"Dude, the soundtrack for your biopic sucks!" Part IV

Hello, Fellow Audiophiles!

The late 90's continued to be slim pickings for people who's musical menu board was culled from radio and Much Music.  Amidst all the Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and date-rape frat-boy rap metal courtesy of the shockingly talentless Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit there emerged a second wave of popular alternative music to remind us that hope springs eternal.

Leading the renewed garage band assault was New Yawk City's The Strokes.  Their entire debut album Is This It? is as catchy as audio ebola.  Try getting this out of your head after a listen:



Another biggie is alt/rock/blues duo The White Stripes.  Alternately referred to as the most fake (due to their thematically omnipresent characteristic red, white and black garb and the debatable connection between Jack and Meg White) and the most genuine band in the world thanks to their stripped down sound and live musical assaults, they are certainly one of the most exciting outfits out there today.  Here's a great clip:



The U.K. was well-represented by a couple of acts.  Bloc Party impressed, particularly with the frenetic drumming of Matt Tong:



From Glasgow, Scotland Franz Ferdinand's guitar-heavy new-wavy sound was particularly noteworthy:



Punky Swedes The Hives blasted onto the scene introducing themselves as "your new favorite band".  Their energetic live shows and raw demeanor makes for a convincing argument:



Several Canadian acts also distinguished themselves, such as earnest n' angry Billy Talent, seen here entertaining a s#$&-load of Germans:



Orchestral Quebecois army Arcade Fire also made a concerted effort to eke out an original sound.  Here they are earning their pay (split sixteen ways) on David Letterman's show:



And I'd certainly be lapse if I didn't give a shout-out to gloomy, local geniuses Wintersleep who's uncanny ability to create aural tapestries live is unmatched:



Just between you, me and the wall if I had a grain of musical talent, these dude's would have to keep looking over their shoulders since I'd steal from them mercilessly.  I'm just sayin', is all.

There are certainly other bands of note that have been percolating just underneath the surface.  Such as B.C.'s Hot Hot Heat and The New Pornographers, Toronto-based musical collective Broken Social Scene, from Iceland (the wellspring of weird) the very spacey Sigur Ros,  Portland Oregon's one-of-a-kind tale-spinners The Decemberists, Hamilton Ontario's The Marble Index, Los Vegans (?) The Killers, Tokyo Police Club from Newmarket , Ontario, Washington-state's Death Cab for Cutie and a band that proves Southern Rock need not be synonymous with crap: Nashville's now-regrettably coiffed Kings of Leon.

As we moved deeper into the 2000's (man, that's unweildly.  Why say we just call 'em the "The Oh's", a'ight?) the face of popular music began to improve somewhat.  For each instance that Beyonce sent her gender back to the Dark Ages, Maroon 7 and the Goo Goo Dolls tricked people in picking style over substance, Creed uncomfortably fused "inspirational" Christian music with cock rock (!) and The Black Eyed Peas single-handedly lowered IQ's across the nation, there were a million other good choices for every taste imaginable.  We just had to get off our lazy asses and make some sort of effort to look for them!

Seriously!  If you like pop, there's Lily Allen.  If you like hard rock there's Queens of the Stone Age.  If metal ye be seekin', set a course for Avenged Sevenfold or Alexisonfire.  If you like R&B there's Amy Winehouse or Erykah Badu.  If you like rap and hip-hop, check out The Roots, k-os and Wyclef Jean.  If you dig punk, there's Propagandhi.  There's something out there for everyone, folks, so just go look for it!

Which brings me to perennial whipping-boys Nickelback.  I really do sincerely believe that there are much worse things you can to listen to, but my point in doing all these entries is simply this:

There's also so much better.  

Trouble is, the mainstream media doesn't make things easy.  They want all of us subsisting on their payola-flavored industry gruel.  Frankly I think it's pretty sad that I've relied more upon free 'zines and video game soundtracks to find good music versus local radio and music video channels.  Here are three bands I've discovered from unexpected sources:

From NHL 2K7's "Sub Pop" Soundtrack, my current favorite group, Seattle's (what is in the water out there!?) Band of Horses:



From "Exclaim" Magazine, Canada's free music periodical, readily available everywhere, pride of High Green, Sheffield, England...Arctic Monkeys:



From the video game "Rock Band", bratty Manhattanites The Yeah, Yeah Yeah's:





From it's sequel, Brit-pop influenced Bostonian's The Sterns:



Internet radio is also a great source for hearing music that's new or new-to-you.  Here's just one possible hub:

http://www.live365.com/cgi-bin/directory.cgi?genre=alternative

And I've always relied on the kindness of people with taste to bring good bands to my attention.  I gotta thank Messrs. Buchan and Woodworth for bringing to light for me such diverse acts as The Black Keys, Wilco, MGMT, Silversun Pickups, Tegan & Sara, and The Flaming Lips.

So why did I dedicate four pages of my blog space to music?  Because music to me isn't just background noise during a party or something to keep you motivated at the gym.  It's a source of memory, solace, fortitude, conviction and my personal link to the human experience.

And I'm convinced that if you could hear good, soulful, original music everyday you'd feel just like I do...

EPIC:



VERY IMPORTANT MUST-WATCH BONUS EPIC:


FAIL:


BONUS FAIL: http://www.safm.com.au/entertainment/music/galleries/worst-lyrics

"Dude, the soundtrack for your biopic sucks!" Part III

Good day, fellow music mavens!

Way back in the early Eighties a gent by the name of Mark Arm (later of Green River and Mudhoney fame) used the following colorful descriptors to characterize the sound of his then-current band Mr. Epp and the Calculations:

"Pure grunge! Pure noise! Pure shit!"

When an original, independent music movement emerged from the Pacific Northwest woods like a sonic Sasquatch, the industry and the media freaked out, unable to package, label and market it.  "Grunge" seemed as good a term as any, but frankly I hate that description.  Regardless of what you call it,  we had our own modest musical revolution to be proud of in the late Eighties and early Nineties.

