tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-55569007166531150892024-03-14T14:12:30.966-04:00ryan j tresselWelcome. It is here I will make all your dreams come true.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.comBlogger64125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-47233288291036023732011-03-28T16:42:00.012-04:002011-03-28T17:06:12.030-04:00LIEF: Twenty-Eight<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?j10asyorwawoz3q">Download free"Twenty-eight" PDF</a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1496546277"></a></span><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.mediafire.com/?lonq26c87auhs9b"><br />
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</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"> <i><span style="font-size: large;"> twenty-eight</span></i><br />
She inexplicably needed to spit.<a name='more'></a> The saliva kept filling her mouth faster than she could swallow it. Jackson kept looking over at her from the driver’s seat, smiling nervously.<br />
“It’s not something I said, is it?” he asked. “You’ve gone awful quiet.”<br />
Lief smiled. “Sorry,” she said. All the spit made her slush her s’s. “I’m not really that interesting I guess.” She swallowed hard.<br />
His smile seemed less nervous suddenly. “I doubt that,” he replied.<br />
“What would you like to know?” she asked.<br />
He watched the road a minute. “I’m not even sure where we’re going,” he told her. “I’ve just been kinda driving around.”<br />
Lief watched the road too for a minute, then him. “I’m not really that hungry,” she admitted.<br />
He smiled again. “Me neither,” he replied.<br />
Lief pointed toward the windshield. “Then let’s just keep driving,” she said.<br />
“Alright,” Jackson answered. “By the way, you can change the radio if you want.”<br />
Lief crossed her legs. “Thanks,” she said. “I don’t really like music too much.”<br />
“Really?” he responded. “I don’t know if I’ve ever met anyone who didn’t like music.”<br />
Lief swallowed hard again. Her mouth was still full of saliva.<br />
“I can turn the radio off, if you want,” he told her.<br />
Lief turned to him. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “You’re a musician?” she asked.<br />
He seemed surprised. “What?” he said. “I used to play.”<br />
“In a band?”<br />
He scratched the back of his neck, then quickly returned his hand to the steering wheel. “Yeah, in high school.”<br />
“I’m sorry,” Lief said. She rested her head against the window. “That sounded bitchier than I meant it to.”<br />
He coughed. “I didn’t think it was that.”<br />
She closed her eyes. “I’m ruining this, aren’t I?” she asked. She could feel the car slowing down.<br />
“Of course not,” he protested.<br />
Lief picked her head up and turned toward him.<br />
“I don’t know if I hate music,” she confessed. “I’ve just had some bad luck with musicians in the past.”<br />
Jackson smiled. “I haven’t played in years,” he pledged. “And I was terrible even when I did.”<br />
She smiled. “What was your band’s name?”<br />
Jackson shook his head. “We didn’t have one,” he said. “Well we had like a hundred, but none of them ever stuck.”<br />
Lief touched his shoulder. “I get that,” she told him.<br />
*<br />
It started to snow faintly. Jackson put on his wipers, but each snowflake was a tiny drop of rain when it hit his windshield.<br />
“So what are the things I’m supposed to tell you on the third date?” Jackson asked. “I’ve told you about my job, my cat, we’ve discussed my horrible high school band.”<br />
Lief laughed. “What did you play?”<br />
He looked away. “Bass,” he replied. He shook his head and smiled. “I know. The shame.”<br />
Lief pushed her hair behind her ears. “Alright,” she said. “Go on. Tell me. What does the handbook say about third dates?”<br />
Jackson took his hands off the steering wheel and held them above his head. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Is it too early for ex-girlfriends?”<br />
Lief nodded. “Way too early,” she said. “Keep your hands on the wheel there, mister.” The snow was getting heavier.<br />
“I have a half-sister,” he offered. “Melanie.”<br />
“Are you close?” Lief asked.<br />
He shrugged. “I guess. Not really,” he told her. “We were the same age, so that was kind of always awkward.”<br />
“What age were you?”<br />
He slowed down. The snow was flopping down and sticking, and the wipers were pushing it into little piles on either side of the windshield. “My parents split when I was seven, and my dad remarried when I was ten. Melanie was in my class before, so it was even weirder.”<br />
“So you knew your sister before she was your sister? That is weird.”<br />
Jackson nodded. “What about you?”<br />
Lief watched the snow. “I have a little brother. Named Glover,” she told him. “He’s fifteen.”<br />
“Is he a punk?” Jackson asked. “I’m just kidding.”<br />
The snow was growing fatter and faster as it fell. “He’s a sweet kid,” Lief said quietly. “A really good kid.” Something made her sit up suddenly. “And fast. He’s such a fast runner.” She swallowed some saliva. “I’ve gone to couple of his track meets. I’ve never seen anybody looks so beautiful when they run.”<br />
“Were you athletic growing up?” Jackson asked.<br />
Lief shook her head. “You know how when people run, they look so miserable? Their faces all red and splotchy? My brother doesn’t run like that. It’s more…graceful.”<br />
Jackson chuckled. “You know, I have no idea where we are,” he said. He leaned in closer to the windshield.<br />
Lief leaned in closer as well. “I do,” she replied. “There’s a state park up ahead. If you take a left at the next light. We could go for a walk there.”<br />
“Are you sure you won’t be cold?” he asked.<br />
Lief shook her head again. “I grew up around here,” she told him.<br />
*<br />
The snow had only started to collect on the ground, so when they took each step, they could hear the crunching of the dead leaves beneath their feet.<br />
“You grew up around here?” he asked her.<br />
Lief nodded. “I used to come here a lot when I was little. The house I grew up in is on the other side. I could walk here.”<br />
Jackson seemed to be always a step behind her. “Do your parents still live there?” he asked “Around here?”<br />
She stopped to let him catch up. “Nah,” she replied. “We all moved when I was in junior high.”<br />
There was little light in the woods. “There should be a trail around here,” she told him. “I was hardly ever over on this side. There’s kind of a big pond in the middle. You’ll see. I always came in from the other side,” she explained.<br />
“The side by your house,” Jackson said.<br />
She nodded. She was walking carefully. “That trail at the beginning would’ve just taken us all the way around the pond,” she said. “But I could’ve sworn there was another one.”<br />
Jackson laughed. “You’re not going to get us stranded in the woods, are you?” he asked. “You hear about those people on the news.”<br />
Lief laughed, too. “No kidding, right?” she said. “The search teams always have to come and rescue them? I always wonder what kind of idiots go out into the woods in the middle of the winter like that.”<br />
Everything was still and quiet. The saliva in her mouth was stinging cold when she breathed in.<br />
“I know where we are,” she asserted. “At least I know where we’re going.”<br />
They walked for a few more minutes in silence. <br />
“I never really had anything like this near my house growing up,” he said finally. “We had a park, but it was more of a field with some benches and playground equipment on it.”<br />
“That’s more like our town common,” Lief told him.<br />
Jackson put his hands up to his mouth and blew into them. “We did have a herring run by our house, though,” he said. “My dad and I used to go there a lot every spring.”<br />
“Did you fish a lot?” Lief asked. She had gotten ahead of him again, so she stopped and allowed him to catch up.<br />
“No,” he said, and he sounded winded. His breath was a big heavy cloud around his face. “In the springtime, the herring need to swim upstream to fresh water to lay their eggs.”<br />
“I think I’ve heard of this,” Lief said.<br />
“There’s another name for herring,” he said. “I can’t remember what it is.”<br />
“No, no, I know what you’re talking about,” she insisted. “I’ve definitely heard of it.”<br />
“Have you ever seen it?” he asked. She shook her head. <br />
“There are like these steps,” he continued. “And the fish literally jump up out of the water trying to get over the steps.”<br />
“We’re almost there,” Lief told him.<br />
Jackson nodded. “Okay,” he said. “I used to go there with my dad, and we’d just watch them. You’d see them just shoot out of the water straight into the air. These little silver flashes in the air.”<br />
He stopped walking. “I remember asking my dad if he thought I’d be able to catch one. Like, I could just stand right at the edge, with my hands outstretched over the water, waiting, and when one jumped up, just be ready and catch it in my hands.”<br />
Lief turned and looked at him. “What did he say?” she asked. “Your dad?”<br />
Jackson smiled and shook his head. “He said, ‘What would you do if you did catch one?’” he replied. “Like it didn’t matter whether I could do it or not. More like it was whether I should do it.”<br />
Lief smiled. “That’s what I would’ve said,” she told him.<br />
*<br />
Eventually they reached the pond. Lief sat down on a large rock on the shore. Jackson stood beside her. She could feel the cold stone through her clothes.<br />
“I used to sit on a rock on the other side with my best friend,” Lief said. “We’d gather all the flat stones we could find.”<br />
“I used to skip stones, too,” Jackson said.<br />
Lief laughed. “All of mine sank,” she told him. “I could never do it.”<br />
Jackson turned over some rocks with his boot. “Too bad it’s frozen over,” he said. “I could show you my skills.”<br />
Lief looked out across the pond. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been here before,” she admitted. “I always used to be on the other side. It’s weird to think that this was what I was looking at, all those times I was staring across the pond from my side.”<br />
Jackson was squatting on the ground rifling through stones. He found a nice smooth, flat one and showed it to her. “I’ll save this for when the ice thaws,” he said. “We can come back here in the spring.”<br />
“It’s just funny to think about,” Lief continued.<br />
He laughed. “Is this what the third date is?” he asked. “We talk about our childhoods?”<br />
Lief looked at him. “That’s the second time you’ve said that.”<br />
“What?” he asked.<br />
“That this is our third date,” she replied. “It’s our fourth.”<br />
He looked at his watch for some reason. “What?” he said. “Wait.”<br />
She nodded. “This is our fourth,” she repeated.<br />
“Wait,” he said again. He looked across the pond, then back at her. “You aren’t counting the time at the library, are you?”<br />
She smiled, and closed her eyes. “I count everything,” she told him.<br />
“Wow.”<br />
The snow continued to fall.<br />
“You like me, right, Jackson?” she asked.<br />
He sat beside her on the rock. “Sure, I do,” he told her.<br />
“Really?” she asked again. “You sure?”<br />
He nodded. “Of course,” he said.<br />
She closed her eyes again. “This is embarrassing,” she said. “But I just wanted to make sure. Because I like you.”<br />
He smiled. “Yeah?”<br />
She coughed. “Yeah. But I’ve had to spit all night,” she confessed. “I’m having a weird saliva problem. That’s gross. I can’t believe I told you that.”<br />
Jackson rubbed his hands together. “Go ahead,” he said. “I won’t look.” He turned away.<br />
She collected all the saliva she could and in one motion spit it out onto the shore.<br />
“I usually get dry mouth in this situation,” he said, still facing away.<br />
“One more,” she said before spitting again.<br />
He turned back.<br />
“I’m sorry I’m so gross and unladylike,” she said.<br />
He smiled. “No worries.”<br />
She took his hand. “When you were in your band, did you ever write songs about the girls you knew?” she asked him.<br />
He shook his head. “We only did Violent Femmes covers,” he admitted. “I really only know how to play ‘Blister in the Sun’ and ‘Kiss Off’. We didn’t do any originals.”<br />
“Truly?”<br />
He nodded. “I’m not much of a writer,” he said.<br />
“Okay,” Lief said. She kissed him softly in the falling snow.<br />
“Okay,” he said, smiling. “Alright.”<br />
Lief smiled. “Today’s my birthday, Jackson.”<br />
“Really?” he said. “Why didn’t you say anything?”<br />
“I just did,” she replied.<br />
He squeezed her hand. “Well, that’s a big deal,” he told her.<br />
“I know,” she told him. “I only get one every four years.”<br />
*<br />
They were walking back to the car. The snow hadn’t gotten any heavier, but it hadn’t slowed any either. <br />
“Alright, while we’re confessing things,” Jackson said.<br />
“Oh, shit,” Lief replied. “Here it comes.” She smiled.<br />
He put his hands across his stomach. “I didn’t eat lunch or dinner,” he told her.<br />
“Oh, no!” she cried. “Why didn’t you say anything?”<br />
“You said you weren’t hungry,” he explained.<br />
She locked her arm in his. “I wasn’t,” she said. “Do you want to stop for something on the way?”<br />
He shook his head. “It’s probably too late,” he told her. “We’re going to see each other again, right?”<br />
“I’d like that,” Lief said.<br />
“We can get dinner then,” he stated. “You’ll owe it to me.”<br />
“It is getting late,” she admitted.<br />
He nodded. “I’ll take you home.”<br />
“I’m having a great time,” she added. “It’s just late.”<br />
Jackson smiled. “It’s okay. It is late.”<br />
“I think we’re almost to the car,” she said.<br />
“Good,” he replied. “I can’t feel my feet.”<br />
“We can’t be that far,” she told him.<br />
“I hope not.”<br />
She squeezed his arm. “We’re not going to be those people who get lost in the woods,” she promised.<br />
*<br />
It was a slow and careful ride back to her apartment. The roads were slick, and the snow was falling faster than before.<br />
“I don’t really get meteorology,” Lief said. “Was it supposed to be like this?”<br />
Jackson had brought his face close to the windshield. “They have no idea,” he said. “They look at some pictures and guess. You can’t tell what this stuff will do until it does it.”<br />
Lief rested her head against the window. “It sure is pretty, though,” she said.<br />
They kept driving for a while until they reached her house. He pulled into her driveway slowly. <br />
“I’d invite you in,” she told him before he could say anything. “I know the roads are bad. I’d invite you to stay. But we know what would happen.”<br />
He nodded. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s not too bad out.”<br />
She touched his arm. “I’d invite you in, I would,” she repeated. “But you know.”<br />
“It’s fine.” He smiled.<br />
“So call me when you get home,” she said. “So I know you’re safe.”<br />
“Will do.”<br />
She squeezed his arm. “I had a wonderful time,” she said. “I did.”<br />
They kissed again, softly, quietly.<br />
She watched him drive away from her window. She waved, but it was dark and he probably couldn’t see her. She closed the drapes, and took off her boots. She listened to her messages.<br />
“Hey, Lief! It’s Liz! I just wanted to call you and wish you a happy birthday, for real! Hopefully you’re out having fun! Also, I have an extra ticket to Debasers Sunday night. Tom can’t go, and I wasn’t sure if you wanted to come with. Remember when we saw them play their first gig in the lounge? It’s crazy! Anyway, let me--” Lief hit delete.<br />
“Hey Leapfrog. It’s Glover. I just wanted to remind you that you are now seven. So I’m older than you. Still. Hope you had a good day, little sis.” She hit save.<br />
She sat and watched the snow fall through the space between the drapes. The phone rang.<br />
“It was alewife. That’s the other name for herring.”<br />
She smiled. “I’m sure I didn’t know that,” she said. “Did you look that up as soon as you got home?”<br />
“It came to me as soon as I pulled out of your driveway,” Jackson said.<br />
She pulled her feet under her, and laid back on the couch.<br />
“Why are they called alewives?” she asked.<br />
She listened to his voice crack and cough on the line. “Yeah, I’m not sure,” he said finally.<br />
“Is that all you called about?” she asked.<br />
“No,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that I had a nice time, too. A really great time.”<br />
Lief was silent for a few seconds.<br />
“And that I’m home now,” he continued. “Safely.”<br />
She breathed out. “Good,” she said. “I’m glad to hear it.”<br />
They talked for a few more minutes before saying good night. At some point, the snow turned to rain, and by morning most of it was gone.<br />
<br />
</span>rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-59540293187809769062010-05-18T09:25:00.000-04:002010-05-18T09:27:49.982-04:00I WILL NEVER STOP LISTENING TOThings I hate in popular music: hamfisted politic lyrics, shout-singing, non-rhyming couplets, unsubtle riffs repeated ad nauseum. But, still, somehow, I will never, ever, ever, not ever will I stop listening to Beds Are Burning by Midnight Oil.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/XzaRZtmwPag&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/XzaRZtmwPag&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large; white-space: normal;">I can't explain it. I should hate this song with every fiber of my being, but I just can't. This ridiculous bastard of a song comes on my radio and I crank. the. shit. up. Even though Peter Garrett isn't so much singing as he is practicing several different Muppet impressions, one after the other. Even though I'm highly dubious of any song that relies so heavily on a bass guitar riff. Even though it's no longer 1987. Even though--I'm all for the Aboriginal people's rights, and deplore how they were treated by Western colonialists,-- I hate how overly simplistic Midnight Oil's solution to the problem is. But you know what? I still love the song. I would never put it on a mixtape if I was trying to impress a girl, I would never actively seek the song out to listen to. But when it shows up on the radio, jammed between "One Headlight" and something by the Avett Brothers, I will stare off silently into the sunset, one single tear trailing down my cheek.</span></span></span>rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-76798145778688105282010-05-13T07:41:00.000-04:002010-05-13T07:41:48.839-04:00The Last Time I Will Ever Listen To"Jane Says"<br />
<br />
A new feature here on the Tresselweb. I've always worked a few minutes from where I've lived, so I haven't had a real strong relationship with the car radio in years. But the combination of moving (making me a commuter for the first time ever) and the tape deck on my car stereo breaking (meaning I no longer have the ability to hook up my ipod to my stereo) means I've spent more time listening to broadcast radio than I have since I was a teenager.<br />
<br />
I'll usually listen to NPR, but sometimes I just want some good music. I really enjoy Emerson College radio, in that it usually alternates between hipster music and deep album cuts of older artists, but once 7pm hits it becomes all reggae, and I have to admit I don't think I could listen to an entire reggae song, let alone forty-five minutes of only reggae. On the weekends, it's worse, as it becomes all a cappella. Nothing makes me want to drive my car off Route 3 more a cappella Verve Pipe. So it's commercial radio ahoy. 92.5fm is usually pretty good--and solar powered!--but they love Jack Johnson and Bob Marley way too much.<br />
<br />
So sometimes I'm just flipping. And there are lots of songs that I realize I've listened to probably hundreds of times in my life--songs that I've never really had any strong feelings about, that I would listen to mindlessly while working around the house or driving---that I CAN NEVER LISTEN TO AGAIN. A song will come on the radio and something in me will snap. As if my brain has set a limit on the number of times it will allow me to listen to a certain song without comment and the DJ just played it for the n+1 time.<br />
<br />
The first song that I will never listen to again is "Jane Says" by Janes Addiction.<br />
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"><object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-PzoKyv9fvk&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-PzoKyv9fvk&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"><br />
</span></span></div><br />
When I was in high school, my friend Jesse asked me to dub him a copy of somebody's Janes Addiction VHS tape. I had the capability, and did it, but the few bits of the film I caught freaked me out. I know at some point I saw Perry Farrell's penis, and I'm pretty sure there was some drug use involved, but whenever I think of Janes Addiction, I get the skeeves.<br />
<br />
This song is pretty grody on its own for one reason: steel drums. I think if I ever heard steel drums--wandering down the beach, or walking past some street musicians, I'd break out in eczema. And that all happens before Perry Farrell starts singing.<br />
<br />
I also don't know how a song with only two chords and a very simple melody can be so damn long. It sounds like a eighth grader who just learned how to play guitar wrote it. I know because when I was in eighth grade and learned how to play guitar, every song I wrote sounded like Jane Says. But luckily for everybody none of the eight-minute long, two-chord songs I wrote in eighth grade have get played on the radio with the regularity that "Jane Says" does.<br />
<br />
So, "Jane Says", it's time to say goodbye. We were never really good friends, more like friends of friends, really. But it's over. Good luck with the rest of your life, blasting out of college dorm rooms while kids are smoking pot out of old Dr. Pepper cans.<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; white-space: pre;"><br />
