Phony Beatlemania: "Across the Universe"

Follow along in the book HERE. Today's song is at #40 and is featured on pages 259-264. See the full list of their Top 100 Beatles Songs HERE.

"Across the Universe"

Let It Be

1970

I guess we don't talk about covers too much in this column. The book makes sure to list in their trivia sections the artists who have covered each song, but I haven't mentioned them here, because that doesn't really interest me. I want to know why Spignesi and Lewis like a song and I want to understand why I like or don't like the same song, but I have no desire to give a shit about why (using the bands who have covered "Across the Universe" according to the book as examples here) 10cc and David Bowie enjoy a Beatles song enough to cover it.

However, if my memory serves me correctly—no guarantees—then I'm pretty sure "Across the Universe" first found its way into my ears via a cover. This was via the I Am Sam movie soundtrack, which my cousin-not-related Jess had brought to the annual Poconos trip one year, and I borrowed it for a few spins, and I guess this was prior to becoming familiar with the Beatles in any significant capacity. It's not like I went home and purchased the soundtrack. It could be that today was the first time I've heard Rufus Wainwright's version of "Across the Universe" since that weekend. Still, maybe it's significant to point out that I was familiar with a cover version before I was familiar with the original studio album version.

That's only significant because the book makes a big deal about the "different versions" of "Across the Universe. I guess this is their way of justifying a #40 ranking for a song that, in its original and official format, sounds like absolute dogshit. I'm talking about audio fidelity here, not the songwriting, which is pretty impeccable like always. And I'm not even the guy who cares about the quality of the recording of a song most of the time; I'm ripping mp3s from shady sources and using $5 earbuds to hear them, and I'm totally cool with that. But even I can hear the Let It Be version of "Across the Universe" and know that it's a piss-poor quality.

And also slowed down? It just feels sluggish. I don't get why this is the version that made the album, although that probably has a lot to do with Phil Spector making decisions without the Beatles' input. On Let It Be... Naked, Paul's 2003 version of Let It Be, we get an "Across the Universe" that is crisp and clean and at regular speed. Even the alternate version that's found on Past Masters Vol. Two and features animal noises (it was originally included on a charity compilation benefiting wildlife) sounds better. And then you can go through the archives and find some snippets of versions lost in time—one with just humming, one with a rhythm track, and so on.

It's time to admit that I don't really care about any of this, to be honest. It just all seems like a little much. It feels like going to an art museum and obsessing over the brand of paint that the artist used. That's not really the point of art. It couldn't be. I get more out of staring at a work of art and examining how it makes me feel than understanding how that art came to be in the first place. I like "Across the Universe," and it's neither because or despite the fact that it may or may not be a "finished" version, or that it sounds of poor quality.

I like it because it sounds like poetry, and I have fun parsing through why that chorus of "nothing's going to change my world" feels so poignant to me (as it does to many others, obviously). The verses speak of beauty and change, but the chorus feels stubborn. Almost as if Lennon is saying that he is set in his ways. Which seems weird and not quite right. Maybe it's more that the narrator of the chorus is the unreliable one, and that we are supposed to feel uncomfortable with that stubborn statement, especially in light of all the evidence presented in the verses? Something like that.

But you see how that's much better than talking about the fucking audio quality, right? It's more fun being obsessive about emotion than being obsessive about function. I'm clearly getting a little tired of how artlessly this fucking book presents the music of the Beatles. There is so much to explore within the self as it is unlocked by this precious music, and the fact that these jabronis can only see the shiny exterior honestly makes me a bit nauseous at times. Almost as nauseous as the niche obsession that Beatles fans briefly had in the mid-'00s over the I Am Sam soundtrack.

BEATLES TRIVIA: The book also attempts to do the John v. Paul thing again, which I find equally exhausting. Yes, we get it, two music geniuses butted heads. John claimed (via Playboy, of fucking course) that he felt butthurt over the fact that his songs "weren't taken as seriously" as Paul's songs were. He says that with Paul's songs, every note was in order, to an almost obsessive degree, but when it came time for John's songs, a "looseness" suddenly appeared in the studio, as if John's songs were less important to get right. I guess the overarching point of bringing this up in the "Across the Universe" chapter is that this might explain why the final version sounds terrible. And I don't know if this even counts as trivia; I do, however, find it a lot more fascinating to hear about John felt about his own music within the context of the Beatles than I do about alternate versions of the same song.

BETTER BEATLE: "Don't Let Me Down," a song that was for some fucking reason left off of Let It Be by Spector, which should prove definitively that the dude was a fucking moron. Leaving that off and leaving the shitty version of "Across the Universe" in probably should have earned him more jail time than the murder he committed thirty years later.

NEXT TIME: It's #41 with "Lady Madonna," but if I'm being honest with you, I'm thinking that I might take a break from this column for the summer. As with all blog projects with a finite ending, you can rest assured that I will return eventually. But something's gotta give, and so why not this, and why not now. Use this time to catch up with the archives, and let me know if you are getting anything out of this project or if it's one of those things that is completely ignored on the blog.

A Year of Blind Spots: The Money Store

The Money Store

Death Grips

2013

I've been intimidated by this album for a long time. Because its credential are bona fide in the music blog circles I run with, there was a time in the past ten years when I downloaded it without listening to it first. And I hit play, and I was extremely confused. It sounded like noise to me. It was firmly "not for me," and I deleted it from the iPod, and that was that for a while.

I knew I would eventually find my way back to it, but it's taken a while. And, I'll be honest, it's taken some hard efforts on my part. Not with the album itself, which is fresh and new to me this week, but in carving the path that led back to it. This wasn't a "face your fears!" situation. This required years of preparation.

I am still a total fucking novice when it comes to hip hop, and it will remain that way for a long, long time, but that's only because I just have so fucking much to catch up on, with about 33 years of my life wasted, plus all the stuff that came out before I was born. It's not for a lack of trying. As with any genre, there are different skill levels required. You can't just skip right to an honors AP level course. You gotta start at the beginning. You gotta learn the basics before you move onto more advanced levels. I feel like listening to The Money Store without knowing anything about hip hop is like trying to take the SATs in third grade.

