Hey dudes. How have you been?
I saw Iron Man 2 opening day, and of course I will tell you what I think, and I will be brief, and I will not divulge any spoilers, because I do not want to mess about with inviso-text.
The movie is a very good time. Not, perhaps, as good as the first movie, in part because instead of a left-field success this is now a planned summer tentpole superhero blockbuster, and so more time is spent on superhero movie business (more villains, evil plot, etc.). The filmmakers, like in the first movie, are still more interested in the Tony Stark side of things than the Iron Man side of things. This is good, because for the purposes of this movie I am also more interested in Tony Stark and the implications of the Iron Man technology than actual superhero stuff, but the demands of an action movie require action sequences, and while there's not too many of them, they can feel a bit perfunctory (like the last movie, the big climactic battle is the least interesting part of the whole thing, as though every one involved would have rather been doing something else with the end of the movie).
What else...Robert Downey Jr. is winning as always. Sam Rockwell is awesome as an ambitious-but-hapless businessman who doesn't just want to usurp Stark's technology, but also his flair and public persona. Mickey Rourke is sufficiently menacing. Samuel L. Jackson has obliged to not chew as much scenery as he is capable of doing.
A disappointment: The movie brings up a potentially interesting moral/ethical dilemma - you are inclined to side with Stark that the military can't be trusted with his designs, and yet a guy who's cool with using his deadly repulsor ray technology whilst drunk to entertain party guests in not really the guy you want with that kind of firepower either. But the movie doesn't really engage with it beyond "Yep, our hero was right all along." I know not every superhero movie's built to be as ambiguous as The Dark Knight, but this one kind of set me up for something it didn't deliver.
Also: I do not for one second believe that this Avengers movie is ever going to actually happen. NOT IN ONE MILLION YEARS.
Anyway. Very very good show. Better than X-Men 2, not as good as Iron Man.
I went to see it with my brother, and not my wife (who really enjoyed the first one) because she's on bed rest until she has the baby. The due date was supposed to be May 30 or so, but now they're hoping she'll make it another week or two. No cause for immediate alarm - her blood pressure's just a bit high, and it goes down when she's laying down on her side. So she's stuck home from work reading (All-Star Superman got the thumbs up) and watching TV, which is, of course, my personal idea of heaven, but it is not a belief in the afterlife she shares.
And, as a result of getting the apartment all set up for the baby (and we are, now) and Alison basically out of commission, I have been quite busy, and not posting as much as I would like.
And I would like! I've got an ode to Bronze Age Spider-Man I'm tinkering with (I think I can say there's more than nostalgia at work here, because I was not alive for much of the Bronze Age) for here, and a piece about "following" superhero comics - in the same way one can "follow" Major League Baseball or whatever by reading the paper and watching SportsCenter without ever having to actually watch a single game - for MGK's. This is going to be dependent on when my status flips from "I do not have a baby in my home" to "My home contains one (1) baby," and it's hard to say exactly when that will be. So: Not now, but ... soon?
I will keep you informed.
EDIT/UPDATE: Baby ETA - Wednesday, May 19. Plans are in the works to induce labor that Tuesday. So you have until then to buy cigars. Get on it.
Showing posts with label i am going to be somebody's dad. Show all posts
Showing posts with label i am going to be somebody's dad. Show all posts
Monday, May 10, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
What I Have Been Doing In My Spare Time
1.) Coming up with a second entry for Pillock's "Write a proposal for a TV show set in space" thing (Plok, man, when are we all supposed to be posting these things?)
2.) Trying to decide which organs I can sell to help ease any financial strain that having a baby in about six weeks will create. (To be blunt, Left Kidney ... what have you done for me lately?)
3.) Aggressively not going to see Kick-Ass, because please, media people, do not make a big deal about whether or not this movie goes too far in its portrayal of violence! You are only giving Mark Millar what he wants! Do not feed the bear!
4.) Talkin' Mission: Impossible down at the ol' Mightygodking.com.
2.) Trying to decide which organs I can sell to help ease any financial strain that having a baby in about six weeks will create. (To be blunt, Left Kidney ... what have you done for me lately?)
3.) Aggressively not going to see Kick-Ass, because please, media people, do not make a big deal about whether or not this movie goes too far in its portrayal of violence! You are only giving Mark Millar what he wants! Do not feed the bear!
4.) Talkin' Mission: Impossible down at the ol' Mightygodking.com.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Such strange things did I viddy in my dream, O my brothers…
All right, you guys, I had the weirdest dream. So weird, in fact, that I felt I had to tell it in detail here.
This dream was long, uninterrupted, very vivid, and extremely geeky in all respects, which is extremely odd because my dreams are usually none of those four things. I had not had a particularly geeky day; I had read no comics, watched no movies or TV, not even thought much about anything to that effect – I fell asleep on the couch at one point reading A Clockwork Orange, but that did not factor into my dream in any way (thank goodness for small favors, one supposes). I also want to stress that I am getting over a cold, but I had not taken any NyQuil or anything like that which might be blamed for the dream. I had one bottle of hard cider, essentially equivalent to a single bottle of beer, at around 10 p.m., and anyway the dream must have started after 6 a.m. sometime, so I do not think that ought to have played a factor.
I was, however, extremely tired that night.
I am going to provide links in the anchor text for people who might not get every single reference (hello, Zach … and possibly my dad). I just had to share it because I do not remember ever having such a concentrated pop-culture dream.
