In Absentia… Thailand or Bust!

So, I haven’t made many posts in the last few days. There’s good reason, however. My longtime friend, Betsy, has been in town, so I’ve been showing her around Singapore. Also, I’m leaving to go with her on a trip to Thailand for the next week and a half or so. So… you won’t see me around for a little bit.

However, there are plenty of fun things in my backlog of blog entries for you to read up on while I’m gone! Once I’m back I’ll be back to my prolific posting personality and will have tons of stuff to share with you all. To keep you entertained, here are some photos from the past week or two of all the things that have been keeping me busy.

Clubbing it up at St. James Powerstation

Drunken Jenga. Oh, good times.

Keepin' it real with Arch and the Z man.

Ok, so that’s all for now. Tune back in within the next two weeks and I’ll have new posts and crazy stories from Thailand (no, not that crazy).

Where have all the rude boys gone?

Perhaps Ted Leo said it best.

But what happened to ska? It was such a big musical influence on me when I was growing up. I remember my first foray into the genre with a mixtape given to me (or taken from a friend, I don’t remember) by the name of California Ska Quake Vol. I. This tape had a collection of songs by bands that I didn’t know, but would soon come to love (notables including Dance Hall Crashers, Skankin’ Pickle, Hepcat, Let’s Go Bowling, and, of course, early No Doubt). I didn’t know what ska was. My brother at one point tried to convince me that when you translated ska into English (from what language?) it turned out to literally mean “Devil Music.” I was 7 or 8 years old, and I believed everything my brother told me (including the time he told me Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were hiding in the woods behind our house and that if I set and cleared the table for him, he’d take me down there to meet them). Anyways, this misconception of the term gave the genre perfect legitimacy in my eyes.

By the time I reached 6th grade I was perfectly ready for Reel Big Fish and Less Than Jake to take my world by storm.

Many bands from the 90s ska/punk scene were soon to follow (Mustard Plug, The Suicide Machines, Against All Authority, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Mephiskapheles… really, too many to name). I became so enamored with the scene that I started going to shows whenever they came to town (when you’re in 7th and 8th grade, concerts cost a lot of money!) and started to become acquainted with the local Cincinnati ska scene. I became an avid follower of The Magnets (formerly Lee Harvey Skaswald), OB1, Scallywagon, Short Millie, and many others.

Then came the internet.

In the mid-90s, I only knew about the bands that toured around the Cincinnati area. I knew a lot about the current scene, as a result. Pop-punk and Ska was prevalent at this time. However, I had little to no knowledge of the backlog of music that went into forming the genre. I knew that The Specials were important, that Operation Ivy was to be bowed down to, and that The Mighty Mighty Bosstones were older than anybody gave them credit for.

Now that the internet and filesharing were commonplace, I had easy access to music information from older generations. I learned all about Desmond Dekker, The Skatalites, and really got to know The Specials on a much more personal level.

It was a good time to start working backwards, as the ska scene of the 90s began to deteriorate and the bands that stuck around started putting out worse and worse music, essentially becoming rock bands with horns (or sometimes forgoing horns all together). The upbeat was dead.

This, unfortunately, is the answer to the title question. The ska bands that survived sold out, and the jubilant nature of the scene was reduced to ashes, easily paving the way for the dreaded post-millenium emo scene. Some bands keep chugging along (The Slackers, for example), but the majority of those old 3rd wave mainstays have cashed in, sold out, or dropped off.

“This town is coming like a ghost town.”

Second Installation

So, it’s been some time since I gave you all a glimpse into this short story that I’m writing (still tentatively being called, “Same as it Ever Was”). Although I didn’t get any e-feedback on it, I did receive some very helpful comments from those who read it and got back to me in real life. Once again, if you find anything that strikes you as awkward or that just doesn’t flow well, let me know. This is still VERY rough and a lot of work needs to be done, but any comments would be helpful. Again, this may or may not be sequential.

“So, what do you do?”

Christian glanced up from his shoelaces. There was knot that somewhat resembled a hastily-constructed beehive. He’d never bothered to dismantle and right now it seemed a monumental task. Regardless, the nasally, female voice that spoke to him now brought him away from his task and forced him to recognize the person sitting next to him.

“What’s that?” Christian asked, not really bothering to look at the speaker, but rather gazing intently across the aisle at a mother scolding her young child.

“Dressed like you are, you’re obviously going to work, but it’s 11 o’clock in the morning and you’ve been on here for at least thirty minutes.”

“What’s your p—”

“That’s quite a long distance to be going for a lunch break, don’t you think?”

Christian didn’t answer, so the woman continued, after a pause.

“So, my question is, what do you do that you’re going to work at eleven?”

“I…” Christian began, but halted.  His brow furrowed with thought.

