Writing showcase

I am on vacation this week, and I didn’t want to give up daily postings, but also I had a lot of things I was trying to get done, so I decided Monday through Wednesday would be other things I have written where I don’t really have anything to do with them.

I guess it goes back to The Bear in the Net. I care about that, but I don’t think I will spend a lot of time doing children’s stories. Still, posting that was good. Some people read it, and some people liked it, and that meant something to me.

I don’t know how anyone feels about the comic book, but I finally finished the screenplay based on the dream I had involving vampires and the All-American Rejects, and I let a fan read it, and she loved it, so I will take that. Yes, I write for me, and yet they are still meant to be read.

I can’t do too much posting with the screenplays. I want to sell them, so as intellectual property they need to be somewhat protected, but that’s not all I have, and most of the other stuff is never going to go anywhere.

The novel is too long for posting, and I think I would be pretty unhappy with it now. There is a novella that I wrote of “Hungry” before I wrote it as a screenplay, which I really needed to do first, but that’s kind of long too, and again, I would probably not be satisfied with the quality. I have an unfinished ghost story that still may become a screenplay, so that is off the table too.

That leaves us with a song, a couple of essays, and the things that we are actually going to use: one poem and two short story type things. And yes, they are getting some rewriting too.

Corporate Malfeasance was absolutely written while I was working at Intel, but there are other inspirations there too. That will probably go up Tuesday.

Cynic-rella came about after the accountant, so it’s a few years old, and honestly, I didn’t write it correctly the first time. What I did write has some interesting points, but I got lost in the lead-in without getting to the point. Therefore, it will be the most re-written.of the three. I have still kind of given the material as is, though. One night I was scheduled to do stand up comedy, and it was a bad week ending in the death of a pet, and I could not do what I normally did, so I just told them Cynic-rella and it worked.

Thursday and Friday should be reviews of bands that don’t have many songs available yet, and of course, all of this hinges on me being able to get an internet connection at least once a day. If I can’t, the material is still written, so will be there waiting for me.

That just leaves Monday, today, and a piece that is not cynical or satirical, but very close to my heart.

I have always wanted the magic wand solution, where good things happen and you never have to worry again. Big hopes have been selling a screenplay or winning on Jeopardy. I can rule out the second one now, but am still hoping for the first.

If I sell a screenplay, that will be amazing, and it will help financially, but it would probably take multiple sales to be able to write full time, and ultimately, I will still need to work. There is always the chance of contacts drying up, or losing a job, and accepting that was one thing, but I also had to learn that it was for the best, and there ended up being Biblical overtones.

I did try writing an essay about that, but putting in the specifics dragged it down, and leaving out the specifics made it weak. Somehow the answer to that was to turn it into a poem.

Daily Bread, by Gina Harris

Elisha, at the widow’s need

Found one resource she had left

Then made the oil multiply

Pouring in to pot and cruse and vase

Each filled container set aside

Until she could repay her debt

I am more like the widow of Zarephath.

In a lean and hungry time

She took Elijah as her guest.

Oil multiplied, and meal,

But only day by day.

Never empty, but not overflowing,

Until the famine went away.

I’d like to see Heaven’s windows open,

Spill out in plenty over me,

See the fruits of years of toil

Blossom with great rapidity.

But I might find, were that the case

That sloth would grow from too much ease.

Perhaps I’d think the glory mine,

And spend less time on bended knee.

Enough for a day is still enough.

Not rich, I am still loved and fed

Remembering always, I need Thee

And always granted daily bread.

Concert Review: Keane – The Breadth of Life

This may be my most rambling poorly organized review ever, but we’ll see how it goes.

For the concert itself, it was really good. As I said, it was the first concert that I have gone to alone, and knowing that can turn out okay has opened up my options some, as I have bought single tickets to three concerts since then. (To be fair, those are all general admission shows, as Keane was, so other people can join up later and it’s not an issue.)

One thing that I found kind of funny is that I got a great e-mail from the Crystal Ballroom (venue) on the day of the concert, with information about line and times and it was very helpful, but either there or on a sign, there was a warning about bright lights, in case you were seizure sensitve. Honestly, it never got that strobe-y, but I am not prone to seizures so what would I know. However, it was brighter than most shows, which meant that my photos were less awful than usual, which is why I have included a few.

The concert was really good. I came home and sent a tweet to Keane and Richard Hughes (drums – he’s the only one on Twitter last I checked, but he is my favorite so it works out) that it was perfect, and they played every song that I could possibly have wanted. Later on I thought of others that they could have played that would have been nice, but still, it was great song after great song, and the crowd was really into it.

The crowd was much younger than I expected, and I had some very annoying young people push in front of me, which would have been okay if the girls hadn’t been so stupid and the one guy hadn’t been so tall. However, the other guy, after one of the songs we just kind of looked at each other, and nodded, and we had this moment. I don’t know you, and your friends have irritated me, but at this moment we are emotionally in sync because of our response to the music, we are united, and that was kind of cool.

Like many people, my first introduction to Keane was hearing “Somewhere Only We Know” on the radio, and it instantly grabbed me. It’s a very powerful song. Based on that alone is pretty much why I wanted to see them back in 2006. Honestly, I hadn’t thought much about their music beyond that, until later. 

I guess the first step came at, if I recall, a McDonald’s in Rotorua New Zealand. I think that’s where we were. It was on that trip anyway. We were eating in the restaurant and they had a video screen, and they played some pretty good videos, including “Is It Any Wonder”. I realized I liked it, so I was going to watch it again, and that led to more videos. There were two songs that ended up being especially important to me shortly after.

