Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man, Don't Play A Song For Me

I've alluded to this before but I write for a couple of publications based in town here. I write about music and, for the most part, I write about local music. On Saturday night though, I revealed a secret to a friend of mine who happens to be a local musician. I try to keep this secret from everyone (until now, I suppose) but every once in awhile it slips out and honestly, I'm just sick of carrying it around with me, because it shouldn't have any impact on my credibility as a music critic/writer: I don't like Bob Dylan.

Oh, I know, "But, he's Minnesota's most famous musician!", "But, he's a genius!", "Jesus, you are an moron!" I've heard them all, but nothing can convince me. This isn't to say he's untalented, because he is. I have not and will not disparage his fans in any way--I get why people like him, I just don't. But he, like Led Zeppelin, is one of those artists that it seems you are required to like if you work within or around the music industry in any capacity. I don't like Zep much, either, by the way.

I know what you are thinking: that I am a stuck-up, elitist, hipster douchebag who only listens to bands that are not or never were hugely popular because it's "cool" to do so. That is mostly untrue. I have respect for Dylan and Zeppelin both. They influenced tons of bands that I like and listen to all the time. Dylan, in fact, largely influenced the friend that I had this little exchange with on Saturday and I like his music quite a bit, regardless of our friendship.

Why is this? Why if you identify yourself as a music writer are you then required to like certain bands? Dylan and Zeppelin are two. The Who is another (I do like them) and, for some reason, Elvis Costello is one as well (I like him quite a bit, also.) and The Beatles (duh.)

I'm not being ultra-elitist when I say I don't like Dylan. In fact, I do enjoy several of his songs every so often, but as a whole his work doesn't speak to me. I'm drawn to some of the music, however, sometimes I find the lyrics not revolutionary but just kind of insipid and ham-fisted, though I have never appreciated a lot of the '60s counterculture icons (Morrison, Grace Slick, etc.). I was born after "the revolution" happened and by the time I understood what "counterculture" meant, Dylan didn't seem like he could have been a poster boy for it at all. Maybe I just have a problem with baby boomers.

I know there are people that will want to string me up for this, but I can't help what I feel. I'm not trying to stir up trouble or be a jerk, I just don't like Bob Dylan, and I'm pretty sure that doesn't make me a bad person.

Only In Dreams

I have weird dreams. I know, I know, "everyone has weird dreams" is always the response I get but seriously, I have really bizarre dreams, more bizarre than most everyone else I know. I don't have vivid, strange dreams all the time but when I do they are always memorable and detailed, even if those details make little or no sense when I awake--I'm always amazed at what my subconscious brain allows itself to interpret as real and plausible.

Last night I dreamed that I was repeatedly traveling through time. But I wasn't helping to solve anyone's problems like Quantum Leap or Journeyman or even trying to solve my own problems. I was mostly traveling back to 2004 and 2005, visiting a lot of my current friends that I was not friends with then-- essentially doing a background check, I suppose. I attended a show at First Avenue and ran into several of my friends that I go to and document shows with now. They, of course, did not know me (and most of them didn't know each other) but, strangely (or predictably, since it was my dream), I had conversations with all of them. They weren't about anything substantive it was simply "Hi, good show." etc. and then I had to act like I did not know who they were, but seemed to not be doing a very good job of pretending--I would probably be a terrible candidate for actual time travel, I would approach people that didn't know me yet and somehow tear a hole in space-time continuum, ruining everyone's lives. I don't remember who was playing but I do remember hearing "A Punk" from Vampire Weekend being played in between sets and thinking "Wow, someone is way ahead of the curve here." Yeah, even my dreams are sort of pretentious sometimes.

