Not a surprise...

... but this blog is going on hiatus. Like previous "let's blog for fun" projects, it's difficult to maintain without feeling like it's going too many places and nowhere at the same time. And while this might sound incredibly snobbish, it's more difficult drumming up the motivation to write an open-ended blog post when I've been getting paid to write (all of which can be read on this blog).

I suppose this space will be kept open in case I feel the need to utilize it.

Rappers, known your basketball trivia

Newly blog-wielding friend, Miss Mezzano, recently put up the almost decade old(!) "Summer Girls" music video from late '90s boy band, LFO (or as their wikipedia calls them, Lyte Funky Ones. I know...) Even in 1999, that song was one of the most baffling chart hits. How else could anyone explain an upper-class white boy rapping non-sequiturs about girls, Abercrombie & Fitch, the summer, chinese food, girls in the summer, etc.?

It's interesting that after ten years of trying to repress this song from ever popping in my head randomly, the first lyric that really slapped me in the face reminded me of one of more rant-worthy snippets of recent upper-class white rapper Asher Roth.

Compare if you will:

• "[With reggae inflection] I am champ-ee-on / at beer pong / Allen Iverson / Hakeem Olajuwon"

• "You're the best girl that I ever did see / the great Larry Bird / jersey 33"
  

Let this be a lesson to gimmicky rappers looking for a way to complete their rhyme scheme - know you're basketball trivia.

(The offending post)

Food for quote: Tim O'Brien on writing

"By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happened [...] and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur, but that nonetheless help clarify and explain."

- From The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

---

My stage managing friend Kate told me once about the two different schools of acting. There is "method," which gets actors in the press all the time for their months of research and tales of completely immersing themselves into a character maintaining it on and off screen/stage. I should say that my knowledge of acting theory is limited to my four years of high school drama club and one semester of a "Acting for Non-Theater Majors" at NIU, so forgive me if I butcher this theory. But from what I gather, method acting requires one to do as much as they can to become a character externally and internally.

Then there's the Brechtian theory, which seems to underplay that kind of immersion. Sure, mind exercises, meditations and research are valuable tools, but no matter what, there are always two people onstage - the character and the actor portraying the character. In the end, it's someone onstage, pretending to be someone else. (Hey actors, I'm not saying that what you do isn't incredible. I'm not saying it doesn't take a high level of skill and talent to do what you do. Let's just call a spade a spade. A painter makes pretty pictures. A writer puts words on paper.)

The latter came to mind upon reading the above quote from Tim O'Brien. It came from a piece of fiction based on his real-life experiences fighting in the Vietnam War. O'Brien blurs the line between fiction and truth by naming all the characters after people he served with and, in passages like the one above, breaking the fourth wall and admitting that certain things are exaggerated. In The Things They Carried, there are two O'Briens; the one who writes the stories drawn from his war experience, and the one in the stories.

When discussing the book in a writers group at my local library, other writers described how when they wrote memoirs on particularly hard or tragic events in their life, they too were able to separate themselves from the incident and look at it from a neutral position, because their trauma had been turned into story, something they could poke at, tweak and craft into something emotionally true, even if it's not one-hundred percent factual. Before, I had believed that writing creative nonfiction required a more method approach, and would try to mentally inhabit a past-self when I wrote. But O'Brien, and apparently the rest of the writers group, seems to fly in the face of that notion. Writing about the past isn't the same as writing history or journalism. The only thing that needs to be cited in memory, and is there anything more fickle and random than memory?

I finish this with another quote from Mark Twain; "It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense."

A new link for the right side of the page

An internet friend from way back has finally found her perfect social network/blog medium - the Tumblr. It's stream-of-conscious overload of images, text and music fit nicely with her persona, so have a look-see at Mizz Mezzano's Black Hearted Love for her stylish and very NSFW randomness.

A brief list of things I've enjoyed consuming.

1. Two Suns by Bat for Lashes [album]
2. Post-Nothing by Japandroids [album]
3. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien [book]
4. Dollhouse [TV]
5. The "Cafe Disco" episode of The Office [TV]
6. Mexican train dominos [family game]

Shooting nature in the face

Now that the weather has turned a corner into consistent pleasantness, why not take a walk and see what I find? Pics from April 22 & 23, 2009.

Adventures in Overthinking: "Mr. November"

Today, I felt a bit closer to the many anti-P.C. natured people in America. You know, the ones who laugh at Larry the Cable Guy and Carlos Mencia and think things like "developmentally challenged," is just "retarded" with too many syllables. Just when you think the things you love to watch, listen to and read are nothing more than entertainment, someone else comes along and makes you think again.

No one told me my favorite song, "Mr. November," by my favorite band, The National, had something not-P.C. in it. I can only claim ignorance to what being "the great white hope," actually meant. Sure, I had heard the phrase before, but it was one of those phrases that at my age was simply in the public knowledge without any idea as to where it came from.

Enter Ken Burns, and his documentary, Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson. For those who immediately thought of the terrible surfer/singer-songwriter, Jack Johnson was the first black man to win a heavyweight title in boxing. But in doing so, he brought on him an almost national racially charged hatred. This was the early 20th century, and black people weren't supposed to be flamboyantly wealthy and dominant like white people were.  So in an effort to take back the title, there was a search for "the great white hope," the caucasian who would beat the black Jack Johnson. 

Flash-forward to 2005, and the Brooklyn indie-rock band, the National close out their breakthrough album, Alligator, with a song called "Mr. November," a powerful rock song with a pre-chorus that reads, "I'm the new blue blood / I'm the great white hope." I'd always heard those lines as mantras of self-encouragement - something a batter could get himself pumped up with before he goes to the plate. But now, it feels like every time I say it, I'm saying, "I'm going to be the guy from the superior race who shows the rest of the world what for."

