REVIEW #1: TV Review
Mindhunter
2018
Available on Netflix
***SPOILERS!***
Sometimes the best TV shows work because they seem to have everything going for it. Vibrant characters, intriguing plots, stunning visuals, cohesiveness and willing to actually say something. But sometimes, TV shows work despite the fact that it only has one single thing going for it. Mindhunter falls into the latter category, and it's one of the best TV shows I've seen in a while.
The basic plot of Season 1 is that a couple of FBI agents get together to start studying how serial killers' minds work, in the hopes that their research will be able to prevent future serial killers from committing their heinous crimes. Get into their minds, and you can predict how those minds will act and react.
This is an intriguing subject, and the characters in the show acknowledge as much. Naturally, the push-and-pull of FBI conversing with mass murderers in a prison cell, the ensuing discussions between FBI officials about what those conversations mean, the endless verbose debates and dialogues about how the human mind works, and the ethics behind discovering the hidden corners of those minds, etc., it's all so, so goddamn fascinating, that for me, I really didn't need anything else out of my viewing experience.
Which is pretty fortunate, because other than those virtuoso displays of psychology know-how, there really isn't anything else in Mindhunter that would suggest this is a competent TV show. The acting is shaggy, and at points downright painful. The characters offer very little consistency in their actions episode to episode. Plotlines go nowhere. Other plotlines are more hysterical and overwrought than they have any need to be. It's a shitty TV show, is what I guess I'm implying here.
But, again, the dialogue is so delightful and fascinating that none of that really matters. I don't give a shit about any of these people, but I wanna hear them talk forever. This is the Before Sunrise of crime procedurals. If you have even an armchair interest in psychology, then this is the show for you.
GRADE: 4 out of 5 pukes
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REVIEW #2: Extra Album Review
Eraserland
Strand of Oaks
2019
Sometimes an album just needs a little push to take it from Very Good to Great, and I just received the push for Eraserland the other day. What is already a pretty sweet heartland rock 'n' roll album about struggling with depression, Eraserland blooms and became something totally different for me personally when I found out how it was written.
Tim Showalter, a.k.a. Strand of Oaks, booked studio time with a Jim-James-less My Morning Jacket, and squirreled away at his favorite vacation destination for two weeks to try to come up with some songs to record. Due to his depression, he didn't have anything, so the two weeks were a solo songwriting retreat.
I read about this in a recent Stereogum interview, and I couldn't fucking believe where he retreated to—motherfucking Wildwood, NJ. That's my favorite vacation spot too! I am intimately familiar with those beaches. And Showalter went on to describe his self-therapy on those beaches at night:
My favorite thing to do on the beach—thank God the police never found me—I would take my bike, and the beach is frozen in the winter, and I’d just ride my bike forever at night. It’s the most freeing experience, because the Jersey Shore is so wide, and you can just ride your bike forever and I felt like a kid. I felt like I was absolutely alone in the universe. I had music on, it was pitch black, and I had no consequences — if I fell off my bike it was sand, I wasn’t going to get hit by a car. It was a sensory deprivation tank almost. It was like hyperspace.Sometimes you can relate to an album because you in general can relate to the sentiments it is trying to convey (e.g., Showalter was depressed, and finds joy through music). But sometimes, you can relate to an album in some ultra-specific way, and I find that here. I've walked on that beach at night. I know that feeling of infinity, of oneness. I hear that feeling in these songs. I connect. This album has been treating me very kindly since I was informed how and where it was created.
GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5
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REVIEW #3: Restaurant Review
Yards Brewery
500 Spring Garden St.
Philadelphia, PA 19123
Yards moved from its previous location on Delaware Ave. to its current location on Spring Garden in late 2017. I've been there enough times at this point to be able to give a legitimate opinion. My opinion is this: it sucks ass.
Yards is a behemoth in Philly's somehow-still-burgeoning brewery scene, and it is by far the shittiest. There are plenty of real breweries within these city limits. Yards, on the other hand, is the Disney World Epcot version of the facsimile of a beer garden. There are long, sticky wooden tables, like at every other brewery. There are exposed ceilings, like at every other brewery. There are big glass windows showing large vats of brewing beer, like every other goddamn brewery.
The food is average at best. The reuben bites are tasteless. Come for two-star food at four-star prices. Wash it down with beer that could be any goddamn beer you've ever had before. Sometimes it's pink. All of the time, it's going to crush your wallet.
Push through the same people you had to push through in college to get to the keg. They are still here. They are still loud.
Yards is the perfect brewery for someone who has never been to a brewery. They'll love it. They come from everywhere—Bucks County, Montgomery County, Delaware County. They can say they were in the city partying, because that's important for the Instagram story. If you want to find the heart of Philadelphia, good luck finding it in this lifeless, soul-sucking, cavernous atrocity.
And please bring ID, because the bar is only open for thirteen more minutes, and you need to be carded first, and then branded.
GRADE: 1 puke out of 5
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