So Insane

It might be a little to early to tell, but this song is an early finalist for song of the Summer, 2010.

Discovery -- So Insane


[Oh, have I been too discreet? How long am I supposed to wait?]

When This Song Comes On The Radio, I Will Listen To It In Its Entirety... No Matter What.

"Born To Run" is a masterpiece. It cannot be denied. It must not.

Whilst driving to my writing session this afternoon, it came on the radio, and it suddenly hit me: "I would literally not turn this song off for anything. Even if I arrive at my destination in the next five seconds, I will sit in my car until the song finishes."

I don't care what you think about The Boss, "Born To Run" is a modern Epic. It's our Iliad. Pure poetry. American lyricism at its finest. (Too much?)

So, I turn the question to you. What song would you sit in your car for? What song so captures your driving self that it becomes more important than getting to that meeting on time?

Let me know.

"Together, Wendy, we'll live with the sadness

I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
Someday, girl I don't know when, we're gonna get to that place
Where we really want to go and we'll walk in the sun
But 'till then tramps like us, baby, we were born to run"

Discoveries on a day home sick.

Say what you want about NPR's news coverage (I'm not saying anything, but if you were to, you could), you can't fault their ongoing efforts to put good music and ground-breaking artists in the spotlight. For real, if you're an appreciator of fine music, there are few pages more addicting than that NPR Music homepage. It's digital crack, I swear.

Perhaps the best feature is that you're actually able to listen to big upcoming releases in their entirety BEFORE THE ABLUM HAS BEEN RELEASED. That's too good to pass up, am I right? I am. Here's some samples:

You may know that there's a new one coming out for Gorillaz, Plastic Beach, which features such artists as Snoop Dogg, Mos Def, and Lou Reed, just to name a few. It's decent, but not as good as there sophomore release, 2005's Demon Days, which was produced by Danger Mouse, of Gnarles Barkely fame (and Grey Album infamy) who is perhaps the best producer in the game today...

Speaking of: maybe you've always wondered what you'd get if you combined Danger Mouse with James Mercer of The Shins... Wish granted. May I introduce you to Broken Bells? May I also add that it sounds great? Peppy beats and Infectious synth work mix with Mercer's homegrown vocals to produce a record that, despite the electronic layers, feels very organic. An album worthy of a road trips and dance parties alike.

And finally, here's another mashup of sorts. Do you like Peter Gabriel? How about Bon Iver? What's that -- both, you say? Well, what if I told you Peter Gabriel recently covered "Flume" by Bon Iver? You'd be ecstatic.... Be ecstatic.


Wow... Lot's of links on this one. Hope you click on them all. Nothing wrong with a little exploration, after all.



[Have I found you, flightless bird?]

Off our axis.

Did yesterday feel about a millionth of a second shorter than it usually is at this time of year?

Blame the Chilean Earthquake.

...maybe.



[just last night I woke with some unconscionable dream]

May the best film win?

I was going to write a post about the movement towards an "Everybody Wins" society and how it's effect could, in fact, lessen the overall quality of culture ... but then I found this brilliant article by Neal Gabler (written for the LA Times) which scores the points of the argument far better than I could have ever hoped to.

It's about the Academy's decision to nominate ten films for "Best Picture" instead of just five.

Below are some of the highlights of the article, of which the full version can be found here.

Read. Digest. Feedback. Cheers.

By letting more films compete for the top trophy, the academy is merely following where others have led. Call it "cultural inflation": a growing number of opportunities for the less deserving to get a taste of ultimate victory, as part of a growing aversion to disappointing anyone.

It wouldn't be the first time that the pursuit of money trumped the pursuit of quality, even in a contest purportedly designed expressly to reward quality. Indeed, one of the defects of capitalism is that it has only one standard of worth: monetary value. Money and excellence are certainly not mutually exclusive, but neither do they necessarily travel hand in hand. When excellence isn't profitable, it usually is usurped by something that is.