* * *
The earliest part I can remember begins with Batman protecting a mobster in the basement of police headquarters in Gotham City. The headquarters was basically the one from The Dark Knight, but Batman was a very ‘90s looking comic book Batman (not actually Kelley Jones, but someone who would have drawn part of Knightfall or something), and the mobster was Al Pacino, but Al Pacino as Big Boy from Dick Tracy.
Now, in my dreams I tend to, like, “transfer consciousness” a lot, where I’ll be “playing” one role in the dream, and then halfway through I’ll transfer to another “character” in the dream. So in this one, I think I started out as Pacino, because I remember being worried that the Scarecrow was coming to kill me (hence being under police and Bat protection), but at some point I must have switched to Batman, because Pacino excuses himself for the bathroom and didn’t come back. As Batman, I investigate the bathroom and find there was a large, loose panel that must slide back and lead to some hidden tunnel. But I’m terrified to look in it. Like, horribly, deathly terrified that if I slidd it open, some horrible thing would come out and kill me.
So I get Agent Scully to do it. The deal was, she’d point her gun at the panel as I (suddenly Mulder) open up the panel. There was somebody cowering in the bathtub as well. Maybe it was Pacino/Big Boy, although he was supposed to be gone. So I open it up, and Scully assures me there was nothing moving inside. It looks, in fact, just like some weird cave that leads into the darkness. Scully goes in, and I follow her.
And suddenly I am no longer Mulder in the tunnel, but I am me reading a comic book of these events at a picnic table in the park on a sunny day. The comic book is an issue of Fantastic Four, and the FF are going through the tunnel, and it winds up in some sort of buried underground New York filled with the sort of denizens you would expect to inhabit a comic book underground New York. I finish the comic, and I am convinced that this is the greatest issue of Fantastic Four I’ve read in years and years, and I look back at the credits and see that it is apparently a contemporary issue of Fantastic Four drawn by Steve Ditko.
So I’m going on and on about how great this issue of Fantastic Four was to the guy sitting at the picnic table with me, and that guy is Kurt Busiek, who asks me if I’d like to tell Ditko that myself (Busiek, for whatever reason, has Ditko’s phone number). So I say I would, and I call Ditko on my cell phone and discover, contrary to his reputation for being a recluse who never talks to fans, very friendly and open. I keep gushing, just wretched fannish gushing, about how great I thought this comic was, and Ditko tells me where he got the idea for the underground city, the backstory he’d created for it, all of it.
And then suddenly, I see Ditko’s lips moving, and they’re surrounded by a fluffy white beard. The camera pulls back (I am no longer in the park on the phone, but rather watching TV) to reveal it’s John Travolta, except that he looks like he’s been cast in the lead of the new Santa Clause movie, and he’s “playing Ditko.” (It should be noted that Steve Ditko in no way looks like that, of course.) He hangs up the phone and says, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”
So I guess I’m watching Saturday Night Live, right? And Travolta in his Santa beard is hosting. And we go right into the first sketch, which, in defiance of all reason, is another sketch in which Travolta is playing Ditko.
The conceit of the sketch is that Steve Ditko and Stan Lee are corresponding to each other, except it is Victorian London, and Ditko is basically Bob Cratchit, and Lee is basically Ebenezer Scrooge. And Travolta-as Ditko-as Cratchit is wearing some kind of footie pajamas and standing on the cobblestone, and I’m aware of how hard and sharp and hot the ground is on his feet because suddenly I am Travolta-as Ditko-as Cratchit, and I start walking toward where I know Lee/Scrooge’s office to be, and every step is painful.
And then, all of a sudden, I am me again, and I am in the Mall of America with my father and brother (the three of us are actually going to Minneapolis for something this month, so this is not altogether weird yet). We’re walking by a bunch of movie company boutiques – there’s a Disney store and a Warner Bros. store. And then, strange though it may seem, there is a store devoted entirely to Ghostbusters memorabilia, as indicated by a sign that’s nothing but the logo.
So I pull my father and brother into the store and I am just ecstatic (as one would be if one discovered against all odds that a Ghostbusters store would be profitable enough to stay in business). Stranger still, inside the store, the ceilings are very high – we’re talking three stories, maybe, and the ceilings were molded white plaster (apparently we were supposed to be in the Ghostbusters firehouse, although I do not recall the Ghostbusters firehouse looking anything like that).
Now, not only is there Ghostbusters memorabilia in this store, there is also some kind of weird nightclub at the back of the store, and all the employees are wearing like Ghostbusters uniforms. My dad asks my brother and me if we want anything to drink, and I consider a rum and coke, but it seems weird to have a rum and coke at a nightclub in a Ghostbusters store at the mall, so I just order a Diet Hi-C (I am not sure that such a product exists). It comes in a paper cup like at a fast food restaurant, and I grab a lid, and just like I always do in real life, the first lid I grab is a size too small and so I have to take a bigger one too, and now I can’t put that small lid back because I’ve already touched it and I feel bad for being wasteful.
So I’m drinking my Diet Hi-C and we’re leaving the store, and the three of us talk about where we’d like to get dinner in the mall. My dad suggests Burger Hole, and my brother is not having any of that. He’s like, “Burger Hole? That place is a hole!” And I’m trying to remember where I know the name “Burger Hole” from, and I think, Isn’t that the name of the restaurant in the movie Role Models?
And then I wake up.
* * *
So that’s the dream. I shudder to think that any of it means anything. My wife and I bought a crib and changing table that night, so I’d hate to think this is some sort of weird metaphor for impending fatherhood in some way.
That is all.
