The 10 Most Delicious Albums of 2010

When I had the idea to do this post back in June, I was worried that it would turn into "The Ten Albums that I At Least Kinda Liked This Year."  Fortunately for the world of music and unfortunately for my sanity, there ended up being a hefty load of albums to consider.  Of course, this means that I had to keep on top of contemporary music, which was, well, not exactly my forte.  This year, there was no tour-de-force album like Light Grenades, no Good Apollo, no De-Loused in the Comatorium, no Ten, no Systematic Chaos, no Who Are We Living For? no By The Way, or even a Stadium Arcadium.  I don't think there was even an In Absentia.  But we got some good releases this year, so we can at leas celebrate that.


Before we begin, I would like to give a bit of a disclaimer.  First of all, even though these albums are ranked in a hierarchy, that doesn't necessarily mean that one is "better" than the albums below it, or that there is really any objective and quantifiable way to measure how good or bad an album is.  These are my picks for the purposes of this post.  But please, controversy is appreciated.  And of course, I am no authority on the matter.  My taste shouldn't dictate or even influence your taste.


All right, well here we go...

10) Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - The Brutalist Bricks


This came as a surprise, as I really didn't think this album would be making it into the top ten.  But here it is.  It's not deep, it's not complex, but I'll be dipped in molasses and called Shirley (what?) if this album doesn't make you jump around.  And nothing but a cocktail of endorphins and dissolved ecstasy injected directly into your brain stem will elevate your mood more than the song "Bottled in Cork."










9) Mutiny Within - Mutiny Within


This album made me fall in love with screaming all over again.  My hair also grew three inches during my first listen through this album, my clothes turned black, and I found myself fighting a midget at four in the morning on the Sunset Strip.  They remind me of Avenged before M. Shadows vocal chords self destructed, augmented with the melodic sensibilities of Dream Theater.  Since this is their debut album, they also get the nod as newcomers of the year.









8) Jason Moran - Ten


Who said piano jazz wasn't cool.  Ok, this album won't exactly become the anthem for today's youth, and listeners who aren't familiar with the genre probably won't get many thrills out of this album.  But the musicianship of Moran's trio, the Bandwagon, is exceptional, honed over their ten years of playing together.  Moran's sound can shift from slow, stripped-down bluesy to McCoy Tyner-esque franticness in an instant.  Definitely an album worth checking out for anyone who gives a flying fuck in the direction of jazz.









7) Bettye LaVette - Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook


R&B singer Betty LaVette created what may be the most interesting album of the year: covers of British Invasion songs in her own unique style.  In my opinion, this is exactly what covers should be.  Rather than simply re-creating a song, a cover should be a re-interpretation of the song, and cast it in an entirely new light. LaVette does this on every track in this album, covering songs by the likes of Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles, The Animals, and Pink Floyd, among others.  The album was inspired when LaVette performed a cover of "Love, Reign O'er Me" at the Kennedy Center Honors, a performance which was considered by many to be the highlight of the event.  Two years later, this masterpiece emerged.  The best part: her signature soulful moaning on an incredibly sexy and strutting rendition of "All of my Love."









6) Gogol Bordello - Trans-Continental Hustle


In a way, this album by gypsy-punk outfit Gogol Bordello is the soundtrack to globalization, combining eastern European musical traditions with frantic, uptempo, and sometimes angry, good-ole-fashioned punk rock.  This album delivers a heavy dose of mayhem and madness, perfect for everything from fist pumping to lining up a row of grain alcohol shots.  And while I'm not necessarily sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, it kind of makes me want to charge, head first, at full-tilt, into a brick wall, because I'm sure I could break through.  









5) Mavis Staples - You Are Not Alone


Mavis Staples praises Jesus for salvation, and I praise Jesus for Mavis Staples.  Improbably produced by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, this album takes the most famous Staples Sister (don't deny it) to a whole new dimension.  Whether it's the uptempo gospel tracks or the Wilco-infused ballads, this album is guaranteed to cause an entirely healthy euphoria.*


*This statement has not been certified by the Surgeon General.








4) Coheed and Cambria - Year of the Black Rainbow

This album kind of sounds like what would happen if one of the most iconic alternative rock bands of the 00's picked up the drummer from the Dellinger Escape Plan and then had Atticus Ross produce their new album.  Oh wait, that is what happened.  While the outcome isn't as great as the masterpieces of In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth and Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, this is a solid album of solid rocking, something that was conspicuously hard to find this year.  Completing the band's five-part story arc of concept albums, this album fills in the first chapter.  It follows the same general structure as the band's other albums, starting with a quiet instrumental track, segueing into the anthem, then a smattering of vocal hooks and guitar assaults with a power ballad or two thrown in for good measure, and then concluding with a long and brooding song.  But it's a structure that works.  I noted in another post that Coheed is a Passover Sedar, which I guess would make the band's first four albums Exodus.  If so, then this album is a kind of Genesis, an epic of creation, flaws, failure, and then dealing with the consequences.  It's kind of like getting hit over the head with a pillar of salt.













