Someone Twisting a Knife in Your Back

I'm giving Wilco (The Album) my third listen and loving it. My favorite band this decade.

The Jolly Banker

There's a new Wilco song up for free download (written by Woody Guthrie). It's not on their forthcoming album and sounds more Guthrie-esque than Wilco-esque.

Together Through Life

New Bob Dylan with the fruity-cake-make title Together Through Life. It sounds like his last two albums with more accordion and Southwest feel. It's okay music. Kind of background music. But let's face it. With titles like "It's All Good," Dylan will never again capture the lyrical and musical intensity he once had.

Beatles Remastered

Kind of amazing the Beatles catalog hasn't been properly remastered and the same discs have essentially been out there for 22 years. But on September 9, 2009 they get properly done - all their albums remastered. About time.

6 Things

Here's six things I liked in the past week. The Big Sleep has an overcomplicated confusing plot but brilliant sets and actors. Kind of like a David Lynch movie if he'd been working in the 40s. Dark Passage is my favorite Bogart movie so far. It may just be the shooting locations because every two minutes I was thinking, "I know exactly where that is in San Francisco!" and unlike many cities, SF still looks very similar to how it looked 60 years ago. I think the story and actors are also pretty amazing. Key Largo is also awesome, more Bogart and Bacall, but also with Edward G. Robinson, whose ominousness as a villain completely overshadows the antagonists in the other films. I've been binging on Bogart (and now Bacall) and finally see his greatness.

Then the new Pet Shop Boys, a Jam compilation, and a breathing program by Andrew Weil, one of my favorite health authors. All goodish.

New Del fo' Free

I salute Del for releasing his latest album for free here, and even available in FLAC format.

I also thought about downloading the Wolverine movie leak (a month before it's in theaters!) but decided to wait since it sounds like the cut that got out is pretty unfinished (but that's what they always say with leaks). I liked X-Men 2 and thought 3 was a letdown, so I'm hoping this movie restores some credibility to the franchise. But from what I've heard, it's overproduced.

Tweedy

Just found out Wilco has a new album in June, still untitled. Check out their Colbert Report interview/performance from October 30, 2008:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Exclusive Wilco Song
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

Top Ten of Albums ?2008?

2008 is like gone, solid gone, daddy-o.

Instead. Here's my top 10 albums I've heard in the past few days. At least three of them are crap. You're probably better just staring at the cover and humming your own tunes based on the art.



Canned garagey beats and Mr. Lif-esque peasant rap.





This is like a happy version of Kid A... It's like Phileas Fogg vs. Helen Keller.





Arguably the best album cover of the past 200 years. The album is like The Neverending Story if Prince had played the little boy instead of Mikey from the Wheaties box.

One Might Indeed Ponder the Imponderables of Time and Space

Skeletal Lamping is an album that initially disappointed me. I went back to it recently and haven't stopped playing it and have to say I've completely reversed. In a year in which I've barely listened to any vocal albums (mainly I play classical), Skeletal Lamping fascinates me with its packed impressionistic blurbs that could easily expand into 10 albums. Not so much a concept album as hypercompression - it's either one long song or 50 little songs. Kevin Barnes tries to pull off a Ziggy Stardust with his "Georgie Fruit" character, but it never fully emerges as a separate identity and most of the time I think that's just a defense mechanism for all the diary-like thoughts composing the lyrics, words that move between the mythical and the mundane. And a lot of it's pretentious and sophomoric - the major themes are drugs and having sex with fans, but that's not too far off the last few albums (Hissing Fauna and The Sunlandic Twins are much more accessible, however). That being said, I embrace the lyrics as they are and thoroughly soak in the album's schizophrenic mood shifts. Of Montreal have come a long way since the folky rock of Cherry Peel, and they're one of my favorite bands.

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Iron Man has sharp bantering, a fast story, and memorable characters. But it's still just a superhero story for kids, disposable. I doubt I'd ever be compelled to watch it again.

What I would rather see, as soon as we invent a time machine, is sending an Iron Man DVD (and DVD player) back in time to 1930s era Charlie Chaplin and having him remake Iron Man with 1930s technology. That would be far more interesting than Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man (or Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin).

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I had to use Excel yesterday and I never use Excel. God, what a shitty counterintuitive ugly piece of software.

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Sunday I went to Suwon where the Hwaseong fortress has a wall about 4 miles long that stretches around the city and I walked all of it. It's like an abridged version of the Great Wall of China. My camera batteries were dead but here's an internet photo.

But it wasn't snowing and was actually beautiful weather. People say Seoul-area has smog but it's not bad in fall and actually incredibly clear some days. It also hasn't really snowed yet. It started to snow one day but then melted and it's been okay since. But later this week that might change.

Piracy Will Save the World

Here are three albums from the 1970s that are disturbingly out of print.


Watertown - concept album by Frank Sinatra at his best.


Pussy Cats - a Harry Nilsson album produced by John Lennon. A little uneven but worth it for the good songs. The opening track is amazing.


Slow Dazzle - one of John Cale's most consistent works. Features a bleak cover of "Heartbreak Hotel" followed by the sappy yet awesome "Ski Patrol". Also has a great Brian Wilson tribute/lamentation.

