If you want to help out some Record Club alumni who got all their gear stolen a couple weeks ago, then check out Mannequin Pussy's GoFundMe page. If you wanna go back and read the reviews for that album as well as the other 142 weeks' worth of albums, then head over to the archives. If you'd rather sit back and relax to a curated mix made up of one song from every single RC album so far, then go to the playlist. If you want to dive right in and check out this week's album, keep scrolling. Happy War on Drugs Week, everybody.
WEEK 144 — October 31-November 6, 2021
What we're listening to this week (Dwyer's pick):
ALBUM: I Don't Live Here Anymore
ARTIST: The War on Drugs
RELEASED: October 29, 2021
WHAT GENRE IS THIS: Definitely rock, maybe "heartland rock," maybe "psychedelic-tinged rock," maybe "indie rock," maybe genre is a construct
WHY DWYER PICKED IT: "Because people are more excited for Coldplay to drop their next album of trash, meanwhile WoD is making the most epic music ever!"
READING SOME SHIT: Here's an excellent recent interview with WoD frontman and mastermind, Adam Granduciel.
PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: On a literal level, we can mention Kurt Vile, who at one point was a member of the War on Drugs (but a really long time ago, before they split and took their respective projects in completely opposite directions). But on a deeper level than that, I want to mention that it is so fucking rare that we cover an album such as this in this particular context. I'm talking about an extremely popular non-pop artist who is known well in the music blogosphere audiophile circles I travel in, and a feverishly anticipated next album from said artist, and (crucially) in the same week that the album is released. Has this ever happened before? The last I can think of is Run the Jewels 4. Honestly, that might be the only other one. So thank you to Dwyer, who didn't let the fact that a previous pick of his "sounded like the War on Drugs" stop him from picking the actual War on Drugs this week. Let's do this shit!!!!
That's the first thing I have to notice, or else we're gonna do whatever I usually do on Saturdays when the "blind spot" is a particular spot on a known artist's discography—"this is how this album fits into the overall story of this musical artist." I don't know whether that's boring to others. I do know that it involves a lot of me talking out of my ass. As if I could truly know any artist's entire story. As if every artist even has to have an overarching narrative whose steps are defined by each album released. As if Fiona Apple, of all goddamn people, would give a shit about any of this, with her 90-word album titles and her persistent unobtainable coolness.
So the drums.
But hold up, this is important to the narrative though, isn't it? At least in a very narrow, PoYB sense. I already exalt Ms. Apple. I agree that her most recent magic trick is excellent. I jumped in about a year prior and found that it was accolade-worthy. Not noted in either piece was the fact that I knew "Criminal"—who doesn't know "Criminal"?!—but that's it. The realization that Fiona Apple was off in a thousand new direction since I last checked in with her circa 1996 was a thrilling one. She took one huge hit and morphed into an artist that operates almost exclusively in deep cuts. So with When the Pawn..., someone in my position might find it reasonable to find the midway point between "Criminal" and The Idler Wheel... / Fetch the Bolt Cutters. When the Pawn... is more grounded than the latter, and exponentially wilder than the former.
When I mention the drums, sure, I'm talking about "Limp" specifically, but I'm also talking about the fact that the drums being at the forefront of the mix for a lot of these songs gives agency to the overarching narrative that Fiona Apple is cool as fuck and no one can touch her. If this is the "let's take what we learned in in our nascent stage and get really crazy with it for the follow-up" album, then the drums are where we see the mindset in action. Fiona Apple isn't the drummer, and yet the percussion comes pretty fucking close to stealing the show. And, it hasn't gotten to the point where we are in Fetch the Bolt Cutters, where Fiona is literally just banging drum sticks on her kitchen table a lot of the time—which, yes, works well in that context, but it certainly isn't this. This is something else entirely. This is the good shit.
When I make such a conclusion—i.e. "Yup, Fiona Apple is still cool"—then I'm betraying the fact that this was never a blind spot at all. I learned nothing new. I wasn't blind. The drummer beat the blindness right out of me.
I'll immediately excuse this review, as I have been nursing a sickness all week. I apologize for the brevity, as this album deserves better.
For a person and song such as Tina Turner's "What's Love Got to Do with It," it's surprising how much more depth, nuance, and nihilism existed than I anticipated. Indeed, this whole album thematically is so adult. You don’t get "Private Dancer," song or album, without a lifetime of people kicking you around and taking you for granted. With that baggage in hand, Tina Turner cranks out probably one of the best albums of the '80s. And it's, yes, very much '80s (see ocarina solo).
But in spite of all that, these are some powerful ballads and pop songs I'll return to.
Postscript: I didn't realize I listen to an extended version, which includes a piano-only cover of the Beatles song "Help!" It's probably better that it didn't make the album.
From time to time we have a big famous album on RC that I've never listened to before. There's a recurring joy of "Oh, this is on here?" when any album has so many hits. But with Private Dancer, there are all sorts of other rabbit holes to go down too. Why were whichever covers picked to be on here? Curious ("1984" and "Rain" are very good). What’s up with the Dire Straits writing/recording "Private Dancer" before? Should I consider Tina Turner Swedish music?
It's a great album. The mix of choices really does feel like she assembled her book, and listening to the whole thing you can appreciate the massive range. There's a lot of both 1980s synth stuff and R&B styles (take the bridge in "What's Love Got to Do with It"). And the number one hit track—an R&B love song, while also having lyrics cleverly turning the usual motif around. I've heard it so many times on TBS behind a commercial for this or that movie and I can say now they did the song no justice.
Moments of pure discovery are rare. Of course one is aware of "Private Dancer," cultural osmosis has provided that much, and anyone with a cursory awareness of the music section of the tabloid / gossip ecosystem knows about Tina and Ike and the sad, unhappy, unpleasant, tragic, monstrous history they share. Let's spend no more time on it.
Private Dancer is a rock record, first and foremost and above all else, powered as much by its era's touchstones as it is Turner's voice and delivery. Her voice is working class in the best possible way. It carries a thousand little indignities, dripping with the character of the punch-clock and the still-dirty happy hour; she is the greatest karaoke singer anyone in this sad watering hole will ever hear, her voice a beauty that suggests a better world, her presence a bleak camaraderie that proves a better world is beyond reach. She is unobtainable, but she exists in a place that looks enough like our own to lift, to reflect.
So, it is with this unique and singular power that she can become Meatloaf ("Steel Claw"), can become Prince ("I Might Have Been Queen"), can become Michael McDonald ("What's Love Got to Do with It"), can become James Brown ("Better Be Good to Me"), can become the future ("I Can't Stand the Rain"), can obliterate the myths of the male gaze with simple detachment ("Private Dancer"). It isn't a happy world, the one conveyed in this record, but it is a real one, perhaps the real one. Here is the document of the most tangible Diva, the rock star who walks among, not above. Moments of pure discovery are a joy. The question is not where Tina has been, it's where have I been?
This is a list of our demands. We demand that the superstar musicians from the 1970s and 1980s stay away from love ballads. We demand that these singers use their vocal prowess to rock out. We demand that there are no slow songs on any album statements. And we demand that every well-known artist from before our time finally enter our consciousness with a slate of songs that don't get lethargic or depressing in any way. Say it with me now, folks! No more love ballads! No more slow, sad songs! Love ballads are cancelled forever! Hell no, we won't slow! Hell no, we won't slow! Hell no, we won't slow!
Tina Turner has heard our demands, and has agreed to meet us at the bargaining table.
We parse through the supporting documents, and separately bring each one to her attention.
Is "I Might Have Been Queen" a slow love ballad? No, it's an uptempo ode to women being in charge, whether that means being a literal Egyptian queen in a past life, or just gaining agency after a particularly sour divorce, with a smokey '80s guitar part that makes me guess that the video featured Tina, clad in leather, coordinated-dancing through the fog.
Is "What's Love Got to Do with It" a slow love ballad? It's slower than the preceding track, sure, but there's a steady drum track that doesn't drag, an absolutely charming synth harmonica solo, a blistering vocal take on the chorus, and a theme that literally takes the idea of love even being relevant here and punts it out the window.
Is "Show Some Respect" a slow love ballad? Nah, it sounds hard as shit, like Tina Turner is doing hair metal now, because she knows—and we know—that she can do motherfucking anything. If this didn't soundtrack a training montage from some boxing movie from the 1980s, I'll eat my wig.
Is "I Can't Stand the Rain" a slow love ballad? I mean, it's slower, but what we're really trying to say here is that none of these songs, regardless of tempo, is a slogging, rhythmless bore through a heart full of romance. Adele exists in this lineage—powerful female artists who allow their considerable talents go to waste on monotonous dreck. "I Can't Stand the Rain" could've fallen into this realm, but Tina Turner does not allow it. Think of that repeated xylophone-type riff. Think of those titanic horn blasts that jut in and out. This ain't a fucking slow love ballad, not even close.
Is "Better Be Good to Me" a slow love ballad? Nope, though one might make that false assumption based on the first few seconds, when Turner starts all hushed and calm. Then that Townshend-esque guitar rock riff comes in, and it's all rising action from there. No time for soft sappy bullshit when you are a rock 'n' roll goddess.
Is "Let's Stay Together" a slow love ballad? Probably the closest on the album, but don't worry everybody, those bongos aren't gonna let the tempo drop. And now let's listen as Turner dips in and out of that rhythm like a prizefighter. The baritone sax stands in the corner with water and a towel if she needs it.
Is "1984" a slow love ballad? No way, this is some primo sci-fi David Bowie shit, and Turner manages to make it sound cooler than David Bowie ever could, or did. This is wall-to-wall 1980s tropes, and honestly I can see why the kids today are into this stuff.
Is "Steel Claw" a slow love ballad? Fuck no, not even close. "Steel Claw" is the farthest thing from a sloppy wet love ballad that I could possibly imagine. On an album chock full of absolute fucking barnburners, this tune blazes past 'em all. It's amazing. It's almost like Meatloaf, ya know? But, like, actually cool. "Steel Claw" is a theatrical and intense ode to the working man's plight. Fuck love songs, we need better wages, right? Eight of the nine songs on the tracklist have individual Wikipedia pages; "Steel Claw" is the exception. Insanity. It's the best song on Private Dancer, which is saying something because there's some stiff competition. It might be the best song I've heard this year. Let's burn it all down—love ballads, capitalism, all of it.
Is "Private Dancer" a slow love ballad? I don't think so. At the beginning of the week, I was going to say that it's an empowerment anthem for women who take charge and use that power to make a living. The more I think about it, the more I think that it's probably the opposite. I didn't do my homework, but I know that Ike Turner was bad news, correct? And so this is probably Tina lamenting the fact that she was successful and making money but still felt like nothing more than a puppet with the strings being pulled by her abusive husband. Regardless, this ain't no fucking love ballad, what are you, nuts? If the lyrical content doesn't convince you, then maybe yet another guitar solo can.
We fully admit that some assumptions may have been made in the past, not knowing anything about Tina Turner's music before this. That maybe she was using her capabilities as a singer to belt out the sappiest '80s rubbish imaginable, which, jeez, would not have been our cup of tea. Nope. Tina Turner is a luminary rock star. It would be dumb of us to assume that Turner has never sung a slow love ballad in her entire career, because that can't possibly be true. But to be able to completely avoid that style of music through the course of a famous nine-song album is more than impressive. It's legendary.
Tina Turner, we'd be honored if you joined us in the cause. No more sad slow songs! Fast rock 'n' roll songs forever! Let's go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After over two months of waiting since we last discussed it, Pitchfork has finally released the list of "our readers' chosen top 200 albums between 1996-2021" (not sure if there is a more succinct way to describe it). I always find it kind of interesting to compare my own personal list to the compiled list. How do my choices compare to the composite choices of my peers?
It's a game that is both frustrating (I think Radiohead is good, but not good enough to have THREE of the top FOUR albums of the past 25 years!!!!) and satisfying (fuck everyone else, I love my music). So let's play it really quickly. Here are my Top 25 again, and next to each album, I'll indicate how many spots higher or lower the album ended up on Pitchfork's list (or "N/A" if the album wasn't on their list at all).
25. Kids in Philly by Marah — N/A
24. Sleep Well Beast by the National — N/A
23. Everything Goes Numb by Streetlight Manifesto — N/A
22. The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance — N/A
21. Guitar Romantic by the Exploding Hearts — N/A
20. Twin Cinema by the New Pornographers — N/A
19. Stuck on Nothing by Free Energy — N/A
18. American Idiot by Green Day — N/A
17. Return to Cookie Mountain by TV on the Radio — #189 — 172 spots lower
16. Hold On Now, Youngster... by Los Campesinos! — N/A
15. The Lonesome Crowded West by Modest Mouse — #61 — 46 spots lower
14. Home, like Noplace Is There by the Hotelier — N/A
13. The Execution of All Things by Rilo Kiley — N/A
3. Apologies to the Queen Mary by Wolf Parade — #149 — 146 spots lower
2. The Monitor by Titus Andronicus — #162 — 160 spots lower
1. Boys and Girls in America by the Hold Steady — N/A(!!!!!!!!!)
Insane: only ten of these 25 albums charting at all. Insane: how most of them are a triple-digit number of spots away from where I'd put them. Insane: how not even a #1 vote for Boys and Girls in America could push the album into contention at all. Not insane: how much of a monoculture Pitchfork is. Radiohead? Kanye? Psh. C'mon.
II.
XPN is doing something similar, but going bigger. With no time range to consider, they are asking for your top albums of all time, period. They are only asking for ten, but will by the end of 2021 compile the votes into a list of the top 2021 albums of all time. (Voting ends tomorrow! Get on it!)
This is a sequel to last year's top 2020 songs of all time, which I wrote about at the time. I was correct when I presumed that 2020 was enough leeway for my number 1 pick to get pushed into the running based on my vote alone (Spoon's "The Underdog" ended up at #1116). So I am confident I can get Boys and Girls in America onto this list. (Fuck Pitchfork.)
No, the most interesting thing to think about for this was whether the lack of a cut-off for years eligible would affect my Top Ten that I made for Pitchfork. Could someone like the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, or Bob Dylan sneak an album into the Top Ten? I thought about it for a while.
Really, the question boils down to: "Besides the nine I already named, can I think of another album that is better than Clap Your Hands Say Yeah's self-titled debut?" And, surprisingly, I could not. Gun to my head, I would choose CYHSY over Born to Run, The White Album, Blood on the Tracks, Dark Side of the Moon, Led Zeppelin, pretty much any classic rock album I could think of. All of those named in the last sentence would probably bump into somewhere from #11-25, but not the top ten.
The biggest takeaway from this absolutely must be that the music you get into when you're seventeen years old is the music you will love for the rest of your life. A corollary takeaway is that I was artistically stunted at a very specific age. A takeaway that you might have too is that I am crazier than a shithouse rat for claiming that Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is better than Born to Run. To all those who claim this takeaway as their own, I say to you: fucking fight me.
III.
That I feel comfortable enough to challenge someone to a fight over a mostly forgotten blog rock touchstone of the mid-'00s says something about the big picture here: claiming something as your "favorite"—especially music, especially albums, especially "of all time"—is some tricky shit.
I've tested this out a few times in the past couple months, in a couple different bars around University City, mostly with people I barely know as a sort of icebreaker. I ask my new friends: what is your favorite album of all time? The response is generally something like, "I don't know! That's such a hard question!" and so on.
Here's what I propose. The difficult part of the question isn't being able to say what you like—that's easy, because liking something means remembering that thing. No, the difficult part is making such an answer as a statement and knowing that it is going to reflect on you as a person. You can't just like something the most; the thing you like most also has to say something about you. And during that precious time at the beginning of the semester when you don't know anyone and you're trying to parse through a large group of students to figure out who your friends are going to be, you want to say something about yourself that shows the You to strangers that is the same as the You you see yourself as, deep down inside.
(It's also possible that the very act of asking this question makes people so uncomfortable that they don't want to be friends with me, but that's a whole different issue.)
Now, when the question is inevitably mirrored back to me, I obviously have my answer at the ready: the Hold Steady's Boys and Girls in America. No one has yet heard of it, which then requires the whole explanation about it being America's premiere bar band singing about nostalgia for the blackout days of our youth, etc., etc. But I'm starting to wonder if maybe the fact that this answer of my favorite album all-time, despite my honesty, is not the answer that I should be giving, in this particular situation.
The very fact that I have to explain it to all non-Hold Steady fans blunts the answer's impact. I want it to say that I'm wistful, that I'm self-aware, that I'm fun-loving, that I'm always trying to stay positive. But if you don't know that about this band and this album, and can't get that from whatever one-sentence explanation I can come up with after two pitchers of Miller Lite, then the other person is learning absolutely nothing about me, save for the possible fact that I like "obscure" music (even though it's not obscure) and that I posed the original question in order to seem cooler than I am (even though I'm not cool and would never try to seem that way on purpose).
For the record, the first two new friends I posed the question to both said that a Kanye album was their favorite of all time, so maybe I should just throw the question right into the trash before any more social lives are ruined.
Stalking my way through a list of 200 movies, killing all of them, one after another.
Friday the 13th
1980
Sean S. Cunningham
It's almost unfair to transition from the list to the review in this blog column, because the creation of the list and the opinions about the movie are answering two different questions. Is it interesting? Friday the 13th ended up on the list because I thought it might be interesting. Is it good? I'm writing a blog post about whether I thought it was good or not. There can be two different answers. Such is the case with Friday the 13th.
Is it interesting? Hell yeah. I'm mainly interested in the fact that this was made at the dawn of the teen slasher film, and I'm curious as to how many of the "tropes" of the genre were created in this film. (I am told online that Halloween was the very first, a couple years prior, and I'm torn, because it's somehow not on the list, but also I don't want to be spoiled in case I end up watching it eventually.)
This is interesting to me, I guess because I'm more reacting to society's reaction to the film, as opposed to the film itself. Like, I find it more fascinating to view Friday the 13th as a cultural artifact than an actual film. If I was familiar with the genre, but never saw any movies from the origin of that genre, than that means that society in general found them so captivating that they kept them alive long enough for a person who was born almost a decade after the first Friday the 13th to still be familiar with them as he grew up.
But you could also look at this reaction of mine as a defense mechanism, because despite the allure of film sociology, I cannot deny that watching Friday the 13th in 2021 was an experience that fell flat. Was it interesting? Sure. Was it good? No. But I'm grasping at straws, trying to look at it from a fresh perspective, trying to see if there was anything worthy of appreciating, despite the fact that this was generally a bad, or at the very least boring, movie.
As I mentioned during the last (and only other so far) horror film we watched, The Blair Witch Project, horror movies rarely "scare" me in a deeper sense than just jump scares. So if that's the entire premise of the movie—"we're going to do our best to make the audience of this movie jump out of their seat!"—then the movie is rarely a success. There has to be more than that in the film (i.e. it's cultural status, while interesting, doesn't count).
I don't know, I can't really think of anything that amounted to this being a "good" movie. The teens/victims were the barest of sketches, so I found it hard to care when they started being picked off. Their motivations were unclear—what convinced them to spend the summer at a random camp that was just reopening this year? Did they know the new owner? And why was he so motivated to fix the camp up, even though his parents allegedly shut it down because of a bunch of grisly murders? Sure, there's some shock value in a young Kevin Bacon getting impaled by a spike through a bed mattress, but why should I truly, honestly care about that character or his death?
Something else that could potentially make a horror film worth watching is a memorable villain. Now, even someone horror movie-averse as I am would recognize the villain of the Friday the 13th series if he showed up on a movie poster or something. Jason, with the hockey mask. He's one of the most famous horror movie villains of all time, and still relevant in pop culture over forty years after his first movie. So surely, his introduction might at least save the movie somewhat?
Again, this is super interesting, even though I don't necessarily think it's satisfying, but—Jason is barely even in this movie! Look, if there was one true surprise in watching this movie, then this is it. Knowing who Jason Voorhees is and what movies he is in, I assumed that the unseen murderer in this film was Jason the whole time. Reasonable assumption, based on the fact that Jason is still known entity here in the 2020s, right? Nope! It was Jason's mother the whole time. Wow.
I'm almost tempted to say that this is ballsy, but I'd only be saying that because pop culture led me to believe, erroneously, that Jason was the main villain of this entire enterprise. He is not. It wasn't a purposeful decision to keep Jason out of this movie or anything like that, because the idea of "Jason" didn't exist in 1980. So it was surprising, but it was almost disappointing, a little bit, in that I was led to believe that some supernatural, larger-than-life monster was ripping these teens' throats, but it ended up just being a normal old lady who had been driven crazy with grief. Disappointed mainly because Friday the 13th (the movie) failed to give me a sense of what Friday the 13th (the series) truly entails. But intrigued that it started out this way.
