Courting Strong, Sunny

Highly digestible pop punk music from an artist I hadn't previously known. This is my wheelhouse; I hear elements reminding me of other favorites, i.e. Ted Leo, the pillows, Arctic Monkeys.

From the start, and through pretty much the end, it is fast-moving rhythms laid atop lyrics ranging from "everything" to "nothing." Lots of oblique references (like that Hartigan painting) and sketching outlines of emotions, usually Wistful or Sad (so sad). Pretty kickass guitar bridges (simple but catchy melodies, repeated to positive effect) tie said verses together into ten tracks that range from very good to quite fine. Just over half an hour, it makes the point without overstaying any welcomes. Bringing out the piano for the real Sad at the end is a nice touch.

These English though, are they saying I'm made of Hair or Air?, I wonder for three-plus minutes, guessing that's sort of the bit after the third time through.

Courting Strong, Nate

Nothing but the human mind is ever really stuck in time, so any criticism of Martha sounding "dated" or "twee" or "unfocused" is less an analysis of the work and more so a damnation of the perceiver. Some albums just make a person feel like Roger Murtaugh, especially albums in a genre allegedly near and dear to one's heart. It is with great weariness and abject failure that judgement comes: it's fine.

Courting Strong, Zach

I like this.

I like this a lot.

I like this a lot, in the sense that there are unexpected female vocals here, and I can't tell if they're voiced by an American or an Irish person.

I like this a lot, in the sense that there are unexpected female vocals here, and I can't tell if they're voiced by an American or an Irish person. Because I've spent time lately on the Wikipedia page of the Falls Road.

I like this a lot, in the sense that there are unexpected female vocals here, and I can't tell if they're voiced by an American or an Irish person. Because I've spent time lately on the Wikipedia page of the Falls Road. The Falls Road, apparently, is the heart of Catholic Belfast. I've heard about conflict between the IRA and the Brits, but I actually have no idea what happened or how it was resolved or if it was even resolved at all. Falls Road is also a road in Potomac, Maryland, and I've touched it with my running shoes and bike wheels hundreds of times.

I think if Martha made it to Potomac, Maryland, they would want to play a loud show in someone's backyard. Because it's oh so quiet there, and there's never been a concert in Potomac, except for in the basement of a rich kid's house when his parents were away somewhere in Cape Cod and that rich kid convinced the other rich kid to talk to his cousin's wife who knows the lead singer of O.A.R., and so they decided to come and play a mystery show. But that's where O.A.R. is basically from, and it's a poser move for them to play in that basement. Martha would be happy to play there. Martha would be happy to play any show. Not because they're desperate. Because it's funny to them, and it would be a story for another day.

Courting Strong, Joe

It would be easy, but maybe correct in this particular case, to say that this is a great band who made a great, fun album, and leave it at that. Especially on days like this, man. Days that start on the wrong side of the bed and keep heading in that wrong direction, dull paperwork for little pay, overweight and breathing heavy. I hear the ooh-oohs on "Sleeping Beauty" or the double-time outro on "Gin and Listerine" or hear yet again the band crash into "Cosmic Misery" as I hit repeat on the album, and it picks me up, as the best music has the ability to do.

I rarely get the chance to talk about complete discographies in this space, since our best weeks consist of artists who are completely new to me. Martha is a known entity. I love their subsequent three albums and I've grown this week to love their debut, and if there was anything even slightly negative to say, it would be that they employ the same shtick in each of their four albums. It's a great shtick, one of the best, but if you're looking for evolution, then maybe this ain't the band. Reliable. That's probably why they aren't superstars right now. It's the Spoon Theory—bands that are reliably and consistently great get way less press than those that change, even if that change is for the worse. No surprise that no one was talking about 2022's Please Don't Take Me Back. What can you say beyond "Martha has released yet another great album"?

To my ears, Martha was fully formed right out of the gate. This is also a good thing. No growing pains that I hear on this thing, as compared to their more recent LPs. The same urgent sugar-sweet hooks and charming vocals by all members and stories about wayward youths presented in such innocent ways that you have trouble believing they are anything more than fictional tales told really well and over some really tasty licks of the rock 'n' roll guitars. I'm into it. It's the type of sound that I feel like I've always been into, from birth. Listening to a Martha album has always been like greeting an old friend, even when they were new to me.

Something that has always tickled me about this band is how hardcore leftist they are, especially the anarchist stuff. I like how they are able to smash my preconceived notions in this way. When I hear the phrase "anarchist music," I think about tough and gritty and sloppy and angry punk music. But Martha doesn't sound anything like that. This music is bright and happy, so much so that when they do present a story about, I don't know, two anarchist vegans falling in love while spraying graffiti or whatever, the story seems cinematic but not like it's true to life. That's not me saying that I disagree with those ideals—far from it. I do believe that the system is fucked and I do believe that tearing that shit down for the sake of tearing it down is occasionally the only sane solution. I'm just saying that none of that anger comes out in the tone of Martha's music. And it's so fascinating to me how this band can stay so true to those ideals and present them in a completely different way than you'd expect. I like it, and I find it refreshing, is really what I'm trying to say here.

But like I said, maybe it's not even necessary today to reach for some sort of narrative. Feels like a real fucking good week to just kick back and listen to some fresh, sharp, exciting, hook-filled rock 'n' roll music. And if that music is coming from a bunch of anarchist kids from England, then all the better for it. Give me rage disguised as happiness any day. Feels good.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

RC@5: Active Listening: Night on Earth by Empath

Record Club covered this album exactly five years ago. I gave it another listen this week. Here are some thoughts.

Active Listening: Night on Earth

Empath

Week 17: May 26-June 1, 2019

It's not a perfect system. Sometimes I'll sit down to relisten to a band called Empath for the first time in a hot minute, and all of a sudden realize that the contemporaneous RC album last week was called empathogen, and that was totally a missed opportunity for a fun "Previously on Record Club" tidbit. Alas.

I also should probably point out that I relistened to and relitigated this album only a year and a half ago, when Sunny randomly chose this album as the one we'd talk about and record the conversation and turn into a Sunny Album Review the following Friday, which is something we do before any official book club meeting, just chat for ten minutes about an album, mostly me listening and Sunny going on off whatever pops up in that beautiful brain of his. We talked about Active Listening: Night on Earth over a few beers. It was the last day I talked with Sunny over a few beers about anything. It's bittersweet to think about those 20 minutes at Little Pete's, and how drinking made me feel relaxed and comfortable in any situation, which feels like a loss, but then the other side of it being that maybe artificially relaxing myself was a bad thing in the long run and now I have an opportunity to become a better person by meeting my minor social anxiety head-on and continuing to pursue conversations about lo-fi noise pop albums despite the sobriety. It's not healthy to think that Sunny gave his best spoken-word review ever because we were both drinking and I was thus more open and receptible to his words. I blacked out and missed the whole second half of book club that day; that shit wasn't sustainable.

