Album of the Week: twentyeleven

The idea is to go one level deeper. Instead of having the members of Record Club pick the Album of the Week, let's find people who were merely mentioned in a previous Record Club album review, and let's have them pick the Album of the Week.

Welcome to Week 9 of Two Degrees to Record Club. The penultimate week! Thanks so much to all those who have chosen our album so far. And my deepest apologies to all those who were eligible, but did not get to pick an album this time around, including: Steph Curry, Bill Hader, William Barr and Robert Mueller, Ross Geller, Adrien Brody, Sara's seventh-grade crush, Buffalo Bill, David and his bully sister, Rob Thomas, Malcolm Gladwell, Damon Wayans and David Alan Grier, Bob Newhart, Nathan Fielder, Cousin Pete, the McGillin's karaoke DJ, Nick Foles, basketball player and La Salle Friend Mike Scott, Joe's now-sober friend, Janeane Garofalo, Kevin Malone, Kevin Malone, Randy Mosher, Pam's college music professor, John Waters, Cory Booker, Bob Odenkirk, Mark Badstubner, Gilson's ex, Matt Cord, Rachel Cargle and Dr. Angela Davis, Uncle Pat, Steve Hyden, Newton M. Minnow, Cousins A.J. and Emily, one of the cool middle school girls who had boobs, Zach Braff, Zach Braff, Zach Braff, Zach Braff AND Natalie Portman, Ryan Stiles and Michael McDonald and Sting and Donald Faison and Paul Feig, Colleen Lapowski or Katie McC*** or Katie R****** or Jamie R***** or maybe Steph L****, Curt Schilling and Colin Kaepernick, Danica McKellar, Macauley Culkin and Mitch McConnell, the irritating freshman guitar player, Tyra Banks, Maya neé Cyrus the dog, Shia LeBeouf and Ryan Gosling, the rapist priest, Jojo Siwa, Bill Nighy, David Foster Wallace, Brian McG*****, Frank Sabotka, Rachel's ninth-grade teacher Ms. Johnson, Rachel's best friend, Brian Littrell, anonymous but very real friend, Chuck Eddy, Aunt Sharon and Uncle Ed, grade school country girl, Brit's ex, Nate's young ex-coworker, Pat's Cheeto-eating stripper, Horse Girl, Rebecca Black, Nick Hornby, Brian or Ryan or Michael, Bill O'Reilly, Sam's mother-in-law, Chris Serpentine, Geena Davis, Liam Neeson, Sara's other ex-crush, Toms River David, Loretta, Pat Beverly, Mister John, various Masque chicks, Rachel's high school bullies, Nicholas Cage, and Allison's high school crush. Maybe next time!

Feel free to check out the archives and the playlist, but otherwise, read on to find out where this very, very dumb journey goes next.

WEEK 137 — September 12-18, 2021

What we're listening to this week:

ALBUM: twentyeleven

ARTIST: Sophistafunk

WHO "PICKED" THE ALBUM: Guy Fieri

THE REVIEW HE WAS FEATURED IN: Drew P.'s A Holly Dolly Christmas review

HOW WE GOT HERE: It's been pretty interesting to track the rehabilitation of Guy Fieri's image over the last decade or so. I remember the audible groan emitted from the throats of Port Richmond inhabitants when it was rumored that Fieri opening up a bar/restaurant on Somerset Street (never ended up happening), but at this point, it's like, damn, I could really go for a trash can full of nachos right now.

There's been no shortage of articles about Guy Fieri in the past few years, and the positive press went into overdrive during the pandemic. Charities, a positive attitude, and comfort food all go a long way.

But because of everything written about Guy, it also wasn't too difficult to google around and find out his musical tastes. There was a decent amount to choose from here—it's possible that Guy Fieri is one of those people who "listens to everything," though I'll refrain from framing that negatively (this time only).

However, there was one band in particular that Guy seems to have a particular affinity for. In a 2013 Diners, Drive-ins and Dives episode, a Syracuse waffle restaurant is featured—Funk 'n' Waffles, whose owner is also the frontman of a funk band called Sophistafunk. Apparently Guy liked their music so much that he's kept in touch, and even had this band write the theme song to his other show, Guy's Grocery Games. They are still collaborating.

Anyways, I have no fucking clue if we can trust Fieri's music recommendations in the same way that we can trust his food recommendations. I have never heard of Sophistafunk, and even with the Guy signature of approval, I would probably never listen to them were it not for Record Club. But it's Two Degrees of Record Club this week, and Guy likes this band, so let's do it.

WILL GUY FIERI WRITE A REVIEW: Probably not. Apparently Guy Fieri makes very conscious efforts to stay out of politics, and might take issue with being involved with a blog that is willing to make a case for ACAB and for socialism and so on and so on.

ALBUM RELEASED: July 2, 2011

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: I mean... I assume funk? Am I going to have to eat my words on this one?

TRACKLIST:

1. Listen Up
2. Wil' Out
3. Tell My Baby
4. Gimme Some Space
5. Intimate Affair
6. Lyrical Guide
7. Feels So Good
8. Take the Planet Back
9. The Get Down
10. Colors v2
11. Same Mistakes
12. Curtains

LENGTH: 51:37

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: Bandcamp

READING SOME SHIT: It's a double-edged sword, being this closely associated with Guy Fieri, isn't it? On one hand, no one outside of Syracuse would have ever heard of this band were it not for our frost-tipped friend. On the other hand, there are zero articles or interviews online with Sophistafunk that don't mention Guy Fieri. 

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: We very often get album titles with all capital letters, but this is only the second album with no capital letters in the title, after diana. Other than that? I dunno, man. Without having heard a single second of Sophistafunk yet, I'm already getting Vulfpeck vibes. But we'll see!

Happy listening, Guy Fieri! Have a great week!

A Year of Blind Spots: Too-Rye-Ay

Have you ever heard the term "blue-eyed soul"? It's a genre tag that has always made me a little uncomfortable, but hopefully you'll allow me to ignore the racial politics of the phrase for today only. It refers to soul music made by white people. Say what you will about it, but that's what it literally means for those who use the term. Dexys Midnight Runners operate under that genre umbrella—they are white men, and they make soul music.

You probably know this band, because everyone knows their biggest hit—"Come On Eileen," which is a sincere all-timer of a fucking jam. I don't even need to talk about the song too much; to describe it would be like describing a slice of pizza. Something can be so good and yet so ubiquitous that it could almost become boring if you stare at it too long.

But my point is that you may or may not get a sense of what Dexys Midnight Runners is all about if you are just familiar with that one (fantastic) song, because in that one song, the other genre that DMR ropes in—Celtic folk—tends to overwhelm. Whereas, on the rest of Too-Rye-Ay, the balance is tilted in the opposite direction: the soul overwhelms the Celtic folk.

If this band was actually from Ireland—something I assumed until I actually looked it up this week, and found out they are from Birmingham, England—then I would have the perfect phrase for this music: "green-eyed soul." But they aren't Irish. So much for that.

Nevertheless, as a fan of sweaty soul music, no matter who makes it, I found myself quickly growing attached to Dexys' deep cuts. You'd never know it from "Come On Eileen," but this is a band that could be playing the 1 AM slot at some dive bar down the shore. I love that kind of shit.

