell them about a voice message from the bank that i saved. the message told them that they had found their checkbook, but they didn't get the message before the banks closed today. so my mom is pissed at me because apparently me forgetting to tell them about the message means that i am disrespectful to them, and that i needed to have a consequence. so she forced me to come home right after work. goddammit it is the stupidest thing she has done in quite a while. i mean, i'm going to be gone in two weeks, why do i need to have some irrelevant punishment like that. the only thing she has shown me with this is that she is cruel and just punishes out of anger. i'm sooo glad that i won't have to deal with crap like that two weeks from now. but who knows, maybe she'll come up to my apartment every day and tell me to do stuff. that would suuuck.

oh! the other mega-shitty thing is that she may not let me go to the taking back sunday show in iowa city tomorrow. what i was planning on doing was just driving to iowa city after i'm done with all the moving, go to the show, leave after taking back sunday plays, and drive home. but my mom says that she thinks i'll be too tired to drive myself home. what a load of crap! i will be totally fine! grrrrr. seriously, if she doesn't let me see taking back sunday, i will be p.o-ed. i want to sing along to vengeful breakup songs!!!!!!!
i guess i'll update in a couple days. you'll find out how all this craziness pans out."

Ooh, I'm sure my followers were waiting with baited breath for those two days, refreshing the page like crazy until I finally updated to let them know what happened!

This would be an example of the embarrassing posts. I'm actually shocked that a guy about to turn 19 years old wrote this, as it seems like the exact same sentiment that a pissed-off 13-year old would express. But no, I was of legal smoking and porn-buying age, and I still thought my mom was a bitch and Taking Back Sunday was awesome. I don't think I can accurately express to you how hard I cringed when reading this just now. I actually typed "grrrrrr." My love for singing "vengeful breakup songs" could only be conveyed with SEVEN exclamation points. I seemingly think it's plausible that my mom would drive from Des Moines to Cedar Rapids everyday for no reason at all. And guess what this so-called "craziness" panned out just fine. I went to see Taking Back Sunday, sang my heart out like a little fruitcake, and went home. Life went on, just like it did after all those other times I was mad at my mom. In fact, when Cedar Rapids turned out to be awful, I moved back in with my parents, thanks to the love and protection of that same mom whom I publicly slandered just four months prior. These days, of course, I would never say such things about my mom, because I learned some lessons that can only come through being alive and processing my thoughts, and Live Journal was there through every bit of it.

As I check the pages of my friends today, it appears that we all stopped using Live Journal roughly around the same time, late '07 to early '08. I don't even remember why this happened, but the most plausible explanation is that Myspace came along, showing us that we could get our voices heard by our friends while putting a whole lot less work into it. Perfect for our new, burgeoning society of lazy slobs. I know I'm not writing anything new by bemoaning Twitter's 140-character restriction, but dammit, there just isn't much to be explored on Twitter. It's so easy to shape an image of yourself when you barely have to write anything. It was on Live Journal that the real heart of a person couldn't help but spill out, as we tried to build a cohesive post with paragraphs and a subject line. We had to create something with care, not just fart out a thought bubble because our phone was in our pocket and it took no effort.

I'm not even 30, and I'm already bordering on curmudgeon-like blog posts. The future is terrifying. Join me.

Fantasy Football and the Pursuit of Good Fortune

2011-10-30T22:41:00.000-05:00

As I type this, the Dallas Cowboys are getting embarrassed on national television by their rivals and my least favorite team in the league, the Philadelphia Eagles. Though I'm still going to "watch" this game until its bitter end, you can probably imagine that I need some kind of distraction from the horror projecting out of our 16" TV. So I'm returning to my badly neglected blog to tell you about my experience with a new national pastime.

(By the way, my last blog was an ambitious declaration about how I was going to wrestle with myself in deciding how to rank the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. I've heard the public clamoring for this loud and clear, so I'm still going to do it. Just give me time, please.)

I'm currently in my third season of playing fantasy football. Surely, you've heard of this thing, but maybe you don't quite know how it works. Maybe you're even interested in getting involved with it! Well, allow me to lay out the three attributes necessary for success:

1. Dumb luck

2. Dumb luck

3. Pure chance (which could also be described as dumb luck)

And that's it! Have fun!

Oh, that's not clear enough? Fine, I'll elaborate.

In fantasy football, you the player are essentially the owner and coach of your own team, made up of real NFL players. You are in a league, presumably with friends and acquaintances, and you start the year by holding a draft where you select the players you want on your team. Every week, you decide who you want to have play and who you want to put on the bench. There is a point system assigned for the players, and the more yards and touchdowns they rack up, the more your point total goes up. And each week, your team is matched up against against another friend's team, and obviously, whoever ends up with the most points wins that game.

It was invented in the late 1960's, but since the advent of the internet, it has skyrocketed in popularity, and now with laptops and high speed connections making it even more convenient to play, we have seen it get a tight grip on a ton of men (and some women) in America, to the point where jokes about dumb guys being obsessed with fantasy football have replaced the old jokes about dumb guys leaving the toilet seat up. Certain leagues have buy-in bets upwards of $200, and the sharpest players have been known to spend hours studying statistics and getting the most up-to-date information they can get their hands on. Personally, I have been known to agonize for far too long over who I should sit and who I should start.

And yet, what no one wants to acknowledge is the fact that we are putting valuable time into an activity that is based not on skill or cunning ability, but rather on the uncontrollable events of the universe.

As an example, take my decision today between starting at wide receiver either Torrey Smith or Victor Cruz. All of the advice I found online, along with my own gut instincts told me that Torrey Smith would be the better play, as he was going up against a more vulnerable defense. So I took that advice, went with my gut, and Victor Cruz ended up scoring ten more points than Torrey Smith. So let's tally up the score there:

Studying stats and looking up information: 0

The uncontrollable events of the universe: 1

Stuff like this happens all the time in fantasy football. Every week, you'll hear a guy whine and cry about how his star running back totally shit the bed and didn't score nearly as many points as he should have. Or a guy was just two points away from beating his opponent, when one of his players inexplicably tripped a few yards away from the goal line, costing him a victory. And don't even ask about players getting injured. That's like in Oregon Trail, when one of the people in your wagon goes down with dysentery for no good reason and you can only hold your head in your hands in amazement, as you try to pick up the pieces and move forward.

We get ourselves revved up for fantasy football, and just like getting revved up rooting for our favorite team, we will almost always end up frustrated and drowning in sadness. But what makes the sadness surrounding fantasy football so utterly pointless is the inescapable fact that we don't have any real control over what happens to our teams. Sure, we can make roster moves and all that, but ultimately, we're powerless. We're letting our happiness ride on pure chance. And when it doesn't go our way, we get emotionally upset and let it affect the outcome of our day.

And as ridiculous as all of that sounds, I love fantasy football. And I also hate it. But I still love it.

I love it because I have a certain affinity for the comically stupid stuff in life. If something is just stupid, I have no interest. But where fantasy football becomes comically stupid is in the trash-talking that goes on between the people who play it. For example, my team is currently beating my friend Richard's team by nearly 50 points. I will defeat him this week. And it would be perfectly appropriate behavior within the world of fantasy for me to text him something like, "HEY PUSSY! LOOK WHO GOT STOMPED! YOU GOT NOTHIN ON THIS! I SPIT ON LOWLY SCHMUCKS LIKE YOU! GO BACK TO YOUR CRIB, BABY!"

But making fun of Richard in this way is a lot like standing next to Richard, spotting two ants on the ground, assigning each one of us an ant, having them race each other and then puffing up my chest when my ant wins. It's totally arbitrary that my team beat Richard's team this week. We had equal amounts of information to go on, and I happened to win. I have no right to brag.

But try telling that to the millions of dudes out there right now who are either text-bombing their friends about how hard their team rules, and the sad dudes who are shaking their head over another bitter loss. To them, this is perfectly normal. It's just another hobby, along with playing golf, doing yardwork and avoiding detailed conversation with their wives. With the economy in the crapper and the political landscape getting more hopeless by the day, I find it hard to begrudge anyone the right to put their nose in their laptop and work on their own private business, no matter how meaningless it might really be. We all just want to have our own fun, and as long it's not hurting anyone (or ruining too many marriages), let's just let fantasy football be insanely popular, come back down to Earth, and take its place in the rich American history of goofy activities.

Just bear with me...

2011-08-23T21:33:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while. I'm going to do it now, and this may be a little disorganized, but we're all adults here, so I think it'll be alright.

Now, I like music. If you're reading this, you probably know that. I like lots and lots of different types of music, but I try not to be one of those losers that do the humble brag and tell you, "Hey man, I listen to everything from Michael Jackson to Cannibal Corpse to Pink Floyd to Matchbox 20 to Lady Gaga! I'm incredibly diverse! Oh, except I don't like rap or country. lol." No, Elliot Imes is not one of those people. Certainly there are multiple genres I enjoy, but there are multiple I don't enjoy, so my life is a constant battle in trying to figure out what I like and why I like it, and what I don't like and why I don't like it, and whether or not I'm being obstinate and set in my ways in any of my opinions. There is a chance I am, but I probably have too much insecurity when it comes to that, and HEY LET'S MOVE ON.

I'm here again because I'm very interested in a debate that goes on among music fans: Beatles or Stones?

It should be a simple question, because they seem different enough that one or more of their qualities should stand out to the listener, enabling that person to make a firm decision as to where they stand. But it's not that simple for me. I like both bands too much and get a kick out of such varying aspects from each band that going with one feels like getting a divorce from the other. And I don't want to divorce the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. They're both good folk.

And then yesterday, the debate got even more complex when the Led Zeppelin concert DVD arrived in my mailbox from Netflix. I had forgotten that I had this in my queue, so not wanting to waste my "rental," I popped it in and intended for it to just be background music as I did my come-home-from-work thing. But that didn't work out. Those four guys jumped out of the TV, kicked me to the couch and told me to sit my ass down and watch what they could do. And holy freaking crap could they do a lot. Watching a Led Zeppelin show is so engaging, so awe-inspiring that it almost physically hurts you. They'd come out of an extended slow part and hit a huge splash, or Jimmy Page would do something inhuman on guitar, and I could feel something in my body ache out of happiness.

Aside from their live shows, Led Zeppelin made superb records that currently and will always stand the test of time. How can I, in good conscience, leave them out of the Beatles?Stones battle? I have to make this a Triple Threat match! It's the only fair way to handle it!

So that's pretty much what I'm going to be doing for the next...oh, I don't know how long it's going to take. Maybe it won't take that long. I'm just trying to mentally prepare myself for some serious musical decision making, as it'll probably involve revisiting some records I haven't listened to in a little while, and actually putting them to battle against each other in my mind. I think I'll be able to keep my sanity, but if you see me in the near future and I look like I'm about to have a stroke, please approach me slowly and don't make any sudden movements. Because I'll be thinking.

At the Drive-in

2011-07-02T10:56:00.001-05:00

If you put a gun to my head and told me I had to give you an immediate answer to a question asking me what band played the best show I ever saw, without waffling and trying to add in a bunch of qualifications like the nerd I always tend to be, then there would be only one acceptable band for me to name, and that's At the Drive-in.

But since the one time I actually had a gun to my head was by jerks who just wanted to punch me in the face and take my money and couldn't give less of a shit what bands I've seen live, I will add something of a qualification to my answer by shamefully admitting that three out of the four times I saw At the Drive-in play, I didn't give them the respect they deserved.

If you never saw them or have never seen video, At the Drive-in performed with a youthful intensity and precision unlike any other band that has ever existed, and I really don't think I'm exaggerating by saying so. Call me Mr. Hyperbole, but I will stand by my statement because you most likely did not experience what I experienced. These five skinny guys from El Paso would take the stage in a quiet, unassuming manner, only to become maniacs at the drop of a drumbeat. It literally looked as if a set of firecrackers was lit under the band, or as if they had been injected with some kind of freakish new energy drink that scientists couldn't predict the side effects of. To be more specific, a large bulk of this energy was coming from singer Cedric Bixler and guitarist Omar Rodriguez, who became the official faces of At the Drive-in when they grew out their hair into MC5-inspired Afros and somehow made the band even more visually arresting. Cedric especially was pure dynamite, contorting his body at odd times, jumping from every possible launching pad provided, spinning and tossing the mic everywhere, while maintaining the hushed energy necessary for the more meditative moments.

Oh, and their music was amazing too, a blistering, melodic blend of indie and punk that they could call their own. Can't forget that.

But when I first saw them, it was right before I turned 15 and I was simply not prepared for what they had to offer. I was very much interested in the Bad Religion brand of punk rock that dealt in fast tempos and quick, urgent delivery, and I thought this was the best music and the only music I would listen to for the rest of my life. So I went to the Safari Club (later renamed Hairy Marys) to see my friends in the Nuclear Kicks open for some unknown band called At the Drive-thru or something like that, and only made it through about three songs from ATDI before I had to leave. They were far too loud and their songs made no sense to me. But as I walked out, I did notice that despite the fact that just 15 people were watching them, they were playing as if there were 1,000 in the crowd. This made an impression on me.

The next time I saw them was in late '98, when they were at Safari Club again, this time playing to a packed house that didn't come to see them, but instead were there to see Fugazi. At the Drive-in wasn't even on tour with Fugazi, it was just a one-off date where they somehow got on the bill. Though no band could have been afraid of getting attacked by the crowd or anything when opening for Fugazi, it still must have been a chore to win over people who wanted to see one band and one band only, especially for people like 15-year old Elliot who barely liked Fugazi but loved Ian Mackaye's old band, Minor Threat, and just wanted to bask in his glory. With an undaunted spirit similar to what they gave that smattering of 15 from a couple months earlier, At the Drive-in did their damnedest to grab the crowd's attention, and they fully grabbed mine with their closing song, "Napoleon Solo," which Cedric explained was written about two close friends who had suddenly passed away. But even if I hadn't known this, there would have been no mistaking the raw emotion in the middle section where he sings: "A hint of suspense when that telephone rings...this is forever."

Now you would think that by this point I was hooked on At the Drive-in, but I just wasn't. I said, "Hey, they were alright," and then moved on with my life and my taste in music and my bad haircut and my inexplicably large T-shirts, until they came back to Des Moines in August of '99. In the year since I saw them play for 15 people, the word had started spreading on the toddler-aged internet about this incredible band with this incredible live show, and they now packed 150 people into Hairy Marys. I suppose I went because of that little spark I felt while watching them the last time, but I want to believe that a small part of me knew I was seeing something special and that it might be mine for only a little bit longer, until the rest of the world caught on. At the Drive-in came out, mercilessly ruled the stage for almost 45 minutes, packed up the van and left.

And somehow, I still needed a push a few weeks later from my friend Adam to give a listen to their most recent full-length, In/Casino/Out. All at once, everything came together for me and I had the world-shattering realization that this was one of the best bands I had ever heard in my life. I found out that punk rock could be something more than what Bad Religion was doing with it (allow me to clarify that I never stopped loving Bad Religion because I am a teenager at heart), and At the Drive-in was on the cutting edge of something truly special, making me a fool if I chose to keep ignoring them. It turned out that in the next year, the rest of the world had the same realization as me and started to heap praise on ATDI, as they scored a spot opening a tour for Rage Against the Machine and then signed with Grand Royal, the major label imprint run by Mike D of the Beastie Boys. I did not feel the common twinge of pain that a fan of a band feels when everyone else catches on to their secret, but got more and more excited for them as they began to get their just dues.

They released their major label debut, Relationship of Command, in September 2000 to rave reviews and acceptance from old fans and new fans. It remains pretty fascinating to hear a record from a band who must have felt so conflicted as to how they should sound due to outside influences, but managed to let none of the conflict come through in the songs or execution. They booked a tour to promote the record, with the fantastic Murder City Devils as their opener, and I was overjoyed to hear they'd be coming to Des Moines again. For about three months, I felt like a four-year old crossing off the days on his calendar until Christmas arrived, except this Christmas would be spent crammed into a dingy bar with 400 sweaty people.

And when November 8th arrived (that's right, I still remember the date because I'm a freak), I could barely believe it would finally be happening. When we got to the show, Cedric was hanging out at the merch table and despite my tingling nerves that told me to stay put, I walked up to him and began a conversation. Though I remember the date this happened, I have no memory of what questions I asked Cedric or how long we talked, but I'm sure it was for way longer than he wanted it to last, probably hoping that I would just go away. He was nice but he wasn't interested. And I really can't blame musicians who have at least a low level of popularity for not being thrilled to talk to a young kid asking him the same questions he gets asked at every show he plays. If Cedric had shoved me and walked away, I would have deserved it, and I would have just been excited that he touched me.

The nearly hour-long set that At the Drive-in delivered that night blew my mind wide open, as I became lost in the overwhelming heat, ear-puncturing volume and the usual stage antics supplied by the big-haired guys in the band. Walking out of Hairy Marys, I declared it to be the best show I had ever seen. And when I watched the video that my friend Dan Meyer had taken of most of the show (the tape cut off halfway in, which devastated me), my declaration was confirmed: At the Drive-in had played the best show I had ever seen a band play.

And then months later, they broke up out of nowhere. Not many details were given, but the rumor mill concurred that success had happened too quickly for the band, and they split apart from the pressure. I mourned their end like a loved one had passed, and I put them up there in my top bands of all time list, with the live show still number one.

I pulled out that videotape a week ago and watched the footage again. The benefit of hindsight allowed me to see that months before dissolving, At the Drive-in was not the same band they had once been. The energy was actually not as intense as before. Cedric and Omar still got into it, but there were fewer moments of spontaneity. And Cedric's singing was simply not up to par, as he struggled to hit notes but most of the time sounded like he didn't even care if he hit them anyway. When guitarist/vocalist Jim Ward told the crowd before they started that because we were all so tightly packed we needed to be considerate of each other's personal space, it was clear that he wasn't looking forward to having to continue giving this speech every night. There was resentment bubbling to the surface.

Now, I shouldn't say this was a bad show, because it was still At the Drive-in and it was still amazing. But I have to marvel at the irony in the fact that in my one experience where I really got to appreciate my favorite band with my full love, they had just barely regressed and were beginning a limp to their unceremonious finish line. I missed the gravy boat, the high point. I could have been there with them had I just left my eyes and ears a bit more open, ready for something new as opposed to satisfied with what I had.

Maybe this is why I continue to check out new music and go see bands play live. I totally botched it once by ignoring a phenomenal band with a life-changing effect, so who knows how many times I could botch it again? And then when I do check out new bands and watch them play, it's good, but...it's not At the Drive-in. It's never At the Drive-in, and it's never going to be At the Drive-in.

But at least it's still fun, and it's still enriching and enlightening. Those are the lessons At the Drive-in taught me that I can't let myself forget.

p.s. Start the video below at 2 minutes, and then witness greatness.

Elliot vs. Dark Side of the Moon

2011-05-08T08:53:00.000-05:00

Last month, when I let the internet know how much I was failing to be moved by Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon upon first full and comprehensive listen, I drew the ire of a few friends, and probably even more who were too enraged or disappointed with me to leave a comment. I didn't post my opinion with the explicit purpose of ruffling anyone's feathers, though I knew there was a strong chance that could happen. I just had to get it off my chest and let others know that it's okay to be an outsider. It's okay to be a rebel. Like Slipknot says, don't ever judge me.

I now want to make my feelings on the record a bit more clear. Though it's somewhat of a "concept album" (whatever the hell that has ever meant), I'm going to go track by track, and then end with a summary statement. I'm a professional, you see.

"Speak to Me"

Okay, I will. You're a useless track that features no music, only sound effects and weird crap that delays the beginning of this stupid record. You don't even deserve to be thought of as an individual track. You're dumb. How was that?

"Breathe"

Get used to what they're doing here, because that's pretty much what it's going to be the whole time: Cleanly produced drums, a soft and easy guitar tone with some dreamy atmospheric guitar slides, vocals that sound like a guy sighing as if it's time to go to bed, and nothing...happening...at...all. But not a terrible song, I guess.

"On the Run"

This song can go die. It's just a repetitive drumbeat with some idiotic keyboard noodling slapped over it, and it lasts for three and a half goddamn minutes. Here are things you could do in three and a half minutes that would be a better usage of your time than listening to this song: Staring at your shoes. Waiting for Osama bin Laden to meet you for coffee. Trying to eat your oven mitts. I could go on, but I've already spent too much time thinking about this "song."

"Time"

A bunch of clocks going of in rhythm together is sort of a neat idea, so I'll let this song's intro slide. From there it goes on perhaps a bit longer than it should (five minutes would have been better than seven), but the two basic movements are pretty solid despite the fact that nothing here sounds cool. That's an idea I'll expound on later.

"The Great Gig in the Sky"

Good lord, here's another one that just needs to stop existing as soon as possible. The music is overly dramatic due to a pounding piano and crashing cymbals at almost every second. But what really kills it are the "vocals," performed by a woman who I'm sure is a very nice person but should not be forgiven for agreeing to do what the dorks in Pink Floyd told her to do: Go into the booth and don't sing any actual words, just shriek and yell and go wild in wordless bursts of occasional melody, and to inspire yourself, think about the concept of dying. This actually is appropriate because when I listen to this song, all I can think about is how nice it would be to die.

"Money"

It's time to bring down the hostility just a touch and admit that I straight up dig this song, with few real grievances to mention. I suppose it could be shorter, but as long as that utterly fantastic bassline keeps the show moving along, I'm on board. Oh, and they say "bullshit" at some point, which is cool. Take that, classic rock radio!

"Us and Them"

Uggghhhh.....I don't know. I guess it sounds nice and all, and it has those booming sections at the end of each verse, but whenever it gets exciting they bring it back down to that pathetic, easy tempo with the light, lilting guitars and boring-as-shit vocals again. This is the song I imagine is the high point for hippies (no pun intended) to lay back and just let the souuuunds wash overrrrrr, maaaaan. Because of the mental images inspired by this song, I am required by law to hate it.

"Any Colour You Like"

Stupid Brits and their stupid alternate spellings. I hate this one. It's instrumental, it's got a bunch of dopey synth horseshit, and then it meanders with some pointless guitar soloing. Honestly, how did this crap make it onto the record? It sounds like a throwaway jam done by a band passing the time until they were ready to start recording a real song. And yet it is on the second highest selling album of all time. Just try and tell me the human race can't be fundamentally incorrect about quality.

"Brain Damage"

Yeah, whatever. It's got the titular line, a guy laughing like an insane person (that's Naomi Watts' dad! How bout that?) and not much else. I mean, it's attempting to be this big, grand defining moment of the record, but who cares. It's just stupid.

"Eclipse"

At least it has the decency to not even last for two minutes.

Now that I have gone through and given Dark Side of the Moon a few listens, I am completely astounded that it has remained so popular. What the hell does anyone get out of listening to this record? You'd have to be a serious music consumer with a specific appreciation for long, slow songs to really lock in with the songs, and I'm guessing that a good 70% of all people who have bought Dark Side of the Moon could not be classified as such. Most people just want to hear immediate, satisfying songs, and the only one on here that could possibly qualify for that would be "Money," and even that's a stretch.

Honestly, the popularity of this record baffles me. I'll put it this way: The three best-selling albums of all time are Thriller, Back in Black, and Dark Side of the Moon.

What the hell, Earth?

Hi, would you like to buy some magazines?

2011-04-28T21:59:00.000-05:00

I have a particular aversion to anyone who comes to my door and wants something from me. Whether it's money, or a signature, or the chance to convert me to a religion, there is a never-ending supply of smiling hacks eager to get in my face and make me hear what they have to say. I don't deal with this issue every day of my life or anything, but even if it happens once every two months, it still seems like way too much.

For instance, earlier this week a young boy dressed in something resembling a boy scout outfit came to our door, with his father standing right behind him, and proceeded to give me a wooden, prepared statement about how he was selling raffle tickets for his little league team. My immediate reaction was to tell him we didn't have any cash in our apartment, which was obviously a bold-faced lie since we all know I'm a big time player who rolls with cash at all times. And after the kid countered me by saying they could accept checks, I sort of stopped coming up with any argument and just gave him that look and shoulder shrug that said, "Sorry, you came to the wrong place, but I don't feel like thinking up more excuses to get rid of you so hopefully you'll get the hint," without saying it in so many words. And then the dad impatiently took off for the next apartment before the kid even said thanks and goodbye, so fuck the whole team for all I care.

But does this say something bad about my personality that I could just flatly refuse a kid's request for a little bit of money? I believe it does not, and that I am quite within my rights to do whatever I want when another schmuck invades my territory and imposes their business on my world.

Case in point: Back in the summer of 2003 when I shared an apartment with Richard Grove, we used to get a ton of those teenagers coming around to sell magazine subscriptions. Maybe you've experienced the same type of shitheads in your past too. The line they fed us was usually that they were trying to win a trip to the Bahamas or some stupid place, and all they needed was a bit of help from us so they could accomplish their goal. 95% of the time they had shit-eating grins, and combining that with their overtly friendly demeanor as if they were a Christian trying to get you to come to their Sunday service, I wanted to punch every single one of them in the jaw, male or female.

But sometimes they were crafty enough to actually get in the apartment, and on one occasion it was two girls that I let into the kitchen, on a lonely afternoon by myself. I immediately regretted doing this as they sat at the table and started going through some magazines I might want to buy, making shitty jokes at me the whole time. It's not like I thought I was going to have some kind of miraculous threesome with them, and anyway they were too irritating to even consider doing that. I have standards, after all. So as I cursed myself for bringing this crap upon myself, I decided I had to get them out some way, even if it meant drastic measures. The end of the conversation went like this:

Girl 1: Ooh, we do sell Maxim magazine! Whaddya think of that one?

Girl 2: Yeah, plenty of stuff in there for a guy like you to enjoy!

Elliot: Eh, I'm not so sure about that.

Girl 1: What?! Don't you like to look at pretty girls?

Elliot: *puts head in hand and looks at the ground* Honestly...I don't even know anymore. I really don't.

*awkward five-second pause*

Girl 2: Okaaay...then I guess we'll just get going. Bye.

They then high-tailed it out of my apartment so fast that I couldn't believe the solution to get rid of salespeople was so easy. Just pretend you're going through a troubling period of sexual confusion, and everyone backs away from you and leaves you the hell alone.

I hope that someday you'll be able to use this technique in your own life when the situation calls for it. Maybe it doesn't have to be sexual confusion, but as long it's a non-violent method that makes everyone nervous about your mental health, you'll be good to go. Have fun!

California Pizza

2011-04-17T16:17:00.000-05:00

Left to my own devices last night as Andrea was hanging out with friends from her job, the decision was not between making dinner for myself or going to get a pizza. The pizza was going to happen, and that was that. It was just a matter of deciding where to get said pizza from. A natural choice would be Domino's, whose new recipe they debuted a year or so ago has just been knocking my socks off every single time I've tried it, infuriating me that it didn't taste like that when I worked there and got to take home a free one almost every night.