The thing with Death Grips' music is that the production is very loud and harsh, and is described as "experimental hip hop," and you can read the RYM page if you want to know more. Words that pop out: "electronic" and "eccentric." Those are good descriptors. In every song, there's distortion, irregular beats that don't seem too concerned with tempo, overlapping sounds and noises, all of it fed through the world's shittiest amp, and all of it competing against the deep booming raps of MC Ride, whose voice kinda reminds me of the dude who stands at 16th and Market every day and shouts Bible passages(?) at passersby (go on Google Street View, I guarantee you he is on there). With all that distortion making MC Ride's lyrics practically imperceptible, they could even being yelling the same thing, I don't know.

I know all of that makes it seems like The Money Store is bad, but it is not. It is good. It's good because it's interesting. It's also good on a musical level once you train yourself to hear the patterns amidst the chaos and confusion. There were stepping stones for me along the way. In this column, I learned the basic language of hip hop first. I feel like DJ Shadow and J Dilla were good intermediate-level pieces, in that they took one specific aspect to this genre—the production, or the "beats"—and hammered home how to feel out that production even when things got hairy and complex. And then, outside of this column, last year's SCARING THE HOES was a good prerequisite too; JPEGMafia's production was harsh and convoluted in similar ways, but I was already pretty familiar with Danny Brown, and he was able to guide me through it.

And so now here we are. I wasn't worried about loving this album or anything. That will come in time, if that's my fate. I was more worried about not understanding it this week, still, like I didn't understand it back in 2015 or whenever. But I'm good. I get it. I can hear the music. It's not just noise to me. It's even catchy, in its own fucked-up kinda way. And did you know that Death Grips has a drummer? Those heavy rhythms aren't complex by accident. There's a rhythm under there played by a real human, and you can grab it if you can find it.

So I get it, and I like it, and I'm gonna continue to listen to it (in private—not really a family endeavor, this album, especially not in Disney World). And while that's really the main point of this and every blog post, I think it's worth zooming out too and appreciating the process on how we got here. "Here" meaning "learning to listen to music." It's not something everyone can do! Consider yourself special if you can do it! Think about Radiohead a couple Fridays ago in Record Club. I felt like maybe I took that band's accessibility for granted before reading some of those reviews and realizing how inaccessible they were to some people. There's no wrong or right, there are just different steps on the same path. Some are further along than others. The requirement, if you want to give a shit about music, is to continue on that path, despite any hardships, e.g. an album that may sound confusing and frustrating at first. But the joy is taking that same path toward understanding, even if we're all taking the same path separately. I'm up here, and I'm turning around and yelling backward toward those behind me: "Yo! Death Grips are up here! Let's fucking go!!!"

Epimemeology, Week #18: The Fall of Edgar

by Pat

In honor of Cinco de Mayo—which is absolutely not Mexico's independence day—Epimemeology presents: La Caida de Edgar (The Fall of Edgar). 

The Meme:

A forty-three second video of eleven-year-old Edgardo Martinez attempting to cross a stream on a log bridge, only to be thrown off by his cousin, Fernando. 

For all my fellow gringos, you can find a rough English translation here. 

Where You Might Have Seen It:

The video was uploaded to YouTube in May 2006, and appears to have gone viral almost instantly. Soon, the sound of poor Edgar yelling "¡Ya, güey!" was finding its way into ringtones, remix videos, and high-effort video game parodies. 

As of 2024, "La Caida de Edgar" has more than 82 million views. It occupies a special place in the hearts of the Mexican people. I remember my junior year Spanish teacher (a younger guy from Mexico) stopped class to show us this chubby kid falling into a dirty creek. 

As for Edgar himself, he seems to have handled his viral fame as well as could be expected. He made television appearances, but also dealt with mockery. Less than a year after the video was posted, Edgar took swift, brutal revenge on Fernando and his Tio Raul. 

At one point, Edgar had a YouTube channel called SOY EDGAR ("I am Edgar"), but he doesn't appear to have posted lately. Last I heard, he was living a quiet life in Monterrey, working at his family's business and part-time as a video editor. 

The Message:

As Freud said, "Sometimes a kid falling into a river is just a kid falling into a river." But for the sake of the blog, let's dig into it. We can all relate to Edgar's unintentional catchphrase "¡Ya, güey!" (translating approximately to "Stop, dude!"). Who among us hasn't been thrown into a metaphorical river by the Fernandos of misfortune, injustice, and our own stupidity? Edgar, like all of us, just wants it to stop. 

Also, this may be lost on American audiences, but apparently Edgar has a super thick norteño accent. So imagine the same video in English, but it's a kid about to fall into the Wissahickon Creek, yelling "Yo, dude! Put that jawn down!" I'm starting to get the appeal. 

The Source:

In order to be covered in Epimemeology, a meme has to be derived from something larger than itself. A movie, a TV show, a song. If the meme stands alone, independent of a bigger source, then I don't have anything to analyze. I've had to turn down some of the greatest memes in history, because—short of a one-on-one interview—there's nothing to write about.

At first, I was worried this was the case with the Fall of Edgar. After all, it looks like it's just some guy's home movies. But much to my surprise, I discovered the video is actually an adaptation. And an adaptation of classic literature, no less. 

See, when I couldn't find any related media during my first round of research, I decided to enlist the help of AI. Yes, AI. That hard-to-define, but impossible-to-avoid technology that will eventually replace all entry-level and creative jobs and will never, ever, ever blow back on us in any way. If it can work for other PoYB features, it can work for me. So instead of wasting my time with fruitless learning, I outsourced the hard work to an unpaid AI chatbot. The results were astounding!

So it turns out that forty-three second video clip (in Spanish) is actually a retelling of an 11,000 word Poe story (in English). I'm embarrassed to admit I missed that during my first viewing. It's one of those subtle adaptations, like how O Brother Where Art Thou? is a retelling of The Odyssey. With this in mind, I set about reading the original Fall of the House of Edgar, so that I could gain a deeper insight into La Caida de Edgar.

The story begins with the unnamed narrator (Edgar?) traveling to the house of his good friend, Roderick Usher. As he comes upon the old and massive house, the narrator finds its presence deeply upsetting, but can't pinpoint why. He explains:  

"It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression..."

In plain English, the narrator thinks that he could spruce the place up with a few cosmetic changes. A coat of paint, new shutters, perhaps even moving a log? Is this our first connection to the video?

Only time will time, dear reader.

The narrator is welcomed into the house by a weird looking valet. On his way upstairs, he passes an even worse looking doctor. But worst of all is the narrator's good friend, Roderick Usher:

"His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision ... to that species of energetic concision ... that leaden, self-balanced and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement."