The barometer for whether you too might also like this album is the following: Does the idea of Dexys Midnight Runners doing a mostly faithful cover of "Jackie Wilson Said" sound appealing to you? If so, you're gonna love this shit just as much as I do. But if you are the type of person who tends to hold soul music at arm's length, regardless of what the color of the artist's eyes is, then maybe you should just stay content with "Come On Eileen" and thank your lord that that's enough.

A Picture of Nectar, Nolan

I feel obliged to write a review for this album in honor of my neighbors who will be moving this year. Having recently transplanted from Philly to Massachusetts, on the outskirts of the Bernie Bro world of Somerville, I found myself with new upstairs neighbors which can always be a roll of the dice. Now they have two sub-two-year-old children, they are delightful people, and by their own admission, are huge Phishheads. When we moved in, we sat down for a meet and greet over beers. One of the first things they mentioned was their love for Phish. In later hangouts, tears were shed over the band getting back together post (mid) COVID. It's beautiful. Just last week, they were up at 10 PM with their newborn live streaming a show from Denver. Start 'em young. 

I've listened to one Phish song prior to this. "Farmhouse." #1 on Spotify. That's it. But this album was not what I expected. I didn't think it was groovy or funky. It was just... weird. Not bad. Just weird. I guess that really makes them a true jam band. Play whatever, and make it sound enough like well-thought-out music that people will like it. I guess Phish is an experience? I don’t know. "Guelph Papyrus" was my favorite song, but I found myself pretty lost in the album.

P.S. Texted my neighbor that I was doing a review and here's his response:

"Here's your first piece of album trivia. Their 1st residency in the mid-eighties was at a college bar in Burlington Vermont called Nectar's (owned and managed by a guy need Nectar). The album cover has a picture of his face transposed over an Orange or something.

I have it on vinyl if you want to go deep with your review”

Mind you this response was within two minutes.

Great neighbors, good people. I’m probably not listening to much more Phish, but when "Farmhouse" comes on, I'll think of them for sure.

A Picture of Nectar, Sunny

Listening to this album this week I am mostly hit by its breadth. The songs range dramatically in genre from rock, classic rock, psyche rock, jazz, latin, folk, rag-time piano standard, etc. The lyrics range from insightful to comically inane. Where the credit is due is that all the breadth doesn't feel habberdash; it feels composed and consistent with their sound while maintaining a consistent depth of craft.

Such breadth feels like raw building blocks for the live experience. After all, that's what Phish is mostly about right, the live experience? This is perhaps the challenge reviewing any jam band album (see Before These Crowded Streets), but here there’s a real sense of building tools to improvise on stage with rock, latin, jazz, rag-time, etc., live and large. 

I went to a Phish concert, once. An over-stressed NYC Yuppie friend of mine had just quit his Yuppie job, and he was in a long soul searching / burn-out phase. He purchased four tickets to the 12/28/18 MSG concert and invited three friends: a shell-shocked ex-Marine, a timid IT professional, and myself. The grouping couldn’t be more cliché.

Weeks leading up, whenever I'd tell heads about the concert they'd just put on a small sly smile and wish me a good time. So, I figured the concert was special, but no one would explain why or how. Stepping into MSG felt pretty typical.

We were in the pit with the band set up in front of us. There's an enormous snaking light machine above them, dormant now, but looming. Above and around us were all the normal stadium seats; rows and rows of people trickling in. My friends and I are Incredibly Awake. Most of the pit is filled with excited looking 30- to 50-year-old-ish folks chatting and waiting. It is around 8:15 with no sign of the band. It is unclear when exactly the show will start. I notice some people sitting on the ground, odd, I think.

Fashionably late after 9:00 Phish comes onto the stage, promptly gets into place, and starts playing. I thought I knew a few Phish songs and had tried to listen to some of their newer albums, but I was immediately lost. It didn’t really matter. The crowd erupted instantly, cheering and whooping as the music went.

The next few hours would be a blur. With lights dimmed the pit quickly filled with vape pens. A thick fog envelops us, all at once sweaty and fruity. Songs easily run five, eight, fourteen minutes. I am often unclear when if one song ended or another begun. The light machine has come alive and twists and turns and shines in complex patterns at various frequencies. I realize now it is actually a Medusa and staring at it will petrify you for some time. My friends and I are still Incredibly Awake and the secondhand fog brings a second wind.

My friend points to the stadium seats, where people are dancing—gyrating—in unprecedented togetherness. The closest analogy is the Wave at a sporting event but tighter. My friend calls it the "white person bob." There is an intermission. People are sitting again, now I know why. After some ten to fifteen minutes the band returns with a big piano solo number. I hear whispers of "classically trained," voiced unprompted from old heads to new dates, etc. The crowd-above again is together but now in transfixed hypnosis. They are watching Amadeus. After the piece, the band jumps together, and the crowd in again. Somehow they are more Awake, the pit a veritable mosh at this point. The stadium-average BAC of ethanol and cannabinoids and empathogens are higher than normal, and you can see people start and end relationships right there, often in less than the time of one song. There is another break, shorter, followed by encore. "Bouncing Around the Room," probably the one Phish song I know pretty well, is played for five minutes. Anyone who still had their mind at this point has lost it. They play one more song and hit a last chord right at 11:59:59, a very cool effect that will be actually cool in three days, and today it’s fine.

We are Incredibly Awake and Incredibly Tired. We stumble out of the venue with hundreds of others. There are sounds of balloons filling with Nox, and degenerates scramble away from the scene like rats after a planned implosion. It suddenly strikes me we're in NYC. Of course we always had been, but Phish and its fans have a symbiotic relationship to recreate a festival experience wherever they go. Little bubbles of extradimensional space form and disappear in a few hours. The unique part is that the band and most of the people in that arena are going to do it again, three more times, and spend New Year's Eve there.

I think it harkens to some old ideas that almost anything, done well, with enough dedication and craft and heart, is super engrossing. A Picture of Nectar is pretty good because of who made it, even if they're talking about hormone collectors or tweezers/fweezers or taking care of your shoes. Build a community around that, and I can understand how the engine has been running for decades.

I am Insanely tired and Incredibly Awake still. We go to get Pierogi.

P.S. The real connections of Bernie, Phish, and VT is Ben and Jerry’s. They also seem to like jam bands. Here’s the real review:

Cherry Garcia — 5/5 — Mastapeece, absolute legend. Cherries on cherries on chocolate, dialed into the ideal ratios. Expert pun. All assuming you like cherries, of course.

Phish Food — 3.5/5 — A solid workhorse. Something you could eat for four days in a row including NYE. Generally you could imagine getting this from another mfg, but the fudge fish are a nice touch.

Bernie’s Yearning / Bernie’s Back — ??/5 — Unfortunately did not have a chance to sample, another tragedy of early 2020

Dave Matthews Band One Sweet Whirled — 3/5 — Introduced post 9/11, the flavor only lasted two years. Re-introduced under a new name ("pulling an Xfinity" as we say) "One Sweet World" was brought to market in 2017. It’s alright; I’m not a big coffee guy. Maybe coffee for a world peace thing is on the nose? I dunno.