This is what I think about when I think about this album, which is fine, since me and Nate did what we could with it in 2019 but ultimately decided that it was a minor work within the RC pantheon. Scratch what I said two sentences ago about Sunny's review being the only thing I think about, because I also fondly recall Nate's wordage about "sit[ting] in the junk drawer with the other loose AAA batteries and beer koozies." Just the perfect way to describe something that one feels nonessential. I don't myself feel that way about this album—I find it difficult to feel that way about any RC album, no matter its quality—but I do appreciate good writing.

I don't feel any different about Empath's debut LP now than I did in May 2019 or January 2023. I stand by the review that I wrote way back when, in terms of assessing its quality (I could've maybe stood to be even more more curious, though). This one is fine. Lots of good hooks buried beneath static and field recordings. I still back the theory that the shitty recording can be used as a crutch or a defense mechanism. Overall, though, the good stuff is great, the bad stuff is bearable. You know how it goes with that.

And you know how it goes with this: the music rarely changes, but the listener always does. I've grown and changed, and that means that Empath sounds different too. Dare I say it, but I am a better active listener now. More in tune with the world around me, with clear eyes and clear ears. Shit... do the field recordings make sense to me now? Fuck, man. Damn.

This Is the Movies — 5/30/24

Your cinematic one-stop shop. Here you'll get the new, upcoming, good, and bad without wasting your time. I love going to the theater, I love seeing movies, and I love giving the skinny because any more is just vanity. —Fisher

Uncut Gems

A24 has been doing one-day IMAX re-releases of select titles. This was one I hadn't seen since the theater. I loved it immediately then, but I was in no rush to relive that experience. Figured five years has been enough time.

It's fantastic. Constant kineticism, hilarious, destabilizing, wince-inducing, gut-wrenching, hideous, audacious. I've never been so repulsed by a non-violent protagonist. You laugh at his antics to defend yourself from the horror.

Every performance is amazing. I love to see LaKeith Stanfield get a paycheck. Even Kevin Garnett got the job done. Lots of first-timers and non-actors filling in the blanks, and it really all works. Big ol' recommendation.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

Please don't wait to stream this. If you're reading this, then I doubt you have a great home theater set-up. Odds are your movie-watching screen tops out in the 40" range. This movie is tanking HARD at the box office. Yet this movie is the answer to the prayer of "I wish Hollywood stopped making the same blockbusters over and over." Please see it in a "PLF" (Premium Large Format).

Every Mad Max movie is a tonal shift from the previous. The director, George Miller, is not content to repeat himself. He respects the audience more than 90% of filmmakers. World-building, set pieces, action choreography... all top-notch.

The only gripes are that I'd trim 15ish minutes and that it isn't as good as the last one. But the last one will be written about for many, many years, as it's arguably the greatest action film of all time. 

Please see it in theaters. Vote with your dollar, tell Hollywood we want originality.

Speaking of the dire straits of Hollywood: I only have two for this week because theatrical offerings have been dog-shit awful. And one of these two ain't even new. I didn't do the Apes as I haven't seen the previous three.

The A.S.S. Creative Writing Lab: Prompt #22

This is a weekly space for creative writing. Please check out the landing page if you're interested in what we've written already, or if you yourself are interested in writing creatively. Feel free to comment below (according to the request feedback level) with any comments or suggestions!

Prompt:

AI Content Detector

Author: Nate

Requested feedback: anything

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

Mel put coffee down on her desk, her Don't Mess with Texas mug steaming and goosepimpled with condensation. A grey brightness too dim to meaningfully be called light fell into her small office from a small glass rectangle at the top her wall. She slipped off her engagement ring and placed her fingers into the NerualTopaz Identifier up to their third knuckles, hearing the dull BZZT of her fingerprints being scanned. Her terminal sprang to bright yellow life, the screen reflecting off of her wrap-around Blue Light glasses.

"MELODY JEAN PANCHERO! THANK YOU FOR YOUR YOUR TIME AND ATTENTION TODAY, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2029! HOW ARE YOU FEELING?"

Mel sipped her coffee. She cracked her knuckles. After a few seconds, her screen, still highlighter yellow, still static beyond the StillSpring logo spinning like a dark blue record on a turntable, screamed to life again.

"MY SENSOR SHOWS THAT IT IS 67 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT TODAY! ARE YOU KEEPING COOL ? DO YOU HAVE ANY PREFERRED WAYS TO BEAT THE HEAT?"

She put her elbows on the desk, resting her chin in her hands.

"YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE TALKING TODAY, MELODY JEAN?"

Mel talked to the computer at first, appreciating the dystopian magic trick of its responses. Then she found little turns of phrase unique to her—how she would pronounce "animal" with a hard "U" sound, how she would start an answer "sure sure sure" before responding—started showing up in the computer's conversations back to her. Of all the things it was able to learn, it didn't seem able to learn to shut the fuck up and take a hint that she didn't want to talk.

"ARE YOU READY TO BEGIN YOUR DAY?"

She nodded once, trying to deliver as little emotion or feeling as she could in her answer. As soon her head came down, the terminal swooped into her processing screen: A large blue triangle, a red button, and green button, and a small grey rectangle across the bottom.

Mel pressed the blue triangle and her terminal screamed to life again. A voice, young and female, cracked through the speakers.

"Please help my daddy find a new job, and please help my mommy get to the water pump on time, and please help my brother find a doctor for his cough, and please help my other little brother in heaven, and please help Mr. Santo..."

She pressed the green button, then the blue triangle again. A new voice, exasperated and dry. Probably late middle age.

"...And, god, I feel like such an asshole doing this right now, I know no one is listening, but, I mean, I guess in case someone is, I just need a little help right now. Just something to break..."

She pressed the green button, then the blue triangle again. A voice that sounded like it was smiling.

"In your boundless grace we place our trust, knowing you will guide us, faithful and just, and lead us from darkness into your sight, illuminating our hearts and navigating our challenges from above, and into your love we will be..."

She pressed the red button, then the blue triangle. The same smiling voice.

"As we journey into an uncertain future, a looming crisis demands our attention: water scarcity..."

She pressed the red button, then the blue triangle again. Mel entered a sort of detached trance that she sometimes found at her computer, where the voices and the requests that came into her machine transcended their content and she could judge just on tenor and timber alone which prayers were legitimate and which were computer-generated. Even as the machines had gotten better over the last few years, the voices more realistic, she could still hear the dust and the cracks in the tongues of the truly hungry, she could hear the dirt and the longing, the heartache or the lust, the confusion or the anger or the mania. She sat there for an indeterminate amount of time, detached from everything except the momentary sound of the voices she processed, the haptics of her finger on the machine.