It's kind of like watching the pilot episode for a well-known television series. You can at the same time be captivated by all the little things they got wrong—Leslie Knope is mean? Michael Scott has greasy, slicked-back hair?—and also in real time acknowledge that, taken as an isolated piece of art, this shit kinda sucks. As a movie, Friday the 13th was less than okay, if not necessarily terrible. As the first movie in a series of movies that have an extremely far cultural reach, even today, it's pretty cool to see.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Running Through the Sequels
Okay, no, this is the most interesting part of Friday the 13th to me—that such a movie could spawn ELEVEN SEQUELS. Insanity. I'm going to quickly run through every sequel's Wikipedia, and report briefly what I find below. *SPOILERS*
Friday the 13th Part 2 — Alice, who survived the first film, is immediately murdered in the opening scene of the sequel, indicating that Jason is alive. Some idiot opens up a "school for camp counselors" at Camp Crystal Lake. Jason shows up and kills everyone except one girl who gets away (i.e. she survives until the next film anyway).
Friday the 13th Part III — A bunch of friends decide to take a vacation to Camp Crystal Lake, and are murdered one by one. Most importantly, the friends scare each other with a hockey mask at the beginning of the movie, and Jason, after killing them, takes the hockey mask and puts it on. The hockey mask doesn't even show up till Part III! Incredible.
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter — Gotta love the "final chapter" bit, eh? Alright, so another group of teens go to Camp Crystal Lake for vacation. One of the teens is eventually revealed to be the brother of a victim from Part 2. Also, Jason was presumably killed in Part III, but wakes up in the morgue and kills all the employees. He is eventually hacked to death by a boy named Tommy (played by Corey Feldman!!), who apparently "gives a disturbed look to the camera" afterward, and allegedly shows up in subsequent sequels. Let's see...
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning — Okay, so Tommy is back. He's now a teen himself, and because of the hallucinations he keeps having of Jason, he is in a psych ward. One of the teens he's in there with, Joey, is murdered by another teen. Then everyone else starts getting picked off by an unknown assailant (possibly Jason, thinks Tommy). Tommy confronts him, kills him, knocks the hockey mask off, to reveal that the killer was Joey's dad, who was enraged by his son's death, and was inspired by Jason's mother's own killing spree. Tommy is seen at the end of the film wearing the mask and wielding a knife.
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives — Oh boy. Tommy returns to Camp Crystal Lake (now called Forrest Green) to "confront his fears." He digs up Jason's body to attempt to cremate it. Instead, a bolt of lightning strikes the corpse and reanimates it. Jason thus goes on another killing spree. Tommy is the final confrontation again, and instead of killing Jason, he ties Jason's foot to a boulder and drops him at the bottom of the lake. Jason is shown to be alive, but stuck underwater, waiting...
Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood — Goodbye, Tommy. This one features Tina, who has telekinetic powers. Those powers killed her father accidentally in her youth, near the same lake that Jason is patiently waiting at the bottom of. When a hack doctor gets Tina to use her powers near that lake, years later, as part of some fucked up grief therapy, she accidentally frees Jason. Jason proceeds to kill a bunch of people. Jason is finally defeated when Tina uses her powers to reanimate her dead dad, who protects Tina by dragging Jason back down to the bottom of the lake, where... again, he's not dead, just waiting.
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan — Probably the most hilarious title of the series. A couple of teens accidentally reanimate Jason, who kills the teens, leaves Crystal Lake, and boards a ship bound for New York City. He kills a bunch of other people. The main protagonist of this film eventually is chased into the sewers by Jason, who is overcome with sewage waste, is reminded of his childhood drowning, and melts away. Okay.
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday — Okay, no, this is a funny title too. It features an extremely convoluted premise, even for this series. Jason is resurrected again, but happens to chase an undercover FBI agent, who kills him. The coroner sees that the heart is still beating and... am I reading this right? He eats the heart? And the coroner is thus possessed with the spirit of Jason? Alrighty. Someone figures out that only a descendant of Jason can truly kill him. They find that person, and she kills him. I think that's it. Oh wait, no, the film ends with the sounds of Freddy Krueger laughing, and the sight of Freddy's hand "dragging Jason's mask into hell."
Jason X — You're not gonna believe this one. Jason is cryogenically frozen in 2008, and awakes in 2455, when all human life has been moved to a different planet. He kills, and kills some more, and is at one point rebuilt as a cyborg, and then kills some more. He is distracted at one point when scientists project a hologram of two teen girls swimming at Camp Crystal Lake. He is shot out of a space canon in order to finally kill him (except... two girls swimming in a lake on Earth Two see what they think is a shooting star, and go to investigate...). Pure insanity.
Freddy vs. Jason — This one is tough to decipher without any working knowledge of the Nightmare on Elm Street series. ("What is this, a crossover episode?") Apparently Freddy has been trapped in hell, and sets Jason on the Elm Street residents so that he can escape, "using their fear," or something like that. But then a plan is set to turn Jason and Freddy on each other. They fight an epic battle at Camp Crystal Lake. Jason emerges as the winner, holding Freddy's decapitated head... but the credits roll after Freddy's decapitated head winks at the camera and starts laughing.
Friday the 13th — Okay, this is a reboot, not a sequel. Fair enough. But is also seems like it acts as an alternate universe sequel to the original movie? In that it supposes that Jason witnessed the climactic beheading of his mother, and uses that as the reason to go on his own murdering sprees. As with every other goddamn film in this series, a bunch of teens are murdered (including a few I actually recognized this time), and Jason is thought to have been killed by the end, only to reveal that he is alive in the cliffhanger. Part XIII coming soon? (Probably not.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Only Trivia You Need
Ari Lehman is the actor credited as playing Jason in the first film. This is the only time he played Jason in the entire series. And to be clear—the entire role amount to about two seconds of screen time, and was so heavily makeupped that you'd never be able to tell who actually plays Jason.
Nevertheless, Ari Lehman seems to have taken the role to heart, basing his entire personality around it. This includes fronting a "horror metal" band called First Jason. Here's a video they dropped just two weeks ago.
I can't tell if this is the saddest thing I've ever seen, or the happiest. Either way, can't knock the guy for clearly having a blast playing the keytar.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5
NEXT TIME: Speaking of horror movies!!!!! From Justin to Kelly coming at ya!!!!!!!
It's a Tuesday, I ain't got shit to do, let's check another movie off the list of 200 movies and then see what happens.
Friday
1995
F. Gary Gray
A caveat that I feel the need to place at the beginning of these movie write-ups during the rare occasion that it occurs: I miiiiight have seen this movie before. If I did, it was in like fifth grade, which is entirely too young to be watching it, and much too long ago for me to remember anything about it. However, I did have vivid memories of my grade school friends quoting this movie—yes, it was definitely the same dude from way back in my Ace Ventura post, among other friends—especially the Chris Tucker line "You got knocked the FUCK out!" Also, there was a tossed off line when Tucker's character Smokey accidentally calls his drug dealer "Big Perm" instead of "Big Worm." For some reason, that was a big line in grade school too. I hadn't heard it in over 20 years, though, so when Smokey said it, it was kind of an "oh shit" moment.