A Picture of Nectar, Brian

Awesome, so right off the bat, the album starts and lets you know it's going to be annoying. Kazoo clown bubble machine music. I think I've seen Phish? I think I've heard this album? As I am on record previously stating, the closest I got to regularly liking Phish was when I was fourteen and didn't smoke weed yet. I have stronger associations with the band's fans than I do their music because they all seem mostly fine and easy to get along with and they're very fun/funny to laugh at/with. I'm not sure if I can truly call myself a full ~Phan~ but I have nothing against them. And like any jam band, seeing 'em live is where it's at man! So I can understand why any of these four-minute songs could easily be turned into four hours, and I also get that it's fun to dance around with hot hippies as the iTunes visualizer is turned up to 10,000 in the middle of Madison Square Garden. All in all, it makes a lot of sense Phish is from Vermont (best state) and if it's good enough for Bernie it's good enough for me. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 5 PUKES OUTTA PHIVE P PHOR PHISH.

A Picture of Nectar, Rachel S.

You can't make me!

A Picture of Nectar, Melissa

Phish... why you so cool? Is what I thought listening to "Eliza," off the A Picture of Nectar album, but then I also thought "Is this some coffee shop nonsense?" And both answers can be accurate at the same time.

Other questions I had were would this album hit different if I were high? Absolutely. Would this be more fun live? Yes? I think. Man, would I love to be at this concert with friends, sipping a beer I've convinced a stranger to give me (or stolen... I have a problem, ok?!) and moving my body in a way that is not quite dancing, but not quite movement. Not quite on beat either. You know that kind of nodding, bobbing, arms at your sides rocking that if you go too hard you look too stoned and/or too excited to be at the coffee shop (take it as you will). That’s a lot of this music to me—an older lady confidently dancing at a concert, but she's just a little off and definitely named Gail. 

This album has a lot happening. So much so that when an ad for Blue Moon popped on, I thought the song playing was still Phish. When "Poor Heart" played I thought I'd gotten lost in Lonesome Flats land in Trolls World Tour—am I right? Where my parents at? Up top (I just high-fived myself... you're welcome. Also, I have a problem, ok!!)

I don’t think I have the music vocabulary to describe this album. Some of it sounds like Chicago soft rock had a baby with the musical Jesus Christ Superstar (what, I love musicals... I have a problem ok?!). Some of it sounds like an ad for Blue Moon and Billy Joel's love child. Either way, I’m going to meditate to "Faht" and call it a day. 

A Picture of Nectar, Joe

Observations through a haze of smoke.

It would be weird if we didn't talk about the Phishheads, right? Phish is one of those bands that attracts a cultish fanbase, one that has sustained the band for almost four decades now. There are no Phishheads without Phish, but there is no Phish without the Phishheads.

It's irresponsible to make assumptions about large groups of people, but when have I ever been responsible on Puke on Your Birthday? Making assumptions can be fun when it's for innocuous reasons. And throw all the typical assumptions about Phishheads out the window, because that's boring—that they are stoners, loser, deadbeats, hippies, all that stuff. That's low-hanging fruit.

How should I put this positively? Okay, so there's music that gets you somewhere, that moves you in some significant way. Phish isn't that. A Picture of Nectar is music that is content to stay exactly where it is. All of it is certifiably Phish, clearly, and their inability (or more likely their unwillingness) to stretch past what is reasonable for this band is both restricting and comforting.

To put it another way: there's an anecdote about the Velvet Underground that goes like this: only 2,000 people bought The Velvet Underground and Nico when it first came out, but every single one of those 2,000 people started a band. Phish is the opposite. 20 million people have bought a ticket to a Phish concert, but not a single person has started a band.

Phish isn't a band that inspires to create. They are a band that asks you to lock into a sense of stasis. The breathtaking amount of genre-hopping is really a ruse—relax, be exactly where you are right now. Mindfulness: see this three-minute jazz interlude? If you concentrate really hard on it, then all external factors melt away.

I am choosing to see all this through the most optimistic lens possible. Sometimes it's nice to be content exactly where you are. It's comforting. In order to be a Phishhead, then, you must be the type of person who constantly lives in the present, who chooses to accept your surroundings, and even thrive there. I respect that. As someone who has trouble checking his anxieties at the door, there's something admirable about being able to just live in the goddamn moment, and using Phish to stay in that moment, stay grounded in some fashion.

On the other end of the rope is Phish, who somehow create a sound that fits perfectly into that context as well. Like I said, there is an insane variety of music on A Picture of Nectar. I'll be honest, I've never listened to a single motherfucking second of any Phish song before this week, so I was taken aback by how broad the sound was, and by how many seemingly disparate sounds they were able to pull under the large tent of whatever "jam band" means.

And I'll go ahead and say it—if you had (or have always had) a problem with this music, then you are most likely the type of person who struggles to live in the present (or is unwilling to use psychedelic drugs to get there, but that's a whole different kettle of phish). The world that we live in hits us with two millions stimuli per second, all of it begging for our attention, so if it feels impossible to "live in the present," then that's normal. It's probably also normal to feel some level of disdain toward those who are able to get there.

I struggle with it myself. (For example, I didn't have time to write this until Thursday morning, and even then, I had to wake up at 4 AM to do it, and even then, I'm writing it over the wails of two crying children during a they-need-to-just-cry-it-out session.) But I'll say that giving myself over completely to A Picture of Nectar helped in a measurable way. It gave me a taste of what it was like, to be a Phishhead, to understand what this band can do for you.

This isn't even the first time we've considered a fan base of a particular band featured in Record Club. Even in the past couple months, I've mulled over what it means to be a fan of such dissimilar artists as Slipknot and Dave Matthews Band. Phish is unique in this regard, though. Slipknot, to me, seemed like an outlet for some sort of aggression (I mean that in the best possible way). DMB was more of a status symbol (the old joke—Q: How can you tell if someone is a fan of Dave Matthews Band? A: Don't worry, they'll tell you). But Phish? The band and its fans don't exist for any other reason than to just be.

That really is the most interesting thing about this album, to me—its fans and how they interact with the band that created it. But that's also not to say that this is my favorite thing about A Picture of Nectar. My favorite thing is the tunes themselves. The music is commendable, and proficient, and mostly really fun in a slightly corny way. For that alone, it gets high marks. But it also never pushes me to any higher plane. It never gives me chills.

My argument today is that I think this is the whole point, right? That's not what Phish is designed to do, and that's not what their true fans are even looking for. Phishheads just want something to be, to exist, something to project these feelings of calm and contentment onto. Even just brushing alongside that this week gave me my own sense of calm. I liked it.

I don't know if I could live here, but it was definitely nice to visit for a little bit. Alrighty, gotta get back to hitting the books. So long, and thanks for all the Phish.

GRADE: 4 pukes out of 5

The Villain of Puke on Your Birthday

I had to go back to the '80s to find a picture of Charlie smiling

The death of Charlie Watts a couple weeks ago was pretty impactful for Puke on Your Birthday, because he was closest thing we had to a "villain" character on the blog. That's why I felt the need to rush a blog post within the hour that the news broke, even though in retrospect it feels a millimeter on the side of disrespectful. I've made my supposed dislike of Charlie Watts pretty clear over the past few years, and so I thought it was important to grapple with the fact that a so-called nemesis was no longer with us, and the complicated feelings one has when something like that happens.