...cultural inflation is not only a function of money. It is equally a function of modern democracy. Put simply, people in a democratic society such as ours don't understand why they can't always get what they want. The culture obliges by pandering, which is what the Oscars are doing by expanding the field. It is a form of cultural demagoguery that doesn't dare disappoint people -- the adult equivalent of those children's soccer trophies. In effect, we live in a "panderocracy."

Just as printing more money depreciates its actual worth, cultural inflation depreciates the value of the honor, in the case of the Oscars, or the victory, in the case of sports. In effect, the NCAA and professional leagues have cheapened the championships by expanding the field, though they are savvy enough to realize that so long as the fans are satisfied, no one really cares. Similarly, the motion picture academy may risk tarnishing the Oscar, especially if votes are split and an outlier wins.

What cultural inflation fails to appreciate is that excellence is a moral quality. It isn't, in the end, subject to popularity or money or a sense of personal entitlement. Rather, it is endangered by all three. It is entirely possible that a great film will win the Oscar this year, just as it is entirely possible that the best team will win the Super Bowl, but cultural inflation lengthens the odds, just as it lengthens the odds of our recognizing which is best.

And if the best film or the best team doesn't win, we have no one but ourselves and our desperate need for gratification to blame, should anyone still care enough to assess blame.

[He's a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody]

Snippets

Lots of things on the agenda today.

First off, I hate Sydney Crosby, the reasons are wide and varied, and chances are, if you're not Canadian, or from Pittsburgh, or Gary Bettman, you hate him too. Grrrr...

Second off, I'm in the office all day, burnin' DVDs and representin', though, I left my laptop power supply in Traverse, so I'm forced to borrow a friend's for the day.

Third off, I saw Fantastic Mr. Fox last night at the cheap theaters. It's brilliant. Honestly, I'd heard mixed reviews on it, so I didn't know what to expect, and yes, the animation of the fur took some getting used to, but overall, I would recommend this to any of my friends. Smart, funny, undeniably Andersonian, yet, accessible and still a "Kid's movie", but without sacrificing story or a compelling plot to fart jokes and the other ADD tendencies of similar Kids' faire (Pixar excluded). Refreshing. Enjoyable. Definitely worth a purchase.

Fourth off, I was the Production Designer for a short-film, The Lost and Found Shop, which can be viewed here.

Fifth off, last week, I finished up my work on a feature starring 50 Cent... Never thought I'd write that... Lot's of stories from that experience... Most of them surreal....

Sixth off, I love Motown and Soul music. I'm talking 'bout the good stuff -- James Brown, Al Green, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Four Tops, etc. -- and it's sad to see that this incredible genre has devolved to a bunch of auto-tuned idiots blathering on about clubs, sexual conquests, alchohol, cars, money, themselves, repeat, repeat, repeat.... But this is mostly true of any music genre. Once the record labels get their hands on something genuine and novel, it's only a matter of time before complete commercialization/ bastardization. But Truth, Beauty, and Music are resilient, and like tiny sprouts, they find their way through the cracks in the pavement to usher in a new life and a new generation. Keep plumbing the depths of the sounds, you're bound to find something you like. I guarantee it.

Seventh off, there is nothing more. Have a jolly good day.


[I was a fiend, before I became a teen/ I melted microphones instead of cones of ice cream]

"What Is A Conservative?"

Stumbled across this on Andrew Sullivan's Blog, which was taken from this blog by Tony Woodlief.

Read. Digest. Give feedback.


"A real American conservative, to me, is someone who understands that markets are the best means of allocating resources, that liberty is essential to human thriving, and that man is sinful and in desperate need of checking and elevating institutions like the Church and marriage and childrearing. A real American conservative believes in aspiring, at the very least, to truthfulness and humility and thoughtfulness, which means he can’t help but cringe when he hears the likes of an Ann Coulter bellowing about her enemies being traitors. A real American conservative understands that the ills of mankind will not go away if we could only just have a lower tax rate and less regulation."

"A real American conservative is not, I’ll submit to you, at home in the maneuvering and manipulation of state capitols, and certainly not in Washington, D.C. A real American conservative does not trust large government or mass democracy or even himself, certainly not himself, which is why he wants to keep undivided power out of any man’s hands, including his own."