The National are as white as they come, but my super-fandom makes me want to believe that they weren't trying to convey any racial superiority. Part of what makes the song great is how the lyrics are all about past glories and pick-me-ups while singer Matt Berninger delivers it in his sad-sack baritone. You get the impression that no matter how many times he screams "I'm Mr. November," he's still going to find a way to mess things up. Maybe, by using a dated term, he's widening the disconnect from merely picking himself up to actual redemption. Or maybe he just likes boxing.

Ten, two, one.

Has it really been ten years since the Columbine shooting? ... I don't want to this post to devolve into some cliche, can't-we-all-just-get-along rhetoric. It's just that sometimes, I can't believe that the world doesn't just stop whenever acts of violence occur.... I wish I had something more to say on the subject.

Quote of the day: 4/14/09

Not sure what I'm looking forward to more... the kid getting here and I officially become a Father, or the kid getting here, and I get a week off work.

- From a friend on facebook.

On watching Eminem's new video...

A lot has changed since Eminem was a relevant and prolific force in both hip-hop and popular music. It's been ten years(!) since his break-through Slim Shady LP. Back then Clinton was in the White House. The economy was booming. The internet, DVDs and video games hadn't become popular enough to prevent the music industry from seeing their crop of stars sell millions of CDs in a week. 

So it's strange to see how little of Marshall Mathers's schtick has changed in the years since he retreated from the spotlight. To watch his new video, "We Made You," is to watch someone plainly trying to remind the public of his existence ("Guess who's back? / Did you miss me?") and take down a few of today's tabloid cover stars; in the video he talks about fucking Sarah Palin, Kim Kardashian and turning both Lindsay Lohan and Portia de Rossi back into heterosexuals. It could be nostalgic if it weren't so clear that Mathers has no idea that his best days are behind him.

But what of those days? When The Marshall Mathers LP hit the airwaves, it was also a critical success, despite the many outspoken critics and politicians who said he was too violent, misogynistic and homophobic for anyone to enjoy. 

I never really paid attention to reviews when the album came out. I was in eighth grade and firmly entrenched in my nu-metal, rap-rock phase. So what was it about Eminem's filthy mind that had me crossing over to one of the usual forbidden genres of my upbringing? Swear words of course.

I thought about how as a kid gets into the double-digits age bracket, there's a naturally longing for him or her to not be considered a kid anymore. Ideas and personalities start to develop and the time comes to let go of the Nickelodeon cartoons for something more mature. But here's the catch - that kid is still a long way from mature, and unless they are decidedly gifted, like a certain girl in my class who did a sixth grade project on the Bronte sisters, the next steps are just equally juvenile takes on adult humor. Along side South Park, Eminem was the cartoon for the kid who wanted to seem more adult and mature, the stepping stone towards being able to handle violence and profanity in entertainment, without being too challenging intellectually. 

I doubt this new crop of pre-teens will feel the same way about Eminem as I did when he first started taking down easy targets on MTV. South Park at least continued and adapted through the years, consistently taking down easy targets week after week like a cruder, animated version of Saturday Night Live. But Eminem's been out of his game for some time now, settling down with rote party-songs like "Ass Like That." To find him treading old ground again, it's hard to believe he was considered one of the greatest MCs ever.

Mark Twain's met his match

Ever since I read Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, my mind has rattled itself trying to figure out how a story that starts and progresses so well can finish is such an unsatisfying fashion. It's a great novel sure, but there comes a certain point about three-quarters in where you know it's all downhill from here. I thought it was kind of unique in that respect. And then I watched the series finale of Battlestar Galactica.

That being said, it is one of the best TV shows I've ever seen. Just... beware of the last five minutes.

Overheard on the internet.

i would kill for a chocolate chip cookie right now

who would you kill?

a chocolate man

i would eat him to death

A change might come

I'm thinking about changing the name - and therefore the website address - of the blog. The Kinetic Android handle has been with me for a while, but I've been toying with the idea of renaming it something like "Mountain/Molehill: Adventures in Overthinking." It probably describes the kinds of post I make more aptly, don't you think?

I'll entertain other name suggestions and/or pleas not to change things for a week or so.

Fire metaphors

A friend on facebook put a quote in her status message as food for thought.

Love is friendship caught on fire.

A quick Google search reveals the apparent originator of those words might have come from a man known for his great thinking, Bruce Lee. That point aside, there's something about people using fire as a metaphor for inspiration that I find interesting. Obviously, it's used as a representation of determination, drive and passion. When the subjects of the documentary film Jesus Camp called their organization "Kids on Fire," it's a title of motivation. Fire is a source of power, light and warmth. Who wouldn't want to be compared to that?

But isn't fire also a force of destruction? How many times a year does the news report on people who've lost their homes and all their possessions in wildfires? Therefore, I had to ask my friend who posted the quote, whether the quote really meant something different; if love is a friendship that's on fire, could a friendship be consumed and ultimately destroyed by love?

I can think of a few occasions in my life that certainly would apply to that kind of interpretation.

Late to the game: Lykke Li

Last year, Lykke Li appeared on the internet and registered in my brain as some kind of Swedish version of Feist. Not being one of Feist's biggest fans, I tended to disregard her debut, Youth Novels. I'm making up for it now most definitely, especially the incredible tease of a love song, "Little Bit." Also worth checking out is the video for her song "I'm Good, I'm Gone."