3) Bill Frisell - Beautiful Dreamers


On his umpteenth album, Jazz/Folk/Americana guitarist Bill Frisell teams up with drummer Rudy Royston and Violist Eyvind Kang and expands the sound that he has been pioneering over his decades-long career: a richly textured blend of spacey post-bop and American folk music.  And while the mood ranges from upbeat, on tracks like "Better than a Machine," to melancholy, on tracks like "No Time to Cry," the album feels like one piece of through composed music, the breaks between tracks being only pauses between movements.  If this album were a food, it would probably be a chicken fried cocktail olive - classy yet folksy.

2) The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang


New Jersey punk rockers The Gaslight Anthem have produced another album of, driving riffs, gritty vocals, and Jersey angst.  It's softer, and, yes, not quite as punky as their previous albums, but it is by no means any less intense.  And whatever it loses in it's punkliness it gains in soulfulness.  This is music for nostalgia, for regret, for bitterness, for dreamers, and for the hopeless romantics.











1) Pete Francis - The Movie we are In


No, unlike everyone else, I did not pick Kanye for the top album of 2010.  In fact, I picked an album that most people won't even be considering for their top x albums of the year, let alone #1.  So I guess I had better explain myself.


Pete Francis is much better known as being a member of Dispatch.  When they broke up and pursued their respective solo acts, it seemed as though they devolved into two dime-a-dozen singer-songwriters and a politically minded wanna-be Jamaican.  Of course, each of the three respective acts - Pete Francis, Braddigan, and State Radio - all ended up coming into their own, but without the same kind of fandom, and, of course, the synergy.  I've stated that State Radio is Dispatch without the fun, and that Braddigan is Dispatch without the attitude.  This album takes a lot of what I love about Dispatch (but of course far from all of it) and gives it a gritty reboot: Francis' singer-songwriter style is augmented with electronic drum beats and synthesizer tracks.  And even though it is a contemporary singer-songwriter writing for contemporary electronic instrumentation, parts of the album seem to be channeling Tom Petty, Neil Young, Bob Dylan, and Revolver-era Beatles.

This also gets the nod for the best album cover of the year, because it depicts what most of us did: pay out the nose to wear silly little glasses that were supposed to make us think a terrible movie were better.









Albums on the Bubble


Portugal. The Man - American Ghetto
Soulive - Rubber Soulive
Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate - Ali & Toumani
Brad Mehldau - Highway Rider
Taking Dawn - Time to Burn
Broken Bells - Broken Bells
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - I Learned the Hard Way
The Young Veins - Take a Vacation!
Thomas Mapfumo & the Blacks Unlimited - Exile
Cee-Lo Green - The Lady Killer
Against Me! - White Crosses
Eels - End Times
The Disco Biscuits - Planet Anthem


Biggest Disappointment: A Tie Between The Black Keys' Brothers and MGMT's Congradulations


Also check out the somewhat posthumous release by Jimi Hendrix, entitled Valleys of Neptune.  Unfortunately, due to its posthumous status, it could not even be put in consideration.




And that, ladies and gents, was what was in 2010.

Four Films That You Didn't Know Were Remakes

1)    1)  Air Force One

Believe it or not, this film’s original incarnation was a 23 minute silent film from 1922.  In this film, the British Prime Minister is flying to London from a historic League of Nations meeting in Geneva where the fictional Mediterranean nation of Greblazia has been peacefully divided into protectorates of seventeen different League of Nations members.  Prime minster Wicklington is crossing the English Channel in a biplane, a flight which took upwards of four hours back then.  The plane has three seats, one for Wicklington, one for the pilot, and one which is supposedly empty.  As the plane leaves continental airspace, an assassin from Greblazia, complete with an olde-timey sinister handlebar mustache, pops out of the third seat’s compartment.  To thwart his assassin, Prime Minister Wicklington insists on confronting him in a duel atop the biplane’s upper wing, but not until they both engage in an inexplicable dance number.  (The music would be usually provided by an in-theater pipe organ.  The original score for this scene has, unfortunately, been lost to history.)  Wicklington uses his experience garnered in the Royal Dueling academy to defeat his assassin, the day is saved, and the once proud nation of Greblazia still doesn’t have its sovereignty or dignity.  But since the film was intended for a primarily British audience, this is seen as being a heroic and happy ending.  Another interesting fact is that Wicklington’s memories of the Royal Dueling Academy are the first known use of flashback in a film.