</span></span>rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-8536539930777588872010-03-08T14:18:00.000-05:002010-03-08T14:19:37.988-05:00IMMORTALLO Available Today<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6v2xpRKBebukfoFasdZbdDIIveM80_gLTZ7gBOWnbrAPUSrYg_SV2UGcaAbG0KbGCmycQyZn-w3r6szfJJgInI6ryKmm3B-iAnjAPpzzxKo3NRHGey6fN1tXCY8GCG9aI2f8cBR410tM/s1600-h/immortallo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6v2xpRKBebukfoFasdZbdDIIveM80_gLTZ7gBOWnbrAPUSrYg_SV2UGcaAbG0KbGCmycQyZn-w3r6szfJJgInI6ryKmm3B-iAnjAPpzzxKo3NRHGey6fN1tXCY8GCG9aI2f8cBR410tM/s320/immortallo.jpg" width="225" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd9jJbBZ7mGUszaJX_J5rl7wKwZcsmz2PVAG5UH35ojAA2uZdowh5fKVfMabJYkPFhXCQ8LDXNf7WU6GCp0SX_8OyONwZYWp72hZJpi0x-a-u5ysQc4_HOIxDBDEGIcQCVUqdiwjWpwDQ/s1600-h/012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd9jJbBZ7mGUszaJX_J5rl7wKwZcsmz2PVAG5UH35ojAA2uZdowh5fKVfMabJYkPFhXCQ8LDXNf7WU6GCp0SX_8OyONwZYWp72hZJpi0x-a-u5ysQc4_HOIxDBDEGIcQCVUqdiwjWpwDQ/s200/012.JPG" width="150" /></a>You didn't know it, but today is the first day of the rest of your life. Well, everyday is the first day of the rest of your life, but please allow me to engage in a little hucksterism today as I proudly announce the release of my new novel IMMORTALLO. It's currently available directly from the publisher's website, using <a href="https://www.createspace.com/3435351">this handy link</a>. It should be available from Amazon shortly in a print edition, but the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Immortallo-ebook/dp/B003ARTK7Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=digital-text&qid=1268074947&sr=8-1">Kindle version</a> is up as we speak. The first two chapters are up for free at the <a href="http://immortallo.blogspot.com/">Immortallo blog</a>, and since I'm not allowed to sell eBook versions of the book for less than the Kindle version, I would never do anything like include a link to a <a href="http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/1767216/immortallo-feb-24b-pdf-february-23-2010-1-21-pm-1-1-meg?da=y">free PDF</a> of the book. That would be wrong. All of us here at Stately Tressel Manor (meaning me and the cats, right now) are immensely proud of this book and hope you check it out in one of the many forms it's being made available. Preferably the one that makes us the <a href="https://www.createspace.com/3435351">most money</a>, since these cats need to eat. Thanks for your time.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-35214700613097415552010-03-01T12:00:00.000-05:002010-03-01T12:10:46.555-05:00DoingsAny audience for this blog justifiably dried up along with my irregular postings. But here's what I've been up to.<br /><br />-As mentioned last week, the release of my new novella Immortallo is imminent. Here is a <a href="https://www.createspace.com/3435351">link</a> for when the book becomes available. That is likely not the final cover, by the way. (I don't know how it became green, but we'll wait to see how the physical copy looks.)<br /><br />-There might be more updating on the <a href="http://www.immortallo.blogspot.com/">Immortallo-dedicated blog</a> over the next few weeks, as I'll be posting sample chapters, cover variants, and a few behind the scenes posts for the die-hard. <br /><br />-While I didn't end up sending in my disc (or even registering) to this year's RPM challenge (to write and record 10 songs or 30 minutes of new music in the month of February) I did end up recording new songs, an EP (does anybody still use these terms? Novella? EP?) entitled "Naming Names" I'm still working on mixing the tunes, but keep your eyes peeled to <a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/">Tresselsound</a> over the next week as tracks from the project start appearing.<br /><br />-I wrote a ton of poems in the fall of 2008, and at least one of them is finally seeing publication, well over a year later. <a href="http://www.cortlandreview.com/issue/46/tressel.html">"Unified Field Theory"</a> was written at the Stoughton Public Library some Saturday morning in late '08. There's an audio recording of me reading the poem, but I'd just ask you to ignore it, or at the very least heed the advice of Morrissey and "Don't Make Fun of Daddy's Voice"<br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8mbnLm7_kQs&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8mbnLm7_kQs&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-62901853780727022282010-02-24T10:07:00.000-05:002010-02-24T10:15:03.078-05:00IMMORTALLO IS COMING...<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipvyLWDQgxmgJGw8wnGYTcXjGXyQBKR8-dkFSa0AsIZmZsBBNxLZlXXyrpw89yI5oY0b_Tvk125PvV_CMS18LYVSt8Q7G9QgIDnfyaVjjW9mQZfLCQBjWQSS9LSFEpJgbIQATZ852ydVo/s1600-h/IMG_2812.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 134px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipvyLWDQgxmgJGw8wnGYTcXjGXyQBKR8-dkFSa0AsIZmZsBBNxLZlXXyrpw89yI5oY0b_Tvk125PvV_CMS18LYVSt8Q7G9QgIDnfyaVjjW9mQZfLCQBjWQSS9LSFEpJgbIQATZ852ydVo/s200/IMG_2812.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5441828492675406226" /></a><br />Next month sees the release of my new novel IMMORTALLO. It was written this past fall at the dining room table of my new home, and shucks if I don't like it. Here is the back cover copy:<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Steven wakes up each morning in a bed next to his beautiful wife. He drives his two young daughters to school before heading into a job that is pleasant but mindless. He has as close to a perfect life as anybody could want. <br /><br />But he remembers another life, a different life, in a world vastly unlike our own. A world of magic and wonder. And as these memories slowly seep into Steven's waking life, it threatens to unravel everything.<br /><br />In this new novel by the author of The While, the nature of reality and identity is questioned. Can we ever be sure of who we are? How can we tell the life we know is real? And who, or what, is Immortallo?</span><br /><br />Well, I never set out to be a copywriter. But look for more details about the book's release date, as well as sample chapters and even a free downloadable e-book, for people who don't mind reading things off a computer screen and don't like paying for things, here and at the <a href="http://immortallo.blogspot.com/">Immortallo blog</a>. Thanks.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-84123115109630842702010-01-28T10:51:00.000-05:002010-01-28T11:31:20.451-05:00Somebody Needs To Fight Me<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqtC-JeFJTpdX8ilvp-6LiptdHJI7DsJnGMS1v9ly6dPBi1ewzv0S604movFosN5W6CzFFhTD4xGdAieP5xQsXUjX7UW9_zhOQS-D0M-C6ZNPeXXErrCmBaQ5UelOKi9dYfZsOzoLiyqU/s1600-h/batman+punch+face.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 82px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqtC-JeFJTpdX8ilvp-6LiptdHJI7DsJnGMS1v9ly6dPBi1ewzv0S604movFosN5W6CzFFhTD4xGdAieP5xQsXUjX7UW9_zhOQS-D0M-C6ZNPeXXErrCmBaQ5UelOKi9dYfZsOzoLiyqU/s200/batman+punch+face.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431828544786221954" /></a><br /><br />I've never been in a physical fight in my life. I've been kneed in the groin, and punched in the mouth (two separate occasions, but by the same individual) but I never struck back. If my life were a movie, I would've been taunted for my inaction, and I would've scurried away in shame to find a stereotypically Asian older man to teach me some martial arts and also, maybe, some important lessons about life. But in my both cases, I took my lumps, and then went on to enjoy the smug superiority of the pacifist.<br /><br />There were many times, especially as a teenager, where I seemed eager to broker some kind of physical altercation. One Fourth of July, stuck in traffic following the local fireworks show, I got out of the car I was in and started bothering the people in the cars surrounding us, including one with tinted black windows, thumping bass, and pot smoke seeping out the cracked windows. I asked the occupants if they would be willing to take a survey of Russian literature, and they took this to be an insult to their intelligence (which, looking back, probably was) and they spilled out of their car and started threatening to fight everybody I was with. There were, inexplicably, two German exchange students with us, and this almost literally scared the piss out of them, five giant wanna-be gangstas (we were in Abington, after all) shaking the chassis of our car and demanding we stop "frontin'" and come out and fight them. The police intervened, and somehow I found myself uninvited to the party we were all headed to later that night.<br /><br />My first girlfriend left me for a young man in lock-up, and when he was released, he thought it incumbent upon himself to kill me, or at least stab me. He'd show up places I was, including the front yard of the new girl I was seeing, and so I sent him a letter, typed, that read: "I know gonorrhea sucks, but stop taking it out on me. Love, Ryan." I took great amusement at this, especially the "love, Ryan" part, and dropped it into the mailbox. One of my friends, I don't remember exactly who, shook his head at this. "I think you're trying to get yourself killed." I never heard back from the hoodlum, so I wrote a song about him, called "George Has Got A Knife" which was really one elaborate "small penis" joke, and then with my band opened our show at our high school with it, in front of several of George's friends. "I think you're trying to get yourself killed," somebody in the band told me, and I had to wonder if they were right.<br /><br />I had many near encounters with physical violence, but all came to not. I threw some coins at a drunken table who were singing loudly (they invited me to join them). I called the boyfriend of a girl I worked with a prick one night when I ended up going out with her and him and about six of his stooges and he tried to coerce their former high school teacher into buying them booze (The boyfriend seemed kowtowed that I stood up to him). I humiliated men in front of women they were trying to impress, I openly and notoriously attempted to court away girls from boyfriends who I shamelessly mocked. From the ages of 15 to 20, I was literally begging for somebody to hit me. <br /><br />I don't know if I would know how to hit someone, and the last ten years I've worried what would ever happen if I was forced into a physical confrontation. When I was young and seemed to be inviting people to fight me, I don't ever really thought that I would prevail in a fight, but I don't think it ever occurred to me that I would totally embarrass myself. But I would. I'd probably get dropped in one punch.<br /><br />I think I imagined that adrenaline would take over, that I wouldn't need to consciously think about how to hit someone or how hard I would need to do it. That something animal would turn on in my brain, and, even if I didn't win the fight, I'd at least get some good shots in. In all likelihood, I don't know if I ever actually thought that much about it. I don't think I ever thought the words "I want to get into a fight" but clearly my actions demonstrated that's what I was angling for.<br /><br />I live a pretty safe life now. I spend my mornings writing and lounging around with my cats, I teach teenagers about how to graph rational expressions and write papers about Steinbeck, and then come home and sit beside my bride-to-be as she watches terrible television. I happened home a few days ago to catch a few minutes of MTV's Jersey Shore, and while I was simultaneously amused and mortified at the behavior of the cast of characters (especially mortified when Lisa informed me that some of them were 30) I also recognized something, far away and distant, in the way the men on the show seemed to invite and relish violence. In one sequence, one of them literally pleads with a drunken passerby who is taunting him, pleading to not make him fight him. I shook my head when he finally did start swinging. I thought about the times that I had been hit, and how I had walked away. But, in the split second after it was clear the fight was going to happen but before it started, I turned my attention to the drunken instigator, the one who was taunting the over-muscled and greased up Jersey Shore cast member. <span style="font-style:italic;">Shit</span>, I thought. <span style="font-style:italic;">I think I know that guy.</span>rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-2645912279549678862010-01-21T10:20:00.000-05:002010-01-21T10:57:12.157-05:00Please, please, please let me get what I wantJust a few updates from Stately Tressel Manor:<br /><br />If it seems like I've been a little less than active, well, that's probably true. There are a couple of reasons.<br /><br />* I completed work on my new novel, "Immortallo" in early December, and I've spent the last few weeks working on prepping the manuscript for publication, hopefully in late February, early March. Right now things are in the hands of members of my design team, so things like jacket design are up in the air right now. As we get closer to the release date, I'll share some excerpts and artwork. I'm really proud of this one, and I hope people like it as well.<br /><br />*I'm trying to save up some creative energy for next month's RPM challenge. This is a yearly competition in which entrants must write and record 10 original songs during the month of February. I entered the contest last year (the songs can be heard on my music site, primarily <a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/page/6">here</a>, <a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/page/7">here</a> and <a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/81422697/getting-ugly">here </a> )and I'm looking forward to taking part again this year. I'll post links to the songs once they start showing up.<br /><br />*After that, hopefully the weather will start to warm up a bit, and I'll be in a better writing mood, at which point I'll start work on the next novel, tentatively titled "Harry Swan and the @#$*%#**!!" We'll see how it goes.<br /><br />*Republican Scott Brown's victory Tuesday in his bid for the late Ted Kennedy's senate seat really put me in a fowl mood yesterday, one that I decided to try and alleviate by raising my snark level to 11. I had a devilish amount of fun deriding Mr.Brown's supporters online yesterday, but probably took it a bit too far. I still hope that most of the people who voted for Mr. Brown were unaware of his anti-gay, anti-woman voting track record when they cast their ballots, and am disappointed that the Democratic party opted to run a robotic and anti-charismatic candidate who was nearly impossible for anybody to get excited about. But as I woke up this morning, determined to post today (initially I was planning to do another Listening Party entry) I just felt I need to dial back on the snark--snark which I feel has been particularly pervasive recently. That could change tomorrow, if I find myself listening to a Paula Cole record or something.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-12733394754205532032010-01-05T09:28:00.000-05:002010-01-05T12:11:15.209-05:00I LOVE THE SOUND OF BREAKING GLASS<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6_56fz10C6o&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6_56fz10C6o&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />When you drop an old fashioned Coke glass, they bounce once and then shatter in mid-air. I know this because I have dropped at least a dozen old fashioned Coke glasses, and at least eleven of those were on purpose. I'm not sure when the statute of limitations on petty vandalism runs out, but it's been ten years, so I hereby confess to the Friendly's corporation: I broke those goddamn glasses on purpose just because I liked the way they broke.<br /><br />I also facilitated the breaking of at least a dozen more, as during my very brief tenure as a Friendly's manager, I found that the best way to relieve an overly stressed employee (and at Friendly's most of the employees were teenage girls)was to invite them behind the restaurant and give them some Coke glasses to smash on the pavement. It always seemed to make everything feel better.<br /><br />The first Coke glass broke by accident. I fell right from my hands, and I watched it fall in slow motion, the way things that you don't want to fall fall. Everytime thereafter, the glasses fell too fast. Gravity never lets you savor the fall when you're enjoying it.<br /><br />It was a job I didn't want. It fell out of the sky. I had just left my last job after the general manager had tried to pull a "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" between me and the rest of the management staff over a missed place drop box, and my friend Keith and I went to the local Friendly's to flirt with the waitresses we knew there. And one of them--was it Rainee? Janine?--said it when they took away our ketchup stained plates. "Ryan, you should just come work here." And so I did.<br /><br />About three minutes into my first shift I knew I was not a good fit. I think a person needs a certain temperament to work at a restaurant, and I don't think I had it. It was Pammy the fountain girl who made me promise not to quit. She made me pinky-swear on it. I was 20 years old, and she was 17. It wasn't as sordid as you think. So I stayed.<br /><br />I wasn't really a very good manager. I don't think I succeeded in closing a night without some kind of food related mishap. There was a complicated series of steps for each food station, and I'd invariably forget one of them. I wouldn't cover up the cheese, or I'd forget to refresh the soft serve machine. These weren't really little things. I think everybody's fear when they go out to a place like Friendly's is that somebody left the cheese out all night, or that they let the mayonnaise spoil. Like I said, I was ill-suited for the job.<br /><br />But I did a pretty good job at managing the restaurant itself. I was really good at making unsatisfied customers--those dads who threaten to walk out without paying for anything because the waitresses were too slow, their kids' food was served cold--calm down and stay. I was also really good at managing the staff, and when one of those 16-year old waitresses had been yelled at by a customer, and she would be crying in the back, begging me to drop off the bill for her, I'd tell her she needed to do it, that it would make her feel better and stronger if she went out there and faced those customers and showed those mean bastards that they hadn't broken her. <br /><br />And I'd ask her, when she was crying, when she threatened to quit, what would be the worst thing that could happen? "Nobody's going to die," I'd say. And then I'd take her out back to smash old fashioned Coke glasses.<br /><br />Only once did my direct boss, Tina the general manager, indicate to me that she suspected anything nefarious about the broken glasses. But I had learned at an early age the power of misdirecting someone without lying. "We dropped them," I'd told her, and that was 100% the truth. We did drop them. Over and over again. Until our sides hurt from laughing.<br /><br />I knew that I was basically taking money away from the Friendly's corporation. I knew that the glasses cost money and would need to be replaced. But I figured that the glasses were in some way some kind of hazard pay. On a busy night--especially a busy night where we were short-staffed: a usual recipe for late-night glass smashing--the company made more money while we made exactly the same. It was a small form of profit sharing. It was a tiny workers' revolt.<br /><br />I guess it would seem different if we'd been taking cash out of the register. But we weren't. That would be wrong. And this, this glass smashing? How could something that felt so right be wrong? <br /><br />Nobody was going to die.<br /><br />I'd already decided I was leaving, putting in my notice, the night that the Pisser showed up at the door. It had been a crazy busy night--so crazy and hectic and short-staffed that we didn't even have an opportunity to unwind with some glass smashing--and a man knocked at the front door after we had closed. He had a bad mustache, a silk dress shirt unbuttoned too far, black trenchcoat, and a curly mullet. "I need to use your bathroom," he said, standing at the glass door at the front of the restaurant.<br /><br />I didn't open the door, just kind of yelled to him through the glass. I told him we were closed. <br /><br />"I need to use the bathroom," he repeated.<br /><br />Our Friendly's was literally surrounded by bars that were still open. <br />"Why don't you go use the restroom at Bob's?" I said, pointing to the local bar adjacent to us.<br /><br />He told me he had had a problem with the bouncer there and couldn't go back in. I think I must've known he was drunk before this point, but this was where I really noticed how much he was swaying.<br /><br />"I need to use your bathroom or I'm going to be sick," he told me. "I've got a condition."<br /><br />I apologized and told him I couldn't let him into the restaurant after we had closed.<br />He closed his eyes for a second, like he had fallen asleep standing up, then reopened them slowly.<br /><br />"Remember this face," he said, pointing to his bad mustache. "Remember this face."<br />His fist came out of nowhere. "BECAUSE THIS IS THE FACE OF THE MAN WHO IS GOING TO F*** YOU UP!" he yelled as he shattered the glass door with his fist. I instinctively fell backwards as the glass rained down onto the floor. He ran off into the night.<br /><br />He wasn't a very adept criminal. The police caught him an hour or two later. I had to go to the police station at 1:45am to make an ID. He was sitting in a room, virtually passed out, his fist wrapped in bloody bandages, his mullet and mustache still intact. <br /><br />"That's him," I told the officer.<br /><br />"Are you sure?" he asked me.<br /><br />I nodded. "He told me to remember his face."<br /><br />It was a good line, one I couldn't wait to repeat at his trial, which I later received two summons for. I imagined leaning into the microphone at the moment when his defense attorney asked me the question. "Are you sure this is the man you saw that night?"<br /><br />Dramatic pause. "Yes. He told me to remember his face."<br /><br />I ended up sitting in Brockton superior court on two separate mornings just to listen to his lawyer ask for a continuance. I only found out months later, after I'd stopped working at Friendly's, that he eventually plead guilty and had to send Friendly's $20/a month until he had paid for the repair to the door. I never got my moment in court.<br /><br />Some other stuff happened that night--some real Keystone Cops moments with the Bridgewater PD, trying to explain the situation to the night cleaning crew who only spoke Portuguese. An old acquaintance showed up at some point while I was waiting for the police, having taken some bad acid and in need of someone to talk her through it. <br /><br />I spent a lot of time that night on the phone with the general and regional managers, filling them in on what had happened. It was late at night, I imagine I had woken both of them up, but they didn't seem to grasp what my biggest concern was. We had no front door. The whole door was glass, with the exception of a metal bar across the middle for pulling and pushing the door open, and all that glass was lying in the entrance way. <br /><br />"Just hang a sign on the door," Tina said. <br /><br />I tried to explain that there was no way to keep anybody--or any animals--from just walking into the restaurant by just climbing either under or over that center bar.