Still, though, these five struck me as seminal when I first saw them.  All (huh) were directed by feature film directors, significant animators, or those who went on to direct feature films.  I believe this suggests something about the legitimacy of the art form.

In chronological order:

1984, Thriller by Michael Jackson
Director John Landis directed the films The Blues Brothers, Twilight Zone: The Movie, and the (excellent) Masters of Horror episode “Family”

1990, Vogue by Madonna
Director David Fincher directed the films Se7en, Fight Club, The Game, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

1994, Sabotage by Beastie Boys
Director Spike Jonze directed the films Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Where the Wild Things Are

1998, Do the Evolution by Pearl Jam
Directors were Todd McFarlane (the artist behind Spawn) and Kevin Altieri of Batman: The Animated Series

2009, Bad Romance by Lady Gaga
Director Francis Lawrence directed the film I Am Legend and has another in development

How obvious this was:  Utterly

Reaction to white mothers’ turning “Baby Mozart” into an empire:  *facepalm*

Motivation to explain this to ex-wife who wanted to buy those insipid discs for Niall:  Precisely zero

Why the motivation was zero:  Ah, I see you’ve never been married!

When I first heard of this research:  1993

Who told me:  One of my oldest and dearest friends

Indication of the distortion of research by the time it reached me:  “Rock music makes you dumber, especially grunge.”

Vindication:  “The key to it is that you have to enjoy the music,” says original researcher. “If you hate Mozart you’re not going to find a Mozart Effect.  If you love Pearl Jam, you’re going to find a Pearl Jam effect.”

When I’m going to abandon the device of a mock Q&A:  Right now

1)  What’s your dream rock band lineup?  I suppose, “with a reasonable amount of people”, “who you expect would work well together”, and (ideally) “are still alive”.

2)  Three favorite Beatles songs?

I won’t hide my answers until people reply this time.  Answers inside.

The family in this song will have to wait four years for health insurance, while an effort without power politics would have gotten them coverage sooner.  Just sayin’.

Unemployable

He’s got a big gold ring which says “Jesus Saves”
And it’s dented from the punch thrown at work that day
When he smashed the metal locker where he kept his things
After the big boss said “You best be on your way”

So this life is sacrifice
Jumping trains just to survive

Well, his wife and kids asleep but he’s still awake
And his brain weighs the curse of thirty bills unpaid
Gets up, lights a cigarette he’s grown to hate
Thinking if he can’t sleep, how will he ever dream again?

So this life is sacrificed
To a stranger’s bottom line

I’ve seen the light
I’m scared alive
Nearly dead

I’ve seen the light
Still alive

So this life is sacrificed
Was a dream that had to die

I’ve seen the light
I’m scared alive
Near to death

I’ve seen the light
Scared alive
I’m here to die
Here to die

Scared alive
Here to die
Here to die
Scared of life

All Vedder Tuesday

You have no clue how hard it was to pick a song like this today.

Down

Down
Fell by the wayside
No getting out

Down
Cry me a river
Dried up and damned

The names can be changed
But the place is still the same

I am loaded, told that all’s for naught
Holds me down

Rise
Life is in motion
I’m stuck in line

Rise
You can’t be neutral
On a moving train

One day the symptoms fade
Think I’ll throw these fucking pills away

And if hope could grow from dirt like me
It can be done

Won’t let the light escape from me!
Won’t let the darkness swallow me!

Fuck Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Fuck him, fuck everything he stands for, and fuck the Hummer he rode in.  But I won’t let the darkness swallow me.  I’ll make it through this year if it kills me.

All Vedder Tuesday

“I hope that our few remaining friends give up on trying to save us.  I hope we come up with a failsafe plot to piss of the dumb few that forgave us … I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow; I hope it bleeds all day long.  Our friends say it’s darkest before the sun rises.  We’re pretty sure they’re all wrong … I am drowning.  There is no sign of land.”

Here’s a rather dark one from their debut record:

Deep

On the edge, a windowsill
Ponders his maker, ponders His will
To the street below, he just ain’t nothing
But he’s got a great view, and he sinks the needle deep, yeah…
Can’t touch the bottom
In too deep, yeah.
Can’t touch the bottom

Oh, on the edge of a know-nothing town
Feeling quite superior, the aged come
To the sky above he just ain’t nothing
But he’s got a great view, and he sinks a burning knife deep, yeah…
Can’t touch the bottom
In too deep
Can’t touch the bottom
In too deep

On the edge of a Christmas-clean love
Young virgin down from Heaven — visiting Hell
To the man above her, she just ain’t nothing
And she doesn’t like the view
She doesn’t like the view
She doesn’t like the view

But he sinks himself deep
Oh, can’t touch the bottom
In too deep, yeah
Can’t touch the bottom
Can’t touch the bottom

Heroin abuse, murder, and child rape, all in one song?  Wow.  Three cheers for the subject matter of the music I listen to.