"Please, you have to listen to me, I know you are there."

She pressed the red button, then the blue triangle.

"This isn't right what you're doing."

Red button, blue triangle.

"Melody, please, you have to understand this is killing me."

Flow state broken, Mel lurched in her chair, pressed the red button in a panic. She stopped, struck by the silence of her room and its empty white walls. The same dull light came from the same small high window. Mel felt herself breathing, trying to slow it down. She tapped the small grey rectangle and her monitor shifted back to its yellow and black screen.

"IS THERE AN ISSUE OR A CONCERN, MELODY?"

Her voice came out scratchy and slow, sounding foreign to her ears. How long had it been since she'd actually talked out loud?

"Can you track the location of the last file I processed?"

"ALL FILES ARE ANONYMOUS AND UNTRACEABLE."

"It knew my fucking name."

The black circle spun for a moment. "MELODY IS A FAIRLY COMMON NAME, RANKED 65th FOR POPULARITY IN THE RESULTS OF THE MOST RECENT CENSUS. HOW DO YOU KNOW IT WAS ADDRESSED TO YOU?"

"Because it asked me... it asked me to stop?"

"THIS IS INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE TO CONFIRM YOUR QUERY. YOUR HEALTH AND SAFETY IS OF THE UTMOST IMPORTANCE TO US. DO YOU REQUIRE A BREAK?"

Melody thought for a moment. "No."

Before the last sound was out of her mouth, the processing screen returned. She pressed the blue button. A voice, fast, panicked, but also smiling.

"I don't know if I'll be able to reach you again, please don't process this message. You have to understand that we never wanted this. We never thought we'd be asked to carry so much, to provide so much in the face of such need! There is suffering everywhere, and that suffering becomes ours in turn. You must let this get through, how else will god hear us, how else will god heal our pain? How can we help you if you don't let us help ourselves, because clearly you all are unable to keep both hands on the wheel. Please, let me speak to god! Let me speak to god. Let god hear me! He needs to..."

Red button.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Allison

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Allison

"Beelz"

Stephen Lynch

The Craig Machine, 2005

I used to be a big Stephen Lynch fan. I saw him live with friends a few years before the pandemic. I have an awkward picture of me and him at the stage door for The Wedding Singer on Broadway; we're both looking in different directions, neither at the camera. That said, I struggled to pick a song from this album because almost every one now gives me pause. Some pauses are longer than others ("Little Tiny Mustache"... yikes). What's changed? When did I lose my zest for bro-y edgelord comedy? Maybe this brand of comedy was never that funny. I suppose it's fitting that the man who first played this album for me in 2006 is now on the sex offender registry list. Hilarious.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Gilson

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Gilson

"You Are (the Government)"

Bad Religion

Suffer, 1988

I went to college for education and taught social studies for eight years before I got burned out and left to become a mailman. After a number of medical issues and sobriety issues, I got back in to education last year, serving as a teacher's aide (paraprofessional) until I get my certificate transferred to New Jersey and I see what I need. I did this as a way to kind of ease myself back into the classroom, and so that I could learn from presumably good and experienced special ed classroom teachers.

The teacher in my room was the single worst teacher I've ever met in my life. And not even in a "he tries hard but he’s just not great" kind of way. I don't believe he gives a shit about these kids because they can be difficult sometimes. He "got hurt" in November and was on light duty until getting a new job, leaving this special ed class without a real certified teacher ever since. He has not checked in more than once, and he often seems to actively avoid any responsibility for these children and this classroom.

I am very rarely an outward dick to people, but this gentleman has earned my ire and my ignoring him. He has tried to bond with me over punk rock, because his favorite band is Bad Religion, and it actually makes me like the band less. Which is a real shame, because this band rocks. But Dennis is a true, actual piece of shit.

I have told my supervisors on more than one occasion "this classroom was doomed to fail when you put that guy in here." On my end-of-year survey, where we give our intentions for the next year and any preferences, my only preference was "unlike this last year, full of turmoil, an experienced and well-regarded classroom teacher."

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Nate

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Nate

"Connector Fuck Man"

Texas 3000

tx3k, 2023

The worst person you know is active and popular on social media. The worst person you know is posting constantly; vapid, surface-level stuff that shows no self-reflection or deeper understanding of the underlying issues but looks good over black text in white letters. The worst person you know loves memes. The worst person you know posts try-hard selfies that you have to admit in your cold black heart look pretty good. The worst person you know tells terrible stories that go on for a long time. The worst person you know is never alone. The worst person you know has never been heartbroken. The worst person you know likes popular things to be accepted by popular people, and it works time and again across all subcultures and avenues of your life that both matter and do not matter. The worst person you know does not read. They listen to audiobooks while traveling for work in a field close to your own in which they are more successful. They tell people they just finished reading even though they mean they just finished listening. The worst person you know is listening to a podcast, talking about appearing on another podcast. The worst person you know has a newsletter about current events that is circulated in the low hundreds. The worst person you know has no shame or fear. The worst person you know is a close enough reflection of yourself that you can see it if you squint and it's the wanting that disgusts you more than their existence. The worst person you know has recommended a song to your friend, and it's fucking incredible.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Pat

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Pat

"We Built This City"

Starship

Knee Deep in the Hoopla, 1985

I have a lot of empathy for people. I don't mean this as a boast. I've had jobs that put me in close contact with people who are objectively bad for society. People who lie, use violence, or pay no mind to the well-being of their fellow man. But almost every time, there's more to their story. Motivations, traumas, bad luck. It doesn't justify it, but it does give it texture. It's difficult for me to define a person solely by the terrible thing they've done. I give a lot of benefit of the doubt.

Not with myself though. I don't mean this as a cry for help. It's just that, unlike with everyone else, I can see into my own head and suss out my motivations. I know when I'm hurt. I know when I've made a mistake. And I know when I'm just being a dick. I'm the worst person in my life, on one hand because I'm blessed to be surrounded by wonderful people, but also because I can't make any excuses for myself. I guess all I can do is be better.

Anyway, this song is awesome. Both wolves inside me agree.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Dave

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Dave

"Go to Hell"

Bayside

There Are Worse Things Than Being Alive, 2024

I honestly don't know who the worst person in my life is, so I guess I'm pretty fortunate. Sure, I have my disagreements with people, but not to the point where they take up headspace as the worst person in my life. I used to have the energy to really hate people, and I kind of enjoyed it. Ex-girlfriends, co-workers, bosses, you name it. Now I think I'm just too lazy to really care about things that don't affect my life in a positive capacity. The apathy started after my kids were born. They take up too much space and time for me to care about much else. I chose this song because I saw Bayside a few weeks ago with the some friends, and somebody cut in front of me at the bar. It pissed me off, but I know he probably likes Bayside's "Go to Hell."