This dream was long, uninterrupted, very vivid, and extremely geeky in all respects, which is extremely odd because my dreams are usually none of those four things. I had not had a particularly geeky day; I had read no comics, watched no movies or TV, not even thought much about anything to that effect – I fell asleep on the couch at one point reading A Clockwork Orange, but that did not factor into my dream in any way (thank goodness for small favors, one supposes). I also want to stress that I am getting over a cold, but I had not taken any NyQuil or anything like that which might be blamed for the dream. I had one bottle of hard cider, essentially equivalent to a single bottle of beer, at around 10 p.m., and anyway the dream must have started after 6 a.m. sometime, so I do not think that ought to have played a factor.
I was, however, extremely tired that night.
I am going to provide links in the anchor text for people who might not get every single reference (hello, Zach … and possibly my dad). I just had to share it because I do not remember ever having such a concentrated pop-culture dream.
I swear, what you are about to read is not exaggerated from my recollection in any way.
* * *
The earliest part I can remember begins with Batman protecting a mobster in the basement of police headquarters in Gotham City. The headquarters was basically the one from The Dark Knight, but Batman was a very ‘90s looking comic book Batman (not actually Kelley Jones, but someone who would have drawn part of Knightfall or something), and the mobster was Al Pacino, but Al Pacino as Big Boy from Dick Tracy.
Now, in my dreams I tend to, like, “transfer consciousness” a lot, where I’ll be “playing” one role in the dream, and then halfway through I’ll transfer to another “character” in the dream. So in this one, I think I started out as Pacino, because I remember being worried that the Scarecrow was coming to kill me (hence being under police and Bat protection), but at some point I must have switched to Batman, because Pacino excuses himself for the bathroom and didn’t come back. As Batman, I investigate the bathroom and find there was a large, loose panel that must slide back and lead to some hidden tunnel. But I’m terrified to look in it. Like, horribly, deathly terrified that if I slidd it open, some horrible thing would come out and kill me.
So I get Agent Scully to do it. The deal was, she’d point her gun at the panel as I (suddenly Mulder) open up the panel. There was somebody cowering in the bathtub as well. Maybe it was Pacino/Big Boy, although he was supposed to be gone. So I open it up, and Scully assures me there was nothing moving inside. It looks, in fact, just like some weird cave that leads into the darkness. Scully goes in, and I follow her.
And suddenly I am no longer Mulder in the tunnel, but I am me reading a comic book of these events at a picnic table in the park on a sunny day. The comic book is an issue of Fantastic Four, and the FF are going through the tunnel, and it winds up in some sort of buried underground New York filled with the sort of denizens you would expect to inhabit a comic book underground New York. I finish the comic, and I am convinced that this is the greatest issue of Fantastic Four I’ve read in years and years, and I look back at the credits and see that it is apparently a contemporary issue of Fantastic Four drawn by Steve Ditko.
So I’m going on and on about how great this issue of Fantastic Four was to the guy sitting at the picnic table with me, and that guy is Kurt Busiek, who asks me if I’d like to tell Ditko that myself (Busiek, for whatever reason, has Ditko’s phone number). So I say I would, and I call Ditko on my cell phone and discover, contrary to his reputation for being a recluse who never talks to fans, very friendly and open. I keep gushing, just wretched fannish gushing, about how great I thought this comic was, and Ditko tells me where he got the idea for the underground city, the backstory he’d created for it, all of it.
And then suddenly, I see Ditko’s lips moving, and they’re surrounded by a fluffy white beard. The camera pulls back (I am no longer in the park on the phone, but rather watching TV) to reveal it’s John Travolta, except that he looks like he’s been cast in the lead of the new Santa Clause movie, and he’s “playing Ditko.” (It should be noted that Steve Ditko in no way looks like that, of course.) He hangs up the phone and says, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!”
So I guess I’m watching Saturday Night Live, right? And Travolta in his Santa beard is hosting. And we go right into the first sketch, which, in defiance of all reason, is another sketch in which Travolta is playing Ditko.
The conceit of the sketch is that Steve Ditko and Stan Lee are corresponding to each other, except it is Victorian London, and Ditko is basically Bob Cratchit, and Lee is basically Ebenezer Scrooge. And Travolta-as Ditko-as Cratchit is wearing some kind of footie pajamas and standing on the cobblestone, and I’m aware of how hard and sharp and hot the ground is on his feet because suddenly I am Travolta-as Ditko-as Cratchit, and I start walking toward where I know Lee/Scrooge’s office to be, and every step is painful.
And then, all of a sudden, I am me again, and I am in the Mall of America with my father and brother (the three of us are actually going to Minneapolis for something this month, so this is not altogether weird yet). We’re walking by a bunch of movie company boutiques – there’s a Disney store and a Warner Bros. store. And then, strange though it may seem, there is a store devoted entirely to Ghostbusters memorabilia, as indicated by a sign that’s nothing but the logo.
So I pull my father and brother into the store and I am just ecstatic (as one would be if one discovered against all odds that a Ghostbusters store would be profitable enough to stay in business). Stranger still, inside the store, the ceilings are very high – we’re talking three stories, maybe, and the ceilings were molded white plaster (apparently we were supposed to be in the Ghostbusters firehouse, although I do not recall the Ghostbusters firehouse looking anything like that).