So if my elementary school friends watched it enough times that they were excessively quoting even the deep cut quotes, then it stands to reason that I was with them for at least one of those viewings. Oh well. Even if I was in some shitty Northeast Philly basement in 1999 watching a contraband copy on VHS, it obviously didn't make enough of an impact that I would remember it years later. Did I watch it, or have I seen it? That's the big question here. The answer to the latter question is no. Not until this week, anyway. So here we go. A mid-'90s stoner comedy written by and starring Ice Cube. What's good?
Clearly, I am in the minority when it comes to my number of viewings of Friday, because I was also shocked to learn that the big meme from a couple years ago (or longer? or it's still current? I don't know memes) when you say "Bye Felicia" when you are trying to be dismissive of someone comes from Friday. I seriously didn't know. Even before we get into the film itself, I find that to be extremely interesting. If Friday is considered a "cult" film, and yet features an element that is so far reaching over the internet that even a movie philistine like me could be aware of its existence and use, is it still even a cult film? Or has the internet as it exists in the 2010s-20s so far twisted what it means to be a meme that "cult film" isn't even a term that could possibly apply to any film anymore?
These are not questions I'm ready to answer just let, only barely past the quarter mark on my 200-film-long project. I am qualified (barely) to talk about my immediate reaction to it, though. I may not be good at discussing films at large, but I sure can waste your time spewing my ignorant opinions! There are two big ones today. The first is an overall positive. The second makes me a little uneasy, and leads to further questions.
First, the good stuff. I love the structure of this movie. I love how our main protagonists basically sit in lawn chairs on the front porch all day, and watch as the action comes to them. Though there are plenty of throughlines with the recurring characters, at times it almost amounts to a series of vignettes. "Here comes X and Y character, let's see how Craig and Smokey react to him/her/them." In this way, it kind of reminded me of Clerks, how there were two male characters, how their listlessness in life drove much of the plot, and how there were plenty moments in between when the film was content to just listen in on the two males talking shit about life.
I thought it was pretty interesting that Craig, our hero, was mostly a hero of inaction. He purposefully refrained from doing much of anything through most of the film. He didn't have to go to work (got fired under suspicious circumstances), he didn't want to find another job, he had to be convinced to smoke, he didn't have any motivation to woo his female counterpart (at least until the drugs kicked in), he was more content to hide from the neighborhood bully than confront him in any way, and he barely ever wanted to even stand up out of his chair for anything.
Which was all fine and good, because I thought Friday stumbled a little bit once Craig was finally spurned to take action. You see, that aforementioned neighborhood bully (Deebo, played by the hulking Tommy Lister Jr.) was eventually going to go too far, and Craig was eventually going to have to stand up to him. Earlier in the movie, Craig's dad, John Witherspoon's Willie Jones, took a short break from his comedic relief role to impart some wisdom upon his son, who had just taken his gun out of the bedroom dresser:
"You kids have been nothin' but punks, sissified, so quick to pick up a gun. Too scared to take an ass-whipping. [puts up fists] This is what makes you a man. When I was growing up, this was all the protection we needed. You win some, you lose some, but you live. You live to fight another day."
When considering the use of guns specifically, I guess that's pretty decent advice. It convinced Craig not to murder Deebo with a gun, in any case. But I think the advice also speaks toward some pretty toxic ideas about masculinity, about the need to fight, like physically fight. I'm not here to give advice on what Craig should have done—Deebo was criminally violent, even toward women, so I'm not defending him—I'm just saying that Craig is presented with fighting as either a "right way" or "wrong way" to fight, and no one stops to consider whether he should be fighting at all.
My point is underlined by the fact that, sure, while Craig doesn't use a gun to maim or kill Deebo, he does use a brick and a 2x4 to kick his ass in a way that absolutely would've been murder anyway if Deebo was even a little bit smaller. If the whole point was Craig making the "right decision" by putting the gun down, was destroying a guy with another deadly weapon really the correct was to make that point? I don't know. All I know is it kind of made me feel weird, like there was a better way to get even with the villain.
It's probable that I'm taking this way too seriously. This is supposed to be a buddy stoner comedy; maybe it wasn't meant to "make a point" about masculinity or anything like that. I apologize if it looks like I'm ruining it. Maybe there is a middle ground here between being a social justice warrior and being a fifth grader who quotes Chris Tucker in the schoolyard.
That middle ground: hey, Friday was mostly a fun movie. There's been plenty of days in my life, even recently, when the temptation is to just say fuck it to your job, fuck it to any responsibilities whatsoever, and just sit on your porch with your best friend and get completely fucked up. In that specific way, Friday spoke to my sensibilities. It's probably not worth getting any deeper than that on it.
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5
NEXT TIME: I rushed to get this movie down on the blog before Halloween—Friday the 13th is one of the only horror movie classics on the list, and the season is perfect for a first viewing.
We have all the previous songs of the week HERE baby.
"I'm a Instrument"
Bruiser Wolf
from Dope Game Stupid
2021
"Nobody sound like this / I got my own sound." Not only is this absolutely true of Bruiser Wolf, but it is true of every rap that I have ever loved. I'm finding that I am drawn, at least when it comes to hip hop, to the weird and the unique. Bruiser Wolf, who sounds like he's narrating a radio ad in the 1950s when he raps, fits the bill.
It's no surprise that he is part of Danny Brown's Bruiser Brigade, since Brown was the last rapper I felt this way about. In case you missed the song of the week or the Record Club review, Danny Brown pops up in a feature on "I'm a Instrument" to remind you how weird he sounds when he raps. Honestly, though, Bruiser Wolf is weirder. He is not lying at all when he says that no one sounds like this. It's the fucking truth.
Even beyond hip hop, I can't think of anyone in music who sounds like this. On one hand, he sounds like he's reading from a poetry book over a beat that he's never heard before this very moment. On the other hand, it's very clear that he knows that's what it sounds like, and he's smirking and he's in on the joke. The joke is on us. It is a very funny joke.
I'm not fully sold on Dope Game Stupid in general. I think Bruiser Wolf deserves better production; some of these beats drag a little bit. Nevertheless, the novelty of his voice makes me invested anyway. It's just so goofy, I can't help but love it. I know nothing about hip hop, so take that with a grain of salt, but I stand by the assessment.
There are a finite number of ideas in music throughout history. When something genuinely new comes along, then I want everyone to know about it. That's the only reason why we're here. And if you are way more into hip hop than I am and are able to tell me other artists that sound exactly like Bruiser Wolf sounds, then I ask you: please don't ruin this for me. Let me believe that no one has ever sounded as bizarre as Bruiser Wolf does. I need this.
I was tossing around the idea with this week's album picker a couple weeks ago that I should maybe talk about Record Club alumni's political beliefs in this introduction at some point. The context was that apparently RC alum Dua Lipa has some outspoken beliefs regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. Maybe some other RC artists are outspoken about this kind of stuff. I mean, we've mentioned previously how Halsey wants to do another 9/11 at Pitchfork, how the drummer of Phish feels the Bern, and how the drummer of the bassist of A Day to Remember denies being a rapist. Who else has some strong takes? Are Foals secretly Nazis? Is Duke Deuce pro-life? Was Connie Converse killed by the mob for her beliefs?
After careful reconsideration, I think I'd rather not know any of this. Like, there's a reason we haven't covered Kanye West in Record Club yet, ya know? Sometimes an artist's beliefs make it impossible for you to see them the same way ever again, especially if it is a particularly strong take and a particularly terrible take or both.
Anyways, let's forget about all this, and move onto the next artist. You can first check out the archives or the playlist if you want, but if not, continue below to see what we have in store for ya this week. I promise I won't mention anything about politics.
WEEK 143 — October 24-30, 2021
What we're listening to this week (Sam's pick):
ALBUM:Private Dancer
ARTIST: Tina Turner
RELEASED: May 29, 1984
WHAT GENRE IS THIS: pop / rock / R&B
WHY SAM PICKED IT: "Tina Turner always felt like a figure on Mount Rushmore but someone I didn't know much about. This album seemed like a good entry point to explore Tina at her apex and on her own terms."
READING SOME SHIT: From Sam—"I got turned on to it by the New York Times podcast Still Processing, which did a deep dive on her career." From Joe—fuck podcasts, but that link does have a transcript option, so you can just read it while you're listening to Private Dancer.
PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: I'm sure we could go through the extensive credits list and find something, but instead, let's briefly talk about "I Can't Stand the Rain." You may remember Missy Elliott's Supa Dupa Fly, and how her song "The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)" interpolates the song in its chorus. It actually samples the original version, though, written and recorded by Ann Peebles. Tina Turner's version on Private Dancer is a cover of Peebles'.
I haven't had nice things to say about Brian Eno in the past, even in this column. Which makes it weird that I would have even included a solo album of his as one of my "blind spots." We're reaching the point when some of these albums have been on a list of older album I plan on listening to for years, and I can't remember at all why I decided to put Here Come the Warm Jets down on such a list.
But I have to presume, based on what I heard this week, that at one point I was told that this was Eno's "most accessible album" or something like that. Previous experience + what is actually on Here Come the Warm Jets = more accessible. Like, you're gonna find some hooks on this thing, even if they are buried sometimes. Some shit you can maybe even sing along to. This isn't ambient bullshit like Side 2 of Bowie's "Heroes" or whatever this is.
I also wouldn't necessarily call it "accessible" either. It didn't pass the Pam Test, for one—something about the noisy slogging conclusion of "Driving Me Backwards" combined with the post-4PM nagging of the children really set her off at the beginning of the week to point where I daren't play Eno again in a familial setting. It also doesn't pass the Girl on the Bus Test, which is a new test I'm developing. It goes like this: if a pretty girl sits next to you on the bus and asks to hear what you are listening to, what percent chance are you going to be embarrassed by what she hears at any random point in the album when she sticks your earbuds in her own ears? Above 30% doesn't pass the test. This album is at like an 80%.
But that test is designed to calculate how well your current music taste assimilate with the general music-listening public's tastes at large, and thankfully that rarely has any bearing on what music is worth listening to individually. I'm mostly only worried about whether an album is accessible to me—not my wife, not blog readers, not a hypothetical manic pixie bus girl, just me.
So yeah, Here Come the Warm Jets was accessible to me. A lot of that had to do with the guitar. I would speculate that, whoever said this was Brian Eno's most accessible album (if indeed such a thing was ever said in the first place), they were referring to the abundance of pure rock elements that might otherwise be absent in a Brian Eno piece of art. There are some wacko sound effect moments, and some of the lyrics I don't even want to look up (e.g. some edgelord titling on the tracklist), but mostly this is a rock album with all those Eno-ish things sprinkled on top. If this were less accessible, than the SFX on "The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch" (ugh, bad bad bad title) would be the whole point, whereas here they are just a strange little detour.
Look, I'm talking a big fucking game about ambivalent feelings toward an artist whose body of work I've barely scratched. Who the fucks knows what this dude's deal is. I'm certainly not gonna "know his deal" after like five days with one of his solo albums. All I can say is that this is pretty weird but never TOO weird for me, and that I have my misgivings that literally any other Brian Eno album could make that same case.
A single voice sings a cappella"I could be brown I could be blue..."
This song has been in my head for weeks. I hoped this album might unlock the secrets of TikTok. Or at least give me some insight as to why this song was all over my TikTok. But after a strong opening with "Grace Kelly," this album goes virtually nowhere. I am no closer to understanding TikTok.
An additional voice joins in harmony "I could be brown I could be blue..."
The album feels disjointed. The recurring thought I had during the upbeat tracks was "I wish this was a Scissor Sisters album." The pop songs were catchy but hollow. During the slow jams, I lost interest entirely.
The same voice joins in further harmony "I could be brown I could be blue..."
And I just want to talk about "Big Girls (You Are Beautiful)" for a second. I get that Mika is leaning on his Freddie Mercury-isms and doing his own "Fat Bottomed Girls" thing (who first made this comparison? Was it you, Mika?), but who exactly is this song for? As a big girl, this song felt like when the Applebee's staff sings Happy Birthday—I didn't ask for this amount of attention. Please just let me eat my cake in peace.
The same voice finally sings the melody but you don't really care anymore "I could be brown I could be blue..."
I had higher hopes for this album. And now it seems that "Grace Kelly" has all but vanished from my TikTok. Is it the algorithm? Or does the song not have the longevity to be more than a viral memory?
Pop music is a bit of a dipstick, taking a little sample of the engine oil to get one sense of how the pop culture vehicle is running. I think today's Rodrigos and Lipas and Malones(?) do nicely. Listening to this Mika album is like stepping into a time machine and pulling the dipstick a decade or so ago, back when you used conventional oil instead of this synthetic blend stuff.
All the pop tropes are here though—upbeat, slowbeat, elegy, bouncy gay story. A celebrating large women song and video in the continued tradition of Sir Mix-a-Lot, which continues to thrive today. It's "pop," just pop. All fine and good, just not something I'd save for archival.
Mika's Life in Cartoon Motion is the most aptly titled album. This is all colors and edgy, silly brightness. As a person who reviews cartoons on the regular (Recommendation #1: check out crapkidswatch.com), this album is cartoonish, childish, fun, and extroverted. The highs, the lows, and the very snarky are all intermingled here in a colorfully pop-tastic universe of his own making.
This album was everything during our Senior Week in college (a tradition that I think got canceled after our year). We were back in the dorms, reliving our four years in college, getting ready for events, and trying to hit those high notes in "Grace Kelly." Albeit, friend Pam probably was able to hit them as she is the Soprano to my Alto. The week was spent getting puffy from booze in preparation for graduation and avoiding any "Phils" nicknamed "the Thrill" that you may have made out with, in a dark, dank basement your sophomore year. The "you" here is, of course, me. I was just trying to deflect that shame onto everyone. What I'm saying is this song, and album, remind me of only my most glamorous times.