[I sat on the roof and kicked up the moss]

The Improv

I'm not sure how I could even begin to explain to you how busy I've been lately. I mean, it's great, but extreme business can cut into the time allotted for other things (like maintaining a blog) and any free time you do have will be spent completely tuning out, zenning out, or sleeping out (hmm, that last one doesn't fit). This has been my life for the last four weeks, hence the naked blog.

Rest assured, over the weeks, I've had a ton of great ideas for posts... I just wish I could remember them all (maybe it's time to invest in a pocket notebook).

I do remember one idea, however, and shall now write an abbreviated version of it. After all, brevity is extremely important in blogging, no one wants to read your ten page thesis paper.

My car broke down last Saturday. I don't know when it will be repaired. I had it towed to a local garage, and of course, they wanted to charge me a less-than-sane amount just to look at the poor gal, so I refused, and they responded with a polite, "Get it the hell off our lot".

"Cool", I thought, "Lemme just call up my peeps at the Triple A. They got mah back."

They didn't. Not in this case, at least. Yo see, when I explained to them that my car was stalled in the parking lot of a service garage, they seemed to think it wasn't so much of an emergency, and that I could only have the car towed for free if they shop couldn't make the necessary repairs or if they were dragging their feet.

It's looking grim now. I've got a ticking clock now. The car has to be out of the lot by the end of the business day, but I don't really have the 120 dollars to have it towed to my desired destination: the house of a friend whose Dad is a dynamite mechanic.

Oh man... here come them storm clouds....

Why must we live through the bad times? Why must the dark clouds appear overhead and shadows stalk our doorstep? Quite simply: Because life would be incomplete without them.

I operate under the philosophy that life is an epic poem (think "The Odyssey"). Everyone is the hero to their own story (and the Villain to someone else's, but that's another post) and are therefore subject to the myriad trials and test any other hero must face along the Journey.

It's important, I think, to not view the bad things in life as the horrible crushing blackness that seeks to envelop your soul until it is crushed into smithereens. Instead, it's just the thickening of the plot. It's just the crossing of the next Threshold. It's just the bitter that will make the victory all the sweeter.

I guess I probably said it better with my last post, which was a shining example of brevity, unlike this post which is already wearing out its welcome, basically, there are very few situations that are truly "life or death", maybe "life-altering", but it's not as if losing my car for a few weeks, or an unexpected cable bill spells GAME OVER for my life as I know it.

It's all cyclical. You take the bad with the good, learn to adapt, and if your back is really up against the wall... improvise.

So, I call my friend about my predicament with the car and the towing and the what not and comes to my aid. We sand in the snow-covered parking lot for a moment, staring at my disable car when an idea strikes. Before I know it, I've popped my car into neutral and my friend and I proceed to push that sucker out of the lot, into Fulton St. (Grand Rapids people, you know what Fulton's like) and about a quarter mile down the road to a safe resting place.

Eventually, I had my car towed (at a fair rate) to a friend’s house (who’s father is a mechanic) and it looks like the old girl might be done for.

Meh. I keep rolling, keep fighting, keep working.

I’ll find a new car eventually, ‘til then, I’m in uncharted territory, uncertain times, so I’ll have to just drink it all in while it’s here.




[Die and succeed. I say it out loud, but you just don’t care.]

Listen...

There are no walls in life.... just obstacles.... and they are made of glass....

Break them and carry on.


That is all.


[Well I saw her today at the reception, a glass of wine in her hand]

Tide you over.

I've been super, super, super, super, super, super busy.... So, I haven't had time to do up a decent blog. To my readers, I offer my deepest apologies.

When I have time on my hands, rest assured, I will fill the page with thoughts and musings and opinions that will make your head spin... and it won't have anything to do with the State of the Union address.

I didn't watch it. Part of me doesn't care.

Ho-hum.

Actually, I might blog about Kirk Gibson. Don't know who he is? Better do some research.



cheers.


[Do you know where I was at your age? Any idea where I was at your age? I was workin' downtown for the minimum wage -- not gonna let you just throw it all away]