My Confused Inner Caveman

I know that it's not actually based on science, but I sometimes think that my caveman body, that is, my primitive, pre-civilization body has a mind of its own and is trying to interpret the world in which it lives, and explain it in terms that it knows.  And I imagine it must be very confused, because it has to deal with all sorts of unnatural things, like routinely traveling at 60+ miles an hour, high fructose corn syrup, and whatever the hell they put in NyQuil.

I tend to make one meal with a lot of leftovers, and subsist off it for at least two days.  This makes sense to my inner caveman, because he expects that the only thing in the fridge is what he killed a few days ago.  But more often than not, it's probably more confusing, because he's thinking "what, I run all day and all I catch is spaghetti?  Where's the mastodon?"

That's probably also why I always need to be munching on something when I'm sitting down.  He's saying "hey man, what are we doing just sitting here, we could be foraging for berries or something."  Half of that translates to action; I munch on a bag of chips or something and keep sitting there, and as long as he's getting fed he's happy, because for all he knows, it's still the ice age and the next meal could be a long ways away.

When I go to Costco to stalk up on non-mastodon foodstuffs, I'm able to get almost a full meal out of free samples.  This makes sense to him, because it's like foraging.  A bunch of small amounts of random foodstuffs are coming his way, but he has to wait for it, and seek it out.

He's probably wondering why I haven't had my head smashed in at least once by a heavy blunt object, and why my feet never really seem to hit the ground, almost as if something is strapped onto my feet.  He wonders what this kind of cave it is I live in - it seems too bright and never the temperature that would be expected.  When I watch TV, he wonders why this strange kind of fire entertains me so much.  Why so many hot liquids going down your throat? he thinks, why so many chemicals in the air you breathe?  And when I eat a banana, he thinks "I didn't come all the way down from the trees just to eat like a damn monkey!"  (This also happens when I eat insects from off my friends' backs.)

And I'm sure that for most people, their inner caveman is even more confused.  They're sedentary, for the most part, and they stay up all night and are half-asleep while the sun is up.  And their biggest adrenaline rushes seem to come when they're sitting down, seemingly doing nothing fight or flight-y at all.  We've lost touch with part of what we are.  We've gained a lot, but I can't help wonder if it all just serves to make our bodies confused.

In reality, there is no thought behind any of our biological processes.  But it's amusing enough to think otherwise, if only to realize how different we have become, and how far we are removed, from what we as humanity did not so long ago.

One From Dan Quayle - "Spaceship Earth"

Since some of you have expressed powerful feelings of rage, loss, injustice and emptiness after A Tribute to Dan Quayle was taken down, and because I am constantly trying to work the most favorable ratio of content to effort, I will be reposting some of its brighter moments, complete with new epigraphs and maybe even some meta-commentary.  Here's a post about (the now deceased) Spaceship Earth, circa May 2009.

"It's so cold and lonely out here in outer space

At least I've got my keyboard and my low bot has its bass"

-Pepper, Stormtrooper

My car is a spaceship. It has disguised itself as a sedan from the early nineties to hide from bounty hunters. The windows are tinted to the point where they are probably not safe, and probably not entirely legal either. I bought it from a guy on Monument whom I found through Craig's List. He was moving back to India. I have named it Spaceship Earth because it is green, and after the quote by Dr. Emmanuel Bronner, which states "...for on God's Spaceship Earth, with bomb and gun, we're All One or none. All One! Exceptions eternally? Absolutely none!" It's a wonder that anyone still talks to me.

There is a shipboard AI, which is the after-market stereo system that was installed in the car. There is a life support system (AC), data readouts (the little button that I press to get the outside temperature), and a cargo hold (the trunk). The driver's seat is the bridge. The passenger seat is the navigator's seat, who sometimes has to assume the role of the gunner. The driver side back seat is the barracks, and the passenger side back seat is the brig, becasue the passenger side back door only opens from the outside. The middle seat in the back is just the bitch seat, because some things are the same in both spaceships and cars.

When the sun roof is open, it becomes the gunnery. When at least one window is rolled down all the way, Spaceship Earth is in atmospheric mode. When the windows are up, it is in interstellar mode. When in atmospheric mode, I can do research by sticking my hand out the window. When in neutral, I am cruising in stealth mode, as my engine is idling, and therefore, I emit fewer heat signatures.

Aboard Spaceship Earth, there are two protocols that are constantly in effect, and several others that are initiated as needed. The conditional protocols are the internal de-moisturizing protocols (primary, secondary, and tertiary), external demoisturizing protocols (primary and secondary, the first of which involves deploying the moisture shields), energy conservation protocol (when decelerating with the intent of stopping, I pop it into stealth mode), and the life support moderation protocol, which means that I cannot use the life support system if the outside temperature is within ten degrees of the desired temperature and atmospheric mode is a feasable option.