Looking up at the woman, he was a little taken-aback. She was short, maybe 5’2”, skinny, and had blonde hair that contrasted only slightly with her pale skin, but still showed hints of a previous pink highlighting. She was wearing a green sun-dress and tall white socks ending in a pair of red Chuck Taylors. She was chewing gum. He’d been expecting a housewife in her 30s—maybe it was the Minnesota accent.

“I write checks,” he answered, finally.

“Who do you write them for?”

“I don’t know… corporations, companies, conglomerates… things that start with ‘C’.”

“That’s funny,” she said with a smirk.

“I guess so,” Christian replied, and then smiled to himself briefly. Looking around once again, he noticed a large GAP bag sitting at the feet of the woman he’d just been talking to. Normally he would’ve paid this no mind, but he thought it was strange that the bag was filled with other smaller brown paper bags—all neatly creased and folded so as to provide room for as many as possible. He nodded at the bags and said, “So, are you like… really into the environment or something?”

“Me?” the girl asked, not noticing his gesture towards her feet. “No, not really. I guess maybe I should be, but I’m not. Why do you ask?”

“The bags. I figured you were going somewhere to recycle them, or something.”

“Oh, right. The bags. No, they’re for work.”

“Where do you work?”

“The Lion’s Den.”

“The Li… oh, wait… isn’t that like… a… uh…”

“A sex shop? Yeah. It’s where I’m headed now. Does that weird you out?”

Christian dabbed at his forehead with his handkerchief, then folded his hands and looked out the window. “Does it weird me out? No, I uh… it’s just…”

The woman’s laugh didn’t do much to comfort Christian. It was just as nasal as her voice.

“It’s okay. I know it’s not very… um… ‘traditional,’ I suppose. Not like writing checks, anyways.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her and saw her smiling. She continued: “Anyways, don’t feel bad thinking it’s a little weird, because it is. Fuck, I mean, I’ll be the first one to admit that!”

“So, what are the bags for?”

“Well, let me put this in a hypothetical situation. Let’s say you were a customer—”

“I wouldn’t be—”

“Do you know what hypothetical means?” Christian rolled his eyes quite noticeably. “Good, then stop interrupting. Let’s say you were a customer and you’d just bought like, a magazine or a movie or…” She looked at him somewhat cautiously and then smiled. “…or a ten-inch Mr. Wiggly—”

“Hey!”

“Kidding! Chill. Anyways, it’s bad enough that people might see you walking out of the store, but you can still play the, ‘Oh, I was just in there for shits and giggles,’ card. I mean, we do get that, after all. But if you have merchandise in your hand? Well, then you’re up the creek.”

“So you give them bags? Isn’t it still obvious that you bought something there?”

“Not just any bag…” she said, reaching down below her seat and pulling out one of the immaculately folded brown paper bags, “…Kroger brand.”

“I don’t know… I’m not sure I’d be fooled.”

“Well, maybe not, but there’s a Kroger’s down the road, so at least it’s somewhat plausible. Anyways, people will pay extra for a little bit of manufactured privacy.” Christian nodded and looked again at the mother and child across the aisle. The boy was curled up on a seat with his head resting on his mother’s lap. She was slowly running her fingers through his hair and looking at Christian. However, when she noticed that he was returning her stare, she quickly averted her eyes and began to search around for something else to watch. Christian looked back at the blond woman who was now picking red flakes off of her fingernails.

“Do you enjoy it?” he asked.

“What?”

“Your work… do you enjoy it?”

“It’s good enough for now,” she said, shrugging. “There are some really… ‘interesting’ people that come in, so it makes for good stories… but, I mean, it’s just temporary. You gotta move on sometime.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, there’s no way to really move up in my industry… well, not in any way that I’d like to, at least,” she said, chuckling to herself.

“No, I mean, couldn’t you just stay where you are? Couldn’t things just not change?”

“Everything changes. Besides, what would be the fun in that?”

“Comfort, I guess,” Christian said, with a sigh. Before he knew what was happening, the woman had reached over, grabbed his wrist, and yanked on a little bit of hair that was growing out near a mole on his arm. Instinctively, Christian yelped and drew his arm back, shooting the woman an angry look.

“What the hell did you do that for?” he asked, a little too loudly. The mother across the aisle gave him a displeased look.

“Well, are you comfortable now?” Christian didn’t answer, but turned his head away. “Exactly, but now you know how comfortable you were before, and now you can appreciate it.” She sighed, and said, “Look, I’d love to keep talking about this with you. Really, I would—but this is my stop.” She pulled on a plastic cord, signaling to the driver that she needed to get off, then stood up and began to walk towards the front of the bus. However, just as she passed the mother and child, she turned and paused before saying, “Good luck.” With that, the bus came to a stop and she disappeared.

