[In an act that has become depressingly commonplace on this blog, I will now add the following trigger warning, almost exactly a year after I wrote the blog post below: Mark Kozelek has since been accused of sexual misconduct, and I will be choosing not to listen to his music anymore. I will leave published what I wrote about this album for posterity, but just be aware that I know longer stand by what I wrote.]
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Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE. Obviously, Benji does not fall in line alphabetically, but as previously explained, I'm also using this column to talk about the best albums of the 2010s. This is the next album I am discussing. Come back in December to find out where it falls in the rankings.
Benji
Sun Kil Moon
2014
It's interesting to follow up with Benji after discussing Cardinallast week. With Pinegrove, we have to grapple with a lead singer who seems like a decent person but who allegedly did some shitty things. With Benji, created by Sun Kil Moon a.k.a. Mark Kozelek, you have another somber and beautiful album, but this one created by a straight-up unrepentant asshole. And again, the album makes it onto the short list of best albums of the decade, but with a completely different dodge than Pinegrove performs.
But first, the album. Here we have eleven tracks, ten of them about death and dying (and, yeah, one track about being friends with Ben Gibbard, but let's ignore that for now). This is as fun as it sounds. There are lots of sparse acoustic guitar pickings and slow meditative baritone vocals; it's not a party album. I'm not saying every album should be exactly like Benji, but if they were all as witty and introspective and humbling and profound, then why not?
Benji has a body count higher than most episodes of The Sopranos. His mother dies. His cousin dies from an aerosol can blowing up in a trash can, right after his uncle dies from an aerosol can blowing up in the trash can. His dad's buddy is dying of cancer. A serial killer actually dies of cancer. A whole bunch of little kids get gunned down. Um... James Gandolfini of The Sopranos dies. All these stories are true, both the national news ones and the familial ones. Kozelek is able to find the nuance in each case, and is able to express that raw emotion in such a personal way that you can't help but be swept up by it all.
Here's the rub: after this album was released, Mark Kozelek went on tour to support it, and... kind of acted like a dick. From calling his fans "fucking hillbillies," to calling a reporter a "bitch," to starting a one-sided feud with War on Drugs by first saying they make "beer commercial music," and then recording an awfully unfunny song called "The War on Drugs Can Suck My Fucking Dick," he was obnoxious to the point where I didn't really want to listen to anything else from this dude.
It was insanely bizarre in 2014 to try to equate this douchebag I was reading about with this soulful somber shaman I was listening to. Somehow, they were the same person! It's still bizarre.
I guess it's not that big of a deal. E.g. the War on Drugs are critical darlings and won a Grammy, and Mark Kozelek absolutely tanked his fucking career. And the irony of Kozelek's fall from Benji grace is that his failure as a musician in the second half of the decade didn't really have anything to do with his shitty behavior (it's not criminal and barely unethical to implore Adam Granduciel to suck your penis). Rather, it had everything to do with the fact that the (many) albums he has released since Benji have been SHIT.
What makes Benji great is that Sun Kil Moon are able to find all these subtle observations and witty asides, and pile them up to create a reflection on life's big picture. The failure of his subsequent albums is that he still makes the subtle observations, but they add up to nothing, and that makes the music seem cheap and pointless. Seriously, he just released an album late last year called This Is My Dinner, and it's exactly what the title says. No one, not even the hardcore fans, wants to listen to that shit. I certainly don't.
I'll stick with Benji. I'll stay for the uncomfortably relatable death of innocence in "Dogs." I'll stay for the evocatively specific scenes of mourning in "Carissa." I'll stay for the unfortunately still-relevant real world horrors of "Pray for Newton." Mark Kozelek may be an asshole, but for one brief, shining moment, he transcended it and gave us a gift.
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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Micheline"
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Stray Observations
"I Watched the Film The Song Remains the Same" is one of those rare songs over ten minutes that doesn't feel like it's over ten minutes, ya know? It's just a beautiful tune. I could live in there.
But it makes me really uncomfortable that my iPod won't let italicize the film title section of that song title.
"Richard Ramirez Died of Natural Causes" employs a type of echo, like previous lines are repeated over top of new lines. It works fine here, but I feel like this effect can be overused and become annoying. See, for instance:
I have Universal Themes, his 2015 follow-up, on my iPod still. I really only downloaded it originally because Benji was just so good, and I thought there was no way he could fall off a cliff as sharply as everyone said he did. They were right, I was wrong. I think I may have convinced myself to finally get rid of that album.
ALBUM COVER: A nice pastoral scene, possibly portraying the small rural towns he must constantly return to when a family member dies from an aerosol can blowing up in the trash.
Oh yeah, and I implied that we might return to "Ben Is My Friend," which is a great song and hasn't much to do with the theme of "death." I almost wish it wasn't on the record, because it's a weird outlier, but I'm glad to hear that Mark Kozelek actually has friends, in any case. I wonder if Deathcab for Cutie would ever sing about "Mark Is My Friend." They better get on that, before they are accused of writing beer commercial music and are forced through song to perform oral sex on Mark Kozelek.
Welcome back, all you film junkies, to another edition of Your Favorite Movie, where we corner a loved one in a dark alleyway and force them to consider what they prefer and why.
This week, we open the purple suit jacket and threaten with a ticking time bomb our good friend Dwyer. Usually I censor the surname and only provide the first name in this paragraph, but that seemed impossible with Dwyer. If you are reading this, you know Dwyer, and consequently you know him only by the moniker "Dwyer." I'm not really quite sure how this lovable, occasionally moronic goofball came to be one of my best friends, but all of a sudden I look over and he's standing there as one of my groomsman (the only groomsman wearing the wrong shoes, for the record).
And of course, if you know Dwyer, you should've been able to guess that his favorite movie was The Dark Knight. It's a superhero flick, sure, but this was released in 2008, in those halcyon pre-Marvel Cinematic Universe days, when superhero movies could actually mean something besides bang boom pow! But if you know Dwyer, then there's a very specific reason why you could've made a good guess why it's his favorite—don't worry, we delve into this hilarious reason in the interview.
So I found myself pretending to be a real journalist with Dwyer in the back of a smoky dive bar on a weekday morning before a Phillies game. You can read our conversation below, with Dwy Guy's permission, and lightly edited to account for clarity required over some Fireball-fed yelling and slurring. If you like this movie, and you came to a fucking blog to read about it, then Puke on Your Birthday is the hero you need, but not the one you deserve.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joe: It's 10 AM on a Thursday. Mothers, do you know where your children are? If you are a Beth or a Donna, the answer is: Ray's Happy Birthday Bar.
Dwyer: Okay.
Joe: I wanted to do a bit at the start.
Dwyer: That's fine. I appreciate the creativity.
Joe: Sure. Alright, so here's my overall theory. This is my eighth interview I've done, and I'm working on this theory that the interviews should reflect the movie that I'm interviewing about in some way. For instance, when we did Big Fish, Casey told some tall tales... about her cat. And that reflected Big Fish in that [in the movie] they were telling big tales about fantastical things. With Back to the Future, the interview was a little confusing, but also had a lot of bro humor. With The Big Lebowski, it was a shaggy-dog interview for a shaggy-dog movie, and neither of them really ended up anywhere.
Dwyer: Okay.
Joe: So for this one, I've chosen to be needlessly antagonistic, in the same vein as the Joker, to his Dwyer Batman.
Dwyer: So I'm the protagonist, you're the antagonist?
Joe: In this interview.
Dwyer: Does that mean you're playing devil's advocate through the whole thing?
Joe: Sure. I'm just explaining why, if it sounds like I'm asking pointed, dumb questions, it's that I'm trying to create chaos. Like the Joker.
Dwyer: Got it.
Joe: So... why don't we start by saying... do you have a scar?
Dwyer: Physically or mentally?
Joe: [laughter] Whatever you choose.
Dwyer: I have a scar in between my eyebrows, actually.
Joe: [pause] How did you get those scars? [laughter]
Dwyer: It's actually a really fun answer.
Joe: Make it short, because this is only a joke question.
Dwyer: This is freshman year of college. Summer going into freshman year of college. My friend had a party at his parents' house. We were trying to cover it up, throwing the beer cans out in dumpsters. And I lifted up the trunk too hard, and it came back down and hit me in the face.
Joe: That is a very Dwyer scar story. How did you feel about the Joker telling different stories about how he got his scars? Is that something you thought about?