The two protocols that are constantly in effect are the primary introduction protocol and the stack protocol. The primary introduction protocol states that whenever it is a passenger's first time in Spaceship Earth, they must be given a complete briefing on the features of Spaceship Earth, regardless of circumstances. The stack protocol states that whichever CD is currently in the shipboard AI, if it has a case, must have its case at the top of the stack of CDs in the storage space directly below the shipboard AI. There are no exceptions to either of these protocols.

But Spaceship Earth is not just a collection of absurdities to represent the world that goes on in my head and takes over when my conciousness can't take anymore of real reality. Spaceship Earth is my room, my bubble, my place in space. It is where I can think about things, it is where I can talk about things, it is where I can reason, where I can work out the big and small issues, some of which matter and some of which don't. Spaceship Earth has a mind, it can think and respond and understand. And together we have this kind of synergy, the perfect marriage of artificial and organic intelligence. Whatever it is, the ship knows me, and I know the ship. But we fly though space with nothing to defend, we are drifting and never quite in orbit, not to mention taht there are no satelites around us. Ship doesn't mind, but it makes me a little melancholy. But only a little.

Sometimes in the deep voids of interstellar space, I'll walk the dark corridors and think "something is missing."  Especially in the service ducts for the computor systems in the bridge. Maybe I'm too crazy to fix them, or not crazy enough; it may be that it'll take someone crazier than I to repair all the systems. Or maybe just someone competent.

Either way, we make a damn good team as it is, and thanks to the well established system of protocols, especially the stack protocol, everything runs smoothly.

The sad thing is that now, as I am really getting an understanding of this thinking space I have discovered, it will probably not be joining me next year, as I will probably not need a car where I am going. But I am not going to sell it, because I will need a car again eventually, and I probably wouldn't get enough to justify the trouble of selling it. That's ok. I'm going to drive this thing until it falls apart on the interstate. (Strangely enough, this is exactly what ended up happening.) Because dammit, for once, it's a space that I have made my own, and I can finally do some good thinking in there.

So be warned, if you ask me for a ride, you may be in for a long speech about all the features and the importance of having three different de-moisturizing protocols. But don't let that deter you, because it is a place where everything in your brain will allign itself properly, all the cells have the optimum osmotic pressure, all the molecules are vibrating at the same frequency, and everything makes sense. Trust me.

Super Bull Prediction

Pre-game: Reporters ask various players "what's going through your head right now?"  All of them will respond with "I'm just gonna go out there and play a good game of football."  Do they expect any other kind of answer.  I mean, most of these guys barely made it through high school.

1st Quarter

15:00 - Steelers win the coin toss.  Typical asshole Steeler fans will act as though this is what their team is entitled to, as it has been willed by both God and the Founding Fathers.

14:52 - Packers take to the field with tomahawks, wounding a forgettable member of the Steelers special teams.  Cut to first commercial break.  Commercial involving talking squirrels who understand the nuances of managing a stock portfolio.

12:38 - Steelers finish their first drive with a touchdown, but there is some controversy.  From the camera angle in one of the replays, it appears that members of the Steelers offensive line were operating a tank on the field.  Cut to commercial featuring pop star drinking Pepsi.

10:15 - Greg Jennings steps on a land mine planted on the Packer's 30 yard line.  His left leg is destroyed below the knee.  Cut to commercial featuring lobsters using a Xerox machine.

7:30 - Packers get on the board, using a trick play that involves crashing a blimp into the field.  Cut to fear mongering commercial that makes you terrified for your family's financial future, and realize that the best option is to get AIDS asap.

4:15 - Ben Roethlisberger rapes a woman during a timeout.  (Too soon, too soon...)

2:13 - Packers get into field goal range, in part with the help of Greg Jennings' partially-intact tibia bone, which they are using as a bludgeon.  Cut to commercial for godaddy.com featuring Ben Rothlisberger raping a godaddy.com girl.  (Ok, that was really too soon.  At least I'm not making overplayed Michael Vick jokes.)

0:15 - An IED that has been planted inside the game ball explodes.  Hamas claims responsibility.

2nd Quarter

15:00 - Steelers take to the field equipped with riot control gear.  Packers respond by dawning keffiyehs and throwing rocks at them in front of cameras.

13:10 - After a few tense minutes and a whole lot of teargas, the Steelers open fire.

12:30 - Aaron Rodgers calls in an air strike.