2)     2) The Matrix

While the 1999 version of the film depicted humans whose consciousnesses were trapped inside a computer, the original 1957 film depicted humans who were physically trapped inside a computer – the computer being an ENIAC machine the size of a city block.  This computer is supposedly the most powerful computer of its time, although now mp3 player could probably outwit an army of these things.  It is powered by humans riding stationary bikes and operating erg machines 24/7, who know nothing of the outside world.  When the building’s rogue janitor, Morpheus, frees the denizens of the computer, they are lead on chase, complete with cheesy special effects, by Officer Smith.  The escapees are finally saved when Neo accuses Officer Smith of being a communist.

3)     3) Toy Story

Toy Story actually takes the structure of its plot from a 1939 western/musical entitled “Outer Space Comes to Amarillo.”  Starring singing cowboy Gene Autrey as Woody and Humphrey Bogart as Buzz Lightyear, the film is about a space captain who inexplicably lands in Olde-Timey Amarillo and upsets the status quo, which the local sheriff tries to fix, but not without bursting into song every ten minutes.  The two resolve their differences when they are forced to team up to thwart a band of cattle rustlers.  Instead of Buzz Lightyear’s catchphrase being “To infinity, and beyond!” Bogart’s character frequently breaks out with “I’m need a drink!” 

4)   4)   Almost Famous

Cameron Crowe’s coming of age story was not, in fact, based on his own experiences as a teenager writing for Rolling Stone.  The story is actually adapted from a 1937 film which is itself adapted from a Horatio Alger novel about an industrious teenage orphan/journalist who is embedded with the Merry Negro Frolic Vaudeville Troupe, who perform in blackface, and are racist beyond anything we can imagine today.  The plot of the film and the novel, both of which are entitled “Almost Famous and then Famous, or, Industrious Johnny and the Minstrel Men,” revolves around Johnny Coppperbottom being sent on what is thought by his editor to be a wild goose chase: producing a story about a vaudeville troupe for this newfangled medium called “magazines.”  After resisting immoral (read: pre-marital) sexual advances, friendships with minorities, and the chance to blow his newly acquired fortune on strawberry phosphates at the drug store, good ole industrious Johnny surprises everyone by publishing a story and is awarded a job as editor and twenty seven dollars, which was a lot of money back then.  The scene in which Billy Cudrup’s character famously proclaims “I am a golden god” while tripping on acid is almost directly copied from the original scene, in which Silas Greenly, the leader of the minstrel troupe, stands at the helm of a Mississippi riverboat and claims “Hark, assembled revelers, it brings me the most satiating pleasure to proclaim to you before me that I have all the lustre and splendor of a debauched pagan idol!”  He then puts on blackface and performs an act where he tries and comically fails to rape a plantation owner’s wife.

The 3rd Millennium: Your Team's Best Player is a Robot

Here are three myths about sports that aren't true and one that is.

1) Sports are Fair


It isn't commercial timeouts or salary caps that ruined the NFL.  It's those video replays.  The referees practically  have to get Washington on the line and have all nine supreme court justices review the footage to validate what we all thought, yes, he was out of bounds when the catch was made, and now I've just spilled nacho cheez on my Jason Campbell jersey that I wear to SUPPORT MY TEAM, because it's GAME DAY!  (The exception is at Washington Redskins games, where the supreme court sits in a special box, along party lines, and uses their genetically-enhanced JusticeVision to call plays, because football is more important than politics.)  Then once the oracle has spoken, the most stoic of the referees must face the crowd and tell the message to the people, even the deaf people who can conveniently read his hand signals.  And he was definitely out of bounds and now Oakland is being charged with a delay of game and oh Christ wearing hoverboots this is so frustrating!  (cut to commercial - Ever thought about buying a Ford?  WELL YOU ARE NOW MOTHERFUCKER!)

I don't drive a Ford, but I'm still a man because I eat straight hops for breakfast. Fuck you advertising!

The rules change as the game changes to make the game stay the same.  Probably the best example is baseball, where they keep having to raise the mound as pitchers get better and better.  Otherwise it would eventually turn into a very fast-paced game of catch.  Their only audience would be seven other guys awkwardly standing in the general vicinity, kind of like what a weekday A's game looks like when there's no Lunch Money Monday or whatever kind of giveaway type thing they're doing right now.