Now, not only is there Ghostbusters memorabilia in this store, there is also some kind of weird nightclub at the back of the store, and all the employees are wearing like Ghostbusters uniforms. My dad asks my brother and me if we want anything to drink, and I consider a rum and coke, but it seems weird to have a rum and coke at a nightclub in a Ghostbusters store at the mall, so I just order a Diet Hi-C (I am not sure that such a product exists). It comes in a paper cup like at a fast food restaurant, and I grab a lid, and just like I always do in real life, the first lid I grab is a size too small and so I have to take a bigger one too, and now I can’t put that small lid back because I’ve already touched it and I feel bad for being wasteful.
So I’m drinking my Diet Hi-C and we’re leaving the store, and the three of us talk about where we’d like to get dinner in the mall. My dad suggests Burger Hole, and my brother is not having any of that. He’s like, “Burger Hole? That place is a hole!” And I’m trying to remember where I know the name “Burger Hole” from, and I think, Isn’t that the name of the restaurant in the movie Role Models?
And then I wake up.
So that’s the dream. I shudder to think that any of it means anything. My wife and I bought a crib and changing table that night, so I’d hate to think this is some sort of weird metaphor for impending fatherhood in some way.
That is all.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Here Comes The Son?
I promised I'd let you know, so here goes: Thanks to SCIENCE!*, I have been informed that I can expect a baby boy 'round the first of June or so.
Of course, I would have been equally happy either way, but this result does mean there is a higher probability that the baby will want to play with my old He-Man and Transformers figures (as soon as they're no longer a choking hazard, that is). Mom and Dad, I thank you for holding on to those in your guys' basement for so long, and I am going to pretend like this was the plan all along.
Both mother and baby seem to be healthy, so all is well. And now that we know the gender, we can get to really deciding on a name** and slowly start to accumulate some gear. I am telling you dudes, I have just come from an exploratory mission to Babies R Us, and why is it that all the boys' clothing has sports on it? I mean, we were planning on going fairly gender neutral anyway, but would it kill you to manufacture a green shirt that doesn't say "SOCCER" on it?
Anyway, more on this story as it develops.
* - We got the traditional ultrasound as well as that new "4-D" ultrasound. I'm not sure what the fourth dimension is meant to be, but it makes the baby look as though it is made out of butterscotch pudding ... look it up.
** - Aside to Josh: Alison is less than receptive to "Roll Fizzlebeef" as a name. Aside to Daine: Ditto "The Baron."
Of course, I would have been equally happy either way, but this result does mean there is a higher probability that the baby will want to play with my old He-Man and Transformers figures (as soon as they're no longer a choking hazard, that is). Mom and Dad, I thank you for holding on to those in your guys' basement for so long, and I am going to pretend like this was the plan all along.
Both mother and baby seem to be healthy, so all is well. And now that we know the gender, we can get to really deciding on a name** and slowly start to accumulate some gear. I am telling you dudes, I have just come from an exploratory mission to Babies R Us, and why is it that all the boys' clothing has sports on it? I mean, we were planning on going fairly gender neutral anyway, but would it kill you to manufacture a green shirt that doesn't say "SOCCER" on it?
Anyway, more on this story as it develops.
* - We got the traditional ultrasound as well as that new "4-D" ultrasound. I'm not sure what the fourth dimension is meant to be, but it makes the baby look as though it is made out of butterscotch pudding ... look it up.
** - Aside to Josh: Alison is less than receptive to "Roll Fizzlebeef" as a name. Aside to Daine: Ditto "The Baron."
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Build Your Own White Album: Part One - The Subjective List
Long version here, short version here: What if you had to make the Beatles' White Album into a single album by cutting half of its thirty tracks?
Part One is based entirely on my own subjective preferences. The songs that make it won’t necessarily be the “best” songs, or the most “important” ones. I’m not going to try and get an even number of John and Paul songs. These are just the songs I like the best.
How I did it: I listed all 30 songs in a Word document and whittled them away one by one until I was left with 15. Not an easy task. I think I’d got as far as six without too much agony, but then I had 24 incredible songs left and I had no idea where to begin trying to get rid of nine more.
But eventually I did. The songs I picked aren’t necessarily the cool picks, but it has been well-documented that I am not a cool guy, so I’m fine with that. We’ll just go through the album track-by-track and say CUT or KEEP and, briefly, why.
Back in the USSR – CUT
Okay, you see why this is so hard. I mean, Back in the USSR – wonderful, classic, a triumph on most other albums, but it’s up against some real stiff competition here. The bar is essentially set at unfuckingbelievable. So in light of that … well, you make the hard decision and you have to say yeah, musically at least, it’s Another McCartney Rocker, although it is one of the better ones. This one held on to nearly the end of the “culling,” and one of the reasons for that is conceptually, lyrically, it’s effortlessly funny in a way you don’t always see out of McCartney. The borscht-and-Beach-Boys thing is all a joke, of course, but McCartney sounds like he’s keeping a straight face. No mugging to be found here. So don’t think I wanted to cut this, but my crazy self-imposed challenge is my crazy self-imposed challenge.
Dear Prudence - KEEP
Right, this one was never in any danger of not making it. That middley bridge bit (“Look around round round … Look arowwww-owwwww-owwwww-ounnd”) conveys an almost religious awe (which I suppose is appropriate for where it was written). Love the blooping bubbling bass part that kicks in at the second verse, and that fantastic messy lead guitar on the third.
Glass Onion - KEEP
A funny little throwaway it may be, but the energy is fantastic. Lennon’s vocal on “Fix-ing a hoooole in the o-sheann” is sublime, one of my favorite performances of his. But it’s really all about that second at the end of the chorus where everything stops, you get a bit of ring from the piano, and then that papery Beatles drum sound I love so much.