Mountain/Molehill: Media consumption, aggregation and social networks

Today, I decided to put an end to the annoying messages that were starting to trickle in from my Flixster account. I have been using the movie-review application on Facebook for well over a year now, and in doing so, I had an account on the website itself. The problem is, along with the features I had no interest in like movie-taste compatibility tests and quizzes, the site came with it's own team of fake members who like to email random dudes and ask for their email address for more spam messages and maybe a virus.

We've all been there - assuming we've all had a Myspace at one point in our lives. Which reminds me, I should check it and maybe even close it. A salacious looking profile picture with an equally salacious handle will randomly leave a comment or message about how our tastes are so similar and that we'd make a great couple. Give me you email and I'll send a picture and more email about me.

Well I said no thanks to that and, acting on a momentary impulse, closed my account. Of course my facebook application would not be affected I thought. Whoops-a-daisy. Now my collection of short movie reviews is gone. 

Part of me feels upset because as an amateur critic, I took those kind of websites pretty seriously, if only for allowing me to consider a kind of rating or soundbite of thought instead of just letting whatever I saw wash over me, never to be considered again. Also, having a timeline of when I saw particular movies or read particular books helped tell a little story of what I was interested in for the fleeting moment, and subtly nagged me to keep consuming. 

But there's the rub. Now I think if I can just quit all those websites, I will be unburdened by certain reminders to keep consuming. It could make watching movies and reading books the joyful experience they can be, without the added chore of making sure I logged in some kind of opinion somewhere in the vast ocean of the internet. Aside from some good friends, how many people really consider what is written? I don't read other people's reviews on those websites. Why would they read mine? (I'm aware that the same could be said for this blog...)

I had a similar epiphany years ago when I made an effort to listen to every relevant new music release that came out. Of course I fell behind and I acquired music that STILL hasn't been listened to. And it became a chore trying to get through it all. When something you absolutely love to do becomes a chore, then it might be time to rethink how you approach it. 

A cautionary tale...

Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Celebrity voices impersonated.

[Female friend over iChat]

andyyyy

[My boyfriend] is mad at me. help!

I was at this stupid party last night where I was the only person without a fiance/husband/wife.

Everyone was paired up.

So I texted [my boyfriend] to tell him this.

and he joked that it was probably a swinger's party.

and I said, "I wish. [Guy I mentioned I thought was cute a long time ago] is here."

Boyfriend did not find this funny. Moral of the story - ladies, find a man with a sense of humor. There's no reason a perfectly good zinger like that should go unappreciated.

Distracted: More memes.

For a nifty look at how both (relevant) sides of the American political spectrum have used memes and a little media manipulation recently, check out this story originally played on NPR's On the Media.

Mountain/Molehill: Overcoming gender at open mic

I've been playing guitar for about 13 years, but I'm not sure my musical talents would show it. When I was younger and just starting to contort my hands into power chords, I probably thought that by this point, I would have memorized all of Jimmy Page's solos and became a rock star already, and that Korn and Limp Bizkit would still be my favorite bands.

But at any rate, I can at least say that playing music for so long has given me a good ear for figuring out how to play things. I've got a pretty good sense of relative pitch. The best way I can describe this talent is from an episode of my dorm days at NIU; someone had the Garden State soundtrack (remember that?) on and I made a goal to try and figure out the chord progressions to "Caring is Creepy" by the Shins before the song ended. And my success led to days and days of sweet college ladies spending the night in my room... *sigh*...

At any rate, picking up songs on guitar easily has morphed into my own brand of fandom, wherein I hear a song I really like, play it a handful of times on repeat and then reach for the guitar to see if I can play the song myself, and then go to my nearest Open Mic night, to play the same couple of originals I've had in notebooks from high school with the cover song, the one I really want to play sandwiched in between.

Perhaps part of this is an extension of those daydreams I'd have while listening to rock music, where I'd put myself in the band, filling in on guitar or vocals or drums... or bass, if it had a really sweet part. All the best songs are the ones I can easily see myself tearing through with an imaginary band I keep meaning to physically organize in the real world, but never do. But another part is an idea that if I ever got married and started a family, it'd be fun and unique to play indie songs of the early millennium as lullabies.

Anyway, the point of this blog is that I've come across a long-standing problem with my whole covering-my-favorites formula - crossing the gender line. Lately I've been obsessing over To Bring You My Love by PJ Harvey and I'd love to release that obsession towards some apathetic-yet-polite coffee house crowd. But Harvey's best songs are all defiantly feminine, and I worry that if I performed, say "Send His Love to Me," or "C'mon Billy," an audience would either think I'm being ironic - "Oh hahaha, he's doing a lady's song!" - or get hung-up on the whole "Wait a minute, is he gay?" question and you know, not enjoy the song.

Changing the lyrics to suit a male singer are not an option. With few exceptions (oh, sweet "Tainted Love") I've cringed when I heard this done, like when the Cowboy Junkies covered "Run for Your Life" on that Rubber Soul tribute album, or that little known Phil Spector cover from Beach Boys, "Then I Kissed Her." So there will be no "Send HER Love to Me," anytime soon.

I think the biggest hang-up is that I want to convey a sincere appreciation for the songs I like that happen to be written from a female perspective. But as a 6' 3" bearded dude, it probably won't be looked on as such.

---

Post-script: Why don't I just unleash my PJ Harvey obsession on the apathetic-but-polite blog readers?