The first band of that ilk that I heard of wasn't who you'd think.  It was Temple of the Dog, a tribute band assembled by Chris Cornell in memory of Andrew Wood, a close friend and lead singer of the glam/metal outfit Mother Love Bone who died of a heroin overdose.  Andrew's early demise would prove to be the most galling, cliche and wasteful characteristic of the movement and it was repeated an-nauseum over the next few years.  Here's a sample of Temple's ruminations:



This led me to the works of Cornell's own band, Soundgarden.  Here's a particularly nasty little musical punch to the mush:



In this I'd finally found my ideal music.  This "Seattle Sound" (for lack of a better term) possessed the aggression of metal, a surfeit of lyrical relevance and considerably better musicianship than punk.  I was in a pure state of bliss, of rapture, of...

No.  I won't say it yet.   

This became even more pronounced in late 1990 when alternative was dragged kicking and screaming into the mainstream.  Now this wasn't accomplished by the media, record executives or market research.  It was done in the most democratic way possible: by one earnest, timely and talented band and hordes of fans desperate for genuine music.

To illustrate, here's a chart of top singles in 1990:

http://www.musicimprint.com/Chart.aspx?id=C000161

Minus a few aberrant examples (such as Sinead O'Connor, Faith No More, the B-52's) the lion's share of what's on this chart is pure product: safe, neatly groomed musical mcnuggets that can be imaged, produced and marketed like any other mediocre commodity designed for easy consumption.

And here's the same chart two years later:

http://www.musicimprint.com/Chart.aspx?id=C000164

Now, granted, there's still tons of crap (like Boys II Men, Kris Kross, and Lord of Mullets Billy Ray Cyrus) but isn't the difference amazing?  Do you see what can happen when we collectively thumb our noses at musical gruel and embrace better things?  Of course, in order to do that, we do need some incentive...

Now, don't get me wrong, I really think these charts exhibit something totally aberrant.  Alternative music, is supposed to be, y'know, alternative.  But for a few shining years in the Early Nineties, everything made sense to me in this crazy world.

And we owe it all to Nirvana.

As soon as I saw the video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on Good Rockin' Tonite I knew at once that my generation would finally have the sort of  musical legacy that folks from the 60's were proud of.  One single, one album and one band managed to give a big 'ole enema to the bloated music industry and a giant "f#@& you" to record executive weasels who wanted to keep feeding us a constant intravenous drip of audio diarrhea.

The Music Business Program ad for "AI International" that Nirvana spoofs in their  "Live!  Tonight!  Sold out!" video is a perfect example of what I'm talking about:


Nirvana is so beloved to me, here's another live clip of them performing one my favorite tunes of all time:


As I said before, this grassroots movement was a bit of an anomaly, but it was great while it lasted.   L7, Brad, Screaming Trees, Mudhoney, Hole, Blind Melon, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Screaming Trees, and the following  enterprising lads all had unprecedented exposure:




But all good things must come to an end.  Haute couture fashion shows began to sport flannel-bedecked runway models.  Employees at Sub Pop made up fake "grunge-speak" just to get the scene-obsessed media (see FAIL below) to go away and pay attention to something more vapid.  Every crap band with a pulse that lived on the West Coast was getting signed by corporate pinheads in the hopes that they'd become the next Golden Calf.

It was as if Kurt killed himself because he just didn't want to preside over the inevitable.

In the aftermath of such loss, the mid-to-late 90's were a dark time.  Easily interviewed, attractively packaged and completely talentless divas, boy bands and novelty acts began to dominate again.  If not for acts like Sloan, Pearl Jam, Beck, No Doubt, The Beastie Boys, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, A Perfect Circle, U2, Hole, Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots, Tool, Rage Against The Machine, and Monster Magnet, I would have cracked up.

A few bands deserve special mention.  I'd missed our very own Tragically Hip during their Up To Here phase but as they got progressively weirder and found their own unique sound, I sat up and took notice.  Here's their historical Saturday Night Live performance of "Grace, Too" from 1995:




With their copious references to KISS, Kitty Pryde and Dungeons & Dragons, Weezer's self-titled debut album as well as Pinkerton and Maladroit provided tremendous sustenance during this time.  Here's "The Good Life" from Pinkerton:



Dogged survivors of the Seattle scene Modest Mouse also kept me duly entertained:



Radiohead was also there for me, taking me into paths barely tread.  Here they are performing "Fake Plastic Trees" at Glastonbury:



And finally Built To Spill convinced me that alternative and indie music was still alive, well, and doing just fine away from the wilting glare of the zeitgeist:



Well, that's all for now, kiddies.  In the final installment of my musical odyssey I'll cover exciting times as hope springs eternal, popular music is hits terrible new lows, prove that today is the best time to be a music fan and finally explain why Nickelback should eat a bowl of d!@%s.

EPIC:

    


 
FAIL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grunge_speak

"Dude, the soundtrack for your biopic sucks!" Part II

Greetings, fellow music nuts!

Not content with the spoon-fed pablum on radio and Much Music (and totally unaware of the burgeoning indie music scene in the Late Eighties) I turned to Classic Rock for solace.

I distinctly remember around that time catching snippets of an odd-looking music video with crazy imagery, loopy animation, and anarchic chanting on T.V..  Needless to say I was officially intrigued.  A few days later a friend of mine in High School hooked me up with a copy of the record from which it sprang: Pink Floyd's The Wall.  I remember that it was handed to me like contraband, like audio TNT.  When I got it home and played it, I quickly realized why.  A mere three minutes into it's run time my brain exploded and leaked out of my left ear.

I had no clue what a "concept album" was.  I'd never heard a band say "We don't need no education"/"We don't need no thought control".  I'd never been compared to a brick in a wall before.  Consider my mind officially blown at that point.  Here's a particularly tasty morsel:


Pink Floyd "Another Brick In The Wall"



In fact, this album was considered to be so subversive in my little town that when I went to my local video store to rent the film version a few years later, the clerk behind the counter made me promise not to hurt myself, catch anything on fire or push old women into traffic.