I have written before about how the period of unemployment that followed that trip, and how much it altered my sense of myself, and the depression that came with it. Yes, My Chemical Romance’s “I’m Not Okay” was my anthem for the rebellious side of that, but for the aching side it was ”Everybody’s Changing”.

I have also written how the loss of the job was quickly followed by illness, and isolation, and then death, and they helped me there too. It took a while to find a song for Josh, and that ended up being “Kids in the Street” by the All-American Rejects, but right away there was a song for Uncle Paolo, and that was “A Heart to Hold You”. It wasn’t even a regular track. It was something they did on a radio show, but people recorded it and loaded it to Youtube, with stills of the bands or scenes from TV shows. It would have been easy to miss, but it found me at the right time, when I needed it.

Frank Iero was writing lately about losing people and how hard it is to be helpful, and I’ve run into that too. I am religious, I believe these separations are temporary, but it doesn’t stop the pain. There would be something wrong with our hearts if we didn’t feel it. So, all you can really say is “I’m sorry this hurts and I know I can’t help, but I care”, and somehow that does help. I think it’s because you take away the pressure for them to feel better, which will proceed at its own pace. 

So if we need to feel the pain, and sometimes we have hard times dealing with it, music is amazingly powerful for that need. In fact, there is a definite ache to many Keane songs, and that is not a bad thing. Sometimes it is an ache that not only you relate to, but you specifically need, because they’re putting it in the song somehow takes a piece of the burden for you. 

In addition, they do it beautifully. I love guitar, and I have written about that a lot, but does any band use piano and keyboards better than Keane? I don’t think so. Thank you Tim Rice-Oxley. Combine that with Tom Chaplin’s amazing voice, and so often their music just soars. They send that pain into the sky, and perhaps that’s why there ends up being so much hope to it.

For some of the band’s other good qualities, it may be easier to start with a song that I did not like right away. “Disconnected” was the first track I heard off of Strangeland. Actually, it was not just hearing it, it was also seeing the video. 

Now the video is a really well-done homage to old Italian horror movies. They have really captured the look and feel and mood of them; it is amazingly done. I don’t really care for those movies, and so initially I was not thrilled with the song.

As I listened to it more, I could see how it really fit. Without spoiling too much of the video, it seems to be a story of a haunting, where the haunter and the hauntee is not immediately clear. There is a man, and a woman, and they once loved each other, but they cannot see each other now, they can only be aware of a supernatural presence.

The song is about something undefined that is creeping into a relationship, and slowly separating the two from each other. It’s an old issue, perhaps the same one at the root of “Dustland Fairy Tale”, however here they take it from the prosaic drifting apart to focus more on the eerieness of it; how is this happening? Are we powerless against it? And in that sense, the video is perfect.

So that’s two other things that I wanted to point out. One is there commitment to the visual artistry of the videos, as a natural extension to the art of the music. I haven’t seen all of their videos, but from what I have it’s a common thread. They have some really amazing short films.

Also, I have to give them credit for a lot of intelligence, and a serious application of it to the human condition. That sounds stuffy, but it isn’t. They have a broad catalog, and it covers a lot. “Disconnected” is about a relationship that is losing its power but the trappings are still there, but they have other songs about physical separation, and togetherness. There are songs about helping yourself, and about helping each other. Sometimes it gets existential, and often there is a feeling of something more, but they cover a lot. 

So there are songs that have meant a lot to me in different ways, and there may be songs that haven’t resonated with me yet, but will. I have not gone through and nerdily created a spreadsheet tracking every single emotion and situation they cover, but you know, now that I have thought about it, I might. Anyway, that’s what I mean by “breadth”. There is depth, but it is the broadness of their scope that speaks to me more.

Keane added Jesse Quin in 2007, and I think he adds an interesting energy to the band, but they are still very much them: beautiful, intelligent, and full of meaning. I’m glad they’re around.

http://www.keanemusic.com/

Band Review: Youngblood Hawke

The review gave me a serious case of cognitive dissonance.

First let me cover the band I saw. I admit I walked in late, so I may have missed some things, but what I thought I saw was very much a 70’s band, builidng up the hair and glam a little bit as they transitioned into the 80’s. Actually, seriously I thought they could have been guys that had gone to school with my brother (class of ’83), but had not aged. I kind of started looking for Ron and Darren.

That did not make me particularly happy, because never having heard of Youngblood Hawke before, I kept thinking of Hawkwind, so seeing the 70’s clothes and hair made me think I was going to find myself back in the Pulsing Cavern, and I was annoyed in that cavern!

Fortunately, they were fine. It was only a few songs that did not really stick with me, so I stayed fixated on the clothes and hair. I did see them taking pictures with people out front after the show, which I respect, but I knew that any real analysis of their music would have to come later.

Well, that brings us to Spotify listening, and this is where things did not seem to match up. First of all, suddenly there was a woman. I’m not saying that it’s impossible that there was a woman on that stage, but it had seemed to be all males, and suddenly listening to their recordings it sounded very female. There is one in the band, but she seems to be a much bigger part of the vocals than I had noticed at the show.

Also, it turns out that they don’t really have many songs. They are a new band, working on new material, so this makes sense, but they really only have four songs. However, they have 24 tracks on Spotify. How did this happen? Lots of repetition. The five top hits are exactly the same as the five singles, and under albums you have those same five again plus commentary on four of them. Why only four? Because one of those five is just an acoustic version of “We Come Running”. Also, I’m not sure it is truly acoustic. There is less electronica, but it is still there.