Dwyer: I thought it was interesting. I think it played into his whole persona that you really just don't know where this figure, this human being came from, what his story was, and how he became who he was, and why he thinks the way he does. So I think it plays into, you really don't know what happened in this guy's past, of why he has this point of view toward life.
Joe: He definitely just creates chaos just for fun. I thought—and I don't want to get too deep too early into the interview—I kinda thought that a lot of his psychology that he spouted was interesting. I thought he went about trying to prove it in some pretty horrendous and horrific ways. But, is the philosophy of The Dark Knight something you ever think about?
Dwyer: The philosophy of the whole movie?
Joe: Yeah, like, clearly this is more than an action movie.
Dwyer: Oh, absolutely. It's not 1989, Jack Nicholson, Michael Keaton, Batman versus Joker at all. It's an epic crime story that, in my opinion, ranks [next to] classics like Heat and The Departed. But yeah, I think the philosophy of The Dark Knight definitely speaks to the masses. About humanity in general. And I think it really does make us think about good and evil in nature, and how both sides are really within all of us.
Joe: I guess the movie—I don't want to speak for you—but would you say the movie sides with Batman, in that, the human being is good? As opposed to what the Joker was saying, that a human being is inherently evil?
Dwyer: This is the interesting part of the movie. In a way, the Joker did win. He proved his point, and the good guys covered it up, at the end. I think what they're saying is, really, there's goodness and evil in all of us. Batman wasn't perfect. Bruce Wayne wasn't perfect either. Ultimately, he did not succumb to the Joker's temptations like Harvey Dent did. Which is, in a way, kind of ironic, that the people of Gotham looked up to this politician as the "hero," but really Batman was the true hero of the movie.
Joe: So it's almost as if neither Batman nor the Joker are correct. Humans are—there's a big gray area. Joker made a big point with Harvey Dent's flip. But, at the same time, there was the "Prisoner's Dilemma" on the ferries, where they could choose to blow each other up, and neither of them did. Even the most hardened criminal said, "I'm not taking another life." And Batman's point then was, like, "See! The people of Gotham are ultimately good." It definitely falls somewhere in the middle.
Dwyer: It's definitely very interesting, especially the whole dilemma, with the regular citizens and the prisoners. Even the prisoners themselves never succumb to that darkness, as the Joker would, and as Harvey Dent did.
Joe: Do you feel like it's tough to believe in Batman these days, in 2019? That people are inherently good? Just the way the country is.
Dwyer: I think we like to think of ourselves... the majority of people believe that humanity is good. But I do think there is a little bit of darkness in all of us.
Joe: I read this morning about a trump rally—
Dwyer: And someone screamed out, "Send her back"?
Joe: There were a lot of people chanting it. "Send her back!" Chanting a very racist slogan for our racist president. And, like... you feel kind of helpless. You feel... that the Joker is right sometimes? That he made some salient points. Not that he was right overall, but he made some salient points.
Dwyer: Like you said, it's much deeper than Batman versus Joker. It really gets you to think about all these points of view, you're like, "Wow, maybe we're all not that great after all. Deep down, maybe we're inherently evil in some ways. And good in others." And it's definitely a movie that speaks to you in the long run. It actually came out exactly eleven years ago today.
Joe: Really?!
Dwyer: July 18, 2008. How funny is that?
Joe: That is pretty funny.
Dwyer: So eleven years ago today, The Dark Knight came out. Broke a lot of box office records. Obviously, a lot of people fell in love with it.
Joe: Where does it stand for box office earnings right now? Is it in the top ten?
Dwyer: I don't know. It might. I remember when it came out, it was number two behind Titanic. Inflation, obviously, and then we had the 3D movies come out, and that kind of ruined everything. I feel like none of these records matter, none of these numbers matter anymore.
Joe: I don't understand why they don't do it for actual number of tickets sold.
Dwyer: I guess you can look it up, [considering] inflation, what really is the record. You can look that up.
Joe: I looked it up for Wizard of Oz. Gone with the Wind is still the highest grossing.
Dwyer: Wow.
Joe: Okay, I'm going to get another beer.
[break]
Joe: So we didn't really... typically I start with rehashing the plot. We didn't really do that. I guess because, [even though] in some ways it transcends the superhero movie, but in other ways, it's a typical superhero movie. There's the hero, the villain, the battle between the two. Are you a fan of the superhero genre, typically?
Dwyer: I don't know. I'm torn between.
Joe: I mean, how many of the 23 Marvel movies have you seen?
Dwyer: It's a typical superhero movie, but it transcends the superhero movie.
Joe: I guess I'm interested in, does the generic superhero aspects of it, is it a detriment to your viewing experience?
Dwyer: No, not at all.
Joe: And is that because you like superhero movies, typically?
Dwyer: See, I watch the Marvel movies every once in a while. I think they're entertaining. I think they're well done. But I don't love them, per se. I don't think they have a lot of themes and analyses like this movie does, or really the whole Dark Knight Trilogy does. I think those Marvel movies are just superhero movies.
Joe: So you need more than just big dumb fun.
Dwyer: Oh yeah. And I think the thing about the Marvel movies is that a lot of it is CGI. What makes this movie's action sequences so unique is that it's all authentic, and not really CGI. For example, the whole car chase sequence, the flipping the truck. They actually used pyrotechnics and ropes. I think it was very interesting how they filmed these sequences. Even the hospital scene, when he's walking out, it was a one-take thing. They were like, "We cannot fuck this up, we're blowing up the building."
Joe: And they kind of did? But Heath Ledger played it off well.
Dwyer: And that was interesting, when he's walking out, and they're like, "Oh fuck, what happened?" But they just kept the camera rolling, hoping that it would go off. Luckily it did, and it made the scene, in my opinion, a lot better.
Joe: I guess it's inevitable that we sing the praises of Heath Ledger in this movie.
Dwyer: It seems so.
Joe: We'll circle back around eventually to the much anticipated personal connection of yours. But I want to talk about Heath Ledger first. He posthumously won a lot of awards. Do you feel that his performance warranted the amount of praise that it received?
Dwyer: Yes. Obviously, it's a very iconic role. It's been done a few times before that. It's going to happen again this fall, in a performance by Joaquin Phoenix. Obviously, every actor's take on it is very different from the next, and I respect that a lot. But I feel like with [Ledger's] performance, there was a whole psychology behind it, and that's what really hits home. It's what really scares you to death.
Joe: Are you saying that Heath Ledger believed himself to be the Joker?
Dwyer: No, just the character, as the Joker in the movie. Obviously, his preparation was very interesting, I don't know if you know the story.
Joe: He locked himself in a hotel?
Dwyer: And wrote in a diary every day, his thoughts and feelings and what was going on.
Joe: There were rumors that that might've contributed to his death.
Dwyer: I don't think so at all.
Joe: Yeah, that seemed like tabloid fodder.
Dwyer: I think that was all overblown. He was just doing a lot of work between locations, and countries, he was having sleep problems. He just took wrong medicines at the same time. Unfortunately.
Joe: I... I'm trying to put this the right way... I'm somewhat cynical, and I'm somewhat a skeptic, about award season, and the fact that—while his performance was excellent, I don't personally believe that it would have been as legendary as it was had he lived.
Dwyer: That's a fair assessment.
Joe: I don't know. It's definitely a hypothetical. He's not alive, so...
Dwyer: I also think that, if he was living, he still would've won. I just remember, if you look at the other nominees that year for Best Supporting Actor—
Joe: It's a weak field?
Dwyer: It wasn't necessarily strong. Robert Downey Jr. got nominated for Tropic Thunder. That was—it was a good performance. But that was also the same year with Iron Man. So it was kind of more of a "rebound" for him. You can make the argument he got nominated just for the great year he had.
Joe: Superhero actors and actresses typically don't win awards.
Dwyer: That's correct.
Joe: Was that the first one ever?
Dwyer: I think it was the first one ever. But the movie itself got nominated for the most awards in superhero history. [Editor's note: Fact-checked, confirmed, everybody fucking relax!]
Joe: I'm sure a lot of them were technical awards. Like, Christian Bale wasn't nominated for Best Actor?
Dwyer: No, of course not. Also, keep in mind, the movie was on pace to get nominated for Best Picture. It was winning all these awards beforehand. It was expected to be nominated.