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - KEEP
Don’t pretend you don’t like this song! Here’s a track that (based off the alternate take on the Anthology) is only “quite good” until, according to Beatles legend, Lennon comes into the studio, stoned and irritated that McCartney is still working on it, and demands that it be played with loud, pseudo-ska piano; Paul made a Snickers bar, and John said “Hold on, deep fry that thing and then we’ll talk!” Also: “Hap-ply ever after in the mahketplace.”
Wild Honey Pie - CUT
This was a pretty easy decision, but you know, I like Wild Honey Pie.
Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill - KEEP
What I really like is how immediate this song feels; it sounds put together in about ten minutes with the first mocking words Lennon could think of, and then sung outside Rik Cooke’s window in another ten. You hear a tiny sliver of proto-Elvis Costello in the lyrics if not the melody, too, right? ("So Captain Marvel zapped 'im right between the eyes") And for absolutely no reason I can fathom, I adore that breeeeet of the mellotron or whatever after the final verse.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - KEEP
There are Beatles Harrisongs that I like better, but I think this is probably George’s most epic Beatles recording, if you are into that sort of thing. Love that high, screechy organ.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun - KEEP
An incredibly bizarre song when you stop to think about it (I don’t know enough music theory to even begin to parse the time signatures of this thing), but you don’t always realize it because it feels so natural. Is it the best song on the album(s)? It might well be, although it has strong competition I’ll get to later.
Martha My Dear - KEEP
Okay, this very nearly got cut. I had this and Don’t Pass Me By left, and I cut this and kept DPMB, and then I changed my mind, and then I changed it again, and then slept on it. Ultimately, I had to go with McCartney’s supreme pop craftsmanship. “Help yourself to a bit of what is all around you” is a pretty perfect marriage of melody and chords, to my mind. Throw in the goofy Yellow Submarine brass for good measure, I’m a sucker for it.
I’m So Tired - KEEP
And during my Martha My Dear/Don’t Pass Me By struggle, I suddenly thought, “Well, we could cut I’m So Tired, couldn’t we? What does it really bring to the table that, say, Happiness Is A Warm Gun doesn’t?” But the answer is atmosphere. How moody self-absorbed high school-me never adopted this as an anthem I can’t figure out. I was not unaware of this track.
Blackbird - CUT
“How could you cut Blackbird?” Well, you know what, it actually wasn’t too hard at all. Very beautiful, very well-put-together (again, this is an inferior song only by comparison to uncut awesomeness elsewhere on the album) and yet … the just-Paul-and-an-acoustic-guitar never wins me over as much as it does a lot of people. If that makes me a bad person, then I am a bad person.
Piggies - CUT
Man, I am just as surprised as you that this didn’t make the cut. Surely I love harpsichord too much to let this go…! My wife’s gonna be mad, this is one of her favorite Beatles songs. Piggies did hold on close to the end, but something just had to give.
Rocky Raccoon - CUT
HATE. No, that’s too strong, I don’t really hate Rocky Raccoon, I just … I just have no time for this, Paul McCartney; no time for these little genre pastiches that only exist as genre pastiches. I cut you twice.
Don’t Pass Me By - CUT
What gave the edge to Martha My Dear is that this is probably a better recording than it is a song. Perfectly fine song if pretty straight-up-and-down basic, but what makes it something special is the arrangement – psychedelic country and western! Oh, and Ringo, I don’t blame you saving up your best drumming for your own song, okay?
Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? - CUT
Great showcase for Paul’s voice and Ringo’s drumming, though. And it always makes my brother laugh even when he knows it’s coming.
I Will - KEEP
A notable exception to my indifference to just-Paul-and-an-acoustic-guitar, because I love the hell out of this. McCartney at his most sweet and sentimental, but it’s just so pure and warm. The “mouth bass” is goofy, but it serves to nicely deflate would could be too sweet a song without just being dumb mugging. It is, actually, what love sounds like in my head, and I don’t care what you think of me for saying so.
Julia - CUT
“No you didn’t!” Yes I did and I’m sorry and I know it’s one of the most open and naked things John ever wrote (and certainly the most up to this point in his recording career) and it is extremely beautiful, but I only have 15 tracks to work with here, and this is really frigging hard, you guys.
Birthday - KEEP
It’s -- it’s just so nice to hear everyone getting along, you know? It really shows in one of the Beatles’ most enthusiastic recordings. Also a sentimental favorite. There is video of my brother and me, maybe six years old and two years old, respectively, dancing to this. But I will not show this to you.
Yer Blues - CUT
Man, I really really like this, but to be honest? Towards the end I’m totally ready to move on to something else.
Mother Nature’s Son - CUT
Look, I’m not a monster. This song is really exceptionally beautiful. I almost believe in being a poor young country boy singing songs for everyone, just not enough to make it.
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey - KEEP
This is the contender I told you about – the only song that might be as totally rad as Happiness Is A Warm Gun. Gives Birthday a run for its money in the energy department! Firebell clanging away. That spiky guitar sound is king, one of my favorite parts ever.
Sexy Sadie - KEEP
Perhaps a somewhat inessential song, but I adore the icy piano sound on this, with the slight delay. Wonderful recording. I like it, anyway.