Then you have regulations off the field (or court or rink or track or pitch or bucking bronco) that control even more aspects of the game.  Players have salary caps, a franchise can't spend more than x dollars on salaries within a decade.  We NCAA athletes have to be eligible and not getting any of the money that they're generating, or at least are supposed to be but we all know it's bullshit, and SEC football players not only get pay-for play arrangements, they also have a designated Asian to go to class for them and have stock options. (But all I get is a pair of shoes, if Nike doesn't forget to send them, which they do.)

The players, too, are regulated in a way that makes everything on the field of play appear "fair."  (No, and not in a Philip Sidney sonnet way where the lady appears fair and you piss tea and bleed iambic pentameter.)  It has to seem fair so that discrepancies in the quality of play by the two involved teams will be the only determining factor in who wins the game and who gets berated by the coach in the locker room for an hour about the heart of a champion.

But if games we really fair, we would all need the the same exact genome, the same exact parents, early childhood environment, diet, personalities, education, training, and probably all be taking the same steroids.  Because sports isn't really fair at all, because some people are drastically more talented, some people have almost infinitely more resources than others.  Some people have joints that go pop, some have tendons that just can't hold up under the stress of repeatedly getting smashed into by another elephant-sized lineman or throwing a 100 mph fastball.  Some people are straight up pussies and some can take hits all day.  And we're all going to find a way to win, even if it does mean breaking the rules.

It's ok, life is also not fair.  Maybe with this revelation we can know that real life is more like sports than we once thought it to be.  And, it makes this second pill a little easier to swallow, which is that:

2) Sports are not about who is the best team


It is because of this fallacy that we let a robot help us decide a national champion, thus putting us into the preliminary stages of a robocratic government.  In fact, since BCS rankings get people to care more than any political issue ever has or ever will, you could say that we are already letting robots make the decisions that influence our lives the most.  The polls come out, everyone gets uppidy about Boise State and TCU, arguments break out, family dinner is ruined, fights go down behind the dumpster, there are riots, North Korea sends troops into the demilitarized zone and no one even notices over here in America because we're still pissed that Boise State is either, depending on your persuasion, over or under ranked.

This is all because we want to find out who is the BEST TEAM IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL without actually doing the things nescessary to find out who is the best team in college football.  This would sort of be like trying to research bonobos in their natural habitat without actually going to their natural habitat, and instead going to the zoo and watching them fight over peanuts and then giving the two involved bonobos massive travel bills.  That's basically how the whole bowl system works.  (I should also add, then, that the reason you cannot go to the bonobo's natural habitat is because your robot overlords won't let you leave, but will crunch some numbers if you ask them real nice.)

Having a robot work the BCS looks a lot like, not to alarm you or anything, the preliminary stages of a Robotocracy.  A robot is helping us make an important decision, a decision that some people probably feel is more important than healthcare reform and social security put together.  But I digress.

The point of playing a game isn't to see which team is better overall, but which team can perform better on the day, and win the game.  Imagine that for a second.  It's not about rankings and statistics, it's just about who can win, on the day.  And that's how it's supposed to be, but we've forgotten.  The truth is that there is no objective way to measure who is the best team, we can only see who has a better performance on the day.

3) God Cares About Sports


For those of you with body fat over 10% and friends, and who haven't ruined your life with running, Ryan Hall  was once considered to be the next promising American marathoner.  Now people hate him and think he's gone off his rocker.  While he had always been adamant that God put him on this Earth for the sole purpose of running fast, he announced that he would be dumping his coach and training himself.  He stated that he would use prayer and taking a "biblical approach" his training, which many people assumed meant that God would be coaching him.

First of all, if you believe that the only reason you even exist in the first place is to run fast to glorify God, you're going to have a hard time coping with failure.  Now, what he had been doing in training was clearly not working out his lofty expectations, and it was fuckling with his brain, hence his decision to dump his coach.  He is obviously not praying every day asking "God, what should I run today?  Send a plague of locusts for mile repeats or turn Big Bear Lake into blood for a long tempo."  He's training on feel, which in some cases can be a good idea, because no one knows Ryan Hall like Ryan Hall does.  Now I'm not sure what the bible has to say about training, but unless there is an obscure passage in Deuteronomy that commandeth 8x1,000 meter repeats on the track every other Tuesday, I don't think there's a whole lot.  Maybe he won't be running on Sunday or something.