Energy Monkey

Guess I'll blog - it's been a while.

I was trying to find something to blog about that isn't complaining . . . which is strange because I'm out of sickness feeling good feeling great how are you? My students were gone Monday thru Wednesday at work so it's been slow. I don't like doing class prep. I do like being in the classroom . I'm an energy vampire for the young. They help stabilize my mood. When I'm sick I get dark and depressed and I know it's only because I'm sick that I feel that way... but that doesn't make it go away. Feel great now though.

Here's something I've been listening to.



It's a 17-CD set of music from Muslim countries. Some of it's crap boring - I'd say about 80% is good. I see a connection with Native American music I never heard before. Give it to your terrorist friends.

Albums

I heard Mitch Hedberg's last album, Do You Believe in Gosh? - slow start but pretty good:



Also heard Demetri Martin's These Are Jokes, which I like even more, but he certainly owes something to Hedberg:



And they both owe something to Steven Wright, even though I don't find Wright very funny.



And here's a music album I've been listening to: LP3 by Ratatat.

Strange Overtones

You can download a new David Byrne & Brian Eno song called "Strange Overtones" at the website for their forthcoming album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. It's one of those albums without a record label that we're seeing more of these days. I'm looking forward to it.

The Humans are Dead

I'd seen episodes before but I finally got around to watching all of Flight of the Conchords. Love that show.

Animation That Models Thinking

Modern Guilt

New Beck! Modern Guilt!

One listen has me generally liking it.



I've looked over some best of '08 lists and I guess I haven't been following music because I either don't know the bands, heard them in the past and don't care, or listened to their album once and found it hollow. My favorite song this year has been Bun B's "Pop it 4 Pimp".

Anywhere I Lay My Vomit

Surely one of my least favorite celebrities is Scarlett Johansson. I don't care what anyone says: She's ugly, a bad actress, and her name is hard to spell. So there.

I'm downloading her new album of Tom Waits covers. I'm only curious why David Bowie participated on a few tracks.

Okay, download done. Give me a few minutes to listen to this trainwreck.



Okay, I only played "Falling Down" and "Fannin' Street" (the Bowie tracks) and they're so-so. Sounds kind of over-produced to hide Scar's mediocre vocals (mediocals). Whatevs. Maybe I'll play it again and love her and wonder what I was thinking before! Doubt it!

Some books I've read or listened to lately and gotten something out of:

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin - Gordon Wood
Big Sur - Jack Kerouac
A Whole New Mind - Daniel Pink
Bonk - Mary Roach
Naked Greed of the Flesh - me (an old novella I wrote)

EDIT: I googled "naked greed of the flesh" ten minutes after posting this and it was already indexed (and the only use of that phrase besides the April 27 entry).

Job Satisfaction Criteria

My friend George came up with a list of factors that determine your happiness with a job:

1. People - Do you like the people you work closest with? Do they inspire, support, and challenge you? Do you consider them intelligent? Do they share key values with you? Do you connect emotionally?

2. Company/Organization Mission - If you work for a company or organization, is its mission in line with your values? Is its mission identical or close to your personal mission in life?

3. Job Malleability - Can you alter your job? How much control over it do you have? Can you tweak it as you change and the world changes?

4. Physical Convenience - How convenient are the logistics of the job? Do you have a long or short commute? Is it comfortable to get to work? Does it pay well? Does it have the benefits you want? Is the environment you work in comfortable (e.g. city vs. country, office vs. outdoors vs. work from home, etc)?

5. Pace of the Work Environment - Are the energy level, deadlines, urgency, and general pace of your environment (company, organization) right for you? Is it too fast? Too slow? Does your job challenge you?


At my current job I only feel good about #2 and #5. I like working with students and especially teaching life skills. The pace seems to adapt to the moment and usually feels about right.

As for the #1: This is probably the weakest and the clincher. One of the teachers I work with (Gary Coleman) is hopelessly incompetent. I feel a little stupider at the end of the day just being around him, and I can't wait until I never have to see him again. Today he got into one of his regular cussing matches with a few of the boys, and at one point he said, "No wonder people call you guys retarded!"

At that point the boys didn't hold back and one of the boys yelled at Gary Coleman over and over: "You're ugly and your breath stinks!"

It's hard for me to keep a straight face as all this goes on . . . but really, I could do without it.

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This morning I downloaded The Doors' first album. I heard it from my dad a million times as a kid and it was one of the first CDs I owned in the 90s, but I hadn't heard it in a while and wanted to hear "The End". So I played it through. Imagine my surprise when I noticed some of the lyrics had changed! Morrison now said, "She gets high" and "fuck fuck fuck fuck"! What the - !



Like the good wikipedophile that I am I hunted down the answer:

The songs "Break on Through (To the Other Side)" and "The End" were both released censored with the album. During "Break on Through" the part where Jim Morrison sings "She gets, she gets" was originally recorded as "She get high." The interlude singing part near the end of "The End" was censored and taken out. It included Jim using the word fuck over and over. Subsequent releases of the album have both of the original parts intact, although 1980s compact disc reissues appear to keep the verses censored.

So I guess I had the crappy 1980s reissues.

The real version for 1967 is pretty bold.

I've had a censored version in my head all this time!

Ah well. That's reality.