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The next day, I ordered a CD and got the wrong one. And holy crap, I am glad I did. The first Band of Skulls CD is one of the most cohesive, consistent rock records I have ever heard. I am not the kind of guy that likes to dissect music, but this sound makes me want to. The drummer builds tension. After a few listens to the songs, you are filled with tension and want to hear the next beat, and the drummer teases you with a pause. Admittedly, the album weakens in the middle, and has ups and downs for the remainder. But those first five songs, oh my God, they are like a flurry of punches from Mike Tyson's fists. I played one of their songs for my brother. He said to me, "That drummer is a guitar player." He said this before I saw video of that drummer playing guitar...I have wondered...Was my brother working from existing knowledge, or is his musical ear that good? And I can't lie to myself. Part of my love for this band is that tall, awkward, black-haired beautiful beast. She is tall and proud and uncomfortable and loud. She shouts into my face, slows me, and then hunches over before the chorus hits. The frontman, the guitar-man loves strings stretched behind a bridge of a guitar. He lovingly strokes and makes the machine emit high-pitched screeches. He does it a lot, but every time I can see in his face that he says, "This sounds badass," and that passion is a musical masterpiece. I hear what he's hearin'. I listen to a lot of music, and some of it my wife likes, and other of it -- not so much. Band of Skulls is the first example of music that I showed to her that she embraced and enjoyed it on her own. She now drives down the road shouting: "Death by Diamonds and Pearls!" This, I think, indicates a good record. Permalink to this post. |
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I have watched this video about 20 or 30 times this week. The structure of this brain-dump will be as follows: I will play several seconds of the video, and then I will expound with scotch-soaked words about the semi-random firing of fading synapses. Early in the video there is a little boy. I am struck by the difference between this little boy and the little boy I remember me to be. He is comfortable in his skin, proud, and moves like a lion. How did he get to be so confident? Even still I am not comfortable in my skin. Immediately afterwords, the singer performs what will become the signature dance move of the video. I assume this is the eponymous "Gangnam Style." With this move he introduces a self-effacing, humorous undertone which clashes with the cliche hip-hop "I'm so dope" vibe his other mannerisms suggest. The visuals of the following scene are great. The production quality of this video is phenomenal. The snow ceases to be snow and becomes white noise. Next: The homoerotic visuals. While the singer has been flamboyant so far, it is only now that he secretly suggests his sexuality. Well, not so secretly. He openly flaunts it. A steamy Asian bath-house is hardly a subtle scene. And immediately he is dancing with a beautiful girl. Once again I am jealous of someone not uncomfortable in his own skin. I have stood on stage and sung, and dressed as Frank, and had Lisa make fun of the awkward movements of my hips. I have never been comfortable with the movement of my skin. Then there is a large-scale dance number. How many takes were necessary to capture this? I did a drug store commercial as a kid, and that 20 seconds took all day. They sent a team to pick up sticks to make the yard look nice. That took about an hour. And again the "Gangnam Style" is simultaneously awesome and intentionally silly. Comedy and absurdity follow, and then follows beautiful girls' bottoms, exercising suggestively. He shouts the chorus at their bums. Instant harsh segue to effeminate mannerisms and gay aesthetics. Enter the Yellow Man. The yellow man is dressed in tight yellow leather. The yellow man dances "Gangnam Style." The yellow man mixes "I'm So Dope" aesthetics with the self-effacing "Gangnam Style" and then -- The elevator scene. Not since "The Shining" has an elevator scene been so moving. It doesn't take Freud to interpret this one. This next subway scene warrants a moment. The cinematography captures, to me, that first gasping moment of seeing a beautiful woman, and knowing that she sees you too. You are drunk, reaching, groping for this thing of beauty. You caress one another. And then Wop Gangnam Style. I love seeing this previously elevated woman, this hypothetical Aphrodite, now dancing Gangnam style. She is now human and dancing alongside us. The levity continues. The intense imagery is softened by a humorous hand. Gangnam Style continues to be light-hearted, but obsessively choreographed. It takes diligence to choreograph the appearance of ease. The return of the achingly beautiful woman. The camera is sped. The singer mixes Korean and English...Or does he? To me, the word "Korean," is an English word. I hear him say "Korean." And he brings the song to a crescendo, pulls the camera to his face, does those hip-hop moves, and -- He's sitting on the toilet. Now, a hundred people Gangnam Style simultaneously choreographed. This scene is tight. I am jealous of him for even being able to pull together that many people, much less make them all Wop Gangnam Style. The moves continue to be that split between sexy, confident, and self-effacing. Silly yet sexy. A joke, but then serious. Epilogue: The Yellow Man's moves physically capture everything that I have feebly trying to say. I suppose that he has "Gangnam Style." Maybe these cross-fires of imagery were not intended by the artists, but nevertheless those cross-fires happened. "Gangnam Style" is now an aesthetic in my mind. It is like a software pattern described by the gang of four. You guys owned it. You rock. Permalink to this post. |