Everything about Mika's voice, and sound, is bright and poppy as hell, so of course, I really enjoy this album (Recommendation #2: any of my previous reviews where I demonstrate being a Care Bear person). But in all this Mika brightness, there is this sexy little undercurrent and some darkness. Mostly, it's silly and fun and I just want to walk down the street to this giddy album.
"Lollipop" has this quality of joy and the child singing in the middle slays me. The horn section? Dead. I am dead from giddiness! "Love Today" has this same effervescence. It was great in 2007 and it's great now. As someone who knows nothing about music, I'm sure he's copying someone else's style (it's Freddy Mercury, isn't it?), some other more famous band or singer, but good-goddamn I just want to love today with Mika! A plea for both the day and for ourselves is written into these lyrics. "Any way you want to, anyway you've got to / Love, love me, love, love me, love, love." At the core, that's where we're all at regardless of anything else. How do I love today? How do I love, love me even after gross shameful make-outs with The Thrill? Mika just wants you to love and get over it.
"Relax, Take it Easy,” is spacey and weird which I connect with because, at the core, we still have the Mika touch, and also I'm probably a little spacey and weird myself. "Any Other World" is a surprise. Somewhere in the middle of the song I was swept into the sadness of the pop-classical section like one they use so artfully on the Bridgerton series on Netflix (Recommendation #3: both for the television show and the spicy Julia Quinn novels).
"Ring Ring" is more angsty, but still somehow an upper. "Billy Brown" is the Beatles' sing-songy narrative I'm always drawn to. "Oh Billy Brown needed to find some peace of mind," Mika sings to us like a lyrical poet. The faux oral tradition of this song is silly and engaging. Like, don't we all know the tale of Billy Brown? We don't, but we do now. Thanks, Mika! Plus, there's another horn section! Much like the group Chicago, give me all the horns always and forever (Recommendation #4: Chicago the Band AND the city).
"Stuck in the Middle" is again doing all the things. Falsetto voice, check. Banging piano chords, check. Soft whispery moments, check. A story with positive resolve and dedication to loving today, check and check.
"Happy Ending" starts with lady voices and I think I'm listening to a Spice Girls ballad (Recommendation #5: "2 Become 1" by the Spice Girls). Through the sea of lady voices comes Mika’s fluid voice. This is not my favorite song, but it is soulful and feels like a precursor for Sam Smith. If Sam Smith was a little lighter and less angsty, this would be his album.
I just didn't like "Any Other World," and that's all I’ll say about that. "Over My Shoulder," takes me back to Sufjan, and I'd rather just take myself back to "Love Today" and "Grace Kelly," the clear stars of this show.
I've left "Big Girl" for a few reasons, but mostly because I was torn. Not sure how I feel about a thin, white man congratulating me for being a big girl. So I did some research because I felt iffy about the whole thing. Turns out, Mika was asked to rework the song for promos for the series Ugly Betty (Final Recommendation: Ugly Betty—a show that is totally lame on so many levels, but mostly joyous, much like Mika). In speaking about his revisions of this song, Mika said "Betty is a real fashion icon and we should celebrate anyone like her—genuine individuals who stay true to their own identity. That's what 'Big Girl' is all about, so it was the perfect fit to change the song for her."
In a time when not many people were praising the goddess nature of the Big Girl, a time where the ideal body was a Keira Knightley mixed with a Cameron Diaz, I guess this song feels like a nice gesture, but maybe an empty one coming from this artist. Lines about "pizza and diet coke" and food commentary just feel like a shitty half-joke about big girls. The equation of large bodies, and food, and shame don't make me feel connected to this content that I needed in 2007. Then, all I saw were low-rise jeans on Keiras and Camerons and thought I was indeed a freak. In fact, I was probably just embarrassed by this song in 2007. I wouldn't want to associate with it. "Don't lump me into this group! I'm not the president of this club!" The video is a pre-Lizzo, skin-baring love fest of larger ladies, but why do they have to be dressed like they're coming straight from a circus in the 1800s? Why couldn't they be in 2000s clothing that clung to them and made them look sexy vs. cartoonish while Mika ushers them into the light? And, again, I'm torn. I can’t argue with the attempt to show non-traditional bodies as beautiful and something to be honored. At the same time, I don't need this skinny male's validation either. Maybe this song, much like most things, needs to come first from the perspective of the Big Girl to truly work.
With all the angst and confusion of my last paragraph, I still give this album a 4 out of 5 Grace Kellys. All the falsetto forever and ever, and to the thrills without the Phils.
Mika gives the game away immediately. In the very first song off of his 2007 debut LP, Life in Cartoon Motion, Mika sets the tone by comparing himself to a pop culture juggernaut. No, not Grace Kelly, despite the song being called "Grace Kelly." He sings that Kelly seems too sad, so instead: "I tried to be a little Freddie." That's interesting to me, that lyric being at the very start of the album, because it acts as a sort of barometer for how you are going to feel about the rest of it. I personally don't really like Freddie. Never have. So as soon as he said that he was striving to be this character that I mostly dislike, then it set the tone. I wondered whether there was going to be anything on this album that I would like. Was it really all going to be like Freddie?
To be clear, when Mika sings about "Freddie," he is clearly referring to Fred Flintstone.
I'm just barely old enough to remember watching The Flintstones on Cartoon Network, back when the Hanna-Barbera shows were that channel's whole thing. Even as a tot, I knew that Fred Flintstone was a louse, an oaf, a terrible husband, a terrible father, good for nothing except maybe using his fat feet to power the family's car. I've never liked the guy. So when I was told by Mika that he was purposefully positioning himself as the Fred Flintstone of mid-aughts bubblegum theater pop, I cringed.
Still, I end the week feeling impressed that my initial skepticism was mostly proved wrong. Life in Cartoon Motion did not ultimately feel like Dino pulling me so hard that I crashed into a tree. Thank goodness.
As it usually goes with this type of bright, shiny, heart-on-sleeve pop, everyone has their own tolerance level when it comes to the cheese. My tolerance level has historically been pretty low, the opposite of Wilma's tolerance for her brutish goon of a husband. But plenty of exceptions abound too! I'll defend something like fun., or later Bleachers, even though it's the corniest shit on earth. Other stuff that is objective less cheesy but still kinda cheesy, like Fred Flintstone singing opera, grinds my fucking gears.
I could see someone hating this album on premise alone. I eventually did succumb to its charms, even though some of it is still a bit too twee for my preferences. For every "Relax, Take It Easy" and its unabashed and satisfying Cutting Crew theft, there's a "Lollipop," with its saccharine kiddie vocals. For every Of-Montreal-via-McCartney "Billy Brown," there's a "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)," which squanders its rock-solid premise (big girls really are beautiful) by being entirely too slobbery and surprisingly hollow about it. Plus, imagine what Fred Flintstone would say about this song. That misogynistic prick.
Ignore the final song, "Over My Shoulder," at all costs. It's a total Gazoo.
