Shelter from the Storm: I Shake the Dirt from My Sandals as I Run

Joe is rewriting all his old Xanga posts from 2005 onward, and it's been a little distressing to tap into that teenage angst on a weekly basis.

October 27, 2005, 9:28 PM

This must be torture for you. Why are you here? You visit my Xanga to, what, hear me complain about having to go to school? Something that literally everyone in America has to do at some point? My annoyance at academic obligations does not make me special. There is nothing unique to my story. And yet here I am, typing and typing and typing. Even when the school week goes well... then what? That just means that I was slightly less of a whiny little bitch this week. That's not newsworthy. That's just me looking for attention, and flailing around to get it when I have less to complain about. UGH!!!! It's the weekend.

Here's something that has not been going well: WEXP. For those who do not attend La Salle College High School, WEXP is our TV station. It puts together a morning show every morning during homeroom. Mostly for small announcements from around the school. I'm not a tech wiz but I've found that it's been pretty fun to just hang out down there, maybe learn a thing or two. I was on camera once as a fill-in anchor, that was fun.

But it's been a drag recently. I dunno, it just feels less like a fun thing to do and more like an obligation. And it's not an obligation! I'm choosing to do it. I have just started wondering why that's been my choice, and whether I should make another choice soon. The authority figures down there have been weirdly strict. And I'm talking about other students! An example: they'll put me on like Second Video Mixer or whatever. I don't even know what that is, but they say push a button, and so I push the button. This is something a three-year-old could do. I do it. I might pull out a textbook and study for a test while I'm waiting to push my button. But lately, it's been all "Joe, you gotta be ready!" and "Joe, stop studying and pay attention!" and "Joe, wake up, it's your cue!" Kevin B. is breathing down my neck, like literally I can feel his hot onion breath from behind me, and his mumbling "are you sure you know what you're doing...?" and the like. I'm not a moron. I can push a button. Way to have faith in me, pal.

The irony is that the actual TV program is looking really good these days. Cippy is killing it as the new anchor. I'm just wondering why I'm putting up with the mundane-ass bullshit behind the camera.

If you're looking for News in the Life of Joe, then you came to the right place, because here's some news: I got detention. Oh yikes, watch out everybody, badass coming through. It's actually pretty simple how it happened. I bought new shoes. These shoes are, by definition, sneakers, which are, by definition, not allowed to be worn during school hours inside of the school building. But I dunno, I kinda thought that maybe they were close enough to being not-sneakers (in look and in spirit) that I could pull it off and wear them throughout a full school day. I figured, ya know, why ask for permission when I can just ask for forgiveness... while in detention. So that's how I ended up there. And Drew P. tries to shame me for even attempting it! Hey best high school friend—fuck you!!!!!!!!

All weekend plans have been cancelled, as I have obtained a new indie rock album called Illinois by a mysterious dude named Sufjan Stevens, and I will now feel obligated to listen to this thing over and over obsessively for the next two days straight. Sorry, friends, sorry, alcohol, sorry Burholme Park woods. It's all Sufjan all the time now. Go buy or steal this album NOW.

See y'all next time for more updates about Sufjan Stevens my life.


COMMENTS

MadeFromRecycledPaper: Joe, I love how you manage to get cool again AFTER we break up.

VinylVixen89: How about you let me burn that CD instead?

Anonymous: My dad leave me a message last night on my cell and he let me know that he had a new phone number so I call him back early today. I got a lot better today acutally. I’m going to New York visit my cousins, uncle and aunt for christmas.

I love you,

Justin "The Entertainment" Clark

Rugby_Drummer_07: ha fuck you joe k*** is what i say, fuck you. haha. i like the last post. and also i fuckin hate kevin b. and what hes done to WEXP. be a h****, quit. you wont do it. pussy.

Song of the Day: "Stare at the Void"

A column about music, and about writing about music, or not. Today's author is Joe. See the previous songs HERE.

"Stare at the Void"

Superheaven

from Superheaven

2025

Here's an opening line from a Stereogum article that I read in November 2024: "Superheaven haven't released music since their 2015 emo-grunge classic Ours Is Chrome, yet, thanks to TikTok, they've never had as many fans as they do now." I marveled at that phrase: "emo-grunge classic." It was perplexing to me. It wasn't confusing because I had never heard the album, even though I hadn't. It was confusing because I was very familiar with the existence of this band, due to more coincidental circumstances than anything, and now here they were all of a sudden on my favorite music website, their most recent album being described as a "classic." What?!

Let me explain. First, you need to click on the Wikipedia link for this band, and scroll down to its members, and read the name of the bassist. I won't type it here, but when you see the name, you'll immediate understand why I'm not typing it here. Okay, so that's a coincidence. I don't know this dude, and I probably will never meet him, nor have any reason to. But he's there. He's been their bassist this whole time, for almost 20 years, apparently. Gotta assume he's around my age too.

Okay, now the real lynchpin of this story is that he is also a family friend. Well, okay, his mom is good friends with my in-laws. I've met his mom plenty of times. The name coincidence has been noted, but, ya know, it's not that unique of a name, so it's not obsessed upon. The important part is that my father- and mother-in-law have known the bassist of Superheaven his whole life. I would have to imagine that when Pam told her parents that she met a dude named [my name], that their first thought was: Superheaven.

Oh shit, today is my and Pam's fifteenth anniversary of meeting each other. That was April 30, 2010. This doesn't have anything to do with the Superheaven thing, I just felt the need to write it, because it feels important generally. I've known Pam for fifteen years. It's been a good fifteen years. I haven't really listened to Superheaven at all during these fifteen years. Until now, because they have a new album.

But you have to understand! For Boomers of a certain age and geographical upbringing, "knowing people" is, like, their whole fucking thing. "Oh, you went to Penn? My dentist's niece must have been in your class, do you know the name...?" or "Get out of here, you were just at Joe's Steaks? My neighbor was there too. Wait, when did you go, like what time...?" or "And of course, you know Bill, because you grew up with his cousin, ain't that right? Well, I just ran into him at Costco..." I offer no opinion on this mindset, it's just an observation. My own parents are the same fucking way. It's all of them. And so you can bet your ass that I have heard so goddamn much about Superheaven over the years. Just because of the name, and the connection, and the fact that they knew this bassist and it's probably the most famous person whose First Holy Communion party they've ever been to.

And, ya know, because their eventual son-in-law (me) shared a name (spelled differently) with a bassist in a band who was attempting to make a career out of the music, and that son-in-law clearly liked music, and listens to a lot of it, and has a lot to say whenever asked (which isn't often, truthfully), and so the question has always been: "Oh, you know Superheaven, right?" The answer to that question, as posed by my father-in-law countless times, has always been "yes," but only because he's told me about them. I didn't know them from jack otherwise. It would not have been a band that I would've heard of on my own. Seriously. In my mind, they were just some local act who wasn't going anywhere, some fucking Doylestown heavy rock band who would eventually fade into obscurity, a footnote in my life because of a name and a family connection.

Then I read the Stereogum headline, and my mind was fucking blown. Everything I thought I had known was thrown out the window. Superheaven? Like, the band whose concert my mother-in-law got into for free because she went with the bassist's mother? My MIL saw them perform songs from their grunge-emo classic?!

Look, I'll cop to something else: I still can't really take these guys too seriously. It's two things. The first is the obvious part about hearing the name of this band from my in-laws. I have a rule about my and Pam's parents that if any of the four of them recommend a movie or band or especially a TV show to me, I will immediately disregard that recommendation. My assumption, based on everything I know about my tastes and their tastes and the infrequent ways in which they intersect if at all, is that is that the TV show that they are telling me about is a piece of shit. That's prejudgment, I know. That's book-by-its-cover bullshit, which is wrong. But I can't help it. My in-laws told me to listen to Superheaven, and so I assumed that Superheaven sucked. That's just the way it goes.

