If you like going to the DMV, or think our tax code is like totally awesome, then you’re going to LOVE going to the doctor once the government steps in to rescue our health care system! See you at the doctor’s office… in line… with all of our forms… and three ball point pens… and our birth certificates… and our checkbooks. Yay!
(CELEBRITIES ONLY)
5. Mickey Rourke – Rourke reportedly states that his plastic surgery was a means to simply correct the imperfections caused by years of amateur boxing. Fair enough. Nose job, no problem. Cheek implants, not really necessary, but I hear he broke a cheekbone. But the lip implants, face lifts, etc. seem to go above and beyond the call of duty.
4. Leona Helmsley – “We don’t pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes.” Ms. Helmsley was a tax evading hotel billionaire, and something of a tyrant. The Queen of Mean served 18 months in prison (reporting to the clink on, you guessed it, April 15… tax day). She saved enough of her fortune to succesfully mangle her face, however, before passing away from congestive heart failure at age 87.
She left most of her $4 billion estate to her own charitable trust, $15 million to her brother, $10 million each to two of her four grandchildren. The other two received nothing (allegedly because they did not name any of their children after their grandfather Harry). However, she did set aside $12 million to her dog Trouble. Aww!
3. Joan Rivers – Once the sidekick to late show legend Johnny Carson, Ms. Rivers has been the guinea pig for plastic surgeons since the late 80’s. But when her husband committed suicide just one week after she left him (she was having liposuction when she received the call), some speculated she spent many years and dollars trying to reinvent herself, to be somebody she never was: beautiful.
She is unabashed about having work done, and believes you should spend your money on you (literally). “Better a new face coming out of an old car, than and old face coming out of a new car.” Oh, the irony.
2. Donnatella Versace – Since taking over for her late father Gianni, Donnatella has undergone a series of interesting procedures, the most notable being her lip augmentation, which looks to me like two inntertubes stuffed under her skin then inflated to the point of bursting. Botox forehead, breast implants, and who knows what else, we sort of have to question the taste of this couture fashionista, do we not?
1. Michael Jackson – The recently deceased (cause of death wildly speculative though still under investgation) King of Pop is obviously the most extreme case of a makeover gone awry. We all know of his troubled youth, his abusive father, and his never-ending desire to be a child at heart. But we also know that he used to be a black man.
One of the most important black men in history, as a matter of fact. He brought people of every shape, size and color together in rejoice. All of the infamy did nothing to assuage the troubles lurking beneath the surface. A severe addiction to pain killers, and what many speculate to be a passion to shed his ethnicity, lead to a series of incrementally damaging surgical procedures.
Not only did he lose the ability to not look startled, the ability to smell through his undersized triangular nostrils, and the ability to grow facial hair on his cleft chin without looking like a prepubescent criminal, but he also bleached his skin from head to toe supposedly in order to match the pigment loss caused by an apparent case of vitiligo, a condition also suffered by Chris Smith of the 90’s rap duo Kriss Kross.
(This is a new section, which I plan to update weekly. Each week I will build a five song playlist around a theme. I will try to be as specific and unexpected as I can, while still offering up cohesive mixes. Enjoy!)
My very first theme is what I’m calling the Houndstooth Blues. Each of these songs conjured images of a lonely Scotsman in his bedroom on a rainy afternoon, thumbing his Houndstooth vest with vacant eyes gazing past his ruddy window sill. If you’re not sure what Houndstooth is, well, nevermind then!
1. Ed Harcourt Shadowboxing
2. Andrew Bird Armchairs
3. Duran Duran Ordinary World
4. July Skies The English Cold
5. Thomas Dybdahl One Day You’ll Dance for Me, New York City
“This one’s for the critics and their disappointed mothers.” – Spencer Krug
My new favorite TV show? Why have I never heard of this? So wonderfully shot, edited, and even the host is interesting. Gotta love rights-free terms like “Facetube” and “Gamestation”. Ha.
Dear Work,
Today was a big day for our daughter Grace; it was the day we decided to upgrade her from a crib to a daybed. It was easy, just remove a front rail and replace it with a single crossbar. Nothing to it. Shortly after converting the bed, we brought her into her room and she jumped right up and got “cozy”. She loved it at once.
Later in the afternoon it was nap time, and we tucked her in with her favorite blanket and mommy’s pillow (you know, because she’s a big girl now).