Helter Skelter - CUT
Okay, here’s the thing. You can say Honey Pie is kind of an embarrassing thing for Paul to have done, but I contend this is equally embarrassing for the exact same reason. Honey Pie is mugging, and this is mugging. It sounds like a pastiche of hard rock rather than actually being hard rock; it’s Paul with a mask on (EDIT: although, of course, I know that's not exactly the case, being that Helter Skelter is in fact a major influence on the hard rock I'm accusing McCartney of imitating, but that's what it sounds like, forty years later). Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good time, but it’s the sort of thing that is supposed to sound effortless but really comes off calculated. Rubs me the wrong way.
Long, Long, Long - KEEP
Strange and beautiful, and when you listen to it, it’s weird how much it’s a prototype of Harrison’s solo stuff – you could almost put this on Living in the Material World and you’d hardly notice. That alone wouldn’t qualify it, but that absolutely terrifying conclusion…! It genuinely gets me spooked if I’m listening to it alone at night; the cabinets are going to open up by themselves and plates are going to start flying through the air and the closet door’s going to open up to reveal a vortex to hell.
Revolution 1 - CUT
Sorry John, you were wrong, the single version of this is better, no offense.
Honey Pie - CUT
Yeah, it’s mugging. It’s like When I’m 64 but not funny, and what’s the point, really?
Savoy Truffle - KEEP
Again, this is a list of songs that I like the best, not what’s most deserving. This doesn’t really fit in on the White Album (a year or so behind, might’ve been great on Magical Mystery Tour, actually), and it superficially resembles Good Morning Good Morning, but I just dig this song. Chugs along so well.
Cry Baby Cry - KEEP
I know, right, what’s this doing on here? I’ve always loved Cry Baby Cry a whole lot and I don’t know why; I guess every Beatles fan has to have his “No, seriously, you guys, you don’t even know how good this song is!” and this is mine.
Revolution 9 - CUT
I am not going to pretend I know anything about musique concrete or the state of avant garde composition circa 1968, so I don’t know if this is “good” or not. I like it; it’s neat, it’s interesting, it’s spooky (although who needs this to be spooky when Long Long Long has that covered considerably more succinctly, right?). I like to listen to it, but I like to listen to the other fifteen tracks better. I had to pick fifteen songs, and this is not really a song, so I don’t think I can be faulted.
Good Night - CUT
I get a bit sentimental about this as well. My dad used to sing it to me when I was little, and I expect I’ll do the same to my kid when he or she comes along, when nobody is looking. But, you know, everything else is just so good.
Aaaaand that does it for the White Album. So, to recap, the winners are Dear Prudence, Glass Onion, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Martha My Dear, I’m So Tired, I Will, Birthday, Everybody’s Got Something To Hide…, Sexy Sadie, Long Long Long, Savoy Truffle, Cry Baby Cry.
And some of the finest losers around are Back in the USSR, Wild Honey Pie, Rocky Raccoon, Piggies, Don’t Pass Me By, Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?, Blackbird, Julia, Yer Blues, Mother Nature’s Son, Helter Skelter, Honey Pie, Revolution #1, Revolution #9, Good Night.
So the list turns out to have a pretty strong pro-John, anti-Paul vibe. Which, I assure you, is not typical of me. As Beatles, I consider them pretty near equals from Revolver on (and post-Beatles, if you average out all the good and the bad, they probably come up about the same in my estimation as well, although as a solo artist I am totally in the tank for George, warts and all). But I will go on record as saying that I believe the White Album is the best album John Lennon ever made, Beatle, solo or otherwise, and it’s Paul’s weakest Beatles effort since Rubber Soul. But don't feel too bad, McCartneyans, because about a year or so from now Paul gets his masterpiece, which, of course, is Abbey Road.
Okay, the totally subjective business is out of the way. Now, onto trying to compile that “proper album” I promised. It probably won’t be ready this week. Maybe after Christmas. Maybe after my child is born and has been in school a few years. But eventually … I will the attempt that which probably oughtn't be attempted. Be here then!
Part One is based entirely on my own subjective preferences. The songs that make it won’t necessarily be the “best” songs, or the most “important” ones. I’m not going to try and get an even number of John and Paul songs. These are just the songs I like the best.
How I did it: I listed all 30 songs in a Word document and whittled them away one by one until I was left with 15. Not an easy task. I think I’d got as far as six without too much agony, but then I had 24 incredible songs left and I had no idea where to begin trying to get rid of nine more.
But eventually I did. The songs I picked aren’t necessarily the cool picks, but it has been well-documented that I am not a cool guy, so I’m fine with that. We’ll just go through the album track-by-track and say CUT or KEEP and, briefly, why.
Back in the USSR – CUT
Okay, you see why this is so hard. I mean, Back in the USSR – wonderful, classic, a triumph on most other albums, but it’s up against some real stiff competition here. The bar is essentially set at unfuckingbelievable. So in light of that … well, you make the hard decision and you have to say yeah, musically at least, it’s Another McCartney Rocker, although it is one of the better ones. This one held on to nearly the end of the “culling,” and one of the reasons for that is conceptually, lyrically, it’s effortlessly funny in a way you don’t always see out of McCartney. The borscht-and-Beach-Boys thing is all a joke, of course, but McCartney sounds like he’s keeping a straight face. No mugging to be found here. So don’t think I wanted to cut this, but my crazy self-imposed challenge is my crazy self-imposed challenge.
Dear Prudence - KEEP
Right, this one was never in any danger of not making it. That middley bridge bit (“Look around round round … Look arowwww-owwwww-owwwww-ounnd”) conveys an almost religious awe (which I suppose is appropriate for where it was written). Love the blooping bubbling bass part that kicks in at the second verse, and that fantastic messy lead guitar on the third.