But the other choice was to take a roll of the dice on a strange place exclusive to Ankeny called California Pizza. I have driven past it several times over the last couple years, and since my eyes are naturally drawn to any establishment that has "PIZZA" on their storefront, I noticed that the place seemed to go through periods of time where they were open, and then equally long periods of time where they were quite not open. Well, I thought to myself, there must be something fun going on in there. Someday I should find out what they're up to.

Last night ended up being the proper time for me to explore. I first Googled them so I could get the phone number and put in an order for carryout, and through a bit of amateur research I learned that California Pizza used to be called Adriatic Pizza. For anyone not in the know, this means that it is Bosnian owned, as Bosnia runs along the Adriatic Sea for about 16 miles. There used to be a place on Merle Hay called Magic Pizza owned by Bosnians, and I loved their wildly uneven prices, with pizzas costing something like $7.62 for a small, $10.31 for a medium and $13.77 for a large. And the pizza itself wasn't a knockout, but it didn't suck. So I decided to give a local business a shot instead of bowing to a corporation like I so love to do.

I was immediately delighted when I called, with the phone surely enough being answered by a man with a thick accent, who when told I wanted a medium cheese, he asked, "Medium or large?" I patiently replied that I wanted a medium, and then after what sounded like him fumbling papers around, he barked "25 minutes," with no total or anything, then hung up. I didn't mind, I was laughing too hard.

Then I rolled up to the store itself, walked in, and could not believe my eyes. I thought at first that even though the sign outside clearly said California Pizza, I had somehow mistakenly come into some other place that was not supposed to be open to the public. The visible front part of the inside looked woefully unprepared, with a thin layer of white dust all over the floor, a bag of cement and paint supplies right by the door, a screwdriver and electrical monitor up for the taking on a table, and to liven the place up a little, a tiny inoperable TV with antenna askew sat atop the counter. There also was a cooler that contained milk, mustard and various other sandwich supplies, but no apparent pizza supplies. I was astounded. An olderish Bosnian man stood at the counter, and when he asked, "Pizza for you?" I realized that he hadn't even asked for my name. I said yes, pizza for me, but as he went to hand it to me, he realized it wasn't mine and took it back. Then right on cue, a woman walked in to claim the pizza that was rightfully hers, and I sat down at the waiting table, ashamed of my accidental transgression.

I had noticed a stench of cigarettes from the second I came in, and at least one explanation for this showed itself to me: On the table, in a little plastic cup used for marinara sauce, were two cigarette butts floating in water. I immediately looked away from this, so no one would notice that I noticed it, because that would just be embarrassing for everyone. Aside from the man at the counter, there were two other guys in the back, and I couldn't believe that three people had totally missed such a disgusting sight sitting within view of any customer who happened to glance over. And it's not like they were overrun with orders. They seemed to be chillin pretty hard.

After a few minutes of waiting and having to pretend like I wasn't dying from the stench of cigs, my pizza was ready, at the surprisingly good price of $6.35. I handed the man a $20, and rather than using a cash register like every other business in the world, he reached into his pocket and gave me change. It's not that I found that to be gross or anything, I just thought it was the perfect topper for my experience at their fine restaurant.

I almost wonder if maybe they were two days away from being ready to open, then they all spontaneously fell asleep for two days, woke up right before opening time, and without giving anything a second look just turned on the OPEN sign and let it roll. If I didn't already have intentions of opening a business in the future, California Pizza may have just given me the inspiration to do so. It was like how it must have been for people who saw The Ramones when they were starting out: If these guys can do it, anyone can!

Oh, and the pizza was okay. I've had worse.

Death of the Parrotheads

2011-04-09T16:46:00.001-05:00

Out of all the irritating musicians who have inexplicably carved a niche of popularity for themselves, Jimmy Buffett is one I find to be quite curious. The guy is living proof that as long as you throw in the occasional reference to drinking or tropical stuff, you don't have to care about making music with much of a deep message or artistic merit. I'm not saying his music is bad, it's just goofy. Does "Cheeseburger in Paradise" really need to exist? Has anyone's life been profoundly affected by "Margaritaville?"

You know, come to think of it, there are probably people out there who would list "Margaritaville" as their favorite song of all time. These people would be known as "Parrotheads," though Wikipedia is telling me that certain dedicated fans prefer the spelling of "Parrottheads," to reflect the spelling of Buffett's name. Gosh, you're so funny. We all know who these people are and what they look like, so there's no need to go into any of that.

I'm bringing this up because I had a chance to think about Parrotheads as I drove behind one the other day, proudly displaying his license plate holder that read, "Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville," or some such nonsense. Right away I thought of a guy I worked with at Domino's who told me about a Jimmy Buffett show he went to somewhere in Florida, where Parrotheads walked around brandishing Super Soakers filled with vodka, offering to give a squirt into the mouth of anyone who was ready to party. Good lord, could you possibly get any douchier? Does being a Parrothead give you an excuse to just act like a child, with the only difference being free access to alcohol?

While driving behind this person who I can confidently say has worn a Hawaiian shirt at least several times in his life, I expected to be irritated like I usually am by such hopelessly white bullshit, but a wave of optimism came over me as I considered the idea that maybe sometime in the next two generations of Americans, Parrotheads will become extinct. After all, natural law should dictate that devotees of Jimmy Buffett are mostly going to skew older, maybe in the range from 30 to however long it takes to destroy your liver and clog your arteries with Mexican cheese. I might not know enough about the Parrothead community to truly make this judgment and assume that teenagers are not discovering Buffett's music with the same passion they normally reserve for discovering Zeppelin or Floyd, but I'm sure I can't be too far off. Jimmy Buffett can only sound good to people who mostly have their mortgages paid off, or maybe to people who had theirs foreclosed on and are drinking specifically to forget.

Unless parents are somehow able to force this tropical island crap music on their kids and convince them to grow up and carry on their legacy by listening to it, I would imagine Parrotheads are not going to last a terribly long time. Jimmy Buffett is already 64 years old, and one would hope he won't be performing in concert much longer than another decade, if he can even make it that long. I'd have to think that once he stops touring, the Parrotheads will have their buzz mellowed pretty harshly, and will have to turn to Jimmy Buffett tribute acts, which I'm not going to Google because I'm sure they exist. But even with the tribute acts, the party will die down slowly as interest wanes in a singer who was never very good to begin with and will never be canonized by rock critics as anything more than a guy in cargo shorts who somehow managed to trick a bunch of drunk people into obsessing over him.

Hopefully, by the time Parrotheads have cleared out and rode off into the Cabo Wabo sun, I won't be too old to enjoy it. Not that I've got Parrotheads constantly in my way and throwing up on my shoes on a daily basis or anything, but it'll just be nice to know that the world is a little less drunk and a little less stoked on life.

Assville

2011-04-06T22:12:00.000-05:00

Life is about the little moments that only last a minute, but stay with you for a lifetime.

Recently, I had one of these moments when I pulled into a gas station in here in Ankeny. I was about to get a crown put on my much worked-over tooth, ending the two-month process that was my root canal, and hopes for my future were high. As I stood outside my car while the gas pumped, I noticed a middle-aged, mildly white trash woman at the opposite pump yelling into her car at a man I can only assume to be her husband. She wasn't exactly the ideal picture of class, and with her shrill voice, I wrote her off right away as someone I was glad to not have in my life.

But then she turned away from the car, went quiet for a few seconds, and then yelled in my direction, "Hey! Look at that!" She pointed to a tag on one of the columns supporting the roof over the pumps, bearing the information as to where it was manufactured.

"It says Assville!"

I leaned in close and sure enough, it read, "From Assville, Missouri." The woman laughed with deep joy and said, "Oh, that's great! But I think they just scratched off a 'c' to make it say Assville." I looked even closer and upon further inspection, she proved to be correct. We looked at the column on the opposite side, and the clever vandal had struck on that tag as well. After discovering that the columns had actually come from Cassville, we had another laugh as I remarked that apparently life can't quite be so perfect that a town could truly be named Assville.

The warm and fuzzy feeling I took from this seemingly crude and pointless encounter came out of the woman's total lack of self-consciousness, enabling her to reach out to a stranger to let them in on the nugget of funny she had stumbled upon. She didn't keep Assville to herself, she gave it to someone else. I also made myself feel some guilt over my rush to judgment of this woman, deciding within seconds that she was yet another ignorant, white trash loudmouth that we Iowa citizens have to deal with on a regular basis. While she still might be exactly that, at least she has a sense of humor and knows when to use it.

Of course, maybe she was making a judgment about me. She must have thought that I looked like the kind of guy who would find Assville hilarious. And she was totally right.

Long John Silver's

2011-03-09T22:26:00.000-06:00

I'd like to begin by defending myself against any stereotypes of being a "fast food guy" that may still cling to me in the minds of my friends. There certainly have been times in my sordid past where I was eating fast food upwards of three or four times a week, especially on lunch breaks at the crappy jobs I've had. But I sort of know what I'm doing now. I'm not sure why it took me so long to buckle down and pack my lunch most days, although there are mornings where making a sandwich sounds like more work than I could possibly ever do. When I'm not being a lazy idiot, I'm putting in effort to eat better and not drop a ton of cash on food that will kill me slowly (of course, I still eat pizza, but I don't count that, you know?).

But the other night I was out and about between two activities and had a limited amount of time to pick up some dinner, so I threw my hands in the air and just went to Long John Silver's. I have a bit of a love/hate situation with LJS, with the love coming from their delicious, greasy concoctions that have never failed me in their consistency, and the hate coming from the food that has also never failed me in its ability to make me burp all day and taste precisely what I ate several hours ago, only filtered with stomach acid and whatever other undesirable material is floating around in there (sorry, but I'm painting a picture of words here).

I walked in to find that against all logic, Friday night at the Long John Silver's in Valley Junction was not a hoppin' party spot populated by hormone-addled teenagers or hip, thrill seeking twentysomethings. Only a couple tables were occupied, and there was no one in line, so I made my way to the register without having to wait for anyone to make that life-altering choice between fish or chicken. I was greeted by a cashier who couldn't have been older than 16, looking as if she would rather be any place in the world in any other outfit rather than inside a Long John Silver's wearing a purple shirt and a black visor far too big for her head. As I told her what my disgusting self would like to eat, she had to deal with a fat loser behind her (probably an assistant manager by default because he has refused to find another job in the last five years) peering over her shoulder at every move she made. And when she gave me my total, he not-so-subtly whispered, "Sauces!" After the girl didn't even turn to look at him and didn't take his obvious cue, he asked me if I wanted any sauces. Sure, I'll take some honey mustard, though I probably could have asked for it myself without you embarrassing this poor girl and making the situation even worse for all of us. I'm guessing sauces and the offering of them make up the most important parts of this guy's job.

As soon as this interaction ended and I stood aside to wait for my food, my attention was grabbed by a family a few tables over having a depressing night out. The parents were maybe in their mid-30's with a young son around 10 years old. The son had just done something out of line, because the mother, a severely stressed and angry woman with bad glasses and a care-free wardrobe, felt it necessary to yell at him, "HEY! STOP IT!" She followed this with a withering glare at her son that he didn't return because he was glaring at the ground. His bland father sat across from them, trying to remain as invisible as possible and acting like his hushpuppies were fascinating and worth concentrating on.

My food came quickly and I was rushing out the door to get away from this den of misery when I got one last taste, as I passed a couple in their 60's who were entering the restaurant (can you really call it a restaurant? maybe a "food place?"). They appeared at peace with their decision to be eating at a fifth-tier fast food establishment on a Friday night when I could probably list a solid 30 options in the Des Moines metro area that would have been healthier, tastier and just plain classier than where they ended up. It would be unfair to speculate on their lives since I only saw them for three seconds, but I feel okay in saying that they don't have much fun with each other and most likely don't do a whole lot of talking. And what better place to not have fun than a night of cold silence and invasive odors at Long John Silver's?

In total, from the time I left my car to the time I got back inside it, the whole experience couldn't have lasted longer than two minutes. But in that two minutes, I saw a perfect illustration of what can happen if you allow unhappiness to prevail for your entire life:

- You get a crappy job where you have to wear a bad uniform, you get no respect from anyone, you have to take shit from mouth-breathing assholes with superiority complexes, and you go home smelling like grease.

-Then you have kids that you hate who constantly piss you off and make you wonder why you ever hooked up with your apathetic spouse who hasn't told you they love you since who the hell knows when.

-And then you grow old with that person and the both of you have given up on a good relationship with excitement long ago, instead opting to eat at shitty food places where you're lucky to even get asked if you're enjoying your coleslaw.

As overblown as this scenario may sound, anyone's life could follow this very path if they aren't paying attention. I sat in my car and ate my chicken mulling this over, and as I ate the last of those little fried crispy bits they throw at the bottom of the box, I realized that Long John Silver's had just taught me a valuable lesson: Stay happy, don't get sad, and don't sell yourself short. We all deserve better. A better life, and much, much better food.

How Doo-Wop Can Solve World Problems

2011-03-08T21:24:00.003-06:00

"In the Still of the Nite" is without a doubt one of the greatest songs ever written. And if you don't agree, then what kind of a blackened, evil soul are you hiding in that hollow vessel of yours??

I wish I didn't have to take such a negative approach when it comes to discussing the merits of a song. Who wants to be told what they're supposed to enjoy? No one, of course, so it's best to keep arguments civil and cultured, but I have a hard time not lashing out at anyone who can't see facts that are so plain and clear to me, such as the superiority of a song like this one. I've made my love for Doo-Wop public in the past, but I just have to do it again. Because if I had my way, kids would be discovering it with the same frequency and enthusiasm as they do for the Beatles. For crying out loud, why wouldn't they? Does it make me a freak for being filled with joy whenever I hear "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" or "Blue Moon," wondering why all music can't sound like this? Surely everyone else should feel the same way. It only makes sense.

And everyone should especially feel the same way about "In the Still of the Nite," this achingly sweet ballad by The Five Satins recorded with raw urgency in a church basement, featuring impassioned vocals and a sloppy sax solo in the middle section that I could probably play if I was given five minutes of training. And then there's the part where everything cuts out and Fred Parris is left singing "In the stillllll....." and then it all crashes back in with "of the NIIIIGHHTTT" and I just lose it every single damn time I hear it, wondering why all music can't sound exactly like this. If it did, the world would be a much happier place.

So bear with me here while I imagine a scenario where "In the Still of the Nite" is put to its proper usage:

In present day America, the political environment is poisonous. Even if the media exaggerates it a tiny bit, there is no mistaking the quoted statements we can read from our leaders and pundits that show just how deeply those lines have been drawn in the sand. With no end in sight, one has to ask themselves if there is any hope that the mood will calm down and get to a place where civil debate can occur, and we can maybe take a moment to find the common ground that we all stand on. But I have figured out a way to solve this problem.

Picture this: One of the big TV networks holds a debate between President Obama and Sarah Palin. It is promoted as a State of the Political Environment, so to speak, where Obama and Palin will present the arguments of their respective parties and ideologies and attempt to persuade the public to their side once and for all. The entire nation tunes in to see what will happen, how vicious the rhetoric will get, how close Obama will come to actually punching Palin in the mouth.

President Obama and Sarah Palin enter the stage from different sides and stand behind their podiums. The gathered audience in person and watching at home waits in baited breath for the first verbal blow to be struck, knowing that they must be itching to get started with their prepared remarks.

But before Palin can even speak, Obama holds up his hand with a smile and says, "Sarah, I know we've had our differences. At times, we have most likely even hated each other. It has been a rough couple years for me as President, getting attacked by you and your party day in and day out, and you may believe that I came here tonight to defend myself and fight back. But I did not come here to do anything of the sort. I came here tonight to ask you one thing...may I have this dance?"

As Obama steps out from the podium and strolls over to Palin, the opening strains of "In the Still of the Nite" come spilling out the loudspeakers. He holds out his hand, inviting Palin to join him. With just a second of hesitation, Palin's rigid expression drops and her face beams as she also leaves her podium and comes to the center of the stage. They embrace and do a polite but passionate slow dance to one of the greatest songs ever written, gazing into each other's eyes and exchanging words that are not picked up by any microphones (don't worry, this is strictly platonic and Michelle is cool with all of it). And as the song fades out, the stunned audience sits in silence for a long moment, and then bursts into thunderous applause, cheering and crying tears of long overdue relief, reacting in the same way as the millions watching on television.

Immediately following this night, the two political parties in America are able to see that there is no reason to pick fights, call each other names or demonize their opponents. The only thing in this world that matters is love and the expression of love to those around you. Congress actually gets stuff done in a timely and efficient manner, and President Obama is able to do his job without alienating anyone and still accomplishing everything he set out to do. American citizens stop arguing with those they don't agree with and seek ways to compromise. Glenn Beck loses his job because he's too stupid to sense this new mood and he does his usual shtick, to the displeasure of everyone.

And it is all thanks to the unshakable beauty of "In the Still of the Nite." God bless Doo-Wop.

Snobbery as Law

2011-02-15T16:48:00.003-06:00

I used to have an ultimate goal of becoming a rock journalist, writing reviews and letting people know what I thought totally ruled and what totally sucked. Even as far back as high school, I thought this was something I could convincingly do since I was the main guy among my peers who everyone knew would at least have an opinion about whatever music they threw at me, and I could turn that opinion into something that entertained them. And I wrote reviews on a couple different websites, hoping to build up my amateur portfolio so that someday a publication would take a chance on me and hire me on to do any grunt work necessary that could get me closer to writing the big reviews and getting the big bylines.

But these days, aside from writing my informal Top 10 of the Year, I'm a little disillusioned with the idea of music reviews, and among many reasons I could list, I have only one to discuss here: Pitchfork Media. Yes, they may be an easy target because of how much hatred and insults they receive, but dammit, they deserve every bit of it, so here I go.

I'm sure that not everyone who works for Pitchfork is a jerk, but like any group of people, it's the bad ones who end up giving them such a bad name. And there are enough bad ones there to make things downright awful. Anyone not familiar with Pitchfork needs to know these things:

1. They are tastemakers who are fond of anything you could correctly identify as "indie," such as soft pop, noise crap, electro hip-hop and selective amounts of punk rock and metal.

2. They like to use big words in their reviews and make obscure references like how Dennis Miller does comedy.

3. They have a desperate need to dictate to the world what they should listen to because they know best and they know what is cool, which can't be true because...

4. ...they deemed Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy to be the best album of 2010, seemingly unaware that the name of the album is one of the most goddamn stupid titles in the history of humans, and that the album is just slightly adventurous but still average hip-hop created by an egomaniacal moron.

The brilliant inspiration for this brilliant rant came from reading Pitchfork's review of Mumford and Sons' Sigh No More, an album of dramatic British folk music that is being met with surprising amounts of success. After listening to it a few times, I am by no means in love with it, but it has some thrilling moments and a lot of catchy melodies, and I really can't complain with how well the band is apparently doing.

But Pitchfork sure can complain about it! In a review written by Stephen M. Deusner (did you really need that initial in there for any reason other than to look smarter, buddy?), the album is ripped apart and ridiculed beyond any shred of logic. To begin, Desuner gives the record a rating of 2.1 out of 10. This is unfriggingbelievable. If they rated on a five star scale, that wouldn't even be one and a half stars. I could not believe my eyes when I saw this. If you haven't heard the album, I give you my word that it is in no way a one-star record. Not even close. Granted, I would probably go no further than three stars, but still, there is a huge difference between that and what Pitchfork gave it.

The overall gist of Deusner's review is that Mumford and Sons are a bunch of fakes, trying on a genre of music like it's the latest fashion and failing miserably while they're at it by engaging in tired tricks and predictable song structures, all in a desperate grab for authenticity. Aside from the fair criticism that they more or less do the same big, grand moment in every song, Deusner is stepping on some very thin ice with his argument. He writes that the album is "stocked with group harmonies straight from the Fleet Foxes warehouse, exaggerated earnestness on consignment from the Avett Brothers, some of the same rock "real"-ness that built the Kings of Leon brand, second-hand drama from that run on Keane a few years ago, and some insistent Gomez rusticisms gathering dust in the back room."

That is a big giveaway by Deusner, showing you exactly how Pitchfork operates: "If we didn't decide that it's cool, then it ain't cool. It's just fake shit. But Fleet Foxes and the Avett Brothers? Those bands we discovered and then shoved down your throats? Yeah, that's the good stuff. That stuff is real. Mumford and Sons are only in the Top 10 of iTunes albums and performing on the Grammys because they know how to play to the philistine masses, unlike the bands we dig, who are too heady for people to get."

Isn't that some convenient logic? Pretty easy to always be right and be the smartest kids on the block when you're only playing by the rules you made up. And I have nothing against Fleet Foxes, but clearly they did not invent the concept of group vocal harmonies. People have been doing that for, oh I don't know, ever since people started singing. But Mumford and Sons come along and just because they put some reverb on their vocals (the same way countless other artists do) they're suddenly ripping off a band that has only been relevant for maybe two years? Please. Pitchfork is only upset because they had nothing to do with the hype surrounding this band, so instead of looking at the album objectively like a rock journalist truly should, Deusner spat out possibly the most biased, illogical review I've ever had the displeasure of reading and he should be ashamed of himself.

He later writes, "Mumford paints himself as a sensitive guy put upon by sensitive lovers: 'Tell me now where was my fault in loving you with my whole heart,' he whines, as the music swells and ebbs to exonerate him of any misdeed or misunderstanding." Sorry, dude, but who the fuck are you to decide what is genuine and what is fake? Have you read this guy's autobiography and learned everything that has happened in his life, leading you to confidently declare that he has never gone through a situation where all he tried to do was love a woman and saw the relationship fail? Because unless you did, then you have no right to make such a presumptive and arrogant statement. Maybe you just don't like how that line sounds, but even in that case, the line is backed by an appropriate musical arrangement and mood, so again, they did that part well and you are wrong.

I should stress again that Pitchfork is not altogether a worthless publication. They have some smart people writing for them who demonstrate good taste without setting themselves up as authoritarian rulers. But it's the writers who trash perfectly innocent albums and drool over undeserving albums that help me to understand why reviewing records is so difficult: In order to get the most attention and success as a reviewer, you have to make the most attention-getting statements possible. For sites like Pitchfork, it's all about taking extreme stances. Mumford and Sons get a 2.1, but Lil Wayne's Tha Carter III gets a staggering 8.7. Four and a half frigging stars, people! Somehow, Pitchfork is able to drive right over these speed bumps of bad judgment and pretend that they do no wrong, simply because they have the balls to "tell it like it is." But very often, it is not like that. Music is a subjective form of art, and when you put yourself in the business of tastemaking with such loud and bizarre opinions, all the while showing no sense of humor or self-awareness, you can't help but look the fool.

You Can't Handle the Teeth

2011-01-29T13:51:00.001-06:00

I might as well just get the ultimate lesson of this post out of the way right now: Go to the dentist on a semi-annual basis, brush twice a day and floss once a day. You're an adult and you should take care of your teeth.

The only reason I'm even bringing up this topic is because I am going through some issues that are directly related to the fact that I did not take any of the above advice for several years. Actually, I brushed a twice day most of the time though not consistently, but I refused to commit to flossing, and I did not see a dentist for somewhere around six years. Some might call this reckless behavior. If my teeth were my children, DHS most certainly would have taken them away from me years ago, put me on trial and accused me of gross neglect. It's far too easy to let a problem like this continue for so long when you're the only person in the world who knows about it. Yeah, you should probably go in sometime and get a cleaning and see if any cavities are hanging out there, but...nah. Maybe later.

I had noticed for a few months that one of my molars seemed to have a tiny piece missing, where food would sometimes get stuck and cause some inconvenience. But not until I was woken in the middle of the night by a pain emanating from that very spot did I get the idea that it might be time to stop being a lazy, irresponsible idiot and get my ass down to the dentist. And when I finally did so, they were able to see right away that in my sensitive spot I was going to need endodontic therapy, more commonly known as a root canal.

It turns out that you don't exactly "get a root canal" when this procedure is done. Without getting into too many medical terms (since I barely know what I'm talking about), you already have a root canal under each tooth, sort of like a little tube that houses the nerve. We just say "root canal" as slang for what they do. I had so much advanced decay in this tooth that it had gone far into my canal and was beginning to touch the nerve, obviously causing the horrible discomfort that would come when hot or cold liquids touched it, or sometimes just when I was breathing. This is no way for a human being to live. Going along in life with this condition would be unacceptable, so it was time to get it fixed.

I'm happy to report that the root canal procedure itself was not nearly as torturous as one would lead you to believe. It helped that the doctor was a truly pleasant middle-aged woman who made me feel at ease. She asked about one of my tattoos, and when I told her the line comes from a blues song she said, "Oh, you like the blues! You must be such an old soul!" Sure, why not? And aside from her pleasant demeanor, she had plenty of local anesthetics to numb the left side of my face up so hard that my lip felt like I had just gotten a pound of collagen shoved in there. So if you can get past the incessant drilling noises that sound as if a chainsaw is being put to your teeth, there really isn't a whole lot of pain to deal with. Even a couple days later, I stayed on top of any possible discomfort with a tight schedule of ibuprofen, and only felt brief rounds of pressure in that area.

I couldn't help but reflect on the bad reputation that getting a root canal formed over the years, and what it means that it apparently isn't so bad anymore. Sometime in the 70's or even 80's, a root canal was probably dreaded because it lived up to the hype. Dental procedures back then were not as sophisticated, and pain medication and drilling techniques were not designed in such a way to make the pain almost unnoticeable. I'm sure that if you got a root canal back then, you noticed the pain in a big way, and then you told your friends about how much it sucked, and then they told their friends, and then root canals solidified their place in dental culture as the one event you do not want to suffer through.

So knowing that, try to think back to even the early 20th century. If it sucked that bad in the 70's, how the hell bad did it suck in the 10's?? This is the part that made me squirm in imagined horror, and also made me so very, very grateful for the era that I live in. I know that we're well aware of all the technological advances we've made, but the ones constantly in our faces are stuff like cell phones and Twitter. And though that stuff is all well and good, we could do without it if we had to (I think, maybe). What we could not do without is the technology that has enabled us to live our lives with a relative trust of the medical system, especially when it comes to dental work. If you had to get a root canal procedure done a hundred years ago, I cannot even begin to fathom the searing agony that would be awaiting you as a result of the not-so-good dental equipment being used on your poor mouth. The experience must have been nothing short of traumatic. You would walk out of the office quivering in pain, wondering how there could possibly be a God if he let you get hurt this badly.