Joe: I can hear Drew ringing in my ears right now, saying "That's why they made it ten nominees instead of five! Because of The Dark Knight!"
Dwyer: Well it's true.
Joe: I feel like I've heard him say that at least twenty times.
Dwyer: It's to the detriment of the Academy Awards, because I think it was better with just five. That's my opinion.
Joe: Fucking WALL-E wasn't nominated either, and that was the best movie of that year.
Dwyer: That was a great movie too. I guess you bring up a good point. When they expanded to nine, ten, whatever it is—
Joe: "Up to ten."
Dwyer: Toy Story 3 got nominated a few years later, thanks to the expansion. But you can also make the argument that some of the movies that were nominated shouldn't have been. Benjamin Button should not have been nominated.
Joe: Yeah, fuck that movie.
Dwyer: The Dark Knight should have taken its place. It's absolutely more memorable today. More people remember that than fucking Benjamin Button.
Joe: Do you think there were any other performance besides Ledger's that warranted any award recognition?
Dwyer: A performance I liked that may have been close—I really love Gary Oldman in this film. You can make argument [for] Aaron Eckhart as the politician. But I just really felt for Gordon throughout the movie.
Joe: That whole sequence where he fakes his own death, and the ringer he put his family through, made me a little uncomfortable.
Dwyer: I think that's... to me, this movie has very few flaws, but if you were to point out a few flaws, that's definitely up there. Like they go to his wife and say, "Hey, your husband's dead..." ya know?
Joe: You as the audience don't actually believe it, and you think that's the flaw? Or, like, the plan the character made in the movie itself was flawed?
Dwyer: I don't know if it was flawed. It was definitely a nitpick. It played into the overall story. I still think it worked.
Joe: People making the hard choices to protect the citizens.
Dwyer: I think a theme of the movie was, these men of law, or a man of vigilance—the whole point is, the Joker is testing their boundaries [to see] how far they would go. To their limits. In a way, that was Gordon's limit. So in that way, it definitely played into it. But to your point, yeah... it's definitely a nitpick. I can agree with that.
Joe: Here's something—and this goes against the whole Batman ethos in general—I feel uncomfortable that Gotham depends on a rich man to save them.
Dwyer: Yeah, but they don't know that the rich man is Batman.
Joe: True, but as... a democratic socialist—and please note for the record that Dwyer sighed when I said that—I think the very act of being a billionaire is irresponsible.
Dwyer: It can be irresponsible, but to Alfred's point... you didn't see The Dark Knight Rises, did you?
Joe: No, and I do want to talk about The Dark Knight's spot in the trilogy.
Dwyer: That's fine. But what Alfred harps on later is, "You shouldn't be Batman, you're a billionaire, you should be using your money for good among the masses." And as a billionaire, he eventually does. If you saw The Dark Knight Rises, you would see how he uses himself, as a billionaire, to satisfy the people of Gotham.
Joe: Well, here's my problem. And this is way beyond anything that The Dark Knight discusses. He shouldn't have to spend his billions on fancy suits to save lives. He shouldn't have to spends his billions on whatever charities I didn't see in the third movie. He should be taxed the appropriate amount. A large slice of those billions should be going toward the general populace. Because billionaires owe that to us, the non-billionaires.
Dwyer: I don't think—
Joe: Eat the rich.
Dwyer: I don't think that's a theme of the movie.
Joe: It's not a theme in the movie, and that's what made me uncomfortable.
Dwyer: Okay.
Joe: That Batman in general—not just this movie—but the whole idea of Batman being a billionaire who uses his money for good, that's not the typical billionaire. We don't hold our billionaires accountable in that way. So it's definitely a fantasy universe. A billionaire is acting for the good of the many. It's not how they act!
Dwyer: Okay.
Joe: This is part of me being antagonistic.
Dwyer: You're just ranting.
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: I'll let you have your theories.
Joe: They also discussed... I mean Harvey Dent did make the point that—
Dwyer: Is this when they're at dinner?
Joe: When they're at dinner. That "the ancient Romans used to suspend democracy when there was a threat." Like... get the fuck out of here. That's exactly what trump is doing right now.
Dwyer: Okay.
Joe: No, he's creating a threat out of minorities, and he is acting like an autocrat because of this supposed "threat." So what I'm really saying is... Harvey Dent is donald trump, we should burn half of donald trump's face.
Dwyer: Okay.
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: Are you done? You can keep going if you want. I have no comments toward that.
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: This movie obviously came out way before he was elected, so I don't think these themes play into who donald trump is. Or the situation. [Editor's note: Dear FBI reading this right now. Only half of what I said was sincere. The democratic socialism part, and my belief that trump is an autocratic racist. But the rest is satire. I do not condone violence against a president. I was also being satirical by even talking about all this bullshit during a discussion of a goddamn Batman movie. I know this ruins the joke, but... dear readers, please, whatever you do, don't burn half of donald trump's face off.]
Joe: Is the title "The Dark Knight" a reference to its cinematography?
Dwyer: It could be. If you want to think of it that way. I know you knocked on the movie for its cinematography before.
Joe: It's a very dark, a literally dark movie. I had to turn the brightness all the way up.
Dwyer: See, I think your TV must be shitty, because I've never had that problem.
Joe: It was a cell phone.
Dwyer: No wonder! You watched it on a cell phone?!
Joe: At work!
Dwyer: That's how you rewatched this movie?!
Joe: Yeah, with the brightness all the way up.
Dwyer: It's on Netflix, why couldn't you put it on the big screen?
Joe: I have Netflix on my cell phone.
Dwyer: Oh come on! That's a violation! I'm completely against your point on cinematography then.
Joe: That's fair.
Dwyer: A phone is not... the movie is meant to be seen on the big screen.
Joe: That's a fair point.
Dwyer: It was the first movie to be filmed with IMAX cameras! You can't see that on a phone!
Joe: What does that mean? I'm not a movie guy.
Dwyer: So IMAX is, I forget what the ratio it is—
Joe: I don't know what "ratio" means.
Dwyer: We're not going into math here, but it's the length and the width of the cameras they used, and the scope.
Joe: So what, it was a "longer" movie?
Dwyer: No, so if you saw the movie in theaters, the screen would expand to match the IMAX ratio. If you watch it on BluRay or IMAX, those same sequences, the screen expands to match that ratio. You don't get that on a cell phone. That's my point. So, as far as revolutionary filmmaking, no one had ever filmed with IMAX cameras before. It was the original movie that did it. In that way, I think that it deserves some recognition.
Joe: Okay. I mean, I clearly know nothing about what it takes to make a movie. I can talk all day about the superficial things, but when you say things like "ratio," I have no fucking clue.
Dwyer: If you need more answer, you can call Drew.
Joe: Obviously, this is the second movie of a trilogy. Trilogies are typically connected pretty firmly [together]. I have never seen the other two movies.
Dwyer: I thought you saw Batman Begins?
Joe: I went to Batman Begins... me and my then-new then-girlfriend went to see it, and it was literally the only time we were unsupervised, throughout our relationship, so we... did not watch the movie. Um... my question. [laughter] My question is, is it necessary to see Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises to appreciate The Dark Knight?
Dwyer: No, I don't think so. I think you can watch The Dark Knight and appreciate it as the movie that it is. It stands alone. The story obviously relates to Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises to a great extent.
Joe: It's my understanding that Batman Begins is an "origin story" for Batman.
Dwyer: But The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises have unique themes that are very interesting to talk about.
Joe: So Batman Begins is not necessary because we already know about Batman. Like, everyone's familiar with Batman. It would be a different story if, ya know, you were watching the second Antman. I don't know jack shit about Antman. I would need to see the origin story for that. I would not be able to watch Antman and the Wasp first. With Dark Knight, I guess it's different.
Dwyer: Yeah.
Joe: But, with The Dark Knight Rises, as someone who's never seen it, what does that add—besides a Dwyer cameo—what does that add to our understanding of the story?
Dwyer: The thing about The Dark Knight that I found interesting is that it had a lot of themes regarding post-9/11 psyche. Things that we were thinking about, like terrorism—
Joe: The Patriot Act? Spying?
Dwyer: I was going to bring that up. Yeah, spying, you can make that argument. And like I said, the movie is about pushing limitations, and whether that's right or wrong. Obviously, Morgan Freeman's character argued against it. And in a way, Bruce agreed, but he's like, "I have no choice, I have to do this." You can make an argument about what you think, but that's what makes the movie interesting, in my opinion.