Sure, maybe I was a bit antisocial and intense around that time, but I wasn't exactly "Trenchcoat Mafia" material either.  F#@%*& pinheads.   

Also around that same time I discovered an odd-looking LP in my Grandmother's basement, left there by an older cousin of mine.   The cover was white and trippy-looking, with stereotypical 60's/hippie font featuring the band's name.  When you turned a dial on the side of the album the die-cut holes scrolled by with an ever-changing  kaleidoscope of surreal aerial-themed images.  That alone made it worth investigation.

I brought this artifact home and threw it on my parent's record player.  Flipping the record when it came time to do so was challenging since by that time half my face had been melted off.   

The album was Led Zeppelin III.  It was unlike anything I'd ever heard in my life and to this day "Since I've Been Loving You" is still my favorite Zep tune.  Here's a sample:

Led Zeppelin "Since I've Been Loving You"



Discovering Zeppelin sent me on a quest for as much classic rock music I could consume.  The Who, Cream, Aerosmith, Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix and Janice Joplin were all assimilated in quick succession.  Blue Oyster Cult even had the consideration to write a song about one of my favorite childhood heroes: Godzilla.  Here's a bit of Spinal-Tappian cheese to illustrate:

Blue Oyster Cult "Godzilla"



But this was all merely a warm up for the musical smart bomb that was imminent.  When I moved into residence at St. Mary's University I was finally exposed to the sort of musical palette that kids in urban settings take for granted.

Like 95% of music fans at some point in time, The Doors became a major fixture for me, to the point that my first Intro English submission was entitled "Morrison and Hendrix: The Lyrical Revolution".  Color me shocked when I didn't get an "A"!

As you might imagine, the music of The Doors makes for the perfect soundtrack to life in residence, with "L.A. Woman" a particularly appropriate selection:

The Doors "L.A.Woman"   



Eventually I began to move away from the musical wankery that taints a lot of classic crock music (I'm looking at you, Styx).  Thanks to the encyclopedic tape collection of a floor-mate, one Monsieur Buchan, I discovered my enduring musical passion for punk and alternative music.  

Acts like Bad Religion, The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Dead Kennedy's were fantastic, since they possessed the aggression of metal without the cheese or the wankery of classic rock.  It also added a healthy dollop of social commentary.  To this day, I'd fight anybody to the death for debating the relevance of The Ramones as one of the greatest bands of all time.  Here's a favorite of mine from Joey, Dee Dee, Johnny and Marky.

The Ramones "Rock and Roll Radio"



I know this sounds stupid, but every one of the songs featured in these links gives me friggin' chills and makes me feel like I could bench-press a Subaru over my head.  Awesome stuff.   

Then something magical happened.  It was like that scene in Star Wars when Ben Kenobi tells Luke: "That's good!  You've taken your first step into a larger world!"

Alternative music surfaced in my line of sight for the first time and I felt a burning anger towards mainstream radio and video shows for completely ignoring it.  Suddenly I was hearing The Cure, Sonic Youth, Ministry, Sugar, Sinead O' Connor, Fishbone, R.E.M., Rage Against the Machine, Smashing Pumpkins, The Lemonheads, The Proclaimers, Jane's Addiction,  Helmet, Concrete Blonde, Dinosaur Jr, The Sugarcubes, Beck, Velvet Underground, The Pixies, Violent Femmes, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, and Primus.

All of these bands are special to me but two deserve special mention.  One is Throwing Muses featuring power-pixie Tanya Donelly.  Listen to this without being amazed, I dare you:  

Throwing Muses "Not Too Soon"



Now isn't that better than half the crap you hear on the radio nowadays?  Don't your ears just go..."Aaaahhhh, refreshing!"  Damn straight...

Also, upon first listen, the metal/alt/rap outfit Faith No More became one of my favorite bands of all time at that moment.  I still play them incessantly and talks of a large-scale reunion keep me riveted.  Here's my favorite track of theirs, from the desert-island disc Angel Dust:

Faith No More "Everything's Ruined"



I have that same bee suit, by the way.  It's surprisingly roomy...
 
All of a sudden Canadian acts were revealed to me that just weren't aping their American and British counterparts.  Turns out there were a slew of burgeoning bands that didn't suck in a Kim Michell/Parachute Club/Men Without Hats/David Wilcox/Glass Tiger/Haywire sorta way!  Ska group King Apparatus, alterna-brats The Pursuit of Happiness, alt-rockers The Watchmen, surf-kings/Kid's In the Hall soundtrack maestros Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet, the spacey-sounding Gandharvas, folksy geniuses Leslie-Spit Tree-o, more-than-a-novelty act Barenaked Ladies, local boys made good Sloan and Bootsauce, Canada's pervy answer to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.  Having said all that, one band in particular deserves a special shout-out: National Velvet.

National Velvet "Flesh Under Skin"



These guys don't get the credit they deserve for blazing trails in the late-Eighties altenative music movement in Canada.  I wish they'd have stuck around a bit longer and collected some of the accolades they deserved.

Plus I'm still kinda have the hots for their Amazonian lead singer Maria Del Mar.  Dang, y'all.    

I also discovered rap beyond Run DMC.  Kool Moe Dee, Ice-T, KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, House of Pain, Del La Soul, Boo-Ya T.R.I.B.E, N.W.A., Sir Mix-A-Lot, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Cyprus Hill, and Public Enemy all qualified for my harsh criterion: attitude, innovation and social commentary. Here's one of the best::

Public Enemy "Fight The Power"



The great thing about hip-hop back in the day is that it could also make for a fun party jam.  What happened to fun in hip-hop?  Here's what I'm talking about:

Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock "Joy and Pain"



Young MC "Bust A Move"


Maestro Fresh-Wes "Let Your Backbone Slide"




Organized Rhyme "Check the O.R."




OMG, I just realized that Organized Rhyme might be considered the Godfathers of Hip Hop Nerdcore. Heavy...