The world has perhaps failed us in a million different ways and brought us a million different distractions and advances that never needed to happen. But I think we can at least take comfort in the fact that there are drugs that numb our faces and drilling tools that don't curl our blood, because anything else, as Hulk Hogan said in those Right Guard commercials, would be uncivilized.

Disco

2011-01-09T20:47:00.001-06:00

I have disco in my blood. Literally.

To give you an abbreviated history: In the late 70's, my dad was a bassist bouncing around from project to project without much direction, and he needed to make some money, so he joined a cover band. Based out of St. Louis, they played the Top 40 hits of the day, but mostly specialized in disco. They also toured, playing week-long stints at clubs or bars or anywhere that would have them, and during a show in Dubuque, Iowa, my dad met my mom, who was a bartender for the club. They took a liking to each other right away, and by the next time my dad's band came to town, my mom was ready to join as the new lead female vocalist. They toured intermittently in various bands for a couple years before settling down, getting married and then giving birth to lil ol me.

My relationship with disco and my parents' involvement in its promotion has taken several turns over the years. As a kid, I just thought it was neat that my parents had been in a band at all. My dad died when I was three, so when I became old enough to be aware of his musical past, I had something I could brag to my friends about. Their dads may have had high-paying jobs where they did important stuff, but even though I didn't have a dad at all, I was still able to win the cool contest by pointing out that he was a bad-ass bass player and probably could have out-cooled their dad any day of the week. Granted, I only had to have this discussion a couple times, but I'm sure my friends got the message.

And then I got even older, dove headfirst into punk rock and all the snobbish attitudes that can inspire, and started approaching the musical legacy of my parents with more shame than pride. There was no effort on my part to inform anyone that my parents used to play "Funkytown" six nights a week. I of course loved them just the same and didn't wish I had been born to different people or anything, but I did think to myself, "Maaan, why did it have to be disco? Why couldn't it have been something cool like...punk?"

Two things happened over the last ten or so years: One was that I flat out stopped caring about how disco was perceived by anyone else, and began to take the proper pride in what my parents did with a few years of their lives. This is how I should have felt all along. But I was assisted in this process by the general public, as disco appears to be less reviled than it used to be. Obviously we are well past the times when pissed-off dudes were burning disco records and it appeared that you would be a step away from getting murdered if you were seen dancing to "The Hustle," and as misdirected as that anger was, you can sort of understand where those people were coming from. Having to hear disco on the radio all the time must have been not only annoying but terribly discouraging. Admittedly, a lot of disco was pure studio product, written by outside guys and sung by performers that looked good, with an eye not so much towards quality, but how many people it could draw to the dance floor. It was, maybe correctly, perceived to be a hollow form of music that didn't have the right to exist.

The nice thing about history is that gives us the ability to stand back and observe something from a new perspective, without all the noise and hassle that surrounded it in the moment. Disco has benefitted generously from this new perspective. All of its strong points that maybe got lost in the hysteria and sexy moves are now right there in the forefront, for us to dig into and absorb. Tons of modern bands have taken the groove, the drum beats, the skronky guitarwork, and used it in their own way, fully acknowledging their debt to disco. It's all right there in the open, waiting for you to get your body moving to the music. Whether or not you actually want to move your body to it is your choice, but I'd like to suggest some jams that really turned me around on this whole disco thing and made me wish it was 1978 all over again so I could be out there on the dance floor like an idiot.

This is "Boogie Oogie Oogie" by A Taste of Honey, and it contains easily my favorite bassline of the entire disco era. I mean, listen to that thing! It's downright vicious and it's pretty much just a three-note progression. I get such a kick out of knowing that my dad played that very bassline over and over again for a couple years, because I would bet that even though it had the potential to get tedious, it's such a dense and fun lick to play that he probably loved it every single time. Both the bassist and the guitarist of this band here are right in the pocket, and when that guitar solo happens, it makes you wonder why all disco wasn't exactly like this. So much cooler than just some lady hanging out at center stage singing stuff she didn't write. However, that formula was done to perfection on this next song:

It's Indeep with "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life." I thought this came out during disco's heyday, but it turns out it was released in '82, which explains why it has such a strong hip-hop influence, while still staying rooted in that disco bassline. So maybe this is an unfair example to give as a prime disco tune since it's a little out of the era, but I say it's close enough, especially with the sound of the guitar. Way more funky and hypnotic than most disco stuff, and how could you possibly deny that chorus?

Instead of just embedding videos til the cows come home, I'll wrap it up by saying that disco should not be taken seriously. It was quite often a stupid genre that insulted intelligence and stooped for the lowest common denominator, but there were moments when disco artists achieved true musical transcendence, and it would be a shame if those moments went totally forgotten. And though I can admit that disco was sometimes dumb, it's not a "guilty pleasure." I will never feel guilty about liking anything, and neither should you. So let's dance together, shall we?

My Top 10 Records of the Year

2010-12-29T23:06:00.002-06:00

I'm back again with the list you probably don't give a rat's ass about, but it's become sort of an OCD tradition for me to compile it and present it to you all: Elliot's Top 10 Records of the Year!

Before I start, I need to point out one important detail: In the past, I have ranked the albums from 10 to 1, supposedly in order of how much I liked them. But I'm not doing that anymore, for one, because I couldn't really decide on a solid favorite of the year, and for two, because it's just silly to put them in any kind of an order because I don't discriminate around here. So why, you ask, should I even bother to whittle a list down to ten and then write about those records? Because I feel like it. Isn't that a good enough reason for you?

Great, I thought so. On with the show!

RVIVR - LP

Matt Canino has been a busy, bad-haircutted guy in his incredibly punk life, starting out in Latterman (who I sorta dig but are obsessively loved) and then moving on to the short-lived Shorebirds (who I was completely obsessed with). Now he plays in RVIVR with his girlfriend Erica Freas sharing guitar and lead vocal duties, and it turned out to be a great move because she shreds at both tasks and because he's writing the best songs he has ever come up with. Still staying in the field of gritty pop-punk, Canino and friends share every broken dream and every ray of sunshine their convoluted lives have seen, and rise above all of it by using a simple genre and running ahead of the pack with their creative lead lines and exuberant dual choruses. When Canino and Freas go as far as pulling off two-part harmonies, even with their less-than perfect voices it brings sheer joy. I'm not sure if there's another record this year that has gotten me more excited with more songs stuck in my head, but since I'm not deciding on a favorite, I'll just hint that this is at least in the top half of the ten.

Rooftops - A Forest of Polarity

If I ever thought for a second that it wasn't worth it to book shows for bands in which I lost cash because few people showed up and I couldn't justify screwing them out of gas money, Rooftops reminds me of why I bothered. One of these guys played in a band called Snow Cuts Glass, who I booked and thought were lovely people. Four years later I see that Jonny is in this Rooftops band being profiled on Punknews.org, so I give it a chance and get blown away so hard that it becomes the first album I actually purchase on iTunes, clearly a monumental occasion. But this is fitting because Rooftops has a monumental sound, with a drummer, three guitarists and no bassist, and though you might think it could be missing a low-end, they somehow find a way to fill in the void and knock it out of the damn park. Most of it is instrumental, but when Jonny decides to sing he does it with such elegance and sweetness that the impact is multiplied a thousand times over. The lack of vocals can be attributed to the complexity of these songs, as the band takes their cue from mathy, techy lords of the 90's like Don Caballero and Cap'n Jazz and pull off amazing starts and stops with strange time signatures, while crafting warm, textured guitar tones and intricate riffs that stick out so far you'll remember them even better than catchy lyrics. I don't think Rooftops is very active anymore, so seeing them live will probably never be an option and they may go largely forgotten, but I just had to tell the world about my love for this record.

Poison Control Center - Sad Sour Future

The elder statesmen of Iowa indie rock. Wait, are any of them even 30? And can you really call them indie rock? Whatever the hell they are, Poison Control Center have been together for almost a decade, and for every single second of their existence they have made the Iowa music scene a respectable place. By 2010, pretty much the only thing they hadn't yet done was release a double album, which is of course the definitive "important" statement a band must make in order to cement their status as true artists. But Sad Sour Future feels less like a band trying to make a statement and more like a band just being really goddamn amazing for over an hour, and then realizing that they accidentally made a masterpiece. Every member writes their own songs and then performs the lead vocals, which not only ensures that the experience will never get dull, but also that each of their strong points get highlighted in a way that adds quite a bit of depth to their attack. They croon, they scream, they lightly strum and then they jam, but only in the most tasteful manner, never going on for longer than they should. I can safely say that even though I consider myself to be a long-time friend of Poison Control Center, my judgment of their music is not biased in any shape or form. They are quite simply a fantastic band, and I am so happy to see them achieve these heights in quality with Sad Sour Future.

Bad Religion - The Dissent of Man

Okay, it might be a foregone conclusion that as long as Bad Religion continues to put out new records, I'm going to put them in my Top 10 of the Year. I will actually admit to at least a fraction of bias here, since we are talking about one of my favorite bands of all time and it would be hard for me to find much of anything wrong with whatever they do. But remember, they're one of my favorites because of their astounding catalogue, and they continue to keep up the good work with The Dissent of Man. A passive listener might write this off as another rehashing of the same stuff they've done for the last 30 years, but an expert listener such as myself (at least when it comes to Bad Religion) notices the little details, like the vibrant slide guitar in "Cyanide," or the extra punch and sizzle to "The Resist Stance." Aside from a few slightly original arrangements, there are no chord sequences here that haven't already shown up on a previous album in one form or another, and when you've been writing songs for such an insanely lengthy time, isn't that bound to happen? But when the chord sequences are laid out so damn well, with brilliant lyrics and soaring vocal harmonies on top of them, why should it even matter?

Daughters - self-titled

It's only fitting that Daughters dissolved and broke up before their final album was even released, issuing terse statements and carrying on open feuds with each other, as it perfectly imitates the sound of a band exploding. And though this clearly wasn't going to be the record that popped them into the mainstream with hit songs on iTunes alongside Glee or anything, they had more potential than ever to be taken more seriously as a real life band and not somewhat of a novelty act that banged out incalculable bursts of noise. On each of their records, Daughters forged a path that few had ever come near, and their self-titled swan song is no different, with a revamped take on their unique brand of chaotic hardcore that sees Alexis Marshall leaning even more towards sounding like a gloriously stupid Nick Cave just trying to hold the musicians together. Some of the songs blaze by like in the old days, but others keep the proceedings at a slower pace, allowing the guitars to slither, slide and poke around in ways that punish you with more force than ever before. These stupid idiots finally broke their own code, and apparently they couldn't handle the brilliance they helplessly exuded. Go figure.

Coliseum - House With a Curse

Maybe the biggest surprise of the year for me was the new effort from Coliseum, a band that has routinely kept the pedal to the metal with big and bad hardcore punk played out of reckless abandon, packing as much as they could muster into two-minute chunks. So it took some courage for Ryan Patterson and the boys to step out of their comfort zone by slowing everything down and writing songs that actually give you room to catch your breath. The lack of that terrifying exterior of rage allows for open criticism and viewing of what they are at their core, and it turns out that Coliseum has an expert grasp on the art of aggression. Though none of these songs elevate above a mid-tempo stomp, you never get the sense that you're being entertained by pansies. Patterson's voice still sounds like it's emanating from a motorcycle's engine even when he's not screaming, only occasionally giving in to a little bit of melody but warning you not to come too close. He took a cue from his brother Evan's band, Young Widows, and got the hint that volume and speed don't always add up to untoppable intensity. Just throw the punches in new areas, and the result will hit all the same.

Bars of Gold - Of Gold

Bear Vs Shark broke up in 2005, leaving behind two albums of highly underrated genius in which they came the closest anyone ever has to approaching what At the Drive-in was able to pull off: Being as arty and weird as you want while still roaring at the audience and blistering their eardrums. So I was thrilled to find out that Bear Vs Shark's singer, Marc Paffi, was part of a new group that appeared to be continuing in a similar vein, though they were by no means imitating. Bars of Gold bounce along with agile guitarwork and a superb rhythm section, propelled by Paffi's burly, unpredictable voice that truly is one of a kind. No one could be mistaken for him. He owns your attention whenever he opens his mouth, but he also knows when to step back and let the band build tension. Irresistible melodies and choruses pop up where you would least expect, out of off-kilter beats or quiet passages, and offer lines like, "I was born a working man - son of a salesman in car sales." As horribly routine as that line may sound, it ends up being the final triumphant lyric sung over the last two minutes of the record, and you'd be hard-pressed to find any fault in it, just like the rest of this material.

Murder By Death - Good Morning, Magpie

Sometimes I'm overly sensitive to bands who I perceive to be engaging too heavily in gimmicks of any sort, and Murder By Death possesses three qualities that could easily be labeled as such: A girl who plays the cello, a singer with an unnaturally deep voice and a general old-timey vibe that's currently being mined by bands like Mumford and Sons and the Decemberists. But one listen to Good Morning, Magpie should flatly put to bed all thoughts that these folks are anything less than sincere, as they have created a record that speaks and emanates a time and place with which they must share some kind of kindred association, since only that could explain how they do it so well. Adam Turla's voice could come from a 60-year old Southern man, but it's coming out of a 30-something guy from Illinois, and while there are millions of people who would just kill to have a sound like that, Turla doesn't seem to even be trying, much like the rest of the band. The songs are flawless, no matter what mood is being projected. The soft, romantic strum of "Foxglove" is immediately followed by the brooding desolation of "White Noise," and yet there is no jolt in this transition. Maybe you could call what Murder By Death does a formula, but the formula is working to maximum perfection, so there is just no excuse to complain.

Off With Their Heads - In Desolation

Epitaph Records finally signed an actual punk band! Can you believe it? After years of shying away from the sound that put them on the map, Brett Gurewitz and company brought in Off With Their Heads to bum out the punk rock world with the doom and gloom that only they can package into a Ramones-heavy three-chord presentation. It's not going to win over any kids who buy Bring Me the Horizon records, but I'm willing to bet that Off With Their Heads' lyrics are even more depressing and self-loathing than anything a metal band could come up with. Few bands, if any, can make a catchy singalong out of "I hate every second of the goddamn day - Give me anything you want, I don't care, it's all the same." And on "Clear the Air," they reach the absolute peak of their powers, with a horrifying and cathartic refrain that needs to be heard to be believed. How do they do that? It's such a perverse talent, getting people to wallow in the same pit of despair they've been stuck in as exhibited in every song they've ever written. Just like the message, the music remains largely unchanged from past records. The chord sequences are pretty much the same, the fist-pumping tempos and raucous refrains are still there. And as long as it's this good, they should keep doing it until the wheels fall off their sadness bandwagon.

The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang

I don't know if these guys will ever get away from the Bruce Springsteen tag, constantly being compared to him while only reinforcing the comparisons by having him pop in for a live guest spot, but why should anyone be ashamed of getting placed in the same conversation as a musical icon? Besides, Gaslight Anthem has gone the distance with American Slang, choosing to move beyond their last record and embrace influences other than the Boss, yet keeping their heart-on-sleeve demeanor fully intact. And it comes in the most subtle of moments, like when they lift the "Whoa-oh-oh-oh" from The Ronettes' "Be My Baby," and it passes over you a couple times until you finally catch it and the obvious connection between past and present that the band is operating under becomes complete. It's as if they think they're an R&B band that just happens to play earnest rock'n'roll. Such details are merely technicalities, pushed aside so Brian Fallon can belt out another half-remembered, half-invented tale from the streets of his New Jersey stomping grounds. He is still a swaggering yet unsatisfied romantic, begging that one dream girl to take a chance on the weird kid with tattoos so he can show her paradise, and let's hope he never finds her. Otherwise, where would the songs come from?

Don't Worry

2010-11-04T21:48:00.000-05:00

America is on fire. Literally, it's on fire right now! Go look outside! The country is on fire and we're all going to die, probably within the next few days. There is nothing we can do, because the damage has been done and there is no reversing it. America will be like this forever: On fire and on the brink of destruction, all because the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives.

Wait, I'm sorry. I just looked outside, and apparently America is not on fire. My neighbors upstairs are still making noises that sound like four people falling on the floor and then rolling around, but I'm assuming that's not because anything up there is engulfed in flames. The world appears to be just about the same as it was before the midterm elections. But you would never know it if you only listened to the media's hysterical reactions and to the Republicans' jumping and shouting and bragging. According to them, this is the craziest sea change in political history, and we have never seen a party get such a "mandate" from the American people, clearly indicating that Obama is done for and has no hope of accomplishing anything for the rest of his presidency.

But one line that not a lot of people are picking up on is the fact that in 1994, Clinton faced the same opposition from Republicans, and Democrats lost many seats in the House and Senate. And then he went on to be re-elected in 1996. Also, Reagan in 1982 saw his Republicans lose seats in the House, not to the degree that Clinton did, but definitely in a manner that made him appear weak, and then he was re-elected in 1984. Not many people are picking up on this storyline simply because it is not sexy. It doesn't go with the story arc that everyone is sprinting away with, which is that the Democrats are dead in the water, and we might as well get ready for a full century of good ol' fashioned Republican rule. But if we could all take a good look at these trends, we would see that this has happened before, and for good reason. A president comes in promising bold change, doesn't do it in a manner that speaks loud enough for the public to truly see and hear it, which causes them to be dissatisfied and vote that president's party out of power, but then in two years they see that maybe they overreacted a little bit and proceed to keep the president in office.

Obviously I am disappointed that the Republicans are riding so high right now, because even though I do get fed up with Democrats from time to time, I still voted for them, and my vote lost. There is a certain degree of shame and humiliation that goes with such a defeat, even if you personally weren't in the running. But we really do have to look on the bright side and realize that with the Republicans now finding themselves in the power position they have been salivating over for the last four years, they will now be perceived as the bad guy who can't get anything done. They will be the ones who are caught in a power struggle with their opposition, causing the voting public to see them by 2012 in a very unfavorable light, and perhaps things will swing back into balance.

Also, if by some miracle of the universe Sarah Palin does end up running as the Republican nominee for president, then Obama will be re-elected. It is not even a question. And as repulsive to all logic and sense the prospect of her running may be, I do believe the Republicans will be so self-centered and delusional that they just might take a reality TV star whose daughter dances for votes and somehow convince themselves that she could take on a literate, cool and collected President who will have such a knockout campaign ready that by the time they figure out what hit them, Obama will be back in Grant Park giving a victory speech that makes Oprah cry, while Sarah Palin gives a loser speech in which she first has to read the writing on her hand that says, "You lost."

Just remember: The Republicans have always predominantly been the people that have stood in the way whenever American society started taking steps toward reform and human decency. And even though they caused obstructions and made that path rocky and difficult, they have always been knocked out of the way, huffing and puffing and looking for the next group of people to oppress and keep under their thumb. They will continue to do this, but they will continue to lose. We just have to keep our patience intact, knowing that victory and justice are up ahead, waiting to be claimed by their rightful owners.

So yes, it's okay to feel dejected, but I know that I personally am taking comfort in the fact that not only do I have a great life with many things to feel thankful for, but also that the political landscape always changes, and no matter how bad it may seem in the present, the future always holds something better.

Monster Mash

2010-10-31T12:30:00.000-05:00

I'd like to preface this blog by saying that I did this to myself. I was talking with Andrea and my family sometime last year, and while I don't remember what in the conversation brought me to it, I ended up declaring that "Monster Mash" might be the greatest song ever written. Obviously, no one agreed with me, and quite often when I bring up an idea that doesn't have much support, the rickety gears in my mind start turning, trying to formulate a way that I can prove everyone wrong. What you're about to read is my attempt at making an impractical argument sound totally practical. I'll let you decide if I have or have not succeeded.

We're all familiar on some level with "Monster Mash," a song that has reverberated through American pop culture ever since it first haunted the airwaves back in 1962. Whether we first heard it at an elementary school Halloween party, or blasting out of a neighbor's boombox as you ran up to their porch on Beggars Night, the song has no doubt stayed with you, as there quite simply has never been anything like it. There are very few, if any, novelty Halloween songs that are exclusively tied to that holiday and can claim ownership of the top spot. How many Christmas songs are there, around 20? Maybe more? And we all know how sick of those we get, even with the huge variety we have. But no one gets sick of "Monster Mash" because it exudes stupidity and fun and asks nothing of you other than to have a blast.

Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Cryptkickers weren't even a real band, but instead were a one-off project mostly formed as a goof so Pickett could do his Boris Karloff impression that he'd been complimented on. Even if these guys thought what they had just recorded was pretty funny, and even though the song's narrator declares that his Monster Mash is now the hit of the land, they could not have had any clue that the American public would embrace this creation with such enthusiasm. The song went to #1 on the Billboard Top 100, which blows my mind and shows you how wide open the playing field was back in 1962. Elvis, Chuck Berry and Little Richard were MIA, The Beatles hadn't yet arrived, so with America in a sort of musical purgatory, a true gem like "Monster Mash" was able to sneak onto the radio and then take it by storm without receiving much of a protest or having to muscle past a lot of competition. And what a great stroke of luck for all of us that it got there, because our lives would be a little less joyous without it.

I challenge you to tell me that the mere thought of "Monster Mash" doesn't bring a smile to your face. Honestly, how could you not feel like a million bucks when that dumb voice begins saying, "I was working in the lab late one night" over that catchy organ and propulsive drum beat? You'd have to be a soulless jerk to suffer from such a condition where you can't appreciate the song on at least an ironic level, which is almost certainly how it was intended to be seen. As stated earlier, the song is basically a joke that was taken way too far and given way too much effort, as they created sound effects with straws and chains and rusty nails. These guys had to have been fully aware of the sheer ineptitude in what they were creating, but the fact that they went ahead and completed it, and then got a whole bunch of money for it is a story that can give hope and faith to each and every one of us who might have a dumb idea just waiting to be let out. Give that idea some time to breathe and you might just have your very own "Monster Mash."

If my claim that "Monster Mash" might be the greatest song ever written sounded a little far-fetched to you, I hope I have done something to change that. Sure, much better songs have been written, "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "Stayin Alive," probably even "Smooth" by Santana to name a few. But the sheer triumph and achievement of "Monster Mash," the little song that could, prove that when it comes to sheer greatness, nothing even comes close. We'll be doing the Monster Mash, whatever that dance may look like since I can't seem to find any consistent video evidence of it, for as long as we all live, and we should all thank the ghoulish ghost of the late Bobby "Boris" Pickett for his gift to the human race.

A Sunday at the Metrodome

2010-10-29T18:50:00.002-05:00

I wish I could say that last Sunday was my first time at an NFL game, in the same year that I saw my first NBA game, but that would be a lie. My first and previously only NFL game was in the fall of '96, also at the Metrodome, when I saw the Vikings play the Carolina Panthers. My traveling companions were Joe, my stepdad, and the troubled kids from the group home he was working at, stuffed into a 15-passenger van and just happy to be going somewhere cool. I had no rooting interest in either team, as I was a passionate Dallas Cowboys fan, so I mostly occupied myself in watching these kids with behavioral and emotional problems try to function normally among 60,000 people. They didn't have an easy time, as one would imagine, and no one was physically hurt, but everyone's feelings took a beating.

That was fourteen years ago, and now Joe has a job where he doesn't have to take anyone on a field trip, so only two tickets were necessary for us to go watch our Cowboys play the Vikings and for me to have a do-over in order to claim attending my first real and coherently witnessed professional football game. The backstory heading into this contest between Dallas and Minnesota would have been hyped anyway, featuring a rematch of the playoff game from last season where the Cowboys were absolutely steamrolled by the Vikings, made to look like a bunch of incompetent and frightened idiots in the very same building that we would be sitting in. But adding in the fact that both teams were 1-3, with hopes of even making it to the playoffs looking dim on each side, it became easily the most anticipated game of the week, even being snarkily dubbed The Desperation Bowl.

I have passionately hated the Minnesota Vikings since I started paying attention to football again a few years ago, but that hatred got even more rabid after they embarrassed the Cowboys so badly in January. Since then, every bit of failure they have experienced has brought me immense pleasure and satisfaction, and I have wanted nothing more than for their dorky purple-wearing fans to weep like children. And where does this hatred come from? Don't ask a sports fan such questions. It doesn't matter. The hatred is just there, and that's all you need to know.

Point is, for this game I would obviously be stepping into enemy territory, occupied by my own equivalent of Nazis, minus the genocide but plus the irritating accents and ugly faces. Even as we pulled into a parking garage a few blocks away from the Metrodome and the attendants told us where we should start walking, I was about 65% sure that they lied to us and pointed us in the wrong direction simply because Joe and I were wearing Cowboys shirts. Why should I trust anyone in Minneapolis on this day? We were at war with each other, and when you're at war, you don't tell the opposition how to get to the battlefield. But I guess Joe has a little more trust in people, and he convinced me to walk in the direction we were instructed to go, and it turned out that the attendant wasn't lying, as the large and looming Metrodome came into sight.

We spent a little time outside for a pregame show, which included a Johnny Cash tribute band for some reason, a Vikings drum line that sorta kicked ass, a brief routine by 40-year old former Vikings cheerleaders that made me sad, and a "trivia" contest in which people were asked questions that were really just setups for woefully outdated jokes about the Cowboys. There was much good fun to be had, and though I was obviously seeing tons of jerks in Vikings jerseys, the amount of Cowboys jerseys I was also seeing helped me to feel like I was not alone, as Michael Jackson once assured me I was not. So we headed into the stadium and took our seats, sitting a long distance away but still able to see clearly who was coming onto the field for warmups. I even spotted good ol' Jerry Jones on the sideline, looking like a million bucks as usual. And every time a group of Cowboys players would come from under the tunnel, the folks who had made it to their seats would boo them. I knew this was going to be a wonderful time.

And the game did not disappoint. Sure, the Cowboys lost by 3 points in heartbreaking fashion as they have all season, and that did disappoint the hell out of me, but the experience lived up to and went beyond all expectations I had. First of all, that crowd gets deafening. And it's not just when the Vikings get a touchdown, it's on nearly every play, especially when the opposing team is on offense and crowd noise can be a distraction to them. Though I certainly didn't appreciate the noise when Tony Romo was trying to call plays, I couldn't deny the sheer electricity that ran through the building each time this group of people rose to their feet in anger or delight. And when the Cowboys did well, especially when Dez Bryant caught the first touchdown pass of his young rookie career, I leapt to my feet and howled with joy and high-fived Joe and felt a rush that trumps anything you feel while watching a game at home. In fact, watching the game on TV feels different now, as I've been spoiled by seeing it live and actually watching a play develop with 22 guys running around in ways that seem chaotic but are actually very planned and orderly. Throw in at least three AC/DC songs blasted over the loudspeakers, and a sports fan couldn't ask for a better time.