Roderick talks like every drunk guy at a party who feels the need to explain why Christopher Nolan's Batman movies are actually the worst. To add to the matter, Roderick finds all physical sensation tortuous, except, of course, for sick guitar solos: 

"He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses; the most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror."

Roderick is an eccentric individual. He hasn't left the house in years and has "certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted." Oh, and his twin sister Madeline died of a wasting disease shortly before the narrator's arrival. Like, the night before. If I was a betting man, I'd say that plot point never comes up again. This Poe guy doesn't seem like the type to dwell on the past. 

The narrator decides the best way to cure Roderick's depression / constant pain / irrational fears / dead twin grief is a good old fashioned boys' weekend:

"I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar."

Pictured: Roderick Usher speaking guitars his way out of despair.

 

During this period, the narrator recounts how Roderick played a "certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber." This piece, "Weber's Last Waltz," is actually a fascinating bit of music trivia. As it turns out, it was not written by composer Carl Maria von Weber at all, but by his colleague Carl Reissiger. Reissiger gave Weber the sheet music to look over, only for Weber to die while it was still in his possession. When Weber's body was found, this unknown music was found in his belongings, so it was assumed to be the last piece Weber wrote before he died. This is why I email my column to Joe. That way there's a paper trail. 

The Weber story is all well and spooky, but I'm curious what Poe meant by "certain singular perversion." Did Roderick play it on a big organ? Did he make a scary face while he did it? I'm forced to go with the simplest answer: Roderick played the entire nine-minute piece by hitting the piano keys with his dick. Classic boys' weekend. 

Feeling a little bit better, Roderick opens up to the narrator by telling him about his strangest belief:  "This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things."

Roderick goes even further. It is his deeply held belief that the growth of plants and fungus within the walls have caused the mansion to develop a mind of its own. The house is alive! 

But you know what's not alive? Roderick's twin sister, Madeline! I rewrote this paragraph four times and that was the least terrible transition I came up with. Roderick reveals that he has a paralyzing fear that his sister's corpse will be stolen, so he plans to store Madeline's body in the family tomb in the house's basement. The narrator—an adherent to the bro code if there ever was one—helps Roderick move the body.

Another week passes and the vibe is continuing to deteriorate. Roderick’s neuroses have gotten worse, and the narrator can't sleep. One restless night, the narrator decides to take a walk and finds Roderick stomping through the house in a manic state. As a storm rages outside, Roderick questions him: 

"And you have not seen it?" he said abruptly, after having stared about him for some moments in silence—"you have not then seen it?—but, stay! you shall."

Unnerved by Roderick's sudden enthusiasm for lightning, the narrator decides to read "Mad Trist," a cool story about a dragon, to cheer Roderick up. As the story progresses, the narrator hears "a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound." This sends Roderick over the edge and he cries out:

"Oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am!—I dared not—I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb!"

Of all the shitty things I did to my sister growing up, I'm proud to say I never buried her alive. The narrator abandons the rad story about dragons and is shocked to see a figure in the threshold:

"But then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher."

Madeline—understandably irked by being stuck in a tomb for a week—tackles Roderick and kills him. The narrator runs out of the house and looks back in time to see it collapse on the twins. Wait, was the valet still in there?! Nevermind, it's too late. The story ends with the line:

"...the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the House of Usher."

It's a pretty good story, but it's a shame the version I read mistranslated the last line. It should say "House of Edgar."

As far as adaptations go, this was definitely not the most faithful one. It's a long, complex, atmospheric story, and almost impossible to fit into less than a minute. For the sake of time, The Fall of Edgar had cut out a lot of the more memorable elements. I think the biggest one is that there's no house in the video.

That said, The Fall of Edgar's ending adheres to the general tone of the Poe story: hopelessness, madness, and the inevitability of fate. Like Roderick, Edgar is doomed. Both end with the protagonist plummeting into a wet, nasty mess. 

"—there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters—"

I'd like to thank AI for helping me make this—in hindsight, extremely obvious—connection. Maybe one day, AI can write this column entirely. But until that joyous day, I'll have to settle for inspiration. 

We are experiencing technical difficulties

Next Week: Pat screams at a smug cat about The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: roofermann

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by roofermann on RoofingTalk.com

"Fire Water Burn"

Bloodhound Gang

One Fierce Beer Coaster, 1996

This is your EiC Joe K***, reporting that I went right to the experts to search for the ultimate song about a roof. I signed up for an account on RoofingTalk.com, a message board for roofers and average citizens like myself looking to get their roofing questions answered. I technically had a roofing question, and the seemingly most active member of the boards, roofermann, was happy to oblige.

He also recommended Garbage's "Only Happy When It Rains," but I looked at the lyrics for both songs, and the Garbage one didn't mention a roof (it's more implied, I'd say), so I went with Bloodhound Gang. (Without listening to either song beforehand, I'm assuming that the Garbage one is better, but what can ya do.)

I also didn't want to push it and ask for 100 words on top of the music suggestion, so here is a selection of roofermann's roofing tips, found elsewhere on the message boards of RoofingTalk.com:

"On an A to F scale, I'd give these roofers a D-. Bending the material at 90deg can give it a weak spot, hence the recommendation for cant strips. And you use the torch to heat both the roof surface AND the roofing itself, which they didn't do, at least not on your vid."

"Static vents are the answer. That appears to be a self stick product instead of a torch down. It's relatively easy to work with as a DIY project. You will need to source a roll in that color to do the patching around the new vents."

"The pipe next to a rib isn't ideal. They should have talked to you about moving it or adjusting the panel layout to compensate. Other than that it doesn't look too bad."

"Wow, while I'm not a tile roof guy, I think that works is awful. Only help I can offer is pointing you to some other fora where you can get advice from UK based roofing professionals."

"I'd use a urethane based sealant as an adhesive. Don't know what brands you have in Australia though."

"It's not a good idea, for many reasons. No way to inspect the sheathing. If even a minor leak develops the shingles will get saturated and that will lead to sheathing rot and premature rusting. And in quite a few locales, a 2nd layer isn't allowed by code."

Always fun to see an expert work his trade.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Brianna

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Brianna

"Up on the Roof"

Carole King

Writer, 1970

Things I see from my roof:

Everyone else's roof. We are a third floor among a sea of twos, we are a perch that sees all.