In my next entry alternative is dragged kicking and screaming into the mainstream, dark days return and hope spring eternal.

And, oh yeah, I'm also eventually gonna get to why Nickleback sucks Herculean amounts of ass.  Keep yer friggin' pants on...

EPIC:
 
 
 

FAIL: http://rabidbulldog.tk/?article=776

"Dude, the soundtrack for your biopic sucks!" Part I

Hello, y'all!

I just picked up two CD's yesterday and tonight I'm going to a Wintersleep concert. It's hard to believe that there was a time in my life when music didn't mean anything to me.  What a stupid six year old kid I was!

Yes, I was exposed to music at quite a young age.  I loved the melodic quality of the 50's music my parents often listened to.  Here are two of my favorites:


Buddy Holly "Rave On"

The Dovells  "Bristol Stomp"

Like most people in their larval stage, music was often just background noise at the time.  And at that time the state of the union was dire.  Radio was awash in disco.  Like this:

Stars on 45 "Stars on 45 (Video)"

If you got through more than three minutes of that crap, by the way,  you're made of sterner stuff than I am.

With disco so prevalent, it was only a matter of time before it seeped into my consciousness osmosis-style, yo.  When I was eight years old I asked for the Spirits Having Flown record by The Bee Gees.  I played that s#!& incessantly, often caterwauling along to the song "Tragedy" (much to the delight of my parents).

As a possible omen (or perhaps it was an ottoman) of better things to come, my ears were also piqued the following year by Peter Gabriel's "Games Without Frontiers".  He's the vid:

But for some odd reason I didn't ask for or buy the album.  Alas, my interest in music continued to be pretty superficial as I entered the Eighties.  My listening and purchasing trends continued to be based around the philosophy of "Well, if it's popular, it's gotta be good!"  This resulted in some tentative but ultimately, misguided "Columbia House" disasters.  Such as purchasing my very own copy of Culture Club's Colour By Numbers album (although I still insist it's a pop classic what with the vocal stylings of Boy George and backup singer Helen Terry on display).

Now having said that, some other ventures into Eighties pop continue to resonate with me to this very day.  You may scoff (actually I can hear the scoffage right now) but I still play Cargo and Business As Usual by Men At Work quite often.  It was the first time music spoke to me so directly, so color me delighted that I have so much in common with this pack of homely Aussie weirdos.  

Songs like "Who Can it Be Now?", "Helpless Automaton", "Be Good Johnny", "Overkill", "Upstairs in My House", and "It's a Mistake" all touched on heavy topics like paranoia, isolation, disconnect, parental pressure and fear of nuclear holocaust.  In other words, stuff that most pre-teens in the Eighties likely struggled with.  Here's a sample:

But by then, thanks to my cousin Jason, there came from beyond something called THE METAL (special nod to Jack Black).  THE METAL made me forget everything that had come before it.  As an increasingly antisocial and angry kid with a penchant for horror films, Motley Crue's consciously vacant (or is that vacantly conscious?) Shout at the Devil album was a game changer.  I'd been a bit too young for both KISS and Alice Cooper so when "The Crue" came along it was the perfect storm of time, place, aggression level and modest rebellion.

I was hooked.  These leather clad, makeup-wearing, be-studded punks were obnoxious, dark, loud, boorish and appeared to be wasted twenty-four-seven.  Yes, they were loutish.  Yes, you suspected that they smelled awful.  And you were vaguely amused when Nikki Sixx defended his band against charges of satanism when confronted with the album cover. His rejoinders sounded weak even to a twelve year old ears:

"Uh, yeah, it isn't satanic cuz, uh, you can see by the title of the album that we're...uh, shouting at the devil, not...uh, y'know...with him."

Dude, weak.     

Back then THE METAL was also the perfect foil to terrify parents, kinda like the modern day equivalent of...well, actually there is no modern day equivalent.  Which bring me to a point - why is music so damned safe now?  A few years ago it might have been Marilyn Manson, gangsta rap and death metal.  But what terrifies parents now?  I think I just heard someone say "emo", but that's actually pathetic not EEEEEE-vil.   Where the hell is the EEEEEE-vil in music now?  That's right, I said EEEEEE-vil, not just "evil."  There's a big difference there.

THE METAL proved to be fertile ground for my imagination and self-esteem.  The small-minded people that railed blindly against THE METAL had no idea how much self-empowerment and solace THE METAL gave to shy, angry kids.  I cheered when Tipper Gore got pwned by Dee Snider during the PMRC hearings:

Until the mid-Eighties, THE METAL continued to infuse my wasted youth with tremendous color. I soon found myself be-mulleted, wearing baseball style T-shirts, castration-prone jeans and leather armbands.  I worshiped at the portable stereo altar of my sonic heroes every night.  Ozzy Osbourne wrote about self-conviction in "Believer", Iron Maiden fueled my interest in history and poetry with "Aces High" and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Judas Priest railed against surveillance in "Electric Eye", and Ronnie James Dio (R.I.P. Ronnie!) gave me an appropriately cheesy soundtrack to my Dungeons & Dragons days with "Sacred Heart".

But by the time 1986 rolled around my metal gods were forsaking me.  Motley Crue released Theater of Pain and shed their bad-ass EEEEE-vil trappings.  Suddenly Vince Neil was tying scarves to his mike stand just like every other glam metal loser.  Ozzy got a perm circa The Ultimate Sin.  Judas Priest invited me to be their Turbo Lover ("WTF is this crap!?"), which is kinda interesting in retrospect given Rob Halford's eventual revelations.  Even the wheels fell off my old standby Iron Maiden when No Prayer For The Dying came down the pike.

THE METAL was moving into thrash and increasingly aggressive tendencies and I had outgrown it.  Looking back, I realize I shouldn't have missed the boat with good metal bands like Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica, and Megadeth but this is how it went.  It was not to be my destiny.