But in my opinion, it's downright disrespectful to pray for any kind of athletic success, other than maybe mental fortitude (or not dying of severe internal bleeding in a UFC fight).  If God cared about sports, Israel would have way more Olympic gold medals, possibly all of them.  Nothing really hangs in the balance of a sports contest.  Standings, rankings, statistics, they're all, in a big picture cosmic/spiritual sense, meaningless.  But still:

4) Sports are Important


There are no more mastodon to hunt, no more sabertooth tigers to run from, no more plains of the Serengeti to cross on foot with only a handful of dried berries and a skin of your own piss.  In post-industrial America, we don't have anything to physically test us anymore.  Back in the day, if I wanted some eats, I would have to grab my spear and my piss skin and run around the desert for at least a day until a wildebeest or a deer or something dropped dead from exertion, then carry it all the way back to my hut that I built myself out of sticks and mud and the bones of my brother who got his head smashed in by a neighboring band of foragers, and come home to an entirely new member of my family, because wife had to give birth all by herself while I was gone and then made a dust and placenta pudding because I was taking so friggin long to get back.  Now I can just pick up the phone and have an acne-encrusted teenager bring a pizza right to my house.

And as much as that physical exertion can suck, we need it, some part of us needs it to stay sane.  The more technologically advanced we get, the more physically useless we will become.  (Except of course if that technology leads to some great catastrophe and we're once again fighting to survive as a species against psychotic crocodile-buffalo hybrids that some R&D asshole thought would be a great idea to start manufacturing.)  And that's why we have sports, and that is why sports are important.

Gritty Reboot

I need to go to sleep for a really long time.  Not like, a solid 8-10 hours of sleep or a straight 24 hour chunk or even a brief coma.  I need to hibernate, or better yet be cryogenically frozen, and give my brain the chance to just reset itself, do a system restore.  To mix my metaphors, if my brain were an artery, it would be clogged.  It would be clogged by the largest greasiest lump of neural distraction cholesterol known to man.


My library, my music library, entrusted to the unreliable Apple programmers (that's right techie assholes, they are fallible), it comforts me.  It’s comforting.  I look at my music library, in its gargantuan beauty, and I’m comforted, even if it is just a little.  68.5 days worth of music.  That’s 1.7125 lents worth of music, which is a long time.  It’s well over 1 dog year.  A dog could waste a year of its life and still not get through all of it.  They would get to like, Stanley Clarke and have an identity crisis about the year they just wasted.  And they wouldn’t even have heard Losing a Whole Year yet, so they wouldn’t have any song to express what they were going through.  But out of all 21,803 songs here, not one is the right song for the feeling of having an injury that frustrates the sanity out of you, you miss the most amazing people in the world who are scattered across the state and even across the country, you can’t relate to anyone because you feel like an awkward boob, and you can’t sleep because your house is literally vibrating from all the partying going on everywhere.  Everyone’s gone to the movies, and I’m stuck at home masturbating to a radio play.  (What?  What the hell is that even supposed to mean?  That’s the most bizarre figure of speech I’ve ever heard anyone use…)

Tri-tip for Congress!

"I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie"
-The Who, "Won't Get Fooled Again"

Our system may be a broken mess of corrupt partisan bullshit, but I still believe in democracy, because democracy gives me free tri-tip sandwiches.  Or at least Tom Watson does, who is running for congress (I'm pretty sure) as a Republican (at least I think so anyway).

We were sitting around our living room one evening when one of my housemate's friend comes in saying "dude, they're giving out free tri-tip sandwiches in that park by Embarcadero."  Being strapped for cash (probably because this site generates shit revenue, you know how to help out) I jumped out of my chair and headed for the door, which was a bad idea because I have a stress fracture in my back.  But free tri-tip!  When we got there, we discovered there was much more than free tri-tip.  There were tank tops that said "Tom Watson for Congress," bottle openers and ping-pong balls that bore the same insignia, and, holy shit, Tom Watson himself!  I recognized him from the TV ad where a supposedly rational yet nonthreatening woman rips on our current congressperson.  Tom Watson seems like someone who wouldn't mug me in a dark alley, and told me that he was a pole vaulter in college as he shook my hand which had cheeto dust on it.  Oops.  There was even music playing, including "Won't Get Fooled Again," which I never thought I would hear at anything to do with the Republican Party.  Times have changed.  But what as conspicuously absent was any sort of issues or even mention of politics at all.  We got free meat and some shirts that could be used as viral campaigning, and for a lot of people, that is enough.  "I'm going to vote for Tom Watson because he hooked me up, dude!"

This is a viable alternative to democracy.  Beware!