"C'mon Billy" video (1995)

Before I came around to the album that features this song, I would tell my friends that her song "Rid of Me" scared me as much as it kind of turned me on. Harvey's just an expert of straddling fences like that, and the video shows her being a seductress, heartbroken, insane, and strangest of all, normal.

"To Bring You My Love" (Live at Big Day Out Festival, 2003)

Are there more women like her in the world? Are they single?

Special thanks and full disclosure go to an ex-girlfriend (who I'm not sure would want to be named on the blog, so I'll just leave it at that) who's own admiration of PJ Harvey led to mine.

Pitchfork bringing the lols

Say what you will about Pitchfork Media's all-too-present grip on independent music and their slippery sense of journalism; I wish I could write a lead like this. (via)

When Woody Allen tried to tackle tabloid culture in Celebrity, he spectacularly fell on his face. But as many film scholars have pointed out, Woody Allen is not the bassist from Interpol. Clearly, that was the problem.

Artistic interpretations of the author.

Because that picture on the side couldn't possibly be enough.

From Katie

Foppish

From Ben,

It's true.

From my boss, Sue.

Oh hamburgers

From Jessie

It reads: "Reunited and it hurts so good!"

Andy: "Yeah, you guessed it. I jump rope"

Jessie: "Wow!"

What distracts me from the blog

• I'm working on a story for WNIJ about the Khmer Rouge tribunals going on in Cambodia. Seems like a very international story for a DeKalb station to cover, but NIU is one of the nation's top schools for South Asian studies, so there are some people here who have helped gather evidence and historical documents in preparation for the tribunal. In the mean time, I've been reading up on the area's history and following all the tribunal proceedings on cambodiatribunal.org. Most people remember the genocide, if they remember it, from the film The Killing Fields. 
• Speaking of films that are hard to get through... I finally saw Hard Candy, in which Ellen Page plays a 14 year old girl who goes to a 30-something's house and spends an hour and a half... turning the tables so to speak. It's been a few days and I'm still thinking about the ending and all of its moral ambiguities.
• The past few years, I've found the best interviews I've read from musicians have been generally from older guys, which in rock and roll, usually means above 30. Call it what you will, but it's nice to hear from bands who put the lie to the idea that getting old means getting stale. Pitchfork recently featured video of the DeKalb-bound(!) Dinosaur Jr. as they record their new album. Can't wait to hear it... performed live at Otto's.

My life's "influential" records

Perhaps in an attempt to recreate the 25 things chain letter that swept Facebook a few weeks ago for music nerds, I've been tagged in a couple of "Top 15 albums" lists. I'm not sure why the number is what it is. Either way, I made whole package with pictures and blurbs, pairing albums together as they represented various eras of my short life. If you're my friend on facebook, you get to see read it. But for you blog readers, here's the list, without all the extra words and images.

• The Beach Boys - Endless Summer
• The Beatles - Help!
• Gin Blossoms - New Miserable Experiences
• Ace of Base - The Sign
• Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
• Nirvana - Nevermind
• Korn - Follow the Leader
• Limp Bizkit - Significant Other
• Led Zeppelin - IV
• Radiohead - Kid A
• Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
• The Arcade Fire - Funeral
• Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
• The National - Boxer
• Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

Sean Penn probably deserved it, but...

Photo: Chris Carlson, AP

I still haven't seen many of the films nominated in last night's Academy Awards, including Milk and The Wrestler. So I can't really tell you who I thought should have won any of the awards last night. But what I do know is what the press and other more-informed, wider published critics predicted, and five of the six big categories were unsurprisingly what they predicted; Kate Winslet avoided being the Oscar's Susan Lucci, Penelope Cruz said something in Spanish, the Joker got the last laugh, Slumdogs cleaned up the top prizes.

But what of the Best Actor award? That was the big mystery of the night. Would they go with the heavily hyped comeback of Mickey Rourke? Or would they get topical and give a third award to Sean "Commie-Homo-Loving-Son-of-a-Gun" Penn? Most people were placing their hopes in Rourke, because his pitch is the great story - the fuck-up who comes away with gold. He doesn't wear the whole "now I'm on the straight and narrow" suit that convincingly, but that's what makes him so cool. He's this mad dog who could potentially get the highest acting award in the world.

But of course, the award didn't go to him. Sean Penn took his third gold plated statue home for playing the real-life assassinated homosexual politician Harvey Milk. It shouldn't be that surprising in theory; when given the choice, the Academy seems to prefer an actor who plays a person based on real life. Only four of the best actor winners this decade have won playing original characters, this as opposed to eight in the previous decade.

But there's another precedent worth noting - Penn's first Best Actor award in 2004 for his role in Mystic River. Because I haven't seen that film yet either, I can't really say with any critical honesty whether or not I thought he deserved that award. That's really aside the point. But look who his main competition was that year. Bill Murray for Lost In Translation. Here was a comic actor, a guy who made a career as a smart-ass turning more introspective with age, in a movie with My Bloody Valentine on the soundtrack. Johnny Depp channeling Keith Richards not withstanding, Murray was like Rourke, the dark horse with a shot at gold - the cool nominee (or for you Depp fans, the cool nominee who actually had a shot of winning.)

But then they gave the award to Penn. What does one make of this? It'd be a stretch to call Penn a safe choice. He's one of the most well-respected actors in Hollywood, but he also has a reputation of being a passionate risk-taker, which some might call cool in its own right. But not as cool, because he can be a bit too serious about his art. Maybe that's why he'd get picked over the cool guys. Who knows what sort of irreverent places Rourke and Murray could have taken the award?

Or he could just be a better actor getting awards based solely on the merit his work. I know, crazy!

They've touched many, and soon they will be gone.