The best I can say about it, vis-Ã -vis Mika's Fred Flintstone fixation, is that the baggage is eventually discarded. I may hate Fred Flintstone, but that didn't stop me from liking a lot of this extremely Fred Flintstone-esque music. The worst thing I can say about it is that maybe this renders my long-standing dislike of Fred Flintstone as so subjective that it falls apart. I kinda like this, and if this sounds exactly like the corny fucking bullshit that Fred Flintstone was putting out in the 1970s, then why do I hate the original?
Could be that, contextually, Fred Flintstone was a lot more popular in his heyday than Mika ever was, at least here in America. I recognized "Grace Kelly" and "Love Today" of course, because I had a pulse in 2007, but he wasn't popular enough back then for me to have even heard the name "Mika" before, let alone enough to convince me to actively consider his art. Fred Flintstone, on the other hand... he's ubiquitous, and people seem to love the guy, or at least tolerate his craft. It's always boggled my mind.
And of course, I have that knee-jerk reaction to pushing away things that are considered "popular." So when I see anything to do with Fred Flintstone, I usually roll my eyes or just stay away altogether. It was interesting, then, to listen to an album that was so obviously indebted to Fred Flintstone, and yet tolerable because it wasn't literally made by Fred Flintstone. Just goes to show you how fucking subjective this whole charade really is.
GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5
Top Five Worst Freds in Pop Culture
5. Fred Armisen
If I had a $10,000 for every time I laughed at Fred Armisen, I wouldn't be able to afford rent in Portland.
4. Freddy Krueger
Relax, bro, it was just a dream.
3. Fred Durst
Like a tall, cold glass of hot dog-flavored water.
Four days of reevaluating blog post ideas from the '00s. The original HERE.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Prelude: to reiterate what I said in 2009 about a hand-drawn map from 2004, the areas included on the map are no longer the "center" of my universe, nor have they been for *checks calendar* almost two decades now. Nevertheless, I currently find myself living much closer to this particular area of the Northeast than in years past. Indeed, I spend an average of three mornings per week taking a 5 AM run up and down these very streets, so I am currently being reacquainted with our former "center."
(Ironically, the relative area in which my current house might be located on this map is affixed with a "NOT IMPORTANT" tag. If only sixteen-year-old Joe knew what was to come.)
For today's reevaluation, I have redrawn the map. Like those Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 games from a couple years ago, only the graphics have been updated, and not the overall flaws in the layout.
Annotated:
click to enlarge
1. A note about Jim C****'s block: this could've been any block in any neighborhood. When four to six kids are splitting a sixer of Smirnoff Ice in and being relatively quiet about it, no one is going to take issue. It was only notably "Jim's block" because of Jim's negative reaction to it. "My parents are going to be pissed!" and so on. Were we good friends, we would've just stayed away from Jim's house if he really had a problem with it. I think there were plenty of times when I just wasn't a good friend. Ah well. Me and Jim are the only ones left back here in the old neighborhood now, and I have a feeling karma is gonna come back to bite me when his and my daughters are hanging out at the end of my block in like twelve years, drinking whatever the 2033 equivalent of Smirnoff Ice is.
2. Ryers train station. I've very rarely caught or disembarked the train at this station. I did include it in a very bad poem once.
3. My grandmom used to work in this office building, which is probably the only reason the building was included on this map, even though she had retired years before I drew the map originally. I'm pretty sure they refurbished the whole thing, and paved the lot that we used to drink in, and all that. But it's been years since I've checked it out. Maybe I should plan to run down this block sometime soon.
4. I legitimately have zero recollection of any couch being back here. No idea.
5. My old friend Vea—she of the Mahogany fame—actually lived in these apartments circa 2015-2017ish, and even walked around to Jim's house when he had a gathering while his parents were out (years and years after the anxiety of drinking on his block subsided).
6. Breaking news: as of like last week at the earliest, this Wawa is CLOSED PERMANENTLY. I have no idea what happened. It was an old school Wawa (i.e. no gas pumps) so maybe Wawa Corporate had no reason to keep it open. Bummer, man. Plenty of weird nights that either started or ended there.
7. This is something I haven't thought about in like over a decade, but I'm pretty sure my old friend Joe G. (T.H.E. member, tree destroyer) used to claim that he fucked a coworker in the KFC bathroom during one of their shifts. You might think this is a tall tale, but I saw a sex tape of Joe G. once. Like, a real sex tape of him having sex with a girl I went to grade school with. He doesn't really seem like the type of person who needed to lie about this kind of shit.
8. There used to be an ice cream parlor in the same parking lot as Dunkin. It was called "Custard's Last Stand" for the longest time, which was a top tier pun. I don't know when it switched over to the chain Richman's. Moot, because Richman's is closed permanently too.
9. Previously called "Makiman Sushi." Currently called "Mr. Sushi." Downgrade in the name. Haven't been there since the name change, so I can't say whether the food is any better or worse.
10. "Etc." is at least a dry cleaner. I forget what else.
11. Missed opportunity to include Chuck's Alibi bar on this map. I've never been, probably because I'm not trying to be an asshole like I was at that Temple bar, if that makes sense.
12. "Five Points." The nexus of a previous lifetime. The tradition in the Northeast is to congregate here when a sports team wins a championship. I wonder if anyone will ever congregate at Five Points ever again.
13. This hasn't been a Pathmark in years. I think it's called "Penn's Market" now or something. I don't even know if it's open—recall that I'm usually running past it at 5 AM, well before opening time.
14. No, not the post office. This is actually the now-former Purple Orchid II. PoYB wrote about it back in the day. It's now a Church's Chicken.
15. The actual post office (and where my dad works, at least for the next year and change).
16. Okay, so this is still McKewon's Plaza. But the deli no longer exists. The original deli—like in the '90s, when I was a wee lad—was on the other side of the parking lot. But they knocked that down and rebuilt on the other side, where it's located on this current map. The deli closed in like 2006, and was eventually replaced by a mattress store. McKewon's Beer still exists. Other "etc." are a Wine & Spirits and a Sherwin Williams, I think.
17. This was a parking lot in 2004, but ever since like 2010, it's been a Wawa (this one with the gas pumps and all that).
18. LOL Blockbuster. It's now a vape store I think?
19. E = Ed. M = Mike. C = Cindy.
20. This is the PAL (Police Athletic League) that was housed in the basement of the church mentioned in this anti-NEast blog post from 2017.
21. "A/M" is Ali and Meri's house. I don't know if their parents still live there. I haven't chilled with Meri since we talked about John Travolta. Their house, like mine, was a relative safe haven for underage drinkers, hence its inclusion here, at the very onset of such a lifestyle.
22. Okay, so my house now is technically a little farther north than where it says NOT IMPORTANT. I really didn't know anyone who lived back here, nor did I frequent any businesses back here. Still don't. My daughter's preschool is kind of near this area, but even that is still a little farther north. Suffice it to say that this map's construction implies lots of areas that are "not important," and I currently don't agree with that assessment for any area in Philly. It's all important, baby.
23. Led Zeppelin IV is either the third or fourth best Led Zeppelin album. Don't @ me.