Fifiteen minutes later, as Erin and I were eating lunch in the dining room directly below Grace’s room, we heard a THUD. We were prepared for the possibility of Grace falling from her bed a few times before getting used to it, of course, but didn’t expect it so soon.
We rushed upstairs to find our two year old bawling on the floor, on her knees, with mommy’s pillow entirely over her head. She had somehow managed to get herself caught between the pillow and the slipcase. No suffocation, mind you, plenty air thru the cotton.
We picked her up and did our normal consoling, the same as we do when she falls on the pavement or bumps her head on a table. But this time was different. This time she wouldn’t hug us like normal. This time she only held onto us with her left arm, keeping her right arm tucked against her little ribcage.
We didn’t like that, so we tested her out to see if anything could get her to loosen up after her understandably traumatic fall. A popsicle maybe? Nope. A walk outside on the grass, perhaps, one of her favorite things? Nope. Nothing was working, she kept nursing that right arm, and crying in surges whenever it was affected.
Erin drove Grace to the hopsital, where she was admitted into the ER and x-rayed, all the while hysterical and in pain. After a couple of hours the results were back. The x-ray had confirmed the doctor’s suspicion:
Grace had fractured her collar bone clean through.
She needed immediate anti-inflammatory medicine along with pain relief. Six hours, a makeshift sling (they don’t make proper slings for two-year-olds), a steady supply of Children’s Motrin and a prescription for Tylenol 3 later, Grace is back in her bed, asleep, for now.
Yes, I turned her bed back into a crib shortly after the incident. Yes, I am harboring a high amount of guilt at the decision to upgrade our daughter’s sleeping situation. And yes, I’d like to work from home tomorrow and be with my daughter in her time of stress and pain.
I hope you understand, as I hate to have to miss coming into work. Please call or write if there is any need for me to be present. I will try and work it out.
Thank you for understanding,
…ryan
UPDATE: We visited the orthopedic doctor today, who gave us an XS sling for her arm, which she doesn’t want to wear but we try and keep it on. She’s doing well today, all things considered. A little hazy from the medicine, but her normal self, with little regard for the golf ball sized red lump on her collar. Doctor things three weeks and she’s back to normal, four days before the pain subsides. Here’s to hoping.
“Of all the forces in the universe, the hardest to overcome is the force of habit.” – Terry Pratchett
Caveat: It is well established that he does his guitar slides backwards, and it’s well commented on as well. Just a heads up.
If you know anything about 90’s rap music, you’ll know who CL Smooth is (of the group Pete Rock and CL Smooth). And if you know anything about pop culture, you’ll have heard of American Chopper, and of Paulie Jr. formerly of Orange County Choppers.
And if you’re like me, you’re wondering: “How did I not notice before how much these two guys look alike?”
I know, and I feel your startled reaction just like I felt it earlier this afternoon. But rest easy; I’m on the case, and on the hunt for any other cross-culture dopplegangers out there.
If you have any, please let me know. The more professionally disparate the better.
As we all sit on pins and needles now that Robin Pecknold has cut his hair, trimmed his beard and abandoned his Twitter account, signs that he may have made a wise decision begin to emerge, as demonstrated by this brand new—unaccompanied—Fleet Foxes studio performance for the BBC6.
The song is tentatively called “Blue Spotted Tail,” and even on his own—without the Josh, Casey, Skylar or Christian to wash it with harmonies and echoed instrumentation—the band looks poised to deliver on last year’s promise of continued greatness.
The song itself is a calm, introspective affair, tasked more with asking questions than sharing wisdom. See “Why is life made only for to end?” or “Why in the night sky are the lights on?” as exhibit’s A and B. The way Robin moves from major to minor notes—both with his guitar and with his voice—harkens to the great folk of yesteryear, going back to Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, and Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger before them.
This is timeless music, the hardest kind to make, the best kind to hear.
“No Need to Light a Night Light on a Night Like Tonight”
by Snowglobe.
Sometimes a picture is worth more than a thousand words. Sometimes they are worth a thousand laughs. I have burned well over 50 calories today on this site. So transcendent. So classic. So timeless.
SO ADDICTIVE!
When Sharon Van Etten sings “I do,” on the second track, “For You,” from her debut LP, “Because I Was In Love,” we do not imagine altars or fresh flowers, no bridesmaids or groomsmen, no priests or witnesses. Rather, the words slip from somber lips to fill her empty bedroom. Pictures of her beloved lay spread across her sheets, spilling from an up-ended shoebox, tattered from the months spent inside her closet. A pressed rose falls from the diary she’s reading, blood red and bone dry. Mascara runs down her cheeks and the ashtray is full. Empty wine glasses line her side table to the point of falling off.