After a little while at the show, I left and somehow ended up at a party at the building where I used to live in Minneapolis' Uptown neighborhood. It was 2005 and the party was attended by people from my high school days, college and now. They all knew each other in that weird dream way where all of your friends from the span of your life just know each other and seem to hang out all the time while you aren't around. I am always surprised when all of these people know each other, but just accept it and continue on with whatever weird-ass situation I am in. At this party everyone seemed to have been waiting for me to show up (the future me, mind you not the 2005--or, in the dream, "current" me), but when I showed up they all just kind of ignored me or didn't see me. I was also dating some girl who was not my now-wife who in 2005 was my then-girlfriend. I was talking with a current friend of mine who was also a friend then--he was the only one talking to me--and I explained I was really from the future and it was ok that I was dating someone here because I was actually "future me" and not "current me", I also rattled off some time travel mumbo jumbo that sounded an awful lot like a mix the time travel premises from The Terminator and Back To The Future but he didn't seem to notice. At one point the party guests all gathered on some rickety wooden bleachers that were set up in the alley to take a group picture, but everyone was actively avoiding eye contact with me and I was avoiding being in the picture because of the space-time continuum, again. I decided I needed to get back to 2008 but had no idea how I had been time traveling in the first place, so I seemed to be stuck there. I had been jumping through time suddenly, randomly, by just opening doors and "ending up" in a different place but now I couldn't get it to work, and finally, anti-climatically like all dreams I simply woke up and wondered, "What the hell did that all mean?"

Keep Your Eyes Ahead

This album is a couple of years old, and Cursive fans sort of denounced it, but it resonated with me for whatever reason and I was listening to it earlier today. I think it has to do with the fact that besides writing for bunch of different places around town here (i.e. my dream job, basically--though for now it qualifies as just a hobby mostly), my day job/career (i.e. what I do to pay the bills) revolves around construction and that is a central theme on Happy Hollow: your work and your life are not the same thing. Just in case you don't know, this is a concept album (sort of) about a fictional Midwestern town called Happy Hollow and some of it's residents, one of whom is the now-adult Dorothy Gale (from The Wizard Of Oz.) We find her with her dreams broken and evaporated. She is working for a living, trapped in an unhappy marriage.

There are other things at play here, a secretly gay clergyman, a young woman having an affair--conceiving a child as a result--while her soldier husband is at war, along with several others and much of it reads as an indictment of small towns and the secrets and closemindedness that often go with living in one. I grew up in the city and still live there, but I know many people from small towns and they have just as many scandalous stories from their towns as I do. They are no better or worse than I am.

There is a work ethic native to the Midwest that gets a lot done but leaves little time for leisure. You work and sweat and work some more, that is all. If you are not sweating, you are not working, you are screwing around. This seems silly to a lot of people but it's the truth. There is little or no time for dreams or ideas or anything like that. Just do what you are told and go home at the end of the day. This is a central theme to this album, too. Your dreams aren't worthless, they give you something to live for. Nobody lives for work, everyone has to have a job, but your job is not (or at least should not be) your life.

Hypocrisy is present everywhere not just the city, people are fallible and, well, human. People cheat even though it's bad and there are gay people in small towns, too. You get the sense that a lot of these issues had bothered Cursive's lead singer, Tim Kasher, for some time. Things like this bother me, too.

I grew up in a blue-collar family. My dad worked his ass off for us when I was little. He came home dirty and frozen in the winter, dirty and sweat-stained in the summer. We led a good life that had been gleaned from his sweat, but sometimes he forgets there is more than one way to make a living and that following your dreams in an attempt to make a living isn't stupid or childish or a waste of time--it's what keeps many people going. As great as I think my dad is, I often think he let his dreams die somewhere along the line and even he doesn't realize it. He is a generally happy guy, but sometimes I think, "Does he ever wonder 'what if?' about a dream, any dream he once had?"

I think ultimately this is what I love about this album, it's about people with broken dreams and shattered lives, inner conflict and the devastation that can be reaped by simply settling for "good enough" but it doesn't celebrate these things, it plays as a warning: "Don't become these people, and it's as easy not to be as it is to become them."

When I get discouraged I listen to Happy Hollow and promise myself, "I will not become them, keep doing what you are doing and you will do just fine. Dream big and don't settle. 'Good enough' is never good enough."

My Bathroom Has Never Been This Dirty -or- Why I Am Not A Serial Killer

I am fascinated by serial killers. Not fascinated in a way that makes me want to emulate them at all, but fascinated most specifically in the nonchalant manner in which they describe the violence and depravity they have engaged in, like it was just part of a normal day--"Well, I woke up in the morning, made breakfast, combed my hair and repeatedly sodomized the corpse stuffed in my closet. Just a usual Tuesday." I can never quite get my head around how a person can operate like that, undetected, for what is often close to a decade or more. This general mentality of serial killers as a whole is what draws me in. That and the fact they look like run-of-the-mill citizens whose neighbors and friends are always nearly in shock when a serial killer gets caught (Ted Bundy had girlfriends and attended law school; Dennis Rader, the BTK Killer, worked for his church, was married, etc.) They almost invariably had Dickensian-like upbringings rife with violence and horrible abuse, often at the hands of a family member. You want to feel sorry for them (or at least I do, initially) but many people are raised like this and turn out to be ok, or at least don't grow up and slice prostitutes to ribbons in their spare time, so it's impossible to have any empathy for them at all.