I fell in with a group of friends who joined an Amnesty International group in High School purely to ramp up their sad odds of meeting girls who might mistake them as "sensitive".  I was chided for listening to The Scorpions so I began a "Conscience Rock" phase which involved Rush, The Police, Simple Minds, Peter Gabriel (Yay!) and U2.  Peter Gabriel I dug right away 'cuz I had previous exposure.  I was pre-disposed to Rush already since they were somehow socially-conscious metal.  I stuck with them until the execrable Roll The Bones album was pooped into existence.  I took to The Police right way thanks to their punky first album.  U2 was initially a tough sell to me, but I borrowed their Live At Red Rocks album from a friend and it eventually grew on me.  Thank God I didn't see the accompanying concert footage until years later since the band's appearance would have been a deal-breaker right there, especially Bono's prototypical mullet, Peter Pan boots and tendency to stage prance.

And, oh yeah, Simple Minds bored the crap outta me.

Coming up:  I delve back into classic rock, eventually find a musically passion that has sustained me to this day and why liking Nickleback is just plain laziness!

FAIL: http://www.cracked.com/video_17618_black-eyed-peas-have-officially-written-worst-song-ever.html

"My Humps" is still worse, IMHO.

Also, here's this week's totally non-music-related comic:

"Hey, Kids, Don't Be a Debt Slave!"

Greetings, Gentle Reader. 

I was witness to many things while living in residence for two years that damaged my faith in humanity, but nothing more galling than the sight of financial institution weasels hawking credit card applications to kids like Vince in a "Slap-Chop" ad.

Thank God my parents beat a healthy fear of credit into my head.  Otherwise, in addition to crippling student loans I would have been burdened with several more in-hock albatross (albatri?) around my neck upon the occasion of my post-secondary rebirth.  I often wonder how many of my peers fell prey to these slave masters during a moment of weakness and eventually suffered for it down the road.

When I left university, my student loan was nothing compared to the burden of others.  Mercifully, my summer jobs and the intervention of my generous parents helped me avoid being completely buried by a nigh-insurmountable crush of financial responsibility in the form of an original sin promissory note.  When I began working for Sears for twelve hours a week you can imagine my horror when I began to receive statements from the bank regarding what percentage of my payments were going to interest and how much was going towards paying down the primary.

Great was the day when I marched up to the bank and cleared the last vestiges of the Cosa Nostra-like arrangement  I had with these suit-clad crooks.  I also vowed never to be a debt-slave ever again.

See, the funny thing is, even after you've cleared student-loan hurdles, banks and other financial institutions keep throwing credit cards and lines of credit at you so that you might stay in the lurch indefinitely.  The media, advertisers and peers alike keep you in a constant state of want, buying crap that has nothing to do with day-to-day need.  I defer to my pal, "Too Much Coffee Man" to illustrate.

Back in my university days a friend of mine was known to espouse his "thatched hut theory".  He maintained that as long as you could live in a thatched hut on a warm beach someplace, with access to food, clean water and  basic health care, while working a simple menial job like making stone fences, with the ability to get drunk periodically with friends, you'd be eternally happy, since we're all born of the village/community experience.

At the time I'd always upset his existential apple cart by telling him: "Yeah, that's great an all, but how does my Super NES fit into all that?"

It was a terrible thing to say but I really believed it at the time.  

But vehicles, clothes, furniture, houses, big screen televisions, ride-on lawnmowers, appliances, patio sets, extravagant weddings and breeding like rabbits all keep us firmly locked into the vicious circle of living beyond our means.  What cost $1.00 in 1950 cost $8.82 in 2009.  Back in the Fifties somebody could work in a supermarket bagging groceries, get in their modest car at the end of the day, drive back home to their simply-appointed house, and spend the evening with his stay-at-home spouse and three kids quite happily.    

Now, since inflation is so crippling and we're totally addicted to spending beyond out means, we're often forced to ask "can we have another?" every time our employer kicks us in the pants.  "Whattaya gonna do about it, drone?  Leave?  You can't leave, you got big bills to pay, sucka!"  Quite often both parents have to work just to make ends meet, leaving strangers and their kid's friends to raise their own offspring.

In order to get off the treadmill I've had to make some sacrifices.  I'm not a home owner since things have been so intolerable at work for the past three years that I've seriously contemplated not coming back the next day.   I haven't dropped thousands of dollars on a high-mast wedding.  I drive an economy car.  I don't have any kids (but my inability to voluntarily hand over a video game controller to my hypothetical heir is actually the biggest stumbling block there).  I've saved a few shekels and, in turn, become liberated and self-determining.

It's admittedly kinda sucked to have lived for the past three long years feeling as if my next work day could be my last.  I want to invest in a house.  I want to travel more.  Every time I watch a terrible McDonald's ad like this:

...I can't help but think that I'd make an infinitely better dad than some of these schmucks.  

My own theory has always been: I can't make someone else happy if I'm not happy.  

So there you go.  It's not too late to stop spending needlessly.  And that's your homework assignment, folks: 

Find your happy.  

EPIC: Some sage advice for crawling your way out of debt. 

EPIC DOC: 

FAIL: The sad truth about Canadian household debt. 

How Douche Baggy Are You?

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Skool Daze : Part II

Greetings, Kind Reader.

Before I began my sophomore year at St.Mary's university I had to select a major.  Normally in order to do this you get thrown into a huge room with about a thousand other people all clamoring for academic attention like pasty, sweaty, prematurely balding inside traders at the New York Stock Exchange while the Dow Jones plummets by seven-hundred points.

When I walked into this fray the following things were paramount in my thoughts:

(1)  I need to select a major that's in tune with my career goals.
(2) I need to select a major in a subject that I have an aptitude for, a vested interest in and have a proven track record with.
(3) I need to see what the shortest lineup is because, Man, am I hungover!