But with a loss to a hated rival, Joe and I certainly had a long and bummed out walk back to the car, filled with awful Vikings fans going nuts and crowing about still having a losing record. And when we walked by a group of particularly horrible guys making fun of us, I couldn't resist throwing some friendly trash talk back at them. They kept up their end of the deal by not beating me up and continuing the harsh words, which is exactly what sports fans must always do. Take it seriously, but don't take it that seriously.

And as I sit here a week and a half later, I'm even more grateful for being at this game than I was before. On Monday night, Tony Romo was tackled as he threw a pass and broke his left clavicle, knocking him out of action for 6-8 weeks and effectively ending any hopes that the Cowboys can turn this season around and make it to the playoffs. They do have 38-year old Jon Kitna as the backup, but the guy is pretty immobile and will no doubt have a hard time filling Romo's shoes until he comes back, if he even comes back at all this year. How lucky am I to have seen Romo play the week before he gets injured? With my luck, I wouldn't have been surprised at all if we had been forced to watch Jon Kitna feebly manage a game and embarrass himself, all the while wishing Romo could be on the field. We did see him play, and even though he threw a head-scratching interception at the end of the Vikings game, that's how he rolls and I accept him with each and every one of his faults included.

As for the rest of the team and their coaching staff, all I can say is: At least win one more game. I need at least one more sports moment to genuinely smile about during this fall that will no doubt be unusually low on them.

Mediacom

2010-09-23T18:24:00.000-05:00

I had never needed a job worse than I did at this moment. Each time I looked at the balance in my checking account, it got lower and lower and I felt crappier and crappier. I would soon be a single man, finalizing a divorce and moving into a house with my good friends Sam and Clint, which meant that not having a job was just not an option. I was under the gun and I didn't enjoy the feeling.

When Mediacom called me back about a job application I had filled out, I thought this would be my best bet. I would probably be offered a job on the phones, or maybe in that terrible little room they have where people drop off their cable boxes. That wouldn't be too awful, right?

It turned out the job I interviewed for was indeed awful. They were looking for people to be sales representatives, selling Mediacom cable and internet packages to folks who hadn't heard the good word about Mediacom yet. But the job wouldn't be performed from the luxury of a desk, cold-calling innocent citizens. I would have to go door to door, in a Mediacom hat and polo shirt, trying to get people to let me in their home so I could get them to agree to a fairly big financial decision. The more I sold, the more commission I would get, and it would be a win-win situation for all!

As my future boss described the position to me, and I nodded along with him as I could tell he was ready to bring me on board, I was crying on the inside. The job sounded absolutely miserable, and I was convinced that I would be unsuccessful and hate myself and everyone around me. But I told him I would do fine, and agreed to take the job. What else could I do? Here was a job promising something like $20-25,000 a year, and for a guy with no money, that is tough to turn down. But I hated myself for giving in to the power of money when I knew there was nothing but misery ahead of me.

After a week of being trained in Mediacom's products and services and being told how much better Mediacom was than DirecTV and all those bogus schyster satellite services, it was time to get cracking on the real meat and bones of the job by going into neighborhoods and putting on our best Mediacom faces. I should mention here that this was the very beginning of November, and in this part of the country, that's when it starts to get sorta cold. As if my hesitation to go door to door wasn't bad enough, the fact that it would soon be cold as hell did not help anything. All I could do was try to convince myself that because I needed this job so badly, I could find the strength to get through the early, grueling phase and come out on the other end as a great employee.

But right away, it fucking sucked. There is just no other way to explain it. Wait, maybe there is: Imagine that you are walking around in khaki pants, a purple Mediacom polo, a khaki Mediacom hat, holding a bulky clipboard that has the address of every house in the neighborhood and whether or not they have Mediacom services. It's 45 degrees outside and your toes feel like they may fall off at any minute. And now, you have to walk up to the front door of a person who did not ask you to come anywhere near their home, and you have to ring their doorbell and hope they answer. And then, when they can immediately see that you are a lowly salesman, you have to hope they give you more than three seconds to talk before they slam the door in your face and leave you feeling like a horse's ass. And then you have to walk to the next house and do it again.

After a mere day of doing this, I knew it wasn't for me. No matter how hard I tried to argue with myself, I couldn't win. This job would only bring pain and suffering, and it would be best to get out as soon as possible.

But I stayed employed with them for nearly two months. And during that time, I didn't do a single minute of work.

Because this was essentially a sales job, and we were being sent into neighborhoods with no real supervision, it was easy for a week or so to just tell my boss that I had been out there, pounding the pavement, but hadn't had any success yet. That's totally okay, my boss told me, because most salespeople didn't get their first sale until the second or third week. So during those first three weeks, instead of taking my big list of addresses and trying to sell Mediacom, I stayed at home and played Madden '07 with Sam. It's important to note that I didn't do this gleefully and without a shred of guilt. I did feel like I was cheating some sort of system and wasn't being a totally honest person, but then I remembered how Mediacom sucked and how that job was a joke, and I just went another day assuming that I would get let go soon.

But getting let go didn't happen until much later than I expected. I eventually came in and had a meeting with my boss where I was very honest and told him I could not go door to door. I did have a legitimate reason for not wanting to be out after dark, which was related to being mugged and still having a fear of being alone at night. While I could tell he was disappointed since he had taken all that effort to train me on selling, he still understood and offered a solution: I could come in to the office and sell from the phone. It seemed to be a haphazard idea because he clearly came up with the idea on the fly, and he had no details together, but he told me to come in on Monday and get started.

I showed up on Monday at the time I was told to, and waited around in a little office room. I waited for an hour, without my boss or anyone else showing up at the promised time. Figuring that maybe I had made the mistake, I left and came back the next day at the same time. Again, no one showed up. At this point, I decided they could take this fake job I never did and shove it, because clearly they were messing with me.

But it turned out that they were not. In fact, over a week after this last missed appointment, the boss above my boss left a terse voicemail where he demanded I come in as soon as possible. I did, and this guy definitely showed up, looking exasperated and angry and asking me questions like, "So you haven't even made one sale in almost two months of employment with us?" and "What exactly have you done with your time?" I didn't have a lot of good answers, because what answers were there? I feebly offered up the phone sales deal that my boss had promised, but the big boss tossed this aside, and told me to wait in the office while he went and checked on something. Minutes later he came back and said, "Yeah, we're just not going to be able to keep you on. Please leave."

And so ended my employment with Mediacom. Though I did maybe five hours of the work I was supposed to do, I was paid as if I worked 40 hours a week, for seven weeks, at $10 an hour, which may not be a king's ransom but certainly helped me get out of financial trouble. It sure doesn't make me sound noble, but I can't emphasize enough how I essentially stole this money from Mediacom. A few guilty feelings remained, but I was able to justify my actions by pointing out how stupid and faulty their system was. If their rules allowed for a schmuck like me to get by for so long without doing anything of any value for them, and yet still get paid like he was a good employee, then who cares? They deserved it. Plus, their service sucks and one of my co-workers was some horrible redneck whose name happened to be Larry which he believed gave him the right to hilariously introduce himself to potential customers as Larry the Cable Guy. If they would hire that guy, then they were just asking someone to accidentally con them.

Should you ever find yourself in a position like I did, milk it for all it's worth. This life is too short to waste opportunities in which you literally get money for nothing.

This ends my blogging about past jobs. I already wrote a blog last year about my first stint with Wells Fargo, so go back and read that if you'd like. I am working for the Fargo again, this time in a job that involves no phone calls or customer service and allows me to listen to my iPod, but also requires tedious repetition for most of the day. Give me a few months, and we'll see if I have anything interesting to say about it. I can't make any promises.

Wynnsong Part II

2010-09-10T20:01:00.001-05:00

When the pizza delivery gig became the exact opposite of what I wanted to keep doing, I once again made a lazy effort of finding another job, and looked to Breann's sister for another job at the Wynnsong. But the only way I was going to go back there would be if I no longer had to wear the bow tie and the red vest and pick up other people's garbage all the time. There are just things a 22-year old man should not have to do. No, the only way I would go back was if I could work upstairs as a projectionist, hidden away from the customers and allowed to dress business casual, and then I would consider it. As I was still a student at Drake and I guess didn't need that much money, I accepted the fact that I could only get about 20 hours a week and came on board.

I have told people before that if this job paid a livable wage, I would still be doing it today and would maybe be satisfied with doing it for the rest of my life. Everything you need is included in this job: the feeling of being needed and useful, getting to watch movies, and having large chunks of time where you don't have to do anything. As you know if you've seen a movie in your life, they generally last an hour and a half to two hours. Because the main function of a projectionist's job is to make the movie go, there is inevitably going to be downtime that allow the projectionist to kick back and relax until the time comes to start doing stuff again. Sometimes this lull would be filled by taking apart unneeded trailer packages or cleaning or other tasks, but most of the time I hung out and read books, or went into the break room and watched DVDs with the managers.

I can't even begin tell you how fantastic this was. In a seven-hour shift, I did maybe four hours of work. And the work was meaningful! Lots of people go to movies and need them to be started and start on time, and I was there to make that happen for a whole bunch of semi-appreciative folks who may not have looked back at me and gave me the thumbs-up when a preview started, but I knew they cared. So after I started all the movies, I was free to do whatever. I mean, I couldn't leave the theater or play basketball or have band practice up there, but within reason, I lived like a king.

For fear of making this job sound too cushy, it definitely could get stressful. The Wynnsong is a 16-theater complex, so if you had to start two movies at 7:05, and they were on opposite sides of the building, and you had maybe fallen a little behind with being on time, it was not unusual to take a brisk jog between projectors in order to keep up. Add to that phone calls from downstairs at inopportune times prompted by customers who thought the theater was too hot, or too cold, or the sound wasn't loud enough, or that someone was getting a blowjob while watching Norbit (and yes, that amazingly did indeed happen), the sweat rolled and I had to loosen up my tie and take a breather. What I am ashamed to admit is that as I got used to the routine of reading or especially of watching DVDs, I started to slip up and would just flat out forget to start movies. There was a week-long stretch where one of the Pirates of the Carribean movies was playing (I forget which one, and who the hell cares) at a strange time like 8:05, which was an unusual time to have a movie start and also happened to be when I often ate dinner in the break room, and every single night I forgot to go make that movie play. A call would come up from downstairs around 8:12 or so, as the one brave soul from the theater had come out and either feebly or angrily pointed out the fact that nothing was happening on the movie screen, and I would curse myself and then run to the projector and do the job I was being paid to do but was not doing.

But again, this was not my normal behavior and for the most part, I felt that I was a great employee. And I was being a great employee because I liked the people I worked with. I suppose there were a few coworkers I could have done without, but it was a ton of fun to hang out in that break room with the cool managers and watch Arrested Development or The Office and momentarily forget that we were actually at work. Yes, the nights were late and the pay was lousy, but it was a time filled with great experiences like getting to look down and see an audience's reaction to Snakes on a Plane. I don't regret having that job for a single second.

So like I said, I would still be plugging away at the Wynnsong had it been a job that someone can make a living at. And I may have done it for a bit longer than I did (just shy of a year) had I not become a poor man, reeling from a divorce and wondering where the hell my life was going to go next. I had no idea, but the first thing I knew was that I needed to find a job that would allow me the ability to build myself back up, financially and emotionally, and Wynnsong was not going to fulfill the former requirement. So I stayed on in a bare minimum part-time status while I searched for, and soon found, the stupidest, most fantastic job I've ever briefly held.

Stay tuned for the final installment in my Employment History series.

Domino's

2010-08-28T11:00:00.001-05:00

It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone familiar with my personality that when searching for the next career option, I was drawn to pizza. And when I had friends telling me to get into the delivery business because they had seen that it provided an instant source of cash, i.e. tips, this looked to me like it was fate beckoning me in the direction of bringing pizza to people's doorstep.

My first idea was to ask my old manager from Happy Joe's, Penny, to see if there was a job for me there. She said maybe, but my beard would definitely have to go. They could not have drivers out there with so much facial hair. And I don't know why, but this really pissed me off. Not that I was overly protective of my beard, but it was the mere thought of having to bow down so hard to a boss that I instantly was turned off by the idea of working for them. Plus, it was Happy Joe's and we all know that Happy Joe's just sucks.

Then I got a call from the Domino's Pizza in downtown Des Moines, asking me for an interview. I'll never forget how I showed up for the interview trying to open the front door of the store, but pushing the wrong way and being really confused, with all of this happening in full view of the manager, and how she hired me anyway even after seeing how big of an idiot I am. Clearly, their standards were pretty low at Domino's. And considering how iffy the quality of their pizza could be, this is understandable. Though Domino's has since totally revamped their recipe and made it quite a bit better, this was back when Domino's was still the mediocre pizza option that people only ordered when they just had no idea of what else they should do with their lives, and also when they had forgotten that other pizza places existed in the world. It was humbling and rich for the soul to know that you were not at all #1, more like #3 or #4.

But I took this job because the very setup sounded appealing: Spend most of the shift driving my van around, listening to music, occasionally getting out of the van to bring someone pizza, and then driving around some more. Plus, at the end of every night, I would have cash in my pocket, guaranteed, and isn't that just always a good feeling? This is how it was shown to me by Ozzy, the veteran Hispanic driver who had been working for Domino's for the last eight years. Clearly, this guy knew what he was talking about, and he told me he loved his job, so it was promising stuff. For the entire summer of 2005, with the knowledge that I would be going back to college soon and officially starting at Drake University, I took on this job with all my energy, usually working nights, from 5pm to 2am. I drove up, down and all around the central parts of Des Moines, drinking lots of Gatorade and getting hyped up listening to Modern Life is War's Witness, Sleater-Kinney's The Woods, Sugar's File Under: Easy Listening, Comeback Kid's Wake the Dead, and other albums that made sweating out the summer nights a little more tolerable. I would always have to come back to the store at the end of the night and get my hands all pruney by doing the piles of dishes and then sweep and clean the whole store, but I would walk out with a wad of cash in my wallet and then crash into bed a happy guy.

At the end of the summer I moved into a new house with Breann and Bickley, and since it was very close to the Domino's on Lower Beaver and Euclid, I asked if I could be transferred there. It went through and I spent the next three months doing the same job after class and on the weekends when I could fit it in. I still enjoyed the job, I still had money, so there was no reason to complain.

And then I got mugged, delivering pizza in the apartment complex that I had just lived in for two years without experiencing a single threatening moment. Two guys came out of nowhere before I could even get out of the van, shoved a gun to my head, took all of my money, took the pizza and punched me in the face so hard that my glasses broke in two and flew off my face, opening a waterfall of blood that poured out of my nose and all over my khaki pants. To this day, it is the scariest experience I've ever gone through and I wouldn't wish it upon even my worst enemies. I still have a very difficult time when I'm outside at night, paranoid that anyone could sneak up on me and overpower me, and maybe even do worse than I was done before. It has gotten less severe over the last five years, but the fear is still there and I have those two assholes to thank. I take comfort in the almost certain knowledge that they are much worse off than me and have had to deal with way more emotional and physical suffering.

Anyway, after this happened everyone around me told me I should quit Domino's, and I agreed. So I left the store, but something in me wasn't ready to quit yet. Leaving the job would be a way of letting those two guys alter my life even more than they already had, and that thought really bothered me. I liked being a pizza guy, so why should I stop just because a couple douchebags took my money?

So I transferred again, this time to the store in West Des Moines on E.P. True. I had worked with the manager before so I was comfortable there, but honestly, the logic was that I would be in nicer areas of town, with a much smaller likelihood of experiencing another robbery. Maybe this was a subtle form of discrimination. I wouldn't argue with you on that, and I certainly examined my thinking when I took a class on race later that year at Drake, but it was the only solution that my traumatized reasoning could come up with.

I worked for roughly five more months, with no near robberies or run-ins, but plenty of upper-class West Des Moines jerks who rubbed me the wrong way. The job was no longer fun. It just seemed like a chore, and I wanted out. So Wynnsong came calling again, but this time I would be a film projectionist, and not a theater cleaner. I slowly phased Domino's out, and brought Wynnsong in. I think they were sad to see me go at Domino's, but honestly, with the lightning-quick turnover rate of pizza delivery, they were probably sad for all of five minutes, and then moved on with their lives. Just like I did.

Karaoke

2010-08-16T12:16:00.002-05:00

I had my birthday party last Saturday night, and I turn 27 today. There's nothing too terrifying about being 27, other than the fact that it's three years away from 30, and that's kinda weird. But whatever, 27 is fine. I can deal with it. I'm writing because for my party, after stuffing our faces at Paul Revere's Pizza, we went to Trophy's Sports Bar & Grill for some karaoke action. We hadn't been there since Andrea's b-day party back in November, and I thought it would be a good destination once again for my festivities.

Karaoke has been a part of my identity, on and off, for roughly the last five years. I had done it in small bursts in the early parts of my life, definitely when my parents rented a karaoke machine for a block party they threw. But I didn't really know that I had any sort of affinity or ability for it until I was 20 and I sang "I'd Do Anything For Love" at my community college to a packed house of students who, I don't mind telling you, burst into a standing ovation when I was done. All it took was running around, over-emoting like crazy, and the crowd loved it. This was too easy. When I turned 21 I had big plans to start going out all the time and doing more of this, but for some reason I just didn't get it going until a year later, when I went to the Bennigan's on Merle Hay with a bunch of friends, sang "Livin' La Vida Loca" and "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad," and got the itch again to be an idiot in front of strangers.

I know a whole lot of people who simply cannot get up the courage do karaoke, citing their bad singing voice, how they don't know that many songs, or just the fact that they're too scared to get up and do it. Many say they have to have some drinks in them first before they'll consider singing. But this has just never been an issue for me. I see nothing humiliating in singing "Slow Hand" while doing the crabwalk, or singing "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" while looking as unmistakably homosexual as possible. Because it's fun, you know? Not that I'm ragging on anyone who can't just get up and do karaoke, but it comes so naturally and so obviously to me that I do have some difficulty in understanding why anyone else couldn't just do the same. I'm not that special or that brave, really. I just like to get up and make a fool of myself because I can, and again, because it is always fun.

The motivation for this blog, and break from blogging about my job history, came from our experience at Trophy's last night, which I may have to go on record as labeling the worst night of karaoke I have ever been a part of, as it was the exact opposite of fun.

My big complaint with the way that 95% of karaoke performers handle themselves is the overwhelming seriousness in which they go about their song choices and attitude. In my opinion, the very idea of karaoke is so ridiculous that to treat it with even an ounce of stoicism or genuine earnestness is missing the point entirely. Of course, if you are a truly talented singer, this rule may not apply and you may be free to just belt out your favorite tune. But the unshakable reality is that the great majority of human beings, including myself, are not talented singers, and therefore have no right to stand in front of people and force them to watch a stern, cringe-worthy rendition of "Hotel California." It just flies in the face of what a bunch of people are gathered in a bar to do: have fun. And people seem to have no idea what fun entails. Though Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" is indeed a fantastic and stirring song, you are a total moron if you think anyone wants to sit through a quiet, depressing grief-fest for three and a half minutes while at a bar with their friends. No one is impressed that you can kinda sing like Johnny Cash, and you'll never sound as good as Johnny Cash anyway, so what the hell are you even doing?

And of course, not having done karaoke for a few months and hoping that it would be just as fun as last time, Trophy's let me down at my birthday party in a big way. The problem was that literally everyone in the bar was singing a song, and if you haven't done much karaoke, it is pretty awful having to sit through a bunch of strangers and their dumb songs. But last night was the worst that I can remember.

The most disgusting offender was a guy who called himself "Floatie," a white trash, faux-gangster pushing 30 who treated us to all seven minutes of "Rapper's Delight" while walking around the bar, not looking at the lyrics because he's just that good, y'all. Except he's not that good because he's probably done that song a million times and subjected hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent people to a song that is enjoyable for about a minute until you realize that there are six more minutes of the exact same thing waiting to bore you. Floatie then went on to perform the updated hip-hop version of that "Just call me angel of the morning" song, as a duet with a gross oversexed girl that he ended up making out with in front of everyone and then breaking up with later in the night. Floatie is a piece of shit.

I maybe shouldn't go so far to call everyone else who sang a piece of shit, but most of them were at least really stupid. One thing that absolutely needs to stop at karaoke bars is country, in pretty much all the forms it has occupied over the last 15 or so years. The songs are generally dumb as hell and are almost never a good time to listen to. Even the party bullshit like Gretchen Wilson's "Work Hard, Play Harder," which of course was performed by a disgusting woman wearing a cowboy hat (by the way, ladies, if you ever want to lose any classiness or respectability just put on one of those), is just by-the-numbers junk that shouldn't get anyone pumped up ever. It sucks, but not as bad as the terrible modern country ballads that put everyone to sleep and are not meant to be performed in front of humans.

Speaking of ballads that should never be performed, my party was host to far and away the most awkward moment I've ever had to sit through as a karaoke audience member. A well-meaning guy who kinda looked like a white Saeed in a Slipknot shirt got up to sing, and before his song even started, his hands were shaking. He looked as if he was about to cry, but he valiantly stood strong and waited for his song to start. Unfortunately for all of us, his song was "Bother" by Stone Sour, a song with only vocals and guitar that is all about wanting to die. Parrrrtyyyy! We then had to sit through four minutes of torturous embarrassment for this guy whose hands shook harder than anyone I've ever seen while quite badly singing a song that made Benjy wonder if the guy was going to pull out a gun and start shooting us. This thought wouldn't have been so scary had it not seemed so possible. Mercifully, "Bother" ended and we all escaped with our lives.

There are quite a few songs that get picked all the time by karaoke performers, and there are many reasons to explain why these songs happen but that's just too much for me to go into right now. Just know that these songs were performed at my party and I was not pleased at all:

"Killing Me Softly" by the Fugees (it's always a stupid white girl who has a horrible voice, and no one thinks about how dry and slow and interminable this song actually is)

"Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot (inexplicably performed by both men and women, who are guaranteed to get off-rhythm at some point and piss me off)

"Picture" by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow (I despise this song with every fiber of my being, and it should be erased from the public consciousness with those memory-erasing devices from Men in Black)

"My Own Prison" by Creed (okay, this might not exactly be a karaoke standard, but goddamn was I angry when some fat white trash bitch got up to slobber all over the mic with this one)

As upset as I did manage to get throughout the night, we ultimately won the battle with performances by Will Wilkinson and myself. Will sang "Waterloo" by ABBA and "How to Save a Life" by The Fray, doing it with the style that only he can lay claim to and killing the crowd in the process. He got a huge ovation after frowning and moaning through his Fray song and I was very proud of him. I sang "Super Freak," followed two hours later by Silk's "Freak Me," and though I didn't get to perform "Freak on a Leash" and complete the Freak Trilogy, I still felt that I vindicated every innocent person who has had to suffer through bad, boring karaoke. It involved a lot of screaming and gyrating and caressing the UFC poster of Brock Lesnar behind me, but it was all worth it to save my birthday from the pits of Karaoke Hell and lift it back up to the heavens. Though I toiled and bummed and momentarily thought my birthday party was officially ruined, I was happy to learn that all it takes is some cheering from your friends, and everything will end up okay.

Wynnsong

2010-08-15T13:42:00.002-05:00

I was a man out there in the world, living on my own with no job. Maybe quitting Hot Topic had been a rash decision, and it seemed like such a good idea to stand by my principles and not let someone mistreat me, but all those morals and principles you love so much start to seem pretty stupid when you walk out of the store, drive home to your apartment and realize that you don't exactly have a solid means of paying for this place you live in. No one is there to congratulate you for not backing down and firmly asserting your beliefs. There is just the silence of an apartment and the pressing need to get a damn job.

Breann's sister was a manager at the Wynnsong Theaters, and she said I could get a job there if I really wanted to. Apparently, I felt no desire to go on a job hunt or apply anywhere or put any effort into getting employment that paid enough to give me a decent living, and why I lacked this effort or thought I just cannot say. I suppose Wynnsong was meant to be a short-term plan, but I don't think I was dead broke at the time or in desperate need of money. I had a decent amount, so why did I just immediately settle for a job where I wouldn't even be able to get 40 hours a week or a livable wage?

The only possible answer is that I knew the job would be fairly easy. I was to be a doorman, meaning I would stand at the little podium inside the theater, rip the customers' tickets and tell them what direction to go in order to find their movie. And when I wasn't doing that, I'd be cleaning the theaters after the customers had shuffled out, groggy and filled with butter. Not the most pleasant line of work, but it wouldn't demand much exertion and I'd have Breann's sister as my manager, so it could never get that terrible.

And at first, it wasn't, because for a little while I was allowed to read while I stood at the podium and waited for people to come up. I read great books during this time, most notably one of my all time favorites, Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life. If I could read and get paid at the same time, what was there to argue with? But eventually, like all good things, this period came to an end as the district manager decided it didn't look good for employees to be reading on the job. Sure, maybe he had a point, but without the constant distraction of a book, most of my six-hour shift was now going to be spent standing quietly, by myself, counting the seconds until I didn't have to be there anymore.

The other big aspect of the job, cleaning theaters, probably doesn't need a lot of description because if you've been to one crowded theater in your life you know that it looks a lot like a warzone by the end. This is especially the case if it's a kids movie, where the only possible explanation for the mess could have been that a helicopter dropped a popcorn bomb on the audience. So yes, that was pretty much never fun and always gross, especially when I picked up a Dixie cup that some wonderful human being had left his chewed tobacco in. I have never hated people more than in that very moment.

I can't stress enough that the management and employees were great to me at this job, but it was quite clear that this line of work was not for me, and as my bank account shrank to almost nothing, a change was needed. Friends of mine had told me to get into the pizza delivery business, as it involved a lot of quick money. I applied several places, got some responses, and felt like that was reason enough to give Wynnsong my notice. I rode off into the sunset, without the slightest of knowledge that it wouldn't be my last ride there.

Hot Topic

2010-07-18T12:20:00.001-05:00

In the summer of 2004 I had just told community college to take a hike, believing that education was not going to do much for my immediate future. I hated writing papers and could not rationalize spending all this time on a goal that seemed too far away to matter much, so I dropped out after two years and resolved to find a full-time job. Some members of my family were horrified, others were just a little confused. But I felt that it was my time to make decisions for myself and put as much responsibility on my shoulders as possible, so I plugged my nose and dove into the deep end of the job search.

Hot Topic had seemed a somewhat attractive destination for employment, if only because it would almost certainly involve music. Yes, I was aware of the goth subculture whose association clung to the store like super glue, and I also knew that ravers were pretty into the store a few years back. Maybe I would face some jokes from my friends for working at this place, but when my friend Jon told me I should apply and then got me an interview that I nailed, there was little room for me to deny the job. I needed it, and somehow they needed me.