10:15 - Once the Steelers are able to regroup and get their communications satellite back online, they regroup on their own 40 yard line.  Roethlisberger orders a tactical nuke strike.  Cut to commercial using racial stereotypes to illustrate a cell phone company's extensive coverage.

8:58 - Packers use microwave satellites to focus beams of energy that cause Steelers players' brains to melt and ooze out of their ears.  Cut to commercial featuring bears mauling fast food employees.

7:00 - Clones of the Steelers special teams take the field to return a punt.  This tactic, used to minimize potential injuries, is ruled perfectly legal by the referee.

4:23 - Aaron Rodgers rides an elephant onto the field.

2:13 - Steelers score another touchdown by having Hines Ward jump into a black hawk helicopter which then lands in the end zone.  Cut to commercial featuring dinosaurs buying auto insurance.

2:06 - Packers defense is equipped with RPGs to prevent another touchdown like that last one.

1:15 - Camera cuts to man wearing cheese on his head for the 5,725th time.

0:47 - Steelers get dirty and break out the mustard gas

Halftime

The Black Eyed Peas fail to appear on stage.  Upon further investigation, it is revealed that they have been eaten by Troy Polamalu.

3rd Quarter

15:00 - Greg Jennings takes to the field again, with a new leg grown by the resident mad scientist on the Packers' sports medicine team.

14:30 - Ben Rothlisberger reveals his true form - BEN ROBOTBERGER: A giant angry robot who shoots lasers out of his mouth.

11:15 - Troy Polamalu poops out the Black Eyed Peas.  On the field.

10:55 - "My Humps" heard emanating from Troy Palamalu's Black Eyed Peas poop.

9:23 - Packers develop high-density neutrino cannons, and they are not a moment too soon, because at...

9:06 - Steelers release nano-drones onto the field.  Cut to commercial featuring John Madden birthing Siamese twins from a Raiderette with tentacles for hands

4:15 - Packers find a way to put the stadium under null gravity.  Ender Wiggin reminds the Steelers that the enemy end zone is down.

2:12 - Zombie JFK intercepts a pass intended for Greg Jennings, before Castro blows of his head with a sawed off shotgun.  Cut to commercial featuring talking baby birthing John Madden from a diversified stock portfolio

0:15 - Packers get another field goal, which is really easy to do in zero gravity.

4th Quarter

15:00 - Puke from 60,000 spectators feeling the effects of zero gravity is flying all over the stadium.

13:12 - Packers nuke the Steelers while they are in huddle.

12:50 - Ben ROBOTberger may have been destoryed, but Ben Cockroachberger can survive any nuclear holocaust!

10:09 - With puke everywhere, no gravity, and every player bleeding from their eyeballs and from under their fingernails due to radiation poisoning, the game will become a disorganized mess.  Cut to commercial featuring a can of Pepsi drinking a pop singer drinking the blood of the first born John Madden

6:66 - Satan comes on the field, steals Mike Tomlin's wallet.

5:12 - After a plague of space leprosy (from the future!) sweeps through the field, cut to commercial featuring talking babies drinking Bud Lite after successfully diversifying stock portfolio by investing in Pepsi, life insurance, and X-Treme Mouth Rape Spicy Doritos.

4:48 - Michael Moore announces that he will be making a documentary about this game, and how it could have been done much better in Europe.

3:18 - To hold off a Steelers drive, Packers re-locate their end zone to a small comet in elliptical orbit around the sun.  Cut to commercial break featuring talking babies with erectile dysfunction getting a tip from a caveman John Madden to use Viagra.

2:04 - Commercial featuring talking babies with massive, 4 hour long erections sodomizing talking lobsters making photocopies of pop singer drinking Pepsi-flavored Bud Lite.  Strangely enough, this is actually a commercial for godaddy.com, and you need to go there to find out what happens next.  (Hint: it involves tentacles... lots of them!)

0:00 The game ends and America goes back to whatever it is America does.

And that is what will happen tomorrow.

A Tribute To A Tribute To Dan Quayle

The internet is now a slightly more intelligent place.  In order to alleviate the burden of its embarrassing presence, I have finally taken down my old blog, A Tribute to Dan Quayle.  Actually, it hasn't actually been taken off the internet yet, but currently it's set so that only I can view it.  And although it was, well, pretty awful, I feel that I should at least give it a decent wake.

About five years ago I started A Tribute to Dan Quayle, which was then originally entitled "Nate's Naterrific Blog," for really no apparent reason.  This would be the medium through which I discovered my voice as a writer.  (You could say that this actually happened when I wrote No Time for the Meek, but you have to be really special to know what that is.  Still, I think the first 30 or so pages of that are the highest quality of work I have ever produced.)  Now, as I said, the writing is abysmal, there is no focus or coherence to most of the posts, and until you get to the Processing Cycle, it's not really going anywhere.  Then it ends with a long, overwrought post where I try to sum up everything I had learned in the past three and a half years and then it dies and then the Ozone Shack was born two months later.