Just kidding.  *Ahem*  I'd actually selected all my courses in the middle of the summer (what else was I going to do while bored to tears at home?) Based on my first year spread I decided to go for an Honors Degree in English leading up to a path in journalism mayhaps.  Here's a look at what was in store for me:

The Early Novel  The course load for this one initially scared the bejesus out of me.  I remember the prof doling out the reading list and I began to hyperventilate in the middle of the lecture.  I called my parents just as soon as the first class was over and told them "Look, guys, I'm really not sure I can do this!"  as if I was about to audition for "2 Boys, 1 Cup".  Look, if you doubt me, the next time you're in a book store just pick up and flip through a copy of "Roxanna", "Moll Flanders" or "Tom Jones" and ask yourself if you could get through it.  Often times these early novels had nothing resembling paragraph breaks, chapters or organization, which in retrospect should have been the argument I  used when I passed in those first few atrocious essays the previous year.

Mercifully armed with a surplus of available time, a genuine interest in reading and an old set of encyclopedias with plot summaries in the back I managed to survive it, garnering an "excellent discussion" and an "interesting analysis" even while tearing into Jane Austen's precious heroine "Emma" for being "consistently shallow, overindulged and biased."  Kinda like a Georgian-era Heidi Montag. 

An Introduction to Poetry This class was overseen by a professor whom I believe was one of the original masons on the McNally Building and the powers that be just kept him around to grade papers.  This dude was older than Yoda.  Whenever he'd lecture about something particularly exciting he'd launch into a bizarre aerobics routine which normally saw him bobbing in place, grabbing out at the air with alternating fists, and shaking his head up and down like a cartoon character eating a cob of corn.  Typically the first two rows in the class were vacant since there was no guarantee you'd still be dry at the end of the class from all the wayward spittle.

Although I admired his moxie (in fact he may have invented the word) he wasn't the best provider of feedback.  Most of the papers that came back were marked up with cryptic red pen scrawls (words underlined, question marks, exclamation points) and one-word demands like "EXAMPLES!" , "WHY?" or "PUDDING!".  Typically you just took your arbitrary mark of "B-" and considered yourself lucky, since the prospect of reviewing your grade in his office was scarier than playing Russian Roulette with Conrad Black on Angel Dust.

An Introduction To Canadian Literature Was one of my favorite classes that year since it exposed me to the brilliant literary efforts of my very accomplished countrymen (and women).  Alice Munro, Timothy Findley, Margaret Laurence, Michael Ondaatje and David Adams Richards all gave me hope for the first time that my voice could be heard in poetry and prose.  It also began my life-time love affair with Leonard Cohen (not biblically, of course, but...yknow, I could be persuaded) who's works such as "For Anne", "What I'm Doing Here" and "I Have Not Lingered In European Monasteries" actually inspired myself and an unexpected cadre of unlikely people including (EEEK!) commerce students on my floor to start up an informal poetry-writing cabal.  Often in our more boring classes we'd compose, go back to the floor and read our latest creations which were often alternately crude, pretentious or schmaltzy.  But, hey, it was fun.

The prof for this course was the same for "Early Novel" and we'd already established a great rapport.  I kicked ass and took names in this one, earning a shiny "A" with my "careful and excellent discussions".

Hey, look, I haven't gotten any encouragement for anything for the past fifteen years, so please forgive your Humble Author for blowing the dust off some ancient laurels, a'ight?

Narrative in Fiction and Film  This would prove to be my favorite course during my four-year tenure at St. Mary's.  The entire thrust of the class was reading stories, watching the resulting film adaptation and comparing the two.  It was presided over by Glenn Walton, a sharp and classy dude who was heavily involved in the local film scene.  At the time of our meeting he'd already completed several short films and years later he appeared as an extra in  "Titanic" and his 35 mm short Chamberpiece was featured in the Atlantic Film Festival.

As far as I was concerned, this man was Orson Welles.  If I'd considered film-making sorcery up to this point in time, well, I'd just met friggin' Gandalf. 

The course itself was fantastic, and if I wasn't completely mentally drained as well as terrified by insurmountable student loan debt when I eventually graduated, this class really represents the crossroads of an alternate reality for me.  If I could just jump in that time machine and go back to this point I'd tell myself:

"Did you notice how interested you are in all this?  Look no further for what you want to do with the rest of your life!  Pursue a career in film with the same tenacity that 'The Dog' hunts bail jumpers!"

To which I would have replied:

"Whoa, old dude, will I really have that much gray hair when I get to be that age?  F#@^!!!  And who is this 'Dog' you speak of?"

I had a blast with this course, particularly in writing movie reviews.   I got an "A-" for my review of Zeffirelli's "Hamlet" starring Mel Gibson (which I groaningly referred to as "Great Dane!").  For my review of David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" (titled "Rockin' Good News"!) Glenn responded "This is insightful, intelligent and reads with the kind of energy the film must have.  You're style successfully emulates the film's".

The highlight of the course, however, was a term project that was right up my alley. I was asked to either take a pre-existing thirty-page short story and adapt it into a screenplay or create an original thirty-minute script.  I opted for the later, interpreting a creepy horror story I'd written in High School called "Dark Harvest".  I pounded it out in a few days, completely driven to see it appraised.  Typically residence is a procrastination factory but no distraction proved tempting enough to stop me.  Professor Walton's comments regarding the submission still can't help but make me beam with pride:

"Brrrrrrr...This has lots of chills and weirdness, is well set up visually and catches the gothic, small-town ambiance.  The church scenes are particularly good.  I can see this on the screen and the actors could have a great time with subtext."

Up to this time this was the greatest thing anyone ever said to me.  Until I submitted my final paper to him, which was a review of the film version of George Orwell's "1984":

"This achieves your usual excellent standard, David.  The review is full of intelligent comment.  I wish you all the best - you have a definite talent for writing and I'd like to encourage you to continue with this rare ability.  Good luck!"

Yknow, I've always bitched that I never had a mentor.  At the risk of sounding maudlin, Glenn Walton was as close to one as I'd ever meet.  I wish I hadn't been so damned shy and reserved at the time other wise I would have put him in a choke hold, forced him to the floor and screamed at him  "Luck?!??  My gray-haired, pathetic future self says I need more than f#@%*&; luck!!! Help me, you motherf#@&a@!!!"