It's so sad to hear that a great Chicago independent label, one that was celebrating it's 25 years of survival in 2006, is closing its doors. Pitchfork has more. I'm going to adjust the playlist today...

Some more words about Sgt. Pepper.

You wouldn't know it looking outside this morning, but yesterday in St. Charles, it was unseasonably warm - 60s! In February! - one of those days that make people forget about that whole climate change nonsense because it's such a nice day. And now it's raining and overcast. 

Anyway, the first warm day of the season is always an important day, as everyone cleans the winter cobwebs from their mind, stretch their legs and enjoy the outdoors like they will never come again. For me, I always place a special spot for that first album I play as I go out into the sunshine. With everyone's mood on the rise, the sunniest pop record just sounds sunnier.

While in the past, I've relied on Chutes Too Narrow by the Shins to usher in spring, this year, I didn't dig too deep at all. Out of the blue, I had the song "Fixing a Hole," in my head. And that was that. I'm going to listen to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, I thought. I hadn't pulled that CD out in a long time.

There's not much more that can be said about the album's influence and artistic successes, but something struck me as I listened to it on my way to work. For such a monolithic, seismic album, it felt very light, almost weightless. Like most people of my generation, the Beatles were already a done deal by the time we could comprehend what music was. I'm one of countless people raised on their records - I had all the words to Help! memorized by the time I was six. When I first learned to play guitar, Beatles songs were musts. The band has become so engrained into the fabric of popular consciousness, it's almost like they're not even there. A Beatles song is just a part of the air.

Any other contender for my personal favorite album of all time feels far more weighted down with purpose and meaning by contrast. Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and Radiohead's Kid A, my high school touchstones, recall a specific time and place and grand emotion.

Sgt. Pepper might recall, at best, a ride in the mini-van to the library or church as a child. The songs are so engrained into the mind that it doesn't even register that four English guys bothered to sit down, write them and record them in such a specific way. It just sounds so effortless and natural, like they've always been there and always will be. The Beatles are a modern equivalent to those old folk and blues standards that artists would just play and reinterpret over and over again.

I never thought I'd say this...

... but at last night's 51st Annual Grammy Awards, Coldplay beat Radiohead. And I'm not just talking about the number of awards they won. Both bands performed, and if I were judging it like a Battle of the Bands, I'm sorry my-favorite-band, but the ones often called "Radiohead for your Mom" impressed me a bit more.

For one thing, despite what critics have said, I've never had any kind of hatred or even dislike for Coldplay. I might have been bored after awhile. I might have called them too simplistic and said that they have more ambition than talent to friends. But it's hard for me to hate Chris Martin and company when they've got good enough taste ('80s U2, Kraftwerk, Bob Dylan, Brian Eno) and self-depreciating qualities - just check out that featured interview Chris Martin gave Rolling Stone last year that I find them kind of endearing. They know that deep in their heart of hearts, they're nothing too special. Hell, they even admitted while accepting an award their wardrobe was blatantly nicked from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. 

But critics be damned, they still reach for that "biggest band in the world" status with more boyish intensity than one would think acceptable after a certain level of success. So when the band performed a medley of "Lost+," featuring a walk-on cameo from Jay-Z, and "Viva La Vida," two songs that even a harsh Coldplay critic admitted to liking, they played like they still needed to prove themselves. Considering the vast majority of Grammy performances are like watching artists bask in their own glitzy greatness, Coldplay still reached for the rafters and were the only performers that night who finished with a gloss of sweat. Unless Martin pulls out some earth-shatteringly poignant lyrics on his next album and comes away with some Pazz and Jop poll honors, the Grammys are top of the pile for Coldplay. It looked like they weren't going to take that for granted.

Radiohead, on the other hand, are already one of the biggest bands in the world without major awards or big hits. Just huge, almost unanimous critical acclaim. To see them at the Grammys was certainly a strange thing to see. I remember when they were beat by Steely Dan for Album of the Year in 2001, back when Kid A was in the process of changing my life, and I was livid. Since then, Radiohead were above appearing at this awful, petulant award show. But here they were, nominated for Album of the Year again, and scheduled to perform.

But the performance I think was hindered from the start. First, it was "15 Steps," not a band song, but certainly not a favorite from In Rainbows. I'm listening to "House of Cards" right now. That would have been a better choice... but that's just me. Second, it was "15 Steps," with added percussion from the USC Marching Trojans. I don't know why, but whoever schedules the music performances on the Grammys loves those marching bands. The Trojans played fine, but it was a bit strange to see Radiohead embrace such a typical Grammy performance gimmick.

Did I say Radiohead? I meant Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood. Unless the rest of the band was performing behind the Trojans' stand or out of the camera's eye, those two guys were the only members of Radiohead I saw performing. Just like Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend can't truly call themselves the Who when two of the members have died, I wouldn't call them Radiohead just because the two most visible members are onstage. Call me a snob, but it's just not the same thing.

Of course, Thom and Jonny weren't bad onstage. Thom's dancing inspired one of the best live-blog quotes of the night, "No one on the corner's got swagger like Yorke."* But his performance straddled the line of just having his usual fun and sneering at the opulent fat-cats of the music industry that he's so criticized throughout his career. And as much as I want to spin that as an artistic win for my favorite band, I can't help but feel they weren't nearly as fun to watch as their younger, wimpier brethren.

To be fair, I don't think this is something that could be repeated, that is unless Coldplay magically pulls out a masterpiece and Radiohead get really old and really stale. On their own terms, at their own shows, Radiohead has mopped the floor with Coldplay. And yeah, I think In Rainbows should take more awards than Viva La Vida and Raising Sand. But when it came to bowing to the hand that feeds, Coldplay was more the lovable puppy to Radiohead's cat.