Joe: Sure.
Dwyer: See, The Dark Knight Rises, I want to watch it again. It's been a while. It did have themes that were relevant when it came out. I think it was another movie that also make a stink. Not to the extent of Dark Knight, I think Dark Knight was light-years ahead of the other two.
Joe: Did it have similar themes, like, Bush-era politics?
Dwyer: No, I don't think so. But I do need to see it again.
Joe: But you were in Dark Knight Rises?
Dwyer: Yes. Originally, I was asked to be Bane's mercenary.
Joe: Get the fuck out of here.
Dwyer: Did you know that?
Joe: No you weren't.
Dwyer: I swear to god. Because Tom Hardy's not a tall guy. He's a little taller than me.
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: And I'm 5'3. He's not that tall.
Joe: Your height was to your benefit.
Dwyer: It was to my benefit, for the first time in my life.
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: So they called me up, and were like, "We want you to be Bane's mercenary. We want you to come to Pittsburgh for a fitting." They asked me all these questions. It was kind of a regret... they asked me about what I did in the gym. I guess I looked good in my headshot. I looked buff.
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: I'm a stocky guy. I guess I looked muscular like Hardy. So they asked me to come out for a fitting. I didn't want to go all the way out there for them to be like, "Oh, you're a little shithead. Get out of here."
Joe: So you went to the gym. Bulked up.
Dwyer: No I didn't.
Joe: Why don't we state for the record right now: How often do you go to the gym?
Dwyer: I used to go four times a week. Now I go once or twice.
Joe: [laughter] Not "Bane's mercenary" levels.
Dwyer: No.
Joe: Okay, but your name is listed in the credits?
Dwyer: Unfortunately not.
Joe: Not for extras?
Dwyer: No, they would have to list thousands of people for that.
Joe: Can you actually see yourself though?
Dwyer: I sat next to our friends Drew and Jamie. Drew says he can point us out. I think that's hogwash. But yeah, if you're looking for me, I'm in the football scene. When the Gotham Rogues play the Cedar Rapids... I forget what their [team's] name is in the movie.
Joe: Were you interested in taking part in Dark Knight Rises because of your love for The Dark Knight?
Dwyer: No, I always enjoyed doing that stuff. If there's a movie that's filmed locally, I think it's a great, fun experience to be a part of it. For me, I love watching people make film and movie. It takes a lot of patience. It could get boring. But [to me], it's fun watching the directors working with the actors, and how they want to film stuff. That aspect I like, so it was really more about that. I was an extra in Transformers 2. In Creed 2, I was an extra.
Joe: All of these sequels.
Dwyer: But The Dark Knight Rises was unique. It was this football scene, and you're interested in this IMAX camera that they roll out, you want to see how they utilize it.
Joe: That's why you knew about the IMAX cameras!
Dwyer: Well no, I think everyone knew about them when they used it.
Joe: [laughter] Except me.
Dwyer: Joe was still clapping about WALL-E when he walked into The Dark Knight.
Joe: WALL-E is better than The Dark Knight.
Dwyer: WALL-E is a great film.
Joe: Better than The Dark Knight.
Dwyer: That's fine, you can make that argument.
Joe: I'll make it right now.
Dwyer: I personally love The Dark Knight more. But I did love WALL-E.
Joe: Fuck The Dark Knight. WALL-E's better.
Dwyer: Well let me ask you—
Joe: No, let me ask you. Because we really haven't—
Dwyer: I thought this was a discussion?
Joe: Sure, but we really haven't circled around to the point of this section.
Dwyer: Okay.
Joe: I guess what I was getting at with The Dark Knight Rises questions is, was there a moment when you realized The Dark Knight was your favorite movie? Like, was it prior to The Dark Knight Rises?
Dwyer: Oh yeah, for sure.
Joe: Was it when you saw The Dark Knight in theaters?
Dwyer: I think it might've been... I mean, when I saw it, I was blown away. Now, at that time, did I say "That was my favorite movie"? Probably not. But I think that it was definitely very rapid, it happened quickly, that I was like "this is my favorite movie." I saw it in theaters four times. I loved it.
Joe: I'm typically interested in the difference between people saying "This is my favorite movie, and I would say that in a vacuum," and "This is my favorite movie only because Joe put a gun to my head." Which one would you say is [for you]?
Dwyer: No, it's my favorite movie.
Joe: Like, did you know it was your favorite movie before I asked to interview you?
Dwyer: Oh yeah. It's tough though. There are a lot of great movies out there. I think most of my friends know this is my favorite movie. No, there was no gun pointed to my head.
Joe: Literally or figuratively.
Dwyer: Thankfully. It's a great film. I do remember when it ended, it was one of the best movie experiences I've ever had.
Joe: Was it a packed theater?
Dwyer: Yeah. Saw it opening day. Yeah... it's fantastic.
Joe: I dunno... I think we've reached the point. Just straight up give your spiel. Defend The Dark Knight as your favorite movie of all time.
Dwyer: Can I get a beer first?
Joe: Yes.
Dwyer: Do you want one?
Joe: Yes.
Dwyer: And water?
Joe: No.
[break]
Dwyer: Alright, shall I go?
Joe: Yup, give me your spiel.
Dwyer: What was the question? Why is this my favorite movie?
Joe: Yeah, it's the basic question that we try to answer in these interviews. Lay it on me.
Dwyer: Alright, well, first and foremost—I can go on and on about this.
Joe: I'll cut you off eventually. Give me the nuts and bolts.
Dwyer: I'm trying! I did love Batman Begins. I went into Batman Begins—talk about back-tracking!—I thought it was going to be garbage. I saw the previous Batman movies, they were awful. There hadn't been a Batman movie in years. I just was not interested in see it... and it blew me away. Batman Begins was a good movie, I was blown away, because I thought it was going to be complete trash. That was not the case. So when they teased, at the end of Batman Begins, the villain [of the next movie], I was really excited to see what the tone of the sequel would be. What direction it would be. I had high expectations for it. When it came out... expectations blew off the roof. To me, it was way more than a superhero movie. I mentioned this before—it wasn't just Batman versus the Joker. It went way deeper than that, with its storytelling. It was an epic crime drama. I really love the themes of the film—we already went into the themes. I thought it was a tragic ending, in my opinion. It was an ending I wasn't expecting.
Joe: That the hero was vilified? Is that what you're referring to?
Dwyer: Yeah, I guess you could say the hero was vilified. But it was more of how disturbing it was that this guy who the people saw as the hero was corrupted.
Joe: Harvey Dent.
Dwyer: I thought that was really sad. Deep down, he was trying to do good. The Joker took the worst of him, and exposed it.
Joe: They covered it up, so—
Dwyer: But then you can say, was that the right thing to do? The wrong thing to do? You can make an argument that they did the wrong thing. Or the right thing. Again, it's up for argument, but that [in itself] is another thing that makes the movie great.
Joe: The fact that we're arguing about it at a bar exactly eleven years later plays to your point.
Dwyer: One of the other things I was fascinated about with the movie was, Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent are so similar, but they're opposite. And then you just have this shark, this evil force of nature right through the middle of it. And you see how they react to it. I think Harvey Dent was a great foil to Bruce Wayne's character. I think that played into the great storytelling of it. I very much appreciated the action sequences. I feel like you really don't see action sequences like that anymore in movies. Like, if action sequences are done very well, they can be really fucking enjoyable. You don't have to rely on CGI. I don't get anything out of that. I can rewatch that car chase scene over and over and be wowed every time.
Joe: So you're saying if you watch The Avengers: Endgame, where there's a big climactic—I've never seen it—a big climactic scene, you're saying that Dark Knight is better than that—
Dwyer: On an action-sequence level, absolutely.
Joe: —because of the—what, you're saying there's more integrity in it because there's no CGI?
Dwyer: Yeah. It takes more... it's more artistic filmmaking. But that's just me personally.
Joe: Because of the lack of CGI.
Dwyer: We see it all the time now. We're so overexposed to it. You don't get any feeling from it anymore.
Joe: Are there modern movies that don't use CGI?
Dwyer: I can't think of any. Maybe. The John Wick movies might not, I haven't seen those.