<br />"Just hang a sign on the door," she repeated.<br /><br />I think I worked there for another month. I thought about just never going back, but I had pinky-sworn to stay, and so I did. <br /><br />A day or two later I went to work and the glass had been replaced. I guess there would have been some dramatic irony in me being there the day they replaced the front glass door--representing, perhaps, all the glass I myself had broken--but I wasn't. Like I said, it wasn't a job I was really that invested in.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-68093348822568156832009-12-21T12:43:00.000-05:002009-12-21T13:54:45.709-05:00My Favorite Christmas ThingsIn no particular order:<br /><br />*Listening to Roger Waters' "Amused to Death" in the dark, Christmas night, 1992.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/MnswRNoiDGI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/MnswRNoiDGI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />In the olden days, my father would bring us to his aunt and uncle's house in Melrose for Christmas dinner, and give us our Christmas gifts when we got home. Melrose was probably an hour away, and we'd usually stay late, so we wouldn't get home until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. In 1992, my dad gave me "Amused to Death" the new solo record from Pink Floyd's Roger Waters. I'd asked for it having seen a magazine ad for the album's cover, a monkey watching a TV set. I had never heard any of the songs, nor had I heard any Pink Floyd (although my friend Jesse would lend me a copy of 'The Wall' about a week before Christmas), but something about that album cover really grabbed me, so when I opened it up Christmas night, I went down into my dad's unheated basement to listen to it (that's where the stereo was--it had speaker hook-ups throughout the house, but my sisters were asleep) and I sat in the cold dark as monkeys screeched and little boys talked about war, and scared the shit out of myself.<br /><br /><br />*Reading "Arkham Asylum" by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean, Christmas night 1989, 10pm-11:45 pm<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.comicbookresources.com/artists/morrison/arkham/arkham2_sm.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 230px; height: 178px;" src="http://images.comicbookresources.com/artists/morrison/arkham/arkham2_sm.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>I don't think I've ever been so excited by a Christmas gift that ended up horrifying me so much. Released following the successful Batman movie, Arkham Asylum by Morrison and McKean is probably the most disturbing thing I'll ever read. Because when you are 10 years old, there are fewer disturbing things than reading a book on Christmas night about Batman stabbing himself in the hand with a shard of glass.<br /><br /><br />*Listening to "Fairytale of New York" on repeat at the Rockpile, Christmas Eve 2001<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/NrAwK9juhhY&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/NrAwK9juhhY&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />I used to work at a great used record store in my hometown, and I used to work Christmas Eve morning before my boss came in and the place basically turned into a Christmas Eve party for all his friends. I put this song on, probably the only song that reminds me of Christmas that is actually about Christmas, albeit a Christmas between a drunk and verbally abusive couple.<br /><br />* Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge from the Simpson Christmas episode, Christmas 1995<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIEErhZUgWNs0RAMrUbrjIB97n-uJ25yIAAa2yxreOUF1Lx8DySyVRjbmbfhUBaYV7WAGjC4DoZhlqNKAyK6PUmRHhw9uvbkMnwYYeGB8Nq0X9uGNiRfRV_pxwICDqCh6CoWrb7ggK-zY/s1600-h/lee+carvalho.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIEErhZUgWNs0RAMrUbrjIB97n-uJ25yIAAa2yxreOUF1Lx8DySyVRjbmbfhUBaYV7WAGjC4DoZhlqNKAyK6PUmRHhw9uvbkMnwYYeGB8Nq0X9uGNiRfRV_pxwICDqCh6CoWrb7ggK-zY/s200/lee+carvalho.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5417762194097265986" /></a><br />The Simpsons have done several Christmas episodes, but this is my favorite. Bart really wants a particular videogame called "Bloodstorm" and after several attempts to earn the money, he instead shoplifts the game. It's actually a pretty heart-rending episode, as Marge discovers his larceny and feels like she doesn't even know her own son anymore. And while it does have a pretty sappy climax (Bart takes the money he's saved and has his portrait taken for her) the ending is maybe my favorite Christmas ending of all time. Marge gives Bart his gift--shaped like a video cartridge--and he opens it expecting Bloodstorm. Instead it is 'Lee Carvallo's Putting Challenge'--Marge informs him that Bloodstorm was sold out. This kind of reminds me of me and my mom.<br /><br />* Pretending "The Road to Ensenada" by Lyle Lovett was country music, Christmas season, 1998<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xtL_693UQfA&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xtL_693UQfA&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />I was involved with this girl who really loved country music (I remember she had a Garth Brooks boxset) and I was really, really, really trying to learn to like it, as almost a Christmas present to her. Lyle Lovett was about as far as I could go.<br /><br />*"Sin City" by Frank Miller, Christmas night, 1992<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.techshout.com/images/frank-miller-sin-city.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 320px;" src="http://www.techshout.com/images/frank-miller-sin-city.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I remember telling my father's older cousin asking me what I had asked for for Christmas, and when I told him a few CDs and a few comics, he asked me if they were those kind of comics with naked ladies in them. I said no, but when I finally got a chance to go home that night and read the first Sin City collection, which my father had gotten me for Christmas, well, Frank Miller made a liar out of me. That's a comic with a lot of naked ladies in it. And I think reading about a guy sawing off somebody's limbs and feeding to the dogs on Christmas night would have disturbed me more if I hadn't already read Arkham Asylum. I was growing up.<br />* The "Madonna" episode of MacGyver, Christmas, 1989<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.hobo-bonobo.co.uk/topten/images/0808281240172.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 466px; height: 356px;" src="http://www.hobo-bonobo.co.uk/topten/images/0808281240172.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I loved MacGyver when I was like 9 or 10, and this Christmas episode, in which a statue of the Virgin Mary disappears, and the Boys and Girls club that MacGyver's friend works at is going to be closed, except they put on some kind of talent show that saves the club and oh, yeah, it turns out the Mary statue didn't disappear, it just turned into a bag lady who made MacGyver finally deal with the death of his mother, and you may say that I don't love Christmas, but I love this.<br /><br />*The Fourfignewtons Shirt, Amherst MA, Christmas 1997<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://drinkmykoolaid.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/41vjqvp2hfl-_sl500_aa280_pibundle-48topright00_aa280_sh20_.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 280px; height: 280px;" src="http://drinkmykoolaid.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/41vjqvp2hfl-_sl500_aa280_pibundle-48topright00_aa280_sh20_.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />My friend Jess' birthday is about a week before Christmas, and I went to visit her in Amherst one year for it. She's a lover of really bad jokes, and I found this t-shirt with four fig newtons dancing in a chorus line, with the tag "fourfignewton" (play on the Volkswagon farfegnugen catchphrase) and then we went Christmas shopping in Northhampton, and I bought the really weird Joni Mitchell album where she included random recordings of people singing happy birthday to Charles Mingus and listened to it the whole long and cold ride back home.<br /><br />*Watching Bob Dylan Unplugged, Christmas Eve 1994<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JLNRgxsgRaM&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JLNRgxsgRaM&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Surprisingly, I don't think I had ever heard "Like A Rolling Stone" before, and this is the version I hear whenever I think of the song. My favorite bit, however, is Dylan's realization a few bars in that the band's instruments are out of tune. This raises the interesting question: If Bob Dylan can tell when things are out of tune, why has he been singing like that for forty years?<br /><br />*Reading "Jack Kirby's Fourth World", Christmas 2008<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/2296/fourthworld1sv4.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 465px; height: 640px;" src="http://img128.imageshack.us/img128/2296/fourthworld1sv4.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />For those who are unfamiliar with Jack Kirby, he created the Fantastic Four, Captain America, the Hulk, and the X-Men, as well as literally hundreds of other characters. But none of his work gives me as much joy as the Fourth World, a series of comics he did for DC in the early 70s. I had black and white reprints of most of them, but last Christmas crazily splurged and purchased all four hardcover collections of the work in color and in the proper order. There's really nothing Christmas-y about gods who look like Black olympic skiers and who collect the spirits of the recently dead. Or maybe there is?<br /><br />*Watching "True Stories" on DVD, Christmas Eve 2000<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/K4rmpqjE550&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/K4rmpqjE550&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />I'd seen this movie back in the winter of 1992, and I probably could've included it then, but 1992 is pretty jammed packed. I got my first DVD player in 2000, and this was the first DVD I got to watch in it. It's the movie where David Byrne from Talking Heads puts on a bolo tie and makes fun of people from Texas for an hour and a half.<br />There's a part at the end of the movie, where Byrne as narrator talks about how he likes forgetting. Leaving a place, and you forget all the things and people and places, and so when you go back there you get to rediscover them all again. This is probably one of the central tenets of my life, and why I can listen to Bob Dylan flub the intro to 'Like A Rolling Stone' or reread a drugged-up Batman kicking a supervillian in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs, or listen to Roger Waters talk about how God wants TV and cash contributions, because during the year I forget all these things, which allows me to come back to them and rediscover them like I was 10, or 13, or 20, all over again. <br /><br />That having been said, this year will be the first year my wife-to-be and I will be spending Christmas together, so I imagine in a few years, a list of my favorite Christmas things might look entirely different.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-85968083411747771592009-12-07T10:53:00.001-05:002009-12-07T12:21:24.218-05:00LISTENING PARTY: The Wall<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.danielcasado.com/web/contenido/Derivas/the%20wall.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 475px; height: 475px;" src="http://www.danielcasado.com/web/contenido/Derivas/the%20wall.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />I don't know what it is about the early winter months that makes me nostalgic for overblown, bombastic, and pretentious rock albums. I figured I'd take a break from all that and listen to one of the least overblown, bombastic, and pretentious rock albums of all time. Pink Floyd's The Wall.<br /><br />I have to admit that I had no idea who Pink Floyd was in the early days of December 1992, when my friend and bandmate Jesse let me borrow his copy of the wall, taped off of his father's vinyl. I subsequently dubbed a copy of that tape, which meant that for the first four years of listening to this album, it was on a twice-dubbed cassette copy of a 12-year old vinyl record. Meaning that, while 13-year Ryan listened to this album for the first time with the lights off in his bedroom, freaked out by all the strange noises and weird screaming that accompanied this album--due to the poor quality of the tape he had, there was still so much strange noise and weird screaming he couldn't hear. <br /><br />"In the Flesh?"-So, if you're making an overly pretentious and overblown concept album, the first thing you need to do is record a piece of spoken dialogue and then split it in half and play the second half at the start of the record and the first half at the end, so that it creates a loop. I think Britney Spears did this same trick on "Oops, I Did It Again"<br /><br />I have since read many books on Pink Floyd, a band that I have been fascinated with since that fateful December night 17 years ago when I first heard singer/composer Roger Waters barking out orders to the lighting crew before airplanes zoomed by and crashed. So I know a lot of the backstory behind the creation of this album: Waters' loss of his father in WWII, the slow descent into madness of Floyd's first singer, Syd Barrett, the increasing dehumanization of rock n' roll tours. But I knew none of that when I first heard this album. Instead, I thought I was going fricking crazy.<br /><br />"The Thin Ice"- Yoko Ono's biggest solo hit was a song called "Walking on Thin Ice." I mention this because Roger Waters sings a little bit like Yoko Ono on this track. Which is to say not at all.<br /><br />"Another Brick in the Wall, Part 1"- This album was also my introduction to songs that had parts to them. In my youth, a song was a song, and then you'd just hear another one. But then Roger Waters came along and decided that songs were never finished, just replayed again later with slightly different lyrics and even more headache inducing vocals. This song ends with a long guitar coda overdubbed with sounds of children playing. This scared the shit out of me when I was 13 for some reason.<br /><br />"The Happiest Days of Our Lives"- This song starts with a helicopter. I don't really know why. I also don't know why that this was its own song and not just the beginning to "Another Brick in the Wall, part 2" It's all about how teachers are mean to kids. Which means your seventh grade brother wrote it. <br /><br />"Another Brick in the Wall part 2"-Somewhere, someone has written a 40-page dissertation on the way this song blends disco beats with the refrain "we don't need no education" but I don't want to read it, and neither should you. And the person who wrote it should be ashamed of themselves. This song is famous for its use of a children's choir on the second verse. Those kids were all paid for their services with a copy of the album. Roger Waters used the money he made off this record to buy a private island. I don't know what that means, except that while Roger Waters has gone to write and record several more rock operas and one for real opera, none of these school kids ever went on to record their own rock opera. So while we'll never know who was the real musical genius behind the Wall--Roger Waters or a group of 20 eight year olds--I think we can make an educated guess. What?<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/M_bvT-DGcWw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M_bvT-DGcWw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Mother"-After hearing this song, I was terrible to my own mother for about five years. So I think Pink Floyd owes my mother an apology.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/LWoyZixx1l4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/LWoyZixx1l4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"Goodbye, Blue Sky"-This is a really beautiful song about a cat eating a bird. And then about some zombies.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iXgxemYiXQ4&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iXgxemYiXQ4&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />Then there are two flowers raping each other.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ARXKvVeVtXg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ARXKvVeVtXg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"Young Lust"-I think this song reveals the brilliance of the collaboration between Roger Waters and guitarist David Gilmour. So this song is supposed to be about a young boy's grappling with his nascent sexuality in the grip of a controlling mother.<br />I feel like Gilmour took one look at the song title and said "'Young Lust'? My guitar knows how to do that." and turned Roger Waters lonely song about masturbation into one that was 100% about cock. That's magic, folks.<br /><br />"One of My Turns"-This song starts with the mother from Leave it to Beaver playing an operator trying to reach Pink Floyd's wife. And some man answers, which leads Pink Floyd to bring a groupie back to his hotel room. And then the groupie talks about all the cool stuff that it's in the room. This lasts for about forty-five minutes. Then the song starts. Over a really 1979-esque synthesizer, Pink talks about feeling cold as a razorblade and tight as a tourniquet and dry as a funeral drum, and then the drums and guitars kick in, supposedly representing his freak-out. He asks the groupie if she's like to see his favorite ax. When I was 13, I didn't know that people referred to guitars as axes, and thus thought he had turned into a serial killer. Or a lumberjack.<br /><br />"Don't Leave Me Now"-During this song he doesn't mention anything about trees or logs or how cold it is, so I'm thinking he's not a lumberjack.<br /><br />"Another Brick in the Wall part 3"-I had to convince my mother to let me rent "Pink Floyd The Wall" the movie from our local video store because it was rated R. I'm pretty sure I saw it before Christmas, which was only about two weeks after Jesse lent me the album, but it seemed the longest two weeks of my life. I was desperate to see the film the band made about the album, and when I finally saw it, it was torturous. It felt like two whole weeks while I was watching it. I thought that maybe everything just felt like it took forever when I was 13, but last year I tried to watch 'The Wall' movie again, and after about four hours I stopped, unable to take anymore. And that only got me to the second roar of the MGM lion.<br /><br />"Goodbye Cruel World"-This is the end of the first disc of the double album, and I wonder what someone would've thought if they bought this from like a used record store and it only came with the first disc. I'd ask them, but they probably have killed themselves due to extreme depression.<br />The stage show for this record involved a giant wall being built across the stage with this song being the one where Waters inserted the final brick. I actually think this is one of the coolest conceits for a rock n' roll show I've ever heard of, although I don't know how I'd feel as an audience member if the band I went to see didn't want to see me so much they built a wall in front of me. <br /><br />"Hey You"- I remember I went with this girl named Jenny to a homeless shelter to volunteer, and when her mom was driving us, this song came on the radio, and Jenny said "Oh, Mom, I love this song! Turn it up!" and I decided this meant that she and I needed to get married. She went on to become a Patriots' cheerleader and I write about albums I listen to on a blog that nobody reads, so you can see how that turned out.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/liDUD4Apl2w&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/liDUD4Apl2w&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"Is there Anybody Out There?"-This is a mostly solo acoustic guitar piece. I'm sure if I went to the Wall show, this is where Floyd started throwing rotten fruit at the audience from over the wall.<br /><br />"Nobody Home"-This is one of the most affecting songs on the album. And really, if you wanted to know what Roger Waters felt about the rock n' roll lifestyle, this song would do the trick. He talks about having the obligatory Hendrix perm, which someday, when I'm not too busy writing on this blog that nobody reads and wondering what Jenny is up to, I might go into a barber shop asking for the obligatory Hendrix perm just to see what might happen.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JZkERB6dU_Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JZkERB6dU_Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"Vera Lynn"/"Bring the Boys Back Home"- These two songs are really one song, which is all about WWII. Roger Waters is meant to connect rock n' rollers going out onto tour with young men going off to battle the Nazis. One group saved Europe from self-destruction. The other made it cool to wave around lighters and dayglo sticks in the air and yell out "Freebird." I'm not one to pass judgment.<br /><br />"Comfortably Numb"- This is probably the most famous song from this album, and is probably tied with "Money" to be the most famous Pink Floyd song of all time. Which is funny, because it's all about getting a hyper-cortisone shot before going onto stage to perform in a giant stadium rock show. That really boils down the universality of the Wall to its core, doesn't it?<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/0wtiNzci1Wc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/0wtiNzci1Wc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />This performance is from 2005, the final performance of Pink Floyd ever, and the first time the original (well non-Syd Barrett original) members played together in 25 years. I mention this because for all the fun I'm poking at this record, seeing this band reunite after so many years was a big deal to me, even though I was an adult. It was a great moment. Even though David Gilmour looks a little bit like Skeletor.<br /><br />"The Show Must Go On"- You wouldn't know it from the liner notes (the liner notes don't even mention the band's drummer,Nick Mason, so I'd hardly call them comprehensive) but this song features background vocals from Toni Tennille, from the Captain & Tennille. Which might be the scariest thing about the whole record.