----

*By the way, the "Rap Pack" performance was awesome, if only to watch M.I.A. dancing with her incredibly pregnant belly. That baby is going to be awesome.

Other great moments of the night were Lil Wayne's solo performance, Kanye West on his best behavior with Estelle, and the Buddy Guy/B.B. King/John Mayer/Keith Urban tribute to Bo Diddley. 

Some honorable mentions go to the faces of the Jonas Brothers after Katy Perry performed "I Kissed a Girl." Those guys have chastity rings? Pssh, the younger brothers looked like they were looking at a Playboy magazine. I'd like to think that at least one of them said to themselve, "I could totally hit that..."

Finally, while nearly all the jokes ranged from awful to awkward, Late Late Show host Craig Ferguson managed this utter gem.

"Twenty years ago, when I was a drummer of a punk band in Glasgow, if you had told me that I'd someday be onstage at the Grammys, I would have called you crazy. I also would have vomited on your shoes and stabbed you."

All Consuming / No Creating

While I try to write a commentary marking the one-year anniversary of the shooting at my alma mater for the 15th or 16th times, here are some things I've found pleasantly distracting:

• Looks like I beat Salon.com's Robert Lanham to a commentary on the "25 Random Things" craze on Facebook. However, he's more eloquent than me, describing how cynical and annoyed he was by the trend at first, but eventually warming up to it. 

I didn't join Facebook, after all, to be anonymous, incurious or left alone. Link

Slate.com is also looking for the origin this trend.

• Lily Allen's new album, It's Not Me, It's You is pretty fabulous. For now, it can be heard in its entirety on her myspace.
• ESPN's Rick Reilly says being a "fan" watching Bruce Springsteen on the field of the Super Bowl is one of the worst jobs in all of sports. Link.
• Friday night, instead of playing the scheduled "Ghost of Bobby Dunbar" episode of This American Life, technical difficulties caused Chicago Public Radio to switch to the more delightful, "Godless America" episode. Act 2 is priceless
• Coming up with themed double features. Watching Frost/Nixon makes me want to watch Good Night, and Good Luck with a room of Journalism students. Earlier I recommended my friend rent Hitchcock's Notorious and Y Tu Mama Tabien for a sexually explicit (That's what they said about Notorious. Go figure.) night of scandal.
• Trying to read The Great Gatsby, but getting distracted by Garfield Minus Garfield and Hellboy.
• Updating this blog.

Making the Facebook 25 (26) an even 30

This is old news for those who come to this blog via my facebook page, but for my group of friends, a chain-letter-type note has been sweeping through the social networking site like wildfire. First, one person makes a random list of 25 things about themselves, and I can't emphasize the random aspect of those things. They can range from interests, obscure likes and dislikes, childhood memories, dreams of the future, opinions or the lack thereof. Then the person tags 25 of their friends, asking them to post their own list of 25 random things.

Not since I was in middle school, just learning how to use (and in some cases, avoid) email and chat rooms has a chain-letter so swept up my friends. And I can't say enough how much I approve of this trend. Reading some of my friend's more hilarious tales of childhood embarrassment and quirky, illogical dislikes has been a real treat. Because it's so open ended, people have let lose and pulled out some really good stuff. 

But since most of my friends who are swayed my peer pressure have already posted their list, it seems that this era of sharing is coming to a close. And since I like writing about myself too much, here are some more list-worthy facts that came to me after I initially posted it.

27. I've become two post-college cliches recently. First, I saw an old video of myself performing in high school, and all I could think of was how big and long and stupid my hair looked. This was before I had a beard too. The second post-college cliche is now I'm self-conscious about my weight and waistline. In college? I could eat a whole pizza every week. Now I'm trying to cut soda out of my diet (again) and exercise. And it's not fun.

28. I can relate almost anything - anything - to a quote from The Simpsons or Mystery Science Theater 3000.

29. Speaking of MST3k, sometimes I like to throw in obscure references to a conversation, just to see if anyone picks up on it. For example; when I worked at my college newspaper, and someone who continuously criticize a co-worker, I'd say, "He's like the Snowball on our Animal Farm." It was so satisfying when a couple of my colleagues looked at me with that, "Did you just say what I thought you said?" look that said they got it immediately.

30. From my little brother: "[Andy] is so indecisive, he has to flip a coin." It's true, but only for superfluous decisions, like coke or sprite with dinner. "...Since he is an English major, the hard part is finding a coin to flip." Truth.

And I'm back to listening to music like I did in Oxford.

I wrote an essay a while back for my Creative Nonfiction writing class about losing my iPod - which for someone with an, at times, unhealthy obsession with the device, was a big deal and made me consider my relationship with music and whether or not it was cutting me off from other worthwhile experiences. Within that essay, there's a description on how I had to consume music, without the iPod, while I was studying abroad at Oxford (pictured above).

When I was in England, I had a 200 gigabyte external hard drive full of music and a laptop with an 80 gigabyte hard drive. [...] [W]ith a limited number of electrical outlets, I had to listen to music is a more methodical fashion. I couldn’t just click shuffle, press play and let it go. I had to decide what I wanted to listen to and retrieve it from the external hard drive. At the time I write this, the album I consider to be the year’s best [Boxer by the National, which means I wrote this in 2007] was fully discovered in this fashion. I had it on the computer before I left the US, but it would get lost in the shuffle and just be text and an image on my computer screen. But by selectively listening instead of gorging, I grew into a deeper relationship with the albums I loved and had a clearer understanding of what was good or bad to me.