The other six are different mixes of “We Come Running” There’s the Tiesto Remix, the RAC Mix, the Knocks Remix, Spacebrother Remix, Vicetone Remix, and BIZNIZ Remix. I’m not sure I understand the difference between a mix and a remix. Actually, the main point I want to make here is that if you listen to their whole catalog this way, you will hear “We Come Running” 12 times; “Stars”, “Forever”, and “Rootless” three times each, plus the four commentary tracks. Obviously this seems insane so I decided to do it.

You know, it wasn’t awful. They do fall firmly in the category of “not my thing”, which it is good to be okay with, and “We Come Running” does finally stick in my head now, so even though the show did not manage that, listening to it 12 times in a row did. (I still don’t really remember the other three.)

They do have a definite spirit to them, and I did see them being attentive to fans, so maybe they just need more time. Eventually they will have more songs. I don’t know that any song will ever be improved by a club mix, but again, there are people who like that sort of thing. I could conceivably check in on them again in a few years.

That being said, I am finally cured of hearing “indie” and thinking that’s the logical follower to “alternative”. It hadn’t quite sunk in with M83 yet, but I’ve got it down now.

The Year of Magical Concert-Going

Yes, this was not either of the previous two choices, but I have been so ecstatic about my concert-going lately that it’s just on the brain.

Now, if we hark back to Concert Scorecard, I have been having really good luck, and suddenly I have also bought tickets to The Gaslight Anthem, Mindless Self-Indulgence, and Fall Out Boy is coming, though the tickets are not on sale yet.

So, I was already feeling like rock was smiling on me, and then two things got me thinking. One is that my sisters asked me whom I had left. Technically that would be Jimmy Eat World, Maroon 5, and My Chemical Romance. Also, thinking about the Revenir show Sunday, I do feel bad that I won’t get to see it, but I decided mentally that it’s okay because they will be here in September.

This kind of got me into a train of thought that hey, maybe I can just make it happen. Therefore, if I am somehow the driving force behind the end of the Fall Out Boy hiatus, you’re welcome! (Actually, Mark Hoppus says it was his idea, and I believe him.)

Anyway, as lovely as it was to see The Fixx in August, I am going to say this lucky streak started October 28^th with the All American Rejects. Then we have the Gin Blossoms on November 10^th, The Killers on December 5^th, and Keane on January 8^th.

Concerts that are scheduled and which you better believe I will attend include The Gaslight Anthem in April, Mindless Self Indulgence in May, and Fall Out Boy in June. That seems to leave February bare, but actually I am going to see Toque Libre Friday night, so I’m calling it good.

In some ways it might be fair if my luck only continues through September, because otherwise that’s more than a year, and yet, I don’t see how My Chemical Romance could possibly get here before December, so I am going to call it as 2013 being the lucky year, and it just happened to start a few months early.

Revenir in September still feels good. That gives them time to get the record out, tour closer to home, and work their way out here. That leaves July, August, October, and November.

Jimmy Eat World should totally come in July. Their record is already finished, and we are much closer to home for them.

I don’t think Maroon 5 is plausible for this year, because they are already touring and already and they don’t have a Portland date. They are the one I am most ambiguous on, though, so it’s okay.

Now that we have covered the biggest priorities, who is good for those remaining three months?

Well, I would love to see Charlie Sexton again. He would be lovely in November. Should a spoken word show count? I have seen Henry Rollins before, but actually, I did have to leave early because of Maria. To be fair, he can talk for three hours straight, so it is not entirely her fault, but he can come in October.

That just leaves August. The funny thing is that we are taking a road trip to South Dakota, so maybe we should just go see someone in Sturgis. However, I have been thinking about a couple of bands here. Green Day and Blink 182 both have new stuff out. Green Day I have seen, and it was a great show. Blink I have avoided, sensing that perhaps they would be so immature that I would not be able to enjoy it. Years later, perhaps they would be more mature.

Or, if we take the healing to include not just missed shows, but also disappointing shows, a good Foo Fighters or Cheap Trick show would also be in order. I may need more than a year’s worth of luck.

Anyway, that’s how I say things are going to be, and my logic is clearly flawless.

Naw, I know there’s no logic, but it kind of doesn’t matter. Great things have happened, additional great things are scheduled, and I’m just happy. You can be happy for me too.

I guess if I shouldn’t pick on you, I shouldn’t pick on your music

It turns out that I can combine tolerance for other bands with Ask.fm, so I still really haven’t made a choice. There would not be a logical connection between Amazon Studios and defending Katy Perry, though, so we still have some suspense for tomorrow.

I guess the first thing to do is to reference once again that I am now connected to a lot of young people through Twitter. I don’t think I have really written that much in the blog about that, but I mention it a lot in conversations because it is always on my mind, and it is probably what is having the greatest influence on my life right now. I will get more into that at some point.

Anyway, part of that is that I am learning about things I would probably not encounter in other ways. One of these has been Ask.fm. It is a web site where you can register so people can ask you anonymous questions. A lot of the people I follow use it.

As anyone who has spent time on the internet knows, anonymity can bring out some horrible bits of human nature. There are occasionally normal questions and compliments, but there also ends up being a lot of vulgarity and a lot of harassment and some really crude harassment.