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xjloX_EvYiI&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xjloX_EvYiI&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"In the Flesh"- A reprise of the album's opening track, this time without the question mark, and with added racial slurs. There's some business when you watch the film that Pink Floyd (the character, not the band) has turned in a fascist. Which I guess is cool. I mean, I'd guess I'd rather have a rock star pretend to be a fascist then pretend to be a socialist, like when John Lennon tells us to imagine no possessions when he's playing an ivory grand piano in his mansion.<br /><br />"Run Like Hell"- At this point in the record/movie/Roger Water's life, things are so bleak I applaud all of us for keeping on. <br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lKgOe1Rl8YY&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lKgOe1Rl8YY&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Is there anybody weak in the audience?" We're all weak, Roger.<br /><br />"Waiting for the Worms"-There's actually an interesting point to be made with the central metaphor of this song, about how isolating ourselves from the world makes us vunerable to the decay of self-doubt. The problem is if you weren't isolated from the world before you listened to this record, you probably would be by the time you got to this song. Although I suppose it's better than another Captain and Tennille song, I suppose.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ry4ngf766N0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ry4ngf766N0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"The Trial"- I can't even imagine being a Pink Floyd fan during this time, having grown up with the band since the late 60s. Getting stoned and listening to Ummagumma or Set the Control for the Heart of the Sun getting to the end of this record and hearing them performing a Gilbert & Sullivan number about dueling toothed vaginas.<br />And giant balls.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZE2t6HWmquc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZE2t6HWmquc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />Somewhere there is a cassette tape featuring the band I was in when I was 13 performing a cover of this song. This alone will prevent me from ever running for public office.<br /><br />"Outside the Wall"-At this point in the show, the giant wall would be torn down, showering lightweight cardboard bricks on the audience, followed by this quiet melodica-driven song. On the tape I had, the sound quality was bad, I don't think I even heard this song at all the first few times I listened to the album. I was still thinking about the raping flowers, and giant toothed vaginas, and how rock music turned you into a nazi, and I just pulled the covers over my head.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-83577175229672424852009-11-23T09:13:00.000-05:002009-11-23T10:34:13.699-05:00LISTENING PARTY: Bat Out Of Hell III<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWBOb3v2QcxXshhw-UcBolAtk5uR0UtqWX8imXiOMz4hz1J6oCI1zXmDY35XOPzWDH5RME1XcKQoT1f1Dy7opoO9PdO1-TlnLvjxY7AStck4nC9lV14CWUTkjq2qXIlG66-DQh76OFX_I/s1600/The_Monster_is_Loose_Bat_Out_of_Hell_3_album_cover.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 184px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWBOb3v2QcxXshhw-UcBolAtk5uR0UtqWX8imXiOMz4hz1J6oCI1zXmDY35XOPzWDH5RME1XcKQoT1f1Dy7opoO9PdO1-TlnLvjxY7AStck4nC9lV14CWUTkjq2qXIlG66-DQh76OFX_I/s200/The_Monster_is_Loose_Bat_Out_of_Hell_3_album_cover.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407322548786421490" /></a><br />Francis Ford Coppola decided, after almost two decades, to return to the Godfather movies. The first two were and are among the most critical acclaimed movies in American history, so who could argue with a Godfather part III? FFC wrote a script, signed all the principals (Al Pacino, Diane Keaton) and hired the talented Winona Ryder to play the key role of Mary, Michael Corleone's daughter. But weeks before shooting was to start, Ryder got sick and dropped out of the picture, and FFC replaced her with his young, inexperienced daughter. <br /><br />I mention this because Meatloaf also decided to make his Bat out of Hell series a trilogy, and when his collaborator and songwriter Jim Steinman quit the project, Meat was forced to hire Francis Ford Coppola's daughter to fill in. Well, not quite, but Bat Out of Hell III is a weird hybrid creature; Meatloaf found a few older Steinman songs lying around (including a few from an unproduced Batman musical, and one from a Celine Dion record) and then filled them in with songs that sound like they were only written because Winona Ryder got sick.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/7PL74ARXreg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7PL74ARXreg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"The Monster's Loose"- This song is written by Nikki Six and John 5. I think that first guy is from Motley Crue, and that second guy is the robot from Short Circuit. Which would explain the fact that the music sounds like heavy metal-lite music, with lyrics that seem like its author was taught human emotion from Steve Guttenburg. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9vVJhvyyas0VZvF3bVA1IHXpgSRz2gOOx4IHmJq2njM9jLvCYAw_5OPxv56VlOsgEAc7i28D_Cv2Ll7B6TUm518ikm4KVggrieddkrGKTEGABfvvx92q2b_L2tVtPFn8KyN05DZ_Y87c/s1600/robot-johnny5.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 137px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9vVJhvyyas0VZvF3bVA1IHXpgSRz2gOOx4IHmJq2njM9jLvCYAw_5OPxv56VlOsgEAc7i28D_Cv2Ll7B6TUm518ikm4KVggrieddkrGKTEGABfvvx92q2b_L2tVtPFn8KyN05DZ_Y87c/s200/robot-johnny5.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407320629694354002" /></a><br />This song also serves as the album's subtitle. Any album that needs a subtitle is definitely in trouble. It would've been like if Bat II was subtitled "The Wrath of Khan."<br /><br />"Blind as a Bat"- This song is also not written by Jim Steinman. It was written by Desmond Child, who co-wrote "Living On A Prayer" with Bon Jovi. However, unlike that song, Blind as A Bat doesn't make me want to rollerskate around Skatetown. It doesn't even make me want to be blind as a bat so much as it makes me want to be deaf as Marlee Matlin. I do want to give Meatloaf credit for singing his heart out on this song. I give him credit for really committing to it, like award-winning actor Raul Julia did when he appeared in 'Street Fighter' with Jean Claude Van Damme.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIx_PfLDVb1N0mdtz4yKCH_pwy-hhAfXmPnhUSedP_BOVLEOCGk0GojmOVwtUz1pxpzgFTdTfHTLiga9N5ytKGc78pBC_Ingf8dYXewcExORMA3tPSS63oosROLWCox9NRQ5Zyq08v-Wk/s1600/street_fighter_movie_image_1994_raul_julia_as_m._bison.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIx_PfLDVb1N0mdtz4yKCH_pwy-hhAfXmPnhUSedP_BOVLEOCGk0GojmOVwtUz1pxpzgFTdTfHTLiga9N5ytKGc78pBC_Ingf8dYXewcExORMA3tPSS63oosROLWCox9NRQ5Zyq08v-Wk/s200/street_fighter_movie_image_1994_raul_julia_as_m._bison.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407310046736903202" /></a><br />"It's All Coming Back To Me Now"- Ah, the first of the Steinman scraps. This came from a Celine Dion album. His duet partner, Marion Raven, is not, as I imagined when I first listened to it, the girl from 'That's So Raven', which ruins whatever tiny enjoyment I got from the song. I do remember one of the few bits of pre-publicity buzz this album got was due to the fact that Meat had apparently asked Scarlett Johansen to sing this with him and she turned him down. She went on to record an album of Tom Waits' songs. Winner? Nobody.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yxNy6lwULVs&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yxNy6lwULVs&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Bad for Good"- Our second Steinman scraps, and dear god, I thank you that this album exists just for this one song. I believe it comes from Steinman's solo album, when Jim Steinman, the she-male who wrote all of Bat Out of Hell decided he didn't need Meatloaf's voice and charisma to make his overblown and creepy songs less overblown and creepy. He just embraced their overblown and creepiness. The best part of this song? Well, that's like asking which atom of the sun makes you the warmest, but the thing that I love particularly about this song at this moment is that they recruited Brian May from Queen to record lead guitar on this song. Combining Meatloaf and Queen is almost too much to handle. If Phil Spector had produced it, this song would've been so rock n' roll decadence that it would've crushed the earth and all life on it. But the combination of Meatloaf's voice, May's guitar, and Steinman's "You think that I'll be bad for just a little while, I know that I'll be bad for good" chorus hook, is enough awesome to make my bones ache. This is the one song on the album that feels 'Bat Out of Hell'-ish even a little bit. Part of the reason for that is this song is copyright 1979, before being a sexless freak had completely embittered Jim Steinman. That's actually probably the only reason, now that I think about it.<br /><br />"Cry Over Me"-Having run out of Steinman scraps for the time being, Meat turns to songwriter Diane Warren, who also wrote 'I Don't Want to Miss A Thing' for Aerosmith. This might be the moment where you look around and think "Meatloaf's here, the album's called 'Bat Out of Hell', there's a bad painting of a guy on a motorcycle with a sword fighting a giant bat....why does it all feel so wrong?" and the answer, again, is that THIS SONG IS BY THE WOMAN WHO WROTE THE THEME SONG TO ARMAGEDDON. If an asteroid smashed into my house right now while I'm listening to this song, I'm afraid I'd deserve it.<br /><br />"In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher is King"- STEINMAN! STEINMAN! STEINMAN! Oh, thank you Jim Steinman, for not only writing an unproduced Batman musical, but for also leaving the sheet music laying around for Meatloaf to find. So I think this song is written from the Joker's point of view, or something. You'd think the combination of Jim Steinman and Batman would be as awesome as the Steinman/Queen combo, but I guess Prince's "Batdance" has ruined me forever. <br /><br />"Monstro"- What? No. Instrumentals? I feel like they made this in the hope they could get Jim Steinman to come in and do his creepy spoken word thing, about I'm a big whale and I'm going to swallow you and then you'll have to light a fire inside me and I'll sneeze you out, but, like, sexually. And then Jim didn't show up. <br /><br />"Alive"- It does segue way into the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Oh, wait, no, still Meatloaf. Is this song also written by Johnny 5? ("Johnny Five...alive!") No. This song is written by four people, which outside of a band situation, just strikes me as too many people. If it takes four people to write a song this generic, maybe it means that the idea for the song wasn't that good to begin with. I hate that I can't direct my disappointment toward Jim Steinman. I could have so much fun picking on him for looking like Cloris Leachman when she first wakes up in the morning, but now I have a bit of begrudging respect for him deciding not to take part in this deal. And I don't want to blame Meatloaf. I'm so conflicted. <br /><br />"If God Could Talk"- He'd say, 'Stop making Bat Out of Hell III.'<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EjgHSkb2pEE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EjgHSkb2pEE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"If It Ain't Broke, Break It"- Oh, Steinman, I'm sorry for how much I picked on you during Bats I & II. It doesn't mean I want to hang out with you or anything. This song is also from your unproduced Batman musical, and while it isn't objectively good in any way, I love it still because it's YOURS. <br /><br />I mean, it's total shit, but it's YOURS.<br /><br />"What About Love"-Ah, the last non-Steinman song. It's also written by four people. Steinman must sit around listening to his complementary copy of this album, brushing his long, white hair and just laughing that it takes four people to even try and write a Bat Out of Hell song. And then he takes out his Batman action figures and starts using them to perform his Batman musical. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6AB1DIhIDaBXd3JTtdT2lBp8JpxMAtI5untB5bvmL7Neh7ybZT8J6EowbftAQ62FEL4dVAlIo3QhOOS87-EXNJAEqARdebys-uJl66gTat5k04LvtVBl2BIrrDKmlQFyRLt3kHrGTmY/s1600/swag_batman&son.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 189px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6AB1DIhIDaBXd3JTtdT2lBp8JpxMAtI5untB5bvmL7Neh7ybZT8J6EowbftAQ62FEL4dVAlIo3QhOOS87-EXNJAEqARdebys-uJl66gTat5k04LvtVBl2BIrrDKmlQFyRLt3kHrGTmY/s200/swag_batman&son.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407316794210036962" /></a><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />"Robin, quickly! To the Tony Awards!"</span><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2G0NXLC244Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2G0NXLC244Y&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Seize the Night"-Another Batman musical number. Since I've kind of made a truce with Jim Steinman, I'll just include some scenes I'd like to see in the Batman musical if it ever comes to pass.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJpjrXUi5pOtcTjbPnGq3uqUGRmuKe-MbpIv5ZvekSyuRDEBDK9gvQT6b0yzKY0nEOHK0Z4lpiDIm87VmArK2emBJq2zPzZNtdCTOZ26M3yFC86MRoY152o4bxd8pRgjgp5YNshOpFYUA/s1600/hostess-batman-panel.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 185px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJpjrXUi5pOtcTjbPnGq3uqUGRmuKe-MbpIv5ZvekSyuRDEBDK9gvQT6b0yzKY0nEOHK0Z4lpiDIm87VmArK2emBJq2zPzZNtdCTOZ26M3yFC86MRoY152o4bxd8pRgjgp5YNshOpFYUA/s200/hostess-batman-panel.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407319617017783954" /></a><br /><br />"The Future Just Ain't What it Used to Be"-<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBY6m1IuxYrc1mGQrEeAy90yLOwHydfp1bLhkhHDMcAsANT40lu7w9bBgf_2eafUi5HJuuAP4uMVJao6k1076jH3LnPIdyEU8EclKxzf3_8QogXefy9pdIdp2PP0HoAZh-RLQsVc-gxzE/s1600/pyzam4.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBY6m1IuxYrc1mGQrEeAy90yLOwHydfp1bLhkhHDMcAsANT40lu7w9bBgf_2eafUi5HJuuAP4uMVJao6k1076jH3LnPIdyEU8EclKxzf3_8QogXefy9pdIdp2PP0HoAZh-RLQsVc-gxzE/s200/pyzam4.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407320138347845362" /></a><br /><br />"Cry to Heaven"- Here I am. I've nearly completed my look at the Bat Out of Hell trilogy. I don't know if there will ever be a Bat Out of Hell IV (although my guess is that if Meatloaf invested his 'Bat' money in the stock market, the answer is yes) but if not I'm disappointed that the whole thing ended without the giant bat getting his comeuppance. You can't just go and grab big-breasted women in chain-mail and make guys ride enchanted motorcycles to get them back too many times before you get your comeuppance. So if I could implore Meatloaf and Steinman to reunite one last time to write and record one more song in which the motorcycle guy finally defeats the giant bat. Steinman, you can probably just use that song from the 'Beowulf' musical I'm sure you've got kicking around somewhere. Just don't let it end here. That motherlovin' bat's got it coming. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-rmDyKKRLapu-5u6sstkvGoZjWdh7feCrC1qhF5qlls5UZlrtAjq81XdOl9xW4Q0n9m1Ug2pEtfV9rztC7M9TZOUA8e0eLRd97SBn57Wcjk8IojGEaXf1folOFYhJ-fys0mMgk_YGq4/s1600/bat-out-of-hell-iii-the-monster-is-loose-20061109044233821.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 163px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-rmDyKKRLapu-5u6sstkvGoZjWdh7feCrC1qhF5qlls5UZlrtAjq81XdOl9xW4Q0n9m1Ug2pEtfV9rztC7M9TZOUA8e0eLRd97SBn57Wcjk8IojGEaXf1folOFYhJ-fys0mMgk_YGq4/s200/bat-out-of-hell-iii-the-monster-is-loose-20061109044233821.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5407322248767868594" /></a><br />To be continued....?rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-56032021868475687032009-11-20T10:18:00.000-05:002009-11-20T11:29:31.375-05:00LISTENING PARTY: Bat Out Of Hell II<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVEcsIemEna1mkbSKBoQYKlDcDZX3zTp72snNUwyq-XYFTmIfRSIhD7OyskzKsHzuqQnvViILZ3aT9mRpaDZ8TfJnt8jCf2bkJ-gqh2PcftyPURk4tpenjAGedo7qMGcJF42mqO2_cICM/s1600/images.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 130px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVEcsIemEna1mkbSKBoQYKlDcDZX3zTp72snNUwyq-XYFTmIfRSIhD7OyskzKsHzuqQnvViILZ3aT9mRpaDZ8TfJnt8jCf2bkJ-gqh2PcftyPURk4tpenjAGedo7qMGcJF42mqO2_cICM/s200/images.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406223756639846210" /></a><br /><br />So you're watching the Meatloaf "Behind the Music" and you've just watched the part where, following several commercial flops in the United States, Meat is forced to play small bars in Poland to make ends meet. And then the narrator says, "But the winds were about the change for Meatloaf" and then they show clips from the music video from "I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That)" and you find yourself wondering: if things were turning around for Meatloaf, why does he look like a Morlock?<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWs5nKdgqlogO2PpL1WYdUGGlUI4-Wq52Uh3tz0TQY624cV2tY4eB6-AtG-1EZkcF5HaFR_b80Q5yN_EPe6t38Iet9dFPcaBWmk-ifcRpowU7HAXDq4pU8hT034jxg4S4HkmzzcDhV77w/s1600/0.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWs5nKdgqlogO2PpL1WYdUGGlUI4-Wq52Uh3tz0TQY624cV2tY4eB6-AtG-1EZkcF5HaFR_b80Q5yN_EPe6t38Iet9dFPcaBWmk-ifcRpowU7HAXDq4pU8hT034jxg4S4HkmzzcDhV77w/s200/0.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5406219310301934482" /></a><br />"I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)"- True story: this song made its premiere when I was a freshmen in high school, and they played it at the first couple of school dances that year. They still also played Paradise by the Dashboard Light, meaning that there was only enough time left to play three other songs before it was 11pm and time to go home, but there you go. But there was a student teacher there who was really trying to be hip with all the kids, so he asked me when this song started playing, "What is it that Meatloaf won't do for love?" and I answered "Oral sex" and then he stopped trying to be my friend, and then started grading my papers for Geography really hard. I wish I could tell you that the intervening 16 years have given me greater insight into this song, but despite the fact that it is over 12 minutes long, most of the song is just Meatloaf repeating the title over and over again. So yeah, I guess I'm going to go with oral sex.<br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/n9C1Vqsskbw&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/n9C1Vqsskbw&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br />"Life is A Lemon (And I Want My Money Back)"-One way that I know that the reunited Steinman/Meatloaf team is completely self-unaware: they start out the second song on this album with background singers chanting "I want my money back", almost like they were echoing the millions of people who bought this album because they loved the first Bat Out of Hell. It just seems like a dangerous idea to implant the idea of refunds because merchandise (life in the song, the album in real life) has not delivered what it promised. This album promised me fun, bombastic rock n'roll songs about not getting laid. And apparently a guy on a floating motorcycle punching a giant bat. You've still got nine chances, Meat. Don't let me down.<br /><br />"Rock N'Roll Dreams Come Through"- I think there're few things I hate more than songs about the transformative power of rock n'roll songs. Because honestly, music clearly is something that is very important to me. But I don't believe that "Cat Scratch Fever" ever really saved anybody's life. In this song, rock n'roll dreams help you get through the fires of hell. But then there's a soprano sax solo. So I'm just getting conflicted messages all over the place from this song. And since it is longer than Das Boot, they're just going to keep on coming. If only I had a good rock n'roll song to listen to that would change my life. <br /><br />Yeah, sorry Meatloaf, this song is definitely not doing it. The only Rock N'Roll Dream I have now is that this song were six minutes shorter.<br /><br />"It Just Won't Quit"- If you're talking about this album, then, yeah, no shit.<br /><br />"Out of the Frying Pan (Into the Fire)"- WHAT.THE.HELL.IS.WITH.ALL.THE.PARENTHESIS. ON.THIS.ALBUM. Also, Jim-fucking-Steinman, give your audience some credit. If the song is called "Out of the Frying Pan", anybody who is older than seven will understand that you leave the frying pan and end up in the fire. You don't need to spell it out for them. Or do you? You seem like a guy who needs help with the obvious. For example, things I thought were self-evident that you seemingly don't get: rock songs really shouldn't go much beyond six minutes, and that's only if you've written Kashmir. So your need to write songs longer than a Republican filibuster every time is really starting to piss everybody off.<br /><br />"Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are"-I wrote about this last week while I was listening to Pearl Jam, so I don't have too much to say about it, other than it's really damn long, and while the title is pretty apt, having Meatloaf repeat it eleventy-zillion times kind of robs it of a lot of its poignancy. Also robbing the song of its poignancy? The image of the girl you're having sex with in the backseat of your car "rising up like an angel rising out of a tomb." I mean I guess the word 'angel' is nice, but man, there are few words that are bigger boner killers than 'tomb.' <br /><br />"Wasted Youth"- Jim Steinman loves his spoken word intros. On Bat I, he was a werewolf or something. So here, because excess is the keyword of the day, he doesn't do a spoken word introduction, he has his own spoken word track. (Which I think might've been something Meatloaf pushed for so that way people could just skip over it.) So he's not a werewolf here, but I guy who gets some kind of magically enchanted guitar that "moaned like a horny angel" and "howled in heat" and instead of using it to become a famous rock n'roll star, which I feel is the plot of at least two Corey Haim movies, he decides instead to go around and kill people with it. At one point he violently screams about smashing the guitar against the body of a varsity cheerleader, which makes me sad, because in 1993 Jim Steinman was probably close to fifty years old, and he's still angry that girls from high school wouldn't sleep with him, even though he looks like Jessica Tandy. The first Bat album was full of the kind of braggadocio of a guy who had never gotten laid (Remember that scene in the 40-year Old Virgin where Steve Carrell talks about how breasts feel like bags of sand? Every song about sex written by Jim Steinman sounds like that) but this second one just has some kind of angry sadness to it. This spoken word song starts with Steinman growling, "I remember everything" and I just want to tell him that maybe that's his problem. Also? Still no giant bat punching. F-minus.