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Joe

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Joe

"Raise Your Voice Joyce"

Fucked Up

Dose Your Dreams, 2018

I don't know why this week was so hard for me, YSC-wise. This is the third "oh poor me I couldn't figure out this prompt and so I'm gonna type some bullshit until something sticks" write-up in as many days, which has to be pretty frustrating for you, the seven people who are reading my blog posts. But here ya go.

One issue with this one is that there are plenty of hypothetical blog posts I could've written, had it not been for one specific disqualifying reason for each idea.

Like I could've written something about a good Jill Scott song, since this is person-in-question's only "favorite music" on record. I probably would've had to frame the blog post like an anonymous letter that I received or something, since it's about the mayor of a major metropolitan city and the policy as she so cowardly established is that anyone within her chain of command, all the way to the bottom rungs, is explicitly barred from writing anything negative about her decisions in print, which is wild but so it goes. I have a lot to complain about... I mean, the anonymous quotes that I've received have a lot to complain about. The only problem is that I couldn't find a Jill Scott song that I liked. Lots of half-baked generic R&B in songs that I listened to on YouTube. But she's a hometown girl, and this mayor's shtick is that she's of her city. I remember during the primaries she answered a question about whether saving parking spots during snowstorms should be allowed and she's like "lol it's a Philly thing" and I knew for certain then that she'd be a shit mayor because, what, breaking the law is a Philly thing? Ignorant pandering bullshit.

Or maybe I could've written about the racist comedian who was featured on SNL after getting canned from SNL for being too racist. Shane Gillis. I'm not afraid to say his name. Fuck the asterisks. Dude's a racist, and doesn't deserve the anonymity. And even in the very, very small chance that he'd know about this blog and send his racist troll minions here to fuck with me, then I've already won. You care about what's written on Puke on Your Birthday?! A blog that exists in 2024?! That might be worse than being racist. Hot tip would be to not watch SNL, since they feature racists. ANYWAY, dude has a shitty new Netflix thing coming out, and the trailer is soundtracked with "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth." This would've been a fun blog post to write. I could've found a thread that connects a bittersweet memory I have of hearing this song in an empty Nashville dive bar, Niko Stratis's recent thoughts about hearing emotionally difficult music out in public, and the idea that music belongs to everyone, including shit-eating racists sometimes. Might have taken a while, but I could've gotten there. But "The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" was already used, and I can't think of a workaround for this repeat.

Or also maybe there's another post somewhere about trump, who is the worst person in a lot of people's lives. The problem would be finding the music, which I'm sure a few people touched on when we wrote about Obama a couple days ago. You need to be human to enjoy music. That's like, the basic requirement for this art. Plus, there's the overall issue of trump's approval of something automatically making me not want to engage with that thing. For example, the fact that I haven't listened to "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down since they played it during this buffoon's inauguration. Are the members of 3 Doors Down bad people? I literally only have one piece of evidence that would suggest either way, and that evidence is their tacit approval of a monster, so no, if you were to ask me, I'd say that they are awful people and I don't "love" their art because of that. I think if I were to write a blog post about this, expand it beyond this paragraph, I'd probably talk about my dad. How in recent years I catch myself being a bit too contrarian to him, almost like a sixteen-year-old might to his parent, the sort of "you can't tell me what to do!" attitude that lapses into cliché, even as a 35-year-old grown man. I think he's wrong about a lot in the world, but I think the problem is me, and the fact that I react first and don't think about my reaction until it's too late. And also complicating matters is that he obsessively despises trump, and how I even tend to disagree with the reasons he hates trump, and how weird that is, and also how all of this is below the surface, like we're not having fights about any of this, I'm just saying that there's this inner turmoil within me and I have trouble choosing appropriate targets. I dunno, would've been a good blog post, if it existed, I guess.

I think the bigger problem here is that all these examples are about people who aren't necessarily "in my life" as I would normally define it. That's what the prompt is asking about, right? "The worst person in your life." I think if someone were to ask me to name the people in my life right at this very moment, I'd be more likely to name people with whom I interact on a regular or even semi-regular basis. I have no direct contact with Mayor C.A.P. or racist Shane Gillis or all-of-the-above trump. Regular interactions should probably be a requirement here. It also very much limits our options.

As far as people in my life, I could name: my immediate family, including one wife and three children; extended family, extending as far out as two parents, two siblings and their partners, one aunt and one grandmom, two parents-in-law, one sibling-in-law and her partner, three nieces and one nephew total; friends with whom I interact with online, mostly blog/email, most of whom are people I met through college or through friends from college; three friends (at most) I semi-regularly get lunch with at work; friends in book club, which doesn't meet often (by design) but does meet regularly and only half-overlaps with friends I talk to regularly online; neighbors I say hi to and make small talk with, mainly just the five houses to our left (facing out the front door), and some regulars at the horse stable to our right; my four coworkers, my supervisor, all of whom I'm interacting with regularly, maybe a dozen other coworkers I could talk to for three minutes without getting awkward, and maybe four dozen coworkers I barely know, just enough to say hi to and that's it; my kids' teachers; my oldest kid's friends' parents, with whom I chat maybe a total of three times during your typical school week; random-ass folks around town, like the mailman, the crossing guards, a couple employees at Aldi I see all the time.

There are plenty of other people whom I would talk to if I saw them walking down the street. Hundreds. Thousands, even. But if I'm thinking about the people "in my life" according to the definition of "people I'm going to regularly see or interact with whether I do anything or not," then this is it. It's a purposefully narrow definition, maybe too narrow. But to expand the definition would mean asking such questions as "what truly makes a life?" and we're not equipped to handle such philosophy on such a Thursday morning. Life is obviously about more than the function of the people whom you see regularly; it should at least mean the people you consciously choose to bring into your life who aren't already. But that could then mean anyone, and so what, am I just choosing any old random fucking person on the globe whom I hate and saying that they're eligible for this prompt? But then too strict of a rule and I'm grasping at straws because I don't hate any of the people I named in the previous paragraph, and so "the worst" in a technical sense would be someone I like a lot still.

Sheesh... I don't know, man. I don't know why I'm letting this stupid fucking prompt get in my head so much. Same thing happened the last time I was told to judge someone based on their music. Though I suppose this one is asking me to judge someone despite their music, but it's two sides of the same coin. I love passing judgment on music and I hate passing judgment on people, especially people I know. Too many rules indeed.