My initial response was disbelief that anyone would keep inviting these questions, but I do understand the need for contact. I do understand the desire to have someone be interested in you. Most of my bad spells come from that lack, actually. And yes, a lot of it is boredom too, where really, they should go read a book or something, but growing up along with this developing technology has resulted in a different mindset, and that will be interesting to explore at some point also.

So initially I would see these posts “Ask me something, please!” and have no idea what it meant, and then I got what it meant but would see all the sexual questions and suggestions to go kill yourself and name-calling and have no idea why anyone would put up with it, and just recently I have started asking questions, and trying to come up with good questions.

Honestly, it feels like a lot of pressure. Perhaps I should come up with a stack of questions that I can rotate through. I did get one “Best question” with an answer, though, so hey, I could be doing worse. (That particular question was “Superpower: super strength, invisibility, or flying?”)

The thing is, okay, I am at a point where I don’t need to invite questions. If I were to set up something like that, I would want it to be more in-depth or more for advice, because I have a different mindset and am at a different life stage and that’s fine. It doesn’t mean that their desire is invalid, and so if I can help gratify that, I should. This is new, I hope to get better at it, but for now, okay, it’s a reasonable accommodation to make.

Really, everything is new. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my even getting on Twitter, and between following and being followed, they were all known, either personally or because I was familiar with their work. My first random young person came about through My Chemical Romance, and seriously, I am still not sure how that happened, but it was cool. Then I picked up an All American Rejects fan, and slowly it started growing, picking up a small number through them. Okay, it was still good.

Everything changed one Friday in October. I was thinking that Friday Follows are dumb, and then I thought, who am I to think that, and decided to follow all suggestions for that day, adding about 80 follows. Even then, that put me at 280, and I follow 437 now, again, often happening in ways that I do not understand.

At the time, we still all had pretty good taste in music, but as my contacts grew, some horrible tastes crept in. I have had to block Justin Bieber because Alyssa keeps retweeting him, and I care about her, but not enough to read his tweets. I have also had to block Taylor Swift and the more popular members of One Direction.

Okay, I blogged quite a bit about what I have against boy bands and pop princesses, and it’s out there, and it still hold true, but if it means something to someone else, I don’t want to rain on that.

I cannot stand Lady Gaga. I think the reason she has to be so bizarre is because no one would pay any attention to her otherwise. However, Mandi loves her, and she finds things that she needs in there, and when she posts about getting ready for the concert and how Gaga took the doll she made, I favorite those posts, because someone I care about has been made happy, and I am grateful for that.

Some of these kids get a lot of grief for their musical tastes. I have mentioned before that I was lucky that my friends and I were all supportive of each other, and of each other’s music. Of course, that was in the 80’s, when you could reasonably like everything, and also, in my group we just didn’t feel the need to be jerks to each other. There were other people who did, and probably some people who were not jerks in junior high started in high school, but that was not part of my experience.

So now there is in fact music that I find horrendous and makes me want to puncture my ear drums, and also, a lot of music that I have no idea what it is, or if I will like it or not when I finally listen to it. I can honestly say, it doesn’t matter. What matters is being kind to each other. If you’re doing that, you’re not going to be picking on each other’s music, or hounding them about their ex and encouraging suicide anonymously.

It’s not my job to tell anyone else how to be. I need to worry about how I am and the correct answer is always going to be kind and loving.

That being said, if I can help introduce some people to better music, I’ll feel good about that, but I’m not going to make them feel bad about what came before. People come up with enough bad feeling on their own. I don’t need to add to it.

Spotify Playlists

A very busy, overloaded time turns into a vacation Saturday afternoon, so while I am excited, I still have a lot of things I need to do, and am feeling a little bit muddled, including regarding knowing what to write about. This week could be technology or music, so the logical place to start is Spotify. Whether the next two days end up being AskFM and Amazon Studios, or respecting other people’s musical choices and please don’t make me defend Katy Perry, I really don’t know yet.

(By the way, rock continues to smile on me. Fall Out Boy is off hiatus and will be here June 18th.)

I have already written about Spotify, and using it over Youtube to check out music before buying, because it seems to be a better way of getting the artists money. It is not perfect. First of all, they don’t pay much at all. It sounds like Pandora pays more, but of course you have less control over that. Also, while a lot of the Youtube videos would not generate anything for the artist, it seems that some do, probably through Vevo especially. So, if anyone has other suggestions for places to listen and explore, I would be interested.

The other issue is that there catalog still has some limitations. I can find a lot, but not everything. A good way to get at this to talk about my attempts to create playlists. For example, I had written some time ago about how there are certain songs that lead into each other for me, and so I thought that would be a good playlist. The proper sequence would be “Desolation Row” by My Chemical Romance, “We’re Not Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister, “Cum On Feel the Noize” by Quiet Riot, and “Run Run Away” by Slade. All was going fine until Song # 4, and they don’t have it. They have some Slade, but not that one.

So that was frustrating, and ultimately the solution there will be to have everything digital and make playlists in Media Player, which can be done. Also, though, sometimes bands don’t cooperate. The next playlist I made was “Merry Christmas from New Jersey”, and I had contributions from My Chemical Romance, Bon Jovi, and Bruce Springsteen, which was great, and I added “59 Sound” for The Gaslight Anthem, which is not super Christmas-y, but it does reference Marley’s chains, so I went with it, and would it have killed The Misfits to have at some point done a Christmas song? Come on! You have Silent Night, Deadly Night and Santa Clause versus the Martians as source material.