My official title was Store Keyholder, which meant I was not quite a manager, but not quite a regular employee either. I was occasionally allowed to open the store, but never to close the store. The employees could treat me like a manger (asking me if they could go to break, things like that), but I was still subordinate even to the assistant managers. The arrangement confused everyone, including me, but it was a new position that Hot Topic was trying out so we all just had to go with it. We also were in new territory because we were actually opening a store, at the brand new Jordan Creek mall out in West Des Moines. This mall is an absolute monolith compared to other Des Moines malls, seemingly built just to put up a divide between the upper and lower classes, built too far out from the center of town for poorer people to regularly drive to, forcing them to mostly stay at the less fancy Merle Hay and Southridge malls. But I digress.

Like I said, we were all new to this, except for our manager and Breann, with whom I would later experience both marriage and divorce, but that subject is probably best not discussed in blog form, so you get no dirt or gossip fodder. Because there were so few veterans of Hot Topic there was a great deal of learning going on, which in a way was sort of fun. As customers came into the store, we got an increasingly better idea of how to gauge them and size them up, becoming very good at essentially stereotyping people. The goth kid in the huge baggy pants is probably going to buy something Invader Zim related, so put those items right next to each other. The kid who just decided Napoleon Dynamite is funny even though he saw it and didn't get it but his friends like it so he likes it too is going to need to be lured into this weird store by seeing a "Vote for Pedro" shirt placed prominently at the front entrance. I had of course worked in retail before, but this was a different type of retail, focused on the way customers think and operate, based on what they like. Through training, we were encouraged to engage customers in conversations that could help us to know what people were into. A sample question that a training book said we could ask a customer was, presuming that they were wearing a shirt of a band was, "Hey, I've heard of that band, they're pretty cool. What do you like about them?"

Naturally, I did not ask a single human being this ridiculous question. I did like conversing with younger people about music that I didn't like, just to hear how silly people can be. A co-worker asked a girl what My Chemical Romance sounded like, and she said, "Oh, I dunno...they're kinda vampy." I will never, ever understand what the hell "vampy" is supposed to sound like. But there were a lot of things at Hot Topic that I couldn't possibly understand, like parents coming in just before the school year was about to start, and buying three pairs of big Tripp pants for their kid, when those pants cost about $60 a pop. I know that if I was a parent, I would be all about letting my child express themselves, but if they started wanting to wear those fucking pants, the foot would go down and they would be flatly rejected. There is a difference between letting your kid express their inner desires and letting your kid become a goddamn moron.

Hot Topic is still an interesting store because there is a such a large mix of subcultures and mainstream just thrown in together, forced to co-exist and somehow pull in a coherent mish-mash of people. Twilight, Nintendo, hardcore and metal shirts, Bob Marley lion blankets, Invader Zim and shirts that say "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me" are all put here to represent some kind of youth culture that is supposed to be markedly different and more dangerous than the predominant "cool" mainstream, but that's a pretty difficult message to accept when the place is right next to a Cinnabon and a store that sells sports hats. Alternative culture shouldn't have district managers or corporate policy or anything else that regulates individual expression. Because at that point it loses the charm and the spontaneity that has always been the best breeding ground for anything interesting.

And eventually it was this very corporate structure that caused myself and five other employees to quit at the same time, when a power-hungry delusional assistant manager was starting to run roughshod over everyone, and the upper managers who were supposedly around to help us ended up doing nothing at all. It was a mall job, we weren't getting paid well, but since the only thing that had kept us coming to the job, the fun, was gone, there was no reason to stay. A few people did, and they quit soon after. The assistant manager is still one of my most hated humans I've ever come in contact with, so if anything, Hot Topic taught me how to hold a grudge and refine it and polish it so you can hate with both venom and intelligence.

Menards

2010-06-21T11:47:00.000-05:00

While visiting my family in Dubuque this past weekend, my mom told me that she had read my recent blogs and felt that she had to defend herself against my portrayal of her as forever pushing me to have a job in high school. She couldn't think of any actions she took that separated her from other parents, and though she knew I was only poking fun, she still felt that maybe I was being a bit unfair. I had to agree that in the first couple years of high school she wasn't that bad, never yelling at me or imposing any restrictions on me for being unemployed.

But I also reminded her that after I quit Walgreens and didn't have a job for a couple months, she became quite frustrated with me, threatening that if I didn't get a job soon, there would be consequences. I was a senior in high school, so I couldn't help but not take these threats very seriously, until I told her I was going to go see Low play in Grinnell, and she countered by declaring that I couldn't because I had no job. I had been dying to see Low, I would have been going with my good friends Bill and Madison, but my dreams were crushed by my mom in one fell swoop. I pretty much still haven't forgiven her for this, and predictably, when I brought this up to my mom she hardly remembered it. Proof that Will Smith was right, because parents just don't understand.

But this punishment did take its toll on me, fearing the depths of cruelty my mom could sink to if I didn't get employed soon, so I went at it even harder and found a job at Menards. It's pretty much the third tier hardware chain in the Midwest, behind Home Depot and Lowe's, and if you know me you know that I'm not a hardware guy in the least. My main draw to Menards was the one and only Menards Guy:

He was in all the Menards commercials when I was a kid, and he brought the low-budget ad thunder. His demeanor resembled a less senile but equally boisterous Harry Caray, and we all loved to do impressions of him, with our jaw jutted out to the right and our eyes big as we screamed, "Save BIG MONEY at MENARDS!" The place seemed harmless enough, so I figured working there would be no problem. I applied assuming that I would be a cashier, so I could just sit back there with a blue smock ringing up these items I held absolutely no knowledge of.

You can imagine my surprise when I showed up the first day and the store manager said, "Okay, so you'll be working in the Electrical department." I almost laughed, then said, "You mean with the lightbulbs and ceiling fans and power breakers? I, um...don't really know anything about that stuff." The guy barely even looked at me and said, "Yeah, that's fine. You'll learn. Get on over there and introduce yourself to Jeff."

This is apparently how they do it with everyone who starts working there, unless of course they have previous experience with plumbing or paint or whatever. If they don't, they just get thrown onto the floor and must learn as they go, being stopped by customers asking them questions they couldn't possibly know the answer to, and then having to go find someone they work with who does know the answer. It took me a good month or so before I felt comfortable enough that every customer walking our aisles didn't scare the crap out of me, as I had acquired at least a bit of knowledge in the ways of electrical goods. I could explain the differences between halogen and incandescent lightbulbs, and I shocked myself at how well I knew our many ceiling fans (Hunter is the best brand, hands down). I was a real life, walking-on-a-tightrope electrical customer service representative.

Most of this knowledge came from Ann, my co-worker in her late 30's who made every day a blast. A short woman with a wild mane of blond hair and a piercing smoker's voice, Ann was somehow supporting herself and her two kids on the income of a Menards employee, which was not much at all. This resulted in her being constantly angry at almost everything in her life, but she still kept a great attitude with me and the dumbasses around her. A large amount of Menards customers during the day are contractors, rednecky and/or macho guys who rarely believe that women could know anything about this electrical stuff they needed. So there were times that one of them would ask Ann a question about something, she would give them her correct answer, but they wouldn't really trust her so they would wait a minute and then find me and ask me a question, and if I didn't know the answer I would bring the contractor to find Ann, who would perk up and delightfully ask, "Hey, didn't I just talk to you?"

Ann also did not get much respect from our manager, the quiet and stoic Jeff. I can honestly tell you I've never met a more silent man than Jeff, who could probably go through a five hour shift with you and speak a maximum of ten words. It didn't make him a bad guy or an asshole, but there is always something a little insulting about a guy who doesn't seem concerned with engaging you in any type of conversation. So when you paired him up with Ann, who loved nothing but constant talking, they butted heads right away. Everyone in our department knew they hated each other, but we never tried to bring them together because it just made work too fun. Our world would remain comfortable and secure if we all knew that Jeff and Ann still thought the other was full of shit.

I also had the privilege of working with Matt, the constantly put-upon nice guy who despised his assistant manger job with every fiber of his being. Todd, the mulleted short guy who could never catch a break. Martin, the younger guy who engaged me in good Democrat vs. Republican debates. Terry, possibly the most pleasant woman I have ever worked with. Eleanor, a woman pushing 70 whose hatred of our customers made working there almost joyous at times. And then Jerry, a deer in headlights guy who had worked at Menards for almost 20 years without impressing anyone, practically begging to be fired but never giving an easy enough reason for the management to do so. It was a great symbol for the eternal futility of retail: It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be good enough.

I don't really have a lot of wild stories from my Menards days, simply because every day was the same. I punched in, stocked the shelves, talked to customers, went to lunch, came back and bullshitted with a co-worker about how bad this job sucked, straightened the shelves at the end of the night, and then went home. No customers were particularly funny or ridiculous. Everything existed in a weird form of static.

When I stopped going to community college because I hated school and wanted to get a full-time job, it became clear that I wouldn't be able to get that many hours in my department. Rather than transfer to another department, I decided it would be best for me to cut ties entirely with Menards and see if I could find a future that didn't include solar garden lighting. A couple years later, my brother Nathan would find himself with my exact same job, working with the exact same people, and he felt the exact same way I did about it. The static hadn't gone away.

Walgreens

2010-06-14T18:23:00.001-05:00

With Happy Joe's out of my way, I was heading into Christmas 1999 without a job and was facing increased pressure from my mom to be employed again. She seemed to think that my life would fall apart if I didn't have a job all the way through high school, and even though I knew this was wholly untrue and that I just wanted to be a kid again, I could tell there was no going back. I had reached the point of no return into semi-adulthood, and it was time to embrace it.

I did get a seasonal job at Suncoast Video in the mall, but since that job only lasted for a month, ending rather unceremoniously and impersonally after Christmas, there is not much to report. I stocked movies, walked around the store, watched Yellow Submarine 100 times, and then I was gone.

So you can imagine the prodding I got from my mom, who I think expected me to keep my job at Suncoast, to pound the pavement once again and look for work. I have no recollection of where I applied other than the place that ended up hiring me, Walgreens. My thought process in job applications usually was, "Hey, here I am, shopping in this place...I wonder if they would hire me!" I guess my mind didn't work too far beyond that, but it came in handy this time.

You all know the drill when it comes to Walgreens. It's sort of a general store for the general person, provided that person has an urgent need for candy and medicine. I suppose they sell more stuff than that, but those are the only important features. You will also notice that every one of their stores is built, designed and laid out exactly the same. I mean, there is no deviation whatsoever. They must do this so people always know where to find things, but the effect is more disorienting than anything because it makes you forget where you are in relation to the rest of the outside world. It's like you're stepping into the Bermuda Triangle with blinding fluorescent lights.

I started out simply stocking the shelves, wearing the teal-green smock that they later mercifully changed to a navy blue, and this was a pain-free task. But very shortly after starting they began training me to be a cashier, and that's when the job got fun. This was my first chance to consistently come face to face with customers, in all their imperfect glory. And it didn't disappoint. I obviously got a good view of how soul-crushingly routinized and deadening the life of a smoker can be (a fact that was all the more frustrating when I was cited by the police in an undercover sting operation selling cigarettes to a 17-year old. She looked 18, I swear!). Neighborhood kids came in to buy alarming amounts of sweets, and would then come in just hours later for more. Elderly people flooded the store daily, though it could be better described as a trickle, given how slowly and methodically they trolled the aisles, in search of the best possible deal on Milk of Magnesia.

It was that very search for the best deal that confounded my 16-year old brain the most, as a lot of customers got ignorant and irrational when they felt they weren't saving as much money as they could. The first Easter I worked, we sold tons of candy to excited moms and chubby guys, with tempting deals that got people buying far more candy than they could fit in plastic eggs, though they probably knew exactly where they would be able to fit it (hint: their big stomachs). One of the most vivid early recollections I have of the inherent logic-resistant nature of human beings came when a woman brought a few candy Easter eggs up to my counter. As I rang them up, her face clouded over and she hissed, "Those eggs shouldn't be 69 cents. They should be 49 cents." I was still new at this, so I feebly tried to tell her that if they were ringing up as 69 cents, then that's what they costed. But this was clearly the wrong strategy, and soon I had a shouting behemoth on my hands, with my short and stocky manager Mr. Smith rushing in to save me by fixing the price so the eggs rang up as 49 cents. Mr. Smith was a nice guy with a short fuse, and when the woman was still fuming over this gross injustice, he held up his hands to her and said, "Look, he's new and he didn't know. We're sorry. We've fixed it. That's all we can do." Even this rational explanation barely satisfied her as she walked out, richer by a dollar, and myself, robbed of a faith in humanity.

One of my co-workers also tasked with braving this insanity was Marcy, who was a grade above me at Johnston and knew most of my friends. I had very little experience with dating at this point, and thus had a big lack of self-confidence in my looks and smooth lady abilities, so my crush on her went unspoken for quite a while. We eventually figured out through a lot of confusion that we both liked each other, so we dated for three months and it was good, but neither of us was really ready for it, and things fell apart. I then learned why it is almost never a good idea to date someone you work with, because when things do fall to pieces and neither of you want to be around each other because it's too painful and you don't want to talk because there's nothing you can say...oops, you have to because you work together! Luckily, this awkward period didn't last long, and we became friends again. When she started dating another of our co-workers, I didn't mind at all. I wished her well, and wish her well now, as I'm pretty sure she has a kid and we all know that's tough stuff.

The best times at Walgreens came when Chris "Bill" Bailey got hired. Bill was, and still is, a man that could make me laugh at any time of the day, no matter what my mood may have been, just by being himself. My managers somehow agreed to work around his schedule since he was touring with Dispensing of False Halos, so we were thrilled to have a job where we could goof off together. I'll always have the fondest memories of Bill running over to press the play button on the singing and dancing James Brown dolls, and then shimmying to a staticky rendition of "I Feel Good" to the dismay of our co-workers and passing customers.

But just like it came to be with Happy Joe's, I ended up quitting because I couldn't take it anymore. Chalk it up to the sterile, white atmosphere, with the generic Walgreens radio playing songs that began to burn themselves into my brain like a cattle brander. I could still probably sing you every word of "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer, and that really pisses me off. There are still songs that bring me back to that crushing boredom when I hear them, reminding me of why I quit and how awful it must be for the people who are still working there, who have heard these songs hundreds more times than me and must hate their lives worse than I can ever imagine. And anyways, what reason was there to continue at this job? The pay was always going to be lousy, even if I worked my way up to becoming a manager (where the only real perk is that people have to call you Mr. or Ms., the only job where I've had to do that). So with nothing keeping me there, I announced my resignation to my boss Ms. Farrar, who Bill and I were alternately disgusted and intrigued to find out later became a stripper at Big Earl's. She understood why I could no longer be there, and with the store's blessing, I took the blue smock and zipper-bound tie off for the last time, in an attempt to peacefully tackle my senior year of high school without the stress of employment.

Happy Joe's

2010-06-08T11:32:00.001-05:00

Now that I am an unemployed college graduate, slowly dipping my toes into the job search I've been hearing such great things about, I have had time to reflect on the jobs I used to have. So I'll be doing a series of pieces on each one of them, in the hopes that this will provide some kind of clarity that will assist me in furthering my life.

Oh, who am I kidding...this is just for fun.

The summer before I turned 15 and entered high school, a little weary of this upcoming life change, my mom decided it was time for me to get a job. It's curious that she came to this conclusion when I think of all the people I know who didn't get jobs until they were able to drive, or even until they were out of high school. How can parents in one city, in one economic bracket, be so wildly inconsistent in the standards they force their kids to live by? Considering the fact that I had a strict curfew all the way until I moved out of the house while other kids had looser restrictions, maybe I am a bit biased on this issue.

But I shouldn't complain because starting out work so early gave me good ideas of what I did not want to do. And my first job was exactly that: working at Happy Joe's Pizza. For those unfamiliar, Happy Joe's is a regional restaurant chain that started in Iowa, created by a visionary named Joe Whitty who came up with an earth-shattering idea: A place that serves pizza and ice cream. Their website tries to paint the guy as being labeled crazy, a man far ahead of his time, and I suppose that is true. He predicted that Americans would get fatter and fatter, with ever-plunging standards as to what they put into their stomachs and in what combinations, and all of that happened. However, I'm not sure that this callous prediction should be commended. Add to that the emphasis on family fun, i.e. kids demanding that their parents take them there because of the loud arcade games that spit out tickets used for fun stuff all while being fueled by a stomach-splitting intake of shitty greasy food, and you've got the happiest place in the world!

But my mom believed that I would do well at Happy Joe's, so she thrust a job application in my face and I filled it out. She drove me there, I interviewed with my future boss Penny, and I was hired. I don't think I filled out any applications to anywhere else. Why Happy Joe's was my only option, I'll never know, although I suppose pizza has always been my destiny in one form or another. Since I have abused my body with pizza for so much of my life, it's not unbelievable that my professional working life began in this field.

My job at first was essentially as a busboy, going out to the tables with a Rubbermaid tub after the annoying families had left, picking up their mess of scraps they had left behind and taking it all back to my cave of shame, alone in a back room with the big Hobart dishwasher. This was a horrible way to begin a job, being pushed into the back without working directly next to a person and having to slave away with hot steam pulsating from Hobart and an endless supply of dishes going in and out of him. No matter how much I tried to anthropomorphize Hobart, hoping he would provide some companionship, he never quite became a person to me. Just a big dishwasher that made the dishes way too hot to the touch, giving me heat burns left and right. To say I hated this job was an understatement.

But I guess turning 15 gave me some kind of new status, because they started trusting me with new tasks, like taking kids' tickets and putting them in the counting machine and standing there while they debated in piercing tones over what janky-assed toys they were going to get. These days I am more tolerant of children, but at 15 I wanted nothing to do with them. So it was torture having to be in the middle of this chaos, with Big Bertha screaming for kids to throw more balls in her mouth, Skee Balls going wildly off target and onto the floor, and to make it even worse, parents getting in my face about machines not working properly. I may enjoy children more now, but I will always hate parents, since they are some of the most unreasonable, dickheaded people in existence. And they were like monsters let loose in Happy Joe's, ready for Big Bertha to crap out so they could assert their authority and make someone come out and try in vain to fix these stupid machines that they had spent maybe a dollar on. God, I hate parents.

Mercifully, my manager began hiring new people even younger than me, meaning those people had to take my old jobs, and I got to stay in the back with all the fun people who made the pizzas. But instead of cooking, they put me on the phones, taking orders and punching them into the computer. The first difficult aspect of this was the sheer amount of noise going on in the back, with my co-workers for some reason needing to yell at each other, the cutters slamming onto the pizzas and the large oven emitting a constant whoosh of power. And since the volume on the phones had no way of being turned up, I had to jam the thing into my ear until it was no longer receiving blood, just so I could hear the customer be indecisive over what they wanted. The second difficult aspect of this was the horribly 1998 touch screen technology I had to rely on, punching in every part of the order. Since it only properly worked maybe 55% of the time, the rest of my time was spent angrily pounding the touch pen onto the monitor until it gave in and got the order right. Do this for five hours, as short as that seems, and you will vow to someday attend college.

It wasn't all bad, since my co-workers were relatively okay. A couple Mexican guys, Jorge and Jose, were swell dudes. Jorge once took me aside and confidently told me, "You know Ricky Martin? Yeah, he gay. He gay." And you know what? It turned out a decade later that he was right. Also, there was my manager Penny who seemed to have the shittiest life ever and was only consoled by her smoke breaks she took roughly every 15 minutes, but she was still somehow very kind. There was my other manager Sandy, who had only ever worked as a manager at either Happy Joe's or Long John Silver's, giving me yet another reason to go to college. I did manage to get my good friend Ryan King hired there, and for the brief time we worked together we had a blast. We once made this girl who worked there so mad that she threw a stack of change at us and told us to suck her dick. Then she apologized to us a few minutes later, realizing how silly it was to say that, since she didn't even have a dick. I figured that was just implied, but it was good to know.

And then, after a year and two months at Happy Joe's, I put in my two weeks notice. I don't remember a specific incident that caused me to quit, but I'm pretty sure there was a night where I got into my car after working and just said to myself, "Yeah, it's probably about time I stop doing this." Sometimes it really is just as simple as that. Penny was not angry, but she was certainly unhappy with my decision and she let me know I'd have a job if I ever decided to come back. I have gotten this response at many jobs since, and I'm starting to suspect it's just something they have to say. There is no way I'm that good, trust me.

The Bay

2010-05-30T17:40:00.000-05:00

It has been over four months since I posted, the last one being about how the Cowboys got knocked out of the playoffs. I did not stop writing because of depression resulting from this. It was more that I had a 16-credit workload in my last semester of college, so I just never got around to it. Now that the semester is finished (I got four A's and one B, which I did not expect at all), and I am a full-on college graduate with no job aside from working for Sam, blogging will be back in swing.

The first order of business after I graduated was for my brother Nathan and I to meet my uncle Paul and my grandparents Dick and Joan out in California, so we could scatter my Aunt Marlou's ashes in the Pacific. She died in April last year, so this was something that had been put off for quite a while, mostly because we all knew how incredibly difficult it would be.

Nathan and I lost an aunt, the only sibling to our father who died in 1987, his ashes scattered in the very same ocean.

Paul lost a loving wife, a loss he has tried to alleviate by traveling all over the world in the last year, but always returning to the same house, dreading another night in the same bed that Marlou spent her last days in, the life slowly draining out of her cancer-ridden body.

And Dick and Joan lost their last living child. There was a moment on Six Feet Under when Brenda said, "We call someone who loses their spouse a widow. Someone who loses their parents is an orphan. But there's no word for someone who loses their children. Maybe it's because that's just too fucking awful to give a name to." While I haven't shared this line with Dick and Joan, I know I don't need to, because they must feel it every day of their lives.

We would be making a two-hour drive from Menlo Park to Monterey Bay in a 10-passenger van that Paul rented, in the hopes that it would be able to comfortably carry all of us and Paul's wheelchair. The back of the van could barely fit the chair, it was a little high up for two 80-year olds and a quadriplegic to get into, and I was a little reluctant about driving such a beast, but like all things it ended up working out okay.

As we got to the docks in the early morning, I could tell this was going to be a difficult venture. My grandmother was already having a hard time keeping herself together, and all I could do was hold her and tell her, "It's okay. This is our day for doing that." Emotional moments like these between myself and my grandparents have been rare, as they are the type of people who prefer stoicism over blubbering, but it did not feel unnatural for us to be leaning on each other like this.

We got onto the boat and made our way through the docks, with sea lions and otters and seals popping up out of the water and saying hello to us. Pelicans swooped in and out. Once we got to the spot my grandparents decided would be sufficient for the ashes, Paul remarked, "I had no idea there would be so much life out here. Marlou would have loved this." He then read a passage from Shakespeare's The Tempest that I was unfamiliar with, but coming from Paul it sounded perfect. Joan struggled but was able to speak of how beautiful and courageous Marlou had been, taking on this cancer with no fear whatsoever, and accepting the fatal results without cursing fate.

I managed to get a few words out, as I talked about the fact that when we scattered my father's ashes, I was 3 and Nathan wasn't even 1. I felt that going out to the cool waters of the Pacific that day was a way for us to say goodbye to both Marlou and Lee, together, to finally bring them together after all these years. I don't believe in an afterlife, I don't believe that my father or his sister are looking down on me. What I do believe is that if they were able to see us, they would be happy. The most we as the living can do for the dead is to carry on their memory and do good in their name.

And then, the ashes were scattered, the flowers were thrown, and there was nothing else to do but turn around and go back to the docks, and back to what remains of our lives. We are alive, and we owe it to the dead to keep on living.

So. What to do with the rest of my life? I suppose I have a little bit of time to get started, but I don't want to sit around and do nothing, or get a ridiculous job that doesn't make me happy in the least, or not live up to my goal of becoming a writer. Both Nathan and I had the same realization out there in the ocean that it was time to stop delaying and to start doing, no matter what it is we choose to do. We just need to do it and make the most of it.

Whatever happens to me, I know that I'm going to have Andrea by my side, along with an amazing group of family and friends. My graduation weekend was fantastic beyond description. It feels so good to know that there are people who care about you and hope to see you succeed, simply because they like you. It's enough to keep you going even through the toughest times, because even if you fall, you'll have people behind who will catch you, over and over again.

So. There's the big serious blog. Expect more superficial stuff in the future, with this serious stuff mixed in. This blog will be just one part of my mission to keep developing my style, so feel free to leave any feedback you want. Even if it's negative. I truly enjoy being criticized.

End of the Road

2010-01-22T20:34:00.000-06:00

All the excitement and anticipation of being devoted to an NFL team for an entire season can, for a few fleeting moments, seem like an utter waste of time when they get eliminated in the playoffs. You end up looking a little like that picture of Wade Phillips, head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, dumbstruck by the fragility of success.

There are 32 teams in the NFL, and only one of them can win the Super Bowl. That means that you only have a 3% chance of your favorite team winning it all, and to look at it more realistically, there is a 97% chance that they won't win it all. Shouldn't you just expect failure, and be encouraged by any fun stuff that happens on top of that?

This is of course the refuge of a man whose team has lost, and in the case of the Cowboys, the team got their asses kicked hard. The Vikings pretty much blew them out. I would have been able to hold my head high after a loss coming from a closely contested game, but this one was just a disaster. Tony Romo was harassed like Jessica Alba would be at a Jersey Shore bar, and he couldn't get anything going on offense. They looked frantic, hurried and totally out of sorts. Their defense held up for a little while, but ultimately they could do nothing. With the score 27-3 and the game in the bag, a totally unnecessary "rubbing it in" touchdown pass was thrown by Brett Favre, prompting Cowboys defensive player Keith Brooking to give the Viqueens sideline, professional douchebag Jared Allen included, a piece of his mind:

It's the type of reaction that has prompted loads of people to make fun of Brooking, calling him a whiner and saying they should have just stopped them from scoring if he cared so much. I could argue this with some football talk, but I don't need to. What I do need to say is regardless of whether or not Brooking was right in doing that, I empathized with him greatly. When you're getting beaten down, humiliated, sometimes all you can do is step outside the conflict and look at the morals. Because that's all you have left. You've lost the war and you can only debate the rules. The Cowboys were demoralized, and Brooking cared so much about their team that he couldn't let a further slap in the face go unnoticed.

I've been there. I've felt that. And I'm still feeling it from this loss, though the pain lessens every day. The Vikings have never won a Super Bowl and seem convinced that this is their year. My only hope is that they lose this weekend, and that I will celebrate this loss with a quiet dignified joy as their purple-wearing fans have to sink back into their caves of disappointment, huddled with the rest of us 97%ers. Only then will everything be right and moral in my world.