Second, you have to consider the means through which this particular band staged a comeback and are, as Stereogum put it, more popular than ever. It's quickly becoming a tale as old as time, but I'll tell it again here on the blog: one of their songs blew up on TikTok. Sigh... I guess there's nothing wrong with a band becoming more popular due to happenstance like this. They didn't choose for that song to go viral in that particular way. It just happened. It was out of their hands. And I can't blame 'em for coming back and getting the band moving again and recording more music and attempting, yet again, to make it big, because who the fuck wouldn't? They have a million streams on Spotify for one song! Smells like a paycheck to me. Go get 'em, dudes. I'm just saying that this doesn't say anything good from an artistic standpoint, and when I say that I "can't take Superheaven seriously," I'm talking about their art. And just because one million teens know a ten-second clip from their 2013 deep cut "Youngest Daughter" doesn't mean that they are suddenly a good band. 

Now combine those two points, and you have a brief scene on Easter Sunday, just ten days ago, when we're sitting around the dining room table and my father-in-law cuts in with a "have you heard the new Superheaven?" and I'm like "shit! I meant to listen because I knew you were going to ask!" The Alexa has been silent this whole time (how do people have guests over without immediately turning on the music? it's a problem I run into everywhere besides my own home), but now someone says, "Alexa, play Superheaven," and no one even has to clarify which song, because what else would this fucking commercialized robot without a single artistic instinct in its entire being play for us than the fucking TikTok song?

The funny thing is that my in-laws can't stand the music. It doesn't last more than 30 seconds before we get an "Alexa, stop."

So we sit in silence for a moment, and then I hear about how the bassist's mom's other friend is a hairdresser, and she's out there promising clients that she knows a member of that band that your teen son kinda likes, and wouldn't it be cool if she could get backstage passes for that teen son? I'd be curious to see how that one works out. This is the trade-off, I guess. You get undying support from your mom's friends throughout all the low moments, and then, when y'all hit it big on the social media app, those same friends of mom are all trying to cash in on their proximity to emo-grunge fame.

I dunno, man. This new album is pretty good. It's fine. I don't think I'd ever listen to it if it wasn't for everything I just typed about. There's a story here, but it's not mine. Despite what you just read, I swear, it's not mine. I'm honestly just more surprised that the story is still being told.

A Year of Blind Spots: At Last!

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

At Last!

Etta James

1960

Honestly, I'm just trying to make it past the title track. If I can do that, I'm good.

"At Last" is a good song, but an overplayed song. If you've been to a wedding in your lifetime, you've probably heard it. If you haven't been to a wedding because you're like sixteen years old and you have your whole life ahead of you, then you've probably heard it in a movie where the love interests have a slow dance together. I can't think of any specific examples of either of these scenarios, so it could be that I'm talking out of my ass here. More likely, though, it's that the song is fucking wallpaper noise, so cliché and trite that it completely blends into the nitrogen in the air when I hear it. The newlyweds might as well be dancing to "4'33"" for all I can fucking hear it in those moments.

Still, c'mon, it's also not as bad as that hyperbolic paragraph makes it out to be. It can't be bad, not with a great singer like Etta James in charge. To my ears, her vocals give Aretha Franklin's a run for her money. She can (and does) sing the treacliest sad depressing ballads on earth, and it still sounds fresh and exciting because of that voice. "My Dearest Darling" and "Stormy Weather" are two of the slowest songs on the album, and also two of the best—how the fuck often do I ever say that about an album?

I read something this week that made Etta James' music fully click for me. Maybe it was supposed to be obvious, I don't know. You can tell me. Here it is: this is the blues. I read someone somewhere say something like "James is the singer that made me realize that the blues didn't have to be an old guy strumming his guitar on the back porch." And that's true, I really would have that image if you had told me to picture "the blues" (Sunny War literally asked me to picture the blues a couple years ago, and I literally wrote about this imagery when prompted). Etta James says that the blues can be lush and big and powerful. The blues is a feeling, and that feeling is usually trending toward sadness, but that sadness can be portrayed as a showstopper, it can wielded like a weapon, it can feel big and powerful and at certain times unstoppable. Etta James makes the blues into something unstoppable.

I don't have enough knowledge to say this definitively or with any evidence, but I'll say it anyway. Etta James invented Motown. Not literally, but you get what I'm trying to say. She spearheaded the sound that that music record label would perfect. Trace "A Sunday Kind of Love" directly to Smokey Robinson, trace "Tough Mary" to the Marvelettes. Had Etta James been surrounded by a little more songwriting talent, she would've been bigger than Diana Ross.

It's an unnecessary argument, because James is still canonical, still one of the all-time greats. I'm just saying that it's easy to see how her greatness inspired so many others to surpass her eventually. But I'm also not saying that this is the Elvis Theory in action. Sure, I'd reach for the Supremes quicker than I would At Last!, but I really like this album, and I don't think it withers under the comparison against its descendants. You might even call it something like "a greatest hits collection of 1950s music," if you consider "greatest hits" to mean "the sounds that are worth keeping from the previous decade to bring into the next." Music blew up in the 1960s—I'm not a boomer so I don't need to obsessively explain to you why that is—and that all starts here. The beginning of the end, the end of the beginning, one voice to bring us into the next.

Never Seen It #207: Ponyo

Ponyo loves Sōsuke! Ponyo wants ham! Ponyo watches 400 movies she's never seen before!

Ponyo

2008

Hayao Miyazaki

I don't need my kids to like a film. I suppose it could make a movie-watching experience more meaningful, if they love it. But it's not necessary. It's more like: if they love it, then that means something to me, but if they hate it, then I don't really give a shit.

For the record, they really liked Ponyo, but it's not like they are at an age yet where they can explain why they like it beyond a simple gut-check. It was fun because it was colorful and kind and had cute characters and small-scale adventure. Their enjoyment was not a surprise either. This is their third Studio Ghibli film (after Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro), and they really liked those other two, and Ponyo's thing is that it was explicitly designed for children and families, and not to mention the past three Family Movie Night films have been live-action early-'00s teen classics (two Lohan vehicles and Hathaway's charming breakout film) and maybe it was time to switch it up, so there was very little chance that it was gonna be a flop in the K*** household.

And they liked it, and so did I. But I'm not going to come into this space—Puke on Your Birthday, a very adult-oriented space!!—and say some shit like "this movie was valuable to me because my kids liked it." That might be true for some movies and other entertainment but it's a vapid way of looking at it. I tolerate shit like Frozen 2 because of my kids, I barely like it because they love it, but I'm not gonna say that it's great because they think it's great, ya know? There's gotta be more to it than that. Children are beautiful in their innocence, but c'mon, they don't know shit about movies.

This is all on my mind because my own adult takeaway from Ponyo is that it's a movie about parenthood. I haven't seen this theory around so it's probably a "see what you want to see" or "see yourself in the art" kind of thing, but so be it. But think about it. Fujimoto is a father who has concerns about his daughter Ponyo and her behavior. He struggles with the idea of her growing up and having to make her own mistakes. Ponyo's mother, Gran Mamare, talks him out of taking drastic action, and helps him see that Ponyo is not a thing to be controlled, but rather loved. Lisa goes through a similar path with Sōsuke. She's protective of her son, and goes to great lengths to keep him safe. But when an emergency arises and she has to go, she doesn't flinch at making the hard decision to leave her son in charge of his own destiny.

The fantasy element is that Ponyo and Sōsuke are both five years old, and logically that's too young for any of this shit to be happening. But no one said the movie Ponyo had to be logical. In fact, that's kind of the whole deal with Studio Ghibli films, right? There are magical elements, and the adults in the film never question the magic. They believe, just like the children do. There is never conflict like "I refuse to believe that this magic is real!" like there'd be in American cinema. It requires you to buy into the plot a little more, but it also makes for a more gentle and more satisfying film.

But shit like that, the idea that Ponyo is about being a parent, the idea that we as parents sometimes need to meet our children at their level and buy into the magic they are creating, none of that is something that I would expect to be able to talk to my six-year-old about. She's wicked smart but this kind of thing comes in time. I'm really only here because this is my 207th movie I'm watching for the blog. It takes time. It takes many years, and lots of practice. And I'll never be "good" at it, but I've committed to trying to get there forever.

It's fun because this there's no floor to the depth on films like this, even ostensible children's films. Imagine we're meeting up on Zoom tonight about Ponyo (instead of Rear Window). What would I want to talk about it? Probably I'd talk about the idea of Studio Ghibli films never seeming to have a true villain, which is pretty fascinating in itself, and how Ponyo played off of that idea by presenting Fujimoto originally as the villain, before eventually revealing that he's just a worried father. I'd also want to talk about how we need to adhere only to themes that the film itself is willing to engage in, like how one might be tempted to talk about how "Ponyo's tsunami must have killed a bunch of people," but how that's probably a willful misinterpretation of what Ponyo is attempting to say.

I'd love to get some discussion going in the comment section eventually about shit like this. I also understand that this isn't really something that I can force, especially for the films I'm watching because I want to watch them (as opposed to watching them because Film Club chose to watch them). Watching a film like Ponyo with my kids, though, makes me wonder whether I'll eventually be able to have those types of discussions with them. If not, it's all good. We'll always have Ponyo.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: As implied above, the plan is to have a Zoom discussion with Film Club about Rear Window. I'm hoping that I can take some notes and put together a blog post about it in a couple days. This is the first time, so we'll see how it works out.

Monday Morning Mixtape 017: And the Big Man Joined the Band

Welcome to Monday Morning Mixtape, a PoYB Contributor-curated playlist of songs, made just for you at the start of each week.

"And the Big Man Joined the Band"

Songs whose lyrics cue an instrument or a band member to start playing

chosen by Sam

Spotify

YouTube

"Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of...)" by Lou Bega

from A Little Bit of Mambo, 1999

For any one-hit wonder, I always wonder what they do day-to-day. Is Mr. Bega in a bowling league? Is he a huge Kansas City Royals fan? Is there a day that passes through his life where he doesn't think about Monica, Rita, or Sandra? How often has he googled himself? Has he ever corrected an entry on his personal Wikipedia page? How many people have a version of Maeve's Baja Men story about Lou Bega? Does he know how to play the trumpet? I understand if you're gonna skip listening to this song. But I felt compelled to include it.  —Sam

"Dance to the Music" by Sly and the Family Stone

from Dance to the Music, 1968

Close to every line on this song is a cue for someone to start playing something. And the lyrics that aren't are cueing you, dear listener, to dance to the music! Jerry Martini, the saxophonist for Sly and the Family Stone, thought this song was "glorified Motown beats," and said it was "such an unhip thing for us to do." I don't think it's unhip, but maybe I'm one of those squares they mention. However, this song launched Sly and the Family Stone into the public consciousness, was featured in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and is in the Grammy Hall of Fame, so plenty of other people agree with me that this is a decidedly hip song.  —Gloria


"I Need You Back" by Ben Kweller
from On My Way, 2004

Here is my official request for the new BK album Cover the Mirror be a Record Club submission. I saw Kweller last Monday at Underground Arts. After several middling alt-county and piano-y records, Kweller sounds ready to rock out again. I've seen the man five or six times (including a record store appearance at Main Street Music), and he's a very kind pied piper of people. His band always seems like they love each other. So much so that McLovin himself—yes, Christopher Mintz-Plasse—is his bass player now. In between chugging Miller High Lifes and needlessly extolling the virtues of the Boston Celtics, McLovin was having the time of his life up there. In this one, Kweller calls out his guitarist (Mike) "Stroud" for a little riff. What a guy.  —Sam

"Love Me Tenderly" by the Felice Brothers

from The Felice Brothers, 2008

The Felice Brother's self-titled album was one of the first albums I bought on vinyl. Even though it's from 2008, it's the sort of album that begs to be played on a record player. Yet this song in particular is the sort of song that begs to be played live. I grew up in a home where a party meant gathering around the piano and busting into the music closet for a guitar or violin before the night was over. I'm not a good musician, and I spent so much time trying to learn this piano part by ear with the hope of using it at get-togethers. I wonder if I can still play any of it?  —Gloria


"Something's Going to Happen Soon" by ballboy
from A Guide for the Daylight Hours, 2002

once upon a time i was a good writer and i knew how to touch someone else's heart but now the thick webbing envelops everything and every day stays the same and nothing ever changes and something about writing short blurbs hurts me, like i just want to write forever and ever but i can't  —zach

"Bluey Theme Tune (Instrument Parade)" by Jeff Bosh

from Bluey: The Album, 2021

It's all cyclical, for better or worse. We had our good Bluey days, and they're done for now, but they'll be back. The youngest will rediscover the best kids' show this house has ever seen, and we'll be right back in it. It's happened three times now. Bl*ppi has reinvaded our TV like a fucking weed, like an infestation of cockroaches, first ya see one and then you see a million and you wonder where it all came from. But he'll disappear again, and we'll keep moving through the cycle. "Baby Shark" is thankfully dead, Hal the little beta soyboy cuck Handyman seems to be sticking around, Danny Go! can stay as long as he wants as long as he keeps bringing around that hot wife of his, and on and on, 'round and 'round. See ya soon, Bluey. Hopefully.  —Joe


"Nighttime in the Switching Yard" by Warren Zevon

from Excitable Boy, 1978

Listen, I'm a little time-pressed right now, because someone in DC has decided to cut funds for some really popular programs that make people's lives better and maybe will impact people's decisions on going to work tomorrow. But I chose this sort of difficult prompt, so I feel compelled to get at least three in. However, I don't feel compelled enough to intellectually weigh the merits of if the train whistle referenced here would actually count. Let's just say it does.  —Sam

"The Invisible Man" by Queen

from The Miracle, 1989

There are, of course, the many and growing bands on the banned and challenged PoYB artist list to not grace our mutual discussions. Past that, there are those bands that have some charge. Like, I know from being on this blog however long that Joe hates Queen. I also assume he listens to every song that comes across his desk, if not literally, at least in his head. So certain charge is de facto attached to this song, which taught me the band members names as a youth, and through a step, what deacons are.  —Sunny

"Admit It!!!" by Say Anything

from ...Is a Real Boy, 2004

One of the self-imposed roadblocks that people might find that they are facing when met with the proposition of writing on a blog in the frame of "album review" or "song blurb" is that they feel as if they "don't know how to write about music." My usual response to this trepidation is that we're not writing about music here, we're writing about ourselves, and you're already knowledgeable about that, so just fucking write. But Say Anything's Max Bemis exemplifies an alternate response in this song: you shouldn't write like you're knowledgeable about music, because sometimes, when you write like that, you sound like a fucking asshole.  —Joe


"I Believe in a Thing Called Love" by the Darkness

from Permission to Land, 2003

Does it get better than screaming "guitar" and then a guitar riff kicks in? Friend, take it from an old bones who has been all across this land of ours, who has rubbed elbows with the highest end of the upper crust and who has shared supper with the urchins in the street, who has wrapped themselves in the finest fibers and been laid bare to the elements but nothing but nude skill, who has heard the voice of god and acted as an instrument for his peace and who has lifted arms against his fellow man with malice and destruction in their heart: it does not get better than when someone screams "guitar" and a guitar riff kicks in.  —Nate

"Swimmers" by Broken Social Scene
from Broken Social Scene, 2005

Ah shit ah shit, sorry, sorry, ah shit, picked the song then realized my cock-up, whoops, the, uh, the cue, as it were, ya know, the cue that we're supposed to be ah writing about, it, um, it's in the previous song. The end of "Windsurfing Nation." Emily says "gimme more of that beat." And they do. Except the beat is for the next song. That's "Swimmers." That's this song, that I chose for you for this playlist. But the cue isn't in it. Just the beat that's cued. Ah shit, and now I'm writing in that meta style that I've told all of you at least once to never do in a blurb for the mixtape. Ah shit. Fuck. Damn. Sorry. Whoops. Forget about all of this. Forget I said anything. Don't look at me. I'm ashamed. Sorry. Just don't. Just don't. Just gimme more of that fucking beat.  —Joe


"The Young Ones" by Vivian Stanshall ft. Kilgaron
a single, 1976

What  <---- my response to this song. I don't understand the British sense of humor sometimes. Wait, is this supposed to be funny? Maybe it's not. But there's the burp, which to me feels like a canary in a coal mine. More of a chirp than a burp, you might say. Chirping that it's funny. I guess I did laugh at the burp. And the cue being, I assume, the most reluctant cue on this mixtape—"if you must..."—is also pretty funny. But I don't really understand how this song fits into, well, anything. Maybe if I took like four seconds to read the dude's fucking Wikipedia page before attempting to write a blurb about some fucking single that he made.  —Joe

This is the kind of song I hear other people talking about how much they like but that I don't like that much myself. "Right, Lee, if you must" is what makes this song eligible. I don't think I'd connect with the lead singer of this band. In fact, I want to turn off this song the more I listen to it. It hurts my head.  —Zach

"Counting Out Time" by Genesis

from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, 1974

I've always been an over-planner, overthinker, and overly eager romantic. Therefore, I've been reading sex books since before I was having sex. With that in mind, I think this is legitimately one of the funniest songs Peter Gabriel has ever written. It's an ode to all the books that were a waste of teenage Gloria's time (not all of them were). But for all books can teach you, maybe there is no substitute for, um, shall we say, peer-reviewed research in this field.  —Gloria

"I Stole Your Love" by KISS

from Love Gun, 1977

I had a car that could only play cassettes, so I ended up getting a lot of random things I wouldn't normally pick up, one of which was KISS's Love Gun. When I think of this song, I remember one Saturday night in grad school when I picked up my roommate from a bar. I had stayed home to work on a research paper, so I was sober. When she got in the car, she put on this tape, tried to sing along, and then insisted that I take her to McDonald's. When we got to the drive-through, she asked for "1000 chicken nuggets." I got her a 10-piece, and she ate maybe four of them before falling asleep.  —Gloria

"Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and to Be Loved)" by Bright Eyes

from Lifted or The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground, 2002

There was a period in 2015 when I was pretty depressed, and I only listened to this song. That year, I had a pretty devastating professional/personal failure. I also lost a 26-year-old cousin to pancreatic cancer, and lost four friends to drug overdoses, and one to suicide. It was a lot. Now, I'm someone who's always listening to music. For some reason, the only thing I could stand to listen to was this song, so "Let's Not Shit Ourselves" was on repeat for hours at a time. Whether I was commuting to work, at the gym, in the Goggleworks metalsmithing studio, doing chores, or doing nothing, this song played in the background for about three or four months. I can tell you not only every lyric but every breath, every rest, every quarter note, every weird little sound in that Bright Eyes outro. I finally saw Bright Eyes in concert last Saturday, and it was everything I wanted to be; he played this song as the night's final song. I told my spouse the same thing I'm writing about now. He asked, "Why this song?" I honestly have no idea, but it was the only thing I could listen to. It was the only thing I could stand when I couldn't even stand silence. So let's get a goddamn timpani roll to start this goddamn song.  —Gloria

"Cue Synthesizer" by Destroyer

from Have We Met, 2020

Ha ha ha, yes, "cue fake drums." Now let's move onto more important matters: the New Pornographers' drummer was a child pornographer. The segue into this topic was implied, but now it's not: Dan Bejar is an occasional New Pornographer. Anyways. Probably time to change the name of the band, eh? Not a big deal. It was a roadblock anyway. Maybe they'll change their name to the News Photographers and I'll finally be able to wear a band tee out in public. What's in a name, anyway? You're currently reading these words on a website called Puke on Your Birthday. We know bad names. That's kinda our whole thing. And we'll NEVER CHANGE THAT NAME. Unless, I dunno... maybe if me or another contributors dies by asphyxiation after choking on their own vomit, on their birthday? Jeez..... that's fucking dark, man. Sorry. Let's go back to the fake drums. Cue fake drums! Ha ha, yes! There ya go. That's better. We are all going to live forever.  —Joe

"The 50 States Song" by Sufjan Stevens

live, 2004
[not available on Spotify!]

The internet used to be a different place. There used to be places to explore, shadowy corners in which to feel around slowly and cautiously and occasionally get your hands on some treasure. It doesn't feel like that anymore. Everything is curated. Everything is easy to find or not found at all. You pay ten bucks per month to some fucking bald fuck and he gets to tell you that you can't listen to a phenomenal live version of an unreleased Sufjan Stevens song. Back when the internet was mysterious and vast, I could stumble upon some anonymous fan site and download mp3 versions of bootleg Sufjan tracks, discover something that you thought at the time that maybe people didn't know about besides you and whoever else randomly stumbled onto this site. And so you keep the files safe for 20 years and you keep revisiting every once in a while and then one day an arbitrary theme cues it up, and here it is. But 20 years have passed, and everything's different, and the internet is all pop-up ads and underage women popping and locking to ten-second sound clips of Post Malone songs. I don't know why I'm writing all this. I think it's grief, but I'm not sure.  —Joe


"Doctor Worm" by They Might Be Giants

from Severe Tire Damage, 1998

As most of you know, Dr. Worm is not a real doctor. He is a real worm, an actual worm, and I'd say pretty good at the drums. Dr. Worm had foresight to know being a "real doctor" would only be a detriment in the modern era, but being a Worm would be timeless. Rabbi Vole is not a real rabbi. He is a real Vole, an actual Vole, and I'd say pretty good at ripping a solo. He didn't go through semikhah due to some great foresight, but because he is a vole.  —Sunny

"Lip Up Fatty" by Bad Manners
from Ska 'n' B, 1980

I don't like calling people names. The person who was meant to be a rebound has turned into something more. But she uses names I hate. Is the fact that someone uses derogatory terms enough of an excuse to break up with them? If the word "retard" is a consistent part of their vocabulary? It might be. Is putting the word "fatty" in a song title bad? I think it's being used ironically here. But what do I know? It seems bad. "Retard" is also pretty bad. What are we, eight years old? And that's not even getting into the even worse words I've heard her use, which might even be unprintable words here. Think of some bad derogatory terms you've heard to describe specific groups of marginalized people. Yeah, that's it. Those are the words she's said.  —Zach

NEXT WEEK: "Hopefully No One Has Chosen the Macarena for This Mixtape, Because I'll Do Something Drastic If They Have" — Songs we'll make sure to save for Mexican Independence Day, which is celebrated on September 16th every year. (chosen by Joe)

Album of the Week: When the Night

Always nice to check in on some of our Record Club alumni, just to see how they're bouncing off of each other out there in the wild. Post Malone and Jelly Roll are going on tour together, which unfortunately makes a lot of sense. Bobby Brown thinks that Britney Spears did a bad job covering one of his songs. Kneecap told Sharon Osbourne to listen to Black Sabbath's "War Pigs." Now we just need to make Keanu Reeves' band Dogstar a Record Club band so that we can talk about how he's going to be playing the villain in an upcoming Weezer movie. I don't know which of these news tidbits makes me feel worse. Can't we just find Connie Converse already, so Record Club can get some good news???

Record Club:

archives | supplemental

spotify playlist | youtube playlist

choose | writing

WEEK 326 — April 27-May 3, 2025

When the Night

by St. Lucia

LISTEN:

Spotify | YouTube | Bandcamp | Apple

~~~~~~~~~~

PICKED BY BATTS

BATTS'S COMMENTS: "I don't remember the first time I heard St. Lucia, but the first song of theirs I heard was likely their single 'Dancing on Glass' from their second album, Matter. After rediscovering via Spotify's algorithm (TM), I added a few of their random singles to my playlists. But I haven't actually listened to a full album of theirs, so why not start at the beginning with their debut studio album? Their pop style is in contrast to something like, say, Iron Maiden or Dream Theater, yet might appeal to the side of me that's a fan of CHVRCHES and Two Door Cinema Club. Also, they apparently took their name for their lead singer's (who might also be the band's lead entity?) hometown in South Africa."

~~~~~~~~~~

ALBUM DETAILS

GENRE: Synthpop, electropop, new wave, big music, sophisti-pop

RELEASED: October 8, 2013

LENGTH: 55:21

TRACKLIST:

1. The Night Comes Again
2. The Way You Remember Me
3. Elevate
4. Wait for Love
5. All Eyes on You
6. Closer Than This
7. Call Me Up
8. We Got It Wrong
9. September
10. Too Close
11. When the Night

LYRICS: Genius.com

~~~~~~~~~~

ARTIST DETAILS

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

ABOUT: Jean-Philip Grobler was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in the year 1983 (I couldn't find a birthdate). He moved to Liverpool as a teen, and then eventually to Brooklyn, working on his music the entire time. He was signed to Neon Gold Records in 2012, and they rereleased his debut EP, with this studio album debut the following year. It's unclear whether St. Lucia is a solo effort with help, or if they are officially a band. As a live outfit, the band comprises also of Nick Brown (drums), Ross Clark (guitar, bass), Nicky Paul (keyboards), and Patricia Beranek (keyboards, percussion, vocals). All those musicians played on When the Night as well, so I get the feeling it's more of a band than a solo thing. Patricia Beranek is also Jean-Philip Grobler's wife since 2012, and they have two children together. Some outlets describe St. Lucia as a husband-wife duo.

DISCOGRAPHY: When the Night is St. Lucia's debut studio LP. They have released four additional albums since then, the most recent being Fata Morgana: Dawn, released about a month and a half ago. There is also Matter (2016), Hyperion (2018), and Utopia (2022).

~~~~~~~~~~

ADDITIONAL INFO

READING SOME SHIT: A recent interview with Grobler and Bernek in Bands Through Town

WATCHING SOME SHIT: the title track at the TLA in 2018

RECORD CLUB CONNECTIONS: Grobler has said that his music influences include Boyz II Men, Radiohead, Fleetwood Mac, and Phil Collins (of Genesis). He's the only "Saint" RC artist so far, but St. Vincent has shown up a couple times, on albums by Gorillaz and WILLOW.

St. Lucia is directly named for a geographical location, which is the first time that's happened in Record Club. There have been a few geographical locations mentioned over the years, though. Just a few weeks ago, we had Lord Huron, named after Lake Huron. There was also Lake Street, Hollywood, the U.S., Philadelphia (twice), Dallas, and West Virginia. Not sure if we're counting D.C., since surely these Irish lads weren't referencing Washington D.C. Also not counting Earth and Saturn, even though they are technically geographical locations.

MENTIONS ON THE BLOG: St. Lucia's never been mentioned on this blog. A couple Lucias before—there was a Wiggle named Lucia, and a character in Gladiator named Lucia. Different Lucias, though.

~~~~~~~~~~

OTHER ALBUMS TO CHECK OUT

LAST WEEK'S ALBUM: NO THANK YOU by Little Simz, and make sure to check out the reviews if you wanna see what we thought of it!

RC@5: We're relistening to the Record Club album we featured exactly five years ago this week. The RC album for this week in 2020 was Tinted Windows by Tinted Windows.

RC f/u: We're attempting to catch up on all the new albums from our esteemed Record Club alumni. Mini-reviews coming next Saturday, this week for Dostrotime by Squarepusher and Don't Forget Me by Maggie Rogers.

SHADOW RECORD CLUB: Each week, I'm exploring a genre of last week's album by listening to one of that genre's top-rated albums. Last week's NO THANK YOU was a jazz rap album. We're listening this week to Stress: The Extinction Agenda by Organized Konfusion.

NEXT WEEK'S RC ALBUM: In case you need some extra time with an album to write a review for it, you can get a head start on Imperfect Candence by ONR and the Listening Planet!

~~~~~~~~~~

Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!

A Year of Blind Spots: GRIS-gris

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

GRIS-gris

Dr. John

1968

What 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die has to say about GRIS-gris by Dr. John:

We can thank Sonny and Cher for this landmark in New Orleans funk. While filming a TV special in the autumn of 1967, the pair bequeathed some of the studio time they had block-booked at Gold Star in L.A. to one of their session musicians—Malcolm Robert Rebennack, a journeyman piano and guitar player from New Orleans. Rebennack was toying with a project based around a real-life voodoo preacher called Dr. John Creaux. He had approached the singer Ronnie Baron to play the Dr. John role, but Baron's manager warned him to "stay away from that voodoo stuff." After much persuasion from his percussionist, Richard "Didimus" Washington, Rebennack reluctantly took on the role himself, fronting a band of fellow New Orleans natives exiled in L.A.

GRIS-gris presented a New Orleans that had largely been absent from the city's recordings. It was the sound of marching bands, of the Creole, of the feral chants wailed out by voodoo preachers, and the clattering polyrhythms of its Latin inhabitants. But this sonic chaos was refracted through the prism of pure, primal R&B. "Walk on Gilded Splinters," all rasping distorted vocals, clattering mandolins, and echo-laden drums, sets the tone, a crepuscular groove that spawned a hundred samples; "Mama Roux" is an elastic funk track that influenced Sly Stone, with Rebennack playing a propulsive bassline on the Hammond organ pedals.

Later projects would see the good Doctor exploring solo stride piano, Southern roots music, heavy-duty funk with the Meters, and even performing Southern-fried readings of Duke Ellington and Ray Charles. But GRIS-gris remains his definitive release.

What Joe has to say about GRIS-gris by Dr. John:

I am not qualified to talk about New Orleans. I was there for like 36 hours and mostly stuck with touristy stuff like getting drunk on jungle juice hurricanes. There was an attempt at an honest conversation about the place on this blog a long time ago, but that was done under the haze of an intense hangover with possibly a figment of my imagination. The knee-jerk reaction when listening to a freaky-deaky album like GRIS-gris is to attempt to talk about the sounds of a city that I just really don't know. Everything I know is from pop culture, and that's all just attempting to sell me on the concept of a place, not the actual place as it exists in reality.

I just think it's interesting that, in 1968, New Orleans wasn't marketed as a creepy voodoo mysterious place of swampy wonder, and that this album was allegedly the beginning of that, since this is how I know New Orleans now. This is True Detective, The Princess and the Frog, Interview with the Vampire, Lil Wayne. This is a sober Mike Jerrick picking up hookers at 5 AM. This is beads and parades and violence and death and ghosts. In my lifetime, this is how New Orleans has been portrayed to me through entertainment media. GRIS-gris fits into that pattern. I can imagine that it was shocking to hear this shit in 1968 if it's actually true that NOLA wasn't known for this type of energy at that time. To me, though, it makes total sense. This is the city of New Orleans. At least how I know it.

This is probably the reason that GRIS-gris has always felt a little intimidating to me—I assumed that I wouldn't know what it was trying to say. And to be fair, some of it is still a little inaccessible, the loose shambolic psych-funk of the delta goes off the rails a few times, and I have trouble deciphering it. This is a far cry from where I first encountered the good Doctor, in his supporting role in the Band's The Last Waltz ("Such a Night" was on a mix CD that got stuck in our minivan at one point). The man has always been the epitome of cool, throughout every iteration (including the Muppet iteration), but "witch doctor mumbling through swamp blues" could've been a challenge, even for an ostensible Dr. John fan.

The song that lifts this album into the canon singlehandedly is "I Walk on Gilded Splinters." It's the best song I've heard this month in any context, and I cannot stop listening to it. It's spooky as shit and it's got a nasty fucking groove. This is music that makes you feel cool as shit when you listen to it and walk down the street while listening. Seriously, try it. I did it a few times this week—I've possibly never felt cooler. (I'm being told that a cover of this song was featured in the end-of-season montage for The Wire Season 4, and I've rewatched it today and can say that that season of television is perfect, but this version of the song doesn't hold a fucking candle to the Dr. John original.)

Ya know how I say sometimes that music made for "vibes" is artless, gutless, TikTok bullshit? I stand by that, but I also think that there are exceptions to this rule, depending on how you define "vibe." If your vibe is Surfaces, then you can get the fuck outta here. But if your vibe is murky, fantastical, grimy-ass voodoo shit, then maybe it's okay that the music comes off more like vibes than actual music sometimes. GRIS-gris is all mise-en-scène. The focus is a weird-ass city that I'll never know. I learned a lot about what it is, who I am, and how I feel this week. Thanks for being here, Night Tripper.

RC@5: Heavy Light by U.S. Girls

Record Club covered this album five years ago. I gave it another listen this week. Here are some thoughts. This thing is going to be published on Saturdays now.

Heavy Light

U.S. Girls

Week 64: April 19-25, 2020

RC@5 has been heavily focused on COVID over the past few weeks, with good reason. Everything—seriously, everything—that was going on in my life five years ago is filtered through the idea of a global pandemic. It swallows every memory I have of that time period. Anything I saw, anything I heard, and especially anything I wrote, it's all affected by that thing that we were all experiencing in those moments. And the question must be asked: how does my experience change because what was happening then?

I couldn't listen to U.S. Girls then without thinking about it, and I can't listen to it now without thinking about it. It's irrevocably tied to a specific time and place. If I'm reflecting upon the album now, in April 2025, then I'm still reflecting upon COVID too. That will never change.

It's just interesting to think about how this affected us. I don't know if anyone else finds it as interesting, but I still do, even after five years. I especially like looking back at blog posts that were written at the time and trying to imagine the ways that the writing experience was influenced by the pandemic and all the symptoms of that pandemic. Record Club makes it easy.

I'll turn your attention to Pam's review. I think the other three reviews written for Heavy Light are really good, but Nate and Sunny are churning out great reviews every week. Maybe COVID made Nate a little crankier and made Sunny focus on a tangential topic as a needed distraction. Those are important. But now look at Pam's review. She doesn't write every week, and sometimes she phones it in because she feels OBLIGATED to write because of her damn fucking husband. Neither of those things are true for this review. This might be her best work.

And it couldn't have happened without COVID. Without the pandemic, she might have chosen Heavy Light as the RC album that week and said something like "hey, this was a really pleasant album, I liked the rhythms that I could dance to," that kind of thing. With the pandemic, though, the review turns into a crucial documentation of life under the oppression of COVID. How suffocated it made us all feel, how tense things were at home because we were stuck there. Most importantly, how music wasn't always going to be the answer. She listened to it and it was a nice album but it almost seemed like a distraction to the more important shit that was swirling around her every second of every day.

That's a good review! I'll say it as many times as I need to: we're writing album reviews but really we're writing about ourselves. This doesn't tell me a lot about U.S. Girls but it doesn't need to! We've all heard the album! What this does tell me a lot about is Pam. We know more about Pam as a person because she chose to write about her thoughts and feelings in the framework of an album review. It's a beautiful thing to behold, this expression of truth.

COVID was terrible, but sometimes, it gave us an excuse to confront ourselves and our truths in a way that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Discussion — Week 325: NO THANK YOU by Little Simz

SHIT I accidentally googled "tiny sims" instead of "little simz." My bad. Just ignore the picture above, and let's talk about the reviews this week. Watchya agree with, disagree with? Who had good points? Who wrote well? Y'all like that album? See you in the comments.

NO THANK YOU, Jamie

So as I mentioned in my "why Jamie chose this" blurb, my introduction to Little Simz was the song "Gorilla" popping into my algorithm and me adding it to the only playlist that I spend real time listening to: my biking playlist. I mostly commute via bike, and I'm usually trying to, one, make up time so as to not be late, and two, feel happy even though I'm busting ass at way too early in the morning. "Gorilla," with its smooth flow, funny braggadocio, and triumphant horns, is in the crosshairs of these two goals. I found myself going out of my way to start or end my commute with this song to the point where I woke up for several days in a row with the line "red light whenever I'm recording / red light on the forehead of the informant" in my head. Puke on Your Birthday just happened to ask what album I wanted to have us all listen to in the middle of this stretch, and here we are.

I figured more music like "Gorilla" would be good and upbeat and fun for nice weather and good **~*~vibez~*~**. Poppy rap by an artist with killer writing and really unique flow seemed like a no-brainer. Plus, and this is a big plus: that friggin accent, dude! If you've ever been in the car with me, you know I'm a sing-along-to-the-music kinda guy, and regardless of the quality of said music, it's never not funny to me to do a goofy British voice when the artist has an accent. It would truly suck to sound that way in real life.

The issue is, the majority of NO THANK YOU is not like "Gorilla." Little Simz spends the majority of the album dropping real shit about how the manipulative music industry mirrors the racism and lack of agency she experiences in society at large. And she does it well—the stories on "X" and the push to overcome on "Heart on Fire" are moving. But the instrumentals on many of these songs feel really similar in a way that doesn't have me coming back for multiple listens. An exception to this, besides "Gorilla," is "No Merci," which also delivers what I was looking for in terms of "I rule, you drool" sentiment and a flow I can pedal to.

An article was posted about how Little Simz has parted ways with and is suing the duo responsible for the backing on this album, Inflo and Cleo Sol (who are also the main members of the pretty solid neo-funk outfit SAULT—listen to "Don't Waste My Time"), so it's safe to say her new album has the chance of bringing in new blood for a wider variety of sounds. She's not suing because the beats on this album are boring, just to clarify, but she should have! I think Little Simz is a world-class rapper who creates songs I want to play on repeat when she has access to tracks that showcase how easy she makes all those words coming out so fast seem.

Little Simz thought the music industry would be one thing and got something else. And if you ignore most of the details and squint a little... I'm having the exact same experience: I thought this album would be full of fun, lighthearted bangers to kick the summer off with, and I got something so fundamentally serious that not even Simz sounding like Oliver Twist can save it. It's a really good album, just mostly not really good for me at a time when I'm already being reminded about how the world is a bad place everywhere all the time.

NO THANK YOU, Sunny

When I hear "Sims," I first think of the Maxis game, then the defunct off-price retailer (try Burlington for all your off-price menswear needs), and now, finally, the British rapper/actor.

It's a perfectly fine album. Perfectly fine album that I couldn't get super into this week, but can imagine it makes a deep mark on someone else. The production is fine, the beats being kind of, hm, spacey? Alternative? The lyrics are fine, the flow is fine, and there are even some clever ideas in there. But I guess in a personal, toned-down R&B album like this, the connection from artist to listener really matters. Being a little too British, both in subject and in accent, with its assault on Ts and rhodic Rs, ("nuffin," "fiyah") was a distance for me. Being a little too deep fried in the beats was a distance for me. My favorite tracks, "Angel," "X," and "Broken," left an impression, but then I lose interest for the last bit of the album.

But hey, it's better than the Venom movie and the associated Simz track, which is, at best, dumb fun. A total aside: Nate Dogg told me Venom 3 (2024) was soundtracked by Dan Deacon, which really floored me.

NO THANK YOU, Gloria

1:15 AM

Hi Gloria. There was another security incident as I was leaving. Around 12 am I was walking to the parking lot along with Lynn who was going to pick up her phone she forgot in her car. As we walked out we noticed 3 men hanging out in the parking lot and a fourth one running in from the street.  We got scared and got in to my car and I dropped off Lynn back without getting her phone. We called the security guy to help us and his answer was "what you want me to do."? If something happened to me? What I do?

"Feeling broken and you don't exist"

1:30 AM

I feel very insecure going to the parking lot alone after midnight especially when these unwanted elements are hanging out in the parking lot.

"When you're feeling broken and you cannot fix it"

5:04 AM

Radiator appears to be leaking in 314. A lot of water on floor. Two residents are in there.

"What does it mean to be broken? / A wound is painfully open"

7:02 AM

Morning Gloria, I was checking in with the kitchen this morning and they have one call out. The blender is also broken. Angel will be in at 9 am to supervise. Jay is aware and he is going to try and find a cheap blender to use for the day so staff can make the food items for our puree textures. He said he is going to stop by later. I just wanted to let you know

"The beauty is in the finding the darkest parts of the ocean"

7:10 AM

She is upset because the body is still in her room. Called the funeral home twice and they will be here soon. They said they received a call after 4-30 so . We will check

"Deep waters in motion, the tide was coming in heavy"

7:11 AM

New COVID positive, should we do a room change or POC [point of care aka rapid test] test everyone first?

"I always knew I was chosen to handle whatever chose me"

7:12 AM

Okay, thanks

"Picking all of my poisons, abandoning my emotions"

7:15 AM

Have you been deposed before?

"Questions got me feeling like I should never have spoken"

7:24 AM

That's fine our lawyer can walk you through it

"Damn right I'm spillin', the narrative, they keep switchin'"

7:56 AM

Ceiling is leaking profusely in 201 and looks like it's about to drop.

"You gotta move if you ain't backin' the vision"

8:01 AM

Heater along floor in hall between 3 and 4 leaking a lot of water.

"They wanna see you a victim and giving up on your mission"

8:15 AM

The ladies in 317 are complaining how unbearably cold the room is. The unit is on heat but blowing cold air. Air temp at 69 degrees.

"I been hittin' some lows and never tellin' a soul"

9:00 AM

The bottom two drawers on 2nd hall med cart on 400 will not open at all. The slider on the 3rd drawer looks like it is broken off.

"You can have everything and nothing, still nobody knows"

9:03 AM

hey Gloria! so the morning cook just called me and said the dish machine isnt cleaning the dishes at all and its not reaching temperature. so nothing is getting sanitized enough. so do you think we should go paper for lunch? ill be in at 11. and I got the blender!!

"There's a reason why the doves will never fly with the crows"

9:04 AM

DOH on the phone for you, I told them you are in the daily clinical meeting. Please call 215-xxx-xxxx when you can

"Chapters eventually closed, your friends will turn into foes"

9:05 AM

Ari [CFO] on phone for you. He asked that you call him back when you are out of clinical

"Everybody so obsessed with the CEO"

9:20 AM

Hi Gloria, therapist evaluating him said the pt wants to go home because he saw a mouse. Just passing the information. Thanks

"She probably got the most troubles, that she'll never disclose"

12:00 PM

316-1 needs second side rail to bed today please.

"Poker face and now she'll continue in with the show"

12:02 PM

If You don't hear back from the attorney by the end of today just hand it to him and just say it came for him

"Scrutinize for freeing the truth about the system"

12:15 PM

Please don't forget the second side rail 316-1. Thanks.

"Feeling broken and you don't exist"

2:40 PM

I stopped by your office but I missed you. There's a problem with the Chapel audio system. It didn't work yesterday in the Chapel not did it transmit to the residents rooms. Can you help? I'm not sure what the problem is and I only have an AE key so I cannot get into the AV closet.

"When you're feeling broken and you cannot fix it"

3:04 PM

Please don't forget that 316-1 needs a second side rail to his bed today. Thank you.

"Feeling broken and you don't exist"

3:47 PM

A covid positive guy is off the unit and won't leave 300. Combative verbally abusive. He is a danger to all.

"When you're feeling broken and you cannot fix it"

3:48 PM

Mouse seen in 317 and all down Second hallway on 400. Temp 72 in 317 but residents say it's still cold. Heaters blowing air.

"What does it mean to be broken?"

5:01 PM

Phil is on the floor and pushing us away from helping him. Says he wants to go the hospital. He's not injured.

"Feels that your light has been stolen"

7:02 PM

We haven't gotten any new results back for the six retests. We are emailing now to see if we can get an updated status. Should we assume COVID positive?

"Can't recognize you are golden / And you don't see that you're loved"

7:12 PM

Phil is on the floor again as I'm writing up an incident for an altercation with another resident.

"Smoking weed on your ones, isolating yourself"

8:00 PM

Just a note for tomorrow.  The last room on the left on the covid unit.  Bed B.  Someone installed a new tv for the patient but didn't bother to hook up any cable.  There wasn't a splitter or any cable for me to do it. I felt bad, the patient was literally begging me to do something about it.

"Am I even enough? Then you question yourself"

8:31 PM

His family is highly upset and will be calling you regarding Covid and the need for room change.

"Man, this week has been tough, been saying that for a year"

8:35 PM

Son said he want to move his father to different facility.  Pt and son are unhappy and have so many concerns.  Phone was not working. ( gave another phone). He can't watch the TV. Cable is not long enough

"How do I disappear? Can I hide from my fears?"

9:04 PM

Phil just fell again and punched the CNA in the stomach

"Sometimes a feather can feel like a stone"

9:15 PM

We have another positive on the second floor: Unvaccinated resident, admitted 4/23 from AEMC, swabbed via POC as she had a fever and cough. We are waiting for the PRC

"When your soul weak, you can feel that shit in your bones"

10:04 PM

Do you know why point click care isn't working?

"Feeling broken and you don't exist"

11:37 PM

There is a smell and a beeping coming from the boiler room. I couldn't get Dante on the phone so I thought I'd try you

"When you're feeling broken and you cannot fix"

11:39 PM

No I couldn't find one on the supervisors keychain

"Ain't no happiness in it"

11:47 PM

OK. Thank you Glo. See you soon.

"Fake smiles just to deal with all the pain you've been given"

I made a horrible mistake this past weekend. I got a new iPhone on Friday evening (that was a good thing, not the mistake). However, as the Apple store employee was helping me set up my new phone, he mentioned I had over 150,000 text messages in my iCloud. I've been trying to declutter my physical and digital spaces recently, so the thought occurred to me to delete my older text message chains. 

Now for the horrible mistake. I decided to reread some of these texts from 2020-2021. The day transcribed above was just a typical 24-hour day in 2021, chosen arbitrarily. It does not account for phone calls, emails, in-person conversations, and meetings; honestly, it's not even all the work-related texts I got that day. 

Reading these felt overwhelming, and I don't know why I kept reading them. But I kept reading them until I started crying. I kept reading them until I felt worthless and like nothing I did for those five years of my life accounted for anything. So many small things were just so broken I couldn't make progress. 

For example, at the long-term care facility where I worked at the time of these texts, I tried three different exterminators and couldn't get rid of the mice because we needed maintenance done to the building to stop them from coming in in the first place. But there were so many maintenance problems (as witnessed via the texts) and only the budget for one maintenance worker. So, I would try to fix things sometimes (even the fucking boiler). I don't have any maintenance background; I was just a girl with access to YouTube and the audacity to believe that most mechanical things are like Legos. But my position already covered what used to be four full-time jobs, so I couldn't spend much time figuring out maintenance problems, and so we just had mouse problems.

Back to Friday night: I kept reading until I felt like no one cared about me. Nothing I did mattered, and I was on this planet to suffer. And that's fine; I guess we all are, haha. I had hoped that my suffering had, at the very least, lessened other people's suffering, but I don't think it did. I kept reading like this until I fell asleep, only to awaken and feel the early days of the pandemic with a freshness I hadn’t felt in years. I closed my eyes. I didn't want to get out of bed. I didn't want to wear my glasses to see the world more clearly. I didn't want to shower. I didn't want to make coffee or breakfast. I didn't want to make small talk. I didn't want to enjoy the beautiful spring Saturday morning. 

I wanted to dissociate. I wanted to repeat sequences of numbers to distract my mind from thinking about anything else.

1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100, 121, 144... I wanted to sit in this feeling even though I could tell that I was actively hurting myself. 8, 27, 64, 125, 216, 343, 512, 729, 1000...

So I made myself get up, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31... and dressed 27, 41, 43, 47, 53... and walked to the gym 59, 61, 67... and put on this album 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 97. As I forced myself to move and listen to this music, I started to feel better. I began to listen to the universal messages of pain, suffering, and strength that Little Simz gives a voice to on NO THANK YOU.

As you can tell from the start of this review, I was really struck by "Broken," having transposed her lyrics into the texts I received. But the one line on the whole album that stood out to me was on the song "X," where she says, "One day you'll love my pain." This is true for many artists: Vincent Van Gogh, Frieda Kahlo, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway... this list is endless. Pain can be the fuel an artist uses to distill the truth. We can see the human condition with haunting clarity through their words and works. Pain can lead to art as catharsis, or as a confrontation, or even as a comfort. I could write another 1000 words just on that lyric, but you've listened to me enough for the week.

I usually feel slightly out of my depth when reviewing genres I don't typically listen to, but this was a good album. The music was layered and textured enough to be interesting but subtle enough to be just a backdrop for her voice and lyrics. I don't know if I'll put on Little Simz again anytime soon, but this album struck me. It was not something I would have picked to listen to, but maybe it was what I needed? Her lyricism really resonated with me this week.

NO THANK YOU, Joe

Maybe this will come off as nitpicky. I prefer to think of it as being specific. It's possible to like an album and take issue with certain aspects of that album. It's also possible to dislike an album and manage to salvage some positive qualities from it, but that's not the direction we're going with today. NO THANK YOU is the first one, the one where I like Little Simz's album a whole lot, but there's something about it that gives me pause. And that thing is not overwhelming, and it doesn't ruin the experience for me. It just gives me a reason to criticize a little bit. But that's why we're here, right? We are music critics. Amateurs, sure, but still critics. It's not always "this was good" or "this was bad." There can be nuance, and it's our jobs as amateur critics to find that nuance and express it in an amateur album review.

Here's what I like about NO THANK YOU by Little Simz, and it's a lot! To start, I think that Simz is a great rapper. She sounds confident, she commands her flow, she her rhymes and rhythms are engaging. I have a thing for females with British accents, and not just sexually—the cadence is aurally pleasing. Additionally, I think the production value on here is fantastic. Apparently she's suing the dude who made the beats for this and other Little Simz albums, a friendship torn apart, so maybe the production was all thanks to Inflo, which is fine, he made them for Simz and so I can say "I like Simz's production" without having to engage in whatever interpersonal struggle is going on in the present day. The "Gorilla" horns are well-appreciated, it seems. There are certain string sections that elevate the drama, the marching band drums on "X" are fascinating, the chiptune soul samples on "Sideways" hit right. I like how the production never seems urgent, but the way that Simz dips in and out of the beat makes some of the songs feel urgent anyway. I know she isn't reinventing the game with any of this, but sometimes, being a very good, very competent rapper can be enough. It's enough here. I like this.

And yet.

There's this thing that I've been thinking about recently when it comes to lyrics in songs that I like. The easiest way to put it (besides saying "this is kind of like Deeper Well," which is an apt comparison but too distracting) is that I'm tired of hearing social work / therapy speak in songs, because I hear it all the time in real conversation, and it bores me when my art just repeats it. Sigh... maybe I should describe it as "woke-speak." I know there are political complications attached to such a phrase, but I use it because there's really no other way to describe it that succinctly, and I have hopefully established trust in this space over time, that I vehemently believe progressive viewpoints and thus say "woke" as a description and not as a condescension or insult. And when I say that this shit is "too woke," I'm not saying that I disagree with any of Little Simz's points. It's the opposite—I agree with it all, and I know exactly what she's trying to say, because I hear it all the time, and it makes sense to me and I stand with Simz in everything she's saying... and that, to me, is a little boring.

There's just a lot of buzzwords. The astrology mumbo jumbo is what made me think about Kacey Musgraves, but it's more than that. I could literally click on any lyric sheet for any song on this album and give you the phrases that grate on me. "No Merci" has "we been carryin' the shame" and "I am not a human being you can gaslight" and "hidden agendas here we should unpack." "Heart on Fire" has "work smarter" and "navigatin' the fame" and "My life is a blessing but it comes with the stresses." "Broken" has "the narrative" and "They wanna see you a victim" and "All she wanted to do was uplift the women" and "isolatin' yourself" and "Fake smiles just to deal with all the pain" and "Generational trauma you've had to deal with alone." Get my point?

All of this is important. It's so fucking important, fuck! Of course Little Simz is struggling with fame, is working through interfamily drama due to this fame, is struggling with the weight of being a successful Black woman, is looking for answers, is focusing on self-care, is processing all of these heavy emotions and ideas through her chosen art, hip hop, music, an art that she's very good at, and so why shouldn't she use that art to process those emotions. It all makes so much fucking sense.

But I'm not trying to listen to music to hear it. I can gather some social worker friends and I can hear all these phrases thrown around in that conversation. I can go on fucking TikTok and hear Gen Z use these fucking armchair therapy terms because that's what ENGAGES the VIEWERSHIPS. I don't need it in my rap music. (Or rock music or pop music or whatever, you get it.) It's not bad, it's just boring. It's boring because Little Simz isn't changing my brain chemistry, she's just confirming it.

Consider the following lyrics for a song called "Hydroplaning off the End of the World" by an artist named Destroyer (real name Dan Bejar), from the album Dan's Boogie, which came out a few weeks ago:

"We are now entering a new phase

A priest mistakes me for a priest

Mistakes me for a Houston Rocket validating snow

Insane intercourse, constant swapping while I fall asleep inside a bass

I'm counting on my breath to make tunnels

I'm counting on my breath

A British Columbian prayer

No matter when, no matter where, s-s-s-suffer."

I don't know what this means. That's a fact. It might even be a fact that Dan Bejar doesn't know what it means either, but let's stick to what I know about myself. What I know is that I hear these lyrics and I do not know what they mean. That's the fact, but now here's the reaction: "I don't know what that means, and that's so fucking fascinating to me." I'm stopped in my tracks because it's just so fucking baffling, the lyrics. I could try to interpret them, or not. Doesn't matter. The act of being confronted with something previously unknown is the thing that changes my brain chemistry.

I'm not presenting this as a universal desire. This is just me. In fact, I am pretty sure that my desire to be confronted with the unknown is the thing that makes me a freak. There used to be riots at classical music performances when composers would debut new works, so much was the audience conditioned to hate the idea of the new. Most of the people in our generation stopped actively exploring new music in their early 20s. Algorithms are specifically designed to provide for you something that you are already familiar with, already very comfortable with. Being confronted with the new literally causes pain in your brain. And there's enough pain out there already, who the hell wants to listen to music that challenges them and causes your brain to hurt even more than it already does?

If I allowed the algorithm to get to know me, then it would probably hand me Little Simz. Which is cool, because that means that even the goddamn robot knows that I'm going to like it. And I do. I like this a lot. I like it because it's comforting. Simz ends "Silhouette" with an uplifting gospel choir that is singing "Time will heal you!" That feels good. It makes sense. It's important. I believe that phrase. I believe time heals. I say that to my clients all the time. This song is comforting to me.

But again, I hear that shit all the time, and that's not what I want from my art. It doesn't bring me joy to be soothed. I want to be challenged. I want to be surprised. I want music to fucking change me, irrevocably. That's not a requirement for a song or an album or an artist to be good. But it is a requirement for me to love something. I don't love NO THANK YOU. I just think it's really good and I liked listening to it. I am unchanged.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5