Now, I'm not so easily fooled, but I realize that I know nothing else about Tom Watson other than the fact he essentially bought me dinner.  Now, if he is elected because of this barbecue propaganda session and the decisions he makes while in office lead to economic collapse, that may be a very expensive dinner after all.  And what about his opponent, incumbent Lois Capps?  I don't know much about her either, although the vibe I get from her supporters reminds me of vegans and the smelly bra-burning friends that my mom has over sometimes.  I get the feeling that she would be serving tofu instead of tri-tip at her rallies.

But I know nothing about either of these candidates' policies, platforms, visions for America, Masonic connections, and so forth.  And the third guy is running as an independent, so I don't even know his name since he's effectively banished from politics by the two party system and therefore has no supporters.

This election cycle is a contest between the tide of moronic inferno that is the TEA Party movement and the impressionable idiots who are still feeling the "Yes We Can" hangover.  And while this could be a golden opportunity for candidates to change the way politics is conducted by educating voters on issues rather than empty talking points, it has become worse.  From watching the ads put out there by Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman, it makes it seem like these candidates are willing to go into my memories and kill my childhood pets with a rusty shovel.

Come November 2nd, I'll probably be voting for a tri-tip sandwich, because I know it can deliver.  And that's more than Tom Watson or Lois Capps can say for themselves.

Edit: For congressman, I ended up placing a write-in vote for "A Tri-Tip Sandwich" today.  And I hope you did too.

Edible/Audible, Round 4

More answers to the tough question: what if your favorite band were a food?

Tom Petty: Leftover Meatloaf
This is food with a fuck you attitude. This is food for people who just don't have it in them to cook something, at least not right now, or maybe its your breakfast because you're out of cold pizza.  Yeah, it's kind of chewy and lost a little flavor in the fridge, but fuck you man, you're gonna eat this shit.  It's got protein and whatever the hell kind of other stuff you put in it.

The Shins: Lentil Soup
A food that's comfort food even though it isn't very sweet or fatty, and in fact, supplies complete proteins and complex carbohydrates.  Also enjoyed by militant vegans, who are kind of like die-hard Shins fans.  Kind of.

Chick Corea Electric Band: Paella
Both complex and complicated, bringing a whole assortment of melodies, sounds, and even textures together

Slightly Stoopid: Taco Bell
Taking something great, be it reggae or standard taqueria fare, and trying to both imitate it and exaggerate it thematically creates something that is awkward and obnoxious, but still provides some cheap enjoyment.  Is also inseparably linked with being fucked up in one way or another.

Explosions in the Sky: Peyote-laced Jam
You would think that if a band were to be Peyote Jam, it would be Pearl Jam, since that is where their name comes from (Eddie Vedder allegendly had a great-grandmother named Pearl who had a recipe for peyote-laced jam, and anything is better than being called "Mookie Baylock") but Explosions in the Sky is a far more fitting band.  Whether it is brushing your teeth or clipping your toenails, getting stuck in traffic or riding in an elevator with someone who smells bad, every moment will seem like the most profound moment of your life if you are listening to Explosions in the Sky.

Barenaked Ladies: Fruit-on-the-bottom yogurt
Something that you kind of want to take seriously, but you can't quite get there.  (It probably has to do with the fact that one is most certainly Canadian and the other seems like it would be thought up by a Canadian.)

Localism: Why Decent People Don’t Need Nationalism - A Guest Post by Justin Flom

It's not every day that you get to be the medium of expression for a new political movement.  For this post, I'm very proud to present a guest piece by Mr. Justin Flom.  I asked him to write this piece after a discussion we had where he coined the term "Localism."  He did, and even went the extra mile as to supply song lyrics.  So without further ado, here is some stimulation for your political theory palate...

“What if every living soul could be upright and strong?

Well then I do imagine

There will be sorrow no more.”

-Bad Religion, Sorrow

The guy asked me if I could spare a moment. He had his pseudo-counter-culture military-style jacket on, so I figured even if I’m going to be pleaded into signing something, at least the guy’s got a good heart about it. I forgot it was getting to November, though. I took a quick look at what he was holding, a pamphlet about prop 23, and I knew I was about to get an earful about who knows what and how I can change it. Quickly I interrupted, making clear that I don’t vote. It wasn’t really part of my, uh…

            “Philosophy.” Wow. He finished my sentence for me. Although he was an alright guy, I didn’t stick around for the rest of the song and dance, so I wished Che Jr. luck on his mission and walked away. Unfortunately, there was no slow motion or explosion, just my Alaska t-shirt that says “call of the wild.”