Most of that "all" are remnants of things unused. Satellite dishes and rusty antennas collecting city dirt. Leaves clogging old gutters. A lone piece of trash, probably swept upwards in some winter storm. We had a lot of those this year.

If you look far enough, you catch a glimpse of my least favorite stretch of road in the city: Aramingo Avenue. Avoid at all costs.

Across the way stands a tree, taller than any other tree around here. I like seeing it from my window, it stifles the city's sounds. All but one—the birds in its branches that wake up too early and beg, beg, beg for your company. 

When I doubt it, I finally look up. One day a year it's a stage with many stages, ten private firework shows for the price of none. Most days of the year, it's a roadmap in the sky. Sometimes I think about the people who are up there—no not there—there, in the planes. Where are they going? What are they like? Do they know I'm watching them from down here? 

From up here on my roof.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Gilson

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Gilson

"Rooftops"

Hot Water Music

No Division, 1999

This feels super lazy. It is what it is.

I believe Hot Water Music was my first concert experience with just my friends. When I was a junior in high school (roughly 2002), I believe my parents let me go up to Philadelphia from Ocean City with just myself and three friends. They were way more into punk than I was and wanted to see HWM. My only real exposure was their split with Alkaline Trio (a fantastic split EP). So, knowing this song due to the Alk3 cover, I was super excited to hear it.

The best part of the show was that this was my first exposure to South Street and Repo Records, where I bought a Jeff Buckley bootleg album. The most memorable, though, was seeing the opener. Thrice was going to be the second band, and HWM the headliners. The openers were a band I had never heard of. They came out, and the singer had a huge frizzy afro and a Flying V guitar, so it looked like they were about to kick some ass. Then this motherfucker opened his mouth and I've never been more disappointed in my life. I was crushed.

The band was Coheed and Cambria. It is for this reason I still harbor and intense distrust of this band.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Laura

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Laura

"Meet Me on the Roof"

Green Day

Father of All Motherfuckers, 2020

I'm trying to gather my thoughts on this one, but I don't have too much to say about Green Day or rooftops or even Stranger Things (since Gaten Matarrazzo stars in this video). Climbing out of a window onto a rooftop always seemed like such a cool idea when I was younger. In reality, I'm too scared of heights that I could never do it. I went along with doing a ropes challenge course one time, and asked the instructors to push me across all the bridge challenges. Thankfully, they did, or it would have taken me hours and many tears to get across. I don't even like climbing to the highest part of Citizen's Bank Park when I have nosebleed seats to a Phillies game. I always get panicky. Rooftops are scary, but at the same time, I've been skydiving. Literally stood on the edge of a plane and jumped / was pushed by the guy strapped to my back. Make it make sense.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Sunny

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Sunny

"The Roof Is on Fire"

Rock Master Scott & the Dynamic Three

single, 1984

I was initially going to put "Mansard Roof" for today's prompt, probably the second Vampire Weekend song I ever heard. Now that song doesn't actually take place on a roof, he's just observing a roof, through trees or something. Like I give a shit about technicalities such as that. But then Joe's Day 34 post knocked around in my head a bit, and it was enough to give pause. Isn't it strange the things that live rent free in the mind?

We used to use "The Roof Is on Fire" phrase all the time in high school. My good friend's name rhymes with "the roof" so it was a layup. Good times. I didn't even know it was from a song back then, being a lame child, though context clues made me suspect media. When I did finally hear the song, my main thought then was the same as today: why does it take four and a half minutes to get to the line? Say the line, Bart!

And in case you're thinking "this song definitely can't take place on a roof, that place is on fire," this post is written from the viewpoint of a self-immolating protestor, thank you.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Bob

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Bob

"Fire Water Burn"

Bloodhound Gang

One Fierce Beer Coaster, 1996

I don’t know if this counts as being sung on a roof, but a roof is absolutely mentioned in this song. I think everyone knows the lyrics (at least to that particular part of the song). I never even knew that this group sang this song. Crazy. 

Whenever I think of the word "roof," one story comes to mind. I had just met this girl. Went on a few dates. It was going well. Then I was invited over for one of her family member's 50th bday party, and boy, was it a fucking banger. My family never threw parties like this. Her brother sat in my lap during kings, then ran and hid behind the shed when the cops inevitably came, not really sure why honestly. 

Her mom was dancing literally on their roof to a live band in their backyard. Pretty wild-ass shit for a suburban house party. Anyway, that is now my wife, brother-in-law, and mother-in-law.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Sara

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Sara

"Rooftops"

Marshmello

Joytime II, 2018

I took this prompt literally and went to my old pal Google to find this one. I can't say I'm crazy about it, but it fits the bill! Dance/EDM is not my favorite genre, but I dabble. Marshmello, I believe, went to St. Joe's. I only know this because an old coworker of mine swore they were classmates, and he has seen him with no helmet on. I really dig the helmet and the anonymity that he is creating for himself. I think being famous in the internet times is really scary. People are weird and want to try to dig up all this information on you. So, hey, hide your face and put out this totally fine song about rooftops.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Joe

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Joe

"Newmyer's Roof"

Craig Finn

Faith in the Future, 2015

Craig Finn, he of the Hold Steady, has a great side gig as a solo artist, his music for that project putting in the backseat the attempts at assimilating every known classic rock trope and putting front and center the poetry. Faith in the Future is probably his best solo album (but doesn't include his best solo song). It was released on September 11th, but fourteen years after the September 11th. The release date was on purpose, since the album is kinda sorta 9/11-related, or is at least informed by the emotions that Finn felt in the aftermath of that day.

I usually roll my eyes at all stories related to 9/11, and even if our lord and savior Craig Finn cornered me at a party and wanted to tell me about where he was that day I'd do the same fucking thing, roll my eyes, and but so even though there's a mention of the event in question in this song, it's almost mentioned like an aside. Like Finn knows it's not the most important aspect to the story. It's not that he saw the towers fall with his own eyes, but rather that he witnessed it while he was hanging out on a roof.

I'm not sure if I've ever thought about it before being confronted with this prompt (which, fair, was a confrontation that happened a lot sooner than most since I'm the one who wrote the damn prompt), but there's a certain power and allure to roofs, no? Think about the memorable heart-to-hearts you ever had at the tail-end of a party, and now count up how many of those occurred on the roof of the house where the party took place.