All Vedder Tuesday

Ed once said that their first album dealt a lot with teen and youth angst, but that he figured older people felt it too, and wanted to make a song about that.  Here it is, the song with the longest title in the Pearl Jam catalog.

Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town

I seem to recognize your face
Haunting, familiar — yet I can’t seem to place it
Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name
Lifetimes are catching up with me
All these changes taking place
I wish I’d seen the place
But no one’s ever taken me
Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away
Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

I swear I recognize your breath
Memories, like fingerprints, are slowly raising
Me, you wouldn’t recall, for I’m not my former
It’s hard when you’re stuck upon the shelf
I changed by not changing at all
Small town predicts my fate
Perhaps that’s what no one wants to see
I just want to scream “Hello!”
My God its been so long!
Never dreamed you’d return!
But now here you are, and here I am
Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

The next one … tomorrow?

All Vedder Tuesday

First, Niall, Nonna (my mom) and I were watching a cartoon:

Cartoon: I think I just cracked my Artex!
Joshua: What’s an artex?
Nonna: Must be a {seal}.
Joshua: What’s an artex seal?
Nonna: Ceiling.
Joshua: Sorry, thought you said “seal”.
Niall: A “ceiling” would be a baby seal!

Successfully hacking diminutives is such sophisticated humor for a six-year-old.  Also, Artex here, but I didn’t know that at the time.

Second, while getting him out of the bath and asking what he wanted before bed:

Joshua: Do you want a story, sing you a song, …?
Niall: I want you to play me a song on the {fawoot}.
Joshua: The what?
Niall: Flute.
Joshua: Flute?
Niall: FLute.
Joshua: I don’t have a flute.
Niall: [looks at me]
Joshua: Oh, the harmonica?
Niall: Yes.
Joshua: OK, I can play you something on the harmonica.

Problem is, I only know how to solve major-key musical improvisations one way — I work myself into a corner, like you do, and need to resolve the melody line, and all my endings sound basically the same.  Mozart used the first half of his career employing — “inventing” is probably closer to the truth — “discovering”? — major key endings like that, but when I try it, it just sounds like the “amen” chorus at the end of the “Johnny Appleseed” hymn.

Niall didn’t mind.  Little boys are awesome.

With the speed at which I work, they should be ready — round about 2010-12-15, the tenth anniversary of the blog.

Hold On

I was drawn
Riding atop a black horse
Whatever prize there was,
I could only observe
Where the trouble starts.
Where does it end?
How can I be cured …
How, before it ends?

I know life would be different if I held on.  Held on.
I know I could be something if I held on

Gave her life away
Put it in my pocket when it should have been framed
Oh, I lost its shine
Gotta get this out of my head
Out of my bed
How could it end …
End like this?
How could it end?

I know life would be different had I held on.  Held on.
I know I could be something had I held on.  Held on.
I know I could be something if I held on.  Held on.
I know life would be different if I held on. Held on!

Held on.  Held on.  If I …
Held on.  Held on.  If I …
Held on.  Held on.  If I …
Held on.  Held on.

All Vedder Tuesday

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/02/10/vedder-tuesday-xxiii/feed/ 0 http://www.mcgees.org/2010/02/10/music-survey-go/ http://www.mcgees.org/2010/02/10/music-survey-go/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:32:33 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1920 I was listening to [music] today, and I thought “This is my definitive piece of music.  If someone understands this, he or she will be most of the way to understanding me.”  And then I wondered if this were hopeless affect and, regardless of the answer to that, whether other people felt the same way about a given song/track/piece/whatever.  People always ask for definitive book, but I haven’t seen or heard this posed.  So: any submissions?  After a useful number are submitted, I’ll reveal mine.  “Show me yours”, in other words.

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/02/10/music-survey-go/feed/ 39 http://www.mcgees.org/2010/02/07/vedder-tuesday-xxii/ http://www.mcgees.org/2010/02/07/vedder-tuesday-xxii/#comments Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:54:43 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1915 Super, super late this week.  Sorry.

Love Boat Captain

Is this just another day, this God-forgotten place?
First comes love and then comes pain.  Let the games begin.
Questions rise and answers fall, insurmountable.

Love Boat Captain
Take the reigns and steer us towards the clear, here.
It’s already been sung, but it can’t be said enough:
All you need is love

Is this just another phase of earthquakes making waves?
Trying to shake the cancer off?  Stupid human beings!
Once you hold the hand of love it’s all surmountable.

Hold me, and make it the truth
That when all is lost there will be you
‘Cause to the universe I don’t mean a thing
And there’s just one word I stil believe
And it’s …

It’s an art to live with pain.  Mix the light into gray
Lost nine friends we’ll never know two years ago today
And if our lives became too long, would it add to our regret?