Sad that you missed out on A Tribute to Dan Quayle?  Don't be.  I can summarize it all right here.

"Here Comes the Food Pyramid" through "Hi"

I have a lot of things to say, and I will say them in a semi-coherent manner.  There are many amusing incidents that I wish to share with you, and I think you will be interested by them.  The food pyramid is a bad invention. I run a lot.

"Big Week" through "Legit"

I am passionate about running.  I want to be really good, but it is frustrating.  I have some more observations to make, but they make even less sense than before.  You want to hear about my track meets? No?  Well too bad, you have to!

"Speeches, Wreaths, Babies, Old People, and Running Man '06" through "Sim City"

I am slowly coming to terms with the world, and beginning to observe it critically rather than just accepting it and making snarky yet humorously disarming remarks about it.  I am growing up, but I am not maturing.  Or maybe I am maturing but not growing up.  It's kind of hard to tell.

"The Adventures of Emo Foot" through " Apple Jacks Were a Good Choice"

My foot is broken, I am sad, I am useless, I have nothing to contribute.  I am going to play some more Sim City.  The best thing I can do with my life right now is probably waste it.

"Well, I Guess this is Growing Up..." through "cell ph0n3d"

I am trying to form coherent observations about the world but I just don't have the brain power.  However, please read these long and rambling posts as I try to make sense of the world around me and offer some quality insight into the world.  I think I am deep, but I am not.

"Ice Cold Tecate" through "A Bit of Nostalgia"

So guess what guys, I want to be a writer, now look at me try to do writerly things and come up with stunning, thoughtful, and entertaining posts.  Unfortunately, they're actually probably worse than before becasue now I'm actually trying harder than before.  Things I like: running (still), Pearl Jam, writing, the word "hella," Chuck Klosterman, irreverent humor, silence.  Things I dislike: traffic school, Michael Phelps, Radiohead, Blink 182, the sound of my own voice.

"A High Level Discourse on the Subject of Beards" through "Reading"

Quality has improved.  I can write semi-goodly, I have good observations, and I don't really write about myself anymore, and when I do, it is because there is actually a good story to tell.  You like beards?  Here's a post about beards!  You like Obama?  Here's three fucking posts about Obama!  You like Christmas?  Here's a post about Christmas!  You like music?  Here's a couple posts about music!  You like March Madness?  Here's a post about March Madness!  Aren't I leveling up!

"Processing" through "Processing, Part VII: A Long Song About Nothing (and Epilogue)"

I have finally found my niche in the universe and the most awesome people that anyone could ever know.  I have interpreted every incident that has happened to me over the last four years, and I am now wiser, partially because my car has a brain that allows me to talk to it.  But now I have to leave.  Here is a very long goodbye.  Also, I like making posts that sound like Coheed & Cambria album titles.

And that was basically A Tribute to Dan Quayle in eight paragraphs.  I could have saved 160 posts and three and a half years of my life.  Instead it took me twenty minutes.  

All five or six of you who read that debauchery of a project, I thank you for your devotion and your support.  Without you guys I would probably not have realized my passion for writing.  And as Dan Quayle said, "I stand by all the misstatements I have made."  Likewise, I stand by all the pointless, inane, and unstructured posts I made.  They were a step on getting where I am now.  And some day, I will look back on these early years of the Ozone Shack and think "this needs to be taken of the internet immediately!"

Baltimore???

"So I'm turning off the TV, and I smashed my radio
Cuz I realized that my heroes are the people I already know
And I'm burning up the papers, and tearing up all the magazines
Cuz they make me feel so lonely
When there's no one who represents me."
-H₂O, Role Models


As it turns out, my existential sports fan crisis has not been resolved.  In fact, it has been deepened by a revelation I had last weekend (and didn't get around to posting until now because this is the internet and you get what you pay for.)  I thought I would never have any problems again after arbitrarily deciding to devote my fandom to the Miami Dolphins, Montreal Canadiens, Portland Trailblazers, and, somewhat less arbitrarily, the Oakland A's.