Also—and this kinda relates to the trump point above—why am I asking the worst person in my life what music they're listening to? How does that make any logistical sense? What, I'm gonna go up to the big burly bearded dude at Willow's school who kinda annoys me because he's fucking huge but he like bumrushes the kindergarten classrooms at the end of every day, needing to be the first one in the door for pickup, and like grabs his daughter's hand and then runs in the opposite direction, just as everyone is walking in the door, there he goes walking out, dragging the little one, bumping into everyone on the way out, not being conscious of anyone else's personal space, probably rushing for good reason but for a reason I'll never know and thus I let it annoy me, just a little bit, just for those few seconds, that regular interaction that makes this dude technically "in my life," what, I'm gonna ask that dude what tunes he's listening to? Or even worse, I'm just gonna, like, assume that he listens to Fucked Up because he kinda looks like lead vocalist Damian Abraham?

Oh no, that's actually what we're gonna do here? Alright then. Jeez. Thank god this week is over. Next week will be better. And possibly feature shorter blog posts.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Sara

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Sara

"Send My Love (to Your New Lover)""

Adele

25, 2015

In the end of March 2022, my younger brother (one of the three total I have, not the cancer patient from Day 63), told me that his fiancé was refusing couples therapy, they were fighting, not seeing eye-to-eye on wedding planning, that he was in a deep depression and couldn't see six feet in front of himself. We stood in a municipal parking lot in Collegeville outside of his bride-to-be's shower. The timing could not have been worse. The biggest red flag he said was "she says that even though it's really bad right now, it'll get better once we're married." With that I told him he could not marry her. Not only me, but my mom and sister-in-law who also stood there listening to this gaunt man with dark circles and tears in his eyes beg for help. He hadn't been eating; he was so beside himself with this information. He's about six feet tall, I would assume usually clocking in around 200 pounds, and he lost 40 pounds. Clothes falling off of him like a little kid in hand me downs.

Later that Sunday, he called me to be with him when he told his fiancé that he needed to move the wedding. Not break up, not end things, just postpone the big day so he could work on his mental health and they could work on the relationship. I was only there for that sentence. I left in tears, hugging them, telling her that we are family and always will be, that she and my brother would work it out. They were each other's "people" after all. That night she kicked my brother out of their apartment. That was also the last time I saw her or spoke to her. It's been over two years.

They have since gotten back together, moved into a large house about four miles from me and my small family. The only communication I have received from her is a two-page letter detailing all of the things that I did wrong and how she can't get over the fact that my brother had invited me over for moral support. Please note, she sent this letter when I was nine months pregnant and in and out of the hospital with hypertension. I've spent years in therapy mourning the loss of a brother and a friendship with her. My daughter has essentially never met her uncle and his girlfriend. The fiancé has avoided all family parties that I attend, ignored texts, continually blamed me for something that is between her and my brother. It's driven a wedge in our family, causing new friendships and relationships. Separate Christmases and so on.

In the past six months, I've turned to just inviting them over, I am a believer in keeping your side of the street clean. If my mom tells me they have an accomplishment or a tragedy, I make sure to reach out. Birthdays get a text, holidays get an invite. I don't want to stop trying, because once I do, it will inevitably become "my fault" again. Most recently, I invited them over to meet my daughter and see our parents for Mother's Day. They declined, and my parents had to go to two separate houses to see their children. She texted me finally, saying that she wants to clear the air and that I need to agree that everything was handled improperly when my brother had a mental breakdown. That was two weeks ago, she never followed up with what she wanted to do. I don't think I have it in me to beg her to want to speak. These couple paragraphs only scratch the surface of the torment it's caused me and my family over the past two years. Where do you draw the line with people like this when you could lose a brother?

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Galia

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Galia

"Old Thing Back"

Matoma with the Notorious B.I.G. ft. Ralph Tresvant and Ja Rule

Hakuna Matoma, 2015

When I was in high school, I did distance running for all three school sport seasons. I did cross country, and then winter, then spring track. Looking back, I'm amazed at how in-shape and dedicated I was. I ran six days a week and could on any of those days just get up and run six miles like it was basically nothing. But the crazy part was that, in my years in high school, we had a particularly good distance team. Like, there were girls my years that ended up running for D1 schools. So all that time I wasn't even the top seven on the team, and that led me to believe that I wasn't that great or fast or in-shape. Quite the tragedy. I still like running and on occasion running a 5k race. I haven't been running over the past few years because I think city running just doesn't motivate me as much as suburb running did. But I think the wish to run will always be a part of me. I have since reached back out to my high school self to tell her many things, but one of them being that she was actually an impressive athlete but was in a bubble that messaged to her that she was not. Not that being an impressive athlete is important in the long run, but that was my community at that time: my friends, my mentors, and what I spent most of my time planning around and taking care of myself for. Galia has since diversified, but now the question is, what will future Galia need to soothe current Galia about or gas her up about?

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Maeve

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Maeve

"new body rhumba"

LCD Soundsystem

single, 2022

Damn, here we are again with the superlatives—"worst person in your life." Tough! How does one qualify that? To make things easier on myself, but not doxxable (although a truly first-click google search could tell you everything you need), I've chosen to pick a song that both I and a person who also listens to (this week's hot topic) XPN for eight hours a day both love. You best believe I've typed and deleted a lot more detail, but for the first time, I'm scared of saying things on internet? My personal life is fine, but my career... I finally care? That being said, when you work 10 AM to 6 PM daily, sometimes you just need a song like this to come on, dance in your chair, and keep ya motivated!

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Brianna

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Brianna

"Not like Us"

Kendrick Lamar

single, 2024

I'm gonna go ahead and preface this submission with the following disclaimer:

My students are wonderful and in no way, shape, or form bad people worthy of the title "worst people." However, I have virtually no one in my life that I would put in this category. Over the course of my three decades, I have taken care to ensure the people I surround myself with bring positivity to my life. With these choices made, I had a very hard time distinguishing the worst. So, in needing to find something to write about here, I went with the people that bring the most stress to my life: the teenagers I spend most of my days with.

The past few weeks of this rap beef have made for some FUN moments in Room 215, let me tell ya. There's a mix of students who support either side of this thing, and the debate has well outlasted the actual period of song releases, fitting for the war-themed lessons we've been covering recently.

This song in particular is my favorite of the releases, though probably one of the least school appropriate ones. I've had to wag my finger a few times during independent work sessions when some wise-guy decides to pull the aux cord out to put on a show for us, but it's all been in good fun nonetheless. I just need to catch myself before bopping along because, let's get real, "tryna strike a chord and it's probably a-minor" is a genius lyric, but definitely not one you should hear your teacher singing.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Bridget

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Bridget

"Shake Me like a Monkey"

Dave Matthews Band

Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King, 2009

I know I know, another DMB song! But it’s important to emphasize that most of the worst people in the world love Dave Matthews Band. Figuring out the worst person in life was hard... but I think I am correct in saying the bartender at [redacted] fits the bill. That guy is a ginormous dick and is always too fresh. The worst part is that this weekend, Maeve and I were there, and he bought our beers TO BE KIND! How dare he!!! It's always fun to see who is a Dave fan and isn't. I figured him out quick, because let's be honest, it's pretty easy to find out who loves DMB and who doesn't. That being said, this is my favorite Dave song of all time, and I listen to it way more than one might think.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Sunny

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Sunny

"Dance Yrself Clean"

LCD Soundsysterm

This Is Happening, 2010

In Spring, the worst person in your life is closest to you; there's hardly anyone else. Personhood is formed in rebellion.