And the young, they can lose hope ’cause they can’t see beyond today
The wisdom that the old can’t give away
Constant recoil, sometimes life don’t leave you alone

Hold me, and make it the truth
That when all is lost there will be you
‘Cause to the universe I don’t mean a thing
And there’s just one word that I still believe and it’s
“Love”
Love. love. love. love

Love boat captain
Take the reigns and steer us towards the clear
I know it’s already been sung but it can’t be said enough
Love is all you need
All you need is love
Love, love
Love

All Vedder Tuesday

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/02/07/vedder-tuesday-xxii/feed/ 0 http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/26/vedder-tuesday-xxi/ http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/26/vedder-tuesday-xxi/#comments Wed, 27 Jan 2010 02:02:28 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1907 Wow!  Twenty-one!

I’m in a place today where I can post lyrics to this song without (probably) crying — shout-out to those intimate enough to grok that, and a louder one to those who know why — so I should take the chance.

The End

What were all those dreams we shared
Those many years ago?
What were all those plans we made
Now left beside the road?
Behind us in the road?

More than friends, I always pledged
‘Cause friends they come and go
People change, as does everything
I wanted to grow old
Just want to grow old

Slide on next to me!
I’m just a human being
I will take the blame,
But just the same
This is not me
You see
Believe
I’m better than this

Don’t leave me so cold!
Or buried beneath the stones!
I just want to hold on
And know I’m worth your love
Enough
I don’t think
There’s such a thing

It’s my fault, now I’ve been caught
A sickness in my bones
How it pains to leave you here
With the kids on your own
Just don’t let me go!

Help me see myself
‘Cause I can no longer tell
Looking out from the inside of
The bottom of a well
I yell –
It’s hell –
But no one hears

Before I disappear
Whisper in my ear
Give me something to echo
In my unknown future’s ear

My dear –
The End –
Comes near –
I’m here –
But not much longer

[Fuck.  Ed, you bastard.  So close to making it without tears.  And you ended an album with this.]

In the immortal words of Johnson, “I remain, &c.“,

Vedder Tuesday

[No, really, Johnson would literally write "I remain, &c.."]

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/26/vedder-tuesday-xxi/feed/ 1 http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/23/vedder-tuesday-xx/ http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/23/vedder-tuesday-xx/#comments Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:38:23 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1903 I’ve been trying to think of something spectacular for the twentieth Vedder Tuesday, for the milestone.  But, in all, I think I was thinking about it backwards: multiples of ten are arbitrary, and I should have gone with my intuition of choosing without regard to the milestone.  So I’ll choose relative to the grief-inducing — real grief — of the right-wing gains this week.  They declared the culture war.  I think we’ve had enough.  Now they need to get their own scars.

Whipping

Don’t need a helmet, got a hard, hard head
Don’t need a raincoat, I’m already wet
Don’t need a bandage, there’s too much blood
After a while seems to roll right off

Whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping

Don’t need a hand, there’s always arms attached
Oh, don’t get behind, I can’t fall back
Why must we trust all these rusted rails?
They don’t want no change, we already have

Whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping

Don’t mean to push, but I’m being shoved!
I’m just like you, think we’ve had enough
I can’t believe a thing they want us to
Oh, we all got scars, they should have ‘em too

Whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping
They’re whipping

Back next week — and maybe even on time.

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/23/vedder-tuesday-xx/feed/ 0 http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/18/lame-output/ http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/18/lame-output/#comments Mon, 18 Jan 2010 20:39:30 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1894 Here’s an freeze-frame output from lame while encoding using variable bitrate on Ubuntu:

LAME 3.98.2 32bits (http://www.mp3dev.org/)
CPU features: MMX (ASM used), SSE (ASM used), SSE2
Using polyphase lowpass filter, transition band: 17249 Hz - 17782 Hz
Encoding pj2007-08-05d1t03.wav to pj2007-08-05d1t03.wav.mp3
Encoding as 44.1 kHz j-stereo MPEG-1 Layer III VBR(q=4)
    Frame          |  CPU time/estim | REAL time/estim | play/CPU |    ETA
  3500/10289  (34%)|    0:05/    0:15|    0:06/    0:19|   16.994x|    0:12
192 [3481] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%****************************************************************************************************************
224 [  11] %
256 [   7] %
320 [   1] %
----------------------------------------------02:57---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   kbps        LR    MS  %     long switch short %
  192.3       12.1  87.9        95.9   2.1   2.0

Specifically regarding this:

192 [3481] %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%****************************************************************************************************************

What does the ratio of % to * mean?  It shifts around as the encoding progresses.  Is it something like “placeholder for 100″ or something?