But then reality and emotions, two things that I am trying to eliminate my life because they slow me down, intervened.  And it was done by a team in purple, which makes me even more uneasy, because I hate purple, not really the color itself or because I'm homophobic and purple is mildly gay or something like that, I just hate teams with purple as their uniform color.  Just thought I would clear the air on that one.  I don't like purple uniforms just because.  Anyway, a team in purple.  That team in purple was the Baltimore Ravens.  Because when they lost to the Steelers (whom I hate for non uniform color scheme-related reasons) there was this intense visceral feeling that I had never felt before.  It struck a chord inside of me - I really wanted this team to win, and not just because I wanted the Steelers to lose.  I don't live anywhere near Baltimore, nor is the city of Baltimore stuck in the 1970s/Cuba, as is Miami.  They're a bird team, and I don't take bird teams seriously.  I don't watch The Wire, which I feel now needs to be mentioned any time the city of Baltimore is mentioned.  Plus I'm pretty sure it was a Ravens game that got nuked in The Sum of All Fears.  And they're fucking purple!


But I think that I'm subconsciously a Ravens fan...


So maybe I have to base this whole sports fan thing on feelings rather than facts, kind of like how I learned to do things in elementary school.


Being a fan involves identifying with the team, even though most football fans are not between 22 and 35, pumped up on roids, severely concussed, and ludicrously overpaid.  The team represents you because you live near them, or because being a fan gives you a community with which to identify (e.g. Raider Nation).  


And I do not have a sports team that represents me.  So I'm going with my gut here.  Listen Baltimore, you don't like me and I sure as hell don't like you, but we're going to have to work together to solve this existential crisis.  So here are the terms of our agreement: I will be slightly happier when you win, and insanely angry when you lose.  During games where you play the Dolphins or the Raiders, I will feel conflicted.  I will not buy any of your merchandise.  And this agreement is over if you end up moving to any city that I deem to be unworthy, or if the NFL launches an expansion team somewhere in the state of New Mexico.


And this is why I hate sports.

Hello and Welcome to my Mission Statement

Part of growing up is confronting the facts of life, and the fact is that no one reads the Ozone Shack.  I mean, yes, there are people who read it, but, in the scheme of almost 7 billion people, it's, well, not very many at all.  (If I weren't blocked in China, I would have more readers, right?  Right?!?) Edit: I am not blocked in China anymore.  So, I have been trying to spread the message of the Ozone Shack by knocking on your door and asking if you would like a pamphlet and an awkward conversation about Jesus.  No, wait, that's Jehovah's Witnesses.  I've been trying to spread the message of the Ozone Shack by getting its name out there on the internet, and I realize that there is no real message of the Ozone Shack.

Oh wait, here comes the obligatory semi-relevant song lyric...

"I told you a million times how I love you

But honey your old fickle heart won't let me in

So I'll just relax here, with this glass of gin

And head for the ozone again"

-Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, "Lost in the Ozone"

It's about the future, sort of, it's about sci-fi, sort of, it's about music, sort of, it's about sports, sort of.  It includes stories from my life, it includes album reviews, it includes opinion pieces, it includes some fiction, it includes a lot of meaningless wordstuffs, and it includes way too many robots.  But as far as a target audience, it has none, and as far as a slogan, all I have is "Your guide to surviving and thriving in the future," which is not very descriptive as all I can tell you is that you should insulate your home with microwavable burritos, douse yourself with perfume to hide from zombies, and probably learn to speak binary.  01000110 01110101 01100011 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110010 01101111 01100010 01101111 01110100 01110011 00101110 00101110 00101110.

And despite my minuscule readership, I still, for whatever reason, think of myself as a legitimate writer and a legitimate blogger.  This is kind of like when I would run around the neighborhood as a kid convinced that I was  an army man fighting the Japanese in the Pacific, until my mom yelled at me because my grandpa actually did fight the Japanese in the Pacific and actually did become an alcoholic plagued with horrible night terrors as a result.  Or like how George W. Bush thought he was a cowboy.  Remember that?  We all had a good laugh about that one.

So the question remains, does the Ozone Shack need a focus, does it need a unifying message?  The only demographic I've really focused on is people age 5-500 who are literate, and even then, it's probably more enjoyable if you can't read it.

So I say, forget about a theme, forget about sloganeering, forget about selling a pretty package.  The Ozone Shack can be a freewheeling collection of everything - mindless ramblings, half-baked opinions, and horribly skewed observations.  It can be whatever I want, and I'll let it accumulate meaning or focus as it goes, and if it doesn't, then it will be all the better.  Screw hits, screw ad revenue, screw being taken seriously by the blogging community.  Because the Ozone Shack is a place where everyone can come to unwind in a crazy crazy future.

And you know, I think I just came up with something of a slogan.

See also: The Artistically Defining Moment of Self-Doubt

"I'm lost in the ozone again

I'm lost in the ozone again

One drink of wine, two drinks of gin

And I'm lost in the ozone again"

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.