I'm thinking now about the time when I and the rest of my cousins went onto my Uncle Pat's roof to witness the planned implosion of the Sears Tower in Northeast Philadelphia in October 1994... a demolition that shares very few qualities with the unplanned implosion in NY in September 2001, but still with similar emotions of awe tied to it, if not in scale then definitely in timbre. There's just something about being up high like that, man. It heightens you literally while heightening your soul figuratively. Something like that.

Back in 2007, still near the start of what would end up being the wildest and freest summer of my life, I had what I thought at the time was a life-affirming experience on a roof, and I wrote about it. Time has a way of making some important moments seem less important, the smaller they get in the rearview mirror, and when I go back and read my account of the brief time spent on that roof, I cringe. A few years later, that essay (originally a Facebook Note, remember those?) found it's way onto PoYB, and so you can read it HERE.

Already in 2010 I was feeling iffy about it. Maybe it's because the outlook of my emotional turmoil had changed significantly in those three years (to say nothing of the subsequent fourteen years after that). Here was the context: petty high school bullshit. I had returned home from Senior Week, seven days that were so wild that I still can't figure out a responsible way to write about it on this public blog, so long-tailed are the potential consequences of the debauchery. Suffice it to say that I drank a lot of beer and I kissed a lot of women. One of those women was my friend George, short for Georgina (I'm realizing now that George was also offhandedly mentioned in that 1000 Days list, #806—hey George, hope you're not reading this and getting freaked out that someone who you haven't spoken to in fifteen years has mentioned you twice on his blogspot blog in the year 2024!).

She was and maybe even still is great friends with my old pal Katie. I similarly haven't spoken to Katie in a while. I'd rather not get into it right now, though the anecdotes are pretty funny. I've long maintained that there was never anything resembling romance between Katie and I, not once. This, despite going to a few proms with her, and having a pretty solid platonic friendship throughout high school and surprisingly deep into college and beyond. Never dated, never kissed, never made a pass, never felt even a spark of attraction, nothing.

Though I guess I'm realizing now that my outing her as the "female friend" who was "pissed at me" in this story might indeed indicate that maybe she wasn't as forthright about her own feelings as I'd always assumed. I don't know. Could be that it was just too complicated for my high school brain to comprehend at the time. But the fact of the matter, as evidenced by my rooftop folktale, is that Katie was angry at me for kissing her friend George.

The official "why" for the anger has since been stricken from the record. I don't remember her explanation. There was no reason why I shouldn't have hooked up with George. I wasn't dating anyone. She gave her consent. We found each other attractive. We didn't go all the way. I was drinking but so was everyone but not to an excessive degree in that moment. George expressed no regret for the incident in either the minutes or the days afterward, and as far as I know didn't express any feelings of anyone treating her wrong for kissing her. The longer I make this paragraph, the more it's starting to feel like I'm protesting too much... but I'm really just trying to build a case that Katie would have no logical reason for getting angry at me. Unless you consider the possibility that maybe she was jealous of George or something, or, to put it at least a little more kindly, the possibility that she had confessed to George that she had had feelings, and that none of the other hookups I had that week had made her feel betrayed in the way that hooking up with her friend had felt.

There are actually a few more possibilities here, but I'm starting to think that maybe I've gone too far already, and that listing those other potential thought processes would be too cruel or reveal too much or make too far of an assumption.

Whatever the case may be, Katie made it clear to me that she was angry at me for kissing George, and I felt bad about it. I don't think I'd necessarily classify it as a "mistake" in retrospect, but I was definitely feeling sore about making someone else feel bad, no matter the reason. It's actually kinda humbling, in a way, to know that you made someone feel like shit even though you didn't actually do anything wrong. It presents an impasse of sorts: you can either choose to prove that you are right and break ties with a friend, or you can choose to accept that you must be wrong in order to keep that friendship alive.

Connecting all that to the fucking roof is a stretch for sure, unless you consider the idea that the roof is a special place. Any roof. If you're on the roof, everything seems BIGGER. The world and everything that world makes you feel, it's all fucking huge up there. Don't let my shitty 2007 writing fool you on that one.

Actually, here's an idea: let's rewrite this fucking thing. It's a piece of shit but maybe the core idea in there is worth preserving. Maybe we can use the roof prompt as an excuse to take that core idea and make the words surrounding it worth the effort. Either that, or we can just fill some more space and call it a day. Maybe I should be writing this on a roof somewhere.

"A Rooftop Liberation"
April 29, 2024

This is how it goes with me: I'm a constant fuck-up. You are reading this and thus you know me and thus you know this about me, perhaps intimately. I fuck up constantly. When I make someone upset, I can feel the heat and the shame—not necessarily because I know I'm wrong, but because I'm willing to take the loss in order to preserve the friendship. If I'm feeling depressed, it's because that's my way of dealing with the pain of letting go. I'm releasing the tension of feeling the need to be RIGHT, and choosing to be WRONG.

One of my best female pals was upset at me today, for reasons I wouldn't dare go into on this public blog. It's simple enough to say she was angry at me, and it doesn't make it any less simple to consider why or how. She was upset, and when a friend is upset, all other context melts away. Now I'm upset too because I know that there's only one way to preserve the only thing in the world that means anything to me—human connection—and that way is: eating shit, and then eating some more.

So I was in a bad mood when my dad entered the bedroom and asked me to help with a chore that he'd been putting off the whole summer so far and could wait no longer. I said okay, and strapped on my no-slip work sneakers. And up to the roof we climbed.

The task at hand involved the chimney. Our house isn't all that old but it definitely has some years on it, and as far as I know, there's never been any work done to the chimney to patch it up or stabilize it or anything of that nature. Last week, Rockledge experienced some high winds, and at one point during that windy night, a few bricks fell out of the chimney and landed cement path along the side of the house. There's a huge stone slab that covers the top of the chimney, and that slab is only supported by bricks on each corner. So there fear, I think, was that the bricks that fell were part of the brick structure that supported the stone, and that there was now a possibility that the stone itself was gonna fall at some point, which would not have been good, no sir.

So we went up to the roof with dual intentions. First, take the large gray slate off the roof and toss it (safely) onto the ground below. Then, affix a lightweight metal grate to the top of the chimney, one that would serve the same purpose as the stone but not threaten to kill anyone at the next blustery day.

The weather did not mirror my mood. It was a gloriously sunny day, with a gentle breeze keeping we roof-dwellers cool. Birds were chirping; Rockledge was at peace. It did not match the turmoil that I felt inside as I climbed the ladder.