Whoever he is, he is gone, that much is clear, and we spend eleven tracks tragically learning this fact, listening to her confessions and questions over minimally forlorn arrangements. And we are somehow transfixed, because in one way or another, we have all been there. We have lost someone, whether it be a lover, a friend, a family member. We know the tragedy she issues forth song after song.
But enough hyperbole and metaphor; onto the album.
Recorded in a small studio by Greg Weeks (of the band Espers), “Because I was In Love,” is a melancholy selection of songs, comprised mostly of lazily plucked acoustic guitar with the occasional tambourine, organ, or bass as an accompaniment (never all at once, mind you), the music never truly soars.
I think what kept me hooked on this album after a few listens was her transfixing vocal delivery. I am a sucker for haunting and non-girly female singers (see Marissa Nadler, Alela Diane, Neko Case, Meg Baird), and Van Etten reaches deep inside our rib cage to tug on our heart strings in the most delicate of ways. Using words like melancholy, bittersweet, somber or forlorn to describe her, you may suspect this to be an optimist’s worst nightmare; and you would be partially right. But her melodies and sincerely emotional delivery are just so beautifully heartbreaking to hastily write off in such a fashion.
If you have the patience, Sharon Van Etten will let you glimpse inside her breaking heart, and you will feel an oneness to listen. “I’m a tornado. You are the dust you’re all around,” she sings about halfway into the album; a piece of insight that maybe it wasn’t all her lover’s fault after all.
But her blessing is her curse, as there is no sense of healing or evolution here, just an even set of songs all aimed at the same lonely mantra: “I messed up, I’m lost, and I don’t know how to fix it.” A few rays of sun, even if taunting, may go a long way to round out Van Etten’s repertoire on her sophomore offering. Time will tell.
Disney releases some concept art for Tim Burton’s upcoming reimagining of Alice in Wonderland. I have to say that, even though Ann Hathaway is going to be in this film (who has been omitted from the below photos for reasons of intolerance on my part), I am still very excited about this film.
Oh, and doesn’t Johnny Depp look like Elijah Wood in that photo?
Larger photos here. IMDB page here.
“The diseased know things the well have overlooked.” – Robert in the Jungle Garden.
“Life’s for the living. I don’t think it’s to be remembered.” – Clara Esser
(Side 1: 88%; Side 2: 55%)
Listening to Rhode Island’s own Deer Tick is like trying to eat a walnut. You have to crack through an impenetrable outer shell before enjoying the tasty part inside. Case in point: To experience the textured songwriting, the dusty melodies and earnest instrumentation, you have to get past the fact that John McCauley sounds like he’s doing a constant impersonation of Popeye the Sailor Man. This single fact may be the central reason many a listener won’t give Deer Tick a chance.
And it’s a cryin’ shame.
Because Deer Tick are — alongside bands like Bright Eyes, Modest Mouse, Band of Horses, Okkervil River and even Arcade Fire — a band defined more by their collective spirit than by the tonal quality of their lead singer. These East Coasters move effortlessly from the back porches of the Mississippi Delta complete with screen porches and moonshine to the Texarkana saloons complete with tumbleweeds and spur-clad cowboy boots. They’re as authentic a country rock’n’roll band (with a penchant for the blues) as any you’re like to hear, which is at once the best and worst thing about their sophomore album.
Because for all its promise and potential, there’s a problem with Born On Flag Day which can’t be overlooked. A problem best described by taking you through the album, track by track. Let’s get started…
1. “Easy,” kicks off the album like an anthem for love-torn souls plagued with silver-lined heartbreak juxtaposed against murderous thoughts of revenge. Vintage Deer Tick, right? Dark, moody, up-tempo and unkempt. Full of spirit. I can feel McCauley’s pain, I share it with him. And I’m hooked. A good start to what could be a great album, and the song you’re most likely going to hear on the radio.
2. “Little White Lies,” follows next and starts off slow. I begin to worry whether we may have lost the tightly tuned songwriting and earnest delivery of yore. In the end I’d say this is one of the lesser songs of the front five tracks, but the change-up just past the two-minute mark grabs me by my flannel collar and throws me into the next track with a smile.