            Even though I handled that situation like a dopamined sun bear, I like advertising that I don’t vote. It makes me feel like I have a purpose, or am an individual. Sure, a sizeable portion of the population doesn’t vote, but that’s because they’re too lazy to pick up a pen to fill in the ballot with, and those ballot reading machines don’t acknowledge dorito residue.

            To me, not voting is more of a form of political participation that voting actually is. People ask why I don’t vote, and if I’m in the right mood, I’ll vocalize my dissent of elections, politics and government in general. It’s like there’s a magician and he’s got everyone else fooled but me. Lots of folks treat voting like the greatest thing since sliced butter. As if the most righteous, patriotic thing you can do other than wear a flag is vote. I’m not the guy to be all up to date and accurate with statistics, but I’m sure I make a bigger difference telling others my opinion than jumping through hoops to put a checkmark next to some guy’s name.

            But let me get down to the point of why Nate asked me to write a fairly unrelated chapter to the continuing story of Spaceship Earth. The key word to my whole anti-voting campaign is a word called “Localism.” There was a day, not too long ago, when I would have called myself an Anarchist. Anarchism, however, gets a bad rap from pretty much everybody. It’s associated with violence, destruction, and most tragically, with being uncivilized. For some reason, people cannot dissociate a lack of government with people being assholes to each other. They have become inseparable. After deciding that I no longer wanted to try and fight ingrained societal beliefs and be thought of as a violent radical, I came up with my own political ideology. Hence, localism was born.

            Most of what Nate knows about localism came from a discussion I participated in on our way to one of our summer bowling nights. It was a very memorable conversation, especially when Max described representative democracy as one of the greatest inventions of mankind and I laughed. Sorry, Max. No offense to you. Anyway, whenever I must describe localism on the fly, it’s less effective, because I sometimes don’t have the opportunity to break down preconceived notions. Max believed democracy was the best because that’s what he’s been told his whole life. That’s not his fault, I used to be the same way, as a politically undeveloped rebel, I even voted once. Gasp! But when so many of the lessons taught to us were taught by the government, it only makes sense that the system’s first priority is the preservation of the system, so although we learn a lot of really great lessons, some of them are undeniably skewed. If you don’t trust anarchism, ask yourself why you don’t. There are reasons we don’t like fascism or communism, because there are recent historical examples of them not working.

            In response to this point, Max argued that there have been ‘experiments’ of anarchism, where small states would attempt to exist without a governing body. But with the looming presence of domineering governments, the communities failed and empires worldwide chuckled to themselves. I’m picturing an analogy where a frat bro hits a pledge’s shins with a shovel, makes him shotgun 10 beers and then sprint a half-mile. Fair? I think not.

            And, unless you’re a soulless demon-spawn, you’ll agree that it’s not fair. Which brings me to my next point: All people have the same basic morality. We understand that hitting other people with shovels is wrong. There are a lot of values that have been indoctrinated into our mass consciousness just because of our culture. Basic ideas like driving on the right side of the road and not wearing underwear on your head. Other ideas, however are simply part of human nature, such as not putting mayo on pizza and murdering other people. A small child, yet uninfluenced by the world, won’t know which side of the road to drive on, but will totally understand that it hurts to get your blanket stolen. As a Christian, I call the pre-placed morality part of the soul given to us by God, but for all you non-religious folks, you still understand that there are certain things that are big no-no’s, without having them be taught. So, how come these ‘natural laws’ are being broken right and left?

            Well, the easy answer is that people are irresponsible. The complicated reason is that the reason people put gum under the desk is the same reason as why people hold up liquor stores. Although people may not think through the logic often, most figure that there’s someone to clean up after them, or at least they’ve been raised in a world where things are done for them. Yes, I am calling government a nanny. Can’t feed your kids? It’s okay, nanny government will provide you with food stamps. Someone making fun of you? It’s okay, nanny government will comfort you by giving the bully a stern talking-to in the court of law. It’s about time for mankind to grow up and learn to make it’s own bed and meals. Or at least be able to microwave bagel bites.

            So, at this point, people ask me about various federal institutions which they feel they could not live without. I’ll admit, I love using country libraries and I attend a public university, so of course there are systems which are beneficial, but lots of other stuff could be easily privatized, even roads and schools. If you think I sound crazy, that’s because you’ve probably never seriously considered how you get your roads and schools. People pay taxes, so, you’re paying for a bunch of random crap anyways. Taxes are like taking 200$ to the supermarket and getting in return lots of things you weren’t asking for while not receiving some of the things you need. I needed a head of lettuce, why did I get a bicycle pump?