I can also see how such an in-joke might seem profane and sacrilegious to passersby visiting the blog for the first time in a while. If you aren't familiar with the running gag that I hated Charlie Watts for increasingly inconsequential reasons, then reading about how he "sucks ass" on the same day that he passed away might make me seem like the worst person in the world.

And maybe I am! I got that sense when an anonymous person commented on the blog post: "wow, joe." Her/his cutting brevity makes me think that maybe I have been misunderstood, or maybe s/he is rightly pointing out that the post was mean-spirited. I got incredibly defensive when I saw that someone had anonymously commented on the post, which I have a history of doing, but also I was completely ready to own up to anything I did wrong, if that were the case. Anonymous (okay: Rusty Rucker) never responded, though, so that was that.

If it was weird to rush off to a blog to write some petty bullshit immediately after someone died, then I'll contest that it would've been even weirder if Puke on Your Birthday didn't comment on Charlie's death at all. What, I'm supposed to spend three years yapping about Charlie Watts and then not saying anything when he's dead? That doesn't ring true. If there really is a heaven and/or a hell, I truly believe that Charlie is up or down there, realizing that some no-name shit blog had a tag entitled "Charlie Watts Sucks Ass," and is laughing his ass off, probably harder than he ever has in his life (since the bar is not that high).

See, that final dig should reveal how much is actually at stake here: nothing. The Charlie Watts on Puke on Your Birthday is a character, and any wisecracks directed toward him were in a joking matter. It goes beyond punching up; Charlie's stature is so much taller than my own that not even Stretch Armstrong could land that punch. My expressed opinions are based on true opinions—yes, I do think that Charlie Watts is overrated as a drummer, and yes, I do think that being a stiff unpleasant asshole behind the drum kit is not something to be celebrated—but when I say that I want to beat up Charlie Watts, that's using exaggeration for effect. It's supposed to be funny, because you're not actually supposed to think that I would ever try to beat up Charlie Watts.

The fact that I need to explain this means it was a bad joke (and explaining it only makes it worse), so I'll take the blame in that regard. But I don't take back anything I've ever said about Charlie Watts, because the tongue was mostly in cheek. I get why that might not have come through in my obituary for him. If you just clicked on a Twitter link because you were curious, then maybe you thought I was a monster. I took down the Twitter link; maybe it also seemed like I was promoting my blog on the back of someone's death? I don't know, man. It's all pretty complicated. It's at least twenty times as complicated as Charlie Watts' drumming.

No, see... I gotta stop doing that. The man is passed away. I can't take any more cracks at him, that would be wrong. Charlie Watts is officially retired as the villain of Puke on Your Birthday.

That leaves us with a different problem, though: the space Charlie Watts vacated now leaves a vacuum where the Puke on Your Birthday Villain should be. If we can't use Charlie Watts as the whipping boy on this blog, then who could possibly fill his spot?

I don't know if there is an easy answer to this, because Charlie filled such a unique roll in music history and pop culture.

For one, he was, by all accounts, very good at his job. His job was something I am intimately familiar with for multiple reasons (music is a current hobby, drumming is a former hobby). I was in the 0.01% in terms of having a negative opinion about him, which checked one box for me (having opposing opinions is cool), but also my opinion wasn't just for the sake of my joy in arguing. I also really believed that Charlie Watts was overrated, and had x, y, and z reasons in believing so. However, those reasons were still, in the general scope of things, pretty unimportant, i.e. Charlie Watts was not a criminal, sex abuser, anything like that. He just seemed generally stuck-up and unpleasant, and there aren't many celebrities or musicians that are able to thread that needle. It's usually either "he's a good guy," or "he should never work again," and to have a guy for whom it was just like "he seems like a deeply unpleasant person and I never would actually want to grab a beer with him" was very strange and, honestly, make it even more off-putting to think about him.

Okay, so who could possibly fill these shoes on the blog? I could only come up with three people who would even come close. There aren't many celebrities that I regularly diss on here (and "regular" meaning "more than once").

Post Malone was the person I thought of first. He's been brought up in a negative light plenty of times over the years, not even including his week of Record Club. He is still my go-to example of hookless, unpleasant modern pop music. But that's the difference between him and Charlie Watts—my issues with Posty stop at his music. I have zero evidence stating that Post Malone is anything but a genial person, extremely fun to be around, with a winning deadpan personality, and self-deprecating when the time calls for it (remember when his fans wanted him on Queer Eye?). Post Malone would laugh a lot if he read the harsh criticisms I throw his way on the blog. Even though I joked above about Charlie laughing in hell, if he were still on earth and read Puke on Your Birthday, he would take it waaaay too seriously. So Post Malone is not a villain. If his music were more my speed, he might even be the hero.

 

There's also Jimmy Fallon, but as we discussed last week, the man has been revealed to be more than just a pest at this point. When you're facilitating child abuse, then the fun and games immediately cease. In fact, this is one of those case when I am less inclined to even mention him on the blog, now that shit is really serious, and he is exposed as a true menace. Things were a lot better when he was just an annoying turd! Charlie Watts sucks ass, but he's never, ever, ever done anything like that (hopefully!).

Finally, I guess Bill Murray could be up for debate. I feel like he's been mentioned a lot fewer times than Watts, Malone, and Fallon, but there's still multiple instances of me expressing my "humorous" disdain for him. There's evidence that he's not really that great of a person in real life, but it's just run of the mill asshole stuff, i.e. nothing criminal, but also nothing that is so outrageous that it becomes funny. Watts had a lot of the latter. Also, I feel the opposite about Bill Murray's acting than I do Charlie Watts' drumming. Both are average at best at their chosen craft, but Murray's performance could be elevated to great heights with the right director, script, production, whatever, whereas Charlie did nothing but drag the Stones down.

I can't think of anyone else who could fill Charlie's shoes here on Puke on Your Birthday. Maybe it's better that we don't have a villain at all. Maybe it's better if we try to spread peace and love instead of spreading disdain for those who may or may not deserve it. Maybe all of this is just taking the blog way too seriously. I'm gonna guess it's that last option.

Never Seen It, #58 of 200: Erin Brockovich

I have a list of 200 movies I've never seen before, and I'm going through them in alphabetical order. Here's the next one.

Erin Brockovich

2000

Steven Soderbergh

We watched Annette, the new Adam Driver flick, a couple nights after watching Erin Brockovich. This isn't an Annette review—I wouldn't even know where the fuck to begin—but I think it was interesting watching back-to-back with today's NSI movie. Annette's main theme (I think?!) is exploitation, as the back half traces Baby Annette's journey from exploited to free of the metaphorical chains her father locked her in (and also, she's a puppet... it's a whole thing). Which is a good theme! Always something to chew on.

But comparing it to Erin Brokovich, I just find the latter so goddamn refreshing. Here we have our titular lead character, who from Minute 0 to Minute 130 is fully in control of her own destiny. External forces try to shape Brokovich, for sure, but through determination, grit, charm, sass, and so on, she remains true to herself.