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/18/lame-output/feed/ 0 http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/13/vedder-tuesday-xix/ http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/13/vedder-tuesday-xix/#comments Wed, 13 Jan 2010 18:32:02 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1886 When the film Dead Man Walking was in production, director Tim Robbins commissioned tracks from a number of artists for the soundtrack.  Vedder shows up twice, once with a version of “Long Road” and once on a wonderful track called “The Face of Love”, both with the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.  This week’s VT is a song that was passed over in favor of Bruce Springsteen’s (much less impressive-to-me) “Dead Man Walkin’”.  My favorite moment is when it is ambiguous whether “across” or “a cross” is being sung.

Dead Man

Sailing on my every step
Inching off of the earth
It’s magnified by the things I’ve done
The thing that I’ve become

Every lift of my hand –
Coffee cup up and back –
Is magnified by the things I’ve done
The things I’ve seen, the things I’ve caused
I’m a dead man walking

The hammer that I once brought down now hovers over me
Casts a shadow, across/”a cross” onto me

The hallways are all mocking me
What I’ve become — they’re all mocking me

I’m a dead man walking.  A dead man walking.  A dead man walking.
I’m a dead man walking.  Dead man walking.  Dead man walking.

Same bat-time!

All Vedder Tuesday

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/13/vedder-tuesday-xix/feed/ 0 http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/06/vedder-tuesday-xviii/ http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/06/vedder-tuesday-xviii/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 19:19:37 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1876 I haven’t been sleeping in a cardboard box (it’s more of an aluminum box) and it was fairly cruel to poke fun at that situation.  So, as has happened before, contrition through Vedder Tuesday, the lyrics of which are almost impossible to understand when sung.

Even Flow

Freezing, rests his head on a pillow made of concrete — again
Oh, feeling maybe he’ll see a little better set o’ days
Oh, hand out, faces that he sees time again ain’t that familiar
Oh, dark grin — he can’t help when he’s happy, looks insane

Even flow, thoughts arrive like butterflies
Oh, he don’t know so he chases them away
Oh, someday, yeah, he’ll begin his life again
Life again
Life again

Kneeling, looking through the paper though he doesn’t know to read
Oh, praying now to something that has never showed him anything
Oh, feeling — understands the weather of the winters on its way
Oh, ceilings few and far between all the legal halls of shame

Even flow, thoughts arrive like butterflies
Oh, he don’t know so he chases them away
Oh, someday yet he’ll begin his life again
Oh, whispering hands gently lead him away
Lead him away
Lead him away

Oh, fuck your money!

Even flow, thoughts arrive like butterflies
Oh, he don’t know so he chases them away
Ah someday yet he’ll begin his life again
Oh, whispering hands gently lead him away
Him away
Him away
Yeah

All Vedder Tuesday

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/06/vedder-tuesday-xviii/feed/ 0 http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/05/the-bidding/ http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/05/the-bidding/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 07:28:26 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1875 I’ve thought about just posting the following set of Joe Fawley lyrics (Tally Hall, “The Bidding”) to an online dating service as my profile.  It couldn’t actually get me any fewer inquiries, and has the advantage of being really, really funny and uncomfortably close to “true”.

I’ve been sleeping in a cardboard box
Spending every dollar at the liquor shop
And even though I know I haven’t got a lot
I’ll try to give you lovin’ till the day you drop

I graduated at the top
I like to take advantage of the bourgeoisie
So if you have a fantasy of being a queen
Maybe you should blow a couple bucks on me

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/05/the-bidding/feed/ 1 http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/05/lacuna-coil-q/ http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/05/lacuna-coil-q/#comments Wed, 06 Jan 2010 07:19:44 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1874 I hope Cristina & co. will forgive me for posting an mp3 of one of their songs in the clear, but I really need help on this track:

Lacuna Coil — “What I See”, from Karmacode

Could you download that mp3, if your conscience is OK with it?

OK: what the hell is going on with the rhythm guitar at the beginning of the track and at roughly 1:26?!  I don’t know nearly enough about music to answer that question.  The drums are setting down something I can count — just a “one and two and” — but the rhythm guitar seems — relatively prime to that time signature?  There’s other weird time stuff in the song, including everyone just freezing at the same moment, which I adore, and the drums shift several other times to a “one two three rest“, which is — syncopation?  Seriously, help.

Sidebar: Yes yes yes, I know I was multiply teased when I brought up Lacuna Coil the first time.  Yes, there’s no cred there, I know.  It’s not that I don’t like Opeth and Celtic Frost — I still listen to Blackwater Park, I still listen to Into the Pandemonium, and I still Speak Truth to Power Metal — but I like me some Lacuna Coil, too.  You’ve gotta at least give them that the song I’ve posted is more complicated than would be expected were they just bubblegum metal.  (That last sentence, in the colloquial conversational compound subjunctive mood, was my gift to you.)