Joe: Fast and the Furious, there's zero CGI in that.
Dwyer: Really?
Joe: Yeah, when Vin Diesel jumps his car from one high-rise to another... I'm being sarcastic.
Dwyer: I guess to your point, the new Mission Impossibles are—I think they're great action movies. And there's not much CGI. It's Tom Cruise doing his own stunts. I think it's very impressive.
Joe: I think it was Danny Trejo who said something like, "Why should I do my own stunts? Why should I risk thousands of people's jobs by getting hurt just to prove I had big balls?" I don't think there's anything wrong with Robert Downey Jr. not actually blasting off into space in an iron robot rocket.
Dwyer: [laughter]
Joe: But I think it speaks to your movie knowledge credentials that you would appreciate the actors and the production teams that really dive into the real-life nitty-gritty of it. I dunno.
Dwyer: Like I said, I could go on and on about why it's my favorite movie. There are just so many great scenes. If you had to pinpoint the best scene, it's just so hard. Because every scene is fantastic. Obviously, the opening bank scene is tremendous—
Joe: Where the fuck does the Joker get those lackeys? I know they tried to make a point like, "Oh, all his followers are paranoid schizophrenics!" But clearly those dudes weren't. They were just assholes.
Dwyer: Well he got them form Arkham Asylum, the insane asylum.
Joe: But, like, after one second with the Joker, you're not gonna bow down to him, and put on a clown mask, and follow him.
Dwyer: The mob did.
Joe: Did they though?
Dwyer: They were reluctant. Like, "Who's this guy who's stealing from us?" And obviously they were fucking idiots for doing it. But, he's obviously very maniacal, and... what's the word I'm think of...
Joe: "Machiavellian"?
Dwyer: No. But that's a good word.
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: Is that a real word?
Joe: Yeah, Machiavelli wrote The Prince.
Dwyer: Tell me about the book.
Joe: It's like a how-to on how to be a ruthless leader.
Dwyer: That's interesting. But... he's very... persuasive. He knows how to get what he wants. Like, you saw that with the mob, why can't he do that with other people?
Joe: Is he persuasive though? Or would he just open up his suit jacket and present a ticking bomb? Is that "persuasion"? Or is that just threatening someone?
Dwyer: Well he doesn't threaten them at first.
Joe: Yeah, because he likes to play his little games... Okay, okay, so, what you're saying is... and here's another difference that I'm learning through these interviews. That there's a difference between, "I like this movie because it's a good movie in this list of ways," or "It's a good movie because I saw at this time in my life, and it affected me in external ways," rather than the movie itself. So what you're saying is that you are in the former camp, in that you, as a movie buff, are appreciating how well made of a film it is.
Dwyer: Yes. I was trying to relate to your second point too. Every time I watch it, or when a movie ends, I'm always like—
Joe: Was there a time outside of watching the movie that you made a personal connection to it?
Dwyer: No.
Joe: Bullshit!!
Dwyer: Oh, you're talking about... Haha. I know what you're saying.
Joe: Here we are, finally. The moment you're all been waiting for.
Dwyer: I'm not doing it here.
Joe: Well, you could if you wanted to.
Dwyer: No.
Joe: We are of course referring to the infamous Dwyer Joker Impression.
[Editor's note: Here's the thing, y'all. Within 20 minutes of publishing this interview, Dwyer called me frantically, asking that I not include the video here because "people were texting" him about it. I can empathize with the paranoia of having a weird part of your past out there on the public internet, so I took it down. There are ways to see it. You need to see it. It's good. But you're gonna have to work for it, I guess. Hit me up. Just don't shoot the messenger.]
Dwyer: Yeah. So back in college, I would... I wouldn't get pussy very often, because I would do a Joker impression a lot. That's probably why.
Joe: You're going to blame your virginity on the Joker?!
Dwyer: I got lucky once in a while.
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: I'm just kidding. No, so when the movie came out, it was a big hit, everyone loved it. It came out on DVD, no matter what dorm you went into, people were watching it. People were so into it. So, I dunno, I guess I would have a few drinks here and there, and I would just do an impression. People liked it, and I would do it more and more. It creeped some people out. It was fun. It was funny. It just kind of became a gag in college. It was all in good fun, obviously. But, interestingly, I did it for my girlfriend like two weeks ago. Just a snippet. Not even a minute.
Joe: Did she want to break up with you?
Dwyer: She jokingly said "I can sleep on the couch..."
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: My buddy brought up to her that night, "Dwyer has the fucking best Joker impression! It's crazy!" So that night, she was like, "I really want to see it." Of course, at first I refused, like I always do. Then I was like, fine, I'll do it for ten seconds.
Joe: Interesting foreplay.
Dwyer: [sighs]
Joe: The thing I remember, besides actually watching the Joker impression, is, I guess you had done it at the Into the Woods cast party, and somebody told me—I guess it was Stephan and Allison—
Dwyer: When Stephan met me, he thought I was on cocaine.
Joe: True. That was probably because, when they were studying abroad, somebody had sent them a video of you doing the Joker impression. Like, "Who the fuck are these freshman, doing Joker impressions?!" Because, it was a spot-on impression... which means, consequentially, that it was creepy as shit when you did it.
Dwyer: Obviously. It was funny though. We all had fun.
Joe: Absolutely. In fact, I will give you the compliment that it was so good, that it kind of ruins The Dark Knight for me. In that when I'm watching the Joker's mannerisms, I think of Dwyer.
Dwyer: Well let me ask you: when you were watching on your shitty little cellphone—at work, I'm assuming? Jesus, don't you do any work?
Joe: If my boss is reading this: I do work for eight hours a day.
Dwyer: Anyway, so when you were watching it, were you like, "Wow, he really did a good impression," from what you remember? It's been a while since I did it for you.
Joe: It's literally the only thing that's "public" on my Facebook profile right now, so you can go and watch it. The one you did in [La Salle Apartments] at Maeve and Sara's apartment? You've seen the video.
Joe: Which, definitely when I saw the hospital scene, I was like, "Oh shit, this is the monologue." Was that the only monologue you did?
Dwyer: No, what I would usually do... the scene when he walks in, with the mob sitting around the table, I would do that. The hospital scene I probably did the most. The interrogation scene I did a lot too.
Joe: Did you feel some personal connection with the Joker?
Dwyer: No, not at all.
Joe: Not at all?!
Dwyer: Absolutely not!
Joe: [laughter] Okay.
Dwyer: It was just a fun thing to do.
Joe: As a thespian.
Dwyer: How can you have a personal connection with the Joker? That's another thing about the movie—you don't know anything about this guy. He's just pure evil in human form. He's a shark through the movie, and he affects these three men in power.
Joe: Like I said, I think he makes some interesting points. I'm not going to say they're correct points, but I think they are points for which you have to stop and think, "Oh shit, is he right?" The way that he follows through with those points in trying to prove them are sadistic. They're wrong. They actually prove that he is wrong in making those points. But, like, when he says, ya know, when Batman says something like, "These people are inherently good, they didn't blow each other up." And the Joker says [reading from notes], "Yeah, until their spirit breaks completely." That line kind of landed on me a little bit. I don't want to keep bringing up our orange president—
Dwyer: Oh boy...
Joe: No, but, as to why these Americans, who have been exposed as hateful creatures, how they got to this point. Have their spirits been broken completely? Not that that makes it right. Not that that makes racist, sexist, xenophobic bullshit right. But, in trying to understand why... does the Joker have a point? Is he right in that humans are evil only when their spirit breaks? ...Not that you were trying to break anyone's spirits back when we were drinking Hurricane 40s and listening to you imitate the Joker.
Dwyer: Throughout the movie, the masses of Gotham were looking up to this politician as the "bright future." Like you said, you were arguing—I don't want to make this political—
Joe: You can. Please.
Dwyer: I don't want to make this a trump rant.
Joe: I want to.
Dwyer: I don't.
Joe: Go ahead.
Dwyer: This movie is not that to me at all.
Joe: [laughter] It is now!
Dwyer: No it's not! Is that this project? You're trying to relate movies to—?
Joe: Yes, I'm trying to force my view upon others!
Dwyer: So, It's a Wonderful Life, is it not a wonderful life because trump's president?
Joe: [laughter]
Dwyer: I'm just curious. You said project. Is there a point to the overall project, or just are you just interviewing people on specific movies?