I suppose admitting this says more about me than I would like it to, I contend it doesn't mean anything but the dozen or so books on serial killers I own might say differently, "Some people read Danielle Steele, it's not what I like to read." is a standard argument but that doesn't leave me as much in the clear as I'd like it to, I don't think. Other people aren't fascinated by these people like I am, unless they study them for a living and one person that does has his own TV show. He is a forensic psychologist named Michael Stone and the way he talks about these people and their actions, he seems like a serial killer himself. He's detached and clinical, I suppose he needs to be in order to be good at his job, though.

I happened to be watching it today and child killer Westley Allan Dodd was featured among others. Then they got to Dahmer. You and I have seen plenty about this man, I'm sure. Just in case, here's a quick recap: he operated in Milwaukee during the early 1990s. He kidnapped somewhere in the neighborhood of two dozen people, tried to turn them into zombies by drugging them, drilling holes in their heads and pouring acid into their skulls. Inevitably, they died or he finished them off. He often ate parts of them including their genitals. Disgusted yet? Yeah, it's harsh stuff. Even within this breed of people, Dahmer is pretty outer limits. There are killers who behaved worse, to be sure, but the sheer luridness, for lack of a better word, of his crimes is what makes them so memorable. It made for great copy in newspapers the world over. He just wanted a companion, he said, but that desire, along with being a guilt-ridden, self-loathing homosexual and having a pretty terrible upbringing (sexual abuse by a family friend, picked on mercilessly at school, etc.) all converged and created a monster.

None of the details of his crimes, save for one, stuck out this time, though. I had heard about all of them and am sort of unfazed when they are listed off at this point, having read several books with him featured in a chapter or two and one that was specifically about him that somehow missed this little tidbit. In the context of the rest of the gore he was responsible for, it seems relatively innocuous and sort of logical, really. Toward the end of his little reign of terror he would shower with two or three corpses in his tub. This is possibly the most disgusting thing I have ever heard and, luckily this time, this says more about me than I want it to. I am a fairly clean person. I am also a compassionate person, I think. Among all of the other serial killer-associated behaviors I am not capable of (assaulting women, animal torture, necrophilia, etc.) I just could not shower with a corpse and I'm glad that this says something about me. Sure, I read about and watch shows about serial killers more than your average person does. Acting out or emulating any of their crimes is out of the question, though, and chief among these things is showering with dead people. Among all of the disgusting acts that serial killers engage in, this one is almost too much too handle. The rest of it I can separate myself from a little when I read or hear about it and am able to digest the details without getting sick, but the thought of cleaning myself while two or three pairs of dead eyes look on is just too horrifying to dwell on. You have nothing to worry about, I promise not to kill you.

What I Learned On Halloween

I'll stop doing this so often, but this photo, along with the one from ninth grade that's two or three entries previous to this one, amuses me. It anchors me to a specific time more than most other photos from my past do and while it's sort of amusing to show people, for me it is also sort of painful for me to look at. This is obviously Halloween and though I wore this costume again two years later, there aren't any pictures of it and it was with a completely different group of people. So, despite this picture not having a date on it, I know this is the Saturday of Halloween weekend, 1998--exactly October 31. This photo was taken in St. Cloud, MN, at our friend Stephanie's place. We arrived Friday night and there were no Halloween activities that we participated in that evening. We simply went to this bar called The Red Carpet, made fun of all the people dressed up a day early (something I do all the time, if need be, now so as not to be hungover for work) and drank ourselves into oblivion. We always drank ourselves into oblivion on road trips. We did the same in our homebase of Mankato, but pulled out all the stops away from there, it was really quite something to witness, to be honest.

The reason I am posting this is because of a story that goes along with it. About a half hour after it was taken we were sitting in the St. Cloud franchise of The Green Mill. That particular Green Mill is attached to the St. Cloud VFW and there happened to be a large number of retired Korean War veterans wandering back and forth from the VFW into the restaurant as there was some sort of banquet going on. They were, obviously, giving me funny looks as they walked by, but they did understand it was Halloween and everyone else was dressed up for the most part, too. My friend whom we referred to as Roof, as in Roofless (ruthless), the guy with the shaved head behind me to the right in the picture, had a Holstein cow suit on, so I certainly wasn't the only one looking completely asinine. Most of the vets just sort of snickered or their eyes got real wide as they passed us and said "Happy Halloween, guys".