Plus, of course, there’s this:

What can I say? I’m a sucker for gorgeous busty foreign goth altos.

]]> http://www.mcgees.org/2010/01/05/lacuna-coil-q/feed/ 0 http://www.mcgees.org/2009/12/31/vedder-tuesday-xvii/ http://www.mcgees.org/2009/12/31/vedder-tuesday-xvii/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 18:27:29 +0000 mcgees.org http://www.mcgees.org/?p=1863

Off He Goes

Know a man
His face seems pulled and tense
Like he’s riding on a motorbike
In the strongest winds
So I approach with tact
Suggest that he should relax
But he’s always moving much too fast

Said he’ll see me on the flip side
On this trip he’s taken for a ride
He’s been taking too much on
There he goes with his perfectly unkempt clothes
There he goes

He’s yet to come back
But I’ve seen his picture
It doesn’t look the same upon the rack
We go way back

I wonder ’bout his insides
It’s like his thoughts are too big for his size
He’s been taken; where, I don’t know
Off he goes with his perfectly unkempt clothes
There he goes

And now I rub my eyes, for he has returned!
It seems my preconceptions are what should have been burned!
For he still smiles.  And he’s still strong.
Nothing’s changed but the surrounding bullshit
That has grown

And now he’s home and we’re laughing
Like we always did, my same old, same old friend
Until a quarter to ten
I saw the strain creep in
He seems distracted and I know just what is going to happen next

Before his first step
He’s off again

(Sooner than two years this time, OK?  Love you.  Miss you.)

All Vedder Tuesday

Undone

Last stop on the West Coast line
South of the northern border,
One small corner — home tonight

Everybody, they know me there
Don’t get any second glances
Chances are that they don’t care

The world has come undone
Like to change it everyday
Change don’t come at once
There’s a wave building before it breaks

Can’t wait for election day
Witness the occupation:
Corporations rule the day

Well, you know the pendulum throws
Farther out to the one side swinging
Has to sweep back the other way

The world has come undone
Another day and who can wait?
Change don’t come at once
It’s a wave building before it breaks

All this hope and nowhere to go;
This is how I used to feel — but no more!

The world has come undone
Like a game, if you can play
Change don’t come from one:
It’s a wave building before it breaks

Keep pushing the pendulum, dear friends.  Don’t lose hope in hope.  The wave hasn’t broken yet — but I’ve got my surfboard ready.

Back next week!

All Vedder Tuesday

The opera is called “Mamasan”.  It is about a young man who was never told that his step-father was not his real father until the death of the latter, at which point the young man’s mother tells him so and, due to the resemblance of father and son, begins an incestuous relationship with him.  This traumatizes the young man; he wonders if his survival and his father’s death is a curse, and becomes a serial rapist and murderer, driving on wild sprees through the countryside, until he is caught and, languishing in prison, blames everything on his mother. 

So … yeah.  That’s … not exactly … glam, is it?  That’s a fair departure from 1980s hair metal.

Mamasan

Alive

“Son,” she said, “have I got a little story for you.
“What you thought was your was your daddy was nothing but a fool
“While you were sitting home alone at age thirteen,
“Your real father was dying. Sorry you didn’t see him, but I’m glad we talked.”

Oh, I’m still alive

She walks slowly across a young man’s room.
She said “I’m ready for you.”
I can’t remember anything of this very day,
Except the look
The look…
Oh, you know where!
Now I can’t see, I just stare

I’m still alive

“Is something wrong?” she said
Of course there is!
“You’re still alive!” she said
Oh, and do I deserve to be?
Is that the question?
And if so…
If so…
Who answers?
Who answers?

I’m still alive
Oh, I’m still alive
But I’m still alive

I’m still alive

Once

I admit it!  What’s to say?
I’ll relive it without pain
Backseat lover on the side of the road
I’ve got a bomb in my temple that is gonna explode
I’ve got a sixteen gauge buried under my clothes, I play…
Once upon a time I could control myself
Once upon a time I could lose myself

Oh, try and mimic what’s insane
I am in it!  Where do I stand?
Oh, Indian summer and I hate the heat
I’ve got a backstreet lover on the passenger seat
I’ve got my hand in my pocket, so determined, discreet, I pray…
Once upon a time I could control myself
Once upon a time I could lose myself

You think I’ve got my eyes closed but I’m looking at you the whole fucking time

Once upon a time I could control myself
Once upon a time I could lose myself
Once upon a time I could love myself
Once upon a time I could love you
Once.