Joe: Well, I mean, I think the three points are, one, to get more content for my stupid blog. Two, to try to have more human contact while I have a kid, slash, more kids. And three, to try to understand movies better, because I'm not... I was not a "movie person" prior to this.
Dwyer: Well I think you were though, because you were always into award season—
Joe: Nah, just the past coupleyears. But I definitely struggle with, like, overall understandings of movies sometimes. I get to the end of the movie, and say, like, "What the fuck was that? I don't get it." I guess The Dark Knight wasn't one of those movies. I feel like I get it. There was a lot to chew on. I appreciated it more when I watched it in a more critical way than I would've [watching it] in a passive way. Which, you can't say for most superhero movies.
Dwyer: Let me ask you—I kind of want to ask you a few questions.
Joe: Sure, please.
Dwyer: Overall, how do you like? You don't have to give me numbers.
Joe: I'll give you a number. I'll give you a number out of "pukes."
Dwyer: What?
Joe: "Pukes." We don't say "stars" here on Puke on Your Birthday. I will give it 3.5 out of 5 pukes.
Dwyer: That's, like... okay. Reasoning?
Joe: I enjoyed it while I was watching it. I enjoy exciting action scenes. And I enjoyed thinking about it, but I didn't get to the end of the movie and think, "Wow!" That wasn't my reaction for The Dark Knight. It was like, "Oh dang, that was better than I remembered." Which is good! 3.5 out of 5 is good.
Dwyer: When you first started it, were you like, "I think, from what I remember, it's going to be a 2 out of 5"?
Joe: I think for most movies that I've watched for this project, it's been like, "I don't want to do this."
Dwyer: I remember the first time you saw the movie, you said to me that you liked it a lot.
Joe: I think I probably saw it in theaters. It was good!
Dwyer: Okay... I listen to this podcast called The Rewatchables.
Joe: Fuck podcasts.
Dwyer: Well that's your opinion.
Joe: It's my blog, so.
Dwyer: Anyway, one of things they talk about is the "most rewatchable scene." Even though you've seen the movie twice, what's your favorite scene, and why?
Joe: Interesting. I assume you have one.
Dwyer: I do.
Joe: What is it?
Dwyer: It's tough.
Joe: This will give me time to come up with mine.
Dwyer: Like I said, every scene is rewatchable. Every scene is so powerful in its own way. Whether it's an action sequence, or it's making you think. But the scene I always loved was the interrogation scene.
Joe: When they turn on the lights, and Batman's in the back?
Dwyer: Yeah, I love that whole communication between [Joker] and the cop, him and Gordon, and then him and Batman. The first time, you're scared, like, "What's going on?" People are missing now. He's talking about good cops, bad cops, ya know, "Who are these traitors?" So you're thinking about a bunch of shit at once. And then the next, after Gordon leaves—I guess he's getting coffee—after he leaves, and then Batman is talking to him, it's the first time you really hear [the Joker's] point of view on how he sees society. And I think that's the first time you really start to wonder, "Who the fuck is this guy?" Where is he coming from? And that's when he's really testing Batman from a mental standpoint on breaking his only rule, and Batman's trying his best not to break it, and he wants kick the shit out of him. And he does.
Joe: It was a good point that the Joker brought up that people can use that rule against him, like, "Oh, I'm not going to die if I fight Batman." That's the rule they're talking about, right?
Dwyer: Again, his whole... overall, it's the corruption, like, "If I corrupt you, I win." He doesn't care if he lives or dies. He wants Batman to kill him. If he does, he wins. That's what makes it so interesting.
Joe: Do you feel like if one of the ferries blew up at the end, then Batman probably would have broke, right? All the prisoners and citizens—that bald anti-criminal dude, if he had pushed the button, then Batman would've become a villain.
Dwyer: That was another interesting thing. That's why I said Harvey Dent was a good foil for Batman. They both loved the same woman. That woman dies.
Joe: Does she come back in Rises?
Dwyer: No. [laughter] She is not the "dark knight" that "rises." Aaron Eckhart ultimately becomes corrupted because of it, and Bruce Wayne didn't. That's why I always thought it was interesting, watching both those characters throughout the film, seeing how they were foils for each other. That's my favorite scene.
Joe: I guess we'll end on a couple notes. One, what's his name, Mr. Fox?
Joe: ...and. Do you think... I guess we haven't talked about the infamous line. "Harvey Dent was the hero we needed, but not the one we deserved," and "Batman is the hero we didn't need, but the one we deserved." Explain that. Because, like, I get it, but I also think, if it means what I think it means, then it's stupid.
Dwyer: What they were looking at, ultimately, Batman agreed, and everyone did agree. Commissioner Gordon did too. Harvey Dent was the "hero they needed." He was in law, he was a politician, he had a face, he was symbol that everyone could look up to. He was the one they needed.
Joe: But then, what, Gotham didn't deserve him?
Dwyer: I think in that case, they were talking about Batman. He wasn't talking about Harvey Dent.
Joe: No, they say the opposite for Harvey Dent and Batman. They say for Harvey Dent "the hero we needed, but we didn't deserve," and for Batman, "the hero we deserved, but we didn't need."
Dwyer: No, "he's the hero..." Wait, what. Let me... Hold on, I got this.
Joe: I just watched it 24 hours ago!
Dwyer: No, I know this.Because's he's... he's the her—wait...
Joe: I just watched it!! I'm saying it correctly! I just watched it less than 24 hours ago! They say Harvey Dent is "the hero we needed but we didn't deserve," and they say that Batman is "the hero that we did not need, but we deserved." So in other words, Harvey Dent is the hero we needed, i.e. we needed someone to clean up crime. But we didn't deserve him because we are pieces of shit in Gotham?! "We the people are piece of shit," is basically what they're saying. And Batman is the hero that we didn't need, in that he's doing it, I dunno, not for the benefit of the people I guess? But the hero we deserved, in that Gotham deserves some "dark knight" that was gonna... secretly... plot to rope up the villains... and then get chased by dogs?? I don't know, I'm just ranting right now.
Dwyer: To your point, he's a vigilante. People of Gotham—overall, it's not a great city. There's a lot of corruption, a lot of crime. In a way, Batman fits in with Gotham. He breaks the law, but he's trying to do good for society. If that makes sense?
Joe: No. It will never make sense to me.
Dwyer: Okay.
Joe: Let's end like this. The Dark Knight was one of those movies where they outright stated the title, and it was the very last thing they said.
Dwyer: Yup.
Joe: So we should end this interview by doing the same thing.
Dwyer: ...
Joe: Just say something, and make the last three things you say "The Dark Knight."
Dwyer: Cheers to us, with this PBR, and our whisky, and let's hope that this ends up becoming... a dark knight.
A challenge to you all—let's use Record Club as a way to discover music together. Show-and-tell is great, but there's a certain risk in choosing an album that you've never heard before and handing it to the group. Take the risk.
There are plenty of old albums on the archives in the right sidebar if that risk doesn't pan out for us. But if you want to take the plunge, read on.
WEEK 27 — August 4-10, 2019
What we're listening to this week (Joe's pick):
ALBUM:The Lost Boy ARTIST: YBN Cordae
RELEASED: July 26, 2019
WHAT GENRE IS THIS: Hip Hop
WHY JOE PICKED IT: I'm tired of choosing rock albums for this club, and we haven't done any hip hop in like five fucking months. And I'm tired of Chance the Rapper, so let's see if this other young rapper making his major label debut was able to ruin the "big day." I haven't listened to one single second of YBN Cordae yet (see this post's introduction), so let's find out together.
TRACKLIST:
Winter Time
Have Mercy
Sweet Lawd (Skit)
Bad Idea (ft. Chance the Rapper)
Thanksgiving
RNP (ft. Anderson .Paak)
Broke as Fuck
Thousand Words
Way Back Home (ft. Ty Dolla $ign)
Grandma's House (Skit)
Been Around
Nightmares Are Real (ft. Pusha T)
Family Matters
We Gon Make It (ft. Meek Mill)
Lost & Found
READING SOME SHIT: Billboard gives a good introduction to the 21-year-old artist in this interview.
All previous songs HERE, an all-new (old) song below.
"Thunder Road"
Bruce Springsteen
from Born to Run
1975
By the time you read this, I will have just spent a week in Wildwood, NJ. Trash it all you want, you fucking snob—Wildwood is where dreams come true. I've spent a week or so in this wonderful summer seaside town every year of my life. Coming over that bridge and seeing the Ferris wheel in the distance is perpetually one of my favorite and most exciting moments of my year.
And ever since I've been able to take the trip without my parents, I've held onto a personal tradition, one that amps up the excitement levels to an impossible degree. In addition to seeing Wildwood on the horizon, opening the windows and smelling that sweet salty air, and picturing in my mind all the fun times that await just a mile away, the other thing I do when crossing that bridge is absolutely fucking blast "Thunder Road" on whatever shitty speakers in what shitty car I'm making the trip in.
Thematically, it makes sense on multiple levels. First, the song is all about escaping to something better, and what else is a vacation at your favorite shore town, other than an escape from all the worries you're leaving at home? Second, the song is all rising action, and times out perfectly that the opening strums are for passing the bay, the snare kicks in when you hit the bridge, and the by the time Max Weinberg pounds out that absolutely towering triplet drum fill, you're rolling into town. The song gets more excited at the same stages that you do.
Third, and this should go without saying, but Bruce is synonymous with the idea of "summer music." You can't listen Springsteen in the winter (unless it's a snowy karaoke night at Les & Doreen's, I guess). It's all summer, baby. Bruce Springsteen is the soundtrack to every wild night you've ever had under the boardwalk. Wildwood is our summer destination, so why not play the summer music?
It's easy, just push play when you make that right turn from the Garden State Parkway South exit ramp onto N. Wildwood Blvd. I've pushed play every time I hit that turn since I was a teenager. There was when Pam and I drove down on a whim that first summer together in my lacking-air-conditioning '91 Camry. There was all those years ago when Kev and I decided to take an ill-advised stab at a second Senior Week in our collegiate years, smoking Black & Milds and blasting Bruce out of tinny speakers on a soccer-decal white truck. There was the time Pam hated the tradition, if only because I yelled out the window "WE'RE BACK," and then there was the next time she went down alone and couldn't help but push play anyway, and started crying, picturing our future children singing "Thunder Road" as we went on vacation in a future time. Whether we have a baby crib in the trunk or a clandestine three dozen Hurricane 40s, you better believe that that bass is booming when Clarence hits all those earth-shattering saxophone notes.
There's nothing better than arriving to your vacation destination, all that time stretched in front of you, full of possibility. That's what "Thunder Road" means to me now. FUCK I cannot WAIT to get back to Wildwood.
There's an old Bob Newhart joke that goes like this: "I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'" A quick internet search will come up with numerous articles written on the differences between country music and the genre termed "Americana." With a similar sound to country, the genre, which Ritter's Fever Breaks fits nicely into, has in the last few years become a favorite of mine. But I think Bob Newhart pretty much nailed it on the head, without the need for a detailed deep dive. Americana music is intelligent, and lyrical master Josh Ritter proves that magnificently with Fever Breaks. You won't find any songs on here about beers, trucks, or God Bless America. Instead you'll find complicated, powerful, and analytical lyrics that tell stories like in the badass "Silverblade," or hit you right in the gut, like "Torch Committee" and "All Some Kind of Dream." The fact that Jason Isbell produced the album is an added bonus, as hints of Isbell via the 400 Unit come through in songs like "On the Water." Aside from the lyrics, Fever Breaks has all the elements of the Americana sound that I have come to love. Rock 'n' roll meets folk meets twangy country.
Country music, out of all the music genres, is the one most concerned about what it is, exactly. There is a constant push and pull among country artists in the struggle to define "country music." And it's this that makes the genre so damn interesting to me, even if the music itself is not quite my favorite genre of all time (though, shit, I do like it a heck of a lot).
How can the Dixie Chicks be considered outcasts for their political beliefs, even when their music is so country it hurts? How can Sturgill Simpson win the Grammy for best country album, but then be reduced to busking outside the Country Music Awards ceremony that same year? How can a genre originally so concerned with the plight of the lower classes become so... racist? I.e. how can a genre of "outlaws" consider among their ranks so many apologists of a orange "billionaire" NY-bred elitist megalomaniac? How can a joke song that nevertheless includes many country music hallmarks be kicked off the country music charts?
It's a genre of contradictions, of self-doubt. A music genre that can somehow encompass both songs about rings of fire and red solo cups. It is infinitely fascinating to me. So I look at an album like Fever Breaks, and I don't really see anything that challenges my musical tastes, personally (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's true). It's good ol' fashioned country rock. But I appreciate it in the general scope of things, because it is an album that challenges the very notion of being a "country album." Whether I like the damn tunes has nothing to do with that... but I do like the tunes too.
There are a whole lot of those country-type musical moments all over this album, certainly enough for Fever Breaks to be considered "country" by any reasonable measurement. Josh Ritter (no relation to the actors) sings the whole album with a soft twang, the type that isn't overpowering, but you can tell is sincere and bred in rural populations. There is a "momma" addressed in the first song ("Ground Don't Want Me"), a long road hypothesized in the last song ("Blazing Highway Home"), and in the middle, some cars and some steel guitars, etc. You know, all the subjects and musical tones that are typical to country music.
But there are other parts of the album that challenge the country status quo. There's the lovely accordion floating through "I Still Love You (Now and Then)," and the almost Dylan-esque "Silverblade" that swings way father into folk territory than country. "Losing Battles" is a straight-up rocker, leaving those long country roads in the fucking dust.
And then we have songs that directly challenge the political beliefs that many (possibly the majority of) country fans typically hold dear. First to take a swing is "The Torch Committee," an exploration of the banality of evil in America, that those who commit horrendous crimes are able to convince themselves that they are not in the wrong. The issue is pressed more explicitly in "All Some Kind of Dream," where Ritter outright points a finger at those perpetuating the crimes along our borders.
"I thought I knew who my neighbor was," he sings. That some of our neighbors are going to country music concerts and chanting "Send her back!" makes Josh Ritter's indictment ballsy in more ways than one. Did you know this was Josh Ritter's tenth studio album? Had you even ever heard of him before? Could it be that the subgenre of "country music for rational, empathetic human beings" is a niche too small?
I hope not, because Fever Breaks—all politics aside—is a fucking success on a musical level. There are ten songs, and all of them are at the very least enjoyable, and some even break through to be genuinely thrilling. There isn't any filler or fluff. Like I said, it's country music that finds itself exactly in my lane. The fact that it is so self-aware of what it is and what it isn't, as country album, certainly doesn't hurt.
Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE. Obviously, Cardinal does not fall in line alphabetically, but as previously explained, I'm also using this column to talk about the best albums of the 2010s. This is the next album I am discussing. Come back in December to find out where it falls in the rankings.
Cardinal
Pinegrove
2016
Probably the best thing I can say about Cardinal is that I have not yet gotten tired of it. I think I've probably listened to this album at least once a week for the past three years. Cardinal is singular in this regard. For real, yo, there isn't a single other album on my iPod that I can listen to this much and never get sick of it.
So I suppose the first part of this essay should be an exploration of the reasoning behind this. Why does such an album have such staying power, especially in the fact of such divisiveness (much more on that later, I'm sure)? Pam has, in the past, described the act of listening to the same album more than once in a single day as "categorically insane," and yet, here I am, typing these words on my third run-through in a row of Cardinal, and I'm at peace. Why?!
You can be a cynic and say that it's only because this album is composed of a simple eight songs, with no frills, no filler, and no reason to want to skip anything at any point. There's merit to that. With MAYBE the slight exception of "Waveform," there's nothing that isn't perfect here. Add a few more songs, and maybe the sincere rustic emo of it all starts to grate. But we're in and out in a hair over a half hour. Play it on repeat.
I'll empathize again that the songs, individually, are amazing, life-affirming, unimpeachable, perfect in almost every measurable way. If you aren't a Pinegrove fan, but for some reason you are still reading this, then my dropping of so many superlatives may cause you to roll your eyes. I get it. Maybe you are the type of person to keep your emotions below the surface. Totally understandable. But if you are the type of person to wear those emotions on your sleeve, then this is your album.
Here's another way to put it, while I'm on the subject. Pinegrove is the band for you if you were way into the emo pop-punk bands of our youth, but as you get older, and feel like you require something quote "mature" unquote, then Pinegrove might just scratch that itch. It's not a one-to-one comparison between Pinegrove and, for example, Saves the Day, though they are cut from the same cloth. It's just that Saves the Day was cut from synthetic cloth in a studio (nothing wrong with that at all, just saying), whereas Pinegrove cuts that cloth from some organic sheep farm in Lancaster, PA. I already used "rustic" as an adjective, but let's use it again here. This is rustic emo. Either you like it or you don't.
Like all good emo bands, you're supposed to hear all these lyrics and think: holy shit I can relate to all this. And yeah, man, I totally can. And I'm not just saying that because there's been at least four dozen times in the past three years where I was screaming these fucking lyrics at the top of my lungs while driving down a highway.
The main gist of Cardinal, as I see it, is that it attempts to capture those confusing feelings one feels in between youth and adulthood. This isn't a unique emotion to capture, but Pinegrove does so effortlessly and enjoyably. Take album closer "New Friends," in which the protagonist contemplates what it means when you feel like you might not have any friends anymore. Not that I honestly feel like I don't have friends, because I am lucky enough to have a decent amount of friends whom I love, but when it's Friday night and everyone is busy and that FB post on your private friend group goes uncommented on, then yeah, sometimes I wildly feel like maybe I don't have any friends. It's a niche emotion that Pinegrove somehow gets to the core of.
Or, like, the feelings could even be less specific than that. Take album highlight "Cadmium." The chorus drops references to the idea of structuralism, i.e. that "saying what it is" may not be possible in the context of a fluid relationship. Heady stuff, but what gets me, on top of the fact that it's country-emo that is making me think about these philosophical terms, is the fact that the lines that make you consider them ("It tends to sublimate away") are lines that are really, really empathized by the band. Like, the cymbals and guitars and bass are all crashing down, on a down beat, on every single syllable of the word "sublimate," and the tempo slows down briefly during that line too. Shit like that hits me in the gut.
Maybe this really gets to the heart of the issue, that being that Evan Stephens Hall sings in such a way that really tugs at the heartstrings, just by his cadence and elongated pronunciations. There's the unhinged yawlp of "Montclair and elsewhere!!" on "Visiting." Or how about the resigned sigh of "I'll go..." on "Waveform," probably the most succinct way of expressing regret over using someone else as an object of art (songwriting, blogging, whatever). From the crashing climax of "Size of the Moon" to the wordy, soft-spoken pain of "Aphasia," Hall is able to express emotions that you already know, even if you might need a dictionary to get exactly what he's saying.
And then there's a the lyric on "New Friends" that goes, "I resolve to make new friends / I liked my old ones / but I fucked up, so I'll start again." Unfortunately, that lyric becomes prescient when you consider where Pinegrove stands as a band currently. I've already written at length about it in a previously blog post, but it's important enough that it needs to be addressed when discussing Cardinal as well, even if you think that my discussing it further could be considered a form of virtue signaling.
So yeah, if you're down with Pinegrove, than you know that Pinegrove got roped up in the whole Me Too thing. There's was an allegation that frontman Evan Stephens Hall sexually coerced a female fan. Speaking as someone who won't even listen to "I Want You Back" anymore, you know that I take this shit seriously. I'm not brushing anything under the rug, so to speak. If Hall made a woman hurt in some way, than he should pay the price.
But Pinegrove is atypical in this regard—and this is the way I see it, after much reflection—in that they actually paid the price for the stated crime, and have worked hard—again, as far as I can tell—to make up for their shitty past. Like, if some inbred MRA douchebag asks the hypothetical "what exactly should these men accused have to do?!" then I guess my answer is now "Pinegrove." Hall worked through a mediator to make sure the needs and desires of the victim were honored. The anonymous woman who made the accusation wished for Pinegrove to step away from the (small indie) spotlight for a while, and to only come back when she was comfortable with that.
And that's what they did! You didn't hear shit for a year, and they only released a long-in-the-can album Skylight after it was okay with the victim, and even then they donated all proceeds from that album to charity. And Hall, in coming back from exile, has spoken humbly and—once again, from what I can tell—honestly about believing women when they are brave enough to speak about that kind of stuff.
None of this has to do with Cardinal specifically, but it's important to talk about, in my mind, when discussing this album, because there was a little bit of time when I didn't feel comfortable supporting Pinegrove. And even now, after the controversy (in my mind, anyway) has been settled, I still kind of hold the band at arm's length. Like, I'll sing the praises of Cardinal (and literally just did, and am still doing), but I'm not going to go to see Pinegrove in concert. I had tickets to the Pinegrove concert in December 2017, before the shit hit the fans, and I have no doubt that, had Evan Stephens Hall not done whatever shitty thing he did with that female fan, that we would've gone to that concert and it would've been one of the best concerts I've ever been to. But Hall did coerce a fan, and so the concert was cancelled, and so I struggled with what to do with one of my favorite albums of all time.
And let there be no mistake: Cardinal is one of my favorite albums of all time. You can't put the controversy aside. The regrettable and recompensed fuckery of the lead singer is intimately wrapped up in my love for this album. It's an album that accepts its dark background, and it transcends. As it stands now, there is no victim out there implying that I should not like this album. If someone steps up, I will renounce Pinegrove, no matter how much this album is ingrained in my soul at this point.
And that would be really tough, because Cardinal... shit man, this album just speaks to some really intimate truths within me. I feel such a deep connection to this album. And who knows—as shitty as the whole situation was, and as much as Pinegrove deserved to go away for a while, maybe the fact that Evan Stephens Hall is a hugely flawed but ultimately well-meaning person means that I grow even closer to this album, because I too am hugely flawed, and yet try to mean well.
We all grapple with our propensity to be shitty human beings. Perhaps listening to Cardinal around one thousand times is just one part of trying to understand the struggle.
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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Cadmium"
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Stray Observations
I can't really think of another instance in the '10s in which I was so clearly wrong about my favorite album of a particular year. Car Seat Headrest's Teens of Denial was my favorite album by the time December of that year rolled around, there's no doubt. But after 2016, it never really got past that peak. Cardinal kept growing, and growing, and here we are.
Christ, there are so many smaller moments on this album that stick with me that I didn't get around to in the review (imagine if I didn't have to waste so much time bending over backwards to apologize for this band). Like: when he stretches out the S-sound ("thissssss") in "Cadmium."
You may have been able to garner from how many times I have mentioned it, but "Cadmium" will definitely show up on the decade's top songs list in a few months. Though, as good as it is, I'd say that it only just narrowly beats "Aphasia." It's that type of album.
ALBUM COVER: You can read into it what you want to (that the red of the squares is a reference to the color of the bird in the album's title, or the blood in "Waveform"; that one square is the words that Pinegrove sings, and the second square showing those words flying to the audience), but really, it looks like Hall just likes simple shapes and colors. What's more interesting to me what this interlocking square art came to mean for people due to their connection to this intimate album, i.e. plenty of people got this tattooed on them. Tattoos are never a good idea! Things change! What if this guy was an actual rapist instead of an apologetic sexual coercer!?
I hate to sound in any way snobbish, but this album represents the most recent great find for me in reading "Best Albums of 'XX So Far" summer lists. I think after 2016, I was so heavily into keeping up with music that these lists tend to be rehashing for me.
I spent a lot of time in the summer of 2017 listening to Pinegrove's Tiny Desk Concert.
That's Nandi Rose Plunkett on some of the tracks and featured prominently in that Tiny Desk Concert. She currently releases solo music under the moniker Half Waif, and she isn't in Pinegrove anymore. I haven't really been able to get into Half Waif (besides a very good, lo-fi video featuring Julien Baker dancing around), but I support the artist and hope she succeeds. It doesn't sound like she holds any ill-will toward Hall or Pinegrove in general, which should speak more to the sincerity of Hall's apologies than a thousand PoYB posts ever could.
I had a discussion with Pam and a couple friends last weekend about that certain instinctual and ultimate selfish reaction that people can have to the Me Too stuff. E.g., when I saw the headline that Pinegrove had cancelled their tour due to sexual coercion accusations, my first reaction was "FUCK GODDAMN IT, I was excited to go to that concert!" It's a shitty and selfish initial reaction. The first thought should always be about the safety of the victim. But I think this is all a conversation for a different blog post, we're already going way over a word count that any reasonable person would possibly read.
I'm thinking maybe this falls #10 all time for me. I need more time to think about it.