I guess that makes the movie sound a little generic! Sorry! It's really not! At least not in my view. I think I was just impressed with what kind of movie it ended up being. I was under the extremely misguided impression that this was going to be a romantic comedy, but what I ended up seeing was a David/Goliath story of a woman with no law degree who rallied a town around a cause, and won. For real, it was just plain exciting to not only see the "big guys" be toppled, but even more so it was exciting to see in real time someone find their niche, or their place in this world based on their particular set of skills. 

It's great watching an underdog story, but it's also fun watching someone who is good at something clean up at that thing. Erin Brokovich somehow combined the two effortlessly. Good movie.

GRADE: 4.5 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: There are movies that we can start while Willow is still awake, but Eyes Wide Shut is probably not going to be one of them.

Top Five Tuesday: Condiments

Top Five Condiments

5. Bleu cheese — absolutely essential if I'm eating anything already flavored with buffalo sauce (sandwich shops in Philly have about a 40% success rate in remembering to include my side of bleu cheese when I order a buffalo chicken cheesesteak)

4. Sugar-free Heinz ketchup —would be weird if I didn't include ketchup on this list; would be weird if I committed to liking regular ketchup so much that I got diabetes

3. Dijon mustard — makes my turkey and cheese sandwiches feel fancy as FUCK

2. Ranch — I feel like discovering the joys of ranch is a major milestone in moving from your preteen to your teen years: "What, you're saying I can dunk literally any 2 AM drunk food into this salad dressing?!"

1. JL Kraft chipotle aioli

Here's a question that I've literally never thought of before today—is it in any way unethical for me to promote the product of such a megaconglomerate as Kraft? As with any corporation of its size (food or otherwise), uncovering immoral business practices is only a google away. Kraft is no exception. But then I'm also telling you that there has never been a condiment I like more than their chipotle aioli sauce, which will transfer money from my tiny pocket to their enormous pocket. Does taste justify purchase?

That's probably giving too much credit to Puke on Your Birthday, as if Kraft is going to be all of a sudden moving great numbers of packages based on my word alone. And it's not even like this is a recurring issue on the blog—have their really been that many products affixed with a © hawked in the past thirteen years? Maybe a Hamm's here, a... Hamm's Special Light there. But I'm mostly here to complain about shit. The times I tell you that there is a thing you can buy and it is the best tasting thing you can buy are few and far between.

Among many other reasons, this makes today's Top Five an egregiously bad one. I am telling you the truth when I say that this chipotle aioli sauce is fucking perfect, rich and creamy and smoky and tangy all in equal measures. I am also telling you the truth when I say do not buy this sauce. Buy local. If you really want to taste the best condiment of all time, come over my house, I'll cook you a pork roll sandwich dripping with this shit. Or better yet, go to your local Target and steal it.

Song of the Week: "Got to Be a Better Way Home"

All the previous songs of the week, summertime or otherwise, can be found HERE.

"Got to Be a Better Way Home"

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes

from Hearts of Stone

1978

You should know that Southside Johnny makes (made) the music that is perfect for summer. But you should also know how. Or why. Or something, I dunno, I'm a little tipsy, and it's the final day of summer, so let's see what's good.

My first thought was this: Sam Fran was right when he recommended Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes a few months ago, since I am a big Bruce Springsteen fan, and these guys are like an E Street Band in an alternate section of the multiverse. I'm not just saying that because they clearly idolize the '50s/'60s music that Bruce and the boys appreciate, since that could be true of many artists; I'm saying that because there are intimate ties between the Jukes and the ESB—Little Steven Van Zandt wrote every song on Hearts of Stone, and the Boss himself has co-writing credits on three tracks. This isn't quite a Time situation—Van Zandt was a part-time member of the Jukes, and it's not like anyone was doing anything so creatively out-there that we need to reevaluate Southside Johnny's role in it all.

But so my second thought is this: It's kind of funny how much every generation depends on the previous generation for cues on how to create the most fun music possible. It's like that cringey moment when I was dancing around the Martha and the Vandellas—their generation was doing the same thing. Little Steven and Southside Johnny and Bruce S. and all those guys were getting into music because they loved what they were hearing in the late 1950s, early 1960s, and so on. I appreciate the fact that these guys had some creative output that appeared to be a natural progression from the two-apostrophe "rock 'n' roll" of yesteryear. We can praise Bruce Springsteen as someone who took those impulses and brought them to a place that no one had ever gone before; we can also appreciate that he has much more simple, mammalian impulses, and that he added those into this very basic, fun, old-school party music. (I guess in this way, the Jukes are more like the Time than I originally thought—Van Zandt and Springsteen needed an outlet for their simplest impulses, and found it in the Jukes, especially after the E Street Band et al had moved past this type of music.)

And then my third thought is: How much of a hypocrite I am when I lambast the boomers for getting into bullshit like this? First, let me be clear—I fucking love Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, and me and my kids went fucking nuts when "Got to Be a Better Way Home" hits the kitchen speakers. But I also have this premonition that at some point, I'm going to be playing this song in front of my in-laws, and they are going to say something along the lines of "this is when music was actually good." Which makes me pissed in advance.

They pulled this card when Pam had the righteous balls to play The Velvet Underground & Nico during a game of Clue that we played up the Poconos a few weeks ago. My MIL and FIL were pretty quick to disregard this excellent music that was, in retrospect, extremely important in the long history of music. But also they were so quick to judge because they are the type of boomers who are gonna dismiss anything that doesn't sound like "their" music. (E.g. I was told to "turn down" the Bloc Party album we were listening to, and you can extrapolate from there.)

So okay, now I'm picturing a hypothetical scenario in which me and Pam and all four of our respective parents are drinking at some seashore bar where some cover band is playing, and now... I dunno, the Juliano Brothers or some other asshole anti-vaxxers?... are playing "Got to Be a Better Way Home." And just seeing that smug look on our parents' faces, how they think that this music is somehow superior just because their generation had time to appreciate it.

I don't think that this necessarily makes me appreciate Southside Johnny any less than I would otherwise. I'll admit that, if such a scenario as described in the previous paragraph actually took place, I would be right there, my dancing fueled by many $4 Miller Lite pints, mummer-stepping with the rest of the sweaty sunburned crowd. But I would also take stock in it later, and probably feel uncomfortable about it.

So I am absolutely holding Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes at arm's length. This is fun music, but it's not more than that. To put it bluntly—there's a reason that my generation reveres Bruce Springsteen, whereas Southside Johnny probably requires a Puke on Your Birthday blog post in order for anyone to have any idea who he is. That's because Bruce is looking forward, and Johnny is looking back. Nothing wrong with looking back, but if that's all you got, then that's pretty fucking pathetic—for both the artist and the boomers who like 'em.

Album of the Week: A Picture of Nectar

The idea is to go one level deeper. Instead of having the members of Record Club pick the Album of the Week, let's find people who were merely mentioned in a previous Record Club album review, and let's have them pick the Album of the Week.

 

Summer is over, baby! Back to school! Back to Record Club! Two Degrees of Record Club goes beyond Labor Day! For better or worse!!