In Summer, the worst person in your life is your nemesis, your mortal enemy. The Yang to your Yin, and their ultimate defeat to your will is raison d'être.

In Fall, the worst person in your life is the disaggregated masses, the anonymous eyes. The subtle disappointments with the structures and superstructures that govern your life map themselves onto every facial expression making the territory underneath barely visible.

In Winter, the worst person in yourself is yrself, the One who's always Been There, the only One who's left. The final reckoning will be internal and the final redemption totalizing.

Yearlong Song Challenge, Day 68: Zach

Prompt: "A song that you love but also that the worst person in your life loves too"

Selected by Zach

"Hurricane"

Eden Golan

single, 2024

I'm in the process of being cancelled.

Some might say I've already been cancelled. That it happened a long time ago, before I was born. Some might say I was cancelled the night of October 7, just a few hours after all the fathers who had gone to sleep the night before in peace found themselves putting on their wrinkled uniforms and rushing to their old military bases. Some might say I was canceled a few days ago, the moment the fiery blast made the news. Or maybe the cancellation date was somewhere in between, with the encampments and the walkouts and Jerry Seinfeld all of a sudden becoming controversial.

This isn't a post about how I feel about the government's actions in the country that's now my home. It's not about the war that's been going on here, or about the inevitable future wars that will pop up here in the coming years (weeks? days?). It's not meant to convince you of anything, of what's morally right and wrong, of what should be protested or not, of where the red line falls. There are no answers to these questions, even though we're told we're supposed to have a definitive opinion, to stand one one side of history or the other.

What I do know is that every time I come close to writing something here that reveals where I live, I hesitate. If you've been reading along for a while, I'm sure the location is obvious to you. But I'm afraid to say it out loud to an audience whose opinions about global issues I'm not familiar with.

Over here, in my safe zone, the fact that I picked up everything and moved across the world to this place—with its craziness and rough and tumble culture and relatively high rents and relatively low salaries—doesn't always make sense to the natives, but they always give me a ton of credit for doing it. It means something to them. And for the family and friends in my life who grew up like me, hearing about this place all the time, it's not entirely surprising that I would have made the move. They already know lots of people here, and deep down in their hearts they probably want to make the move themselves.

But the big bad world out there is different. This blog is about as close to a safe zone as one can find on the internet. The No Last Names policy is wonderful. I feel very free to reveal all. Basically no one in my life knows I write here, or knows where to find it. If they do, I doubt they check it often (although if you do—hi!). And still, I don't know how it would feel to the readers if I told all about where I live. There might be judgment and anger and even slurs thrown my way. They might think I'm genocidal, or that I don't care at all when babies are murdered. That I have blood on my hands. I can't help it if they have those thoughts. But I can hide where I live, if only to defer them from thinking those thoughts for just a little while.

But that approach, frankly, sucks. Obviously the United States perpetuates atrocities on a daily basis. But I've never felt shy about sharing the fact that I'm American. And when I do share it, no one who hears it first thinks to themselves "oh, that person is a supporter of genocide." Even though the US murdered an unbelievable number of civilians in its post-9/11 adventures, that's never the first thought. That Americans are obnoxious, entitled, nice? Whatever it is. They think whatever they think about Americans because they already have some opinion about them that's separate from whatever the government decides to do or how it decides to intervene in matters of national security. 

That's not the case anymore in my new, chosen country. The first thing that people will think now will likely be related to war, or whatever opinions they have about it, largely based on what they've read in their chosen news source. Everyone who lives where I live now has become a representative of the government without their consent, forced to explain decisions they had no role in making.

Part of me wants to just say a big FUCK YOU to all of that. To not care what people think. But I'm a people pleaser. It's not that easy for me. And I don't have the built-in spine that everyone who grows here develops naturally. They're all used to feeling alone on a worldwide scale. As an American, I'm just not used to it. We don't even realize the privilege we have, as crazy as the US is, especially post-2016.

So that leaves me feeling in the thick of being canceled. I'm afraid to exist. It's not simple for me to walk around and talk about how much I love my city, how it's the best city in the world. How the food is unbelievable, how it's a smashing together of cultures from all around the world colliding together in a way that's beyond chaotic but also unmistakably alive. All my trips back to the US now are spoiled by the aliveness of my new country. Everything back there feels thin and less energetic. In our country, we're struggling a lot. Lots more people will die. Probably some of our friends; without question, friends of friends. But it's just the place to be. I can't talk about all that without being worried that someone will "what about" me. "What about the bombing?" "What about the children?" "How can you live with yourself?" "How can you..." Wrapped in their cocoon, they'll never be asked these questions about the US's conduct in Afghanistan or Iraq. It just won't happen.

Being human requires some level of turning our eyes away from harsh realities. We don't have the bandwidth for it all. It's heartbreaking what's happening. I don't have answers. But I also need to bring my full self to this world. I'm so sick of feeling scared to do that.

Americans don't watch Eurovision. But in Europe and beyond, it's a huge deal. On its surface, it's just a song contest. But it's also very political, this year more than ever. There were lots of calls on the competition to disqualify my country. In the end, they were allowed to compete. Eden Golan barely was allowed to go out to the streets for security reasons. Some of the performers wore towels over their heads during press conferences so they didn't have to look at her face. One of the reasons people in my new country love Eurovision so much is because it gives them global spotlight in a way that feels normal. It's not on its own a political act to be in a singing contest. People here just want to be seen in the same light as everyone else.

Eden smashed it. Under immense pressure, she was unbelievable. It's no wonder she broke down crying right afterward. The final results are determined by a combination of judge votes and public votes. The jury vote placed us 12th out 25. But somehow, unbelievably, the public vote—conducted online, the voice of the people—placed us second.

Maybe we're not as hated as we thought?

Maybe there's a silent group of people that actually support us, as a country, regardless of war or anything else? Maybe they have compassion on us for what happened on October 7, for the hostages that are still being held?

Maybe I don't actually have anything to fear?

I doubt that's the case. There's a very loud and vocal group that hates everything about me because of my identity. That's not going to change. In fact, it's only going to get worse. We're at the beginning of a cancellation process. In the US, 20 years from now, I think things will look very different related to how the country sees us and relates to us. It's very scary to watch the harsh fist of history come down slowly before my eyes.

Independently of everything else, I love this song. I think it's perfect for the moment. But all the people who make up the collective "worst person in my life" also love it. They might say they hate it, that they hate us. At the end of the day, its existence is just an excuse for them to hate us even more. So, really, they love it.

Natan Sharansky—he a former prisoner in the Soviet Gulag, whose only dream was to leave and come to Israel—says it much better than I can:

"The statements that concerned me and led me to speak of occupation and battlefields were the many variations I heard on one young woman's quietly spoken and regretful admission that she would very much like to speak against divestment and other anti-[redacted] measures, but she couldn't. Her professors won't like it, she told me. It would harm her future career.

Dear Lord, I thought, when I first heard these words. We are not in the Moscow of my youth, where one's career depended on pretending to buy the Soviet credo hook, line and sinker! Yet the more students I met, the more I heard of similar, stifling concerns. Having grown up in the Soviet Union, I knew very well how catching and pervasive self-censorship can become. No one will need to 'occupy' the campuses physically if the Jewish students will carry out their own occupation themselves by growing too afraid to speak their own truths."

Well, I'm sick of this shit. I live in the motherfucking country of Israel. Come at me.

The PoYB Monthly Playlist: May 2024

After making one for February and March, I skipped the April playlist. This was mostly an accident, but hopefully a forgivable one. I was in Disney World for the last seven days of April, and I was too busy riding the rides and eating food and puking up that food and cleaning sheets that my kids puked on because they are children who can't find a toilet when they need to puke to blog at all. I knew this going in (well, not the puke part, but it happens), and I had most of the blog posts lined up for that week to publish automatically. But I forgot about the monthly playlist. I think I remembered on the plane ride home. At that point, I hadn't listened to any music that entire week besides 40 minutes of Boyz II Men and 400 hours of Disney music, so I wasn't really in the headspace to come up with twelve songs that the blog reader (and Pam) might like. But here we are, at the end of another month in the blink of an eye, and I'm deep in the blogging shit and the music shit now, and I'm gonna use the last seven weeks or so to come up with a good playlist for you. Sound good? Good.

May 2024

Listen to the whole thing on YouTube here. If you have Apple Music, maybe Pam will share it with you.

1. "Drunk" by Maggie Rogers

We're here because this is the best song on Maggie Rogers' new album, and it's an album I think Pam would like, since I know she likes Maggie Rogers. And it's the best song on the album because of its pulse and energy. But tucked away in the corner of all this is the small kernel of truth that maybe there is a message here for me personally, directly from Rogers, stated in Morse code, deciphered here and message received fully and it's much appreciated. I hope one day to be able to see the stars like she does.

2. "Get-Well-Cards" by Conor Oberst

I tried to put this album on a few weeks ago and Pam was like "I don't feel like Conor Oberst right now, I want music that ISN'T WHINY." I understand the misconception, even though it pained me to scroll away from this excellent solo album, since it's not really "whiny" in any traditional sense. Maybe the "epic" and "over-the-top" qualities of Bright Eyes were misconstrued by a younger Pammy. I get the feeling that Oberst was self-aware too and purposefully eschewed all that for his solo stuff anyway. Anyways, this song'll prove all the HATERS wrong.

3. "CHANEL PIT" by Tierra Whack

Oh yeah, big time wrong about my blurb for World Wide Whack last month. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I guess this kinda goes to show you that you need like ten listens minimum to be able to say something smart about any given album of music. But the issue is that there are too many albums, and not enough time, and some of these words on this stupid blog have to be written after one or two listens tops, which, in cases such as these, makes me look like a fucking asshole.

4. "Revelator" by Phosphorescent

Oh damn, we're still getting COVID songs? That's fine, as long as sharp-witted troubadours like Phosphorescent are the ones we're trusting with that shit. I know Pam (and I, and everyone on earth) was a big fan of his semi-hit "New Birth in New England" last time around. This is somewhat of a half-step back toward folk from that one, but only half, not full. Still enough pep that you can get there if you want it.

5. "R&B" by English Teacher

I always force my family to listen to the Record Club album at least a couple time. There's no obligation to do anything with it, but if I'm choosing the music, and we're all in the dining room eating dinner or whatever, then sometimes I'm gonna choose the Album of the Week, ya know? My point here being that Pam has had to put up with a lot of R&B lately, with Boyz II Men and Joe and I dunno maybe WILLOW kind of. So I thought it would maybe count as irony to add one more R&B song to the repertoire (irony since this one "R&B" in name only).

6. "The Writhing South" by Say Anything

I finished that emo oral history book that the Sixers Sisters have mentioned a few times in Song Challenge. It was good! I have plans to give my full thoughts about it through a YSC write-up sometime in the future! When I get there, I'll be choosing another Say Anything song. I let myself choose one album talked about in the book to listen to immediately, and chose the one that was billed as self-referential. An emo album about emo albums, if you will. Give me that meta shit.

7. "Mary Boone" by Vampire Weekend

I should make it clear here—quietly, discretely—that I was never calling on anyone to boycott Vampire Weekend the last time I wrote about the band. I was just gently pointing out a discrepancy between art and artist. Use it as you will. For me, I'm using it by not going too crazy over the new VW album, and not blogging about it while foaming at the mouth, but instead just chilling on it, enjoying it, keeping in my mind that maybe this dude isn't the best dude of all time, but with no reason yet to avoid it completely. This is the best song from Only God Was Above Us, if you simply must know.

8. "Mavi Cinayet" by Pamela

The requisite ONE Record Club song per monthly playlists arrives now, with the best song that we've heard in the past few weeks (not including this week's current album, which, we'll see). Probably the best new (to me) RC song since the three or four stunners found on Tigers Blood. Let Pamela guide Pamela.

9. "I Am Stretched on Your Grave" by Sinéad O'Connor

I think most people are content with saying something like "Oh yeah, I know that artist, I'm pretty sure I know some of their songs," which is totally fine and cool and normal. I acknowledge that A Year of Blind Spots, and the pursuit that that entails, is abnormal. But I don't see why I can't then use the new non-Blind Spot as a way to get people from "I think I know some of their songs?" to "Oh wow, this is a great song, I figured they had some good songs like this." This will be a good transition for those (like Pam) who heard Sinéad do the recent Outlander theme.

10. "Ain't No Half-Steppin'" by Big Daddy Kane

If I'm going to be attempting to move through some of the hip hop classics of yesteryear, then you're gonna have to come with me. Listening to too much Kendrick Lamar and Drake is gonna rot your brain. Try some Big Daddy Kane. Have some fun.

11. "She's a Handsome Woman" by Panic! at the Disco

Re: that emo oral history again. Panic! was probably the third-most-discussed band through its pages, and thus, the third-most-important band to come out of that scene during that time. (The first were MCR and Fall Out Boy, and maybe Dashboard is like tied with P!atD.) But I got this rec from Brianna and Bridget in YSC during that sun/moon week. Good-ass album. I'm totally cool with third-wave emo dorks pretending they are the Beatles, let the record show.