Now I'm experiencing a bit of deja vu. My eMachine desktop computer, which I've had for about four years now, decided to fry itself and die a few days ago. Thank God I bought a MacBook I thought. And thank God I still had that external hard drive. But since I bought the Mac for portability and to run sound editing and design software, I'm not about to just dump everything onto my iTunes at once. So it's back to picking out albums one at a time from the hard drive.

And that's a good thing, because it means all the new stuff I've been putting off will get heard, and some CDs I've been neglecting will be rediscovered. The desktop's going to get fixed and upgraded as soon as I get the money to buy a new motherboard and such, but I don't know I'm going just have all my music back up at once. I know I've said this to my friends several times that I was going to follow Tom Ewing's seventh Poptimist column for Pitchfork and delete everything and start new. It's always a few months before I decide to cave a reload it back. But maybe this time I'll go a bit longer and discover something different. Or at least listen to what I have with fresh ears.

The Office might have jumped the shark last night

Last night's post-Super Bowl episode of The Office perplexed me to the point where all the nagging thoughts I've had about whether or not the show is past its peak started to overtake my brain with a resounding yes, it has.

To recap, Dwight (Rainn Wilson) lights a fire in the office because his co-workers weren't paying attention to his lecture on fire safety. It causes panic and pandemonium of the ridiculous kind, including broken windows, the tossing of a cat and Andy (Ed Helms) shouting, "The fire is shooting at us!" It was an inspired, over the top and ridiculous bit, all while Dwight, at his most machiavellian, trying to condescend and take charge. As the scene ends, Stanley (Leslie David Baker) is on the floor, suffering a heart attack.

For some Cardinal fans, it was the perfect bit of hilarity to follow a great game. But something rang false about this scene for me. It crossed a line of insanity that show had only skirted at this point. "The only way for this to end," I thought to myself, "is that Michael or Dwight will get fired. Or seriously punished." I figured that'd be a pretty big plot point to coincide with it being a Super Bowl-following program.

But they didn't get punished. Both Michael and Dwight got a stern talking to from the higher-ups in New York, but aside from a half-assed letter of apology, they're still running strong. In fact, they got sent to New York twice, after Dwight cut the face off of a CPR test dummy.

Of course this isn't the first time a character on this show has gotten away with a fireable offense. It happens at least twice a show on good nights. But this was the point where I think the show went a little too far, with all the humor based on the bit's extremities. It felt like something advertisers would have liked to pitch as "Dwight's biggest office blunder yet!" That the show much more silly than the depressingly realistic British counterpart (which I haven't seen yet...) is one of it's strengths, something that helped it break out of Ricky Gervais's shadow and become it's own beast. But like The Simpsons or Family Guy, when you base your humor on how much batshit crazy stuff you can get away with, you're not saying anything funny. You're just pulling off a stunt. And anyone could do that.

Perhaps I'm taking the show too seriously. This season, there have been moments of clarity, where Michael Scott's bosses have turned a blind eye towards the unethical and inept behavior because their business is somehow profitable. Perhaps this is just an extension of what they're willing to accept in order to keep the company afloat. Or many it's one big homage to Christopher Durang. I suppse that maybe this could be addressed in a few more weeks. But it's getting to the point where I'm beginning to think it all should have ended like Arrested Development - three seasons and finish.

On a lighter and not entirely unrelated note, here's the best Super Bowl commercial of the night.

My alma mater, "Heroin High"

Dirk Johnson, a journalist and faculty member of my other alma mater (NIU) recently wrote a piece for Newsweek.com about the death of a high school student from heroin. It's a nice article overall about the drug problems found in affluent areas, which has one paragraph that jumps out and gives my high school a name I'm glad I was never aware of while I attended.

"St. Charles, a prosperous town on the banks of the Fox River, is known for a charming elegance, rigorous academics and champion sports teams. It has also become known for its drug problems, its two prestigious high schools dubbed by some local teenagers as 'Heroin High.'"

It sounds like a bad band name some of my college roommates would use...

I like Neko Case more than your dog.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I don't rank animal issues that highly on my inner chart of moral issues. Yes, cruelty is bad no matter the species, but I can't be a vegetarian or vegan simply because animals taste too good. Sorry, but there are some HUMAN rights issues I'd like to see solved before animal rights.

That being said, I completely respect Neko Case, one of the best singer/songwriters making music today (her last album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood was my favorite album of 2006), and her support of bestfriends.org, a charity that helps find homes for homeless pets. To show support for that charity (but really support for all things Neko), I'm posting a link to a download of the song "People Got a Lotta Nerve," a typically pretty and atypically goofy new song from her upcoming album Middle Cyclone. ANTI records will donate five dollars to the Best Friends organization. Enjoy!

Download:http://www.anti.com/media/download/708

Life's not fair

... when a woman you had a massive crush on in college, but never made a move on, says that she had a massive crush on you in college and was waiting for you to make a move.

At least Deerhoof played on "Juan's Basement."

Musicalosophy: LP, CD, MP3? It makes no difference to me

It's been more than a year since a friend of mine at the Northern Star wrote an article originally pitched as a debate about whether CDs or vinyl LPs were the best format for music. Unfortunately, the final product wasn't so much a debate as it was an advertisement for all things vinyl. Since then, I feel like there hasn't been an honest debate about the merits and both formats - and of digital MP3 files. Despite what advertisers and labels will say, I think that none of the three are all that much better than their competition.