(Sidenote: I searched thoroughly for a video of Duke Deuce performing yesterday at Made in America, but came up empty. Maybe someone reading this was there and can tell us how it was. WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUU)

 

Feel free to check out the archives and the playlist, but otherwise, read on to find out where this very, very dumb journey goes next.

WEEK 136 — September 5-11, 2021

What we're listening to this week:

ALBUM: A Picture of Nectar

ARTIST: Phish

WHO "PICKED" THE ALBUM: Bernie Sanders

THE REVIEW HE WAS FEATURED IN: Bernie's name has been invoked, by my count, five times in Record Club reviews, but the most important one is Brian's Brave Faces Everyone review.

HOW WE GOT HERE: The story begins like every other Brian McC***** story: Brian did not respond to my text. At one point, we were leaning toward him asking his dad about his favorite album of all time (after Brian wrote about his dad in his diana review). But after a couple weeks of not receiving any response, I pulled the trigger on a plan B.

(Brian did eventually respond, saying that his dad's favorite album of all time is probably James Taylor's In the Pocket, but by that time, I had already sold myself on the idea of Bernie Sanders. I promised Brian that I would review In the Pocket this week anyway. I will hopefully not break this promise, but we'll see.)

Anyway! Bernie Sanders. Obviously, I didn't ask him what his favorite music was directly, so I had to do some digging. I found two roads, and both of them lead to Phish.

First: Bernie Sanders is on record in calling Phish "one of the great bands in this country." Was this just politics and not a sincere stamp of approval for the vaunted jam band? Most assuredly. But he still said it!

Second: Bernie Sanders himself released an album at one point. 1987's We Shall Overcome mostly consists of folk music and narration from Sanders, and yes, choosing this album as the Album of the Week might have been crossing a line I'm not yet willing to cross. But We Shall Overcome was recorded at White Crow Studios in Burlington, VT, where Sanders was mayor at the time. The next notable album to be recorded there? Phish's A Picture of Nectar.

Let's all take a moment to appreciate the fact that Brian is a Bernie Bro, and not a trumper, or else we'd be reviewing a Kid Rock or Ted Nugent album this week.

 

WILL BERNIE SANDERS WRITE A REVIEW: He might, but either Joe Manchin will hold it hostage on the Senate floor because it's "not bipartisan enough," or the Supreme Court will strike it down because President Biden is a pussy who refuses to pack the courts.

WILL BRIAN WRITE A REVIEW: Only if Phish threatens to do another 9/11.

ALBUM RELEASED: February 18, 1992

WHAT GENRE IS THIS: jam band / experimental rock

TRACKLIST:

1. Llama
2. Eliza
3. Cavern
4. Poor Heart
5. Stash
6. Manteca
7. Guelah Papyrus
8. Magilla
9. The Landlady
10. Glide
11. Tweezer
12. The Mango Song
13. Chalk Dust Torture
14. Faht
15. Catapult
16. Tweezer Reprise

LENGTH: 60:25

WHERE TO LISTEN FOR FREE: YouTube

READING SOME SHIT: I have literally no fucking clue where to start with Phish.

PREVIOUSLY ON RECORD CLUB: Um... the drummer of Phish—Jon Fishman, a.k.a. the Bernie Sanders supporter—has a name that is almost the same as Brian's last RC pick? Nope. That's weak. I got nothing. (Though I'm surprised we haven't gotten around to reviewing any of the artists in this cool GQ feature.)

Happy listening, Bernie Sanders! Have a great week!

A Year of Blind Spots: Déjà Vu

Here we have undeniably a fundamental document of Boomerism in music. You've heard more than half of these songs before, and half the times you've heard them have been soundtracking a bunch of bellbottomed college kids marching and holding signs with the peace symbol on them and protesting the Vietnam War or whatever. We don't need to go too deep into it. Discussing how good "Carry On" is might result in an "Okay, Boomer" shot my way. I'm gonna duck, and just write briefly about each member of this supergroup in the context of their songs on this album, and then I'll go back and start reading 400 pages about social work theory. This exercise is only interesting because Déjà Vu features ten songs, with each member writing and singing two of them, plus a Joni Mitchell cover and one collaboration between two members, so it's all pretty much split evenly, and then also each member has a pretty distinct style.

Little Bitch — Forevermore known as "Little Bitch" on this blog and not by his actual name, Little Bitch surprised me with how cool his two songs were. "Almost Cut My Hair" is an ode to letting your "freak flag fly," and the title track is slow but sincerely moving. If this is your lane, boomer, than I appreciate it, but fucking stay in it, alright?

Stills — I want to say that Déjà Vu makes Stephen Stills seem like the frontman here, but maybe that's just due to the overwhelmingly status of prevalence in today's classic rock format that his "Carry On" enjoys (especially since "4 + 20" is on the other end of spectrum, a nothing of a song), or maybe it's because he gets the most vocal credits here, and is tied for the most songwriting credits with Neil Young. Whatever you make of this album as a whole, it's Stills you hear first, and it's Stills you remember.

Nash — But if pop culture has anything to say about it (the pop culture we enjoy in the K*** home, at least), then Nash might be elevated above Stills. Both his songs were featured in something we watch and love. Michael Scott sang "Teach Your Children" to the kids at Take Your Kids to Work Day (a joke that works because, among other reasons, "Teach Your Children" is the ultimate form of Boomer Pontification), and "Our House" tracked a moving montage on a recent season of This Is Us. Why Nash songs? He's got delicate sensibility that shines like crystal glass, and maybe that's something you want your sitcom or drama characters bopping along to, I dunno.

Young — I like the idea of a mostly solo artist adding his voice and talent to a group that had already earned the prefix of "super," and then his two songs sounding exactly like the kind of music he would've just released as a solo artist anyway. It gives us more Neil Young, which is not a bad thing, and it also gives us a little more variety than we were already blessed with via Little Bitch and Stephen Stills and Graham Nash. (You can probably draw a line between Young in CSNY and Dan Bejar in the New Pornographers.) Despite all this, I actually don't know if I would've appreciated Young's contributions as much as the others' were it not for the fact that he sang "Helpless" at The Last Waltz, a documentary near and dear to my heart.

Alright, that's it. Go forth, young flower child, and enjoy an album that you parents probably liked and still feel safe liking, despite the fact that they have given up their hippie ideals and are now committed to ruining the planet.

Power Chords, Sam

I enjoy everything about this album, from the tone to the guitars to the rhythms to the arrangements, but the exception is I have no idea what any song is about as I cannot understand any of the lyrics. The artist decided to muffle their vocals in a way to keep me at arm's length. Lyrics are generally stupid and I think most people are actually bad at writing them. I wish I knew what was going on here, but I still really dig it.

Power Chords, Sunny

If you draw out lines from the Violent Femmes and the Pixies across a few decades, you might intersect at Mike Krol. There's a comfortable blackened eye, voice of someone in the room next door aesthetic fitting with garage rock. A density of (heh) power chords, rhythmic and melodic hooks, and a variety of styles over the songs make it unique. The album is catchy enough to stay fun while revealing more layers during relistens, which is as much as I can ask from anything.