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Several years ago I saw a disgusting decision and decided I was done with boxing. Never mind the years of Tuesday Night Fights I had recorded on VHS. Never mind the nights spent sweating in a gym with madmen and beasts. Never mind that moment when I saw Gerald's giant fist arcing into my face. Never mind that moment when I crouched and hooked tall, funny, everything Matt, and clocked him right in the jaw. Tonight Bradley was hungry. Yesterday he was shredded and beautiful. He was everything that every man wants to be. And tonight he was a flaming wall of passion. I was certain that he was going to win. As much as I love Pacquiao, I felt that Bradley was going to destroy him. As soon as I saw Bradley's shredded physique at the weigh-in, I thought there was a problem. I thought Paq was Apollo Creed ignoring Rocky. I thought this hungry guy was going to tear up the champ. How wrong I was. Pacquiao beat him all but two rounds, in my opinion. I was stunned. I had forgotten what a brilliant boxer this Pac Man is. He out-classed Bradley every round, and I had to eat crow. The Champ reminded us why he is the champ. At 33, he all but destroyed this challenger. During the fight I yelled, "Bradley's corner is doing him no favors! 'Last 2 more rounds' is your advice??? You can't goddamned win a decision! You have lost! You NEED a knockout!" The fight was horribly lopsided in favor of Paq. But, just like that, the judges ruled in favor of Bradley. The crowd booed. Bradley's corner stared into space, white-eyed -- and even he looked confused. It was a debacle, a gross spectacle. The post-fight interviews were painful. Bradley, this beautiful monster of a man was robbed of a proud moment. Being defeated by one of the greatest fighters of all time is no shame. He could have been proud of that moment. But this? To be granted a false win in this cacophony of derisive boos? Fuck you, you piece of shit Boxing Promoters who did this to that great man. I bite my thumb at you. I throw my shoe at you. You are transparent and disgusting. Both of those fighters deserve better than the vampiric evil that is your greed. But hey, you don't really care. You are, what, 75 or so now? What does it matter to you that you are killing boxing? At least you have your silver. "Pay for the rematch in November." Your minds make my soul vomit. Permalink to this post. |
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There are the movies like Paycheck that are a pale reflection of the book. There are the movies like Fight Club that are truly faithful adaptations that capture the essence of the thing. And then there are works like Blade Runner and The Prestige that are dramatically different than the source material, and you find yourself conflicted as to which is the better story. The Prestige is a brilliant story. It is told in a somewhat disjointed way, jumping between present events and what is written in old journals. The author did an excellent job of capturing distinctive voices in the different journals and narratives. The Prestige is a story with several twists. I saw the movie prior to reading the book, and thankfully I was still shocked by the twists I found. The stories are so different, yet fundamentally the same, that I am amazed at both works. I am amazed at the screenwriting in The Prestige. Normally when Hollywood mangles a story, they just produce an aborted beast. This is an unfair example, but I don't give a shizzle. Go and read Stephen King's Lawnmower Man, and then watch the movie. I dare you. I would argue that this is the most egregious example ever. (Note: I think Lawnmower Man is a decent movie, but it totally rapes the source material, and is the most ugly example of using an author's name to push your movie.) But all is not perfect in any work, and this one is no exception. While watching the movie there was one thing that really bugged me. Tesla. It was just too convenient. It was just too much deus ex machina. To be fair, it was less clunky in the book because Alfred Borden actually had electrical effects in his show, but I still dislike this aspect of the story. I feel that the story would have worked just as well, and would have seem less contrived, had Angier simply pursued Tesla of his own accord without any sort of misdirection from Borden. But that is like pointing out a wart on Scarlett Johansson's taint. This was a riveting read. I carried the book with me at lunch, brought it to bed, and devoured it in less than a week. Surprisingly, the ending came close to horrifying me. The final twist of the movie was certainly dark, but I think it is somewhat less affecting than the ending of the book. They are both twists, well structured and timed, but I found the book truly frightening. I found myself wondering if this thing was laying beside me. I dreamed feverishly of magic. This is an excellent book, and I recommend that everyone read it. Permalink to this post. |
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(Editor's Note: Primer is a movie. You didn't read it.) One of the interesting things about time travel stories is that the author is forced to construct a self-consistent universe in which time travel exists. The very idea of time travel screams paradox, so the author has to find a way to address it -- and typically the story revolves around the particular way in which the author chooses to solve the problem. Prior to reading this book, I thought that Back to the Future had the best time travel mythos of all time. It was somewhat silly, but it was internally consistent and allowed for a riveting story. Primer is also excellent. There were definitely some innovations that I had never seen before. The tricks that the characters played with time travel were executed in ways that only an engineer could imagine. But this story established a structure completely its own. Where the aforementioned stories focused on the world, on causality, on people's interactions with each other, this story focused ENTIRELY on the time traveler's impact upon himself. I read some of the Amazon reviews prior to reading it, and they really didn't make any sense to me. They talked about self-indulgence, narcissism, and self-obsession, but I couldn't quite follow. After reading the book, however, they made total sense. What would I say to me if I could travel through time? How would I help me? What would I show me? Would I grab the earlier me, and together grab an even earlier version of me to do something spectacular? And as strange as it seems, the book hones in on the pain of the human condition. The all-powerful protagonist is faced with the same pains of loss as we all are. Even with the ability to instantly pop into any second in history, our hero experiences loss, loneliness, and mortality. Nothing is ever explained in this story. There are no answers. Am I God? Am I nothing? Am I simply a consumer paying market price for a trinket that makes me believe that I am important? This story is a blurred tapestry of a fantastic and impossible life. It is alien and foreign, but this strangeness serves to magnify human emotions. Love, lust, loss, elation, quickening and sorrow -- they're all there. I suppose all of us who have fancied ourselves the most important things in the universe can relate to this little tale. I suppose the thing that I like most about this story is that even in the vast incomprehensibility of this hypothetical universe, there is a hint of meaning. Somewhere in the mess, underneath the madness is an order. Even if our hero cannot see it, SOMETHING is happening. Something is real. This time belt came from somewhere. Even if he can never know how or why it came to be, it just is. It is real. Even if this was not the author's intention (and it probably wasn't), this time belt is one of my favorite allegories of all time. Permalink to this post. |
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