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/L035HzJJm3E&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/L035HzJJm3E&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Everything Louder Than Everything Else"-This is my favorite Meatloaf song, hands down. When I was taking AP Calculus in high school, I used to put this song on repeat when I was taking practice tests, much to the consternation of my classmates. But this song is the perfect song to get you pumped up to spend three hours taking integrals. I'm not sure that's the effect that Jim Steinman was going for, but at this point in the album he's probably getting arraigned for beating cheerleaders to death with his guitar, and I hope they throw the book at him. <br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/EtPnJMIOR5w&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/EtPnJMIOR5w&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere)"-Do you know how annoying your need to use parenthesis on every title to spell out everything to your audience is?(Very annoying.) This song is probably the closest in spirit to those from the first Bat album. The tone isn't angry, like many of the other songs on this album, but instead doing that bragging thing about how awesome loose women are that only shows that you've never actually been within six feet of real lady parts. At some point, Meat sings about getting erotically burned, and while I'm not going to pretend that I'm some kind of sex expert, I think one thing that the phrase "erotically burned" denotes is that you have no idea what sex is like. That this song also contains a bass solo denotes that you have no idea what good music is like, either.<br /><br />"Back Into Hell"-This is a synthesizer instrumental. I'm guessing this is where the giant bat gets punched. <br /><br />"Lost Boys and Golden Girls"- I would literally sell my soul for this song to be about Estelle Getty and Bea Arthur. But it's not. If the first Bat Out of Hell record was meant to capture the anticipation of sex, then maybe this one represents first consummation: long, awkward, and totally disappointing.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-19301478642668225082009-11-15T11:31:00.000-05:002009-11-15T12:29:59.813-05:00LISTENING PARTY: Bat Out Of Hell<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM_dVaNuFVq823qoJj4xZV-iHf69X7sorqRNO-H0yNjvA6uwJ0oN03p_DiGe6Rr2ZILbLNXdHuBMFyTGRgHODbpIMc7WbbqxN7u6HnhJHqtSgLLv1rSL6MNJiTFwn9O0dvSK-RFCvxHxI/s1600-h/album-Meat-Loaf-Bat-out-of-Hell.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 199px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM_dVaNuFVq823qoJj4xZV-iHf69X7sorqRNO-H0yNjvA6uwJ0oN03p_DiGe6Rr2ZILbLNXdHuBMFyTGRgHODbpIMc7WbbqxN7u6HnhJHqtSgLLv1rSL6MNJiTFwn9O0dvSK-RFCvxHxI/s200/album-Meat-Loaf-Bat-out-of-Hell.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5404383956744008546" /></a><br /><br /><br />There's one week a year, usually in late October-mid November, that we call "Stoked for the Loaf" week at Stately Tressel Manor. It's the week where, inexplicably, I become enamored with the recorded ouvre of Marvin Lee Aday, known the world over as Meatloaf. To most youngsters, Meat is just that guy with the man boobs in Fight Club, but he also has probably the most impressive trilogy in recording history with his Bat Out Of Hell series. I know what you're saying; There aren't that many trilogies in recording history, and while it's true that nobody was clamoring for "Use Your Illusion III", we shouldn't let Axl Rose's shortcomings overshadow the 'Loaf's achievement.<br />Now I've resisted doing Meatloaf for several reasons. 1)I'm never really sure if Meatloaf is taking himself all that seriously, which means making jokes at his expense are really jokes at my expense. And I hate anything that makes me look bad. That kind of funnels into reason two. 2) I don't know how openly I should flaunt my love of Meatloaf. Because when I do these livebloggings, I only do them for albums that I have genuine affection for. I wouldn't pick on an album I didn't think was good somehow. So, by the very nature of doing a Meatloaf album, I'm admitting that I think Meatloaf albums are somehow good. Which is only partially true. The truth is that I think Meatloaf albums are totally awesome. 3) Since the songs are so frigging long, I worry that I might run out of things to say in the twelve minutes it takes Meat to finish singing "Paradise by the Dashboard Light." But here we go: I figure if Meat can sustain enough energy to perform two hours worth of these songs being two hundred pounds overweight, I should certainly be able write about some of them for forty-four minutes being twenty pounds overweight.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yBZDTK9Yhko&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yBZDTK9Yhko&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Bat Out Of Hell"- Oh god, we're only four measures into this song and I'm already tired. I think you can pick up on Jim Steinman and Meatloaf's theatre background in the way the song opens with an overture. By the time we're forty seconds into this album we've already heard six hundred different musical ideas, all of which are about sexual braggadocio. Which is pretty funny when you consider the album was written by Jim Steinman:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhVJNhm9pA_ZW4FM_PREYIdx7yPmaRRQtxdpnXW2z2LtxAtQTBL_yTa_rU2_fJhyphenhyphen3y4SNsXtHTav3Kma3qwQQm9jyB9DQj4ddYkgamRyB5GMOjvxudV2kYOPld7Q-MwBffTZ0tRwPNU8/s1600-h/jimfixit.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 190px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhhVJNhm9pA_ZW4FM_PREYIdx7yPmaRRQtxdpnXW2z2LtxAtQTBL_yTa_rU2_fJhyphenhyphen3y4SNsXtHTav3Kma3qwQQm9jyB9DQj4ddYkgamRyB5GMOjvxudV2kYOPld7Q-MwBffTZ0tRwPNU8/s200/jimfixit.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5404372847777253762" border="0" /></a><br />And produced by Todd Rundgren:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjatVEXvU8gNgpeQBfbE3nZWnaaGMk_7tPEuxXbEc3uDbl0v_bi8KvP5IJNW-H8PRAGm6B31nq7hxD5r6YwYoy2_iVWcTFAKYZj9CQLGtHlk5wMwuEpXONQ6RfwG_IGlVBatef4tmcA3yM/s1600-h/Todd+Rundgren.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 138px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjatVEXvU8gNgpeQBfbE3nZWnaaGMk_7tPEuxXbEc3uDbl0v_bi8KvP5IJNW-H8PRAGm6B31nq7hxD5r6YwYoy2_iVWcTFAKYZj9CQLGtHlk5wMwuEpXONQ6RfwG_IGlVBatef4tmcA3yM/s200/Todd+Rundgren.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5404372995802607586" border="0" /></a><br /><br />two of the most lady-looking dudes I've ever seen. I mean, really Jim Steinman looks like he just came from wherever that place is that old ladies go to have sex with old bikers. And I mean that he's the old lady. Because he looks like an old lady. Meatloaf also had long hair at the time, but he's sensibly realized that old hair on men doesn't look that great. I guess luckily for Jim Steinman he's really an old woman.<br />And looking at Todd Rundgren reminds me of a story from when the band Hanson first appeared on the scene: we were all tooling on Hanson, and then our bass player said, "Yeah, but the lead singer is pretty hot," not realizing that the lead singer of Hanson was in fact a boy. I mention this because I have to admit that looking at Todd Rundgren turns me on. Because he looks like a girl.<br /><br />So the point is that I can see the combination of two guys who looked like girls and a guy who looks like he ate a middle linebacker needing to prove their manliness. So they do it with the maybe the gayest sounding rock n'roll songs about men getting it on with ladies of all time.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1fAPEUWowEc&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1fAPEUWowEc&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"You Took The Words Right Out of My Mouth (Hot Summer Night)" I hate songs that have parenthesis in their titles. There's no place for parenthesis in rock n' roll, unless you're doing a Works Cited page. So what's the point of the parenthesis in this case? What was so important to Jim Steinman about it being a hot summer night that it needed to be added to the title? My other favorite thing about this song is Jim Steinman's spoken word introduction: because if there's anything that rock songs need less than parenthesis, it's spoken word introductions. But Steinman loves them, so he starts this song with something about werewolves, and virgins offering him shit under the full moon light, like her throat. I don't know. It grosses me out to think about it, especially because I think this is how Jim Steinman talks to girls all the time. So you couple that with the fact that he looks like Karen Black in Children of the Corn IV, you can imagine that he doesn't get a lot of ladies. Which would explain why in the songs he writes it sounds like he's never heard a woman talk before, because it's clear he never has.<br /><br /><br />"Heaven Can Wait"-This is ballad about Warren Beatty. I think. Or about not getting laid.<br /><br />"All Revved Up and No Place to Go"- Wait, another song about not getting laid. This is really making me reconsider what exactly they mean by "Bat Out of Hell." For the record, I think that Meatloaf, even being overweight, got revved up but then got to go places. Sexually. The man has an animal charisma. I think he did okay with the ladies. Probably because he wasn't always approaching women with tortured metaphors about I'm a werewolf and my penis is a motorcycle.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/p_Tf2lQvDz0&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/p_Tf2lQvDz0&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" -I love this song. I love it despite the fact that Steinman has Meat tell a girl that he's crying icicles instead of tears. I love it despite the fact that the verses seem to indicate that the girl isn't in love with our protagonist, but the chorus makes it seem that the guy is all about hooking up but doesn't want to commit. (I want you, I need you, I'm never going to love you, so two out of three ain't bad.) I love it even though in almost any endeavor except baseball , two out of three is kind of bad. It's a 66.67%, which is not enough to transfer it to a four year accredited college. (Okay, by the second go around, the chorus starts out by explaining that the girl is telling him that she's never going to love him, which makes more lyrical sense--as much lyrical sense as one can find on a Meatloaf album.)<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/j0ns8t9iQck&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/j0ns8t9iQck&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Paradise by the Dashboard Light"- When I was in high school, they played this song at every high school dance. There was this really beautiful girl named Santina, and she and I would command the dance floor every time the DJ threw it on. The dance basically consisted of Santina busting out some really sweet moves, while I stood about three feet away from her doing my best middle-aged Dan Ackroyd impression. You know, just swinging my arms and snapping my fingers, occasionally moving my feet. And by the end I would be exhausted. <br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/QZZZbjGaPFs&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/QZZZbjGaPFs&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />By the Phil Razzutto part, where he makes the not even slightly obscured sexual references, I'd basically be laying on the floor, gasping for breath, while Santina strutted around my winded corpse. We performed this at every dance throughout high school, but she never wanted to go out on a date with me. Looking back now, the fact that I was as in-shape as a 55-year old Dan Ackroyd who didn't have the stamina to make it through an entire Meatloaf song might have had something to do with it. But luckily for everybody involved, I realized that, and didn't do anything crazy, like write an overblown rock opera about it and then entice my overweight friend into performing it.<br /><br />"For Crying Out Loud"- I kind of forgot how short albums that originally appeared on vinyl are. Limited by the format, they usually top out at 40 minutes. So now we're almost to the end of Bat Out of Hell, and you get the sense that if only they had a full 72 minutes that compact discs offer, Steinman and Meat could really explore the depths of the guys who don't get laid phenomenon. But as they were hampered in by only forty minutes, they decide to end the album with this solo piano piece that really encapsulates, rather succinctly--oh, shit here comes the Philharmonic Orchestra. This isn't going to be over anytime soon. Well, hopefully, they will use it tastefully and subtly--oh wait, Meat just asked the girl if she can see his Levi's busting apart. And now here comes the glockenspiel. We're none of us escaping with our dignity intact with this one. I just checked the liner notes, and this song is performed by BOTH the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Because if there's one thing a song about blue balls needs, it's TWO fricking orchestras playing at the same time. And I think that might be the ultimate metaphor to describe Bat Out of Hell. <br /><br />And it gets worse with the sequel.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-63968089988927251992009-11-13T16:34:00.000-05:002009-11-13T17:25:45.468-05:00LISTENING PARTY: Radio KAOS<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM3u04DtwcJ43j5wNOq17Rwz-9aiWMqJpCSbSuS-R9ecwLDEclIvoJbUzS7QLeXMO-7DbVDpu9NFbVyKZsHh6Y7J8RrazOoPZwdWAOYyQLDaD4ZOd_0AbFcNKp6uoq8Tq9_biIk4UMONw/s1600-h/rogerwatersradiokaosfroiw8.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjM3u04DtwcJ43j5wNOq17Rwz-9aiWMqJpCSbSuS-R9ecwLDEclIvoJbUzS7QLeXMO-7DbVDpu9NFbVyKZsHh6Y7J8RrazOoPZwdWAOYyQLDaD4ZOd_0AbFcNKp6uoq8Tq9_biIk4UMONw/s200/rogerwatersradiokaosfroiw8.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403718003379516482" /></a><br /><br />I think that what the world needs more of is sci-fi concept albums. I know that we all have our favorites: Kilroy was Here by Styx, 2112 by Rush, Psychoderelict by Pete Townsend, that album that Isaac Asimov recorded with Rage Against the Machine. But my favorite, by far, is Roger Waters' Radio KAOS. And it's not because it's the story of a paraplegic boy interfacing with the world's computer systems to threaten the world with nuclear annihilation. It's not because Roger Waters believes in the power of a radio DJ to save humankind. It's because he believes that the soundtrack of the future is white English guy funk. <br /><br />"Radio Waves"- There are some concept albums that have a loose concept that you really can only glean from reading the liner notes and interviews with the artist (e.g. any album Tori Amos has ever released)and there are some that act like a soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist, with the concept hinted at with interstitial material between the songs (The Wall, before The Wall movie existed) and then there's "Radio Waves", where Roger Waters just tells us about Billy in his wheel chair, picking up radio waves through the computer system that allows him to communicate. This isn't really enough to fill up an entire four minutes, so Waters just spends the rest of the time naming US cities. Highlight: when he sings "Oklahoma City" and then lets out a 'Yeah!' after it. <br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ACfiRwJeFsE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ACfiRwJeFsE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Who Needs Information?" So we get our first snippet of dialogue before this song, where DJ Jim Ladd plays DJ Jim Ladd who takes a call from Billy. Billy tells him he's from the Valley, and when Ladd thinks he means San Fernando, Billy calls him a schmuck and tells him that he meant Wales. Isn't that kind of a ridiculous thing to expect a DJ in L.A. to guess? It would be like I told you I spent the day in the city, and you, knowing I live in Southeastern Massachusetts, guess that I meant Boston, and I was all like, "No, The Emerald City of Oz! Jesus, you douche!" Okay, the song's about halfway over and I still haven't even started talking about it yet. Waters gives us a snippet of information about the plot of Radio KAOS, which somehow involves Billy watching his brother throw a cinderblock or something off an overpass. That's like two lines in the whole song, the rest of which is just typical Roger Waters-I hate everybody especially everybody else from Pink Floyd that isn't me. And it segues, rather unconvincingly from R&B background vocals, and a lite funk horn part into a Welsh choir. Because I always put those two things together. Just like I put together the plot from 'My Left Foot' with 'War Games.'<br /><br />"Me or Him"- Let's slow things down here guys. Let's enter ballad territory and explain a little bit more about where everybody's coming from. So, apparently, after throwing a cinder block off an overpass, Billy's brother gets sent to jail. I don't know what he was expecting. Like, I've heard of people spitting off an overpass, but a cinderblock is just a whole other level of douchery. So Billy, all sad that his cinderblock throwing brother is in jail, decides to start calling into radio shows, and apparently he becomes so popular that people all over the world tune in to listen to him. Which seems about as likely as someone from Wales starting WWIII, so you can see that the window of disbelief is closing rapidly. This doesn't really work very well as a concept album because so much shit is happening, so much backstory needs explaining. That's why the best concept albums have such simple concepts. You know when your mother sees a really complicated movie, and she starts trying to explain it to you, and it doesn't make any sense because she just tells you snippets and forgets to fill you in on the most important parts. Now imagine if she wasn't your mother, but instead was the former bass player of Pink Floyd. And imagine while she's telling you about it, a competent but lifeless band played lite funk tunes behind her. There, I just saved you $8.99.<br /><br />"The Powers That Be"-So three songs into his eight-song masterpiece, Roger Waters has decided to abandon the storyline he's been building so compellingly to throw in a song about how the world is run by a powerful cabal of leaders and businessmen who don't care about the common man, common men who can communicate with complex computer systems with their brains. And then he's decided that Mike & the Mechanics isn't going to steal his thunder, so he invites Paul Carrack to sing much of the lead vocal on this track. I wouldn't be surprised if that makes this the most successful song of Roger Waters solo career, because Carrack also sang lead on Squeeze's biggest hit, "Tempted." Which I think was about packing toothbrushes and combs and also about Cold War politics. I THINK.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/cHWszLC8CNE&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/cHWszLC8CNE&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Sunset Strip"- I can't believe this song is written by the same guy who wrote "Animals." Because it sounds like mid-80s Don Henley. Except instead of the smooth California vocal stylings of the Eagles, it's sung by someone who sounds like one of the weird angry Muppets who used to appear on early Saturday Night Live. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZxql1Pz0EhuhZ20a5a9jJE-AReEie_DYW4d5H2g_s6o-FjwydF148DblaARWeF12rJy9aoVlHWOARClDm8p0dOGBkx82tQuF7igOnwZYVEa6CJkpijGKfN6M987K6UrcecKu861xfbs8/s1600-h/8+The+Muppets.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 163px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZxql1Pz0EhuhZ20a5a9jJE-AReEie_DYW4d5H2g_s6o-FjwydF148DblaARWeF12rJy9aoVlHWOARClDm8p0dOGBkx82tQuF7igOnwZYVEa6CJkpijGKfN6M987K6UrcecKu861xfbs8/s200/8+The+Muppets.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403717695311190162" /></a><br /><br />"Home"-Okay, we've only got three songs left, and the plot hasn't really moved in two songs, and Waters includes a long DJ bit about different kinds of fish. I've struggled to tie it in as a metaphor for what's happening on the album, but it seems more like a private joke between Roger Waters and Jim Ladd. Although that seems unlikely, since can you picture Roger Waters being part of an private joke? This guy has only laughed once, and that was only the scary maniacal laugh at the end of "The Dark Side of the Moon." Also, we just passed my favorite part of the whole album, when Waters sings "Cowboys and Arabs" and he double tracks it, because it needs to be highlighted. I'm assuming Cowboys are the U.S. and Arabs are well, Arabs. This song also has nothing to do with the over-plot dealing with Billy's plan to annihilate the world because he's...bored? Pissed his brother was incarcerated for throwing a cinderblock off an overpass? Maybe he just hates the radio programming on radio KAOS. And since it seems to only play really lame lite-funk tunes by Roger Waters, maybe Billy's got a point. My second favorite of the whole album just passed by, too, where Waters sings "could be a baker, could a Laker, could be Kareem Abdul Jabar" which is the first time I've thought about Kareem since I was seven years old.<br /><br />"Four Minutes"-Okay, right after "Home", Billy tells Jim Ladd that he's pressed the button, and Ladd laughs and hangs up on him. And then, for some reason, Ladd seems to really take it seriously, and starts to make announcements about the end of the world coming. A woman, it might be Clara Torres-who was the lady who orgasmed all over 'The Great Gig in the Sky' on Dark Side, is now orgasming all over this track, which is called four minutes to represent the four minutes I guess Waters thought we would have from when the Ruskies pushed the button and actual nuclear annihilation. I think a really good Twilight Zone episode would be if the button were actually pressed and then somebody sat down to listen to 'Four Minutes' and then halfway through just looked over at his wife or someone and said "Shit, it's really taking its time, huh?" Waters is really throwing out all the stops here, including using the sequencer part from 'On the Run' (again from Dark Side) as well as snippets of Margaret Thatcher speeches, and then it all builds to a crescendo: "Goodbye Billy," Jim Ladd says. And you think maybe the album is over. But you didn't count on one thing: Bob Geldof.