Footsteps

Don’t even think about reaching me;
I won’t be home
Don’t even think about stopping by –
Don’t think of me at all
I did what I had to do
If there was a reason, it was you

Don’t even think about getting inside;
Voices in my head, voices
Oh, I’ve got scratches all over my arms
One for each day since I fell apart
I did what I had to do
If there was a reason, it was you

Footsteps in the hall, it was you.  You.
Pictures on my chest, it was you.  You.
It was you

I did what I had to do
And if there was a reason
Oh, there wasn’t no reason, no!
And if there’s something you’d like to do –
Just let me continue to blame you

Footsteps in the hall, it was you.  You
Pictures on my chest, it was you.
You.
You.

Back next week!

All Vedder Tuesday

Bush has come, Bush is gone.  And gods did I hope I would not have cause to trot out these lyrics.

But yesterday and today, with news of Lieberman holding health care hostage in the Senate, with an intended destruction of the public option — the option that keeps the US from further becoming a corporate state, in the way that the U.S. is a corporate state insofar as its economy is concerned — and news that Obama is tentatively supporting this castration — It.  Is.  Fucking.  Time.  For these lyrics.  Senators (most are millionaires): This is our blood.  We need our blood.  We want our independence from bloodthirsty corporations.  We are deserving — we all are deserving — something more.

Grievance

Have a drink — they’re buying!
Bottom of bottle of denial

Big guy, big eye watching me
Have to wonder what it sees
Progress laced with ramifications –
Freedom’s big plunge

Pull the innocent from the crowd
Raise the sticks then bring them down
If they fail to obey
Oh, if they fail to obey

For every tool they lend us, a loss of independence

I pledge my grievance to the flag
‘Cause you don’t give blood then take it back again
Oh, we’re all deserving something more!

Progress!  Taste it!  Invest it all!
Champagne breakfast for everyone!

Break the innocent when they’re proud
Raise the stakes then bring them down
If they fail to obey
Yeah, if they fail to obey

Pledge your grievance to the flag!
Oh, come on!  Don’t give blood then take it back again!
Oh, we’re all deserving something more!

Have a, have a drink, drink!
Have a, have a drink, drink!

I want to breathe part of the scene
I want to taste everyone I see
I want to run when I’m up high
I want to run into the sea
I want to life to be –
I just want to be –
To be –
I will feel alive as long as I am free

Pledge your grievance to your senators.  Right now, while you’re emboldened and thinking about it.

Wishlist

I wish I was a neutron bomb, for once I could go off
I wish I was a sacrifice but somehow still lived on
I wish I was a sentimental ornament you hung on the Christmas tree
I wish I was the star that went on top
I wish I was the evidence, I wish I was the grounds
For fifty million hands upraised and opened toward the sky

I wish I was a sailor with someone who waited for me
I wish I was as fortunate, as fortunate as me
I wish I was a messenger and all the news was good
I wish I was the full moon shining off a Camaro’s hood

I wish I was an alien at home behind the sun
I wish I was the souvenir you kept your house key on
I wish I was the pedal brake that you depended on
I wish I was the verb ‘to trust’ and never let you down

I wish I was a radio song, the one that you turned up
I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish
Oh, wishes never stop

(Thirteen is the first number for which there is no single-character Unicode encoding.  So, for the first time, the ⅩⅢ comprises two characters.  Just thought you’d want to know that.)

All Vedder Tuesday

Here is “Plush” Unplugged.

Usually YouTube comments are impossibly inane.  I, of course, am not the first person to note this:

But I was oddly heartened by an exchange on the comments page:

Wrestling BC:  It sucks that I have to be in my 20s during this shitty decade.  I would gladly give away anything good about this time period … which is basically only the advancements in technology, if it meant I could go back in time an see these guys and others in their prime.

Calicsta:  I feel just the same.  I would give everything to be a part of this x-generation.

Years ago, I saw a defense of people of my generation.  The argument went like this: “We might not understand Woodstock, The British Invasion, free love, LSD.  But there’s plenty of stuff Boomers don’t know about: Tina Yothers, TrapperKeepers, etc.”

And I thought: “Yeah.  That’s not a very good trade.”

But that, of course, is not the real legacy of “Generation X”.

When “Generation Y” was first introduced some years back — I first encountered it in maybe 1995 — I thought it was kind of odd.  It bins my brother and me into different generations.  I’m at the tail-end of Gen X, he’s at the head of the subsequent generation, and that seemed somewhat ludicrous to me, even though it was reassuring to a teenager to be told there was a fundamental generational gap between you and your younger brother.