We had been there for a couple of hours and I kept looking at the men passing me in their dress uniforms. Many were highly decorated and more than a few had Purple Hearts. They fought for our country once and now they were older, many were frail beyond belief, some limped, one guy only had seven fingers. I had had several beers and I decided I need to thank at least one of these men. Every single one of the other people sitting with me protested. "You are in a fucking pink dress, Muji. Don't, it's disrespectful." they kept saying. ("Muji" was me, I had acquired that name my freshman year in college but the story is too long to go into here.) "That's the point," I argued "they fought for this country so I could do this." (I mentioned the beers, right?) After several minutes of this, I stood up and tapped one of the vets who happened to be talking to a buddy. He turned and took maybe a half-step back and said "Yes, sir?" I made no qualification about my dress or my obvious drunkenness and blurted, "Thanks for defending our country, I appreciate it very much." He stared at me for what seemed like a long time, but was probably less than ten seconds. "You in college, son?" he finally asked. "Yes." I replied. "Good, good for you," he continued, sort of laughing, "You know, I didn't get to go, grew up on a farm, my parents were real poor. I chose the service because it was a way out, not because I wanted to necessarily, but that was the option. This is one of the strangest conversations I've ever had, but you're very welcome." and with that he walked away (his buddy had checked out as soon as he saw me.) Back when he was young, everyone was required to serve at least two years in the military, remember, so I assumed he used the words "I chose the service" because he was a career man and proud of it, he had done something with his life.

I don't know why that conversation has stuck with me all these years, but it has. It was the first and last time I have thanked a veteran for defending the country. I can't even see the man's face in my head anymore but I can still hear his voice. If you read between the lines of what he was saying he was calling me spoiled brat, too, a fool for wearing a pink dress in public, Halloween or no Halloween.

Every time I look at this picture that exchange is the first thing I think about. I hardly remember any other specific details about the night at all, and it's not because I drank too much. What I do remember is telling, however. We went to a house party after we left the bar, guys kept "hilariously" grabbing my ass all night and at one point Roof threw up the kitchen sink. When we came home to Stephanie's apartment, my friend Travis and I decided to make a frozen pizza, that was Stephanie's roommate's and not ours, and promptly passed out. When we woke up the next morning, one of the burners on the range was on full heat and the pizza was in the oven (which we hadn't ever managed to turn on, hence the burner being on--it was an electric range so we didn't notice), upside down with the plastic wrap and label still in place. We had a good laugh about it only because of how dangerous it was and that we were unhurt, but looking back on it now, that old veteran knew more about me than I had thought. I was a ridiculous, drunken, irresponsible spoiled asshole in a pink dress. He said so, gently, but it was years before I knew what he really meant and more years still until I knew he had been right. I was an arrogant, disrespectful prick with an inflated sense of entitlement and nothing more for much of my time in college. I talk to exactly zero people I went to college with on any sort of regular basis and that isn't everyone else's fault. Sure, I'm absolved of any guilt for some of it, for the most, though, part fault lies with me, I just didn't see it. That old man was trying to tell me something, maybe, but I was too drunk to listen or, more importantly, care.

So Long To The Salad Days

Yeah.

Remember? Remember how awesome this album was when it first came out (and still is today)? It was critically reviled at first (even though all the kids loved it), but even the most jaded ones eventually came around. They sounded like KISS should have, but better and they didn't have the stupid kabuki makeup, either--they looked like me and you. Saint Kurt had been been in the ground a scant month when this was released and for the weeks leading up to its release (it should be noted that I didn't pay attention to album street dates much back then, but "Undone [The Sweater Song]" had been played on MTV quite a bit so I knew about this one), me and my grunge-entrenched friends would often talk about music being "lost" which is a stupid thing to say, but 17-year-old boys aren't known for their insight or impeccable view of the big picture. This album along with, ironically, this one, released that fall, showed everyone that it was going to be okay. They were the final two nails in the grunge coffin and it was actually a welcome change. The sludgy grunge sound was already getting tired and The Blue Album, as it has become known, with it's clear, hearty, thundering riffs and ironic, self-effacing lyrics about embracing your inner nerd were just what everyone needed, it seemed, to lighten the general mood.