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/66nqhVtq6xo&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/66nqhVtq6xo&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"The Tide is Turning (After Live Aid)"- Okay, as far as I can tell, Roger Waters was so moved by Live Aid, the big all day concert Bob Geldof put together to battle famine in Africa, that he wrote this song. And I guess I'm supposed to guess that Billy also saw Live Aid and then decided not to destroy the world after all. I have another hypothesis, though. Billy did destroy the world, and the afterlife is this song, over and over again. That's right, for our sins, we've all gone to Hell. This is probably the catchiest song Roger Waters has ever written, and I remember feeling moved when I watched his concert from the Berlin Wall, where he played the whole of "The Wall" one of my favorite albums of all time, and then closed out with this song, because after the fall of the Berlin Wall, maybe it did feel like the Tide was Turning, more so than Freddie Mercury rocking the crowd at Wembley Stadium with "Another One Bites the Dust" or something. Okay, so the song is winding down, and Roger Waters sings 'The Tide is turning' over and over again, and near the end, he says 'The Tide is turning, Billy', which of course is a reference to the main character of his thirty-seven minute epic (who has only like four lines, and isn't even mentioned in half the songs) but then, the very last line is "The tide is turning, sylvester." WHO THE HELL IS SYLVESTER? I have no idea. Is it the cat from those cartoons? Then who is Tweety? Who is the Old Lady? I think maybe I've missed Disc 1 of this album. This can't be it. But at the same time, I thank God that it is. Because I made it about thirteen minutes into this before I wanted to destroy the world. And scarily, it's actually an album I like. Especially since it includes this guy:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06-8DZTyVKg8omFwH1bnrUmZaaGyAqJkDiSXef2D4ojphiPK8mHNw82UmINOO3gxpG5QARRT3mvUbB3EwPscKo9sa860GzSoSUJi58XiwQwe4UayJGPq8bQ4hdFLUdLnId2drM5844_4/s1600-h/Sylvester.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 161px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi06-8DZTyVKg8omFwH1bnrUmZaaGyAqJkDiSXef2D4ojphiPK8mHNw82UmINOO3gxpG5QARRT3mvUbB3EwPscKo9sa860GzSoSUJi58XiwQwe4UayJGPq8bQ4hdFLUdLnId2drM5844_4/s200/Sylvester.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5403717424543325586" /></a><br />Who represents....maybe American imperialism? Or mutually-insured destruction? Or just cats with lisps?rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-52835140322220688842009-11-11T08:58:00.000-05:002009-11-11T09:54:50.273-05:00LISTENING PARTY: Vs.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggLUdT0sEjmrdjuWGtIW7zfFOy98SCABRDROi6r8Ct9mLRH0Zhd781riRj18coA8Kgj67aB2-trbbWRVKPo8xUJ2P3ZGbIN-BJ8AqFbxqrmsP7aT2O8AJjPE0G58N2vXrGFc_hMkrjPLg/s1600-h/vs.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggLUdT0sEjmrdjuWGtIW7zfFOy98SCABRDROi6r8Ct9mLRH0Zhd781riRj18coA8Kgj67aB2-trbbWRVKPo8xUJ2P3ZGbIN-BJ8AqFbxqrmsP7aT2O8AJjPE0G58N2vXrGFc_hMkrjPLg/s200/vs.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5402858569813365714" /></a><br />The first time I remember hearing Pearl Jam was at Kim Volner's 13th birthday party.<br /><br />It was a pool party, but I don't remember if I knew that, and so I wore a pair of jeans instead of swim trunks. Apparently at jerk school they teach you that that is a secret code that you want to be thrown in the pool, which I was--by some jerks-- and after being fished out of the water by a 13-year old girl, I wandered around in my sopping wet jeans until I sat down on a towel in Kim's basement. And I saw the video for "Jeremy" for the first time. Needless to say, I related.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DBfLC3VQ9LQ&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DBfLC3VQ9LQ&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />But I've never really been able to relate to Pearl Jam since then. I can see why people like them, I certainly admire them for the decisions they've made as a band (I remember their valiant fight against Ticketmaster, which meant they played at out-of-the-way venues, like Lobster Hut) but I have never really been able to like them. But late in 1993, when they were releasing their second album, I felt they were such a part of zeitgeist that I needed to have it. But I hedged my bets. Because while I did pick up "Vs." (although my copy was one of the early pressings with no title, because PJ hadn't decided on one--oh, you iconoclasts!)I also picked up the new Squeeze album "Some Fantastic Place." I wanted to be cool, be on top of what was popular (and back then PJ was popular--at the time "Vs." broke the record for most albums sold in a single week) I was still the kid who wore jeans to a pool party, the kind of kid who was more excited about the new Squeeze album.<br /><br />"Go"- Pearl Jam seemed at the time to favor one word song titles. Later on this very album they made "rearviewmirror" all one word, so I thought it was like a rule they had. How wrong I was. By the way, this song sounds like you'd expect a Pearl Jam song called 'Go' to go, which is totally different than how an R.Kelly song called 'Go' would go.<br /><br />"Animal"- The chorus to this song is "I'd rather be with an animal" which is a pretty harsh thing to say to a person, unless you're Trent Reznor. Because he wants to fornicate with you like you were an animal. I say, let's just leave the animals out of this, shall we?<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AIgfYVq5Y5A&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AIgfYVq5Y5A&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"Daughter"- This is the only Pearl Jam song your mom knows. It is also the only Pearl Jam likely to be heard at any Bat Mitzvahs. <br /><br />"Glorified G"- Eddie Vedder's lyrics on this song are about as subtle as the most unsubtle thing you can think of. I'm very much pro-gun control, and I think if Veds and I ever sat down to talk politics, we'd get along very well. So would me and Noam Chomsky, but I wouldn't want to buy his album. <br /><br />"Dissident"- So this is the story about a lady who keeps a dissident in her house for the night, but then turns him in when the authorities come. I knew cats who wrote songs about stuff like this. We used to pick them up and throw them in the pool.<br /><br />"W.M.A."- Okay, I also agree with Eddie Vedder that institutionalized racism exists in the US. I agree that there is plenty of race-based police brutality. But the only thing getting beaten in this song is my head, and the thing that's doing the beating is Eddie Vedder's righteous indignation. <br /><br />"Blood"-In the early 90s, Pearl Jam inspired approximately 1200 high school bands and every last one of them had a song called 'Blood'. Near the end of the track, you can almost hear Stone Gossard's dad wander down in the basement to tell them to keep the noise down because Aunt Carol is coming over. <br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_e5N5y58k6U&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_e5N5y58k6U&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"rearviewmirror"-I remember hearing this song and thinking it was the first Pearl Jam song that sounded like a song, and not just a collection of riffs with Eddie Vedder screaming about NAFTA. rearviewmirror has a lot of things that other songs have, like verses, and prechoruses, and choruses, a coda! It's like somebody got the band a book of musical terms for Christmas. Unfortunately, Meatloaf did this song so much better (and longer) with "Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer Than They Are" which just makes me wish I was listening to Bat Out of Hell II instead. Or Squeeze. Shit, I've made so many wrong decisions today.<br /><br />"Rats"- I've never done this before, but I'm thinking about quitting. I don't think I can make it through the rest of this record. Because this song would be a million times more enjoyable if I could even get the sense that Eddie Vedder wasn't talking about metaphorical rats. Like, if he was singing a song about real rats, just filling you in on facts about rats. Did you know that rats can fit through a hole the size of a quarter? And any rat can jump as high as your face? I would enjoy a song like that a million times more, which is to say I wouldn't enjoy it all, since zero times a million is still zero, and that's how much enjoyment I'm currently deriving from this song: zero.<br /><br />"Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town"- This is the other song from this record, along with "Daughter," that you are likely to still hear played on the radio today. I hate when this song shows up on the radio, not because the song is terrible (although it does sound like Pearl Jam straight up stole an outtake from R.E.M.'s 'Automatic for the People') but because it invites the DJ to make a comment about how long the song title is. Which just reminds me how much I hate DJ patter. Almost as much as I hate elderly women.<br /><br />I'm sorry, I don't think I can bring myself to listen to the last two songs on this record. I thought this would be kind of fun, but it's been torturous. So instead I will listen to that Meatloaf song I mentioned earlier and one of the songs from the Squeeze album 'Some Fantastic Place'.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/37GrbCUvZEM&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/37GrbCUvZEM&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />I love the idea that young Meat knew a kid who died while flying a bi-plane. <br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dtNPx0oMCvU&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dtNPx0oMCvU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object><br />Oh, Squeeze, you make it all alright.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-78306307311123195882009-11-03T07:41:00.000-05:002009-11-03T09:19:27.782-05:00LISTENING PARTY: Magic & Loss<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTtPI6NbWwq2JB9Q3sbrW_Ab8gVcMB6h1_MyyE9t-uAUiKT2S-LAuYQjMQxlMA9wQHEEIil-xyPtNTi_8mYhSH4SoVV407RxlUqCewWgq2yLozyUItSDV8O9ksAxdDLBaDVNFl3rmvTBk/s1600-h/lou_reed_magic_and_loss.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTtPI6NbWwq2JB9Q3sbrW_Ab8gVcMB6h1_MyyE9t-uAUiKT2S-LAuYQjMQxlMA9wQHEEIil-xyPtNTi_8mYhSH4SoVV407RxlUqCewWgq2yLozyUItSDV8O9ksAxdDLBaDVNFl3rmvTBk/s200/lou_reed_magic_and_loss.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399881048385057186" /></a><br /><br />The same day I purchased Mighty Like A Rose by Elvis Costello, I also picked up Lou Reed's Magic & Loss. God love the cut-out bin. This is Lou Reed's concept album about the deaths of the legendary songwriter Doc Pomus and an unnamed friend, both from cancer, both within a year of one another. This might be the hardest "Listening Party" for me to do because the subject matter of these songs is so deeply personal, so deeply heartfelt, and so deeply, deeply earnest. But then again, this is the haircut Lou was sporting at the time:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7pTZuyloAOsRaFfmepC2F71j_n_K9B4Tvi6WJosdejL_6fe-I6WjB-wcZHDMVz0NP4cUBLIY2EhJ6QgSQ93xcGu9RED5tqpIIOOcg1qecHBO-_TsSIch9wXYW2Jaezfv1pOj8Tj9tC9k/s1600-h/85853944.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 133px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7pTZuyloAOsRaFfmepC2F71j_n_K9B4Tvi6WJosdejL_6fe-I6WjB-wcZHDMVz0NP4cUBLIY2EhJ6QgSQ93xcGu9RED5tqpIIOOcg1qecHBO-_TsSIch9wXYW2Jaezfv1pOj8Tj9tC9k/s200/85853944.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399859530581138882" /></a><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Somebody wants you to know this is a Getty image, apparently</span><br /><br />"Dorita"- This is a serious album for serious people. Do you know how I know that? Because Lou starts it was an instrumental 'overture' or as he labels it "an invocation of the human spirit in music." Really, Lou? Because you know that wankcase who goes into Guitar Center just to play all the guitars with no intention of ever buying any of them? "Dorita" sounds a lot like his wanky guitar noodlings. The guys behind the counter at Guitar Center aren't impressed, and neither are we, Lou.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/GlKSfqFdd0c&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/GlKSfqFdd0c&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"What's Good"- Another reason I know this is meant to be a serious album for serious people is that each song has a subtitle. This one is called 'The Thesis.' I learned in ninth grade English class that you never tell your audience what your thesis is. But I never went to grad school, and I'm pretty sure Lou Reed did, and maybe that's what they tell you to do there. This is my favorite song on the album. The other day I mentioned a few quotes from Mighty Like A Rose that were contenders for my senior yearbook quote, and this song has one too: "Life's like sanskrit read to a pony; life's good, but not fair at all." It's probably the truest thing Lou Reed has ever written. Or at least tied with that bit in Walk on the Wild Side about that guy going down on other guys while dressed as a girl. Or all the songs about guys getting stabbed that he's written. But this is the most adult, thoughtful thing he's ever written, and he put it at the beginning of his thoughtful and adult album. It's all downhill from here.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KX_sQktNpKA&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KX_sQktNpKA&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"Power and the Glory Part I"- Reason number 3 why this is a serious album for serious adults is that it features songs broken up into parts. Like a classical piece of music. Or the Star Wars movies. Speaking of Star Wars, this song features the vocal stylings of jazz legend Little Jimmy Scott. I don't really know why he's here, other than Lou Reed thought he'd have Little Jimmy Scott sing on his record, and when you're making serious music for serious people you can totally just do whatever the hell you want. Also, if making pretentious music were some kind of video game, Lou Reed would've just gotten a dozen new lives for name-dropping 'Leda and the Swan' halfway through this song.<br /><br />"Magician"- There's not a whole lot to say about this song, and I better save what little I do have to say because it's one of about six songs on this record that has practically identical music on it. I think you can get away with that when you're doing a concept album. For example, on Pink Floyd's 'The Final Cut' record, Roger Water sings the whole album on one note. <br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/h0cBrsKiYyc&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/h0cBrsKiYyc&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Sword of Damocles"-So I was 15 when I heard this record for the first time and I bet Lou Reed thought that naming a song 'Sword of Damocles' would send a kid like me running to an encyclopedia (remember those?) to find out what he was referring to. Unfortunately for him, Mr. Burns made a reference--with visuals!!--to the Sword of Damocles, like, two years earlier. If the Simpsons had made me aware of the prevalence of using methamphetamine among cross-dressers, I don't think I would've needed Lou Reed at all. This song is probably the most tuneful on the record, and Lou Reed almost sounds like he's actually singing a few times.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggV227zn4lC40YcdICHfcdUOLXruyKbfQTRinaetY3C2seRYsyTgOEVZPeFf5UZWD_KfMB8NFRDai_fc4OjGggrQ1b1rzsUY8s7CSXXVyt8HmXZK1LNAnFuE4qWbjs5e2sa64GC0ItLLA/s1600-h/mr_burns.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggV227zn4lC40YcdICHfcdUOLXruyKbfQTRinaetY3C2seRYsyTgOEVZPeFf5UZWD_KfMB8NFRDai_fc4OjGggrQ1b1rzsUY8s7CSXXVyt8HmXZK1LNAnFuE4qWbjs5e2sa64GC0ItLLA/s200/mr_burns.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399881674091239010" /></a><br /><br />"Goodby Mass"- Okay, so this is just Magician again, with different words. And a misspelled title. Who spells it 'Goodby'? I think one would pronounce that "gud-be" and maybe that's what Lou Reed wants us to do. The subtitle to this song is 'In A Chapel Bodily Termination.' Say what? Apparently when you're the legendary Lou Reed you don't need correct spelling or correct grammar. Oh my god this song did that thing where you totally thought it was over and then another verse started. It's probably not a surprise that a concept album about death would make me want to kill myself, but the surprise is <span style="font-weight:bold;">how much</span> it makes me want to kill myself.<br /><br />"Cremation"- The subtitle to this one is 'Ashes to Ashes' which seems like maybe the typography guy switched the two of them up. This song is really pretty good. Lou probably should've just put out this song with 'What's Good' and 'Sword' and called it an EP. Or filled the B-side with feedback. I think I'll mention that Lou engaged the services of the great Rob Wasserman on bass for this album. Lou has usually had pretty good taste in bass players, which is good, because most Lou Reed songs only have two chords in them, so it's up to the bass players to make them sound different from each other. <br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BSkjWiHTzSw&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BSkjWiHTzSw&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"Dreamin'" Oh, Lou. No one will ever take you seriously if you start dropping g's off your words! <br /><br />"No Chance"-This song is different than most of the other songs on this album. A few weeks later, I picked up Lou Reed's 'New York' album, and basically "No Chance" sounds like every song off of <span style="font-weight:bold;">that</span> album. So if you listen to song, you can basically skip 'New York'. And if you've ever heard 'Sweet Jane' and 'Perfect Day' you've basically heard every Lou Reed song ever written. <br /><br />"Warrior King"- I've made it two and a half minutes into this song without having typed anything. I seem to remember liking this song a lot when I was 15. So I think I've spent the last two and a half minutes trying to figure out what was wrong with me when I was 15.<br /><br />"Harry's Circumcision"- This is Lou Reed's song about a mohel. <br /><br />"Gassed and Stoked"- This song's chorus is an operator telling you that this is no longer a working number, which I think was, in the early 90s, supposed to represent the finality of death: the person you are trying to call is dead, and that is why the number no longer works. But listening to it today, it just sounds like Lou's friend didn't pay his cell phone bill. <br /><br />"Power and Glory Part II"- Do you know how sometimes you really like a movie, and then they make a sequel and it's terrible? Or how sometimes you really don't like a movie, and then they make a sequel anyways, and you can't believe anybody would want to see it, and then one night you flip past it on cable and it's unbelievably terrible? Guess in which way 'Power and Glory Part II' is terrible.<br /><br />"Magic & Loss" aka 'The Summation.' This song is six minutes and thirty nine seconds long. I think, if you just listened to 'What's Good', 'Sword of Damocles' and 'Cremation' it would take you less time. So that might be my recommendation. Although I do like the last minute or so of this song, where I'm guessing somebody in the control booth signaled to Lou that maybe his concept album needed a big finish, so he dialed it up to '4'. Yes, this is a pretty low key album, and to be honest, I probably prefer the seven times he plays the song Magician with different lyrics to the other numbers where he tries unconvincingly to rock. <br />I read an interview with Lou about this record, where he said that it was supposed to be instructive, it was supposed to tell people how to deal with death. He hoped, in 1992, that other musicians would follow in his footsteps. He even made a suggestion: MC Hammer should do a concept album about the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. If only Hammer had listened to ole Lou, we might have been spared 'Addams Family Groove.' After all, there are fates worse than death.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BWJiPUWoB4k&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BWJiPUWoB4k&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-24170135066030023812009-11-02T07:34:00.000-05:002009-11-02T09:05:17.091-05:00LISTENING PARTY: Mighty Like A Rose<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1W8Cxfv8k3_xG1v6yUwrmNOGIZccydHWodRz3FI0p_3E6hhGb9W0Z6AfJ_2SotYg4OrYjLO5jcHl8Vf5oR4jWSkAw-7i4MvKs48rdJHGHVE5yaqG9QrD6F5rI3YmIGPf3K2_Y8PWpIk/s1600-h/mlar_rhino.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn1W8Cxfv8k3_xG1v6yUwrmNOGIZccydHWodRz3FI0p_3E6hhGb9W0Z6AfJ_2SotYg4OrYjLO5jcHl8Vf5oR4jWSkAw-7i4MvKs48rdJHGHVE5yaqG9QrD6F5rI3YmIGPf3K2_Y8PWpIk/s200/mlar_rhino.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399505831821978290" /></a><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">(Note: There are no Youtube videos for any of these songs, and trying to embed links to napster didn't work, so if you're curious what any of these songs sound like, you can listen to the entire album free</span> <a href="http://free.napster.com/view/album/index.html?id=10938222">here</a> )<br />I've been thinking about Elvis Costello's Mighty Like A Rose a lot the past few days, for two reasons. I've recently moved into my grandmother's old house, and I purchased MLAR on an October afternoon 15 years ago with my father before visiting my grandparents. The second reason is that my beard is itching like crazy. This reason is relevant because sometime between the 1989 release of his album "Spike", which at the time was his biggest US hit ever, and 1991 when MLAR was released, Elvis grew probably the grossest beard of all time. He had a habit of following up big commercial success with something really offputting: for example, after his huge song Oliver's Army made the album "Armed Forces" a sales juggernaut, he got drunk in a bar, made racist comments about Ray Charles, and then got beat up by a girl. That he was able to claw his way back from that, primarily on the back of his single Veronica is astonishing. And then he grew the beard:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-zOWSgD_W8wCiGF0r9S4mxTogatVCBcPk4uBzqiTdUNAS1iJXSQ_17wjKjc9BNUa4mRhl237ivdYmadnURvqq5dqFyZw81qwaykphvPEH3BePLiywZnfbDKgCHBxuSOQlaf_nNshSepY/s1600-h/91beard_j17.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 176px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-zOWSgD_W8wCiGF0r9S4mxTogatVCBcPk4uBzqiTdUNAS1iJXSQ_17wjKjc9BNUa4mRhl237ivdYmadnURvqq5dqFyZw81qwaykphvPEH3BePLiywZnfbDKgCHBxuSOQlaf_nNshSepY/s200/91beard_j17.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399486575668326242" /></a><br /><br />Anyway, this is the album he made. I have a deep affection for it, although it tends to be one of his more maligned albums. It has a nasty streak, but if EC's beard was half as itchy as mine is, I understand. <br /><br />"The Other Side of Summer"-My favorite part of this song is that it has a verse dedicated to talking about how stupid "Imagine" by John Lennon is. I thought I was the only one who felt this way. My other favorite part is that it has, and I checked the liner notes, three different bass parts. Everything on this album is so thick sounding, the musical equivalent of split pea soup. And nothing says split pea soup like three different bass players. (The liner notes by EC also revealed that most of this song was cut live, meaning that all three bass players were playing at the same time. This is many people's versions of hell~ especially anybody who lives below someone listening to this song on a stereo system with a subwoofer.)<br /><br />"Hurry Down Doomsday (The Bugs Are Taking Over)"- Do you need anymore evidence of the beard's misanthropic effects than the title of this song? Any song that wishes for nuclear annihilation that isn't written by Randy Newman is bound to be pretty severe. This song only features one bass player, the great Nick Lowe, which suggests to me that all the rest were killed by radiation from the nuclear fallout. <br /><br />"How to Be Dumb"- This song only features one bass player, too, but it's written about a bass player, so that counts, right? This song is allegedly (like OJ killed his wife allegedly) about former Attractions bass player Bruce Thomas, who wrote a book about life on the road with EC. This might be the most vituperative song ever written. And if you don't know what vituperative means, Elvis is going to write a song about you, too. All that having been said, this is the most "classic" EC song on the record, and if he didn't call Bruce Thomas "the funniest f**ker in the world" very clearly enunciated, it might've been the single. At one point my senior year, I considered using the song's last lyrics as my yearbook quote: "Scratch your own head, stupid, count up to three, roll over on your back, repeat after me: don't you know how to be dumb?" Luckily wiser heads prevailed.<br /><br />"All Grown Up"- I question the appropriateness of a man who just wrote a song called 'How to Be Dumb' writing a song about being all grown up. This is the song where Elvis first works with a string section. Perhaps coincidentally, this is also the song where many people stopped liking Elvis Costello.<br /><br />"Invasion Hit Parade"- Damn that beard must be itching him like hell. Because this song makes him sound miserable. It features only one bass player, but it does feature two Elvises, as he credits himself twice, once as "DPA MacManus" (his given name) and as "E.C." Although in fairness, I surmise that the reason he uses his surname is because his father is credited with playing trumpet on the track. So maybe he just wanted to highlight his dad's involvement. Or maybe, since he credits himself as playing an instrument called "Radio Hail, Hail Freedonia Breakthrough" (which sounds like he's scatting into the blades of a small office fan) it's also possible every decision he made on this album was made just for perversity's sake.<br /><br />"Harpies Bizarre"-On this song, there is only one bass, but it is hung upside down. I'm not kidding, the credits read "hung upside down Rickenbacker tremelo bass." So my question, given EC's penchant for verbally eviscerating bass players, is the bass player himself also hung upside down? This song also features a bassoon, meaning it is the favorite EC song of my friend Jess, who used to be a concert bassoonist, even though she's never heard it. Bassoonists are a loyal breed. Well, at least I assume so, since if they weren't, I'm sure Elvis would've written a song about it.<br /><br />"After the Fall"- Elvis writes in the liner notes that this was the last album he recorded where he still thought in the two-sided vinyl format, meaning that he meant for this song to be the last song on side A. And since this song is probably the most depressing and tuneless song I've ever heard, my guess is that he didn't really want you to listen to the seven songs on side B. In all likelihood because you'd either hung yourself halfway through this song, or because you'd smashed the record into pieces. <br /><br />"Georgie and Her Rival"-I've seen Elvis over a dozen times in concert, but I've never heard him play this song. I bet he's forgotten it even exists. But it's not terrible, and paying attention to the lyrics for the first time ever, it's a pretty clever little story song. Elvis even sounds like he used a ton of hair conditioner in his beard, because he doesn't sound like he wants to kill you musically.<br /><br />"So Like Candy"- This song was co-written with Paul McCartney. From the Beatles (I know, I know, I bet you thought it was the guy from Wings.) Bass player count: two. I think it's the only song from this album that he still plays live, and it's pretty clear he likes it. There's a great line at the end about "Candy" taping a note to a record sleeve, which is one of those terrific images that seems so real. Things that seem less real? That anybody in the latter half of the 20th century is named Candy. <br /><br />"Interlude: Couldn't Call it Unexpected No.2"- Who called for an interlude? Even if it did feature the Dirty Dozen Brass Band? And what kind of guy calls in the Dirty Dozen Brass band and has them play for 21 seconds? Same guy who thought this was a good look:<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPsKqFbn9_0kBpxUwhW246nmzgyNPetDFJm5VtF-R_Y0wX4vvDdJmTj1p9dDliX1WsO_mgOuh2Qd74OP5QnMZBCjC98nCp_DJoJLmEpfi-BhcQGYN0vpVt29rif_onBgSipqlx1-5dMFc/s1600-h/cr91063.gif"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 136px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPsKqFbn9_0kBpxUwhW246nmzgyNPetDFJm5VtF-R_Y0wX4vvDdJmTj1p9dDliX1WsO_mgOuh2Qd74OP5QnMZBCjC98nCp_DJoJLmEpfi-BhcQGYN0vpVt29rif_onBgSipqlx1-5dMFc/s200/cr91063.gif" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399500829043340130" /></a><br />"Playboy to a Man"- Also co-written by Paul McCartney, except this time it's the guy from Wings. According to the liner notes, Elvis sang this song through a long rusty lead pipe. There's no joke that goes along with that. I just wonder who went to the junkyard to fetch the long rusty lead pipe? I will bet all the money in my pockets versus all the money in your pockets it was the bass player.<br /><br />"Sweet Pear"- Where is Elvis meeting all these girls with the weird names? <br /><br />"Broken"- This song was written by Elvis's then wife, Cait O'Riordan. When I was a teenager, I used to imagine getting married to somebody with as Irish a sounding name as Cait O'Riordan, but I would skip the part where she wrote songs that I recorded on my albums. I also skipped the part where she was a 14-year old boy, because that is who these lyrics sound like they were written by. <br /><br />"Couldn't Call It Unexpected No. 4"- Don't bother looking for number 3. It's like that prank where kids release 3 goats into a school and paint 1, 2, and 4 on the sides so that everybody's looking for "goat number 3" all day. The final lines of this song were also contenders for yearbook quotes: "I can't believe I'll never believe in anything again." There's a truth bomb, right there. He sounds almost happy on this song. Know why? No bass player. Just a tuba. And how many bands do you think would be improved by replacing their bassists with tuba players? If you answered all of them, you would be correct. I've seen Elvis sing this song several times, and each time he shuts off his mike and sings out into the hall un-amplified. It's a show-boaty thing to do, no doubt, but he's smiling when he does it, as if to say "Holy shit was that beard itchy."rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-82365889314697934492009-10-26T09:23:00.000-04:002009-11-01T17:42:27.804-05:00AMPERSAND<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsyEAEr9blESX2glth9vkTUJfti_PG_rBO4js7YA_brUhKdDdgVIzNBvW657oQrNJzhjpzlgNKbTfmk4uhSFTVouOWYHb7Pm3_zzfVulAoN6b95sUmbjU6Td3mz_LuTLyIzsbwRfoHY6g/s1600-h/6300_93766367953_602912953_1913283_3274700_n.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 176px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsyEAEr9blESX2glth9vkTUJfti_PG_rBO4js7YA_brUhKdDdgVIzNBvW657oQrNJzhjpzlgNKbTfmk4uhSFTVouOWYHb7Pm3_zzfVulAoN6b95sUmbjU6Td3mz_LuTLyIzsbwRfoHY6g/s200/6300_93766367953_602912953_1913283_3274700_n.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399268875620537378" /></a><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">Me rocking out circa 1997. Jesse is in white behind me, and Darrell's in blue.</span><br /><br />In 2000, I acquired a Tascam 4-Track recorder. In the past I had used the condenser mics on tape decks and karaoke machine to record my songs, and I believed that by having access to the same recording technology that the Beatles used to make "Sgt. Pepper's", I would be able to record a masterpiece.<br /><br />This is what I came up with.<br /><br />Most of this was recorded in the room above Darrell's parents' garage, although a few tracks were recorded in my dad's sunroom, and two more in my dad's basement. Somewhere among my possessions is the mock liner notes I had prepped for this CD, where I think I came up with a name for each recording space. So I think Darrell's house was called "Helen's Way Studio" because he lived on Helen's Way, and I called my dad's sunroom "Sunroom Studio" which at least sounds like a real studio name. Which is beside the point: I was kind of a douche.<br /><br />(Click on each title to listen to the song.)<br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/212051756/sulky-skirt-from-the-collection-ampersand-by">"Sulky Skirt"</a> The song had its origin after I went to see Elliott Smith play at the Axis, which most nights operated as a dance club. There were two girls there who looked like they had come for club night, but decided to stay for the concert. They looked miserable, which isn't surprising if you're expecting to make-out with a random guy while grinding him to the beat of the extended mix of "Believe" by Cher, but instead are listening to a musician who would later kill himself by stabbing himself in the heart.<br /><br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/212818098/shade-version-2-from-the-collection-ampersand">"Shade" (version 2)</a> I did mention this was intended to be an album of love songs, right? This song might be the best example of this, except that, in an attempt to obscure any personal details, the lyrics in the verses were intentionally obscured. So if you are wondering what's going on, only I and maybe half another person know. So don't worry about it. We first recorded this song in an up-tempo version (dubbed version #1) and then later re-recorded it with my dear friend Heather on harmony vocals. I came up with the idea of adding electric piano AFTER we recorded everything else, which means that it's slightly out of tune.<br /><br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/213733762/aztec-girl-from-the-collection-ampersand-by-rjt">"Aztec Girl"</a>- Alright so three songs in to my great album of love songs, and I'm batting 0.333. This song is a spiritual cousin to Shade, in that it's based on a true event-the same that Shade was based on-but from a different person's perspective. This song has some of the worst puns I've ever written, and for those who have followed my writing career for a while, you know THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING.<br /><br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/216539098/safe-from-the-collection-ampersand-by-rjt-you">"Safe"</a>-This is the oldest song here. I wrote this in the fall of 1998, for a girl who really needed to be kept safe from me. I think I really wanted to go for an Elliott Smith vibe on this song, especially with the double-tracked vocals. These are some of my favorite lyrics ever, even though they do include the word 'fart.'<br /><br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/217127405/thumbelina-from-the-collection-ampersand-by-rjt">"Thumbelina"</a>- I wrote this one about a girl I worked with. I suspected that she might have a crush on me, and the fact that she was 17 and I was 20 freaked me out enough that I wrote this song about an older man and a much younger woman, which is how 17-year old girls look like to 20-year old guys. This might be Darrell's favorite song of mine.<br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/218199650/rainy-day-from-the-collection-ampersand-by-rjt"><br />"Rainy Day"</a>- This was intended to be a concept album, but really maybe only five of the ten songs fit. This is one of them. The lyrics obscure a real event, featuring the same cast of characters from "Shade" and "Aztec Girl" and while this song is way way too long, I like the accordion playing, and there is profundity in the refrain "Why don't you save your rain for rainy day?" that I think I might have missed way back then.<br /><br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/219480772/a-little-island-south-of-nebraska-from-the">"A Little Island South of Nebraska"</a>-This was inspired by a dream I had about a bunch of different girls I knew. I wrote about half of the song before I realized that the first line of each verse just so happened to spell out the same word. I then added a few more lines that also spelled out that same word. I think you can tell, if you read the lyrics closely, which ones are accidental and which ones are purposeful, because the accidental ones are way better. I remember adding a bass part to this song, but it must be way down in the mix, because I don't know how to mix things.<br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/220416822/oubliette-from-the-collection-ampersand-by-rjt"><br />"Oubliette"</a>- An oubliette is a medieval prison cell that only opened from above, and had round, smooth walls. So basically, once someone was dropped in, they could never get out. This song is also about a girl.<br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/221003014/fred-astaire-from-the-collection-ampersand-by"><br />"Fred Astaire"</a>- This song has a really beautiful melody, and pretty terrible lyrics. It also has some terrible singing. I was referencing a movie called "Funny Face" that I had never seen. My roommate owned the video, and she once suggested we watch it, but I always had something else to do. Like write songs about movies I had never seen. So I apologize to any Audrey Hepburn/Fred Astaire fans who think I've bastardized their favorite film. The "percussion" mentioned in this song is me slapping my car keys against my palm. We were like the MacGyvers of pop music.<br /><br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/221726894/zero-one-from-the-collection-ampersand-by-rjt-i">"Zero One"</a>-This song was the impetus for me to record an "album" because I thought the conceit in the chorus (I am the zero and you are the one) was so good, and that 2001 would be the perfect year to release that song. I think it might have been inspired by those "why-was-six-afraid-of-seven?" jokes. And I'm pretty serious. So, while this song was recorded in 2001, along with nine other songs, and we actually burned up dozens of CDs (with artwork printed on them) this "album" had pretty poor circulation. Until 2009. And while in my current relationship, it is true that if I am the zero then my fiancee is the nine, "Zero Nine" doesn't have the same ring to it. C'est la vie. Anyway, apologies for the digital distortion at the end; it's what I get for keeping my CDs loose in boxes when I move.<br /><br />I hope you've enjoyed this embarrassing look into my past. It continues on <a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com">tresselsound</a> where I am now posting tracks from my 2002 CD "Songs About Girls" which I recorded live in my Dad's office two days before I left for a road trip to Virginia. Spoiler alert: I sold enough copies to put gas in my car.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-43483417987260273512009-10-13T12:02:00.000-04:002009-10-13T12:13:18.110-04:00Bang A Gong: The Music of RJT<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg__uy1wB2mqJq0m29ip9WjlvYwBqpjJXDVsFZTynWAiFk-wjhAatXqPISYc7e7ObD2UguO-93YFz7EiYMS09XP8bOW6FCx4B2w-f1ZTUSWF3ZTBgAJin8NSXlxiXJfTiSmaUfkYIIzTqE/s1600-h/drums.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 158px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg__uy1wB2mqJq0m29ip9WjlvYwBqpjJXDVsFZTynWAiFk-wjhAatXqPISYc7e7ObD2UguO-93YFz7EiYMS09XP8bOW6FCx4B2w-f1ZTUSWF3ZTBgAJin8NSXlxiXJfTiSmaUfkYIIzTqE/s200/drums.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5392118364320806146" /></a><br />I wrote my first solo song called "She's Alive" in 1994. I wrote it on a Thursday, taught it to my friends Darrell and Brad that Saturday, and then performed it the following Tuesday night in front of 700 people at our summer camp talent show. It was the largest crowd I have ever played for. Eight years later I finished up a summer residency at a local coffee shop performing a song about how Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler look alike to about 17 people. So just like the Beatles, I moved into the studio, recording songs at a pace that alternated between ferocious and moribund, and I've decided to preserve the whole catalog, the "Ryan Tressel" box set if you will, on the internet in all its glory. I'm going to start with the first recordings I did in 2001 when I traded my friend Stephanie an acoustic guitar and $75 for her Tascam 4-track recorder. The first songs that I recorded with my friend Darrell where collected onto a CD entitled "Ampersand", the opening track of which <a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/212051756/sulky-skirt-from-the-collection-ampersand-by">SULKY SKIRT</a> can be listened to <a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/212051756/sulky-skirt-from-the-collection-ampersand-by">here</a> .<br /><br />The song had its origin after I went to see Elliott Smith play at the Axis, which most nights operated as a dance club. There were two girls there who looked like they had come for club night, but decided to stay for the concert. They looked miserable, which isn't surprising if you're expecting to make-out with a random guy while grinding him to the beat of the extended mix of "Believe" by Cher, but instead are listening to a musician who would later kill himself <span style="font-weight:bold;">by stabbing himself in the heart.</span><br /><br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/212051756/sulky-skirt-from-the-collection-ampersand-by">Sulky Skirt</a>, written by Ryan J. Tressel, recorded and performed by RJT and D.Morey.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-31088934288614982802009-10-06T09:00:00.000-04:002009-10-06T09:52:22.260-04:00LISTENING PARTY: Roll the Bones<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4-tEl0FnYiK4SN4CCKn_sySS_4-7ZUdfo7YzYXCsKLtjnehDCC9uN9eJsmypjFaJXSVQMshCfm-NmT53_9BqjXkd6n-90oCXZxB56-9iRIYRxPJABGAMWgZxBPdVudpr3OXuQa8LaAOY/s1600-h/album-roll-the-bones.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4-tEl0FnYiK4SN4CCKn_sySS_4-7ZUdfo7YzYXCsKLtjnehDCC9uN9eJsmypjFaJXSVQMshCfm-NmT53_9BqjXkd6n-90oCXZxB56-9iRIYRxPJABGAMWgZxBPdVudpr3OXuQa8LaAOY/s200/album-roll-the-bones.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389484312948300066" /></a><br /><br />Continuing with the theme of albums that made a tremendous mark on me in the fall of 1992 (my memories can now get into R-rated movies without a parent), I present perhaps the most potentially embarrassing fall fave, Rush's "Roll the Bones".<br /><br />"Dreamline"- What would a roadmap to Jupiter entail? Are there a lot of landmarks between here and Jupiter? One line into this Rush album we've already hit our first stumbling block. Rush's lyrics, written by drummer Neil Peart, are actually all cribbed from the "Dune" novel series. The second verse begins with "Time is a gypsy caravan" which isn't the worst metaphor in the world, but then Geddy Lee says that he is as lonely as an eagle's cry, which is also not the worst metaphor in the world, because it is in fact the worst SIMILE in the world, being a comparison using 'like' or 'as'. Lots of seventies progressive rock bands make you think about complex math while you listen, but Rush makes you think about grammar.<br /><br />"Bravado"- I imagine that my dad bought this album from the BMG music club, where you could get 12 CDs for a penny. That means that this album is only has to provide me with more than 1/12 of one cent's worth of entertainment to be worthwhile. Listening to the song "Bravado" puts that possibility in dire straits. Also, this is the second song in a row whose title appears nowhere within the lyrics themselves. It's lucky for Rush that neither of these songs became big hits, because then they'd have to do that thing where some many people think your song is called one thing that you have to reprint the album artwork with the song's title in parenthesis AFTER the mistaken title. See Green Day's "The Time of Your Life (Good Riddance)" or the Fray's "Over My Head (Cable Cars)" I appreciate your subtlety, Neal, if none of these plebs do. Still hate the song though.<br /><br />"Roll the Bones"-If this song didn't exist, I don't think I would've ever listened to this album all the way through, let alone dozens of times. It is bitchin'. It starts out with kind of same lame early 90's style bass playing, but then increases in awesomeness exponentially with each passing second. Also this song is one of those songs that has a part you think is the chorus, but is in fact only the pre-chorus to an even cooler chorus, and even that is just a pre-chorus for the ultimate chorus of all time. Also, there is a rap solo in the bridge--actually two rap solos, and since nobody is credited in the liner notes, I'm going to assume it is one of the members of Rush with their voices digitally altered. Although, watching this live video, it appears I am wrong, and in fact the rapper is Mictlantecuhtli, the Aztec god of death. Which makes sense, because the only way that you can write a song this unbelievable awesome is that you make a blood sacrifice to ancient gods. My guess at who Rush sacrificed? Their original lyricist.