Glass Onion - KEEP
A funny little throwaway it may be, but the energy is fantastic. Lennon’s vocal on “Fix-ing a hoooole in the o-sheann” is sublime, one of my favorite performances of his. But it’s really all about that second at the end of the chorus where everything stops, you get a bit of ring from the piano, and then that papery Beatles drum sound I love so much.
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da - KEEP
Don’t pretend you don’t like this song! Here’s a track that (based off the alternate take on the Anthology) is only “quite good” until, according to Beatles legend, Lennon comes into the studio, stoned and irritated that McCartney is still working on it, and demands that it be played with loud, pseudo-ska piano; Paul made a Snickers bar, and John said “Hold on, deep fry that thing and then we’ll talk!” Also: “Hap-ply ever after in the mahketplace.”
Wild Honey Pie - CUT
This was a pretty easy decision, but you know, I like Wild Honey Pie.
Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill - KEEP
What I really like is how immediate this song feels; it sounds put together in about ten minutes with the first mocking words Lennon could think of, and then sung outside Rik Cooke’s window in another ten. You hear a tiny sliver of proto-Elvis Costello in the lyrics if not the melody, too, right? ("So Captain Marvel zapped 'im right between the eyes") And for absolutely no reason I can fathom, I adore that breeeeet of the mellotron or whatever after the final verse.
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - KEEP
There are Beatles Harrisongs that I like better, but I think this is probably George’s most epic Beatles recording, if you are into that sort of thing. Love that high, screechy organ.
Happiness Is a Warm Gun - KEEP
An incredibly bizarre song when you stop to think about it (I don’t know enough music theory to even begin to parse the time signatures of this thing), but you don’t always realize it because it feels so natural. Is it the best song on the album(s)? It might well be, although it has strong competition I’ll get to later.
Martha My Dear - KEEP
Okay, this very nearly got cut. I had this and Don’t Pass Me By left, and I cut this and kept DPMB, and then I changed my mind, and then I changed it again, and then slept on it. Ultimately, I had to go with McCartney’s supreme pop craftsmanship. “Help yourself to a bit of what is all around you” is a pretty perfect marriage of melody and chords, to my mind. Throw in the goofy Yellow Submarine brass for good measure, I’m a sucker for it.
I’m So Tired - KEEP
And during my Martha My Dear/Don’t Pass Me By struggle, I suddenly thought, “Well, we could cut I’m So Tired, couldn’t we? What does it really bring to the table that, say, Happiness Is A Warm Gun doesn’t?” But the answer is atmosphere. How moody self-absorbed high school-me never adopted this as an anthem I can’t figure out. I was not unaware of this track.
Blackbird - CUT
“How could you cut Blackbird?” Well, you know what, it actually wasn’t too hard at all. Very beautiful, very well-put-together (again, this is an inferior song only by comparison to uncut awesomeness elsewhere on the album) and yet … the just-Paul-and-an-acoustic-guitar never wins me over as much as it does a lot of people. If that makes me a bad person, then I am a bad person.
Piggies - CUT
Man, I am just as surprised as you that this didn’t make the cut. Surely I love harpsichord too much to let this go…! My wife’s gonna be mad, this is one of her favorite Beatles songs. Piggies did hold on close to the end, but something just had to give.
Rocky Raccoon - CUT
HATE. No, that’s too strong, I don’t really hate Rocky Raccoon, I just … I just have no time for this, Paul McCartney; no time for these little genre pastiches that only exist as genre pastiches. I cut you twice.
Don’t Pass Me By - CUT
What gave the edge to Martha My Dear is that this is probably a better recording than it is a song. Perfectly fine song if pretty straight-up-and-down basic, but what makes it something special is the arrangement – psychedelic country and western! Oh, and Ringo, I don’t blame you saving up your best drumming for your own song, okay?
Why Don’t We Do It in the Road? - CUT
Great showcase for Paul’s voice and Ringo’s drumming, though. And it always makes my brother laugh even when he knows it’s coming.
I Will - KEEP
A notable exception to my indifference to just-Paul-and-an-acoustic-guitar, because I love the hell out of this. McCartney at his most sweet and sentimental, but it’s just so pure and warm. The “mouth bass” is goofy, but it serves to nicely deflate would could be too sweet a song without just being dumb mugging. It is, actually, what love sounds like in my head, and I don’t care what you think of me for saying so.
Julia - CUT
“No you didn’t!” Yes I did and I’m sorry and I know it’s one of the most open and naked things John ever wrote (and certainly the most up to this point in his recording career) and it is extremely beautiful, but I only have 15 tracks to work with here, and this is really frigging hard, you guys.
Birthday - KEEP
It’s -- it’s just so nice to hear everyone getting along, you know? It really shows in one of the Beatles’ most enthusiastic recordings. Also a sentimental favorite. There is video of my brother and me, maybe six years old and two years old, respectively, dancing to this. But I will not show this to you.
Yer Blues - CUT
Man, I really really like this, but to be honest? Towards the end I’m totally ready to move on to something else.
Mother Nature’s Son - CUT
Look, I’m not a monster. This song is really exceptionally beautiful. I almost believe in being a poor young country boy singing songs for everyone, just not enough to make it.
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey - KEEP
This is the contender I told you about – the only song that might be as totally rad as Happiness Is A Warm Gun. Gives Birthday a run for its money in the energy department! Firebell clanging away. That spiky guitar sound is king, one of my favorite parts ever.
Sexy Sadie - KEEP
Perhaps a somewhat inessential song, but I adore the icy piano sound on this, with the slight delay. Wonderful recording. I like it, anyway.