* Ahem *.  Goodness, where did that come from?  

Political Science 200 To prove that everything didn't come up smiles und sunshine that year: here's into Poly Sci!  I was prompted by my academic adviser that I'd best start getting acclimated to learning about Canadian Politics.  Frankly, the concept was about as exciting as watching paint dry but I wanted to ensure that my studies remained at least semi-practical.  Boredom in the class is is clearly evident in my  hand-written notes, which are filled with references to "Poly-Why?", "I Wanna Be Sedated" and open invitations for people within line of sight to "Please Shoot Me".  Occasionally the margins are filled with itemized lists of how many Iron Maiden songs I could remember off the top of my head or as many professional wrestlers as I could name.

The Poly-Sci prof was a feisty Philippine lady who certainly cut us little slack.  After disaster was averted with formatting and pagination in my intro courses I though I'd ironed out what was being asked of me but I continued to struggle with the lack of consistency amongst the departments.  A paper submitted to the English department wouldn't be suitable for a History assignment.  An essay intended for Poly Sci would be rejected for Intro Marketing.  It was a constant juggling act.  Eventually, since the lion's share of submissions I made were for English classes, this became the most familiar process to me so often I'd throw caution to wind and ignore the sometime-stinging comments that came back.  

Her notes on my papers are amusing to read now.  They sound like a mother urging her child to take it's first steps.  Some prime examples: "This is a good effort - as far as it goes", "You have only begun to answer the questions you've posed", "Your reference form is inaccurate" and my personal favorite: "Keep trying, L'il Shaver!"

Okay, I added the "L'il Shaver" part but I'm reading between the lines.  Eventually we had a bit of a breakthrough and I moved from "Don't Stick That Up Your Nose" to "Very Good Discussion!" and finished with a respectable "B-".

I also decided I would rather become a rodeo clown than become a political journalist, so something good came out of it in the end, n'est pas?.

EPIC:
 


























FAIL:  http://www.wanderings.net/notebook/Main/HighSchoolEssayAnalogies   I officially did a copyright on the E.Coli one, by the way, so don't think about stealing it...

Did You Know That The Television Show "Wings" Was Actually A Documentary?

Hello, Kind Reader.

In the intervening summer months while going to university in Halifax I'd often limp home to save money.  This usually involved make-work-project-style jobs designed to give university students just enough scratch for a coupla text books, a flat of Kraft Dinner, or at least allow us to put a few shekels towards our primary student loan in the hopes of avoiding a mid-semester tete-a-tete with a pair of large swarthy men seeking good karma.

One year I was retained for the "Festival Coast Tourism Association".  At the time Stephenville and the Port-Aux-Port peninsula in Newfoundland was going through a marketing identity crisis for potential tourism.  It was an historical site but didn't have any museums or orientation centers to promote this.  It had beautiful scenery but no infrastructure to access it safely.  It had very little to attract shoppers (unless you counted the "Arlims" on Main Street).

But it did have a pretty decent little theater festival every year and celebrations like "Une Longue Veillee" attracted a fair share of interest in French heritage.

Then it's decided!  We'll call ourselves the Festival Coast and set up a student Tourism Association to promote it!  Awesome!

A part of the job was spending a few hours at our small airport manning the tourist information booth.  Needless to say, not a lot of traffic came through but the characters that did were memorable.  As an avid people watcher, I started to make a semi-fictional log from pages from the Tourist Register to amuse myself and a co-worker who shared the same duty.  Here's a segment of that log:

DATE       TIME          FLIGHT

Aug 10      1:20pm      Air Atlantic: Twin Peaks-Halifax-Stephenville

Odd assortment of humanity emerges from aircraft.  They all look as if their original flight went down somewhere but they just dusted themselves off and hopped on the next plane that happened by.  People in neck braces.  People missing arms, legs, eyes.  Little gnarled Hobbit-people.  Looks like a David Lynch casting call.  Very interesting.         

Supplemental 1:40 pm.  

A man with more hair on his back then on his head is waiting at the "Avis" rent-a-car booth.  A present-but-bored "Tilden" employee is trying to lure the man away with obscene hand gestures but he remains slavishly loyal to "Avis" 

Intense dude who habitually screams at archaic "Donkey Kong" video game seems in the throes of turmoil.  Unbeknown to him our Robo-Commissioner is stealthily approaching him from behind with a syringe of tranquilizing drugs, and not a moment too soon.  

Cute girl with long, curly brown hair in unfortunate "Raiders" jersey and very fortunate cut-off denim shorts seems oddly out of place.  

Video game dude stalks off in a huff.  The tranq has had no apparent effect on him.  For the first time in his storied career, Robo-Commissioner is forced to draw his gun (film @ 11)

DATE       TIME          FLIGHT         

Aug 10      1:55           Air Atlantic 1453 : St. John's-Gander-Cow's Head-Jerry's Nose

Airport flooded as a grand total of three people get off flight.  I am involved in a frantic twenty-minute information exchange orgy...NOT! ("Hey, kids, remember when that was funny? No?  Ooookay, then," - your humble narrator)  

Guest #1 looks lost as if he wandered back from lunch to a construction site but got on a plane by mistake.  

Guest # 2: yet another pretty brown-haired girl in minuscule denim shorts.  Things are looking up!  

Writing and ogling briefly interrupted by woman resembling Morticia Adams, curious as to what I'm going sitting at this booth.  I glare at her until she becomes uncomfortable and slowly drifts away.  

Guest # 3 whizzed by so quick I am unable to confirm gender.  Appeared to be clad in bizarre fashion-disaster formal sweatshirt and baggy M.C. Hammer pants.  Figure moved so fast it could also legitimately make claim of "untouchable" status a la source of fashion inspiration.  

DATE       TIME         FLIGHT

Aug 11      9:00am      Supplemental

Spent bulk of night watching Clint Eastwood western.  Between lack of sleep and violet content of film I am as cordial as a rabid wolverine this morning.  

Two genetic casualties are rubbing their heads together trying to figure out how to operate the payphones.  One lady looks in purse for help, doesn't find it within so throws in the proverbial towel.  