            And here we are at the gist of localism. And the difference between it and the layman’s definition of anarchism. Organization can and should exist, but proximal to where you are at. Government has made shortcuts for huge corporations which lead to outsourcing, which lead to fewer ways to get the things you need locally. In turn, those big companies help get those in government reelected. My neighbors on both sides administrate the shipment of goods from overseas, but I’d much rather one of them be a cooper and the other a fletcher. That way I can support those around me and lessen my carbon footprint in one fell swoop. Of course, there’s the inconvenience of me having to go to more than one place to fetch my barrels and arrows, but that’s part of being a more responsible person. (Barrels of arrows,though, are a whole different matter.)

            When everything relevant to us happens locally, we know exactly what’s going on, there’s no duplicity. We know how products are made, where they come from. We know who our local leaders are and what rules we’ve come up for ourselves and why they exist. There’s less bureaucracy  and more people actually getting things done. Competition between businesses is more fair. War is less probable and in worst case scenario, less afflicting. It’s generally a whole lot easier to agree among a town council, since there aren’t hundreds of thousands of lives being affected by the decision. The people in Washington, although they may have good intentions for you, their number one priority is always the next election and whether or not they’ll hold the office. How can you trust, or even willingly put power into their hands? People love Obama, but behind all of the suave media personality that he is, what kind of man is he really? How will we ever know? What happens when one of his successors screws up? You voted for him, so the blood will be on your hands. I’d rather trust leadership with a person that I know and can personally hold accountable.

            Government is a water balloon, and the bigger it gets, the closer it is to popping. Barely fill it up, and there’s less of a chance of it making it look like you peed in your pants.

            So, if you were planning on voting this upcoming election, don’t. And if you really have to, well, at least try to elect your aunt or junior high band teacher or something.


The Ozone Shack is a safe place for all thoughts and opinions.  If you would be interested in contributing as a guest writer, shoot me an email or contact us through our facebook page.

The 3rd Millenium: Party in the Robotocracy

I'm not afraid of robot overlords, trans-humans, test tube babies, government surveillance, mind control, corporate hegemony, alien overlords, or ramped-up eugenics.  I'm not even afraid of the grey goo that we'll all be turned into once nanotechnology goes awry.  I'm not afraid of a dystopia because, as I've made very clear before, we are already living in a dystopia.  The thing that scares me most about this dystopia is Miley Cyrus.

There are two types of people in 2010.  There are those who like Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA," and then there are those who hate it but for some reason deep down inside kinda like certain aspects of it.  For example, I'll punch a hole in the next speaker that I hear playing the song, but you can put a foil helmet on my head and call me paranoid if I don't like that guitar riff that they ripped off from some 70's R&B track who's title eludes me at the moment.  The song is ubiquitous. You can't escape it any more easily than you can escape the watchful eye of Big Brother.

The music industry has reached the point where they can pinpoint the exact musicological aspects of songs that people will find aurally pleasing.  If you've used Pandora you've experienced the lite version of this.  Songs are broken down into elements, or "genomes" as they're called by the folks at Pandora, and your feedback is used to determine which elements you like.  (For example, I'm all about extensive vamping, mixed electric acoustic and electric instrumentation, and busy horn sections, apparently.)  You can then discover music that sounds like the music you already know, but structured differently.

If you watched last election's presidential debates (ok, you probably didn't) you noticed that certain networks had instant feedback from voters using knobs to indicate whether what the candidates were saying had a positive or negative effect.  What people didn't realize is that this data was being used to determine which talking points were the best to hit, so speech writers could take the guesswork out of their jobs.

And now we have the same thing with music.  Using focus groups, record companies can find out which riffs are the most pleasing.  They're not looking for a riff that sounds good anymore, they're looking for the best riff, the riff that will hit our proverbial cash gag reflexes.  We don't know why we like the riff at the beginning of Party in the USA, we just do.  But the people who wrote and produced this song (aka, not Miley Cyrus) sampled literally dozens if not hundreds of riffs to use.  The same methodology was used for the synth bass line that everyone loves.  The lyrics are about what everyone loves: having fun, being un-inhibited, patriotism (sort of), hearing the music that you like, Middle America's disillusionment from Los Angeles, and the word "yeah!"

At some point down the road, it could be fifty years, it could be five, this is how all pop music will be made.  It will be nothing but aggregations of musical elements that have been empirically proven to please listeners most effectively.  Pop music will essentially become a gray goo of songs that all sound kind of the same.  And if that's not a dystopia, then I don't know what is.