Actually, I suppose they might have; the Spotify catalog for the Misfits is a little spotty. That was actually an issue when I added the two Valentine’s Day lists. If you will recall, last year I posted a love song that I did not find stupid daily from February 1st through 14th, and after mentioning that to Lisa, she gave me her alternatives, which included “Saturday Night”, which took a hold of me, and playing that obsessively led me to My Chemical Romance, and everything that followed from that. Seriously, I still have not been an MCR fan for an entire year. So, I put both of those lists up, but you know which song is missing? “Saturday Night”, which was the most important.

For that issue, what Spotify has for the Misfits seems to lean more to their new configuration, and I don’t know how I feel about that, though they seem to be having more fun now.

Speaking of the Misfits, I did do a Halloween playlist, going from that blog post plus adding some songs I had not known at the time, and that included their “Monster Mash”, because they whole point of that post was that people focus on the original “Monster Mash” and “Thriller” to the point where it’s ridiculous. There’s a nice body of spooky songs out there. True to form though, Spotify does not have “Dracula’s Tango” by Toto Coelo, which would be a good fit.

I have one more playlist, which frankly, is a mess. I started doing it for 12/21/12, where the world did not end, of course, but if it had, what would you listen to. And the problem is that it’s just too much of a hodgepodge. Some of it is apocalyptic, some of it about hope and keeping on, some of it is about specific time constraints, and some of it was just because hey, if I’m on my way out, I want to listen to this one again. Therefore some of it was also reasonable for New Year’s Eve, but it needs better organization.

Actually, I don’t know if I will get back to it. I still have so much else to listen to, and explore, that I don’t know that I need playlists, though I do like my love song one. (Without “Saturday Night”, the only one I really love on Lisa’s is Sparks’ “Eaten by the Monster of Love”.) However, sometimes I think that even when I own the CD (or digital files) that I should still listen on Spotify so the band gets that extra sixteenth of a cent. Plus, if other people click on my lists, then I have gotten them to contribute to supporting bands I like. Well, if I get another good idea for one, I probably will.

Concert Review: The Killers

If I was not able to be wildly enthusiastic about their openers, I am indeed about The Killers. As I posted yesterday, the audience was pretty into M83 and Tegan and Sarah. Some people stood at times, or danced. They definiitely clapped. It was just nothing compared to when the headliner took to the stage.

The excitement had been building. We knew they were coming. Then the house lights went down, and they came out, and with one accord we all rose to our feet and cheered.

It’s you! We’ve been waiting for you! We love you! You’re the reason we shelled out $50 a piece!
$50? We only charged $38.
Ticketmaster is evil, but we’ll put up with it because we love you!

And they received our love, and played a great show.

The funny thing about this, is that just before they came on, Karen and I had been talking. Now, Karen is the reason I go to Killers concerts. I have been to three with her. It’s not that I don’t like the band, but I don’t get passionate about them. In terms of the lamest thing I could possibly say, exposing myself as a total poseur, I love “Mister Brightside”, and play it often, but otherwise I am usually only listening to other songs of theirs when it is time for another concert and I am prepping. Oh, and I always play “Please Don’t Shoot Me Santa” a few times around Christmas. I love that one.

(This is similar to Duran Duran. My sisters love them, and I like them but just don’t normally think about them, but they put on great shows, and I am personally fond of the members, as I am of the Killers.)

Anyway, Karen was kind of complaining to me about how they just kept repeating the theme of “Dustland Fairytale”, where over and over it was about young lovers who became jaded, and that was all of Day & Age and half of Battle Born, I guess, and coincidentally this part of the conversation happened right before they went on, and suddenly she is standing and screaming and glowing, just like the rest of us.

Obviously, I had to tease her in as the most immature way possible. Since we had been talking about the songwriting issue mostly in regards to Brandon Flowers, who had said in an interview that he is most proud of “Dustland Fairytale”, I went with “You love him. You want to marry him and have millions of babies.” (Even though I know that she is quite happy with her husband and two children.)

In relation to the songs, my first thought was to wonder if Brandon’s marriage was in trouble, and I hope not. If only half of Battle Born is that theme, maybe they are okay. I may be being too literal there.

Seriously, I have been paying more attention to comments now, and so many people were thrilled with the “Miss Atomic Bomb” release, and others have been liking Battle Born less, and others have said they only liked the first album, Hot Fuss.

I have been listening to them more now, and I sort of get where everyone is coming from, and I understand more now what music critics mean by “irresistible pop hooks”. There are songs on Hot Fuss that have them, but off hand I would say that is only about half of the songs.

A lot of Killers songs aren’t really poppy at all. I almost feel like they are more of an adult band, and the playfulness of some of their early songs made them look like that was not the case, but that really they are about mature themes with an Old West sensibility. I do feel the Nevada desert and sweet Mojave rain when I am listening to them.

There may indeed be a rut there. It was around this time that I listened to the Smodcast with Kevin Smith and the Way brothers, and Smith talked about needing to be revitalized at one point, even though he had his dream job, or perhaps because he already had his dream job. It can be legitimate for a band to make gradual progression down one road, or to have sudden shifts and reinvent themselves, and if it’s working for that band, that’s okay.

That being said, while I do believe Karen sincerely felt that was the case, no, it’s not. There are similar themes on the album before, Sawdust, but come on, “Human” and “Spaceman” are on Day & Age. That some themes pop up frequently is, I think, fairly common, but they aren’t mired in it, and the other thing that I think is really important is that the music changes around quite a bit, regardless of what the lyrics are saying. There is a lot of variety.

Okay, my love for “Mr. Brightside” and “All These Things I’ve Done” could mark me as pretty pedestrian, but “Tranquilize” is an amazing song, and I am overall enjoying listening to them, though I feel like there is still a lot to discover.

For Battle Born specifically, which I got for my birthday, so far I really love “From Here On Out”, which may be a good example of both the band’s range and the Western influence. “Be Still” is beautiful and comforting. It’s not exactly spiritual, but it feels like its underpinnings are. I think “The Way It Was” is pretty good too. What’s interesting to me is that there are references to the last and title track, “Battle Born” in the first track, “Flesh and Bone”, and I feel like there are overarching themes that I just haven’t picked up on yet, and that I want to.

Okay, there are songs and bands that touch you in an immediate and powerful way—musical soulmates, if you will –and those are important, and it would be easy to listen to nothing else, and that has kind of been my pattern. However, you can miss out on a lot that way.

That’s why I feel that this branching out that I have been doing is good for me. I may find other soulmates, but I may also build kinships that are different but still rich, which is my way of saying that I will be listening to the Killers more, even if there are other bands that I still must and will listen to every day. There’s still room for new heights and new depths.

Perhaps that is why I found it such a joy to watch Ronnie Vanucci Jr. drum. I kind of doubt he changed the way he is doing it, but I love it and I’d never noticed it before. Probably the change is in me.

For pointless but possibly amusing stories, on our way in the usher was asking who the band was, and the name didn’t ring a bell, but I knew if I sang a bit of the chorus to “Somebody Told Me” she would recognize it, and she did. Karen had tried that with someone earlier in the day, and they looked at her like she was a total freak. I just knew it would work. Also, by the end I was getting really thirsty, and as they sang and showed video clips of “All These Things That I’ve Done”, where Brandon has his face in the puddle, I know it’s not the intended reaction but I was really jealous. It looked much cleaner and more delightful than your average desert puddle.

Concert Review: M83 plus Tegan and Sara

I went back and forth on whether to treat these bands separately or together. Both of them played before The Killers, so I saw them together, but going to see the Rejects led to five separate posts and a screenplay. In this case, there are similarities in some ways where it makes sense to treat them together, which I shall now proceed to explain with much guilt.

Let me be clear, I enjoyed them both, and would totally be fine with either of them opening up for another band at some point. They did a good job, I felt personally engaged, they had the audience with them, and it was completely fine. I initially thought I would just have a three-band review week. Then I started listening to their discographies.

This is actually an interesting thing, because I can enjoy a band in performance where listening to them in other forms drives me crazy, and I wouldn’t have necessarily guessed that. Perhaps there is something about a live situation where matters of personal taste are less important. That’s really kind of cool. So with no personal rancor at all, M83 and Tegan and Sara both are not my thing.

I know they are other people’s things. While I was wrapping up listening to M83, someone tweeted about one of their songs, “Midnight City”. His exact words about it were”nomnom”, which is pretty high praise, so I listened to it again, and I could kind of get why he would like that specific one, and it would stand out more, but in general, none of them did stand out to me. I could tell some had been played at the concert when I was listening, but then they left my head again, leaving me with nothing but vague annoyance. So if anyone wants to tell me a Tegan and Sara song that they love, I will give it another listen, but I don’t have high expectations.

Wikipedia has been fun again for looking up both bands. The common link between the two seems to be synth pop, and indie also came up for both, but there were many new terms that came up with M83, including shoegaze, dream pop, and indietronica. Synth pop may make the most sense, as synthesizers did play an important part there and, well, it didn’t feel like rock to me. Actually, I had been thinking it was almost like ambient music, and they did use that term for M83 also.

Let me back up a bit to before the concert. I had never heard of M83. I had heard of Tegan and Sara, but I didn’t know any of their songs. On hearing the name, my first thought is always Tevin Campbell, of “Round and Round” fame. Then I realize the names do not sound that much alike, and in a case of horrible stereotyping that shows that I am a bad person, think that maybe they will sound somewhat like Indigo Girls. The truth is somewhere in between. I felt like there was a bit of the folksy/hippie vibe of the Indigo Girls, but instead of their mellow harmonies, it was a bit higher-pitched and synthetic, leaning more towards Campbell in that way.

Actually, that higher pitch may have been part of my problem. My dog left the room, and he stayed all the way through my singing my Non-Annoying Love Songs playlist. I don’t think that’s a vocal quality issue, but dogs are sensitve to the higher register, and possibly so am I. At one point I found Tegan and Sara reminiscent of the Cranberries, at least on “Dreams”, but I don’t really listen to the Cranberries either.

Again, this didn’t really bother me at the concert, and I have to say that as people they were delightful. They were so polite and appreciative. They did mention being from Canada at one point, but we had already figured that out. So I wish them well, but they are not for me.

With M83, it was almost more performance art than a concert. Perhaps that is one reason that the music was less of an issue, because it was almost superfluous. They did shoegaze a little, though apparently that is supposed to have more guitars (which would have been nice). There was a lot of dancing around and banging on things, which was cool. The light setup was interesting. They had these light stacks where I don’t know if they were actually connected to the bass or treble, but it could have been, and I liked that. If I were a DJ, I could see using something similar.

Karen leaned over to me and said “Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance”, and she was right, except, and she said this too, they weren’t depressed enough. They were not all in black and gaunt, so we figured they were not German. Karen thought maybe Belgian, but actually they are French, from Antibes. It works.

Again, I would totally willingly watch them again with a band I really wanted to see, and I hope they do well, because there are people who like that, and I am all for people finding their audience, even if I do not belong in the equation. But I’m not bringing them up anymore. You know, they had a real opportunity on “Bruits de Train”. They could have put some “chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga” in it, and I was so hoping for something like that. I heard no train noise whatsoever. But hey, it’s over, the review is done, the sting is gone.

It’s a good thing we resolved my negative review issues yesterday.

Comic Review: Wolves and The Mire, by Becky Cloonan

So, it has been two months since my first comic review, and honestly, while I have talked a few people into checking out Memorial, that seems to be more from my conversation with them than anyone actually reading the review.

The lack of influence didn’t stop me, or I’d have given up blogging a long time ago. There were two other areas of hesitation. One is that I always feel a little iffy reviewing anything, like who am I to comment on it? The other is that these were the two works that it made the most sense to review next, and I still wasn’t sure that I’d understood them.

Two things helped me move past that, though I didn’t realize it until today. Yesterday The Gaslight Anthem tweeted a link to a Tumblr review which was passionately favorable about their music, but kind of not about their musicianship, as in “Sometimes Brian Fallon’s voice is up to snuff, sometimes it isn’t.” I’m here like, What are you talking about? They’re amazing! Seriously, I keep liking all of these little touches and thinking how good they are when they are playing, and she has listened to them more, but okay, you can criticize and the band can handle it.

That clicked in today when I read a post on Becky Cloonan. Again, it was very positive, but what resonated with me is that while reading it hit me that the writer, Nathanial Perkins, came away with a different understanding of Wolves than I did. He didn’t come right out and say his interpretation, but that is what I felt, and somehow this makes it okay for me to have doubts about the resolution. I’m not saying logical, but suddenly this was the thing to write.

I am going to treat the two together. They aren’t exactly sequential, but they are connected, and will be connected to a third mini-comic, Demeter, as part of a thematic trilogy.

Perhaps once I have gone through Demeter a few times, I will see them all in a new light.

First of all, let me say that the art is absolutely gorgeous. I love the expression and the detail in Cloonan’s work anyway. Actually, the first comic review included more of her work, and again, beautiful. First I am drawn to the people, and the eyes in their expressive faces, but the scenery too is rich and detailed, and important for the mood.

Let me see if I can explain that mood. Well, it’s easier to talk about The Mire. As Aiden works his way through the title setting, there are his thoughts, and the words of a letter from Owain, and there are parallels where it is hard to immediately know whose words they are. It is fitting, once the path Aiden is taking is understood. And yet, it is easy to get mired in the past, which has created the present.

In the case of The Mire, a few years past is catching up to the present, with a protagonist who is just as uninformed as the reader as he starts out. Perhaps that is why I felt like I was on more comfortable footing there. In Wolves, everyone is complicit. They may all have things that they don’t know right away, but their moments of understanding come, and make perfect sense, based on what has gone before.

If I was not sure of everything that the resolution to Wolves meant, well, that may not be the point. There is a plot, but it is more about what you feel as you are reading, and what you think afterwards and the lingering mood. They are books, but it seems fair to say that both pieces function more like snatches of poetry, or music.

Again, I’m not ruling out revisiting this after Demeter.

For now, I have not decided on a set schedule for reviewing comics. I just worked out how I’m doing music a few weeks ago. Even knowing that, I suspect at some point when I build up a head of steam on some socio-political topic that will take more than three days to cover, it will feel weird to break off for Thursday and Friday to review bands. At the same time, it may still be good for me, because those heads of steam often frustrate and depress me.

I can say that regarding my plan to buy some new comic and music every month, I took two months off for Christmas and my birthday, receiving three CDs and one comic between the two. I am set to buy again in February, but I am saving that for vacation. I have heard there is a pretty cool comic book store in Downtown Disney, and maybe I’ll see if Alturas has a new CD, as they always seem to be playing there, and I really like the one I do have, Caminos.

Also, I have been reviewing all comics on Goodreads when they are listed. It may make sense to save the blog reviews for single issues and just use Goodreads for bound works or compendiums, but I’m still feeling my way along on this one, as I do.

Thank you Rachel and Nathanial.

http://racheldbarber.tumblr.com/
http://multiversitycomics.com/columns/off-the-cape-wolves-the-mire/

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2012/11/first-comics-review.html

Wedding Bell Blue$

No, this title does not mean that I am getting married and worried about paying for it. I am also not depressed about not getting married (at least not at this time). It’s something different.

We have been talking to a number of engaged people recently (seven couples between the three of us), and we are happy for pretty much all of them, but it has been a strong reminder of how stressful getting married can be. Actually, the other night I dreamt of 70 people from out of town descending upon Oklahoma for the wedding of a couple that is not yet engaged in waking life. So, weddings are on the brain, but grounded in the details of reality rather than just a gauzy vision sparkling with fairy dust. I am no fun.

I was looking up something for one friend I had written up a few years back. It came out of an email thread with a different friend. It was essentially organizational, sorting out what she already had and what she could think about. I’m not sure how helpful it will be for this couple. I am toying with the idea of doing a better write-up that instead of starting with one couple takes things from scratch.

The one theme that would keep coming up is consciously choosing your priorities. That has always been my thing – mindfulness in general is important to me – but I was thinking about it more after a conversation with the mother of one of the engaged.