Jay Reatard

2010-01-15T16:03:00.000-06:00

Dead at 29, Jay Reatard has left behind quite a large body of work. He released 17 full-lengths (solo and with his bands) and a staggering amount of singles and EPs the likes of have rarely been seen before. So it's certainly not a case of having too little from such a young person, instead the question is what to do with so much material.

Josh Otten gave me a burned CD of Jay Reatard songs in mid-2007, and I was instantly hooked. It was hard not to be hooked by a guy who wrote such infectious garage-rock bursts that always had at least one melody guaranteed to stick in your head. The recording quality was lo-fi, yet crystal clear and perfectly suited for the style. Upon finding out that he was going to be playing at Vaudeville Mews, I begged Ladd to let Tyborn Jig on the show, even though two openers were already confirmed, and we were on.

This was the only time I saw Jay Reatard live, and it was quite memorable, not just for the fact that a guy wanted to fight me and almost headbutted me. Jay's show was like a neurotic take on the Ramones' patented format of playing everything faster so you can get more songs in. Right as they played the last beat of a song, Jay was at the mic, yelling the name of the next song they were playing, and four clicks later they would launch into another pop gem, not so fast that you couldn't recognize it and at the perfect tempo for working a drunk crowd into a frenzy.

Jay seemed to have slowed down in the last year or so, becoming known more for his on-stage antics like punching audience members, ending sets midway through, throwing gear at his own band, and actually firing his band via a Twitter post. Some viewed him as a joke while others, like the mainstream rock press, lauded him as an important singer of his generation, which was enough to get him signed to Matador Records, the ultimate stamp of indie cool. His final full-length, Watch Me Fall, is a little weaker than past efforts, but maybe it's just my ears.

It was reported at first that he died in his sleep, but now there are apparently reports that police are looking for a suspect. Who knows. I figured it was from drugs, since he was known to do them, but maybe not. However he died, it can't be debated that it was much too early. Jay still had a lot of music to make, but luckily he did plenty of that while he was still around. The beauty of his work is that very little of it sounds rushed. He cared about these noisy pop songs enough to make each and every one of them worthy of people's time, and that's an admirable quality in anyone.

These Arms Are Snakes

2010-01-15T15:29:00.000-06:00

It's an age-old story, but it has to be told: Sometimes the best things in life go unnoticed. Such is the case with These Arms Are Snakes, a Seattle band that ground it out for seven years without getting much of anywhere. Yes, they had their records put out on reputable indie labels and got a minor amount of critical attention, but not enough that it mattered. They drew probably 100 people or less every night, and while those people made those shows fun, a band of four people just cannot justify the time and effort spent when the financial compensation isn't even close to worth it.

I have to accept their recent breakup as the inevitable, but it's a very painful acceptance. These Arms Are Snakes consistently got better as they went along. Their albums displayed a band willing to push their sound in a slightly different direction while still maintaining the intensity and creativity they were known for. Their sound could never be accurately categorized, with "post-hardcore" or "math-rock" being the closest possibilities, but even those don't quite do it justice.

And every year, their live show became a more frantic, frustration-fueled explosion. I first saw them in July of 2004, interested due to the involvement of vocalist Steve Snere, former frontman of Kill Sadie and Mason City, Iowa native, and bassist Brian Cook, who played in Botch, probably the most influential tech-hardcore band ever. Having heard no recorded material, I was bowled over by the searing noise they created, instantly becoming a fan. But I had no idea what would await me almost five years later.

I drove by myself to Iowa City so I could see them. It didn't matter that none of my friends wanted to go. This was the closest that TAAS had come in the last few years, and I was determined to catch them live. Maybe I subconsciously knew that they'd break up soon. Either way, I got to a late show that started too late, on a night when I had school the next morning and knew I'd be exhausted, so it was essential for them to be amazing, otherwise I would have felt silly making this trip. By the end of the show, it wasn't me who was silly, but rather, it was the rest of the world. Maybe 40 people were in the crowd, but TAAS played like their life depended on it. Steve Snere gave a performance that honestly gives me chills when I think about it even now. It was like he became inhuman. He threw his body into contortions, he slammed his hands on his keyboard, he jumped into the crowd, he tossed the mic, he spit in the air and deliberately let it fall back on his face and didn't clean it off for a half hour. Snere was a man channeling something animalistic, something raw. For 40 people. The rest of the band didn't spit on themselves, but they held up their end of the deal by playing absolutely spot-on perfect renditions of every single song with harsh energy and understandable road-wariness. Though they didn't look like they weren't having fun, they had the appearance of a band forcibly accustomed to playing for no one, and there was no telling how long they'd be able to keep it up.

I suppose the only bright spot here is getting to see what kind of musical projects come out of the ashes. Brian Cook has already been playing with instrumental post-rockers Russian Circles, who are pretty great, but have much more of a serious edge. Steve Snere is either insane or just really good at looking the part, so we'll see what he does from here. Ryan Fredericksen plays in a good band called Narrows, and Chris Common is an in-demand record producer for indie bands. They all have lives, so I hope they'll be okay.

Enjoy this video of "Your Pearly Whites" from the album Oxeneers or The Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home. It's a bit more mellow than their usual fare for the first couple minutes, but really picks up in the second half, so it's a good summary of what they were capable of.

Me and the Dallas Cowboys

2010-01-13T00:38:00.001-06:00

My stepdad Joe came into our lives when I was 10, and he seemed like the perfect fit for my mom from the start. Easy-going, smart, not about to cheat on her like her last boyfriend. He proposed to my mom at a 5K run he was in, changing into a makeshift tux midway into the race and greeting us at the finish line with flowers and an engagement ring. They've been married for 14 years, and though he can be a snarky jerk at times, he's proved himself to be a gentleman.

Anyway, when I was young, I was only naturally ready to get into whatever stuff Joe thought was cool, and Cool Thing #1 was rooting for the Dallas Cowboys. This is how I explain it to anyone I know who seems astounded that I, a punk rock musician, a music snob, and a bookish English major could so obsessively cheer for a football team. My stepdad liked them, so I do too. Makes sense, doesn't it? When you live in Des Moines, hours from any professional sports team, you have to improvise. You pick a team. Sam picked the Giants, Clint picked the Packers, Dave picked the Bears, Mason picked the Patriots, Ravens, Bengals and Browns (but only because he's ridiculous). You make your pick, and you go with it for the rest of your life.

I'm a little different, because from roughly 1998 to 2006, I did not follow the Cowboys at all. I had no idea if they were winning or losing or publicly executing their unsuccessful head coaches or what. You could chalk that up to my getting into punk rock and thinking sports were lame, but I don't remember definitively coming to that conclusion at any point, and I know I kept watching college basketball. Maybe I just had friends that didn't watch it, had girlfriends that didn't care for it, and life simply went on. But when I got divorced at the end of '06 and moved in with Sam and Clint, the NFL seamlessly made its way back into my world, thanks to their distinct guyish tendencies of watching sports because it's fun. That's what I had mostly forgotten about, and I had above all forgotten about how exhilarating it is to put your faith and feelings in the hands of your favorite team. So the Dallas Cowboys and I made quick amends, and got back in the game together.

But even that explanation sometimes isn't good enough, even for myself. Here are three reasons why me liking the Dallas Cowboys doesn't make a whole lot of sense:

1. They are commonly referred to as "America's Team." This troubles me, since I don't enjoy many things that could be representative of America, or an all-encompassing example of America, because, let's be honest, America is not that cool. So could a football team that somehow stands for America be cool?

2. The team is owned by Jerry Jones, who is hated by almost all professional sports fans, even those who aren't that familiar with football. They just know you're supposed to hate Jerry Jones. He's brash, makes himself much more visible than any other owner of an NFL team, and built a $1 billion stadium that more than one broadcaster has not so affectionately labeled a "monstrosity."

3. I don't like cowboys, and I definitely don't like guys who dress like cowboys.

A pretty solid, convincing list, isn't it? And yet, I'm able to get over these facts and go about my fandom, rooting for the Cowboys like my life depends on it. I'm almost ashamed to tell you how anxious I was over their recent playoff game against the Eagles, knowing that if they lost they would be subject to ruthless criticism from the media who seem to desperately hope for their failure every year. I was anxious as if Tony Romo, their quarterback, was my brother who I wanted to see finally get that monkey off his back, and even though Tony Romo is not my brother, and is more the type of guy who dates Jessica Simpson and Carrie Underwood, I knew that he appreciated the concern. Because I'm a fan, and it takes some emotional investment to be one.

You first have to get over the fact that you will never meet a single one of these athletes in your life. Never. And if you do, you certainly won't be friends with him. This leaves you with the reality that you are letting a large group of strangers dictate your happiness and sadness, depending on whether they win or lose. They're playing a game that does not matter a single bit in the future of your life or anyone else's. It's just an exhibition, and when they win you're ecstatic, but more embarrassingly, when they lose you're heartbroken. Yes, it's an artificial, constructed emotion, but when that feeling seems so real and genuine, what am I supposed to do? I'm trying to fight it, but I know that coming up this Sunday, if the Cowboys lose to the Vikings and get shut down on their prospective path to the Super Bowl, I will be crushed. At least for a few hours. And though I suppose I'll get back to my life eventually, that little part of me will continue to be bummed until the next season gets underway.

But wait, I'm talking too negatively here. I'm almost predicting a loss. The fact is, the Cowboys are playing pretty damn well right now, so well that some are even saying the Super Bowl is not a longshot. I almost dread such a scenario, knowing that I will be wholly obsessed in the lead-up to this game, unable to concentrate on anything other than envisioning a Cowboys victory. Let's hope, should this miracle take place, that I can still do my schoolwork, and still be a good man for Andrea. Tony Romo wouldn't want me to be any other way.

Hawaii

2010-01-12T18:55:00.000-06:00

I have an amazing family. This is indisputable. Thanks to my uncle Paul, Andrea and I were able to spend a week over Christmas in Hawaii, with my grandparents who have lived there for 28 years. How can I even explain how grateful I am for that? I guess I'll just try to sum up the details.

Andrea hadn't been on a plane since she was a young girl, so part of the thrill of this trip was being her experienced traveling guide, showing her the ins and outs of airports with my wealth of knowledge. Turns out Andrea is a trooper of a traveler and doesn't need anyone's help with hardly anything. I suppose I knew that, but it was nice to be reminded of how great she is.

My grandparents, Dick and Joan, are 83 and 84 years old, still driving with relatively sharp skills, still doing some work around the house, still able to get up and down stairs without major problems. It gives me hope that we don't all have to completely degenerate when we get older; that we can take hold of the aging process and control it ourselves. Of course, if you asked them about it, they would demure and tell you that they're nothing special, that they've lived like any other people their age.

But that's just my grandparents being humble. Few people their age have had to see both of their children die of cancer, far too young. It's a sadness that they rarely speak about, probably just out of politeness. Dick and Joan want life to be as pleasant as possible for everyone they know, even when it has been cruel to them, and this is a determination that I used to find mildly delusional, but now I understand. Or rather, I don't understand, and that's why any behavior they choose to take on is fully within their rights.

In line with their policy of pleasant, my grandparents put great effort into driving Andrea and I around the island of Oahu, first attempting a visit at Pearl Harbor but finding that most of it was either closed or sold out for the day. That's okay, I'll just read about it. The Bernice P. Bishop Museum provided loads of Hawaiian history that I hadn't even the slightest clue of, including yet another chapter in America's unwanted conquering of a foreign people. And my grandfather drove us to several gardens and beaches, like Chinaman's Hat, and took us to a shore where we could spot, a mile or two away, the general area where the Obamas were staying that very minute. Sure would have been nice to drop in and chill with the Prez, but it wasn't happening.

We spent Christmas Day together, part of the reason for making this visit, as the first Christmas spent alone, without either of their children, may have been too much for them. Andrea and I couldn't have been happier to be there, from the brief tropical rain that fell in the morning, to our walk on the street where we found a homeless guy sleeping on Taco Bell's steps, all the way through to the fantastic dinner with my grandparents and their friends Dave and Bernie.

And then Andrea and I were able to have a couple days to ourself, at the Waikiki Marriott, positioned directly next to the beach. I mean, we could just step on to our 19th floor balcony, look outside, and the ocean was right there. Too amazing. We lounged on the beach, ate great food, did some karaoke with the greatest karaoke DJ I've ever seen, lounged some more, walked a total of four miles to eat at a place called Phuket Thai (figure it out), attempted bodyboarding (I failed, Andrea succeeded), and lounged some more until we really, truly never wanted to leave Hawaii. My grandparents picked us up upon checkout, we spent a few great hours with them, and then got on the plane for a miserable red-eye flight that brought little sleep but remained absolutely worth it.

Top 10 of the Year

2009-12-20T17:01:00.000-06:00

I know you've been waiting all year for this, so here it is! My Top 10 albums of the year, the 10 jams that rocked my little world the hardest.

10. Them Crooked Vultures - self-titled

If you don't know the deal by now, then I'll clue you in: It's Josh Home from Queens of the Stone Age on guitar, Dave Grohl from who knows what on drums, and John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin on bass. The standard line from every reviewer has been, "I shouldn't have to go on after that," but honestly, it's true. All you really need to know is that this album lives up to the expectations created. No disappointments here, only rock solid riffs and plenty of pleasure.

9. Heartsounds - Until We Surrender

Ben and Laura were in a metal band called Light This City, but apparently decided that playing metal wasn't for them anymore. So they took their love of A Wilhelm Scream and Strung Out and started a band exactly like that. It could be a case of "I know them and they're great people" that's causing me to love this album so much, but really, they did a bang-up job here. While breaking up Light This City may have been an odd decision, they're clearly having the time of their lives with heavy pop-punk, so I can't fault them.

8. Baroness - The Blue Record

You know when a band starts out mind-blowingly amazing, and then they progressively get less amazing, but they're still great, yet you ache for the days when they were mind-blowing? That's The Baroness Story. They'll never come close to their first two EPs, but as long as I objectively look at The Blue Record and compare it to other bands, I'll be happy. Almost no screaming, almost entirely Mastodon-ish singing, more melody over heaviness...but when they start pulling out those wild riffs, I get hooked again. Damn those shifty stoner jerks.

7. Screaming Females - Power Move

Fronted by an intimidating woman who barely tops the five foot mark, howls with no inhibition and shreds with an attitude you've never seen before, Screaming Females are somehow still a well-kept secret, even after a tour opening for Jack White's The Dead Weather. The vocals draw a lazy comparison to Corin Tucker of Sleater-Kinney, but the music is far more based in 90's grunge/alternative. Please don't be put off by that comparison, because this stuff should be heard by everyone.

6. Kitty, Daisy and Lewis - self-titled

Technically, this came out in 2008, but I'm including it here because (a) it wasn't released in the States til this year and (b) it's fucking awesome. Three British siblings, two girls of 19 and 16 and a boy of 21, somehow fell in love with 50's American jump blues, country, rockabilly, and anything else with that swing; learned how to play upright bass, guitar, piano and drums; and recorded an album that gives you such a thrill it goes by in no time. I think most of the songs are covers; "Got My Mojo Workin" is definitely a Muddy Waters tune that they nailed better than American groups twice their age could even come close to.

5. Banner Pilot - Collapser

This Minneapolis pop-punk band operates in essentially one gear, using a lot of the same chord sequences and melodies, with similar lyrical themes and snotty vocals throughout. But I love it. I especially love how fearlessly Midwest the lyrics are, with Nick Johnson dreading the impending winter and all of the emotional and physical misery it brings to himself and everyone around him. As an Iowan, these are immediately relatable feelings, and the best part is that Banner Pilot means every single word. Even if the music gets repetitive, it's so genuine you can't help but fall for it.

4. Converge - Axe to Fall

Quite a few people are saying this is just marginally better than Jane Doe, a feat that no one thought they could ever pull off. While I still think Jane Doe will always remain their classic, definitive statement as a band, this is the closest back to the top of the mountain they've come since. And the formula isn't even that complicated: Just turn up Ben Koller's kick drum, let Kurt Ballou play more daring solos, have Nate Newton's bass tone get even grosser, allow Jake Bannon to keep doing his thing, and bring in Neurosis and Genghis Tron guys to spice the affairs up. By the way, the moments in "Cruel Bloom" when Ballou plays those high notes, harmonized together, physically hurt me. No kidding.

3. Teenage Bottlerocket - They Came From the Shadows

They're back again, and oh, look! They haven't changed their sound one bit! Thank God! Taking the "If it's broke, don't fix it" approach to pop-punk, these guys still worship The Ramones and Screeching Weasel, still like singing about girls, and still can make the same three-chord song written a million times in history sound like the best goddamn thing your ears have ever soaked in. And actually, there are subtle little nuances to a couple songs, like the speed-punk of "Fatso Goes Nutzoid," but even that is pretty much a rip-off of The Ramones' "Endless Vacation." No big deal, though. These are absolutely irresistible tunes that should be huge hits on the radio, selling millions of copies. It's like they're living in the alternate reality that The Ramones wished they could have lived in, where they were successful.

2. Propagandhi - Supporting Caste

One of the most important bands in the world to me, because they make music that sounds important. And this time around, not only is it important, but it's depressing as all hell. Chris Hannah mourns the death of a close relative in "Without Love," certainly a first for Propagandhi, and in "Dear Coach's Corner" worries that his young niece may someday fall victim to blind Canadian patriotism, wretchedly asking, "How do I protect her from this cult of death?" There are a thousand more moments on this album of similar emotional and political devastation, and it's all backed up by some of their most flawless arrangements yet, in part thanks to the addition of a second guitarist, making their sound even more dense and creative. Propagandhi has transcended punk rock at this point, residing somewhere in the upper stratosphere of gods and goddesses.

1. Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans

Sexual frustration can inspire some fantastic art. Van Gogh could give you a word or two about that, he could also give you his ear. Pissed Jeans offer up much more than their ear. They give you the whole pathetic package, in the form of loud, menacing, feedback-drenched assaults, recalling Nirvana's most discordant, uncommercial leanings, and then going even further beyond that, with the crawling, soul-deadening "Spent." Matt Korvette positions himself as the saddest loser you've ever met in your life, losing his hair, unable to cut his fingernails correctly, unwilling to wear a tight black shirt, lusting after a goth girl, nervous during an R-rated movie's sex scenes. He's playing a character, of course, but you forget about that during the entirety of the album as he sucks you in to a world of failure, either ruining your day or brightening it up as you realize your life isn't that bad. It's my album of the year because of its sheer inventiveness; no other band is doing anything as drastic as this stuff. Truly one of a kind.

NFL Gameday

2009-11-10T23:49:00.001-06:00

Much to the annoyance of my loving girlfriend, the NFL has been running my life since the season started ten weeks ago. Oh sure, I find time to go to school, work a little bit, spend time with Andrea, and do the usual activities that bring me great joy. But very often my mind just drifts back to football: Hoping my Cowboys can keep this lead in their NFC East division; thinking about that painfully close missed field goal by the Houston Texans kicker that kept them from tieing the Colts and potentially ending their unbeaten streak; imagining how Josh McDaniels and Raheem Morris, guys that are only six years older than me, can possibly handle being the head coach of a football team...stuff like that.

The NFL Network obviously plays quite a bit in my room, and the only TV show these days that I make any point to watch on a regular basis is their Sunday wrap-up show, NFL Gameday. It is without question the best sports highlight show anywhere on television, and I feel as happy watching it as I do when I watch a show like Mystery Science Theater 3000, a favorite of mine for more than half my life. I just sit back, turn to channel 212, and let the bliss of Gameday overtake me.

The show is hosted by this man, Rich Eisen:

Rich is that buddy of yours who isn't necessarily a jock, but hung around the jocks and made them all secretly want to be him. He's cool, has a savvy sense of humor but knows when to use it, and you know he's got a totally kickass wife.

That's Deion Sanders, co-host of the show. "Prime Time." "Neon Deion." He won two Super Bowls with two different teams, and also was a pro baseball player. He recorded a rap album in 1994 featuring a song called "Y U NV ME?" He's basically the man.

And that's Steve Mariucci, the other co-host. It strikes me now that he kind of looks like a jerk in pictures, like a Michael Douglas in Wall Street type, but I assure you he's not. He was a successful NFL coach for about a decade, and does not appear to have an ego at all. He's just a friendly Michigan guy who loves football and wants to tell you all about it.

What these three guys do is incredibly simple: They show the highlights of that day's games, they comment while the highlights are showing, and then they comment about the game when the highlights are done. They pretty much repeat this formula for 90 minutes, closing the show with Deion's segment "21st & Prime," which is just Deion giving a list of all the players who rocked his world that day. Oh, and Snoop Dogg does the theme song for that segment, with lyrics such as, "Gimme the ball, I go for it all. I betcha wanna, I betcha betcha betcha wanna, go Prime Time on NFL Network." Even Snoop knew he didn't have to try that hard.

And yet, all this simplicity is more effective than any sports show I've ever watched. The three of them all have boatloads of wisdom and experience in football, and since it's just three of them they all get to have an even say. They obviously respect each other immensely, but love to rib each other too. There are times when Steve is reminiscing on coaching Brett Favre, or when Deion is giving a stern lecture to the entire defense of a team, or Rich is making an undeniable point about a team's future, when there are true moments of transcendence. In that very moment, what they're saying is literally the only thing I care about in the world.

Which is crazy, because it's just football, you know? If asked to sacrifice things in my life based on importance, watching football would be tossed out long before a large number of things. But somehow, the clear passion that these three guys exude for the game, combined with the knowledge they drop every minute, make watching the show an essential end to my week. It also helps that once they tape the live 90-minute show, the NFL Network broadcasts it over and over again for 12 hours. So if I miss part of it on Sunday night, I can always catch it on Monday morning. Those guys are always thinking of me.

Andrea can't wait for the season to be over so she can have a normal boyfriend back, and I'll be okay with that, but it will take at least a week after the Super Bowl, regardless of who plays this year, before my sorrow and loss will subside. The fall is my time to shine. Or rather, watch a bunch of strangers shine. That's fun too.

Go Cowboys.

Missing White Girls!

2009-11-08T12:35:00.001-06:00

When white girls disappear, shit gets real serious.

But why the hell does this happen?

I was reading an article on The Guardian about the serial killer in Cleveland who has now had 11 bodies found in his house. We have another guy to add onto the list of serial killers who conduct their business in house, free of charge, like Dahmer and Gacy. If you haven't been following this at all, the main horrible detail is that the guy's house was right next to a meat packing plant, so when smells of human flesh were blowing around the block, people just thought it was the meat. Turns out they were half-right.

But the reason I got riled up about this was because of the article commenting on America's treatment of missing persons, as far as who gets the most attention. They pointed out how in '07 a black woman in the Cleveland area went missing, prompting a "sluggish police response and mildly interested local media coverage." Three weeks later, some pregnant white girl goes missing, and everyone goes nuts. The national news channels were all over it and the police conducted a huge sweep, which resulted in her body being found in nine days. The black woman's body has not been found yet.

This, of course, is nothing new. Natalie Holloway, that North Dakota college student abducted at the mall, and an endless list of young white children have dominated headlines simply by being white, moderately wealthy, and then disappearing. Is it even possible that black, Hispanic, or Asian girls don't go missing? No, it's not. So what's the explanation?

I don't want to say that it's purposeful racism on our society's part. It's more of the subtle, subconscious kind: There is something innate about the way missing minorities are handled, like we're saying, "Oh, she's black? Well yeah, that's not too surprising if she's missing. Probably on drugs or something." But Natalie Holloway disappears in Aruba, and it's a national fucking crisis because she's a white girl and she would never do anything illegal, would she? She's white! It's unthinkable! She must have been abducted by a dark, scary foreigner, right?

Frankly, I've always been baffled as to why the media suddenly freaks out over a missing person. I don't know how many missing person reports are filed every day, but it must be close to a thousand, if not more. You can't do a news story on all of them. So what's the criteria for being a star in your own absence? In short, it's being white. It's your free pass to fame, just like it's been the free pass to almost everything in American history. Don't listen to anyone who denies the existence of racism. It's not thriving, but it is absolutely surviving, an easy task when no one bothers to notice it in the television, in the newspaper, staring them right in the face.

Party in the USA

2009-11-05T21:19:00.001-06:00

We might as well just accept that Miley Cyrus is going to be as popular as the Pope for a long time. I think she could last even longer than N'Sync or Backstreet Boys --- maybe only a year or so more, but still, it'll be impressive.

I was recently alerted to her performance at this year's Teen Choice Awards, where she performed a verse of "Party In the USA" on a stripper pole. She didn't grind all over it, but she definitely dipped down. The suggestion was there. And no, she didn't magically become not 16 years old. So...I don't know. I'm sure Billy Ray thought it was a good idea, so I won't argue with him. He knows what he's doing. He recorded "Achey Breakey Heart," you fucking pissant.

Now, I'm not here to talk shit on Miley Cyrus. After all, what's the point? It makes perfect sense that she is successful. The songs are catchy and she's a perfectly packaged product with tons of marketing behind her. No reason to get hung up on it.

My only qualm is with "Party In the USA." We all know that pop songs don't have to make any bold personal or political statements. They are exempt from that, especially "Party In the USA," which doesn't seem to be about anything in particular. Fine, whatever. But I'm confused by two things in the song:

1. Take a look at the first verse: "I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and my cardigan/Welcome to the land of fame, excess, am I gonna fit in?/Jumped in the cab, here I am for the first time/Look to my right and I see the Hollywood sign/This is all so crazy, everybody seems so famous."

I guess it's also true that not all songs have to be totally autobiographical, but I just cannot accept these lyrics because there is no doubt that Miley has never felt anything close to this in her life. She was born the same year her dad did "Achey Breakey Heart." She has never known anything other than the famous life. Of course, it's not like Billy Ray was still cranking out the hits for the last 16 years and being hounded by paparazzi or anything, but there should be nothing unusual to her about being in Los Angeles, seeing the Hollywood sign or being around famous people, because those things have obviously happened to her many times over. Unless the song is from the point of view of her as a 5-year old freshly becoming aware of the world, this sentiment is hollow bullshit purely meant to trick the public into thinking they're on her level. We're not, people. She is far above us.

2. Her simple declaration that "It's a party in the USA" definitely sounds good, but what the hell does it mean? The rest of the song is just about going to a club, presumably in L.A., having people think she's from out of town, throwing her hands in the air, bobbing her head like "Yeah," and concluding that this is a party in the USA. I mean, I guess she's technically correct, but why is it a party in the USA? Isn't it a party in L.A.? Isn't that the whole point of the song, that she's in the land of famous people, listening to Jay-Z songs (a desperate flailing of white guilt from the whitiest white singer, by the way) and not caring about anything? She comes from some supposedly unexciting part of the USA with no famous people, and goes to a part of the USA with lots of them. The song is not about America. It's about Los Angeles. Maybe she didn't want to make anyone feel left out. Once again, that all-important need to bring the listener in, make them feel included.