Power Chords, Nate

Garage rock bon mots that occasionally elevate to legitimate power-pop haymakers ("An Ambulance," "The End"). The hit ratio would be disappointing if the whole thing didn't smack of '90s slackerism and home-spun bootstrapping. This is the ultimate spirit of punk: don't like this song / album, just wait for the next one coming soon. 

I write this with a five-day-old on my lap so if it doesn't make sense, you try having a kid and see how good your reviews are.

Power Chords, Joe

C'mon Mikey baby. You gotta give me something more. You know that garage rock is my fucking jam. You've already met that baseline. You're already there, pal. Just give me something to put it over the edge, past the finish line, whatever phrase you wanna use. I need something more this week. Every week isn't like this, and I'm sorry happenstance and a poorly conceived blog series landed you in particular in this particular week of review. I know it ain't your fault, dude. But them's the breaks. So whatchya got for me? Anything cool? Anything exciting? Anything fresh and new? Or is this garage rock that literally any under-40 white dude musician from coast to coast could bang out with even the slightest inspiration? I'm leaning toward the latter, man. No offense to you. There is some catchy stuff here. Power chords are fun when you pick the right ones, and you seem to be picking them correctly. But what else? Tell me what makes you tick. What inspires you? Because I don't know anything about you, and couldn't find anything online. You just seem to be some fucking dude from LA who is good at garage rock and works hard at it. Lots of respect for that, man, but that doesn't give me a whole lot to get invested in. What about the music? Do you feel like there is more to this than just short, jaunty tunes with Strokes-style vocal production? Are the lyrics profound in any way? From what I could see, the lyrics were just vague enough that they could mean anything, but just specific enough that they didn't turn into gibberish. Garage rock isn't about the poetry. I get it. I know you worked hard on the lyrics, I'm just making the same point in a different way—what is hooking me, re: lyrics? Nothing. Which is fine. That wasn't enough this week, though. C'mon. What, did you do anything new with this sound? No, I think we can both agree on that. This isn't revelatory; this is pedestrian. Pedestrian is good sometimes, and also, like, isn't that somewhat part of the appeal of this particular genre? But for the like twelfth time—what does that give me that no one else does? Am I supposed to know the difference between e.g. "Left for Dead" and "I Wonder," or are supposed to accept that this would've placed like 27th in the Garage Rock Revival Olympics of the mid-'00s? Is there anything on here that another band hasn't done before? Did you steal that keyboard sound on "The End" from White Reaper? Did they steal it from someone else? Is rock music solely consist of sounds stolen from other sounds, forever? I'm not saying you did anything wrong. I'm just thinking out loud here. You should know that I have never thought your music was more than the most generic garage rock I have ever heard. You should also know that at times this is the only type of music I can stomach to listen to. So I forgive you, and will always forgive you, for not doing anything that particularly excites me. It's just plain good, and good can be fine when it's a good that a music listener likes. I am that listener, and always will be. I'm just saying that you caught me in a bad week, buddy. I didn't need good. I needed profound. I needed something to shake me. What I ended up getting this week, however, I could get anywhere at any time. Not complaining I happened to get it from you, I'm just saying... What's that? You need something more from me? No, no, no, no, not this week. This is all I can do. Sorry.

GRADE: 3 pukes out of 5

A Rabid, Delirious PoYB Editor Starts Musing About Dolly Parton and Somehow Lands on a Blog Post About Cancel Culture

NPR is getting in on that clickbait game, and they got me. Here's an article they posted recently about Dolly Parton. I saw the headline, and my first reaction was: "Oh jeez, is there a reason I shouldn't like Dolly Parton anymore?" The answer is no, hence the clickbait.

 

As I explained last Christmas, I actually have somewhat of an issue taking celebrity's inherent "goodness" at face value. There's a natural mistrust, a implicit understanding that no one is—to use NPR's own words—a saint. But it was around Christmastime, and it was a lot easier to believe that Dolly Parton is a good person, especially when you consider the charity work, the money donated to causes I am aligned with, the courage to save a child from a impending car accident, and so on.

Nothing about this specific article is telling me anything that is going to make me change my mind about Dolly Parton. You know what the trick is? To believe that no one is perfect, and to appropriately compare the good with the bad, and to make judgments based on everything you know. In other words, the trick is to never assume that someone is a saint to begin with.

 

The fact that Dolly Parton basically used her money in an attempt to gentrify a majority-black neighborhood and then used that owned property as an attempt to add to her cred as a social justice icon? Not particularly great, and certainly not saint-like. But come on. Dolly Parton's social contributions are still net-positive, and to try to use gentrification as the basis of a hit piece is pretty fucking dumb.

If you never consider anyone a saint, or put any artist on a pedestal, then you'll never get burned. You don't have to necessarily kill your idols, but, like, maybe you just shouldn't have any idols in the first place? It's not worth it.

Now, that's not to say that someone who is exposed as having committed disgusting crimes shouldn't be outed as a creep or a criminal. If there is sufficient evidence to suggest that a celebrity or artist has committed an act such as sexual abuse, molestation, rape, child abuse, anything like that, then cutting them out of my life is easy. Even easier if they were never on a pedestal—the fall is a lot shorter, and it hurts less.

Y'all know how I feel about Jimmy Fallon. If you don't, then please go back and read that Dolly Parton review again. Note that I have disliked this dude for a long time, mostly for being a smug asshole, and somewhat for endearing a racist monster to an American public and giving implicit permission to those gullible enough to vote for him. But recently, there have been allegations that he aided and abetted in the rape and molestation of an underage teenager.

I don't mean to be flippant about Horatio Sanz, who actually performed the grooming and the sexual assaults, but I don't remember ever seeing anything he was ever in, and he was never featured on a Dolly Parton Christmas album that was reviewed by Record Club, so saying "I will never watch or support Sanz again" is an empty act of posturing. Let's concentrate on Fallon.

The alleging party notes that when she was fifteen years old, she operated a Jimmy Fallon Fan Club website. She further alleges that Jimmy Fallon and cohorts monitored this website, and, knowing full well that she was underage, invited her to post-SNL parties, where he knew full well that Horatio Sanz was abusing her, and didn't do jack shit about it except—and this is directly from the lawsuit—"ask her about her SATs."

If you believe this accuser—and there is ZERO reason to disbelieve her—then you now know that Jimmy Fallon purposefully contacted an underage fan and put her in a position where she was harmed, with his full consent and with no intervention. If we're ranking sexual abuse, this is but one step below the big ones, but it's STILL ABUSE. The only reason I bring up the "ranking" thing is that I have a sinking feeling that Jimmy Fallon is going to escape critique/cancellation/criminal charges yet again because he didn't directly abuse someone. As a child protection social worker guided by Pennsylvania state law, I can confirm for you that, under that state law, knowing about child abuse and not doing anything about it is STILL CRIMINAL, to say nothing of the sick twisted nature of it from a moral perspective.

(This is also saying nothing about the rest of the cast and crew of SNL around that time who did nothing about this, despite the fact that Sanz was raping a child in their literal presence. How many times was Amy Poehler present and silent? Will Ferrell? Tina Fey? Tracy Morgan? How about Lorne Michaels, whom the lawsuit specifically names as someone who met the victim, knew about her age, knew about her abuse at the hands of Sanz, and said nothing?)