3. “Smith Hill,” is a heart-wrenching, soaring ballad which demonstrates a band coming into their own with important, memorable songs. Everything just comes together here. The peaks and valleys, the chill emotion in every word “I can drink myself to death tonight. I can stand and give a toast. To those who made it out alive, but it’s you I miss the most.”. This song might define the evolution of Deer Tick most succinctly. It’s also the song I want to listen to over and over again.
4. Hollow and barren, yet resonant for all its vacancy, “Song About a Man,” crescendos with a harmonica before retreating back into the creaky saloon where it came from. McCauley’s viewpoint comes through in the songwriting yet again: “How can a man feel anything, when all he’s ever got was sympathy?” A question I’ve never asked myself, yet it makes you wonder…
5. The guitar riff on “Houston, TX,” cascades beautifully, like a finely wrought Iron & Wine song, yet doesn’t resemble Sam Beam in any substantive way. We roll along a dirt road in a muddy pick-up and the sun’s just about to set. Everything’s all right as we ride off into the distance, with McCauley singin’ “Oh move on, oh move on.” And so we keep on moving.
But wait, there’s still another five tracks, right? So what am I doing driving off into the sunset you ask? Damn, you caught me. It’s just that… well I wish I could stop right now, because the rest of this until-now potential-filled album doesn’t hold a bottle rocket to the first five songs. Side 2 finds a different, lesser iteration of Deer Tick in just about every fathomable way.
This is the side of Deer Tick I hoped had been purged on War Elephant. The gravely emotion is replaced by lackluster honkey tonk homage, with John McCauley vying to open for Marty Stewart and George Strait on the next big Country & Western festival circuit. Summerfest here we come!
6. “Straight Into a Storm,” is something you might dance to at your local tavern, sawdust on the dancefloor, quarter in the jukebox. The only problem is that when you finally touch boot to hardwood floor you’re surrounded by your grandparents and all their friends. They love this song, and so you start to hate it.
7. On “Friday XIII,” McCauley makes a valiant effort to add some dimension with, dare I say it, a duet? I remember when Songs:Ohia made their Magnolia Electric Co. album. Three new vocalists joined the fray, including Jenny Benford, bringing something new to Molina’s music we hadn’t heard before. The only problem here is, this song is more a demonstration in getting drunk and fooling around with your girlfriend in her mom’s bedroom than it is a song of any true note. “So let’s get back to what, all that was fair and just, oh won’t you please love me again?” they croon during the chorus, and I feel like somehow they’re pleading directly to me.
8. “The Ghost,” had me yawning from the start, and nodding off by the end. I don’t mind a sleepy ballad, but when the songwriting devolves to lines like: “Oh you don’t have to say anything. But you have got to mean everything,” you have to wonder where the McCauley of old (just a few tracks old, specifically) ran off to? He sings off key in many places here, but not in the forgiving way borne of emotional delivery. Here I’m reminded of “What Kind of Fool Am I?” and I can’t help but wince.
9. “Hell On Earth,” is easily the strongest of this batch of songs, and for me the only bright spot on the back five. They took a down-trodden narrative and pushed it somewhere noteworthy, the way “Smith Hill,” proved they could do earlier on. Despite a slightly predictable and flat structure, I liked this melody enough to stick it out a little longer.
10. Deer Tick still don’t know how to end an album it seems, as “Stung,” tries desperately to take us out with a drunken doo wop flare. McCauley almost gets me to care through the first verse, even though it’s all a bit bad karaoke and too many Zimas to my ears. When the chorus finally kicks in I realize this is the last song of the album, the last song! and I’m fighting the nagging urge to skip back to the beginning and try to forget it ended like this.
But there’s not enough Coors Light in all of Rhode Island to drown out the memory of four of the last five tracks. They will live on in our iTunes this Flag Day and the next one and the one after that. Things started off so well Deer Tick, but something went wrong. Can I forgive you? Of course, but not until you release your second LP later this year. Maybe you can call it Born On Labor Day, and work a little harder on crafting ten songs to match the promise of the first five here?
11. Oh, there’s also a bonus song at the end of the last track, a cover of “Goodnight Irene,” sung in what sounds to be a friend’s kitchen complete with PBR’s cracking open and laughter and screaming in the din. It’s as warm and fuzzy as it is forgettable, though it might still have been a better choice to end the album than “Stung,” was. I’m just sayin’.