I had a great conversation with another writer (do I consider myself a writer? That’s a good question…) here in Singapore at a fun little test-run shindig at Le Noir called Ogywawa on Wednesday. This has sparked some renewed interest in my writing. I’ll have a lot more time in September to hopefully finish up this short story.

Let’s talk about Talking Heads

(You’ve got it, you’ve got it…)

(Nothing But) Flowers came on my iPod this morning while I was walking to work (yes, yes, I finally took the Misfits’ “Where Eagles Dare” off of repeat for my walking music).  Jeez, what a fantastic song that is.  The intro sounds immaculate with good earphones, and the key changes in the chorus just make you want to get up and dance like a funky little white boy.  I usually refrain… what would my students think??  Actually they’d probably think that it makes perfect sense.

STOP MAKING SENSE

If you’re not familiar with the Talking Heads, this is probably where you should start.  Stop Making Sense is a live DVD/Album that covers a wide range of their hits in one of the most energetic, creative, and high-quality productions I’ve seen in a concert documentary.  Here’s a preview (but you should really just watch the whole thing):

This is one of my favorite Talking Heads songs, and it was something of an inspiration for a short story that I’m working on.  Anyways, it should be pretty evident from that video how quirky David Byrne is as well as how ridiculously catchy their music can be.

The real impetus for this blog post is that I was recently asked which era of the Talking Heads was better: their classic 70s CBGBs incarnation, or their 80s limelight days?  This is an extraordinarily difficult question.

On one hand, in the 70s, you have three amazing albums: Talking Heads: 77, More Songs About Buildings and Food, and Fear of Music which are high quality from start to finish.  Yes, you’ve got your hits (the ubiquitous Psycho Killer, the dance-hit Life During Wartime, and the fast-paced & self-effacing I’m Not in Love) but the majesty of these three albums is that there’s not a wasted song.  When I put on these records, I never hit the skip button.

On the other hand, the 80s brought some of the biggest hits that the Talking Heads ever had: Once in a Lifetime, Burning Down the House, Road to Nowhere, Radio Head (from which Radiohead took their name), and the album, Naked, which included three of my all-time favorite songs–Mommy Daddy You and I, (Nothing But) Flowers, and Mr. Jones.  However, there are a number of songs that you could really do without.  I very rarely find myself listening to these albums all the way through.

So, the question is: is it better to have a more solid album or to have bigger hits?  Generally speaking, I’d say that the album is more important, but I can’t deny that my favorite Talking Heads songs come from the 80s.

Anyways, I’ll leave you to decide for yourself which is more important to you, and, just to further reinforce my point that you need to see Stop Making Sense, here is a video of them performing “Slippery People” from Speaking in Tongues (while watching these videos keep in mind that David Byrne choreographed the whole show himself).

Fuh Fuh Fuh Fah, Fuh Fuh Fuh-Fuh Fah Fah.

I can play GAMES on my IPOD???

iPod: the undernourished platform.

So, the iPod has taken over another facet of my life–one that I’d been trying desperately to leave behind in the States: Gaming. Aside from some stints of emulation gaming (FFI, II, III, and V were finally taken care of) and tower defense, I had left the majority of my gaming life behind in the US. This is good, because games like World of Warcraft had threatened to take over my life prior to leaving for Singapore.

However, in the last few months (really as soon as I got my iPod) I have discovered a number very captivating games that are available for download/purchase for the iPod. So, here I will discuss a few of the better ones.

Solitaire – You really can’t go wrong with Solitaire. It’s basic, it’s entertaining, it’s challenging, it takes very little battery power… This is probably my second most played game behind Phase (see below).

Phase – This is a really cool game done by the same team behind Guitar Hero. It allows you to upload your own songs into a special ‘Phase’ playlist and then when you sync up your iPod, you can play these songs as if you were playing something akin to Guitar Hero (with only 3 buttons though). This game eats up battery power like crazy, so don’t expect to play this much on your 10 hour bus trip from Vientiane to Louang Phabang. I’ve yet to get through a marathon on the ‘Insane’ level.

Song Summoner – A Tactical RPG put out for the iPod by… SQUARE/ENIX! As soon as I saw what this was, I clicked the download button. However, it’s been a little bit of a let down. You create units for your army through your songs… but that’s the extent that the game uses your music. The scroll wheel can be a little annoying to use as a cursor (c’mon give me a d-pad iPod!). The graphics are pretty great for an iPod game, and as a result, the game is VERY battery-draining. Don’t play this unless you’re going to plug it in soon. Furthermore, the troops are very disposable. One of things that I’ve always liked about Tactical RPGs is the customization of your troops, and this game doesn’t really have that at all.

I haven’t played it enough to give a good longitudinal review, but these are some issues that I have with it.