Please don't mistake me, I take absolutely no pleasure in any sort of "I told you so" exercise. The fact of the matter is that an innocent child was abused. This makes me feel awful, as it should. I guess the point I was trying to make (before I started foaming at the mouth) is that it's easy to accept the fact that Jimmy Fallon is a child abuser when I never really held him personally in high regard anyway. Imagine considering Jimmy Fallon a saint, and then being blindsided with the truth.

That's why it did, and still does, make me a little uncomfortable when people like me revere people like Dolly Parton. We can appreciate the good that she does, but to call her a "saint" or whatever is a little too much. Be careful, Dolly Parton megafans! Who knows when the other shoe could drop!

But I also want to acknowledge that this NPR article is a blatant attempt to shoot for the queen's head, and it completely misses. It's some weak shit (and it's even propped up by a completely unrelated photo of asshole shitbirds Lady Antebellum drinking wine, as if we're supposed to make a connection between the two artists just because they both operate under the large, stuffy tent of country music). I think there is the idea of making a personal decision to dislike an artist based on your own chosen criteria, and then there is worrying what other people think about said artist during those moments when their own criteria doesn't match your own.

In other words, what would it take for you personally to dislike Dolly Parton? I have my own criteria, and I'm saying that nothing in this article meets that criteria. What would it take for you to dislike Jimmy Fallon? I have my own criteria, and Fallon reached it even before he was outed as a true criminal scumbag. But I also have to understand that other people have their own criteria. Maybe other people have their own criteria, and they are able to ignore the fact that Fallon facilitated the rape of a teenage girl. I don't agree with it, but to get into an argument with such a person is a losing game. That's why I will never stage a protest at a wedding when I hear "Ignition (Remix)," I'll just silently sit that one out.

That's also conversely why it's bizarre to me when people talk of "cancel culture" as if it's actually a thing. As if there is some overarching social tastemakers that are able to choose what entertainment millions of people can and cannot collectively participate in. It's simply not true.

 

When someone like Louis C.K. (who, by the way, was probably witness to a lot of Sanz raping a child, since he was an SNL writer at that time) is "canceled," what is really happening is that millions of people are individually making their own conscious decision to not support this man, financially or artistically, because each individual person decides that it is impossible to support someone who abuses women. Louis C.K. is probably still under the false impression that guns are held to our heads, that we aren't "allowed" to support him because of "what we were told." What I am told is the whole point. I don't like anyone who abuses women. I am told Louis C.K. abuses women. I believe it because of the evidence presented. I no longer participate in the art that Louis C.K. creates. I alone am making that choice. And millions of other people are making similar choices, similarly alone, based on what they individually believe. That it just so happens to be abuse bad enough that it meets millions of people's individual criteria for pulling their support of any artist has everything to do with Louis C.K.'s direct actions, and nothing to do with the "cancel culture" boogeyman that people just like Louis C.K. are perpetuating.

Okay, I'm letting my point getting away again, if I even knew what my point was to begin with. But I've settled on a final point, and it is this: there is always talk about whether we can "separate the art from the artist," and what I'm settling on now is that it is possible, and perhaps even necessary, do spin it both ways.

 

1) You cannot separate art from the artist when it is known definitively that the artist is a piece of shit, however you personally choose to define "piece of shit."

2) You can and probably should separate art from the artist when it seems like the artist is one of the "good ones," because everything you know about this artist is only what that artist has chosen to present themselves as, and who knows what is lurking behind the facade.

Additionally, remember that facts and opinions matter totally and in tandem. If something is true, then you must take it into account, but you must also have opinions about how to process those facts. I'm not denying that Dolly Parton may have misrepresented her real estate purchases, but my opinion is that this fact is not going to be enough for me to feel uncomfortable enjoying Dolly Parton's music. Though the fact that one of her songs features a sex criminal and child abuser will probably be enough to get me to delete A Holly Dolly Christmas from my iPod, to be honest.

Never Seen It, #57 of 200: The English Patient

Looking back over the pages of my life, thinking about all the movies I've never seen, trying to die with some dignity and watch as many as I can.

The English Patient

1996

Anthony Minghella

Is Katharine Clifton a Manic Pixie Dream Girl? Let's check the official definition, and see if it fits: a MPDG "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures." Hmm. I don't know if it quite fits. Katharine definitely teaches Almásy how to "embrace life" in their relationship, but she exists as her own person too, with her own struggles (or, as Winslet's character in Eternal Sunshine says: "I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind."). And the whole "embracing life" thing comes part and parcel to the relationship itself—Almásy embraces life because being in love is his life—whereas a typical MPDG is more of a stepping stone to the male's understanding of himself. Plus, Kristin Scott Thomas plays her as pretty grounded, and I always feel like MPDGs should be a little more whimsical, right? (Though Dionna was right—Scott Thomas is beautiful, MPDG or no.)

Alright, so that's bullshit. That's just me grasping at straws here. I'm trying to come up with something more interesting than "this was another epic love story across the ages," because we just fucking did something like that. (Even Ebert eluded to Lean in his English Patient review.) And so what else is there to really talk about, as far as theme goes?

We even already talked in Doctor Zhivago about how the main character's infidelity was not really addressed by the film, and whether it should be, a question I have for The English Patient as well. Look, I'm not here to play morality police, obviously. But the subject interests me in film, and so I want the film that features something like a romance like this to at least attempt to tell me what the film itself thinks about all this. Is the film trying to say that it doesn't matter whether Katharine Clifton was married already, because she was in love with Almásy and their love seemed true? Or should we be weary of their romance, because it started under such shaky circumstances? I don't get a sense of any of this in The English Patient.

Which is a shame, because then it would at least thematically mirror the romance that's going on in the framing device between Juliette Binoche's Hana and Naveen Andrews' Kip (goddamn, it was good to see Sayid again). Hana explicitly worries that their romance is doomed because she is "cursed," with tension added because we're wondering whether that curse is going to kill Kip when he is defusing a bomb. Say we try to find a metaphorical "bomb" in Almásy and Katharine's relationship. What is it? Katharine's marriage? Does it blow up when her husband attempts murder-suicide-by-airplane? Was their relationship always doomed?

I don't know if I just talked myself into it just there, or if I feel like I'm just grasping at straws. It's okay for a movie to be unclear, and maybe this one purposefully was, but the whole "I wonder what it all means" doesn't really work when there is a framing device of the main character telling his life story. He's had plenty of time to think about what he believes it all means, so why not share it with the audience?

I guess the framing device is really the only difference between this and Doctor Zhivago. It adds a little extra to the movie (plus, we get to see Ralph Fiennes in proto-Voldemort makeup). But not much. It's an epic romance, right? And so all the stuff with the other romance happening in the present, plus all the thumbless Willem Dafoe stuff, kinda seems extraneous, thinking back. I dunno, Binoche won an Oscar for her role, so maybe I'm missing something.

Or maybe I just need to take a longer break in between epic war romances. Three weeks was too short.

GRADE: 2.5 pukes out of 5

NEXT TIME: I assumed that Erin Brockovich was a rom-com, but Pam tells me I am mistaken, so I will report next week how mistaken I was.