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iXbDPE3iL68&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iXbDPE3iL68&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Face Up"- The problem with putting the most awesome song ever recorded on your album is that any song that you put on following it sounds like crap. Luckily, Face Up would've sounded like crap no matter where you put it. This is very strategic on Rush's part. He keeps repeating that if he could only reach the dial inside of him he would turn it up, and then turn my wild card down. I have no idea what that means, except that it sounds kind of dirty. Much has been made of Geddy Lee's lead vocals, and I've heard them compared to Jiminey Cricket, but could you imagine how differently that story would've turned out if Pinnocchio had taken the advice offered by Geddy Lee in this song instead of "When You Wish Upon A Star"? Well, actually, didn't Pinnocchio ignore Jiminey's advice and go to that gay bathhouse, Pleasure Island? So maybe if Jiminey had told him to reach the dial inside and turn it up, Pinocchio would've just gone to school and studied hard instead.<br /><br />"Where's My Thing?" God, you know what I need now? Some kind of rock/funk hybrid instrumental. Oh, if we could make it some kind of progressive rock, that would be awesome. Also, how many synthesizers do you have? Bring ALL OF THEM.<br /><br />"The Big Wheel"- I had actually heard this song on WBCN before, which is probably why I pick up this album to listen to instead of the best of Poco. This song doesn't have a rap solo by a dancing death god, but that's the only reason "Roll the Bones" gets a leg up. I think this record was sequenced like it was going to be listened to on a two-sided format (vinyl or cassette) and this would've opened side B. It's pretty awesome, even if it does that synthesizer/guitar effect between each verse that Pink Floyd used on every song they ever wrote after Roger Waters quit the band. Who would win in a fight, Pink Floyd Vs. Rush? While PF does have a giant inflatable pig, remember that Rush has Mictlantecuhtli. This would be a great pay-for-view event, especially since the only people who even know what pay-for-view events even are are guys in their late 40s.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/80wphIfe2mk&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/80wphIfe2mk&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Heresy"- Any big words I know that I didn't learn from Swamp Thing comics I picked up from song titles by progressive rock bands. I remember when Nine Inch Nails came out with a song called Heresy somebody I went to high school with pronounced it as "hear-say" (which is the legal term for when you tattle on somebody) instead of "hair-a-see" (which is when you say something that contradicts the bible, a.k.a. the truth) and I just scoffed. "Clearly, you've never heard 'Roll the Bones' by Rush," I sneered, right before he kicked the shit out of me. <br /><br />"Ghost of a Chance"- This is not about ghosts, despite what the title might lead you to believe. It's actually a weird minotaur like creature, with verses from a "Living Color" tribute band and chorus by Michael Bolton. It's rare to see one of these in captivity. But if you can listen to this song, try and imagine it playing at a wedding in 1992 and people with really teased out hair slow dancing to the slow parts and then awkwardly having to do some kind of white person shuffle until it slows down again. <br /><br />Or just watch this:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/iE8Ff5d_KmA&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/iE8Ff5d_KmA&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"Neurotica"- Around this time in my life, Madonna gave up any pretense that she wasn't a sex worker, and released her album and single "Erotica" in conjunction with her book that showed her performing oral sex on Vanilla Ice, which is the worst career decision you can ever make, topping the previous record held by Vanilla Ice for his performance in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze" (which topped the previous record, which was also held by Vanilla Ice for his entire career up to that point.) So, I wouldn't do anything so crass as suggest that you listen to this song imagining the middle-aged members of Rush in various states of undress in sexually explicit positions, but I also wouldn't judge you if you did. <br /><br />"You Bet Your Life"-Not when Mictlantecuhtli is on your side, I don't. <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF5NCdeB-squSiGsiwVixpM5iwTCZm2pjy9vXaqG6tOQET3gk0OfKJYL7jsOH4U2VF4WQZkIOAtZpxzrsZwlMIpJY-qTIfsgxsBvWF79hwcy66_0qRJkFnp0ZiTW-zzD-88Muh0psNRbo/s1600-h/97478-004-1C7C76FF.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 102px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiF5NCdeB-squSiGsiwVixpM5iwTCZm2pjy9vXaqG6tOQET3gk0OfKJYL7jsOH4U2VF4WQZkIOAtZpxzrsZwlMIpJY-qTIfsgxsBvWF79hwcy66_0qRJkFnp0ZiTW-zzD-88Muh0psNRbo/s200/97478-004-1C7C76FF.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389483933126460994" /></a><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">"Jack? Relax. Get busy with the facts..."</span>rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-8379400510923044892009-10-05T09:54:00.000-04:002009-10-05T10:52:48.823-04:00LISTENING PARTY: Green<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUkLx8x2HWNouPwB1dUPlUr4oHQ_4u21ooTvjDKeSGSgpEKRXXfzhtci8W0ecsLPgNdjFwcH7XBbPa03jflBOPH0GzpXxMP6FnPcTkQGSmci5kEXZjbOng4Rqis8qj5pgAzpUb7RSqF_A/s1600-h/chrisonbike.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 94px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUkLx8x2HWNouPwB1dUPlUr4oHQ_4u21ooTvjDKeSGSgpEKRXXfzhtci8W0ecsLPgNdjFwcH7XBbPa03jflBOPH0GzpXxMP6FnPcTkQGSmci5kEXZjbOng4Rqis8qj5pgAzpUb7RSqF_A/s200/chrisonbike.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389128949234010098" /></a><br /><br />I've mentioned before the magical summer/fall of 1992, when fueled by teenage hormones I decided to listen to every record in my father's collection in an attempt to discover music. For a large part of my life prior to this, I had almost zero interest in popular music, except for an intense Weird Al period when I was in third grade and a short-lived and peer pressured interest in the rap group the Fat Boys. I suppose a really terrible graduate level thesis could be written about why certain albums spoke to me (Rush's "Roll the Bones") while others didn't (Supertramp's "Breakfast in America", but I'm not going to talk about those ones. I'm going to talk about the Chris Elliot show "Get A Life" and its soundtrack, "Green" by R.E.M.<br />"Get A Life" was a short-lived sitcom in which Chris Elliot played a 35-year paperboy who still lived with his parents.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DVT9LvgjFAo&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DVT9LvgjFAo&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />(Did you catch the pedophile reference? Pretty edgy for 1991.)<br />Now "Green" by R.E.M. was in no way the soundtrack to "Get A Life", but the show did use the R.E.M. song "Stand" as its theme song. And here is my entrance way into the world of Mssrs. Berry, Buck, Mills, and Stipe.<br /><br />"Pop Song 89"- This is one of those songs that never mentions its title in the lyrics at all. It's really less of a title than a description. Imagine how confusing bands' albums would be if they just described the song instead of naming it? How would you know which was your favorite Fray track if they were all just named "Mopey Song 07"? Or if Randy Newman albums just were listed "Ironically Racist Song" numbers 1-9? I could probably spend all day playing that game, but now the song is over. It was pretty good. Here, check it out yourself:<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/OQJowszQH_4&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/OQJowszQH_4&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />"Get Up"-I hope Michael Stipe isn't yelling at me to "Get Up" in some kind of political fashion, like "get up and end the invasion of Nicaragua" and is instead telling me to "get up off the couch and stop blogging about our albums and go eat one of those fancy cupcakes you have in your fridge" but I'm not sure. Oh, I thought of another one. Going to a jukebox and trying to decide if you want to hear "Song with Beautiful in the Title 2000" by U2 or "Song with Beautiful in the Title 2007" by U2. <br /><br />"You Are the Everything"- That's nice of you to say, Michael. Unless you're making a comment about my weight, which wouldn't necessarily be uncalled for. Maybe I should get up more. But seriously, this is a really beautiful song. I'm pretty sure some one is playing a mandolin, presaging R.E.M.'s decision to record every song with a mandolin forever. Or just on "Losing My Religion" which I've heard so many times that it just seems like forever.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/M4F9sHyyvqk&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/M4F9sHyyvqk&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Stand"- Sweet jesus is this song terrific. I love how anthemic it sounds, including the "straight-on-the-eighth-notes" piano hammering that happens during the chorus. Also, amazing? The wah-wah on the solo. What is more amazing than that? The lyrics, you say? I should agree. I read an interview with Michael Stipe once where he said that "Sugar, Sugar" by the Archies was more culturally significant than anything by the Beatles. And if that's true (and I might not totally disagree) than that must make "Stand" by R.E.M. the most culturally significant thing since the Renaissance. I'm only half-joking. Here's a clip of Chris Elliot riding a bike to watch while you think about it.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/P-7pgeD__qU&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/P-7pgeD__qU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"World Leader Pretend"- I remember being 13 and struggling to understand the grammar of this title. Shouldn't it be world leader pretend<span style="font-style:italic;">s</span>? And then what is he pretending? Or she, although in 1988 I think the only female world leader was Imelda Marcos, and I don't think this song is about her, because the lyrics do not mention shoes once. So you do the math. <br /><br />"The Wrong Child"- I'll just take a minute to express how impressed I am with R.E.M. "Green" was their major label debut for Warner Brothers after making five records with independent label I.R.S. and it's so weird. There are probably lots of songs you think came from this album that didn't. "The One I Love"? "It's the End of the World as We Know It And I Feel Fine"? Both from the album before. They get signed to a multi-million dollar major label record label,and you can picture the A&R guy rubbing his hands together thinking about all the hit singles R.E.M. are going to produce and they make this weird, weird record. It's beautiful and haunting, like the song "The Wrong Child" which sounds like Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, but man it's still pretty weird. The weirdest thing? The album is called "Green" but the album cover is totally orange. Did I just blow your mind? I think I did.<br /><br />"Orange Crush"- This is probably the kind of song that Warners thought R.E.M. would be recording, and I like to imagine that they wrote 11 songs like this one, and then recorded a bunch of weirder songs, releasing those, but including this one, just so people knew that they could. I don't really know what this song is about, although I remember thinking that it was about Vietnam, probably because I had also just watched Apocalypse Now, and while I don't think they mention the defoliant "Agent Orange" by name in it, I made the connection none the less. Listening to it now, I can also hear helicopters in the background where you would imagine a guitar solo or something, which adds to the 'Nam effect. I would someday like to front a good rock'n'roll band, and I will have the drummer start each song with the rapid fire snare hits that Bill Berry uses throughout this song, no matter how poorly it fits with the song we're playing, or how sick the drummer or our audience gets of it. That's how rad it is.<br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2BvXBwtrs_k&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2BvXBwtrs_k&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br />"Turn You Inside Out"-I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a good thing to say to another person. I wonder if this is how Michael Stipe picks up guys or ladies at the bar? I don't know what I would do if somebody approached me and told me they would turn me inside out, although I might point out that it's probably pretty gross in there. I mean, the digestive system alone! Leave that stuff on the inside. Couldn't you just turn me upside down? Although that might succeed in making me turn myself inside out. How about you just buy me a drink and then tell me you like my smile?<br /><br />"Hairshirt"- I have a hair shirt, if by hair-shirt you mean a hairy chest. <br /><br />The first line of this song is "I am not the kind of dog who could keep you waiting for no good reason." Do dogs ever have good reasons for keeping people waiting? Isn't it usually "There was another dog butt over there" or "I'm a dog and I don't understand what you're saying, so I'm just going to keep standing here for a few more minutes until I get bored"? More mandolin, by the way. How did nobody not notice this before? People always talk about R.E.M.'s follow-up record "Out of Time" as being the one with all the mandolins, but they probably were thinking of this one. Man, it's hard to keep R.E.M. records straight. Imagine how much more difficult it would be if all the songs were just described instead of titled? Oh, wait, I already did this joke. Did I already mention that the album is called "Green" but the album cover is orange? I did. Man, it's a good thing the next song is the last song.<br /><br />"I Remember California"- Which is a funny title, because have you ever tried to name all the U.S. states from memory? Because nobody ever forgets California. Or Texas. Or Florida. The weirdly shaped ones. You're more likely to forget Oklahoma. Or Missouri. Have you noticed how little I've talked about this record itself? It's because it's pretty good, although it would probably rank near the bottom of my favorite R.E.M. albums. But I really like R.E.M., much to the chagrin of my poor fiancee, so even one of their least-liked albums is still pretty good. But I'm glad this is the last song, because I've run out of funny and/or interesting things to say about this album.<br /><br />Curses! An untitled, unlisted track! I know I've written about this before, but who was the first artist to include an hidden bonus track on a CD because I'd like to kick them in the face. I hate putting a CD into my itunes and it has like 47 tracks of silence before the bonus track which itself only starts after 3 minutes of tape hiss. Or when the last track on the CD is 35 minutes long because it has the really awesome last song from the album, twenty-two minutes of silence, and then a kind of lame jam type song. Sorry, I didn't realize I had all that anger in me. Although I will admit this hidden R.E.M. song is a separate track and there isn't a ridiculously long silence before it starts, and it's actually a pretty fun and cool little song, so I'll just pretend that the track information from song number 11 just fell off the back of the CD case. Which is orange, if I haven't already mentioned it.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC2SommxCi8WjET9XYlKi84ZZTEAyLs69j-Dzi_3xMvLEv_RCDsSw6nLaOH7qnEzQzqMxLUmoFsl6wU_aJHDO1M6Y_cCR0J4iWCYdhN5GM7-OVRM_AaT0_ThxPRvseSx4dK8wXawuIDGk/s1600-h/images.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 116px; height: 116px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC2SommxCi8WjET9XYlKi84ZZTEAyLs69j-Dzi_3xMvLEv_RCDsSw6nLaOH7qnEzQzqMxLUmoFsl6wU_aJHDO1M6Y_cCR0J4iWCYdhN5GM7-OVRM_AaT0_ThxPRvseSx4dK8wXawuIDGk/s200/images.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5389128802705459682" /></a>rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-65622861677894389992009-09-04T12:39:00.000-04:002009-09-04T12:42:20.442-04:00Sad Girls<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2YGlQEZcSdoflOxZXhRxfuMwQhELmtbbDp39znMzdrNDrar9vP3AuzplijDSPW3gmdazgbfzH_NRPA9GT4h2JtOlwvscpmNWW22RE4I3kJAHz7AE90Bqwx-_gw11-193flrOMDkal_G0/s1600-h/metro-station-from-metro-site.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2YGlQEZcSdoflOxZXhRxfuMwQhELmtbbDp39znMzdrNDrar9vP3AuzplijDSPW3gmdazgbfzH_NRPA9GT4h2JtOlwvscpmNWW22RE4I3kJAHz7AE90Bqwx-_gw11-193flrOMDkal_G0/s200/metro-station-from-metro-site.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377653128259708994" /></a><br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/179717815/sad-girls-from-the-collection-sick-building-by">Sad Girls</a> written & performed by Ryan J. Tressel<br /><br />Sad girls move through the subway, get on the right trains. They're going home. But they don't look like they're so sure, maybe head instead to the airport. But they've never flown. They touch buttons on blouses as scumbags and louses meet all their softness with shove. Sad girls, oppressed by love. Sad girls listen on headphones to crooners like Tom Jones quietly moving their lips. They entertain such fancies like throwing their panties but they stay snug on their hips. They practice their curtsy with thoughts filthy and dirty the whore with the governess's gloves. Sad girls, oppressed by love. Home to their boyfriends, that's where the day ends, but they've got a DVR. I have made girls sad. I didn't mean to. I never do, but I've seen their face as I've robbed them of their joy, equal parts cold and coy, baleful and base. This world breaks all hearts and should tear us apart, but I still love them so. Besides, sadness is all that we know.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-57215742239178308942009-09-03T12:27:00.001-04:002009-09-03T12:29:01.240-04:00Splinter<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLq_IB78oFzZCAAW10HYIPtq1znedZD0PBXeOKt9exWoXXtOPdkCu0YnEJSY7J1bF1mEHQ9m21-ppbyL36vl9nVrrcY7gA-e50nYJUzxMkzQY0cG0R0Pc40w1_EqsD2gld1fZFNMmoc7o/s1600-h/2004-wpsy-20040723-b28_30.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLq_IB78oFzZCAAW10HYIPtq1znedZD0PBXeOKt9exWoXXtOPdkCu0YnEJSY7J1bF1mEHQ9m21-ppbyL36vl9nVrrcY7gA-e50nYJUzxMkzQY0cG0R0Pc40w1_EqsD2gld1fZFNMmoc7o/s200/2004-wpsy-20040723-b28_30.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5377278730732139202" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/178877554/splinter-from-the-collection-sick-building-by">Splinter</a> written and performed by Ryan J. Tressel <br />The salt on your skin clung with a fervor that I did not possess. You said you'd grant me any three wishes, if only I could guess the shade of your eyes and the height of your tanline the way that your waves crash and crest against mine. Our kisses like brine. You seemed like the shore, defined by something else. You drew a line in the sand between everything and yourself and you sank like a dream in the flotsam and steam and you said we were one but I could see the seams. A roof without a center beam. Please don't remember me. You thought we would last but then came the winter. The man who loves you rests inside me, nagging like a splinter. It's too deep to handle like the wick of the candle that's buried in the wax. It's impervious to flame and won't respond to its name we're all turning our backs on them but not you but there's nothing to do the way you're both attached. So you can't control me and you can't convince me that I don't deserve less than nothing at all except the rise and the fall of the sun and the shame please don't mention my name, not even silently. Just don't remember me.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5556900716653115089.post-40862922738308995692009-09-02T10:25:00.000-04:002009-09-02T10:28:00.260-04:00A Rake's Progress<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqD6LQqfBZ6WKJJvskEvNFLnGYTmxF9lrqe8G9H4EZD1KdecZ_MRL1YYFitwWKivIr-zvC6ZhlIqRYN6Xm7sxxF3-scv5PMDeg5edtcLwerwb-TtyWBYaFCFPQ8ZJdi8P3T6FE26EP_o4/s1600-h/rakes-progress-500.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 167px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqD6LQqfBZ6WKJJvskEvNFLnGYTmxF9lrqe8G9H4EZD1KdecZ_MRL1YYFitwWKivIr-zvC6ZhlIqRYN6Xm7sxxF3-scv5PMDeg5edtcLwerwb-TtyWBYaFCFPQ8ZJdi8P3T6FE26EP_o4/s200/rakes-progress-500.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5376876555274544770" /></a><br />from the painting series 'A Rake's Progress' by William Hogarth<br /><a href="http://ryantressel.tumblr.com/post/177969191/a-rakes-progress-from-the-collection-sick">A Rake's Progress</a> written and performed by Ryan J. Tressel<br /><br />You’re only there when I fuck up. When I left my life a mess. You only catch the worst snapshots of me, like this was a Rake’s Progress. You only see me when I’m on my knees. It looks like prayer to you. I’m not asking for nothing I’m just weak—standing is more than I can do. Where were you when the sun shone through? When oceans turned mountains to sand? Where’d you go when I tried to grow into a man you could stand. Nobody noticed the bridge had fallen. The river just swallowed the brick. I loved you as much as the water could handle. I loved you until I was sick. The rain started Monday now it’s the day after never. I’m Noah submerged in the flood. I didn’t mean to let the whole dam fail. I thought hope would keep us dry enough. Where’s that fella with my umbrella? I’d give that bastard a hand. And you went missing after we were kissing back when I was a man you could stand. But you’re only there when I fuck up. You might as well be here all the time. It’s love we need to keep us freed. It’s love that keeps our hands tied. So I promise you nothing so you can expect it, nurture it like a child. And I’ll call the doctor say increase my morphine. I’ll pretend it’s your number I dialed. And I’ll find you at my waterloo. You’ll bleach my coat when I die. I’ll let paint dry and then I’ll watch you try.rjthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03904225634269036045noreply@blogger.com0