Pinball – This game is a lot of fun if you like pinball. I LOVE pinball. Graphics are pretty good, so the battery goes down pretty quickly, but the game is very enjoyable and translates well to the iPod’s controls.

Bomberman – I was pretty excited to learn that I could play Bomberman on my iPod. However, it turns out that the controls are really frustrating to use, so I haven’t played this one much. Having a d-pad would make this so much more enjoyable.

There are a few games that I haven’t reviewed because I haven’t gotten around to playing them (Scrabble), they don’t allow you play your own music over the game (automatic disqualification), or the controls would be way too hard for the game (Sonic).

If anybody else has any reviews or recommendations–please let me know and I’ll check ‘em out.

I’ll leave you with a video preview of ‘Phase’:

Sea Lions love Rammstein

Sea Lions: Plague of the German suburban stairwells.

I’m not big into Rammstein. This is the only song by them that I know… but I know every word to it (phonetically, of course). I don’t think it would be wrong to say that it’s their most popular song (at least in the United States).

But let’s get back to what this post is really about:

Sea lions love to attack Asian tourists! In fact, if you throw up a peace sign anywhere near a sea lion, they are known to go into a rabid frenzy and start attacking every Engrish t-shirt in sight!

Let this be a warning to all those who have the misconception that sea lions are these adorable, trick-performing friends of the arctic waters:

Reality looks a bit more like this:

Don’t say I didn’t warn you!!

In Addendum

I AIN’T NO GODDAMN SONOFABITCH.

I was never a huge Misfits fan (not that I wasn’t a fan, I just wasn’t crazy into them like a lot of my friends were), but I’ll be damned if this song doesn’t get the the fists pumping.  It’s crept up on my iPod numerous times this past week and it’s been stuck in my head all day.

Maybe it’s a running theme, because Hybrid Moments was stuck in my head the week before.  Spurred on mostly by a Friction (think Braid & Hey Mercedes) cover of the song, I’ve been finding myself putting the Misfits on a pretty heavy rotation.

Anyways, have a very Danzig day.

What songs have been kicking my ass lately?

Well, I’ll tell you.

Firstly, Drive on, Driver by the Magnetic Fields. Sorry that I couldn’t find a better audio host than that one, but do take the time to listen to it. It sounds like a mixture between The Jesus and Mary Chain and Au Revoir Simone and all kinds of awesome. Granted, this song doesn’t have Stephin Merritt’s lulling baritone, but the other tracks on the album (Distortion) feature it fairly prominently–so don’t worry.

Secondly, Lover’s Spit by Broken Social Scene. The version I just linked you to is actually a B-Side version of the song which features Leslie Feist as the lead vocalist. Here is the version from You Forgot It in People:

By the way, if you don’t have a copy of You Forgot it in People, do yourself a favor and go out and get it right now. It’s ridiculous how awesome that album is.

Lastly, The Smashing Pumpkins‘ song, “Siva” off of their debut album, Gish:

I love this song mostly for its drums. I can’t get enough. They just sound so necessary. Y’know how in Jazz the drums are treated as a lead instrument instead of just a means to keep time? It’s like that.

Anyways, I hope this post has been enlightening for you, as I’m sure this question has been burning through your skull for the last couple weeks. I’m glad to have alleviated that burden.

Last day in the life of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Ok, so maybe that title is a little morbid and irreverent–but so was he.

Today marks the death of one of Russia’s most important 20th century authors. Much of our knowledge of what life in the Soviet Gulags was like is based upon his literary accounts of his experiences as Soviet political prisoner. Now, I feel a little bit unqualified to comment on his life and work, because I’ve only read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (and it was required reading in my high school lit class), so I’ll let the New York Times do the talking for me:

Solzhenitsyn, Who Defied Soviets, Dies at 89

or, the BBC:

Obituary: Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Some really good information is to be gotten from these websites, but if you’re feeling a little rebellious you can check out the wikipedia page (so long as you’re not one of my students! Wikipedia is still not allowed to be used as a source, even if I use it).

Waiting Room: Best bass line in rock & roll?

Definitely, maybe.

Even if you’re not familiar with Fugazi (and you probably are, even if you don’t know it) or the dynasty of Ian Mackaye, you should be able to appreciate the magnificence that is this bass line. It’s amazing both in the simplicity of it and the amount of face that it melts. Yes, this song is all kinds of awesome (possibly the best use of silence in a rock & roll song as well as incredible interplay between lead and backup vocals). Everything about this song screams perfection while retaining that rock & roll edge and post-hardcore aesthetic that we all have come to attribute to the band.

At once, it makes you want to rock out and shake your ass. That’s a hard balance to strike.

I think this video explains it best:

I’d give anything to go back in time and see them perform this song live during their golden years. Hell, the rest of their catalog is just as amazing. Definitely give them a good long gander if you’re not already familiar with the group.