Helter Skelter - CUT
Okay, here’s the thing. You can say Honey Pie is kind of an embarrassing thing for Paul to have done, but I contend this is equally embarrassing for the exact same reason. Honey Pie is mugging, and this is mugging. It sounds like a pastiche of hard rock rather than actually being hard rock; it’s Paul with a mask on (EDIT: although, of course, I know that's not exactly the case, being that Helter Skelter is in fact a major influence on the hard rock I'm accusing McCartney of imitating, but that's what it sounds like, forty years later). Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good time, but it’s the sort of thing that is supposed to sound effortless but really comes off calculated. Rubs me the wrong way.
Long, Long, Long - KEEP
Strange and beautiful, and when you listen to it, it’s weird how much it’s a prototype of Harrison’s solo stuff – you could almost put this on Living in the Material World and you’d hardly notice. That alone wouldn’t qualify it, but that absolutely terrifying conclusion…! It genuinely gets me spooked if I’m listening to it alone at night; the cabinets are going to open up by themselves and plates are going to start flying through the air and the closet door’s going to open up to reveal a vortex to hell.
Revolution 1 - CUT
Sorry John, you were wrong, the single version of this is better, no offense.
Honey Pie - CUT
Yeah, it’s mugging. It’s like When I’m 64 but not funny, and what’s the point, really?
Savoy Truffle - KEEP
Again, this is a list of songs that I like the best, not what’s most deserving. This doesn’t really fit in on the White Album (a year or so behind, might’ve been great on Magical Mystery Tour, actually), and it superficially resembles Good Morning Good Morning, but I just dig this song. Chugs along so well.
Cry Baby Cry - KEEP
I know, right, what’s this doing on here? I’ve always loved Cry Baby Cry a whole lot and I don’t know why; I guess every Beatles fan has to have his “No, seriously, you guys, you don’t even know how good this song is!” and this is mine.
Revolution 9 - CUT
I am not going to pretend I know anything about musique concrete or the state of avant garde composition circa 1968, so I don’t know if this is “good” or not. I like it; it’s neat, it’s interesting, it’s spooky (although who needs this to be spooky when Long Long Long has that covered considerably more succinctly, right?). I like to listen to it, but I like to listen to the other fifteen tracks better. I had to pick fifteen songs, and this is not really a song, so I don’t think I can be faulted.
Good Night - CUT
I get a bit sentimental about this as well. My dad used to sing it to me when I was little, and I expect I’ll do the same to my kid when he or she comes along, when nobody is looking. But, you know, everything else is just so good.
Aaaaand that does it for the White Album. So, to recap, the winners are Dear Prudence, Glass Onion, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Happiness Is A Warm Gun, Martha My Dear, I’m So Tired, I Will, Birthday, Everybody’s Got Something To Hide…, Sexy Sadie, Long Long Long, Savoy Truffle, Cry Baby Cry.
And some of the finest losers around are Back in the USSR, Wild Honey Pie, Rocky Raccoon, Piggies, Don’t Pass Me By, Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?, Blackbird, Julia, Yer Blues, Mother Nature’s Son, Helter Skelter, Honey Pie, Revolution #1, Revolution #9, Good Night.
So the list turns out to have a pretty strong pro-John, anti-Paul vibe. Which, I assure you, is not typical of me. As Beatles, I consider them pretty near equals from Revolver on (and post-Beatles, if you average out all the good and the bad, they probably come up about the same in my estimation as well, although as a solo artist I am totally in the tank for George, warts and all). But I will go on record as saying that I believe the White Album is the best album John Lennon ever made, Beatle, solo or otherwise, and it’s Paul’s weakest Beatles effort since Rubber Soul. But don't feel too bad, McCartneyans, because about a year or so from now Paul gets his masterpiece, which, of course, is Abbey Road.
Okay, the totally subjective business is out of the way. Now, onto trying to compile that “proper album” I promised. It probably won’t be ready this week. Maybe after Christmas. Maybe after my child is born and has been in school a few years. But eventually … I will the attempt that which probably oughtn't be attempted. Be here then!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
New Project Announcement
I have a new project currently in development.
It's due to drop around May 30.
It's a collaboration between me and my wife.
...
Yes, it is a human child, and I will be its father.
We did the first ultrasound today and I was quite chuffed to see the result and figured I'd share the official news. I'll abstain from posting it here, as a.) I don't know how I'd feel about that, and b.) I haven't been able to find the cable to my scanner since the move anyway (which incidentally complicated my John Hodgman/Sandman Mystery Theatre post on MGK. Have you ever tried searching for a picture of Wes Dodds online? There is apparently only one).
I will keep you posted on how it goes, but hopefully not annoyingly so. Just bear with me, and I'll let you know after Christmas whether it'll be a boy or a girl.
Woooooo!
It's due to drop around May 30.
It's a collaboration between me and my wife.
...
Yes, it is a human child, and I will be its father.
We did the first ultrasound today and I was quite chuffed to see the result and figured I'd share the official news. I'll abstain from posting it here, as a.) I don't know how I'd feel about that, and b.) I haven't been able to find the cable to my scanner since the move anyway (which incidentally complicated my John Hodgman/Sandman Mystery Theatre post on MGK. Have you ever tried searching for a picture of Wes Dodds online? There is apparently only one).
I will keep you posted on how it goes, but hopefully not annoyingly so. Just bear with me, and I'll let you know after Christmas whether it'll be a boy or a girl.
Woooooo!
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