As a side note that I'm sure I'll discuss in further detail later, I'm starting to doubt my formerly concrete theory that just because a singer is widely successful does not mean their music is good. It's quite possible that I'm wrong, and the public is right. I have a lot more thinking to do about this.

Until then, party wherever you live, which of course, is located somewhere in the USA.

Misfits

2009-11-05T20:28:00.000-06:00

This year was the second installment of Misfits Karaoke. Kyle, Jordan and myself basically just learn 25 Misfits songs, and let anyone who wants to grab the mic and sing their hearts out. It's as simple as that.

Last year, Tyborn Jig did an all Ramones cover set, and a bunch of my friends did an Andrew W.K. cover set. The idea for this year was to have a Black Flag band and a Minor Threat band, but neither of those panned out. So Ace, Ed and Jordan stepped in with only a month's notice to do an Operation Ivy band.

It all went really, really well. I can't say enough about the Op Ivy band. They sounded so good it hurt. I loved it.

And I'm still amazed by the reaction we get when we do these Misfits songs. People go completely bonkers. It's by far the best reaction I've ever gotten while playing music, and the irony is not lost on me that it's not for my own songs. But that doesn't matter. Somehow, four dudes from New Jersey poorly recorded a bunch of songs 25 years ago that still make crowds crazy and resonate with them, despite just being about zombies and Martians and dumb stuff like that. There's something that can't be put into words about screaming that you're a teenager from Mars, and, quite simply, that you don't care.

We hope to keep doing it annually, with different cover bands each year, and hopefully enough to keep people coming back. I guess we'll know when everyone's gotten tired of it, but that doesn't look to be happening any time soon.

Here are a couple more choice pictures, of Sam and Jeff going wild and of my boy Clint owning the stage:

Parkersburg

2009-11-05T19:02:00.001-06:00

I'm taking a Meteorology class right now, to fulfill the Physical Science portion of my degree. The teacher is the weekend meteorologist on Channel 5, Chris Maiers. Check him out, he's a tight dude.

Anyway, we have finally gotten into tornadoes in the class, the "real sexy stuff" as the teacher calls it. He showed us videos today of the tornado that hit the Iowa town of Parkersburg in May last year. You'll find the video at the bottom. One interesting thing to note is how the wind is blowing the trees in one direction at the beginning, and then suddenly starts blowing in the opposite direction. Crazy.

The other interesting thing about this is that my dumb idiot self was driving back home from Dubuque probably an hour after this. I had been in my parents' basement, my scared little sister intently listening to the radio's reports on where the tornadoes would be heading to next. After it was pretty safely known that no tornadoes would be hitting us, I decided to start driving, going against my mom's pleas. I told her I'd be just fine.

No tornadoes hit my van, but everything else did. Minutes after getting on Highway 20, I was assaulted by the heaviest rains and winds and hail I've ever driven through in my entire life. I was listening to Bear Vs Shark very loudly, but couldn't hear it at all over the torrential downpour that was overcoming my vehicle. I had to go 25mph just so I could see and not crash into anyone. Like Ron Burgundy jumping into the bear pit, I immediately regretted this decision.

But after 15 minutes, it let up. I experienced some light rain, some heavy rain and some patches of nothing for the rest of the three hour drive. But the mere fact that I was less than 50 miles away from what happened in that video below...well, it's enough to put some life-changing fear into you. I'll do my best to respect tornadoes from now on, and not thumb my nose at them. They can be very persuasive.

I Have To Feeling

2009-10-25T17:29:00.003-05:00

A few weeks ago, I went on a rant similar to the following entry. I'd like to give credit to Saeed, Kristy and Derek for encouraging me to turn that rant into the written word.

I have a problem with the Black Eyed Peas. Or maybe I should say I "gotta" problem with them, since that's the grammatical logic they seem to be endorsing in their hit single "I Gotta Feeling." Because, you know, when we say "gotta," we mean "have to." "I gotta go to work" translates to "I have to go to work." So when the Black Eyed Peas are saying "I gotta feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night," they really mean "I have to feeling that tonight's gonna be a good night." That's not what they mean, you say? Then maybe they shouldn't be a bunch of idiots that don't know how to properly spell words.

You can also place the blame for that on the several channels that their music has to go through before it's produced: studio engineers, producers, followed by management and record label schmucks. None of them could have figured out it was spelled wrong? Not too surprising when you consider a much more disappointing failure that happened a few years ago, when the Black Eyed Peas, all of them grown human beings, actually wrote, recorded and released a song called "Let's Get Retarded."

Just think of how many people this song had to go through. Think of how many people heard it and said, "Yeah, sounds great! There's nothing wrong with that! Send that shit out!" I'm gonna go ahead and guess that at least...20 people exercised the most inconsiderate, awful judgment and decided that the general public would not be offended by the word "retarded" being shouted around 40 times in less than 4 minutes. It's fucking astounding that so many people failed so hard, and that it took almost a year for them to re-record the lyrics, creating the now classic "Let's Get It Started."

Here begins my other point of contention with the Black Eyed Peas: They write songs that seem specifically designed to be played in every channel of entertainment, because of their vague subject matter that applies to almost anything. Got a sports film package that you needs a song at the beginning to pump people up? Just use "Let's Get It Started!" Got a Democratic National Convention that needs a raucous, vague message? Just use "Let's Get It Started" (this actually happened)!

And now "I Gotta Feeling" continues their scheme, an even more vague statement of partying and fun that says absolutely nothing about anything. Besides saying that "Tonight's gonna be a good night," which is meaningless enough, they also say "I know that we'll have a ball, if we get down, go out and just lose it all." Again, that doesn't mean anything at all. If it does mean anything, it means you'll have fun if you lose all your cares about life. Well, congratulations are in order, Black Eyed Peas! What an earth-shattering idea! Go out and drink and dance and "spend it up," and your night will be "good!" So anyway, as I was saying, the song can be used for literally any situation in which a good feeling is being promoted, like on our local news channel's coverage of the Iowa Hawkeyes upcoming game. That's all it takes: something good might happen, use "I Gotta Feeling."

"My Humps" would almost fall into the same category of a generic, easily used song, if it wasn't so fucking bizarre. The first time I heard it, I was convinced I was hearing a joke, surely not something that a real recording group would record. But record it they did, further cementing their status as former politically conscious rappers who added a weird-faced girl singer to spice things up and look sexy and completely destroy any musical or artistic credibility they ever had by singing lyrics about lovely lady lumps and making music purely as a means to cash a check.

And no, if I was in their position, I would not do the same thing. I've always said that I could easily be a behind the scenes, session guy, writing songs or playing on songs that meant nothing to me as long as I could make a good living. But performing them in front of an audience is a whole different story. That's where your integrity actually comes into play, and when you're prancing around a stage singing, "My Humps," you don't have a single bit of it.

I just hope they're happy with themselves.

For you!

2009-10-21T16:29:00.000-05:00

Drake University was rocked by a bomb scare last week. It resulted from a backpack left on the front steps of Howard Hall, where I have two classes. All we knew at first was that it had a mysterious note on it, and it may have been a bomb. So the Bomb Squad came in and lassoed the backpack away from the building, and slowly opened it up. Its contents were as follows:

- A toy gun

- A toy dinosaur

- Twinkies

Also, the note on the backpack read: "For you!"

When these details were revealed, I was elated. Who the hell put this here? Why did they do it? What could "For you!" possibly mean? Especially with the exclamation point! It was a wonderful mystery that I was sure would never get solved, because obviously the person who did it wasn't going to come forward after all this fuss.

But it turned out it was just this dumbass girl in one of my classes who is a completely neurotic idiot devoid of any social skills. She just did it because she thought it would be funny. She wanted to see how people reacted. Hmm...okay.

I wish I could say that the mystery was still unsolved, and that we'd get to ponder the meaning behind this backpack forever, but like most mysteries in life, the truth is far more boring than what you could ever imagine.

It Might Get Loud

2009-10-20T17:54:00.000-05:00

If you get a chance to see It Might Get Loud, do it. Even if you don't play guitar or know the first thing about instruments, it'll make you feel something. I suppose it would help if you liked music. And don't tell me everyone likes music! There are tons of people who say, "Oh, I listen to a little bit of everything...except for country and rap!" This actually translates to, "I don't actively listen to music at all, and I realize how uncool this makes me sound, so I'm just giving an untrue and completely impossible answer just so I don't have to go into any specifics about my lack of musical knowledge or personality!"

Anyway, this movie is a documentary of sorts that follows Jimmy Page, The Edge (of U2) and Jack White, asking them about why they play guitar and why it's so great. They also jam together and I think write a song together.

Let's get this out of the way right now: Led Zeppelin fucking ruled. It's okay if you don't jam their stuff all the time or anything, as long as you're willing to concede this indisputable fact. They released challenging, creative and above all heavy records, and were the biggest band in the world. It's the same thing with The Beatles: Yes, tons of shitty hippies and average idiots love them, but that's because they were so fucking good that everyone loves them. Sometimes, we can all just get along.

Say what you will about U2, but they do have great songs. I've never been particularly thrilled on them, and Bono really is a lame dude, but they're not awful. Still, it would have been nice to have someone that wasn't The Edge in this movie. Maybe Angus Young, or someone like that? Someone that hasn't worn a stocking cap every day for 30 years?

And Jack White...well, he's the man. Every band he's been in has been totally great, and the guy knows his shit. He plays "Grinnin In Your Face" by Son House on his stereo in the movie, and then proclaims it to be his favorite song of all time. Jack, you and I need to hang out pronto, because we will be best friends.

Have I mentioned I love music with every fiber of my being? It's kinda the greatest...thing ever invented by humans.

Illness

2009-09-18T13:55:00.000-05:00

Whenever I am suffering physically, it feels way more important and severe than anything anyone else has ever gone through. It isn't. I know that. But I wonder if other people don't go through the same excruciating importance as me when sick. Or maybe I'm just an idiot.

I got sick the week before I left for the UK. It started as a cold, developed into a raging fever that lasted for almost four days, moved into my stomach making it impossible to eat very much, made bowel movements weird and sometimes painful, clogged my lungs and made it hard to take deep breaths without coughing, made sleep difficult, and kept me from doing anything fun with my friends or Andrea. I finally had to go to the doctor who prescribed amoxicillin, and that kind of helped. But not quick enough for my satisfaction.

The only positive thing to glean from this was the fact that it happened before my vacation, not during. If this shit had gone down at any time while I was over there, especially while in Edinburgh where all the fun stuff was, I would have been inconsolably miserable. I shudder even thinking about that possibility. So it almost seems my body at least had the decency to hit me in the days leading up to the big trip, but still being an asshole that wanted to make my life less fun. My body is such an asshole.

I did also hold on to my personal record of longest amount of time without vomiting: five years! Thank you, thank you. I know, I'm talented.

At any time while you're sick, it seems like the seconds are dragging, time is drawn out, and this horrible illness will never end. And then looking back, it's a blip of time that you can barely remember because you were kind of groggy and not fully conscious for all of it. So do other people feel the same way? Do we all become Poor Me's when we get sick?

Anarchy in the UK - Final Act

2009-09-16T22:22:00.000-05:00

We returned to London on a train, where Jake and I sat next to a young couple from the Northern parts of England whose accents were so thick I embarrassingly failed to understand them a few times. A long walk from the station brought us to the University of London dorms, Paul and I each having a room there. My room had a stove, oven, microwave and a refrigerator. Of course, I used none of it. But I did have to call a maintenance man to come in and take all the hair out of the shower drain. He then jovially accused me and my wife of clogging it up. Telling him I didn't actually live there and I'm not married would have been wasted time.

The last two full days were spent with Paul, occasionally with Jake, Paul's cousin Barbara and her husband James, and Paul's longtime friend Evie. They were all incredibly kind to me and wanted nothing but to show me everything there is to see in London. This is hard to do in two days, so a few things had to be cut from the itinerary, most heartbreakingly the tour of Jack the Ripper's murder sites. But Westminster Abbey, Notting Hill, Greenwich, Whitehall, Big Ben and a faraway view of Buckingham Palace did more than just fine. It was a whirlwind that I didn't want to stop.

Jake said if he ever comes through "Dez Moinez," he'll let me know. I told him that will never happen, but that we should both visit Paul in Menlo Park, CA sometime. Jake and I will have to try not to slip into Scotland mode, taking care of Paul when he probably doesn't need it. But we can't help it. We love Paul. He gave us the opportunity to go on this amazing trip, that was very near life-changing for me, just because he wanted to. He wanted the company. Paul Bendix is a king among men. I think my aunt Marlou would have been hard-pressed to have found a better individual to marry. And only a man as strong as Paul could survive the first 61 years of his life, lose his wife to a senseless disease, and even be able to leave the house. But that's all Paul wants to do, because he sees the potential the world offers every second of the day. I admire that, and I hope to be that. Someday.

And so, British Airways took me home, on a nine-hour flight that left almost two hours late and on two layovers that ran a little too close together for my taste, but kept their word and got me home right on time, into the sweet, loving arms of my sweet, loving Andrea. I laid huge smooches on her, spectators at the airport be damned.

Paul suggested to me that it could take quite a while for me to really process this trip, to get to the bottom of it and find out what it meant. I'm not there yet. But what I can say for sure is that all deep meaning and life experience aside, it was ridiculous, stressful, agonizing, exciting, challenging...but mostly fun. Maybe that's all a vacation needs to be.

When I come up with a better answer, I'll let you know.

Anarchy in the UK - Part VII

2009-09-11T17:19:00.001-05:00

The next few days of our Edinburgh stay were almost exactly alike, but since every day was totally amazing, complaining would be stupid. I'll recap the four remaining events we saw:

Faith Healer: An Irish play by Brian Friel. It's always so hot in old theaters, and if what I'm seeing isn't loud and crazy, I get very sleepy. This unfortunately happened throughout the first act, but I was wide awake for the second. It's a very strange play about a man who claims to heal people with his hands, and the three characters are never in a scene with each other. Entirely in monologue form. Slightly unnerving and left us asking big questions about...you know...life.

Stewart Lee: There are so many British comedians that have flown completely under my radar, but after seeing this guy, I need to change that. A few jokes went over my head, like making fun of the wildly popular British TV show Top Gear or using an advert by a British cider called Magner's as the backdrop for a long routine, but I caught on and loved his style, a very smooth, subdued deadpan without being obviously phony like Steven Wright.

Orchestre de Champs Elysees: That's a French orchestra, for y'all that don't speakenzie French. Paul almost returned the tickets after fearing that Jake and I wouldn't be game, but we told him to forget about that, and off to the orchestra we went. I think there was a Chopin piece somewhere in there, maybe two Mendelssohn pieces. I'm not a classical music guy, so I have a hard time remembering these things. But I will say that I enjoyed it much more than I expected. All you really need to do is just sit in your seat for a couple hours and let some pleasant music wash over you. Easy stuff.

Faust: I've now tried to describe this to several of my friends, and always revert back to what I said as we walked out of the theater: "That was a bunch of fucked up shit." This was meant in the most positive way possible. Faust, at its core, is about a man who sells his soul to the devil, and is then tortured to death by the devil. It's a German play, and this was a Romanian production we were seeing. They threw on a hermaphroditic demon, pedophilia, murder just for fun. And then, halfway into the show, the entire crowd (around 500 people) are actually herded through the stage and into a whole different area of the theater where they simulated Hell for about fifteen minutes. Actual fires burned, terrifying images displayed on banners, footage of anal sex projected onto a large rhinoceros, simulated sex with pigs...my jaw was on the floor. Jake told me this was what it was like to take drugs. I walked out confidently feeling that I'd be going to Hell just for witnessing this play. Absolutely nothing like this would ever be allowed to perform in the U.S. Maybe in New York or Los Angeles. But not in Des Moines. Faust was the jolting experience I needed to show me how starkly different certain peoples of the world can be, but also how an audience of people from all over the world can still gasp in the same horror at the fake menstrual blood of a 13-year old. It's a beautiful place, ladies and gentlemen.

Oh yeah, I also had my 26th birthday in the middle of all this. I didn't want to make a big fuss of it. We just went out to a great Italian restaurant after Stewart Lee where I had a delicious chicken and mushroom pizza, and then Jake and I walked the fantastic streets of Edinburgh for a couple hours. It was the first birthday in three years that I haven't done karaoke, but I decided that could take a backseat to pure discovery and excitement.

Anarchy in the UK - Part VI

2009-09-07T16:03:00.000-05:00

Edinburgh was rainy, rainy and more rainy as we stepped out of the Waverly train station. Paul wanted to get to the festival offices first in order to pick up all of our tickets for the five shows we would be seeing, requiring us to trudge through the crowded, wet streets with all of our luggage in tow and ponchos just barely keeping us from losing our minds. Tickets all picked up and collected, we needed a cab to take us to the University of Edinburgh as we would be staying in their dorms.

Being an Iowa guy, the concept of a city depending on public transportation confuses me a little, so it was a shock to learn how serious they take their cab driving in the UK. All cab drivers need to attend at least three years (normally four) of a learning program called The Knowledge, where they learn the ins and outs of the city they'll be working. It's a level of dedication we'll never even come close to. So with the taxis we had taken in London, they basically have to take a little ramp and pull it out so Paul can get in with his wheelchair, and he sits sideways in the open area with me and whoever else crammed onto the seat.

But the first cab driver we flagged down in Edinburgh had other plans. He took one look at Paul's chair and clearly didn't want to bother. Instead of just driving off, he gave me a pained look and said, "Oh no, his chair is going to scuff up my carpet." I glanced in the back seat and saw nothing but a shitty piece of shag carpeting that was in no danger of being ruined by anything. I frankly told him this, he glared at me and informed me that I'd be liable if any damage occurred. Jake loudly suggested hailing another cab, but I was so tired and wet that I wasn't going to let this asshole delay me getting to my room by even a second. After more griping about Paul's position in the taxi, he stubbornly got in the seat and began driving, with us silently stewing in the back.

The frustration wasn't about to end there. We checked in at the University, with Paul taking one room and Jake and I the other. It's a double room, right? Oh yes, of course. Jake and I opened the door to find just one bed. Not two. We laughed and contemplated the possibility of this even remotely working, pretty much concluding that it wouldn't. But we wanted to ask Paul what he thought. Paul cursed and whisked us back to the front desk, where Jake made a joke about Paul being from San Francisco and asking if that's why they assumed he and I were gay. A little too much, but that's Jake for you. Of course, with Jake at the helm, we got a different room with two beds graciously spaced a foot away from each other. A heterosexual man has to maintain his dignity.

After all of that effort and grunting and walking, we went out yet again in the misting rain to catch a stand-up performance by Rhys Darby. He plays the clueless manager of Flight of the Conchords, and I was positive his act would be killer. It turned out to be a little better than average. A slight disappointment, but it was great to be right up front and have him briefly converse with me during the set. An Iowa guy doesn't get to talk to famous people too often.

Anarchy in the UK - Part V

2009-09-06T17:54:00.000-05:00

Our destination was the Isle of Mull, but since trains can't go to islands, we had to stop in the tiny town of Oban. There were a couple of hours to kill before our ferry left for Mull, and with hungry stomachs and curious minds, we ventured into the town. Aside from the tummy and noggin, I also had frightened feet, fully aware of the limited protection my shoes offered from the inevitable Scotland rains we'd be trudging through. My hopes for a good shoe shop were small, but Paul pushed me to go look and Jake agreed to help.

I ended up paying only 15 pounds (about $25) for a pair of unfashionable black skateboarding shoes, which should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with my sense of fashion. I don't have one, is basically the deal. Shoes especially have been a weak spot for me, as I can never find anything I like and then end up settling on either something ugly or something like skate shoes that might be good for a shaggy-haired skateboarder but do no extra good for me. I just stopped caring a long time ago, and this point in time was no exception. They were cheap, they'd keep the rain out, so they would do just fine.

A big ferry eventually arrived to take us and about a hundred others to the Isle of Mull. We then had to walk about a mile off the ferry station to get to our hotel, creatively named the Isle of Mull Hotel. And miraculously, it wasn't raining. This was very unusual for a Scottish island, and we made sure to feel very lucky. But our luck ran out once we got to the hotel, or at least it was Paul's luck that ran out. The staff was clearly unprepared to have a wheelchair accessible room for him, and didn't seem to concerned about this. Do you even have a wheelchair accessible room here, Paul asked. Yes, the girl responded. But it's down sixteen flights of stairs. And there's no elevator. Oh, great! That won't work at all!

Paul finally got a room still wasn't what he had made the reservation for, but it worked enough. We took a swim in the pool (where you actually had to pay to use the towels, for some damn reason) and then took in a surprisingly good dinner in the lounge, where I had my first taste of authentic fish and chips. Half-assed vegetarianism be damned, I thought. I need to eat this. And I absolutely loved it. I'll skip ahead to the present day and say that my one taste of fish and chips I've had in Des Moines wasn't even close to as good as Mull's, so I'm giving that up until I go overseas again.

In the morning, we had to do the mile walk back to the ferry station, this time in the expected Scottish rain. But all three of us had ponchos, so it was no problem. A quick wait in Oban again, and then it was back on the train, chugging along to our week-long stay in Edinburgh.

Anarchy in the UK - Part IV

2009-09-06T17:30:00.000-05:00

It's now time for me to introduce you to Mr. Jacob Bonwitt. Jake is the son of my gracious first host Caroline, making him Paul's relatively young cousin at 28. I think he has been a resident of London all his life, he can correct me if this is wrong. The world doesn't offer many people more obsessed with music than me, but Jake most likely has me beaten in this category, owning much more music than I could possibly hope to and spending crazy amounts of time at the numerous outdoor festivals England has to offer. Up until April, he was an employee at the BBC doing I don't remember what. And then thanks to the wonderful shape of the English-speaking economy, he was laid off. Jake now works part-time at a DVD rental store frequented by Kate Moss and Chrissy Hynde, all the while applying for jobs and not having much luck. This is shocking to me, as Jake is one of the most amiable, witty, person-savvy guys I've met in my whole life.

It was decided back in April when Paul booked this trip, that Jake would come with us to Scotland for a week to the Edinburgh International Festival, a 23-day event that takes over the city with theater, music, comedy, literature readings, art and too many other performance mediums to mention. Included in all of this is the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which really is just a blanket term for tons of things that most old people don't want to see. Paul told both of us to look on the festival's websites and find events we were interested in. He suggested a couple plays, Faith Healer and Faust, booked the Orchestre de Champs Elysees, and let me suggest comedian Rhys Darby (Murray from Flight of the Conchords) and let Jake suggest British comedian Stewart Lee. And whatever happened from there was totally up to the three of us.

I first met Jake at an Indian restaurant, doing what the Brits call "going for a curry." Oh, Brits. He came in with both of his gigantic luggage bags since we were getting on a train directly after dinner, and proceeded to accidentally knock a glass off a table seconds after walking in and seconds before shaking my hand. A first impression only Jake could make.

Being the encourager of new experience that he is, Paul booked us to leave by train for the westest point of Scotland at 11:45 pm and take what's called the Sleeper Car. Jake and I were optimistic about the journey, but got less optimistic as we had to wait for about a half hour in a small area with a young girl strumming a broken and out-of-tune acoustic guitar with no apparent rhythm or musical knowledge. I had a tough time getting her pensive unintentional melodies out of my head for a while after.

Boarding a train with Paul requires getting considerable attention from the train's employees. Is there a ramp? Which train are we getting on? You're sure you have a good ramp? Luckily, the Euston station workers were right on it, going further than they needed to by transporting Jake and I to our train via one of those golf cart things you see fat people being driven around in at airports. This was senseless to me, as we actually sped far ahead of Paul in his speedy wheelchair. But Jake was not bothered, even labeling this one of the best moments of his life. For once in a great while, he finally felt like he was getting the treatment he deserved.

Each compartment in the Sleeper Car can only hold two people. Paul and I took one, while Jake gladly took one on his own. This proved to be disastrous, as two different families, one with a crying baby but both with loud voices, only allowed Jake two hours of sleep. He hazily greeted us in the morning, proclaiming this to actually be the Sleepless Car. But minutes later, during our train change in Glasgow, he was right in his usual rhythm as he made light of Glasgow's crime-ridden rep with one of its citizens, telling her he was just glad he hadn't gotten stabbed yet, and actually getting a laugh out of her. I knew this would be the guy to stick with in a foreign land.

Anarchy in the UK - Part III

2009-08-28T21:30:00.000-05:00

After reading about it years ago in those Sex Pistols books, after seeing it in countless clips of girls losing their minds over The Beatles, I finally made it to London. I realize I maybe had some unfair expectations of the city, because when you actually get there you see how it's just one gigantic, gigantic place, but not non-stop craziness. Just really big, with lots of history and fun things to see.

Paul and I rolled into a nice French-run hotel and got ourselves situated, then met up with his cousin Sandy and his long-time friend Evie. It was here that I really started feeling humbled by the effort people were making to show me a good time, as they took me out to the Tower of London and over the bridge and through beautiful neighborhoods and beautiful scenery and past every type of person you can imagine. Dinner at a Turkish restaurant followed, a place I was enamored with until I found out it's a sort of mini-chain type of place. I want all restaurants to be one of a kind.

Laying down to sleep that night was another battle with the phlegm in my lungs, left over from my sinus infection the week before. I had been taking amoxicilin, and all other symptoms of my illness were gone, except for the coughing, which kept me up far longer than I wanted to be. But it's much easier to be sleepless in such a devilishly comfy bed on the seventh floor of a gorgeous hotel in London. It somehow makes your problems seem...a little small.

Anarchy in the UK - Part II

2009-08-23T13:40:00.000-05:00

My first day in England was spent riding on a train with Paul directly out of London, to go stay for a couple days with his cousin Caroline, her husband Alastair and their daughter Alex. They live in Moreton-in-Marsh, in the county of Gloucestershire, basically the western countryside of England. I began to see as we made our way there that this would be the perfect introduction for a Midwest boy like me into this country, not being slammed right into a busy city but instead being in a scene not too far removed from the cornfields of Iowa. Just take away the corn, add much taller grass and more gorgeous rolling hills, and there you have it.

I may not have explained this yet, and it's fairly important so I probably should. Paul is my aunt's husband. My aunt died of cancer last April and it was declared in her will that Paul should take me to travel abroad. It didn't matter where, just as long as I went. So Paul and I settled on this trip. Also, Paul has been paralyzed on the right side of his body for 40 years, getting around for at least the last decade (I'm not sure on the timeframe here) in an amazing electric wheelchair that I'm convinced could climb a mountain if he really pushed it.