First some disclosure; when I buy music, I prefer to have it on vinyl and on MP3, because then I can be the obsessive nerd and log it onto my last.fm account. (I wish I were kidding.) But I am not really someone who buys vinyl because I think it sounds better. Quite frankly, I think people who say that records sound better are kidding themselves - or have a very expensive system and treat each slab of vinyl like it's one of the original copies of the Ten Commandments. I have a simple $100 turntable that I bought because it came with a USB connection to transfer the albums into MP3s. When I first played a record on it, Sufjan Steven's Greetings From Michigan, I was actually a bit annoyed by the hissing and popping noises that clearly weren't on the CD.

So why bother with vinyl? In some cases, it's purely aesthetic. A wall of records just looks better than a wall of CDs I think. I insisted on buying The National's 2007 album Boxer on vinyl because the larger format did more justice to its beautiful cover. In another equally shallow case, the vinyl LP is more of a collectible, a badge of geekiness (or coolness, depending on how you characterize it). It's like the joke. "How many hipsters does it take to screw in a light bulb?" "Oh, I have that joke on vinyl..."

But in another less stupid case, vinyl subtly encourages a more active listening experience. Instead of just clicking a mouse along iTunes or skipping around a CD or iPod in the car, you have to stand up and put it on the turntable, place the needle down and enjoy. Putting on a record means I'm paying just a little bit more attention to whatever is on, reflecting on it more as I take it off the turntable, put it back in its sleeve and put in it's designated spot on my shelf. And in this digital age of instant gratification and knowledge, anything that can slow down the consideration of art is a good thing.

Still, this should not diminish the conveniences of CDs and MP3s, and there are many. You can pack more CDs into moving boxes. Ripping a CD to a computer is way more easy and intuitive than a record. You could try hooking up a turntable to your car, but that's probably just asking for a few scratched LPs. That's why I'm glad so many labels are wise about offering free MP3 downloads with vinyl purchases. Even they know the record can't be everywhere. And how can a format really be the best if it's so tethered to a location?

Also, if I just want to hear one song, if I have one of the deep cuts from Boxer stuck in my head, I could pull out the record and place the needle over that specific song and hear that last few seconds of whatever came before. Or I could just double click the song on my iTunes. Some would argue that the sound quality would be different and the experience would be different. I won't argue that a record sounds different - and at times better - than a CD or MP3. But there differences are minute to my ears and don't really change my opinion on the song.

Then there's the matter of price. If there's one thing my Northern Star friend got absolutely wrong in his original endorsement is that records were more affordable than CDs. If you're getting a short, split EP, yes. If it's a used record, sure. But all used music is cheaper than new. Look online at an indie label's mail order site and compare the differences between a new CD and a new LP. You're looking at an added dollar or so to the price, at least.

Plus, there is the added trouble of an album being stretched across two records. Several artists and critics has gotten wistful over the glory days of the vinyl album where all records were under 45 minutes long. But with the advent of the CD, the album length got extended. I'm not hear to argue about whether or not that was a good thing. If it's a good album with a clear vision and trajectory, it can go on as long as it pleases. But for the 50+ minute album, it means four sides of vinyl with maybe two or three songs on each side. I won't buy the 11 song Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco on vinyl because of it's divisions. Actually, I won't buy it because I refuse to be the guy who buys his entire collection over and over on whatever new format he fancies. I learned to love that album as a complete, uninterrupted 50 or so minute experience. And a double LP of that album costs around $30, as opposed to a CD which likely costs half as much. And the MP3s? An easy $10 on iTunes... that is if you're even paying for downloaded music.

Which brings me to the MP3's greatest asset - availability. Thanks to pirated music, the whole concept of "out of print" has become a thing of the past. When I go to my favorite record store, I can't find Drums and Wires, Mclusky Do Dallas, Time (the Revelator), and Merriweather Post Pavillion on the shelfs. But I can find them on my iTunes, from the comforts of my own home, and still sounds good. It isn't the same as having something in your hands with liner notes and mass. But before I can care about those things, I need to like the music first, and MP3s are this generations version of the radio. It's the primary way I discover music, a simple, affordable weightless file that has to potential to wring much more money from my wallet in ways of physical purchases and concert tickets.

And in the end, the format doesn't really make the music. You can show me a copy of, say, "Rock and Roll" by the Velvet Underground and play it on vinyl, CD, MP3, and what the hell? a cassette tape too. Sure they'll be differences in fidelity and clarity and subtle details found here and there, but above all that, it's just a damn good song being played, and I'll probably want to dance to it no matter how it sounds or what it's playing from.

Out and About: The Patience at the House Cafe, DeKalb

Another Sunday, another trip to DeKalb for a show at the House. This time however, was special. The DeKalb/Sycamore trio, The Patience, were playing their first headlining show in the venue. Coming from someone who has championed this band before, there was much to enjoy from their all-too-short set. The girls are getting stronger as a group and remain endearing even when they mess up onstage. For a newcomer (or a fan of the opening bands) it might have looked peculiar for the least professional looking band headlining the bill. But the Patience succeed because they seem to check their ambitions at the foot of the stage and just perform without an ounce of pretension. Flubbed notes and technical glitches are easily excused when you've got three girls - two of them high quality singers - being themselves, not striking a pose imitating a trendy sound. I wish them nothing but the best.

Thankfully too, that lack of pretension permeated in the more conventional sounding opening acts, as Truman & the Trophy and Eagle Scout impressed me as much with their own sense of melody and song construction as they did with their pop-punk+synth influenced energy.

The Patience

Truman & his Trophy

Eagle Scout