A passerby might gaze upon the boy and the man scaling one large ladder to a roof and then another smaller ladder to the top of the chimney and say something like: "That looks dangerous." And maybe it was! One wrong step and I'm flat on the concrete with a fractured skull. That's saying nothing about the act of pushing the slab purposefully onto that concrete, and act that would require pinpoint precision (as my father had chosen to lay a thin piece of cardboard on the ground so as to allegedly protect the concrete from splitting into tiny pieces upon the impact of the slab). Or maybe the wind makes another dastardly appearance and the slab is crushing its way through our roof into the living room. I don't know. Anything is possible when you're up on the roof.

I made it to the top first, and then stood on the roof as I waited for my dad to slowly ascend the ladder too, which afforded me maybe a minute or two up there, alone with the roof and the chimney and the sky and an entire world below. High up, I could see everything. The entire neighborhood block lie before me, and the streets beyond, an endless row of brick homes in Suburbia, U.S.A. On a roof, I feel one with the infiniteness of my world.

And an alien thought suddenly occurred to me. The fears I felt on that roof, mainly the fears of the unknown trajectory of that great hulking slab of rock or stone, fears that maybe our home would be destroyed or the concrete outside of it would be obliterated or that I'd suddenly find my arm lodged in the great stone's hitherto unseen sharp crevice as it drags me off the roof into my final resting place, the thought occurred to me that I don't really care. I don't care about any of that. All my feelings felt small when placed next to that dense ball of misery I felt over the potential loss of a friend.

Everything, all of it, got sucked into the gravitational pull of the one dark unwieldy thought. The cloaked apprehension at starting my life over at college in the fall, the misery at having to decide how I'm going to spend the rest of my life after that, the weight of expectation I feel from this place I was raised in and the people who raised me, all that shit that feels so heavy at this age with no promises of it ever getting better... all of it sucked into the void of the sadness that had come about because I slipped up, fucked up, was a bad friend. For one single moment, up on that roof, it was the only emotion that remained, and it was the only thing that mattered.

I wish I could tell you that I found a solution on that roof too, that in witnessing my surroundings from a fresh perspective and examining what really mattered at a height that made things matter more, I was able to fix this problem and all the problems I find myself faced with during this summer of immense change. But that's not what this story is about. It's not about connecting with my father through accomplishing successfully the task of removing the stone, since five minutes later we were in my bedroom bickering over the fact that all my dirty clothes were scattered all over the floor and he's tired of picking up after me and yadda yadda yadda same shit as always. I wish I could say that I found solace in the accomplishment itself, as if the stone's successful and safe journey through the thin Rockledge air and onto that cardboard and now resting gently against the side of the house was a METAPHOR for a LESSON about LIFE, but we both know this essay was never about the goddamn stone. And I wish I could tell you that I got down off that roof and called my friend and we hashed it out and everything is right in the world, but we talked that afternoon and we're still at a stalemate and I still feel like a fucking monster about everything.

The point, if there is one, has something to do with the understanding of what's important in this world, and what isn't. That at this age, we tend to feel everything, and that it's hard to distinguish between which feelings are worthy of attention and which aren't. Faced with a non-zero possibility of sudden accidental death, I was able to realize that there are things worse than death, that I'd probably rather die than live my life unloved. I spend so much of my limited time on this earth worried about chimneys and stone slabs and precarious drops from dangerous heights, but ultimately, that's all going to amount to pigeon shit on a brick wall in a boring-ass suburban town. What actually matters is the connections we forge.

I don't know the future. I don't know if I'll be able to fix what I need to fix. I don't know where I'll be later, or if I'll be (like if a fall from a roof has anything to say about that). And I don't know if I'll always be a fuck-up or if one day I'll find the answers on how not to fuck up constantly. But I knew exactly one thing. I knew it up there, up high, up on the roof. I knew that one thing for certain. I felt it in every fiber of my being. And despite the pain of the day-to-day and despite the anguish of living, when I was up on that roof, I did something that I haven't done for a while: I smiled.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Nate

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Nate

"Someone Else's Dream"

Restorations

Restorations, 2024

Hey, look, it’s the fuckin' record of the year! The roof lyric is somewhat suspect here—"In a see-through umbrella / On the roof of the seventeenth floor / You're still a kid to the grown-ups / And you're still a cop to the kids"—but you get what you pay for on these lyric-specific prompts, and bloggin' don’t cost a thing except time. First half of that lyric bar is nonsense, but the second half is more or less the aging punk manifesto condensed into its most concise form. Wherever Restorations are in your personal ranking of the Boss-inspired punk bands, move 'em up higher.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Bridget

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Bridget

"Maria"

Tony (performed by Ansel Elgort)

West Side Story (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack), 2021

I love West Side Story so much. A movie I remember watching on repeat on rainy days at my Grammie's house at the beach. I loved Steven Speilberg's new version in 2022, and this is when Tony sings to Maria on the rafters, which brings me back to the prompt. I love this classic retelling Romeo and Juliet with songs! This ballad is Tony announcing his love to Maria whom he met literally hours previously at a dance. This song is to me so unserious because it's just him saying her name and how pretty she is? But that being said, I want someone to write this exact song and change the main word to "Bridget."

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Boober

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Boober

"Hero"

Chad Kroeger ft. Josey Scott

Music from and Inspired by Spider-Man, 2002

Spider-Man, Spider-Man

Does whatever a Spider... Man... can

Idk if everyone reads these, but I'd love to know everyone's favorite superhero character. I'll leave mine up for y'all to guess. My pick is in the Marvel universe. It's not Spider-Man, this song just got me thinking about comics.

Would I want a superpower if I was given the option? Idk if I would take it. If I had powers, it would mean that others would have powers too, and I'd worry too much about using mine for good.

Man, my mind is all over the place right now.

Hooray Nickelback and Spider-Man and superheroes.

(I'd take immortality if I could. I'd like to witness the history of mankind. That would be pretty neat.)