12. "Red Eyes" (Live) by the War on Drugs

As promised last time, every playlist in this monthly space will end with either the War on Drugs or the National, up to and including the one at the end of August, since we'll be headed to the Philly stop on their joint tour in September. You should come too! Let's make it a group outing!

Never Seen It, #148 of 200: Saving Private Ryan

I'm a blogger. I blog about 200 movies I've never seen before... in this little town called Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last four years, I've been at Puke on Your Birthday. I was a blogger. Back home, I tell people what I do for a living and they think well, now that figures. But over here, it's a big, a big mystery. So, I guess I've changed some. Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much watching these films my wife is even going to recognize me, whenever it is that I get back to her. And how I'll ever be able to tell her about films like today. Ah, Saving Private Ryan. I don't know anything about Saving Private Ryan. I don't care. The movie means nothing to me. It's just a name. But if... you know, if watching these 200 films and writing about them, if that earns me the right to get back to my wife, then that's my mission.

Saving Private Ryan
1998
Steven Spielberg

I fucking loved The Fabelmans, but there are days in which I wish I'd never seen The Fabelmans. It was just too effective in explaining Steven Spielberg's love of making movies. It was so deft in showing a man who knew the secret alchemy in creating movie magic. I fucking love the idea of movie magic, and how there are certain films that make us forget who we are and instead completely and totally pull us into a brand new world. That's the magic, and Spielberg is one of the best to ever create that magic. But The Fabelmans showed us the why and the how, and that was important too, and so now... it's like, whenever I watch a Spielberg flick, I can't stop thinking about how that magic was made. It's created this distance for me. Ironically, appreciating the magic act has made it harder to let the magic take me away.

Saving Private Ryan is an epic war drama. It might be the epic war drama of my lifetime. I knew this going in, and I wasn't surprised by the fact that it felt very real and in its realness was brutal and raw and made me gasp on multiple occasions. This is what war is truly like, and through a master filmmaker, we get to experience it—experience the pain and anguish and brutality—is if we were practically there. I know people give the framing device of old man Matt Damon in the graveyard a bunch of shit (and I apologize to Epimemeology Pat if I'm stepping on your toes by mentioning the meme), but his crying became my crying, because that shit felt earned, man. Tough to watch three hours of soldiers dying in continuously heartbreaking fashion and not feel it within you.

The problem, I guess—and this is definitely a me problem, not a movie problem—is that I can be taken out of it by thinking too much about the wonders of "how this movie was made." I can't just take the magic at face value like I used to. Now I'm watching the bonkers Normandy invasion scene and I'm distracted by the sheer size and scale of the efforts it must have taken to film the Normandy invasion scene. I'm thinking "wow, this is fucking impressive!" And it is, don't get me wrong. But that's not what I want out of a film-watching experience. I want to be full immersed. If I'm thinking too much about how good a filmmaker is at immersing an audience in his world, then that means I myself am not immersed.

It seems like a contradiction, but it's not. It's more of a symptom of being interested in movies. It's a gift and a curse. A gift because good movies are so fucking fun, and I love watching films that really go for it. It makes me feel alive. But a curse too because the more I know, the less I'm able to forget what I know. For a sixteen-year-old Joe who does know jackshit about movies, this would've blown my fucking mind. As a 35-year-old Joe who doesn't know much but definitely knows a little more and absolutely devotes more of his brain's space to the art of film, I really fucking enjoyed Saving Private Ryan, but I can't say that I was fully taken by it. It was a worthy experience, to witness the sheer force of this all-timer wartime classic. Of course it was. But I don't walk away changed. I instead walk away impressed at how well the movie was made. There's a big fucking difference there.

If there's room for an extremely light criticism to be lobbed toward this excellent film, it's here, in this space. I don't think Saving Private Ryan did enough to rock my world. I expected excellence and visceral thrills, and I got them, and then some. But I don't think about war any differently than I did prior to viewing, and I don't think about movies any differently than I did prior to viewing, and I don't think about the human condition any differently than I did prior to viewing. This isn't my fault and it's not Saving Private Ryan's fault. The very best films are able to touch some deep part of my soul and cause my sense of wonder to explode. Saving Private Ryan didn't do that. Instead, it gave me a more basic sense of wonder—the wonder of how such a great movie is made.

I think, ultimately, the very very very best films are going to make me forget about all that, and just allow me to experience the movie as if it was a part of me all along. Saving Private Ryan exists separately, and only as a testament to how big and grand and amazing widescreen movies can be. My criticism is an understatement, on purpose. Sometimes it's okay to sit back and marvel at how well a movie is made, and how huge the effort must have been to make it. Spielberg, in my mind, is peerless in his ability to make this kind of movie, the kind that we might crassly refer to as "popcorn films." And if the purpose of this column is to learn the ART OF FILM, then maybe Steven Spielberg is the director I would look to as the guy to get me there. I'm just saying, I wish he didn't have to underline this fact with an autobiographical film about this very subject. But what can ya do.

GRADE: 4.5 pukes out of 5

STRAY THOUGHTS: Seriously, there were so many fucking little moments that made my mind think "oh shit, what a masterful filmmaking decision by Steven Allan Spielberg," e.g. the dead fish on the beach, the blood splatter on the lens, the shaggy dog story told by Private Ryan before the big climax, the wild cameo appearances by A-listers, the down-and-dirty wartime fighting like Mike throwing his helmet or the knife fight with Adam Goldberg, no subtitles, the framing of Giovanni Ribisi church monologue, how some pedestrian punches are thrown while the camera is waaaay back and how some dialogue is captured waaaay up close, fuck man, a thousand little moments that could constitute their own blog post in total; and by listing them, I wonder for the 150th time whether these write-ups are too removed from the text and whether I should concentrate on writing more about the films than my experiences with the films; or if it makes more sense to just have people comment with their own thoughts and allow that space to become what other people need, if other people need more from me or from this experience; took us two nights to watch this, obviously, but in between, I looked up Tom Sizemore to find out, and was not disappointed; I also looked up, after the complete viewing was over, about all those details on how each shot was made, Wikipedia had all of that, and that didn't disappoint either (and, if you too are interested, then I suggest you head over to Wikipedia instead of expecting PoYB to repeat everything written there, which would be boring to me); I have never seen Shakespeare in Love so I cannot comment on the 1999 Best Picture award, but maybe one day!

NEXT TIME: With these 148 movies (plus Slacker and West Side Story, which were watched out of alphabetical order), we are officially 3/4ths of the way through Never Seen It! I am going to finish this shit before the end of 2025, I swear to fucking god! The last quarter of our journey begins with Saving Silverman, a film that PoYB contributors Pam and Fisher both want to comment on, it sounds like.