I was born in 1978.  I went to college when I was 16, which put my classmates as 1976ers, and the upperclassmen more solidly into Gen X.  Thirty is young to be reminiscing, but when I started college, we were one of the first classes to have email.  We used pine on a DEC Alpha.  Google?  Hell, there was no Altavista.  No one had heard of Amazon.com.  Yahoo! was run by a staff of volunteers.  Internet Explorer was but a gleam in a predatory company’s eye — I remember transitioning from Mosaic to Netscape Navigator.  There were people sincerely wondering whether “The Internet” was better than AOL.  Cell phones?  Blackberries?  Gah.  But, no, that’s not the biggest generational gap, either.

I graduated college in 1999.  My brother started college in — help, Dave?  2000?  I was a working adult when 9/11 occurred.  High school and college had been spent under Clinton, when American thought that a scandal was a blow job in the Oval Office.  My brother — Generation Y, remember — was 19 when the Towers collapsed.  His college days were drenched in Bush, in the worry of international terrorism, in illegal wars and unlawful presidencies and all the scary, scary shit that will take well into Generation Z++ to undo.  And, of course, there’s instant messaging.  There’s that.

So the X/Y division seemed oddly … prescient.  If it wasn’t real at the beginning, it sure as hell was true when the inhabitants became adults.  Dave, agree?

Back to music.  I’ve wondered over the years if this weren’t generational bigotry, but my first year as a teenager, here is a partial list of albums that were released:

• Nirvana “Nevermind”
• Pearl Jam “Ten”
• Guns ‘n’ Roses, “Use Your Illusion I” and “Use Your Illusion II”
• Metallica, “Black Album”
• REM, “Out of Time”
• Queensrÿche, “Empire”
• Tori Amos, “Little Earthquakes”

That’s.  Partial.  I’ve tried to convince myself that anyone’s albums when they were 13 would seem as seminal, but, no, sorry.  This was different.  These were seminal.  And — oddly, utterly oddly — grunge was a fad, which brought celebrities with bipolar disorder into public consciousness more than at any time since, maybe, Chopin.

Rant, here.  If you look back on grunge as a fad: bless you eternally.  For real.  You are truly blessed.  I’m bipolar.  I have been for lots of years — as usual, symptoms showed up when I was a teenager, years before it was diagnosed.  If you listen to Nirvana’s “Lithium” and think, “cool bassline!” rather than “wow, Kurt, you fucking nailed what being on lithium is like”, seriously — utterly seriously — good for you.  It really isn’t our fault that people with severe dopamine disregulation problems find that strong opiates work better to make us functional than anything that’s been approved by the FDA for treatment.  If you listen to Stone Temple Pilots’ “Atlanta” and it doesn’t immediately occur to you that Scott has nailed what trying to stop opiates as a bipolar feels like — well, I’ve said it.  Bless you.  It’s a blessed accident that I didn’t become a heroin addict, and, frankly, it’s still something I have to be super-careful to not do.

I don’t think that intrusion of mental illness into popular culture has really been duplicated.  Do people with rage disorders think, “wow, nu-metal legitimizes us”?  Do despicable homophobes think Eminem (gods, that man is talented, I just wish I didn’t have to delouse after The Eminem Show) stands up for them?  Well, maybe.  I don’t really know.

So, I’m switching from 30 to 31.  I just had my ten-year college reunion.  I’ve been married, and been divorced.  I watch the Unplugged shows and think, “Holy shit, I’m older than all of these guys, and, holy shit, I used to think their hair was long” (mine has now passed the middle of my back again).  And — yes — I still look in the mirror in the morning, with somewhat-ratty long curly brown hair, jeans, a rock band t-shirt, and an open flannel, and think, “Hey, I look good”.

Hey, do you know what?  I think I do.  I may be stuck back in 1991.  But, seriously, there are worse times be stuck.  Grunge forever.  Better bipolar medications now.  I’ll shout both from the rooftops.  I hope you’ll join me.

So, here’s how I do it.  It works with my OS (Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope), my iPod (120GB iPod Classic), FAT32 formatting, and … other specific-to-me stuff (?) … and I’m not really interested in supporting this.  If this doesn’t work for you and you know how to do it and want to help, feel free to post, but I can’t/won’t respond if you need more help.  Sorry.

Although I have not tried it, I am roughly 111% certain this will fail with Apple DRMmed music, which is fine because my iPod is never going near an installation of iTunes.  I don’t know if it will work with newer iTunes downloads, which I’ve read/heard are DRM-free, but I’m not going to try it.  iTunes is seriously evil software, and I’m pretty sure that the only reason NAV does not remove it as malware when doing a virus scan is that doing so would be too difficult.

First, install EasyTag.  In Ubuntu, that’s as easy as

sudo apt-get install easytag

Now, get the MP3s, which are helter-skelter peppered through useless directories, onto your computer.  Mount it as as a USB block device, which should happen automatically when you plug it in.  It will likely end up somewhere like /media/IPOD, but it’s easiest to use a graphical file browser (just go to “Places” on the Ubuntu launch bar) as it will show up, conveniently, as a clearly-marked mounted device.

The files are in iPod_Control/Music (yes, I expected that to be harder), but in a completely useless hierarchy.  Copy the files over — I’d just copy the whole Music folder over — onto somewhere local to your PC.  I use a directory called ~/MusicStage, but, you know, whatever.

The files will transfer in some amount of time.  Then open EasyTag and navigate to whatever you are calling your staging folder.  The program will go through and read the tags on all the mp3s in the directory.  You will note that, internally, all the tags on the mp3s are preserved, which is cool, because this would be an obvious way in which Apple could have been bigger dicks.

Hit Control-A to select all the files.  There’s an icon — I have absolutely no idea what it’s supposed to be, but by default it’s immediately to the left of the broom icon — hit it.  This opens the “Tag and File Name scan” window.  Set the scanner to “Rename Files and Directories”.  You can go wild at this point, sorting your albums as you see fit, but I do a fairly basic [DIR]/Artist/Album/NN Track format, where NN is the track number.  To do that, put the following into “Rename File and Directory”, of course changing the beginning part to wherever your home folder is:

/home/joshua/Music/%a/%b/%n %t

Hit the same wtf-is-that-supposed-to-be icon on this dialog.  Then hit the familiar commit-to-disk icon (it looks like a green arrow pointing downwards at a hard drive) and then — well, that’s it.  Now your music is back on your PC.

That show begins with “Sometimes”.  I’ve always loved the lyrics, especially as the beginning of a concert (it also begins the album No Code).  It seems an entirely reasonable song for the twelfth installment of this series.

Sometimes

Large fingers pushing paint
You’re God and you’ve got big hands
The colors blend:
The challenges you give man

Seek my part
Devote myself
My small self
Like a book amongst the many on a shelf

Sometimes I know
Sometimes I rise
Sometimes I fall
Sometimes I don’t
Sometimes I cringe
Sometimes I live
Sometimes I walk
Sometimes I kneel
Sometimes I speak of nothing at all
Sometimes I reach to myself, dear God

Seriously, download the concert.

All Vedder Tuesday

Rearviewmirror

I took a drive today
Time to emancipate
I guess it was the beatings that made me wise
But I am not about to give thanks, or apologize

I couldn’t breathe, holding me down
Hand on my face, pushed to the ground
Enmity gaged, united by fear
Forced to endure what I could not forgive

I seem to look away
Wounds in the mirror waved
It wasn’t my surface most defiled

Head at your feet, fool to your crown
Fist on my plate, swallowed it down
Enmity gaged, united by fear
Tried to endure what I could not forgive

Saw things clearer when you were in my rearview mirror

I gather speed from you fucking with me
Once and for all I’m far away
I hardly believe — finally the shades are raised

Saw things so much clearer
Once you, once you were in my rearview mirror

Untitled

I’ve got a car
I’ve got some gas
Let’s get out of here
Get out of here fast
Everyone’s confused
So I stay in my room
If I go, I don’t want to go alone

I hope you get this message,
Or you’re not home
I could be there in ten minutes or so
I’ve got my things
We’ll make it up as we go along
With you i could never be alone

MFC

Sliding out of reverse into drive
This wheel will be turning right, then straight
Off in the sunset she’ll ride
She can remember a time [??? -- "denied"?]
Stood by side of the road, spilled like wine
Now she’s out on her own and [??? -- "line high"?]

There’s no leaving here
Ask, I’m an ear
She’s disappeared

They said timing was everything
Made him want to be everywhere
There’s a lot to be said for nowhere

There’s no leaving here
Ask, I’m an ear
We’ve disappeared
There’s no leaving here
Ask, I’m an ear
Fuck it, we’ll disappear

Gone

No more upset mornings
No more trying evenings
This American Dream I am disbelieving
When the gas in my tank feels like money in the bank
Gonna blow it all this time, take me one last ride

For the lights of this city, they only look good when I’m speeding
I wanna leave them all behind me, ’cause this time I’m gone

Long gone
This time I’m letting go of it all
So long
This time I’m gone

In the far-off distance as my taillights fade
No one thinks to witness, but they will someday
Feel like a question is forming
And the answer’s far:
I will be what I could be
Once I get out of this town

For the lights of this city, they have lost all feeling
Gonna leave them all behind me ’cause this time I’m gone

Long gone
This time I’m letting go of it all
So long
Long gone, I’m letting go of it all
Yeah, this time I’m gone

If nothing is everything,
If nothing is everything I’ll have it all
If nothing is everything then I will have it all

Did I forget any Vedder driving songs?  Other than Once, which isn’t at all in the same mold?

All Vedder Tuesday