Dude who looks like reject from "Really Me" Canadian TV anti-drug PSA walks by.  He refuses the heroin I offer and asks me if I want to hop on a skateboard, get some pizza and play some "b-ball" with him.  As politely as possible I tell him to go f#@& himself.  

Another woman is denied phone gratification.  Is there something wrong with the phones or their potential operators?  

Unclaimed "Children of the Corn"-like brats are beginning to coalesce around my booth.  I will proceed to set out some poisoned "Spaghetti-O's" to address the problem.  

Actually helped someone looking for ferry information.  Go figure.  

Chick who announces flights sounds like she's been gargling with battery acid.

DATE       TIME          FLIGHT

Aug 11      9:30am      Air Atlantic Flight 1459 from "Gurgle...nargle...(unintelligible)"   

Cabbie who looks like he's not old enough to shave let alone hold a legitimate driver's license awaits new crop of potential passengers with vain expectant hope.  When no fares materialize he slinks out of the terminal presumably to go back to his vehicle and listen to Pink Floyd and play with a loaded revolver.  

Passengers themselves look like they're headed to a convention celebrating dreadful television show "Thirtysomething" ("Hey, kids, remember when that show was on T.V.?  No?  Ooookay, I'll just shut up now," - your increasingly crusty-sounding host).  Watching wanna-be yuppies acting obnoxious forces me to ask cabbie to borrow his revolver.   

Big, tall, imposing-looking dude who looks like a hit man for the Greek mafia approaches and asks where he can find my boss, Kelsey (named changed to protect the innocent).  During our exchange he chain-smokes and seems oblivious to a pronounced facial tic.  Since Kelsey is such a good friend, I give the mountainoid precise directions to his office and even helpfully provide a convenient map.  Who am I to impede a reunion between old friends? (Heh!  Heh!)  

I then proceed to convince a bewildered English gent who resembles a geriatric James Bond that he's still a member of the known universe.  He asks me some obscure questions about a rock quarry near Port Aux Basque so I follow standard procedure and laugh in his face.  He wanders away muttering thanks, seemingly content that at least he still has one foot in the material world (more or less).  With him is a diminutive midget bodyguard/manservant who seems prepared to protect him from enemy S.P.E.C.T.R.E. agents.  Which is good, because Stephenville is over-run with the bastards.  

Aug 11 1:00 pm.  Supplemental.

Although this is only the second day for my journal I believe I have stumbled upon a very therapeutic endeavor.  I've discovered that writing about this bizarre purgatory is a wonderful catharsis.  And, oh, yeah, it helps kill time too.  

Actually helped (?) a charming East Indian family from Gander (??) select an itinerary of "Things to see" on the Port aux Port Peninsula (???).    That's a grand total of two people I've helped today.  I feel like going out and getting drunk in celebration.  

Woman with facial mole the size of an Eggo takes a seat close by.  Stay tuned!  

DATE       TIME        FLIGHT

Aug 11      9:30am      Air Atlantic Flight 1458 from Half-a-lax

Very casual crowd.  Perhaps the greatest assemblage of boring human beings gathered together in one place.  I fear a vortex of banality will open up to another plane of existence any moment and suck all of us inside. 

Mole-lady re-unites with her less-than-enthusiastic husband.  How touching!  

Man who looks like the kinda guy to get beat up in a "Twisted Sister" video asks my favorite question in the world: "Hey!  Is all this stuff free?"  I ask him to sign the register but this doesn't "register" with him.  

Just finished talking to two pompous Americans and two relatively civil guides (turns out "Mark Metcalf" there is one of the jackass Yanks).  One guy has lost his suitcase so they've been loitering around blasting me with rapid-fire questions that I'm forced to bulls#!^ through ("Hey, at least I sound like I know what I'm talking about!").  When the topic of Gros Morne National Park comes up and I let it leak that I've never been there the most obnoxious specimen says: "Typical!  Live here all their lives and have never seen the attractions!"

I vow to recover the prick's suitcase first and replace all his personal effects with incriminating lost and found detritus: leather gimp suit, ball gag and vibrating dildo dubbed "The Anal Intruder".

Now I know this all sounds churlish, but there is little truth in what you just read.  I was still a pretty shy, retiring kid at the time so the sass featured here is not just exaggerated but non-existent.  Anyone who knows me can vouch that I don't have a rude bone in my body, but sometimes it doesn't stop the sort of thoughts we all have when working with our fellow homo sapiens!   

Truth be told, especially in retrospect, I loved this job.  The airport gig only took a few hours of the day and the rest of my time was spent actually drumming up awareness about our region: doing press, composing reports and analyzing trends in our area.  Since it wasn't my employer's money being spent, often I'd be granted a level of autonomy as a twenty year old kid that I assumed I'd be afforded for the rest of my life as an adult.  These assignments left me with a lifetime of unreasonable expectations regarding employer trust, employee independence and freedom of process and procedure.      

Looking back at this, I'm stunned by how relatively idyllic these tentative steps were towards becoming a working man.   I actually enjoyed more autonomy, responsibility and leeway as a twenty-year old kid than as an adult pushing forty at my last gig.

I'd wager that's sadder than any sight in that airport...  

EPIC: McCarthy's Bar: A Journey of Discovery In Ireland  If you found my descriptions of the airport denizen's funny (which mean's you're going to hell, by the way), check out this book by Pete McCarthy.  The chapter "Boats and Planes" nearly killed me...

My review of this book and other books can be found here: http://apps.facebook.com/ireadit/redirect.php?next=view%2FmyReads.php%3Fuid%3D580791580%26refuid%3D580791580%26src%3Dprofileuseratom%26reviews%3D1

FAIL: http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/  Tread carefully, here there be dragons!  (Not to mention an inordinate amount of people who believe that pants are optional when you go shopping)

Also, here's an older comic I did a few years ago.  Hopefully you can see a bit of progress compared to the one I hope to post a bit later this week: