Song of the Week: "Paper Rings"

God bless Spotify. Spread your holy water all over the previous songs of the week HERE.

"Paper Rings"

Taylor Swift

from Lover

2019

Damn, I listened to a lot of great music this week. Oso Oso is laying on that classic emo in digestible pop portions (check out "basking in the glow"); Bon Iver finally fucking clicked for me (check out "Hey, Ma"); Sheer Mag gave me an AC/DC-sized kick in the ass, as it usually does (check out "Blood from a Stone"); Jay Som jammed out in her own little Broken Social Scene cover band (check out "Devotion").

But while all that is great because it's right in my lane and I usually listen to music that I know I'll like right from the start, only one album truly intrigued me, and that was the new one from Taylor Swift. This is neither a recommendation or an indictment; I'm simply saying that I enjoyed thinking about Taylor Swift more than any other artist this week, even if I didn't necessarily enjoy listening to her the most.

I'm interested in how such a dominant pop icon could release something reasonably described as a "comeback" album (i.e. what does that say about Reputation?). I'm interested in the ongoing maturation of Swift as a citizen of the U.S.A., and how this ongoing modest liberalization clashes with her status as a PR-heavy pop star, and also as an ostensible pop star everywhere in the U.S.A., including hazardous trump country.

I'm interested in what a friend of mine said about Taylor Swift played being a "victim her whole career," and how that was a turn off for my friend, and how she expected me to disagree with that assessment, and how I'm not really sure that I do. I'm interested in that same friend dismissing Lover on Twitter and getting a response from what appears to be a foaming-mouth Swiftie. And so I'm interested in what it means when you are the type of artist who has millions of die-hard fans in whose eyes you can do no wrong, and what that means about an artist, and how the temptation to live in that bubble must be so strong, and may just affect your craft if you let it.

But shit, man, you're right, maybe I am just interested in the goddamn songs. Are they any good? Eh... it's hit or miss, after my two and only listens. I will go to fucking bat for "Paper Rings," a double-speed pop banger that just about slays me every time.

I can say that the song is "great" and it would be the truth, but that doesn't interest me all that much when I'm writing about and thinking about music. There's more to be mined from the legacy and craft of Taylor Swift than just "is this music worthy of listening?" Taylor Swift is the rare musician that actually justifies the amount of think pieces that are written about her.

Any Human Friend, Pam

I gotta say when I first listened to Any Human Friend, I didn’t know if I was going to like it. I found some of the lyrics to be a little too overtly sexual and felt maybe dialing it back would have been more effective. BUT the more I listened, the more I understood what Marika Hackman was going for here. Any Human Friend is a deeply emotional and honest album wrapped up in a little bit of a pop music package. The music itself was tight and where it was dreamlike it worked, and where it was minimalistic, it also worked. The album felt like it came from a place of female empowerment, which is always a plus. The lyrics were deep but also straight-up hilarious at times. "the one" was cynical but also self-analytical. As the lyrics here would let on, apparently her previous work is a lot slower and sadder? ("I fucked it up with the saddest songs.") That song had a bunch of one-liners that made me chuckle; I even had to look up what BDE stood for ("big dick energy"). Any Human Friend sort of started and ended by creeping up on you and then fading out, which I thought was pretty cool.

Any Human Friend, Nate

On one hand, it's a horny pop record from someone who doesn't really appear interested in either sex or pop music. On the other hand, it's a meditation on the cycle of romance; from isolation, to interest, to infatuation, to passion, to boredom, to separation, back to isolation. I have no idea who this record is for. It might just be for Marika Hackman, as work of self-care or public therapy. Maybe she just wanted to put a bunch of jack-off jokes into a song, which... look, I'm not above that, and if you are, this isn't the blog for you.

Any Human Friend, Erin

Any Human Friend is an album I have now listened to four times this week (mostly in the background while I've been doing other things). The lyrics are clever and emotional without being so histrionic that my eyes roll back into my skull. There are certain songs in the album that are great filler music ("send my love"), but there are a few that demand you stop what you're doing (stop browsing Old Navy's Clearance Sale and Amazon) so you can really jam out with the song (I mean, I really don't think you can actually jam out to any of these songs but you understand what I mean. I liked "blow").

I also noticed that Any Human Friend uses a lot of different instruments in a way that really makes you notice it—similar to the way Jack Antonoff makes the Bleachers album sound unique ("the one," "i'm not where you are").

Any Human Friend, Joe

On Any Human Friend, Marika Hackman peels the layers back to expose her true self, something that is at once horny and wacky and sincere. She does all this mostly with a flat affect, only occasionally actually putting all that self-reflecting into emotional vocal performances. The music is funky and mostly enjoyable, but the energy in the artist herself rarely matches.

Okay, that's not a bad review. Succinct. Gives a sense of what I think without actually having to pointedly express it, something like, "I think..." etc.

But let's pull the camera back a little bit and look at the big picture here (cue groans from the audience). What is the point of all this? I've written "album reviews" thirty weeks in a row now. What's the point? To convince you to listen to this record? To convince you to try it out for yourself, even if it sucks? To act as PR agent? To tell you how it relates to me? To tell you how it could relate to you? To breathe hot air into the fucking void?

I'm not sure I have an answer, but I've thought about potential answers, about why I'm even here, about what exactly I'm trying to accomplish, ever since an enlightening email conversation between two office drones last week. My fatter, older friend makes a case that successful reviews attempt to "understand the work on its own terms." He further purports that he makes an effort not to use first-person pronouns in his own reviews, in order to achieve this goal, as a critic.

It's an interesting way of looking at it, so let's try it out here. What is Marika Hackman attempting to do in Any Human Friend, and is that attempt successful? Luckily, this is the age of information, and I can go on the internet and state unequivocally that Hackman has wrote an album in which it's "me diving into myself and peeling back the skin further and further, exposing myself in quite a big way. It can be quite sexual. It’s blunt, but not offensive. It’s mischievous."

So basically, she's saying that she is attempting to write songs that tell her truth, however uncomfortable that truth may be to the listener. Putting aside the fact that all great art should attempt this, the next question is—Did she do this successfully? I mean, yeah, I guess she did. The lyrics on this album are very stark and honest. "send my love," to use as but one example, is a break-up song from the perspective of Hackman's ex-girlfriend. It's brutal in its unflinching self-deprecation. Hackman can be said to be "successful" in attempting to expose what she believes is the truth. She thinks she is a fuck-up, and so here is a song that parlays that information in a literary way.

But here's the rub, and it's the part that makes me hit pause on the "take yourself out of the equation" theory. Were I allowed to use the pronoun "I," then I would say that "I think this song kind of sucks." It's slow and unexciting, and has a kind of useless, almost prog-rock-esque outro. I'm not saying it's a bad song—the chorus is kind of nice, in that Hackman actually injects some emotion into her droll vocals for once. But overall, let's say that it's not one of the best songs on Any Human Friend.

Okay, but then you can go online and read a bunch of reviews that states that "send my love" is one of the standout tracks on the album. So does that mean I'm wrong? Does that mean I'm not getting something? What, do I just write "it's slow and unexciting but has a nice chorus and a weird outro" and just trust the reviewer to get the implication? I don't understand why I can't add "It sucks because..." and then write all that. I could lead you to the water, or I could throw a bucket of it in your face. I choose the latter here.

And now I'm stepping back even further and realizing that I just spent three meaty paragraphs discussing what I think is one of the worst songs on the album, when I could've spent all that time discussing the good songs. So what does that say about me as a reviewer, huh? Like, maybe I should just talk about "all night," which is a good song about lesbian sex. Using the "I" pronoun, I would maybe talk about how I could listen to songs about girls going down on each other all the time. But the audience probably doesn't want that, right? That's kind of icky, no? To force my pornographic proclivities on an unassuming reader? Maybe there's some merit to not talking about yourself too much.

But, here's another twist—I truly do think that that's what Hackman was trying to achieve with this particular song. She wants people to get weird and horny and freaked out by it. Quoting Hackman again: "I sent 'all night' to my parents, and they were quite shocked." Understanding this work on its own terms involves understanding that Hackman used this song to troll her ostensibly conservative parents. Was she successful in this attempt? Sounds like it. But it's my review, so I'm going to add another layer of opinion on it—I personally think that's fucking great.

I mean, imagine what her parents think when they hear "hand solo." You could maybe even say that to understand this album means to understand the horniness of Marika Hackman. Almost every reviewer paid to consider Any Human Friend has published such a review since its release; the focus has been on the sex and sexiness of Hackman (the album's cover doesn't help to dissuade this notion). Whether I believe that is the central hook of the album or not—okay, I'll say it, I do not think that is the central hook of this album, but—I guess there is a scenario in which I say "this is a horny album" and leave it at that. As if the reader should make their own judgments based on this descriptor.

If you want to do that, then fine, but if that's the case, I don't know why you are still reading this. I'm not interested in doing that. I am completely incapable of just saying what it is, and leaving it at that. You know that already, if you read my reviews. I can't just leave it. There's gotta be levels. I can tell you what it is, but I also have to make it the Joe Show. Here's me, inside out. This is why this music is for me or is not for me.

And because I want you to like the music, even if I don't, then you're gonna get a whole bunch of equivocation sometimes. That's just how it is. If I'm listening to some post-Post-Malone-wannabe hack and I hate it, then you'll know it, but you'll also hear me say that, fuck it, if that's your thing, then so be it. I will never be a truly good music critic, because I can't let this go. It makes me weak, but paradoxically, that's what I'm interested in. How far can I travel down this path? How far can I stretch this curdled shtick? Are you seriously still reading?

But so okay, e.g. re:Any Human Friend, "hold on" was apparently Hackman's attempt at doing a "Radiohead-style exhaling." Yes, she literally said this, and so we know what she was attempting, and guess what—she succeeded! This is 2010s Radiohead. Which is fine, if you like A Moon Shaped Pool. But if you don't know already, know now that I fucking despise that album, and I despise what Radiohead has become this decade. So I'm not just gonna sit here and tell you it sounds like Radiohead. I need you to know that I think this is a condemnation of "hold on."

On the other hand to all this, there's beauty in compact simplicity, and I often admire reviews that can say what they want to say in one single paragraph or less. In this light, my review of Marika Hackman's Any Human Friend is turning uglier and uglier by the paragraph. Still, this is what I've committed to, so I'll keep going. I'm using it as a crutch, as I've explained before. I'm not good at this, so it comes down to a choice between a nonsensical blabbering of pretzel logic and imaginary arguments, versus just typing "hur dur Hackman is okay." I don't have any other gears than those two. I'll choose the former every time, even if that's annoying as fuck.

And if you're still reading, I will say this: It took me a really long time to get an appreciable grip on Any Human Friend. I had been trying for two full weeks to find anything to like about this album before Pam chose it as this week's album. I welcomed the obligation to give it the ol' college try yet again, because there's a lot of praise for this album out there, and that makes me feel like I'm missing something. Like I'm the problem.

And yeah, maybe it is me. Like, maybe I'm just stretching myself too thin with this blog recently, with typing about movies and music now, and I'm not giving albums that I would normally like the proper room to breathe. So, in this bad review here, I could probably say something like, it's not Hackman, it's me. And that wouldn't necessarily be untruthful. But it would be lazy, right?

But THEN to go ahead and give it the ol' college try one last time and to still not really find a whole lot to get excited about, then I start thinking that maybe I was right in the first place. That there was a reason why nothing really gripped me originally. Explaining that there's a possibility that it was just the wrong time in my life to be listening to such an album has JACKSHIT to do with the album itself, but ultimately it does say something about my opinion of the album. I was bored, I'm still kind of bored, and in the context of me only half-heartedly trying and then full-heartedly trying, I didn't really like it a whole lot either way.

The context is important; personal and cheap, but important. I am bored. Tell Hackman to maybe stop singing like she is bored too, and then we'll talk.

But here's where I feel bad, and here's where I have nightmares about someone somehow getting all the down here and reading the word "bored" and, like, totally dismissing this album. For some fucking reason taking me at my word. I take great pains in painting myself as a con artist. This is the point. The point is that it's pointless what I say. You should try it out for yourself. Don't listen to me! I could be wrong!!

But THEN we wrap back around to something Hackman sings in the concluding title track: "Meet me on the outside 'cause we don't belong / Everybody's looking at me like / I'm made of stone." Great shit! Again—what is she trying to achieve here, and was she successful? Here's what she has to say about these lyrics specifically:

"Those lyrics are all about the whole idea that we dull ourselves down to try to be the same when, actually, we all just need to accept each other for being these brilliant, golden shiny things."

I would certainly not go so far as to claim that anything bullshit I write here is "brilliant" or "golden," but I don't ever want to dull myself down and try to be the same as any other critic, or any other music blog. I could give you a straight compact review, but at that point, why not just go to another website, where professionals duly type competent reviews much more skillfully then I ever could (or just look at any other review by any other author on this very blog)? I'm retroactively claiming, in other words, that I'm writing such an irritating and protracted review to honor Hackman and what she is trying to accomplish on this album. That even if you gave this review 0 pukes out of 5, if you were baffled or incensed, then at least you felt something. Anger is not dull. It is golden. It is shiny.

Or maybe this is yet another excuse. I don't know. I'm talking in circles.

At the end of the day, I'm more interested in an album review featuring a gif of a monkey peeing in its own mouth than I would be of any review that just talks about the music and lets it stay as that. I want to know how the critic feels. My name is in the title of the post. I want you to know that I'm a failure, that I'm confused, that I'm bored. Me. I need you to know about what kind of music I like and what type of music I don't, me personally, before I can write in the general and expect you to get my drift. I'm not that good at this yet.

And yeah, I want to masturbate about what it means to be a critic, and I'm going to hijack a review about a completely adequate album to do so. Welcome to Puke on Your Birthday, I'll be your host this evening.

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5

69 Questions About Fox in Socks, Left Unanswered

Every night that it's Daddy's turn to put Willow to bed, we read Dr. Seuss's Fox in Socks first. It's a book of tongue twisters, filled with nonsensical characters. If you're like me, you may have some questions. I do not have answers to them. Dr. Seuss is dead, and took the answers to the grave.

1. What is a Knox?
2. Why is the Knox so happy in the box, and less happy outside of the box? 
3. Why doesn't Knox keep his socks on like Fox does? Are they too itchy?
4. Where are all these chicks coming from?
5. How do they have the strength to literally carry a pile of bricks?
6. Is Fox one of those people that gets totally carried away when having fun, and, like, wants to keep the party going ad infinitum, against friends' better judgments?
7. Or is Knox just pissed because he thought it was just gonna be him and fox hanging out and catching up, and then Fox went ahead and invited a whole bunch of other people?
8. How fast do you have to stack bricks, blocks, et al, for it to be considered a "quick trick" stack? 
9. If Knox is so against the idea of doing all this shit, then why did he go ahead and make the quick trick chick and clock stacks? Is peer pressure real?
10. Is it tough to balance all these blocks and clocks and animals?
11. How, exactly, do bricks "tick" and chicks "tock"? I mean, I guess chicks could make a noise that sounds kind of like "tock," but the bricks?
12. Also, how do bricks get sick? 
13. Why do only six of them get sick? Can bricks be anti-vaxxers?
14. Are they just anthropomorphic bricks, like the rest of these creatures? 
15. If so, why are we okay with stacking bricks that can talk and get sick and, ostensibly, have souls?
16. Didn't Knox know what he was getting into when he started chilling with a fox in socks?
17. Didn't he know fox before this whole charade begins? And would thus know what a "trickster" he is? Or did they literally just meet?
18. And if that last question's answer is "true," then what exactly are they doing here? Are they performing? Is Fox in Socks all some sort of meta performance for any baby whose parents page through it?
19. Did Sue sew the original socks, or just her own?
20. Is it pervy to watch someone sewing socks?
21. Is this an "easy game," as fox supposes, or is Knox right in that it's difficult?
22. Why couldn't Knox practice like I did?
23. Why is Knox getting so upset about these rhymes? The supposition is that he is getting intimidated about having to repeat them, but not once during the novel does fox ask him to repeat anything fox is saying?
24. Where does this crow come from?
25. Why is he slower than other crows?
26. Is he rich? Would that explain the top hat?
27. Or, maybe he's a butler? And that's why he too knows how to sew?
28. Why is Sue sewing the socks that are already, and seemingly always have been, on fox's paws?
29. How can you sew a box? I guess that just entails wrapping Knox up in thread like a mummy?
30. How is SLC so chill when this fucking fox is attaching a hose to his nose?
31. And remains calm when the fucking hose is turned on and is, like, spouting water all over the place?
32. What kind of magical rose grows after it is sewed onto a tux coat?
33. What are the chemical properties of blue goo?
34. Is that the scientific term for the substance, or is it a colloquial term?
35. What makes it "new"?
36. Does it really taste good, or is a goo-goose a creature that ingests poisons?
37. It's gotta be safe to eat, because fox wants Knox to eat it, and the fox wouldn't try to kill Knox, right?!
38. Or maybe Knox knows it's unsafe, and that's why he ultimately refuses to eat it?
39. Why don't Ben and Bim keep the brooms they originally had? Aren't the brooms identical just like they are?
40. Was the broom-breaking an accident or on purpose?
41. If it was an accident, are they just making the best of it by repurposing the broken brooms as batons for leading the bands? Or was that their purpose to begin with?
42. Are Bim and Ben identical twins?
43. Are they actually trained as marching band leaders? Or are they just pretending?
44. Why does Knox say "My poor mouth can't say that!" after literally repeating most of what Fox just said ("Pig band! Boom band! Big band! Broom band!")? His poor mouth can say that, no?
45. Re: Luke Luck, is "Luck" a surname or a descriptor? If the latter, in what way is he lucky?
46. Are we okay with all these anthropomorphic animals being pets?
47. Or, if Luke's duck is just a regular duck, how can we be so sure that he enjoys licking the lake? In that case, he would just be a normal duck, licking lakes because that's what ducks do?
48. Where can I get a cheese tree? Because Pam would love one for Christmas, right?
49. Or maybe not, if cheese trees typically have fleas?
50. And especially if a cold breeze could freeze trees so easily?
51. Do cheese trees really just look like regular shrubbery? Or was Dr. Seuss just lazy on this page?
52. Fleas sneeze? Because of being cold? What?
53. What differentiates tweetle beetles from regular beetles?
54. Is it the fact that they always look deranged?
55. Would there ever be a lopsided tweetle beetle fight, i.e. would one beetle have a paddle and one would not? Or are they fair fighters?
56. Can a little bit of water in a glass bottle really be considered a "puddle"?
57. Do tweetle beetles like fighting? Are those insane smirks on their faces as they beat each other to death inside a bottle?
58. And the poodle is okay with a big glass bottle full of murderous insects just chilling on its back?
59. Does the poodle ever get involved? Does it perhaps plea for sanity at any point? Or is there blood on the poodles hands through inaction?
60. Did it hurt the life-sized Fox when he was unceremoniously stuffed inside a small glass bottle?
61. Why does Fox look so sad when he's in the bottle? You can still rhyme from inside a bottle, can't you?
62. Was it because his friend Knox was violent toward him? Or was it because he felt Knox had one up on him now?
63. Does Fox have ADHD?
64. Was Knox being sarcastic in saying that he "had a lot of fun"?
65. Or was he being sincere, saying that he had "fun" because he shoved his friend into a bottle?
66. What was Fox going to say to add onto the final rhyme? What else could the beetles and poodles do to add to the tongue twister? Were they getting stuck with needles? Did they have cooties? Were they yelling "toodle-loo"?
67. When will Willow get sick of this book?
68. Will her first words be "blue goo new goo gooey gooey"?
69. Am I really reading this book so much that I've memorized most of it?

Your Favorite Movie: The Big Chill, with Dad

When I was a young kid, my family and three other families (my families-not-related, because they were more than just friends) would take an annual trip to the Poconos together. For the kids, it was a weekend filled with sledding and goofing off. For the eight parents, it was a time to kick back and relax for once. One year, as a lark, my parents brought a poster for a movie, with the faces of the eight main characters cut out and replaced with the faces of the adults on this vacation. Seeing the poster was my informal introduction to The Big Chill.

But it took me until Your Favorite Movie to actually watch the damn thing. As it turns out, for Dad, the poster wasn't just a funny joke; it was a poster for his favorite movie of all time. So I talked to him about it.

Since the movie is about a bunch of people hanging out together, it wouldn't've made sense for the discussion to be a one-on-one affair, so we brought some other folks along. Pam is in there, thankfully, as she often is. My mom is there too, ready to argue about where exactly my parents first saw this movie. And finally, my Aunt Mimi, a.k.a. Mariellen McG*****, another family-not-related, stuck around to provide some good insights.

We didn't really talk too much about the movie itself, which is a good thing—if you want to learn more about The Big Chill, you could just, uh, go watch the movie? No, this discussion is exactly what I want from Your Favorite Movie. I want to use movies as a springboard to talk about personal shit. Even if that personal shit just ends up being a few Boomers talking about the good ol' days.

We got nostalgic on the front deck at our temporary Wildwood vacation house, and the conversation is below, lightly edited for clarity purposes (but without needed permissions, as New Jersey is a one-party consent state). Enjoy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Joe: Dad, are you ready to talk to your son about polyamory?

Dad: About who?

[laughter]

Joe: About having sex with people who are not your husband or wife.

Dad: ...Yes.

[laughter]

Joe: I guess The Big Chill has always been considered a quote unquote "adult movie" for me. Because the adults in my life, when we would go on vacation, talked about it. We had that poster. [Editor's note: The poster is explained in the introduction, just in case you are the type of person who does not read introductions.] So I did not watch it until I was thirty years old.

Dad: That's a good thing.

Joe: When I was watching it a couple weeks ago, I appreciated the fact that I waited until I was thirty. It was definitely a "thirty-year-old's" movie.

Dad: The issues that are dealt with in the movie are adult issues.

Joe: Did you watch the movie when it first came out?

Dad: Yes, we watched it... well, I didn't go to the movie theater to see it. I saw it on VCR.

Joe: In the '80s.

Mom: I thought we saw it at the Crest? [Editor's note: The Crest is an old, since-demolished movie theater in Northeast Philly. Check out a very short history HERE.]

Dad: No, I don't think we did.

Mom: I saw it with someone else then.

[laughter]

Dad: Your other boyfriend.

Mariellen: I think we saw it at the movies.

Dad: It was a big movie at the time.

Joe: A lot of star power.

Mariellen: It had an ensemble cast.

Joe: I guess what I'm most interested in is: You liked it then, you like it now. But you're significantly older now than you were then. Did your appreciation, or the shape of your appreciation, change in that time? Because, as a thirty-year-old, I thought it was a movie applicable to me. As an almost sixty-year-old, do you feel differently about the movie?

Dad: No, because it hit home when we watched it for the first time. And even though we were a little bit younger, they were still issues that we appreciated, and that we were dealing with. As you're growing up, and getting older. That's what it is—facing the reality of growing older.

Mariellen: I think I appreciate it more now, as an older person, with more experience.

Joe: Now that you're past the point where the characters in the story are. Now that you've faced those challenges already, of growing. You're not currently growing up. So The Big Chill to you now is more a nostalgia exercise... I dunno, tell me if I'm right or wrong. When you watch it now, it's like, "This is how it was."

Dad: This is what we went through, yeah. It's a realistic version of the issues. That's why I always liked it. It was realistic. Not every movie is realistic.

Mariellen: Life is messy, and I don't think until you've lived it for a while, do you know how messy it can be.

Joe: The characters in the movie are kind of realizing that for the first time. "Our good friend who killed himself kind of threw a wrench in our understanding of life." I guess.

Dad: And at the time, we were just on the cusp of seeing that. It hit home, that this is the way life is.

Joe: Another thing that interested me in that same vein was, I felt like the people in the movie were nostalgic themselves, for a previous time. When they themselves were younger. They were watching their college football team, and reliving their college days. They were listening to older music, ya know, the '60s.

Mariellen: Everyone has their glory days, and they were looking back at theirs.

Joe: It's cool that there's two levels of nostalgia at that point. You're nostalgic about the time portrayed in the movie, and the movie is nostalgic for a previous time.

Dad: Did you enjoy the movie?

Joe: Absolutely.

Dad: It's a great movie.

Joe: I think the thing I appreciated—and I guess this would be a good time to have you run through what happened in The Big Chill, which might be easier than some other movies—but I appreciated the whole sentiment of: a bunch of friends, stuck in a house, for whatever reason, and bouncing ideas off each other. Just spending time with each other, showing their love and their annoyance with each other. It definitely reminded me of times with my friends and family. Maybe even tonight, when we're all packed onto the deck, bouncing stories off each other.

Mariellen: I think a lot of it had to do with, they were together at a point in time, and they've all gone their own separate ways, and they bring that back—

Dad: They still have that connection.

Mariellen: Even though, ya know, one's a TV star, [etc]. I think that, the older you get, that happens. The friends that you were really close with when you're younger, you don't see them as often as you would like to now. You do different things in your life. But you come back together, and you still have that connection that you made when you were younger.

Joe: From the stories you were telling earlier, it seems like all you guys have been friends for a while. What's the distinction between, ya know, being friends with someone while you're young, and staying friends by the time you turn 60, versus being friends by the time you turn 30, and then losing touch. What makes the difference?

Dad: I don't know, that's tough. Because I have friends like that—like Kevin O'*****, the best man at my wedding. At the time—great friends, and that's why he was my best man. Ya know? And we've lost touch, and we don't hang out anymore. And... do I even want to hang out with him? Not really.

Joe: Mom, you might be helpful in this. What's the difference? What makes Aunt Mimi here still your friend, and other people who you don't hang out with not your friend anymore?

Mom: I guess because those people changed, right?

Joe: I don't know, I'm not near 60 yet. [laughter] "My friends right now will be my friends forever!"

Mom: Different values, and... they just change.

Mariellen: I think life events drive you closer to people, and drive wedges between you too. And I think your mom and I, we've just always been there for each other in the hard times. There are other people you come in contact with, you think they're your friends, and then you don't find out until bad things happen. I think sometimes, when those things happen, that's when you find out who your true friends are. Those are the friendships you hold onto. As you get older, you start to value that everyone hits a rough spot, things go wrong, tragedies happen... at least in my experience, I can say that I learned who my true friends were. And I value those friendships, and I work harder to maintain them over the years. Whereas the people who show their true colors—

Mom: Right, if they're not there for you—

Dad: Like, "we had great times together, but..."

Mariellen: —There's only so much time. Life gets in the way, so you become a little pickier about where you spend that resource of time, and the relationships you're going to work to maintain. You do it with the people that have your back, you have their back, and the ones that—at least for me, I would say—I learned how my friends were, and I learned who to let go of.

Joe: It scares me, personally, having friends, and knowing that maybe in twenty years, I might not be friends with those people.

Pam: We're on the very early part of learning that. We have a baby now. Some of our friends don't. We're starting to hang out with people less and less.

Mom: And that'll happen.

Pam: Like you said, life events, like having children.

Joe: It's scary to me, after watching The Big Chill, knowing that maybe those people wouldn't have reconnected if their friend hadn't kill himself. It was a really awful tragedy that brought them back together. And, ya know, not saying that people need a friend to commit suicide in order to strengthen their bonds, but... this group of friends might've needed a tragedy to...

Dad: To pull them back together, yeah.

Joe: I also thought it was interesting that... the moment that the characters were in, in the movie, that kind of "stasis" between college and starting a family, that you might've related to at the time, it's interesting that now, your son—me being the representative of the endpoint of that time in your life... Like, that stasis was over for you when you had a son, and now I am interviewing you about that time.

Mariellen: And now you're in that time.

Joe: Exactly. Me and Pam were kind of talking about that, how we are not our "best selves" right now.

Pam: Jesus. Willow, don't read this in ten years!

[laughter]

Joe: But we're just putting in our time now. And then our children will grow older—

Dad: You're at the hard part! It's not that it's not your best time. It's just... different. It's a challenge.

Joe: I think our "best selves" are down the road. And I think that, by the end of the movie, those characters also felt that way. Like, "we're going to get through this."

Pam: They were more accepting of that fact.

Joe: And so at the same time... there were a lot of details of the movie that I could not relate to.

[laughter]

Joe: I guess the whole Glenn Close and Kevin Kline thing, allowing Kevin Kline to... impregnate the friend?

Mariellen: I think that alleviated her guilt, having cheated on [her husband].

Mom: She cheated on him with the guy that passed.

Dad: You see, in the '60s...

[laughter]

Dad: They were in college in the '60s—we were a little later than that—

Mom: Much later.

Dad: But in the '60s, sex was a lot freer. Uncle Pat, and that generation—

Mom: [to Pam] Your dad's friends.

Pam: Apparently?!

Dad: And now, we didn't experience that.

Joe: I would hope that if you did, you wouldn't tell those stories in front of me, on recorded audio.

[laughter]

Dad: No, it was not, at all.

Mom: Well, we had one friend who might've...

Mariellen: Oh god.

Joe: ...is it someone I know?

Mariellen: Let's not go there.

Joe: [laughter] Yes, let's please not go there.

Dad: Sex... it's evolved. Nowadays, you have to be more careful. Back then, it was a little more carefree.

Joe: I mean, I don't think it was a matter of "consent" in the movie. Everyone in the situation consented to it. It was just, ya know, the fact that these eight people spent the whole weekend together... and they both showed up in their long john pajamas, and started having intercourse. Something I cannot relate to.

Mom: It was weird.

Dad: Yeah, but it fit the plot. They were good friends, and they would do anything for each other. Literally, anything.

Mariellen: ...that's when you find out who your friends are.

[laughter]

Joe: The ending kind of reminded me of The Breakfast Club, where like, everyone's hooking up... except the nerd! Jeff Goldblum.

Dad: Right! [laughter]

Joe: Are you aware of what the title means? Has it been explained to you what the director said? Or do you have your own interpretation?

Dad: My own interpretation always was that "the big chill" means, like, "chill out," like don't worry about things. That they learned that weekend to relax.

Mom: I always thought it was the death of the friend was the "chill."

Joe: According to the... producer, I guess? "The big chill" was the term for the "cooling process that takes place for every generation," when they move on from the idealistic younger days of, "we're going to change the world," to older, "I only have enough resources to care about myself." Which, to me... that's such a Boomer thing to say.

Dad: Well... at a certain age, when you're in college, you think you're going to change the world. Right?

Joe: True.

Dad: And it reaches a point when... you don't. There's not much you can do. You do what you can, you take care of yourself, you take care of your family, and that's all you can do, man.

Joe: You get numb to what you could possible affect in the world. Which sucks!

Dad: It does!

Joe: I don't like it. I don't like thinking about it. I didn't like learning that that was the reason why it was called "The Big Chill." It made me depressed.

Dad: It sucks, but it is the truth.

Joe: Do you guys feel like you have no effect on the world right now?

Dad: Yes. Absolutely. Especially the state of the world now. You're getting so excited about things, like, "We gotta do this!" and "We can't let this happen!" And it's... like you said [earlier], your vote for Elizabeth Warren—yes, free college tuition for everyone is a good thing. But is it possible? From my vantage point, I think, there's no way that's ever going to happen. Just based on the way that things happen. The way that politics work. The way... you say, okay, they want to try to make the billionaires pay for it. It's never going to happen!

Mom: ...politics...?

Joe: No, I like this [conversation].

Dad: It's not going to happen.

Mom: Alright!

Joe: We talked about it earlier, but... I don't want to ever go through a "big chill." I don't want to ever stop being idealistic.

Dad: That's a good goal.

Pam: But don't you think that's a normal psychological thing that everyone goes through though? Do you think... I mean, you can try to not, but it might be something that's out of your control.

Joe: That's a good question. It might be inevitable. Maybe! As the world beats me down...

Mariellen: There are people out there who are still trying to effect change—

Dad: Bernie Sanders! How old is he?

Mariellen: Not everybody has the stamina to keep going.

Joe: I'm lucky in this regard, in that I also get paid to try to affect the world in positive ways. Not that I ever feel... I rarely feel successful with it. But, at least I have the opportunity to try. Or, an excuse to tell me myself that I'm avoid the "big chill," by going into "heated" areas.

Dad: But then also, you take pleasure, or satisfaction, out of other things. Like, my family. I feel like a rich man. I know I'm rich, because I know what I have.

Joe: That we're in a position to spend excess money on a vacation house for a week, and drink beers, and talk about a movie we like—

Mariellen: And not only that, but just that you have such a solid family. And I think that you, being in the position you're in, realize that that's not something that everybody has.

Joe: Truth.

Mariellen: We're very lucky to have that opportunity. I count my blessings all the time.

Dad: Sure, we don't have a lot of things. We don't have a shore house. We don't have a fancy car. But we have a lot more—

Mariellen: We have the things that matter.

Dad: And that's what's really important. And those guys in the movie, a lot of them were—

Joe: That was another interesting thing, actually! A lot of them were financially successful. And they were slow to come to the realization that you're saying now, that there should be more than that. That some of them found success financially, or career-wise, and they're coming to this house, and they feel unfulfilled. They're coming to the realization, in hanging out with their old friends, ya know, "Oh my god, I am unfulfilled currently."

Dad: Right.

Joe: I know you guys had a The Big Chill poster, and you put your faces on the characters. Was that a—I know it was a funny thing, which I now appreciate, having watched the movie—but, when you made that collage, was it a one-to-one comparison? Did the faces that went on characters, were they the equivalent to each friend?

Mom: I don't think so. It was only by appearance. Who looked like what.

Joe: So Rick was Jeff Goldblum.

[laughter]

Dad: [pointing to Mom] She was Glenn Close, and I was Kevin Kline.

Joe: In appearance only? [laughter]

Dad: But we had the most stable... and that was it.

Mom: I can't think of who everyone else was

Dad: But really... William Hurt, Nick, he was dealing with drugs and all that.

Mom: Who was that, Harry?

Dad: Sure, in appearance. But he always reminded me of [off-the-record name], because I knew that [he] was still doing drugs. He was... he didn't have his act together.

Joe: And you're thinking this now, or you were thinking of this when you watched the movie?

Dad: No, back then even, I realized at that point.

Mom: We just did that for the Mountains.

Joe: I was just curious.

Mom: It was just like, whoever had blonde hair, whatever. You know what I mean?

Dad: It just fit that there were eight of them and eight of us.

Joe: So when the eight of you hung out—say, when the kids went to bed—was there a similar dynamic? Like, the eight of you are all in a house together for the weekend. I'm not asking if similar plotlines played out, I'm asking, like, did you come to certain realizations about your own selves and the character of your friends? Being so close.

Dad: No, not really. It didn't fit.

Mom: Everyone was more just having fun. It wasn't that serious.

Joe: And I guess, when we started going to the Poconos, you were older than the characters in the movie. Was there times when you were thirty, hanging out with your friends, like, "We're getting older!" Did you feel that when you thirty? Like, "This might change. We're going to be in different places in ten years."

Dad: No.

Mom: Nope, not at all.

Dad: It didn't really connect at that point.

Joe: Well, you already had a kid at that point, when you were thirty.

Dad: We had all of our kids when we turned thirty.

Joe: [laughter] Okay, so when you were twenty?

Mom: No, we never thought of that.

Joe: So that's a thing with my generation I guess.

Mom: It must be.

Joe: Premature nostalgia?

Dad: I'll tell you—and you haven't asked me this question yet, why is this my favorite movie?

Joe: We're circling to it!

Dad: Okay.

Joe: If you got a spiel, go for it. Please.

Dad: No, it was just entertaining. The music—

Mom: The music was a big part of it.

Dad: The music was very entertaining. And that pulled me in. And the storyline—very entertaining. And that's why I watch movies. Some people might analyze things. I like comedies better than other genres. I don't like... even action movies, I'm not a big action movie guy. I don't watch superhero movies. I just like comedies, and entertainment. For me.

Joe: Movies as a form of escapism.

Dad: Escapism, yeah.

Joe: Which is so interesting to me, because I watched the movie and was like... I wasn't escaping. I felt a strong connection to it. It was the opposite of escapism.

Mariellen: It wasn't a light movie.

Joe: There were some light moments, like the "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" sequence, and they're all dancing around.

Pam: What did they advertise that movie as when it came out? As a comedy?

Dad: No, not a comedy...

Mariellen: More like a "friend" movie.

Pam: Like, a "heart-warming" thing?

Joe: I definitely appreciated the direction of the movie. Which is not something I typically appreciate, but I did in this movie. When they had the camera steady, going through everybody sitting at the kitchen table, every hour, different people sitting at the table.

Mom: With the sneakers?

Joe: Yeah. And there was a camera shot where it just panned across the table where all the cigarettes and beers were. You could tell it was a lively scene, that everyone appreciated each other's company, and you could tell that just by the camera movement.

Dad: I agree. I just think it was a great movie, beginning to end.

Joe: I agree with you. Roger Ebert did not agree. He said that there was "no payoff, it didn't lead anywhere." Which I didn't agree with. I thought the whole point was that these people were connected with each other—

Mariellen: Maybe Roger Ebert didn't have a lot of old friends!

[laughter]

Mariellen: It didn't identify with him.

Dad: He's right, in a way, in that it didn't have a "climax."

Joe: Doesn't that make it more true to life though, that there was no climax? When we leave this shore house, or maybe even after we leave this deck right now after talking about this movie, there's not going to be a climactic scene where people are yelling at each other?

Dad: Life goes on! But you gotta listen to music. You have to have fun. You have to try to make it light. Ya know? ...Another thing.

Joe: Please.

Dad: I was hearing about this movie, and I wanted to see it, and that's why I don't think we saw it in the movie theater.

Mom: I swore we did.

Dad: I swear we saw it on the VCR.

Mom: No, that wouldn't be right.

Dad: I remember even, there was a comic strip, it was called Cathy—

Joe and Pam: [at the same time] ACK!

Dad: But she was talking about The Big Chill. It was like, I gotta see this movie.

Joe: I don't know that there's going to be another movie I talk about with friends or family where the person whom I'm talking with was convinced to see it by Cathy...

[laughter]

Dad: You're probably right. But I like to think I'm unique, and I have a different sense of looking at things. I'm not usually into the "popular" things. I'd never heard "Old Town Road" until you played it. And we were talking about all the other number one songs... I don't listen to number one songs. I listen to different songs. I've always tried to be different.

Joe: The Big Chill is the alternative movie for the hip Boomer crowd?

Dad: Yeah!

Pam: Was it nominated for Best Picture though?

Joe: It was.

Mom: Did it win for anything? I can't remember.

Joe: Hold up, I wrote down all the nominations. It didn't win for anything.

Dad: Nothing?

Joe: Nope. [reading] It was nominated for Best Picture, and it lost to Terms of Endearment. It was nominated for Best Supporting Actress—Glenn Close—but lost to Linda Hunt in The Year of Living Dangerously...? And it was nominated for Best Original Screenplay, but lost to Tender Mercies.

Dad: Tender Mercies?!

Joe: I have never seen any of those other movies.

Pam: And Glenn Close has still never won an Oscar.

Joe: Good! I didn't think she was that great in The Big Chill. I mean, I thought she was... fine. But there were definitely better actors and actresses.

Dad: I thought so too.

Joe: I thought Nick did a good job—

Dad: Yup, William Hurt.

Joe: I thought the chick that hooked up with Tom—mustached Tom—

Dad: Berenger.

Joe: I thought she did good.

Pam: Jeff Goldblum was playing Jeff Goldblum.

Joe: Right, he did his shtick.

Dad: But, that was the first time he did that shtick. It really was. And then Tom Berenger went on to play in Platoon.

[Editor's note: I'm cutting this unnecessarily Platoon conversation.]

Joe: We'll end with this: Do you feel like nostalgia can be toxic? Do you feel like it's ever a bad thing to remember the old days? To quote Tony Soprano: "'Remember when' is the lowest form of conversation."

Dad: No.

Mom: I would say no.

Pam: I think you can get stuck in it, and not be able to move past it.

Joe: I feel like a lot of what I write about is about the old days. I always get worried, that I might get stuck.

Pam: I think I told you that when we first started dating, that you're the most nostalgic 21-year-old I ever met. Like, driving down the shore, "We gotta listen to this song when we drive over the bridge, because it's what I do every time." I was like, "okay..."

Mom: Did you play Bruce when you went over the bridge this time?

Joe: Always. For the past twelve years.

Pam: The first time we drove down the shore, and did that, I thought that was a little weird.

[laughter]

Joe: So Pam, do you think nostalgia is toxic? Because that's what we're doing right now.

Pam: I just said, I think it can be, but a healthy level of it can be fine.

Joe: The characters in The Big Chill were fighting about it a lot, about what happened in the old days.

Pam: But I think that's because they were all brought together under strenuous circumstances. If you're a person who's living in the past, then yes, I think that's toxic.

Dad: That's what William Hurt says, freaking out: "We were friends for a short period of time in our lives!" You can't hold that as "the best time." Things move on. You move on.

Joe: But was he right?

Dad: He was right to point it out, but... no. It's okay to look back and enjoy it, and feel pleasure in the things that you did...

Joe: I guess there's a line you can cross. When you're appreciating the old days versus living in the old days.

Mariellen: Did you see the thing on Facebook? It was about: "Someday, your kids are going to go through your photo albums, and they're going to ask you who these people are. And you're going to answer your kids, 'Those are the people I had the best years of my life with.'"

Mom: I saw that!

Mariellen: I think when you get older, you do look back on your youth as the best time of your life. Because you had fun!

Mom: No worries.

Mariellen: Less responsibility.

Dad: I don't look at it like that. I really don't. Yes, we had great times. But, I had the best time of my life today, with Willow, on the beach. I did!

Mom: Well you can still look back.

Dad: I know, I look back on it, and it was great. I had a great time with [Kevin O'*****]. We used to have fun at Breen's. But was it the "best" times? No, not really.

Mom: But you thought that it was back then—the best times.

Joe: I think it's a healthy way of looking at it. You're still creating good memories.

Dad: Absolutely.

Joe: I have to remind myself of that occasionally.

Dad: We had great times when we used to go up the Mountains when you guys were little. We had a great time this year when we went up the mountains. It was even better, if you ask me!

Mariellen: I think there are a lot of people in the world whose lives maybe don't turn out the way they think they're going to, or the way they planned for—

Mom: And they're looking back and saying "those were the days," yeah.

Joe: That would play into the theory that nostalgia is toxic. If you are too focused on the past, then what does that say about your present?

Mariellen: I also think that, with time, you remember the good more than the bad. Memories get a little whitewashed.

Dad: You only remember the fun things. You don't remember the boring times. So... no. I don't think nostalgia is toxic. But it's not the most important thing.

Joe: It's nice being nostalgic about this movie, looking back?

Dad: Yeah, it was a great movie! If I would've watched it tonight, I would still say, "That was the best movie."

The Albums That Matter: Transgender Dysphoria Blues

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE. Obviously, Transgender Dysphoria Blues does not fall in line alphabetically, but as previously explained, I'm also using this column to talk about the best albums of the 2010s. This is the next album I am discussing. Come back in December to find out where it falls in the rankings.

Transgender Dysphoria Blues

Against Me!

2014

In December 2014, when describing my favorite album of that year, I used this word: "Brave." That word still is applicable when listening to this album here in 2019, perhaps even more so. Forgetting about the specifics for a moment—it takes fucking bravery to just be yourself sometimes. To show others what you feel inside, who you really are. And now back to the specifics—it is especially courageous to show who you really are when millions of people take a bizarre but very serious offense to the "real you."

In May 2012, the singer then known as "Tom Gable" came out as transgender. I heard the news at a dive bar in Las Vegas called Champagne's, and shared the news with an acquaintance I had out there who also listened to Against Me! I was a live-and-let-live type of person even then, but still, we expressed mild amusement at the notion of this punk rock, gravelly-voiced singer actually being a woman.

Laura Jane Graces silenced the chuckles by releasing an absolute monster of an album, a collection of songs as personal as a diary entry and as gripping as a choke-hold. I'm not laughing anymore.

I will reiterate: being yourself isn't always easy. And I cannot imagine it was easy for Laura Jane Grace to make this transition. But she did it. In fact, in a weird way, I feel like maybe revealing her true self actually elevated the music of Against Me!, because now, nothing was holding her back.

Whereas in previous AM! albums, she had to obscure lyrics and only allude to a general dysphoria (like, "Ocean," in which she "could've been born a woman," or "Searching for a Former Clarity," in which she confesses "childhood secrets of dressing in women's clothing"), on Transgender Dysphoria Blues, she outright states the inner turmoil. Right from the start, the title track hits you with: "You want them to see you / Like every other girl / They just see a fa***t / They hold their breath not to catch the sick." The self-hatred gets worse in the next song, "True Trans Soul Rebel"—"You sleep with a gun beside you in bed / You follow it through to the obvious end / Slit your veins wide open / You bleed it out." And of course, we can't forget the immortal "FUCKMYLIFE666," and its chorus, "I don't have the heart to match / the one pricked into your finger," referring to his then-wife's heart tattoo on her ring finger, and the fear that she will now see Laura Jane Grace differently, now that she is out.

If this all sounds sad and depressing, well then imagine what Grace had to go through to live it! In this way, the album is an absolute gut-punch. Even if you can't bring yourself to relate to the very specific complications of transitioning, then you can mine plenty of empathy from the feeling of discontent we all feel as human beings. "Am I living my best life?"

And plus, all that being said, um, this is a pretty kick-ass punk album, no? Laura Jane Grace, self-reflections or no, still brings that shit-kicking frontwoman attitude to the record, growling and snarling her way through some rollicking jams. From the upbeat tribute to lost loved ones "Dead Friend," to the cinematic urgency of "Paralytic States," Transgender Dysphoria Blues is relentless throughout its half-hour run time. It's powerful on both a lyrical and a musical level.

So look, as someone who really enjoys music that kicks me in the face, but also as someone who feels down sometimes, who feels disillusioned sometimes about the life I lead, I feel like Transgender Dysphoria Blues is the album for me. Occasionally dressing in women's clothing has nothing to do with it. It has everything to do with the fact that Laura Jane Grace rips her heart open for us, and I respond accordingly. This is one of the 2010s' most essential albums.

~~~~~~~~~~~

If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Black Me Out"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Stray Observations

• Not every song on here is anthemic. Not a bad thing, but it would be a mistake not to mention a few outliers. "Drinking with the Jocks" is classic screamy punk, featuring a sarcastic screed of "Look at all the pussy, yeah! / Fill it up with cum!" Grace is thinking back on when she went by "Tom Gable," and the fake life she led, trying to fit in. It lacks the subtlety of the other songs for sure.
• And "Two Coffins" is slow and watery and basically amounts to a love letter to Grace's daughter. Definitely a pretty song, but definitely an outlier.
• I love albums that open with a drum riff. It reminds me here that, sure, this is Grace's story, but that also, it's a team effort. The whole band matters. Even the fucking drummer.
• ALBUM COVER: I think the purpose of the illustration is pretty clear (so clear that some versions of the cover are sans-nipples in a poor effort to censor). An artist whose moniker is "Steak Mtn" drew the cover. You can read an interview with him HERE.
• Apparently this album was originally planned as "a concept album about a transgender sex worker," and "Paralytic Stakes" is a remnant of that canned concept. Then Grace came out as transgender, and the album became a little more personal.
• Haven't mentioned that Grace wrote a book about all this too. It's called Tranny, and it is an infinitely fascinating look into not only the inner turmoil that comes with living in the wrong skin, but also, surprisingly equally fascinating insights into the life of a member of a mid-level punk band.
• In terms of pure level of celebrity (like, how many people in America know who she actually is), I'd rank Grace as #3 in the country out of all transgender women. Unless I'm forgetting anyone, Caitlyn Jenner is #1 (proving that being an LGBTQ icon doesn't mean you can't also be a turd), and Laverne Cox is #2 (who was totally fucking wasted in Orange Is the New Black, proving that even the best shows struggle with balancing large casts sometimes). Feel free to argue all this in the comments (especially if you think the existence of The Matrix 4 is going to propel Lana Wachowski into the top 3!)!
• The jury is still out on the harsher and less personal Shape Shift with Me, TDB's follow-up. It's still great! But it's not going to come close to sniffing a spot on the decade's best list.

NEXT TIME: Natalie Prass, by Natalie Prass

Album of the Week: Any Human Friend

I know it's like five months away, but I wanna make sure you guys know that I plan on throwing a One Year Anniversary Record Club party in early February. All Record Club members are invited. I'll grill some hot dogs and hamburgers, and make a playlist of the highlights from all the albums we've covered so far.

In the meantime, we have another pick from Pam this week. I'm thankful, as always, for Pam's infinite patience in all my dumb endeavors. Check that out below. Refresh your memory of weeks past in the various archives on the right sidebar. Do whatever you wanna do. Much love.

WEEK 30 — August 25-31, 2019

What we're listening to this week (Pam's pick):

ALBUM: Any Human Friend

ARTIST: Marika Hackman

RELEASED: August 9, 2019

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: Indie rock

WHY PAM PICKED IT: "I looked up 'best indie albums 2019' and it was somewhere on the top of the list so I didn't have to scroll that much to find it lol"

TRACKLIST:

1. wanderlust
2. the one
3. all night
4. blow
5. i'm not where you are
6. send my love
7. hand solo
8. conventional ride
9. come undone
10. hold on
11. any human friend

READING SOME SHIT: First, let me say that, according to Bandcamp, the titles of the songs are all lowercase, so that explains that. Second... I dunno, here's an interview, sure.

Happy listening, fam! Have a great week!

Song of the Week: "The Stove & the Toaster"

Y'all want more songs of the week? Y'all wanna click on this link HERE?!

"The Stove & the Toaster"

The Hold Steady

from Thrashing Thru the Passion

2019

Any new music from the Hold Steady is cause for celebration. But is it unfair of me to say that perhaps the celebration is a bit muted this time around? Perhaps. Thrashing Thru the Passion is a collection of ten songs that are very much in the same vein as the rest of the Hold Steady canon, which is emphatically a good thing. Bar band aesthetics mixed with Craig Finn's humorously specific lyrics and plenty of circus-piano exercises by the mustachio'd Franz Nicolay, it all makes for a great time. It always has.

But here's where my own fussiness comes into play. I typically force myself to avoid all pre-release singles for any album I'm excited for, because I want to experience the album new and whole and all together. I know that I personally require this because, e.g., it took me a really long time to get into the Rolling Stones' back catalog because I was already intimate with their big classic rock hits, and that ruined the experience of listening to, say, Let It Bleed or whatever.

In 2018, the Hold Steady started to occasionally release pairs of what I assumed at the time were one-off singles. I assumed (everyone did, I guess) that the band was content to just release some new music whenever they recorded it, but mostly just play the occasional show, and in general become a part-time band. Nothing wrong with that at all! I'm just saying that I didn't think they had another album in them. And so I was gobbling up those singles as they were released.

Not knowing, of course, that eventually five of them would become part of Thrashing Thru the Passion. The album, because of all the confusion, almost comes off like a B-sides collection or something. The first five songs are brand new, and the final five songs are songs that already existed in the world for upwards of a year or more. It's bizarre to even try to consider this a proper LP because of that.

The band can do whatever the fuck they want. They've earned that right. I'm not complaining. I got five new Hold Steady songs out of this album, and they are fucking great. All ten songs are fucking great in a vacuum. I'm really not complaining.

But I wonder how I would feel in the alternative universe in which Thrashing Thru the Passion was released with all ten of these songs brand spanking new. I think I would herald it as one of the best albums of the year. And surely, "The Stove & the Toaster" would've been one of the highlights. I would've thought that this song, in all its Hold-Steady-ness, was one of my favorite songs of 2019.

Instead, it's a song that I love, but a song that I'm already well familiar with. It's a song I fucking saw in concert over a year ago, for christ's sake. This isn't new. It's not knocking me over anymore.

Whatever. For the last time, I'm not complaining. Long live the Hold Steady.

Man It Feels like Space Again, Pam

Man It Feels like Space Again sounds like an album that someone would listen to while getting high with the ultimate goal of that said person attempting to ponder the universe. It starts off fun, energetic, and exciting but unfortunately for the hallucinogenic enthusiast listener, your mushroom guide takes a wrong turn at some point and Pond quickly becomes the soundtrack of a nightmare that you just can’t escape. Like it straight up made me feel weird in the pit of my stomach... I can’t quite describe the feeling. But hey, I will give them that—this certainly made me feel a certain way. And isn’t that the point of art? What I found super interesting was how closely Man It Feels like Space Again paralleled MGMT’s 2010 album, Congratulations. Like, down to the chord progressions, synths backed with pounding drums, and even the vocal sounds—it was so similar I couldn’t get over it. What’s more, I couldn’t get over the fact that anyone would want to emulate that album in the first place. It’s definitely a sound. A sound that may draw in a festival crowd? Sure. A sound that at times may be really great to jump around to? Sure. A sound that I could try to get into for a long time and still feel like I’m on the edge of understanding it? Definitely. I may be too cool for this or not cool enough. Either way, I’m just not there.

Man It Feels like Space Again, Nate

When psychedelia echoes from the past into the now, it either finds the correct vessel to transcend itself (the Flaming Lips, right when the drugs were truly taking hold), or it finds a vessel to express itself. Pond laps at you the way the wake from a speedboat might make the lake shore lap at your toes. For some, this is the preferred maze to get lost in. For others, this is music for airports.

Man It Feels like Space Again, Joe

Pond doesn't bring anything new to the table, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Not every record needs to break the mold. If Pond are comfortable in the confines of the mold of, say, the Flaming Lips and/or MGMT, then good for them. I happen to like the Flaming Lips and MGMT, and if Man It Feels like Space Again feels anything like a knock-off, then at least they are knocking off something that I can appreciate.

(I didn't use Tame Impala as an example in the above paragraph, because that might be considered a bit of a cheat. Tame Impala and Pond are almost the same band, sharing many current and former members. Suffice it to say that you could've told me that Tame Impala replaced their lead vocalist and created this album and I would've believed you.)

There are probably more moments of catharsis than a typical psychedelic band would typical produce on such an album. Like, sure, there are plenty of dead ends and formless interludes that bore me, but you can't deny that there are moments of such pure ecstasy scattered around the songs here that maybe the moments of boredom cease to matter. Usually.

Okay, how about that kick drum / "WOO!" combo about a minute into the album, on "Waiting Around for Grace"? Talk about breaking the door down. "Zond" and "Outside Is the Right Side" are good picks too, if you like your uppers instead of your downers. I could see Pond being a pretty good band to finish your 'shroom stash to while watching in concert, and I assume that these three songs are the type of songs you save till the back half of your set, when you want to maintain that cultivated energy. I know that, listening to Man It Feels like Space Again, those are the songs that kept me going. (Also, "Elvis' Flaming Star," if we are truly trying to list all the highlights before this paragraph ends. That song kicks more and more ass every time I hear it.)

But yeah, there's some boring shit too, if we're being honest. I think it's just the trappings of the genre (or possibly my own fault, since I have never taken hallucinatory drugs). There are long, slow freak-outs all over this record, and while I hesitate to call any of them "bad," I certainly won't be finding a place for them in the HIGHLIGHTS paragraph above. I'm talking shit like "Holding Out for You," which I guess is positing itself as a lighters-in-the-air singalong, but to my ears it sucks the energy out of me when I hear it. Or, like, there's no fucking reason for the title track to unravel for eight minutes, when it doesn't really give any reason for excitement at all. (Also, what the fuck was Pond doing when they released "Sitting Up on Our Crane" as a single? A non-single, non-exciting deep cut if I ever heard one.) (Also also, "Heroic Shart" doesn't do nearly enough to justify its title.)

Still, the lows are only kind of low—there's not really anything on this record I outright disliked. We can call it minor annoyances. But the highs are high enough that maybe the tide rises and brings all the generic psychedelic boats up with it. It's to the point where maybe I don't even care that MGMT is lapping Pond in terms of successfully creating accessibly strange music. Pond is doing what plenty of other bands do, but they are sincerely doing it well.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

A Performance Review of Every Direct Supervisor I've Ever Had

When I switch jobs—which doesn't happen often anymore, but it used to frequently—I would have this reoccurring dream in which I was anxious about whether I made the right choice in choosing the new job. I would be at a bar, and all my past supervisors would be there, and they would give me life advice. They would assure me that I made the right choice moving on. Some of these supervisors would be right up in the front, speaking the clearest. Some of them—the ones that I thought were shitty supervisors—were there too, but didn't have much to say. But all of them played large roles in my life at one point or another. Let's run through them. (The only job not included is my newspaper stand, where I was my own boss, so I give my 5 out of 5 pukes, of course.)

Kevin M. — 2005-2012

Kev was the "head host" at the Lafayette Redeemer, the job of my youth, the place where I hung out with friends and ate free food and shot the shit with senior citizens and got paid. We've talked about the Laf on PoYB so many times already, so you know where I'm talking about by this point. Anyways, Kev was the middle-aged dude tasked with keeping all us youngins in check.

And he did a really good job with it! Kev competently split the difference between hardass and being too lax about discipline. On the one hand, we would join us for beers occasionally in the parking lot, but not in a creepy way, like he'd only be out there when other coworkers his age were there too, and he let us get away with a lot of fucking around on the clock as long as it wasn't harmful to the residents. But he also had the ability to drop the hammer when he needed to, and he was even able to do so in a calm and collected way. I never saw him freak out.

Most importantly to our development as young workers in America, he was always there to pop the bubble when we all got too wrapped up in the Laf fervor. I.e., when one of us stupidly thought it'd be a good idea to work at the Laf too far into our 20s, he'd be there to say something along the lines of "No. Don't be like me." Not in those exact words, but you'd get the drift. The Laf isn't a career. I heard he finally got promoted after I left, and I hope he found a career he can be content with. He deserves it.

ADVICE HE GIVES WHEN ALL MY OLD BOSSES CONVENE IN MY "NEW JOB" DREAM: Kev is usually just happy that I'm moving on. He feels like it's not good to be stuck in the same place for too long.

GRADE: 4.5 pukes out of 5

Vera — 2011-2012

Vera was the head of the overall department at Personal Support, a medical supply company that I worked at briefly to give my bank account a slight boost in between college graduation and traveling. It was a shitty job—it mainly consisted of filing paperwork that I didn't quite understand—but it also wasn't really that taxing either. I didn't actively hate it or anything. I answered to Vera, but she was almost a non-entity as far as I was concerned. This probably had a lot to do with the nature of my job (oversight not really required) versus any sort of supervisory deficits. She seemed competent and mostly didn't give a shit what I did, an attitude which I commend her for. Maybe it wasn't a very good attitude for anyone to follow, though, since Personal Support folded due to what I can only assume was mismanagement.

ADVICE SHE GIVES WHEN ALL MY OLD BOSSES CONVENE IN MY "NEW JOB" DREAM: Vera doesn't really have much to say. She usually just smiles and says "sure" in a Russian accent. It's not like she doesn't care, she's just not super-invested.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

Ben — 2012

Haha, Ben was the man. He reminded me of Miles from Lost but was way less sardonic. He was a floor supervisor for Advantage Consulting Inc., where I made telemarketer phone calls for non-profits (allegedly). The job was extremely difficult until all of a sudden it was freakishly easy. Ben helped with that quick transition. He was a company man, spouting the mottos and slogans of the call center, but always did so with such a laid-back attitude that it didn't really bother me like it would've in the hands of an uptight boss. Ben was an advocate of just doing your fucking job, and being happy to get a paycheck. Like, weirdly and sincerely happy.

ADVICE HE GIVES WHEN ALL MY OLD BOSSES CONVENE IN MY "NEW JOB" DREAM: Ben believes that I'm making the right decision in taking the new position, because he believes that you can succeed anywhere by just following the guidelines and smiling and saying yes. That attitude has served me well in the past, and he reminds me that it remains true now (i.e. I am miserable when I forget this advice and fuck up).

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

Peter B. — 2012-2013

Peter was the GM for Zipcar for the entire year that I worked there, and since I worked as the office's pinch-hitting utility man (doing marketing or customer service or fleet or whatever the fuck they needed from me), Peter ended up being my boss, for the most part. Like Laf Kevin, he did a really good job at splitting that difference between doing your best work and chilling the fuck out when appropriate. Work hard, play hard, which is a good way to be at a "start-up," and Peter embodied that spirit well.

The difference between Peter and Kevin was that Peter had great ambition, which rubbed off on everyone else. I feel like he took me under his wing a little bit and helped me in this regard, since I was a 22-year-old shitbird with almost zero ambition to speak of. Something he made clear was that he wanted me to succeed. He took a personal interest in getting me promoted to an airport gig with Zipcar's Avis/Budget overlords. That gig flamed out spectacularly, but I'll always appreciate how hard he worked for me, and how much pleasure he took in my success.

ADVICE HE GIVES WHEN ALL MY OLD BOSSES CONVENE IN MY "NEW JOB" DREAM: Peter is always supportive during these meetings. As long as my path points towards success, he's happy for me. He encourages me to go against my lazy base instincts and to keep going.

GRADE: 4.5 pukes out of 5

Amanda — 2013

I think that was her name... it's not really a good sign regarding the job when I can't even remember the boss's damn name. Look, I already talked a lot about Avis/Budget. It sucked. And Amanda(?) didn't make it all that easier. I remember I had to fill out a supposedly "anonymous" survey a few weeks in, answering questions about my acclimation to the company thus far. It wasn't going well, and so I was honest on the survey. All of a sudden, Amanda has me in her office, yelling at me, "Why did you answer the questions this way?!" Fuck, dude, I thought it was anonymous?

She didn't like that I couldn't just smile an empty smile and take the corporate overlords' shit and then ask "please sir may I have another?" That's exactly what she did. And unlike Advantage's Ben, she was a corporate drone but had absolutely allowed her soul to be sucked right out of her body in the process. Amanda was the embodiment of everything that's wrong with corporate America. Less a supervisor and more an empty vessel for CEOs to pour buckets of shit into. A cog in the great capitalist machine. Good riddance.

ADVICE SHE GIVES WHEN ALL MY OLD BOSSES CONVENE IN MY "NEW JOB" DREAM: Amanda doesn't even approach me in these dreams. She has no authority over me anymore.

GRADE: 0.5 pukes out of 5

Corporal Clark — 2013-2014

For about a year, I was a police dispatcher, meaning that on some days, I was taking 911 calls from around the city, and other days I was on police radio, telling the officers on the street what to do / where to go. I was a civilian worker, but my supervisor was police. Corporal Clark was a soft-spoken dude. He certainly wasn't incompetent by any means, but he was laid-back enough that I didn't really wonder why he had a desk job as a cop, versus being on the street. I can't imagine him being urgent about anything.

Even when I would fuck up (this was often, since I was very bad at this job), he would kind of just amble up to be and say something like, "Hey K***, you gotta do better next time, 'kay?" Which is something I appreciated, being a fuck up an all. Like, I appreciated that it wasn't an Office Space-type situation, where if I do one tiny thing wrong, everyone is jumping down my fucking throat about it.

On the other hand, having a lackadaisical supervisor is absolutely awful if, say, you're sitting at your radio desk and you hear the crackly voice of a beat officer yell "shots fired!" That's the shit of nightmares, my friend, and there's not much guidance to be found in a supervisor with not much to say one way or the other.

ADVICE HE GIVES WHEN ALL MY OLD BOSSES CONVENE IN MY "NEW JOB" DREAM: Corporal Clark always looks at me like I'm nuts when I present to him my fears and anxieties in these subconscious dream scenarios, because he can't imagine anyone getting so worked up about a fucking city government desk job. Depending on the job, this is either a great way to be, or an irresponsible way to be. At the end of the day, I appreciate the sentiment for the most part, though.

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5

Ph. — 2015-2016

Here's where we start getting a little more vague, since we're moving into current-job territory. Ph. was my first of three supervisors (so far) at my current place of employment. She only stopped being my supervisor when she did because she retired, so I caught her in the final year right before she put herself out to pasture.

And honestly, that showed, with shades of Corporal Clark's flat-affect attitude. But that same attitude that worked so poorly in the tense situations at the police station translated a lot better at this new job. A lot of the work I was doing in that new employment truly was bullshit—pointless paperwork, hopeless clients, mandatory overtime—and so Ph.' attitude almost worked like an antidote to all that. "Why is this upsetting you so much?" she would so often seem to ask with a signature pregnant pause.

For all her shortcomings—either because she was truly lost around the new technology that was implemented since she started her decades-long career, or she simply didn't give a fuck about doing certain things properly, being so close to retirement—ultimately, she was the best supervisor to have at the start of this long career.

ADVICE SHE GIVES WHEN ALL MY OLD BOSSES CONVENE IN MY "NEW JOB" DREAM: "This isn't important, Joe. Just go home and be with your family."

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

J. — 2016-2017

J. took over immediately for Ph. when she retired, so I was still doing the same job as before, just with new leadership. And of course, with that comes that classic adjustment period, when you're acclimating the quirks and peccadilloes of the new boss.

But after that period cleared, I started to realize that J. was just the best fucking supervisor. She was actually competent at her job, which is obviously a good thing (and pretty rare, here, unfortunately), and I learned a lot from her. On top of that, she shared Ph.' self-awareness about the job itself, about how some of this is stupid bullshit. We were able to connect on an intellectual level—I never felt like I had to dumb down what I was saying when I was around her, she always understood what I meant when it came to a puzzling case or whatever.

Basically, I felt like she was a social worker in the exact mold that I wanted to be in. Caring and doing what you had to do but at the same time being able to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. It's just a damn shame that the job itself was still so strenuous and frustrating, so much so that I had to get out of there. Or, on the flip side, it's a damn shame that when I inevitably did leave J.'s unit for an easier role, I couldn't just take J. with me.

ADVICE SHE GIVES WHEN ALL MY OLD BOSSES CONVENE IN MY "NEW JOB" DREAM: That I should do my work, and do it well, but to not let it consume my life. And she would be completely understanding when I decide to take an easier gig, because she understands personally how soul-crushing a frustrating job can be.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

Current Supervisor — 2017-???

For all our sakes, let's say this: the rest of this blog post is fiction. Anything I'm about to write about allegedly real current supervisors is fabricated. I wouldn't write about my current supervisor with even a hint a truth. But were I to write some bullshit lies, I'd probably write something like this...

I've been with this chick for about two and a half years now. For most of that time, we've been civil. I don't think she's a particularly great supervisor, but it's not like I have to deal with her all that often. Any shortcomings I saw in her—she's a lazy fuck who lies instead of ever admitting that she's ever wrong—were ignored by yours truly, because why bother? What would be the purpose of calling her out and tarnishing an already shaky relationship?

But, like Ph., she's pretty close to retirement, but unlike Ph., this has only served to make Current Supervisor even more miserable to be around. And that rubs off on me the wrong way.

E.g. a few months ago, I had asked her about a certain report, and what type of decision should be made about that report's ultimate destination (I'm being vague here, obviously, but the specifics aren't all that exciting anyway). Supervisor told me to go one way with it—the opposite way that I would've done it—but and so I did it that way, the way she said, my own opinion be damned. Then, later, she sent the report back, saying that she had "received new information" and that I should do it the way I originally pushed for.

Now, it was clear what the "new information" was—she read it and realized that she was wrong, and that I was correct originally. Any talk of "new information" was clearly a lie. All I had to do at that point was say "okay" and just fix the damn report and send it back to her. That would've been it. But of course, that's not how I operate, and so I stupidly pressed her on the "new information" part. What new information? Did she call somebody from the report? Did she speak to our administrator? I framed it like: I need to know so I don't fuck up next time.

But instead of just saying "I know, I realized you were right originally, my bad," she clapped back, saying that I was out of order even questioning what "new information" it was. She accused me of being smart. I came short of outright calling her a liar, even though I suppose the implication was there. Etc.

What burns me up the most, after some self-reflection, is that Current Supervisor's flaws are what they are, but in turn they also shine a big ol' spotlight on my own flaws. Yeah, she is an ignorant cocky fucking douchebag, but why don't I have it in me to live and let live? Why do I always escalate things and cause confrontation? I achieved nothing productive by making it clear that I knew she was a filthy fucking liar.

The only thing that I actually accomplished was causing a cold war between us that continues to this day. Seriously, it's bad, folks. Every time I am forced to step into her office to conference with her about something, she looks at me like I am a fucking slug. She rarely does anything more than point and grunt at me at this point. Any opportunity she has to perform a micro-aggression toward me, she takes it (sending me to the farthest homes when I'm in the field, denying my request to take no lunch and leave an hour early, etc.). This is no way to operate, you guys.

Here's a truth: She will be out of my life very soon. It's a waiting game at this point (and for what it's worth, the supervisor rumored to be taking her spot is the opposite, as far as disposition goes, and I already get along with her swimmingly). I'm not going to pull an Inga Saffron or anything, like go to her retirement party and shit on the fun or whatever. I will just decline to go to the party at all, and let her quietly fade from my life.

ADVICE SHE GIVES WHEN ALL MY OLD BOSSES CONVENE IN MY "NEW JOB" DREAM: If she dared show up, it would be a nightmare, not a dream.

GRADE: 0 out of 5 pukes