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Pat

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Pat

"Hallelujah"

Rufus Wainwright

Shrek: Music from the Original Motion Picture, 2001

I remember enough from Catholic school to know this song references the story of King David and Bathsheba, the married woman King David seduced after seeing her bathing on her roof. This story is very R-rated, involving adultery, cuckoldry, and murder. But did you know the follow-up story is absolutely X-rated? It involves David's son, Absalom, declaring himself king and rising up in revolt against his father. In order to declare his rebellion, Absalom decides to outdo his father—the man who secretly bedded a married woman—by publicly having sex with all of his father's mistresses. So Absalom sets up a fuck tent on the roof of the palace and puts on a public orgy, much to the delight of the Israelites. I finally understand what Bender was talking about.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Zach

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Zach

"Love Shack"

The B-52s

Cosmic Thing, 1989

The song I most wanted played at my bar mitzvah. It's a period piece. My brother, only three years younger than me, told me his bar mitzvah era didn't include "Love Shack." There was a dance to "Love Shack" that we did at every bar mitzvah, and that everyone knew. I have no memory of how it goes. YouTube doesn't give me any help. Did I imagine this dance? Or was it just a Maryland thing?

Apparently, the lyric "tin roof, rusted" is a pregnancy reference. I guess if you spend enough time at the Love Shack, you'll get pregnant. And you'll proclaim it to the world happily and loudly. Sure! It makes sense.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 53: Allison

Prompt: "A song that at least partially takes place on a roof"

Selected by Allison

"Super Rich Kids"

Frank Ocean ft. Earl Sweatshirt

channel ORANGE, 2012

Life pro tip: have at least one rich friend. Someone who always has the cool apartment in the middle of everything. Someone who always wants to host. Someone who always puts their card down first while you slowly reach for your wallet and feign indignation, "Oh, you sure? I mean, I could... ok, next time!" You may pick up the tab at a dive bar once a year to pay off your debts and restore the balance. You crash on their couch while saving money to move out of your parents. You spend summers mooching around at their parent's house down the shore, eating their snacks and drinking their good liquor. You get a taste of the good life; you cosplay as a member of the elite.

Album of the Week: II

Greetings from Florida! Record Club artists from Florida: T-Pain, A Day to Remember, the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, Ethel Cain. Maybe others, I don't know. I used to keep a map of where each artist was from, but the map website stopped working, and I haven't had the time or energy to get it going again on another site. In any case, I'll be keeping my eye out for Ethel Cain, I heard she loves Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.

Welcome back Team Fuck Yeah! for an encore performance. Consider this album pick to be like a curtain call in baseball, when the dude who just smacked a home run comes back out of the dugout and tips his cap for the crowd.

Record Club:

archives | supplemental

spotify playlist | youtube playlist

choose | writing

WEEK 274 — April 28-May 4, 2024

II

by Boyz II Men

LISTEN:

Spotify | YouTube | Bandcamp | Apple

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PICKED BY TEAM FUCK YEAH!

TEAM FUCK YEAH! STILL CONSISTS OF: Dranders, Pat, Sunny (team captain)

TEAM FUCK YEAH!'S COMMENTS: "Consider it a victory lap."

JOE'S COMMENTS: It came down to a tiebreaker, but Team Fuck Yeah! was triumphant in the epic RC Team Battle Royale showdown. I thought it might be nice to punish reward them with the opportunity to choose another album, before the team rides off into the sunset. The difference this time around is that there will be a fraction of the number of reviews, and the members of Team Fuck Yeah! are under no obligation to force anyone to write. Let me handle that again (for now, or at least until the next team challenge).

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ALBUM DETAILS

GENRE: Contemporary R&B, New Jack Swing, hip hop soul

RELEASED: August 30, 1994

LENGTH: 57:38

TRACKLIST:

1. Thank You
2. All Around the World
3. U Know
4. Vibin'
5. I Sit Away
6. Jezzebel
7. Khalil (Interlude)
8. Trying Times
9. I'll Make Love to You
10. On Bended Knee
11. 50 Candles
12. Water Runs Dry
13. Yesterday

LYRICS: Genius.com

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ARTIST DETAILS

PRONOUNS: he/him/his for all four members

ABOUT: Boyz II Men formed in Philadelphia, at CAPA High School, in 1985. Originally called Unique Attraction, the members of the group changed over time due to some guys graduating and other guys joining as freshmen, but eventually, they stabilized with Michael McCary, Nathan Morris, Wanyá Morris, and Shawn Stockman. In 1989, they snuck into the Philadelphia Civic Center (now the Convention Center) and performed for New Edition's Michael Bivins, who agreed to produced their first album. With their first two albums (this second one produced mostly by Babyface), Boyz II Men found international fame, and numerous #1 hits that broke chart records. Boyz II Men are recognized by Billboard as the "biggest boy band from 1987 to 2012." Michael McCary left the group in 2003 due to an MS diagnosis, and the other three members continue to tour today.

DISCOGRAPHY: I'm counting thirteen LPs in the discography. II is technically their third, but the album title is only a misnomer if we're counting a Christmas album (Christmas Interpretations in 1993) as their sophomore effort. Cooleyhighharmony is their debut album from 1991 (that's the one with "Motownphilly"). Their most recent album is 2017's Under the Streetlight.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

READING SOME SHIT: a 1994 NYTimes feature

WATCHING SOME SHIT: There's an episode of This Is Pop on Netflix that's all about Boyz II Men, and it's worth the effort to watch it, even though we all cancelled our Netflix subscriptions because it's a shit service with terrible content, right? Right?

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: Probably important to connect this album to Team Fuck Yeah's winning album, Fore!, and it's easy: they both have a cappella on them. Maybe all four of the RC Team Battle Royale albums are going to pop up a lot in the Previously On section from now on, since those artists were specifically chosen for their ubiquity. For example, Katy Perry (chosen by second-place team the Sweeties) can be connected by virtue of her guest stint on an episode of How I Met Your Mother. Boyz II Men were in another episode, playing themselves. (Also: Weird Al was somewhere in that series too, also playing himself.) That was a decent show with a great ending.

II was the first album to ever win the Grammy Award for Best R&B Album. The only other RC album to win the award is Jazmine Sullivan's Heaux Tales. That's the only other RC album to even be nominated. These are the only two RC artists to be nominated at all, now that I'm looking at it (though an upcoming RC album is on the list, I'll be sure to note it then). But I like this connection to Jazmine Sullivan, because she too attended CAPA, so she is positioned in the same Philadelphia lineage as Boyz II Men.

I buried probably the most important connection here: a member of New Edition "discovered" Boyz II Men, and another member of New Edition was RC alumnus Bobby Brown. His Don't Be Cruel is the only other RC album besides II to be considered in the "New Jack Swing" genre.

Other miscellaneous. If we're talking about FAMOUS songs about Philly, then Boyz II Men's "Motownphilly" and IKE's "Into Philadelphia" both stand on high pillars. This album and 30 by Adele are the only RC album titles to consist solely of a number. This album features RC's third Beatles cover (Tim Heidecker's "Let It Be" and the Feelies' "Everybody's Got..."), and the fourth writing credit for John Lennon (with Corey Feldman's "Imagine"), only 224ish weeks before we finally feature a John Lennon solo album in Record Club.

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RC CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK

Every week from now on, we're giving a quick re-listen to the RC album we covered five years ago exactly. Check out the quick reevaluation every Friday morning, before the regular reviews. Reevaluation, reflection, something like that.

WEEK 13: April 28-May 4, 2019

Free Yourself Up by Lake Street Dive

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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!

Shelter from the Storm: We're Gonna Build Something This Summer

July 5, 2005, 1:01 AM

A Xanga entry in five parts, all written at different points of my restless Monday night into Tuesday morning, and presented in non-chronological order. Good thing I don't have work until 4 PM tomorrow.


PART FIVE

I am here to remind you about the big party coming up. July 8th. This Friday night! Holy shit!

I am also here to answer a few questions you might have as you plan your own journey into the depths of the woods.

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO BE DOING AT THIS PARTY? You might think this is me playing it coy or something, but there's not going to be any alcohol. We're just gonna be hanging out in the woods. Think about the beaver. Let's build something together. We could also roast marshmallows.

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF THE PARTY? This party will be thrown in honor of John Lennon, who believed in peace and love and eschewed violence and stress. The man spent his goddamn honeymoon in bed. Let's be like John Lennon. I want my party to be like that. Let's find peace and tranquility, and let's find it together. Let's chill. Let's relax. Let's try to forget about all our worries, because they don't exist in Burholme Park.

WHAT TIME DOES IT START? Let's say 7:00 PM. That'll give us a few hours before curfew hits and we have to disperse. Also, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm going to be a little late. Let's say 7:30. I am attending a funeral viewing, and it would feel wrong to miss it. So you have it right: be there at 7 PM sharp, before I even get there. I'll meet you in the woods. Sounds about right.

I hope this answers all your questions, though if you think of any additional inquiries, you can feel free to drop 'em in the comments below. Otherwise, know that I'm excited about this, and I hope you are too. I think it's really gonna be something special.


PART THREE

What in the fuck is going on here, brain? First I'm feeling depressed, and then all of a sudden I'm feeling so happy I could burst, and now I'm neither of those things but instead feeling torn between the two, all these emotions good and bad feeling heavy in my stomach, weighing me down. Or maybe I'm just exhausted. I should go to bed, right? Forget what I said earlier about not wanting to ever wake up. I take it back. I just want to sleep for like eight hours maybe.


PART FOUR

But okay let me tell you a little bit about that sojourn in nature that I had this weekend. I don't know if I can make it feel meaningful in print, but within my soul it felt like an important moment for me. Being outside in nature is good for your mental health, so they say.

I traveled down to Tookany Creek, which run along the boundary between Philadelphia and Cheltenham around the area where I went to elementary school. (Tookany Creek Parkway is such a dangerously twisty road because it runs parallel to every crooked turn of the creek itself.) Grandpop used to bring me down here when I was a kid, probably on days when my parents were working but I had off from school for whatever reason. I have vague memories of chasing squirrels and skipping flat stones on the creek's surface. Perhaps that is why I was drawn to this specific tranquility, as it was out of some kind of subconscious thirst for gentle nostalgia.

So I walked down there the other day, just to kind of spend some time in nature and relax, and I witnessed the coolest fucking thing. There was a beaver, a tiny little thing, and he was building a dam. Legitimately. I watched him swim the width of the creek, grab a tiny twig or branch, and then swim back with it lodged in its buckteeth, place it on the dam, then start the process over. It was soothing, watching a creature in his nature habitat, doing what he does best on this earth.

It made me think about the few things in my life that I'm good at, or getting better at. And how maybe I could lean into those assets and really make something of myself. Some day. For now, I was content with exploring the creek. At one point, I wanted to cross the the creek but didn't want to use the bridge. So I took after my beaver pal, and built my own bridge. I just took a few huge rocks, threw them at strategic distances, and then used them to skip across the width of the creek. It wasn't a huge project or anything, nothing like a dam, but it felt pretty cool to be connected to nature in this very specific way—pretending that the beaver and I were kindred spirits, both finding a way to impose our will upon the otherwise unstoppable stream of water through our town.


PART ONE

A pristine holiday weekend. There were fireworks both literal and figurative. Work was easy and getting easier. A holiday family gathering meant some good food, including Grandmom's lemon cake. A holiday in Rockledge meant I slept over at cousin Andrew's and extended some of the holiday mayhem. I managed to find a few moments of solitude within the constant go go go, wandering around Tookany Creek Park and soaking it all in. Shit, man, a weekend like this has a way of making you feel real good about life.

So why do I feel so depressed right now? Like I want to go to bed right now and never wake up? I don't know. I can't explain it (it must be love). It's a weird dissonance, for everything to be going so well and to feel so distraught over it. Maybe I just hate myself or something.

I thought this party was supposed to cheer me up.


PART TWO

I am happy now. Life is good. I can't even remember why I was upset in the first place.

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Comments

pinkpolo22: i think we were in the same sat class a few months ago
hah yeah ino random

pinkpolo22: haha yeah thats the one... back in like march i think?

JFingers88: Sorry, Joe, I can't make it. My crazy employer scheduled me for work Wed. and Fri. and I could only get out of one (Wed, because I'm going to a Rockapella concert). Maybe some other time.

MadeFromRecycledPaper: Nice try.

Shelter_fromthe_Storm: I'm being dead serious in saying it is for John Lennon, and it will be peaceful and relaxing.

xOkEeLy07oX: hey joey!  how was ur fourth?  I didnt kno that the party was dedicated to john lennon, thats awesome.  Im not sure  if i can come ( i have no idea how to get there– even with ur awesome directions)

MadeFromRecycledPaper: I LOVE YOU.

Anonymous: hey sry about the trouble my almost attendance to John Lennon dedicated party caused unfortunately i can't come. But you gotta come to mine, as one sided as that sounds. Have fun! Toodles!