The Fyvie family here in Moreton were the first authentic English people I met on this trip, and they were so generous and helpful to me and my ignorant American ways. Alex asked me if I wanted a bottle of water, I said yes, prompting her to ask me, sparkling or still. My mind froze. What? Still? What's that? It took a few seconds before my feeble brain worked out that if water isn't sparkling, then that means it's fucking regular water, like what I drink all the time. That was British Fuckup Number One for me, and instead of making fun (or taking the piss, if you wanna get British about it), Alex and Caroline gently told me I'd figure out this country in due time.

A British comedian we saw in Edinburgh a week later named Stewart Lee did a bit about people who live in the countryside of England, convinced that it will be a wonderfully peaceful existence but get so bored they beg their relatives to come shoot them and burn their house down. Definitely exaggeration (this is comedy), but the Fyvies seemed totally fine with this life. One of the biggest cities in the world is a mere hour away, but far enough that you still hear all the creepy sounds of nature and see all the stars the night sky has to offer.

Alex also showed me an episode of the BBC cooking competition show "Step Up to the Plate," in which her and two friends competed against two professional chefs and won 7,000 pounds (dollars). It was way awesome to see someone I know on television. That really doesn't happen very often.

After two days of relaxing and soaking in the countryside, it was time to venture back into London. Caroline and Alastair took us to the train station, and after a long farewell we were on our way.

Anarchy in the UK - The Beginning

2009-08-19T17:02:00.000-05:00

As predictable as it might be that I'm saying this, going to the United Kingdom has been one of the most incredible experiences of my whole life. And me being one of those writer types means I have a deep, compelling need to blog about the experience. I should have been posting daily recaps, but the internet situation throughout has been dodgy (look how British I am!). So I'm writing this one as the trip is still happening, yet I'm starting from the beginning.

Let's go.

I need to first mention that the very act of leaving was incredibly difficult for me. The real difficulty came when Andrea dropped me off at the airport and I had to say goodbye to her, realizing I wouldn't physically see her for two weeks. The thought of this destroyed me, and it was impossible not to cry. Dammit, I hate having to admit that but it's true. She's an amazing lady that does amazing things to me, like make me weep in front of strangers at an airport.

Flying on an airplane is one of those things that I know I shouldn't be afraid of, but no matter how much convincing I try to do, there is always a fear right before I take off that mine is either going to be the first plane to be hijacked since 9/11, or maybe I'll burn in an Air France-esque blowup. These thoughts are quite irrational and unlikely, yet they hound me relentlessly in the anxious minutes in anticipation of flight. And then, we're in the air and there's nothing to do but sit back and hope I don't die. A relatively big selection of movies and TV shows to choose from helped to distract me on my overnight flight from Minneapolis, and I chose to watch Adventureland. It's got the stuck-up older brother from The Squid and The Whale, the co-star of that Twilight shit who is not nearly as gorgeous as everyone seems to think she is, and Van Wilder playing the amusement park repair guy who cheats on his wife with the much younger Twilight girl. It's not a good sign when the only truly enjoyable parts I can remember from the movie is that the Twilight girl was wearing my Husker Du shirt and she played a Husker Du song on her car stereo. I should have watched I Love You, Man instead. I'll do that on the flight home.

Like most flights where I have a strong intention to spend most it sleeping, that didn't happen. I don't know what it is, but I never quite pull it off. So we rolled into London's Heathrow airport with me running on little sleep, but much determination to get through the customs procedure and push down the door into England, letting them know that Elliot Imes was here to either kick ass or chew bubble gum, and that I just happened to be all out of bubble gum. This plan fell apart as I had to wait in line and look at the kind manners of all the British customs workers politely asking questions to the new entrants into their country. My guy was less kind than quick, and he asked me questions like what I was doing in England, if I was going on any sightseeing tours, and why I didn't know the address of where I was staying. Well, my aunt's husband booked the trip. I let him do the work, because he wanted to. Paul had all the answers but his flight was arriving two hours behind mine. No problem, the man said. Go through that hall and get your bags.

The bags took a little too long for my taste, but they came and I was off. I got on the shuttle to take me to Paul's terminal, and didn't get off at the right stop, resulting in me sitting at an outdoor shuttle stop for nearly a half hour next to my fellow silent travelers who had no interest in talking. I like that. The next train came back, I got on it and then got off at the correct stop, strolled up to Terminal 1 and waited for Paul. He was right on time, and was utterly delighted that I was too. Paul seems to have little faith in the operations of airports and I guess I can't blame him, but on this day it all worked out just fine. We then went back down to the shuttle and promptly got out of London, headed for Moreton-in-Marsh in the county of Gloucestershire, but really pronounced Glosteshur. Those crazy Brits and their crazy ways.

Buddy Rich

2009-07-30T19:45:00.001-05:00

I'm currently watching every episode of Seinfeld, and in one the extras, Jerry talks about how him and Larry David were huge fans of "The Bus Tapes," a set of recordings made of Buddy Rich. Now, Mr. Rich was one of the best drummers ever (according to people who know a lot about drumming, which does not include me), but he had a terrible temper and after shows would get on the bus with his band and unload on them. I don't know if I've ever heard a real person angrier than this guy. It's quite a transfixing listen, and I urge you to watch the longer video on YouTube, where he utters the quote that Jerry and Larry gave to George Costanza: "If you don't quit it, I'm gonna take you outside, and I'm gonna show you what it's like!"

Flicks

2009-07-30T19:37:00.000-05:00

I recently watched Synecdoche, New York with Andrea, and I had no idea what the hell was going on. For anyone that hasn't seen it, Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays a struggling play director whose wife and child leave him, which causes him to go insane and construct a play out of his life except the play is his life and in real life he's smitten with a woman whose house is on fire and he kinda falls in love with the woman who's playing this woman and then he switches places with his ex-wife's maid and he does stuff at their house and he meets with a therapist who doesn't help him and he gets a lot older and then a recording that's playing in his ear tells him to die so he does.

No matter who painful it was for you to get through that description, it can't compare to the pain of actually watching the movie. And that's not to say that Synecdoche, New York is a bad film. It has a lot of emotionally moving scenes and there's clearly something deeper going on that director/screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is hinting at. But there were at least fifteen times while watching it that I threw my hands in the air, wishing the movie would just be over. But it's a solid two hours long, packed with enough conflicting dialogue and sequences to make you so confused your brain turns into liquid.

So what I wonder is this: does a movie actually owe us the privilege of not confusing us? Just because we want a story to make sense doesn't mean it has to. Why can't a movie just be a bunch of scenes strung together?

I guess I just want something in a movie that is tangible and real. While you're watching Synecdoche, you feel like you're on a steep cliff with nothing to break your fall, and you're just slipping and slipping and slipping for two hours. That doesn't feel good! This is probably part of the reason I don't care for science fiction or fantasy: I just like to watch stuff that could really happen. Wizards and Transformers and Spaceships? Nah, no thanks.

If anyone else saw Synecdoche, I'd love to hear what you thought of it, because so far I haven't found a movie critic that didn't like it, and it bothers me when I can't find at least a few people that agree with my assessment of a movie.

RAGBRAI

2009-07-21T10:18:00.000-05:00

The Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa is upon us. Of course, I am not participating in it. I haven't owned a bike for almost a decade, though I am envious of all my friends who have one and ride trails with each other and have lots of fun. I wish I could be like them. Oh, I can just buy a bike? I could, but I always seem to find something better to spend my money on. Like Blizzards and band t-shirts. Goddammit.

Anyways, hearing about RAGBRAI has me thinking about my own bike-riding experience, which is a point of shock for most people when they find out about it. The shocking truth about Elliot Imes is that I didn't learn how to ride a bike until May of 1997, when I was 13 years old. Just three months before I turned 14, to make it even more embarrassing.

What the hell was my problem? Well, there is just no answer that will make a ton of sense to you, only to me. I guess I enjoyed playing basketball, playing soccer, playing baseball, playing flashlight tag, playing video games, listening to Green Day and watching wrestling that I never tried very hard to learn. I attempted it once or twice, fell off, and went back inside to take on Mike Tyson's Punch Out again. My friends all rode bikes, so it's not like I didn't have any examples to strive for. I would just wait until they were done riding and then play with them. It was easy.

My mom watched this go on for years, and I really can't remember for sure, but it seems like she was the one who finally put the foot down and forced me to learn the art of the bicycle. She bought a cheap but durable bike, dragged me to our church's parking lot and ran alongside me up and down the blacktop, shouting encouragement as she let me go cruising on my way. The whole lesson took maybe an hour, and I was now a bike rider.

I felt like a total idiot having taken this long to catch up to my peers, so I made up for it by riding all the time that summer. I have fond memories of taking the same trail everyday to QuikTrip, with Bad Religion songs in my head and bike helmet with stickers on top of it. When you're 13, any freedom that gets you away from the house and to a place where you can buy Crunch bars is a blessing.

RAGBRAI was coming up and my stepdad Joe wanted to be a part of it. He couldn't get work off for the whole week so he settled for the one day that it was stopping in Des Moines, starting about 30 miles away in Winterset and then coming into the capital city. I agreed to do the ride, and so did Nathan, my 10-year old brother. Nathan was, to put it lightly, an interesting child, and I don't know how we thought he could hold his own on this ride, but he came along anyway.

My mom dropped us off in Winterset, and we began riding. I kept with Joe and Nathan for a few minutes, but for motivations I still can't explain, I shot ahead of them and blended into the sea of fellow cyclists. From there it was a hot July journey where I stopped semi-frequently to buy $2 bottles of water being sold along the highway by friendly vendors. I ate nothing, just drank water and kept riding, not too bothered by the fact that the only two people who knew me were far behind.

The interstate trail led into Des Moines, ending at the Blank Park Zoo where I parked my bike and laid down in the grass, every muscle in my lower body aching like I had never experienced. It seemed like Joe and Nathan would be meeting me a few minutes later, but after almost an hour went by, I got worried. Did they both crash and die? Did they get mugged by drunken cyclists? What happened??

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep in the sun, but it didn't take. I opened my eyes to see Joe walking his bike towards me, my brother conspicuously absent. Joe informed me that about ten minutes into the ride, Nathan had begun complaining that his stomach hurt. The reason why? He swallowed his gum. Nathan then collapsed to the side of the road and claimed he couldn't go any further. Please, he begged, call Mom and have her come pick me up. Cell phones hadn't quite become common yet, so Joe had to wait for my Mom to get back to our house in Des Moines, call her, and then wait for her to drive all the way back out to Winterset so she could collect my spent brother and he could begin riding. Joe said he was horrified by the possibility that I was passed out on the road somewhere, with no one to help me, and he kept expecting to find me and have to do the phone call all over again. I could tell he was really impressed that I did it with no problems and made it by myself. My mom was more a rack of nerves than impressed, but I think she eventually came around.

Nathan still tries to play down how ridiculous this story makes him look, and for good reason, so I guess I'll end by saying that the moral of the story is no matter how late in life you decide to do something, you can still be a smashing success at it. I hope you learn to ride a bike of your own, so to speak, to a goal that brings you a little bit of happiness.

SA, and a little E, Presents...

2009-07-19T10:14:00.004-05:00

June 27th was the last time I posted on here?? Damn. This is exactly what I told myself I wouldn't do. I made a promise that no matter how busy I got, how many days I was working or how much homework I had, that I would still make time to write my blogs and keep up with being a writer. So much for that promise, huh? Some writer I am, huh?

Among other life events, I have been working quite a few shows this month for Sam and Amedeo, cutely known as SA Presents. Sam is at the same time my landlord and my boss, extremely driven and efficient at both jobs and yet also good at being my friend. Amedeo owns the Vaudeville Mews and The Lift, and takes a less speedy, more peaceful attitude to concert promoting simply because he has the business knowledge to back it up. They are my superiors and I answer to them. This is acceptable to me.

In my routine, I arrive at the venue, which has lately been the Simon Estes Amphitheater, an outdoor venue that sits right on the edge of the Des Moines River, and I go find the tour manager. This isn't the band's manager, but rather the person who travels on the road with them and coordinates all the day-to-day functions of being on tour. And it's always a guy for some reason, so I'll just say it's a guy from now on. I find the guy and he gives me a list of all the stuff I need to get at the grocery store. I go get it, bring it back, and for the rest of the day I'm basically their bitch. If a band or crew member needs to go to the hotel, I take them there. If they need printer cartridges from Office Max, I go get them. It's all pretty easy and I don't find it very demeaning or insulting to be an errand boy. I think of it more as just being a guy that's helping out.

July has been an incredibly busy month, and here's a recap of all the shows we've done:

Sister Hazel - Allow me to refresh your memory..."It's hard to say what it is I see in you/wonder if I'll always be with you..." Yeah, that band! I wasn't sure what to expect but this was one of the biggest shows of the summer. People went crazy for them. When I was walking with the tour manager and the singer from their bus, a woman saw him and completely lost her mind. Screaming, freaking out, begging to take her picture with him, the whole works. I guess for some bands having a hit song ten years ago lands you a career for the rest of your life.

The Black Crowes - An intimidating prospect, as the hospitality rider they sent was twice as big as any I'd ever seen. Buying groceries for them was like a hike up Mount Everest. But I did it, and...they didn't even touch half of it. Not a total loss, as Sam decided to just take all the leftovers home. Thanks for the Fiji water and M&M's, former husband of Kate Hudson!

The Veronicas - Twin Australian sisters playing pop-rock stuff. They're alright. They did bring their mom on tour with them, along with their boyfriends. How awkward do you think it is every night on the bus when they all go to bed? Wouldn't you just be terrified knowing the mom was like, ten feet away from you?

Mat Kearney - White guy doing pleasant singer-songwriter stuff. I have no problem with him. A member of his band had his five-year old son with him, and I took them to Wal-Mart because they forgot to pack his shoes for the tour. That was a first.

Gov't Mule - Seemed like a decent group of guys, and their tour manager worked me hard while being very appreciative and kind. Unfortunately, the crowd they brought consisted of hippies and white trash, two groups I wouldn't mind seceding from the Union. A hippie girl snuck into the show but was spotted doing it by Mason, got arrested and as she was led out by the cop, swung her purse at Mason's face. And as I stood at the door with Mason so he could tell me the full story, at least five bloated hippies attempted to walk right past us. Good lord, I hate hippies.

Umphrey's McGee - Another band that brings out the hippies, thankfully the less aggressive, more stoned type. Their light show costs thousands of dollars, and I'm sure it gives their crowd a raging good time.

David Cook - I truly, honestly don't watch American Idol, so I had a hard time remembering if this guy was the winner of last season or was just on it. Turns out he did win. And I got to pick him up from his hotel twice. He politely didn't say much to me, and I understood. That guy has gotten flirted with by Paula Abdul, been praised by Simon Cowell, been called "dawg" by Randy Jackson. How could talking to me even come close?

Rusted Root - I'll help you out like I did with Sister Hazel..."Send me on my way/allllltheway/Send me on my way/alllltheway..." You know it, right? Yup, another band that had a big hit in the 90's, and we got em! They were really laid back and didn't have a huge crew at all. I think just a tour manager, which is really refereshing. And the tour manager reminded me so much of my Uncle Bucko I couldn't even handle it. There was a girl who nearly passed out from being so drunk in the girl's bathroom that Andrea and a couple other girls had to help her out, and get her into the elevator at People's, in which the girl promptly threw up all over the place. The tour manager and Jordan both had the same mostly joking/partly serious reaction of, "Hell, I'll handle her, IF YA KNOW WHAT I MEAN!" Oh, you men.

Wells Fargo

2009-06-27T12:59:00.000-05:00

You're probably looking at me right now thinking, "Wow, Elliot sure is successful! He's a brilliant student at Drake and he works for First Fleet Concerts and he's on top of the world!" Well, you're right. I'm the man.

But I wasn't always the man. I used to work for Wells Fargo, where I was just one in a million employees slaving away at a computer, on a telephone, losing a little bit of my soul every day.

Okay, that is also an exaggeration. I still want to tell you about working there, since it was a big part of my life and my means of living for nearly two years.

At the beginning of 2007, I wasn't in the best shape. My divorce was starting to go into the litigation stage, I had very little money, and I had just been fired from my sham of a job at Mediacom. I pretty much just sat around all day and played Madden '07 with Sam while Clint dredged away at Pizza Hut. The reality of needing a job began to weigh down on me, so I applied at any place I could. Interviews at cell phone stores, vague insurance sales positions and even a Wells Fargo Collections interview all went nowhere, and I was miserable.

And then, like an angel from above, Wells Fargo called me to ask if I could come in for an interview. I didn't even understand what the position was, but I didn't care and I went anyway. It turned out to be a position in credit card customer service, talking on the phone all day and doing all of the work at a computer. I played up my previous experience in working with people, delivering pizzas for Domino's, selling bondage pants at Hot Topic, pointing people to the light bulbs at Menard's. The vibe was positive, so I left the building feeling pretty good about it, and got a callback just before I came home saying I got the job.

Five weeks of training followed, in which we were taught how to work the operating systems, how to understand credit cards, how to deal with people, and why Wells Fargo was great. That last part was the only time I inwardly groaned, but when they gave me free checks for my checking account, I jumped at the chance and ordered M&M's checks. You know, like the M&M's characters in the commercials. Whenever I hand another person a check with the sexy green M&M on it, I think I'm also handing them a part of my manhood.

Here's the basic layout of the job: I go in to work, and sit down at my desk. I sign in to the phone, get all my systems and programs opened up, and then put myself in "Ready" so I can take calls. I never made calls, aside from a few rare cases, so that was a relief. A call comes in from a customer, I ask how I can help them and we go from there. Repeat for eight hours.

Sound soul-crushing? It kinda was. You can't really understand office life until you experience it, sitting in a chair with your eyes glued to a computer and a headset phone on your ear, with a hundred people around you doing the exact same thing, exchanging that same blank empty look with their own computer. I should point out that there was no strict dress code, so I was able to dress exactly like I do every day. That helped a lot, because the last thing I ever want to do is wear khakis and button-up shirts like a fool.

But that's about the extent of our personal freedom at the job. Every other minute is rigidly kept track of, since you can put yourself in "Aux," which means time when you're not on the phone, presumably used for bathroom breaks, and you can also put yourself in "Aftercall," used for finishing up any business left after the customer isn't on the phone or filling out forms or whatever. If you use your Aux or Aftercall time for too long, you will eventually hear about it from your team lead or your supervisor or some other person in a position of higher authority than you, telling you to use your time more efficiently and take more calls. The idea is understandable, to get the most out of your employees, but it's inevitable that the employee under these restrictions will begin to feel like less of a person and more like a machine.

In the face of these restrictions, I made sure to not let them bring me down too hard. Because really, the customers are the main focus. A privilege of the job was that I got to talk to people from every single walk of life possible. I talked to rich, poor, white, black, Hindu, young, old, middle-aged...just about any type of person you can think of. I talked to 18-year olds who had just gotten their card and thought 0% interest means you don't have to pay anything! I talked to 80-year olds who had no business dressing themselves let alone making a decision about their finances. I talked to 50-year old divorcees whose cheating ex-spouse had gone on a spending spree and left them with the bill. When human beings are angry, instead of directing it at the situation, they direct it at the person in front of them, or in this case the person on the phone.

I have been yelled at quite a few times in my life, but nothing compares to the verbal tirades I was subjected to at Wells. I was called every name you can think of, told to fuck off, told to go to hell, all because they simply didn't like the information I was giving them. Of course, my personality has been known to rub some the wrong way, as I tended to be blunt and just barely sarcastic when I didn't like the customer's attitude. This resulted in a few shouting matches and more than a few requests to speak to my supervisor. I always complied, but I never heard anything more about the call after that.

Along the way at Wells, I had great coworkers who I got to know well. Tony, Paul, Casey, Sonny, Mackinze, Megan, Randee, Charles, Amber, Angie, John, Jean Ann, my martyred supervisor Paul Farmer and so many others all made that job tolerable. If it hadn't been for them, I would have lost my mind. I luckily was able to share tons and tons of laughs and secrets and games and pizza with these people who were in the same position as me, just trying to stay afloat. I honestly love all of these individuals and will always recall them with a smile.

My coworkers were the only reason it was difficult to quit my job. I felt terrible leaving them, but the time had come. I wasn't getting any younger, and I realized that if I didn't get my English degree now, I probably never would. With my grandparents' financial assistance guaranteed, I gave my two-week notice to our boss, Shahryar. He gently asked me to reconsider, telling me that I was one of their best, most reliable employees. Maybe he was blowing smoke, but it sure seemed genuine. I thanked him for the compliment, but told him I had move on. Shahryar accepted but made sure I knew that the door was always open for me to come back.

A little over a week after I cleaned out my desk and left the Customer Service building forever, word came down to my department from John Stumpf, President of Wells Fargo. It seemed a customer had spoken to one of our representatives who was very rude to her, and she took it so seriously that she somehow got all the way up to the email of the fucking president to tell him about it. Mr. Stumpf wanted to speak to Elliot Imes, the offender. My team's new supervisor had to tell him that Elliot had recently quit, so no punishment could be doled out. That's the last I heard about it, but my coworker Paul says it's quite possible that the open door is just about shut now.

I don't care. I have no desire to work there again. Hopefully, my life can take me to other places than a crazy woman thinking I've insulted her by telling her that she's not operating a website correctly and then file a complaint against me. That is petty nonsense, and I don't need it ever again. But what I did need, and I'm glad I got, was an ability to be unfased by anger. When someone yells at me now, I don't blow up at them. I barely even raise my voice. I calmly tell them, "No," and no matter how much they keep trying to get a rise out of me, I stand my ground. Wells Fargo taught me a lesson in personal strength.

Lesson learned, thanks for everything, but I am never coming back.

WWE - Live at Wells Fargo Arena 6/19/09

2009-06-22T19:02:00.000-05:00

I haven't discussed it on here yet, so it's time to tell you: I am a huge fan of professional wrestling. To give a short answer to the usual question of "Why??", I think it is a fascinating form of entertainment. I'll explain more in later blogs, don't you worry.

It had been almost ten years since I had last attended a World Wrestling Entertainment event, a Monday Night Raw at Hilton Coliseum. Unfortunately, this event was not a live televised performance, instead what's commonly known as a "house show." Where the wrestlers would normally be going above and beyond to take huge falls, do big moves and be crazily outlandish, it's obvious that they're taking less risks at house shows simply because only a few thousand people are ever going to see it.

This made me a little weary of paying almost $40 for my ticket, but I did it anyway, and I'm very glad I did. I went with my friends Jordan Peterson and Mike Watson; the former a fan of wrestling from long ago, and the latter an avid fan still informed of current wrestling developments. Our seats were unexpectedly good, just three rows off the floor on the far right side of the arena and putting us at an acceptable proximity to the ring.

I think there were eight matches in all, featuring some wrestlers I don't know and don't care about, and featuring some wrestlers I was thrilled to see, especially Goldust. John Cena came out, a wrestler I'm not wild about but is insanely popular, and he underwhelmed me as usual.

The main event was Randy Orton against Triple H. Orton is a brilliantly evil bad guy, and Triple H is the consummate badass good guy. They had a great match for the World Heavyweight Title, but once again, since this would not be on TV, a title change was out of the question. Instead, Triple H won by disqualification after two of Orton's henchmen interfered and starting beating him down. Luckily, John Cena ran to the ring and fought them off to save Triple H, and they then performed their respective finishing moves on the jerks. It was a great finish and the crowd went nuts.

There's another thing: the crowd. Jordan said he felt like at any moment while we were there, he could have gotten in a fight. That feeling is due to the harsh looks of almost every person there, people of all nationalities and income levels, though most of them are on the low end of the totem pole. It's a good reminder for me to be aware of the type of individual I identify with when I claim myself to be a fan of professional wrestling: the common man. That's who wrestling was made for, and that's who it continues to provide an endless supply of entertainment.

What is a touch screen?

2009-06-18T15:18:00.000-05:00

My Intro to Computers class is dragging on, and here I sit, only one of seven students remaining after at least eight others either not showing up or dropping out completely. Some guy in his 30's who joined the class late leaned over to me the other day and remarked how a lot of people were absent. I told him that's how it usually goes at DMACC. That guy isn't here today. Maybe he thought I was giving him a permission slip to stay at home and drink.

Honestly, he's missing out on some fascinating stuff here, where we are learning about megabytes and computer memory. There are at least five instances in each class where I want to stand up and ask if I can just take some sort of opt-out final and be done with the whole class. There must be some sort of huge joke being played on me, because there's no way this class is actually real. On the last day of class, I expect everyone in the room to exclaim, "Smile! You're on Candid Camera!" And then I'll know that no academic course could ever be as ridiculous as this, and the world isn't completely insane.

Also, I previously said that my teacher sounds like an extreme Jerry Lewis impersonator. This is not wholly correct. He sounds much more like Gilbert Gottfried.

Rancid

2009-06-18T00:06:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to my review of the new Rancid album. It's a co-review, so don't read the first one. Mine is the second.

http://www.scenepointblank.com/reviews/2479

Propagandhi

2009-06-17T19:38:00.000-05:00

After nearly ten years of loving their music, I finally got to see Propagandhi last night. They are a very political melodic punk band from Canada who have been together for close to two decades, and they are absolutely, ridiculously good.

The show was at the Triple Rock Social Club in Minneapolis, a wonderful venue that also has a kickass restaurant connected to it serving meaty and vegan options with a hilarious menu almost certainly written by Paddy from Dillinger Four. Banner Pilot opened, a band that Tyborn Jig opened for just a couple weeks ago, so that was neat to see. Strike Anywhere were also on the bill but I have never cared much about them, and last night didn't change that.

The reason Ed, Mason and myself traveled four hours in my van was to see Propagandhi. After an almost inexcusable wait of 45 minutes between bands, they finally took the stage in a very humble, unassuming manner, and started up the moving intro to their new album's title track, "Supporting Caste." They played a set that drew generously from this album, and though they left out a few songs we all would have liked to hear, 16 songs was still an overwhelming set to take, played with expert precision every single second of the way.

When they began playing "A Speculative Fiction," a feeling came over me that I have very rarely felt at shows. The only way I can describe it is as a tingling rush of endorphins, bringing a huge smile to my face and getting my head banging and fists pumping. I don't know why it happened during that time, since that's not exactly my favorite Propagandhi song, but I'm thinking it has something to do with the realization that Propagandhi is one of my favorite bands of all time.

Mason summed it up when he said it sounded like he was listening to a professionally recorded live album. They were that good. Just absolutely perfect. I sang along to every word, except for one song I didn't recognize and neither Ed nor Mason could identify, but aside from that! I was all over it. Just the most fun I've had in forever.

They played "The Banger's Embrace," a song their singer explained is about how in the face of all the awful things going on in the world, we will always have music and bands to enjoy and make us happy. Sounds like they might know a thing or two about being that band for people, because they definitely are that band for me.