In this case, the bride’s family is in Utah, and the groom’s extended family is in Utah, and so there was the question of whether to do something here, and the answer seems to be no, the immediate family will just go to Utah.

There was some concern about that, but as we were talking I told her that often people don’t really even remember receptions. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I realized it was true. Sometimes I can remember specific things, but often not which couple it was.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression about that. I have enjoyed going to receptions, and visiting with people, and getting together with other people can totally be great, but there may be easier parties to throw.

One of the couples will be spending $5600 on their location. (From another couple, I know that there are places that charge significantly more for weddings than other events, though I don’t know if that applies in this case.) It is something they really want, and that’s their call. For me, that’s more than ten weeks of take-home pay, and it would be completely irresponsible.

I remember once helping roll rosebuds for a wedding favor. Basically it was two Hershey’s kisses in pink cellophane and then there was green floral tape and a wire. I can’t remember if we had leaves or not. Now, I did inded take my rose, and eat the two kisses after the reception, and the labor wasn’t awful because I think it was four or five of us doing it while chatting, so it could have been much worse. Still, I’m not sure it was the best use of resources. They did look nice.

Pretty much every component of a wedding is expensive. Sometimes you can mitigate the expense with labor, and some things are both a lot of work and money. Most of us don’t have a lot of money or time, so it is worth considering the actual value of any one componenet.

And yes, I did indeed go through and plan my dream wedding more than once on the path from little girl to adult woman. In fact, I know I still have at least one wedding dress sketch somewhere, along with a solution for how to make a veil work with my unruly hair.

It’s not that I don’t want things to be beautiful or memorable, but it’s a matter of realizing that a lot of what is standard is not essential, and then letting that liberate you to come up with something that works for you.

I know people who have skipped the cake, the flowers, and the dress. (Not all the same ones; those were multiple different receptions.) I have seen music come from a 4-piece string quartet and from an iPod. I have seen environments totally transformed, and not transformed at all. I have even seen the reception happen the night before the wedding because that day was just going to be too busy. I’m not saying some things didn’t work out better than others, but I’m not sure how much any of those details matter to any of those couples now.

After all, nervous exhaustion and bankruptcy is not the best way to start your future.

Link to the old post is here, but I can probably do better, and yes, my sisters and I are generally available to help.

http://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2009/07/bonus-wedding-issue.html

Away with the humble brag

The day we went to Yellowstone Park, the five of us were eating lunch and talking, and something in the conversation reminded me that I had just taken a medical terminology course and gotten 100% on the test on my first try. I felt really good about this, and wanted to mention it, and I was wondering if there was a way to get it into the natural flow of the conversation. There wasn’t, so I just told them.

I did not preface it as me doing a humble brag. It was not humble. It was merely a brag. It was also a brag in proper perspective. I knew that part of my success was that the material was really well organized, I knew that Jen knows more about anatomy than I do, but still, I felt good about it, and they felt good about it when I told them, and that was pretty much the end of it and we went on with talking about other things. It was a day of really interesting conversation and seeing cool things, and that was just a small part.

I have been thinking about this for a couple of reasons. One is that the term “humble brag” seems to be more prevalent. I’m not even sure if I had heard of it back in August. I know I have always thought it was stupid in principle, but I will get more into that later.

The other reason I have been thinking about it is because of how hard it seems to be for people to feel good about themselves, or like anything about themselves, especially the young.

In many of these cases, they haven’t really been given a good foundation, and there are lots of messages from society about them not being good enough. With all of those obstacles, I really hate that a false idea of what humility should be could be making things worse.

I know humility is important. I also know humility does not consist of tearing yourself down and only knowing what is wrong about you.

“Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. … It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone.” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)

I will give myself this level of credit: I got pleasure in doing well on the test. I took the course because a coworker recommended it. She also got a perfect score. I take pleasure in that too. Getting that score did not make me a better person than Jen, Steve, Julie, or Maria, none of whom are slouches intellectually. That’s part of why we could have good conversations all day. This was all good stuff.

I see girls comparing their bodies to the bodies of singers or models, and they feel inferior and they are miserable. I believe if they were coming from the other end, and comparing to others and feeling superior, that could lead to misery too. It might not be as direct a path, but I know at least one person who has a miserable life because he has only been able to look down on others. He has managed a lot of denial about his misery, but that’s still what it looks like to me.

And now I am judging him, and proud, darn it, except, I take no pleasure in being happier than him. I do take pleasure in being happy, but I would like him to be happy too, and there actually is enough happiness to go around.

People are posting all the time about not being happy, and wishing for it, and wondering if it is even possible. I vehemently say, yes, happiness is possible. It requires appreciation though. Some of this is gratitude for and acknowledgement of what you have, but also, it requires appreciation of others. Not jealousy, not competition, and not enmity.

I love you and want good things for you. I understand that good things happening for you does not take anything away from me.

Well, unless your greed and lust for power ends up destroying the economy or the environment and actively working against the happiness of many so your bank accounts can be larger even though you already have more than you can really spend. That’s actually NOT good for you though, so it still stands, and anyway, we’ll get into that more later.

Otherwise, like the things that you like, enjoy the things that you enjoy, and just own it. This is a good hair day. I am a skilled shopper. The dinner I made came out great! Take any little bit of luck or grace or blessing that comes into your life and be thrilled about it, and be just as thrilled for the good that others get. We’ll all be enjoying ourselves more that way. Try it.