When I got ahold of this album, I listened to it non-stop. I went to college that fall and continued to listen to it non-stop. I still listen to this album a lot. Music has shaped my life a bit more than I like to admit and this record recalls a very specific time in my life where I was very happy. I'm happy now, too, but my life isn't changing as fast as it was back then and this album in particular is the soundtrack to me growing up a lot that first year away from my parents. I had never asked a girl out on a date until I was in college and the first time I did (and got shot down, mind you), I was at a party where they were playing this album in it's entirety. I specifically remember "The World Has Turned And Left Me Here" playing in the background (I swear) as she said "I really like you as a friend, but..." It hurt, but I laughed it off (plus she was way out of my league) and it wasn't so bad. I would get shot down many more times, but I would succeed once in a while, too, just like Rivers. He was a lovable loser who got it right sometimes. He replaced Kurt Cobain as my music idol for a few years in there and he didn't seem like the type to kill himself, either, so I knew I was safe. Pinkerton confused me at first and I didn't really like it, it seemed whiny and he talked about his feelings too much. A few years later, though, I fell in love with an Asian girl and though she was 100% Chinese and not a "half-Japanese girl" I would sing the intro to "El Scorcho" to her often and we would laugh. Pinkerton crept up on me while Rivers was at Harvard. The wait for a new album was agonizing and, ultimately, anti-climactic.

The stuff released post-Ivy league just doesn't have it. Sure, The Green Album is pretty good and Maladroit has some good riffs but they don't hold up. I'm not mad, just disappointed.

What happened?

Rivers Cuomo: Giant Douche

Really?

I'll probably get into this more in the coming days but is this seriously how far Weezer has fallen? C'mon guys, Make Believe was so bad it was painful for me to admit how much I loved you at first and while I've only heard maybe three tracks from this one, those songs combined with this insipid "are they being ironic or aren't they?" album cover is nearly enough to make me remove my copies of The Blue Album and Pinkerton (both of which rank among my 50 favorite albums of all-time) from my collection, throw them into my alley, run them over with my car and set them on fire. In short, you have released an album that makes Make Believe look like Magical Mystery Tour by comparison (which would make The Green Album The White Album, I think.)

So this is what it's like to watch your idols slowly fall from grace. You might have been better off OD'ing in about 1999. I finally agree with Neil Young on this point: it really is better to burn out than to fade away.

I Ran (So Far Away)

I'm not bragging here, but I know this is one of the funniest things you have ever seen. The hideous paisley shirt buttoned to the top is just icing on the cake. The haircut I have an explanation for, but the answer doesn't make it any clearer as to why I had it or it's successor which was just the epic bangs with a buzzcut.The answer to "Why?" is: I was a skater. In accordance with the times (this was 1991) I had, HAD to have long bangs to easily be identified as one. My uncle Mike dubbed this haircut The Flying Wedge and still laughs uncontrollably at it's mere mention. Were he to see this picture he would be howling, as I'm sure you are right now. It somehow made me look more like a reject from A Flock Of Seagulls instead of a skater, since I felt the need to use what looks to be about four cans of hairspray instead of just letting it flop around wildly, which would have been more advisable (without the hairspray my bangs went a good 1/2" past my chin.) You'll be seeing more idiotic pictures of me in the future I'm sure, but I figured I'd get this one out of the way first.

Oh, Boy.

I recently discovered that "Quantum Leap" is back on the air in syndication. It's on local channel 41 at 8PM.

I loved this show when it was first on the air and while some it hasn't aged well (it often was too heavy-handed with it's "confrontation" of the general racial and social climates of the 1950's and 1960's American south, but their hearts were in the right place) I still watch it often. It was the first sci-fi TV show I liked, as previous to "QL" I always equated sci-fi with "Star Trek" which I despise. Though, it should be noted that "QL" star Scott Bakula later appeared in a "Star Trek" series (I think it was called "The New Power Generation", or maybe it was "Morris Day and The Time", I can't be sure.) Anyway, the special effects are sort of lame now, but for the most part this show stands up and I was sad to see it go. I remember watching the last episode and being supremely bummed out that it was going off the air (and kind of annoyed that it was a semi-bad series finale), and even more aggravated when a couple of years later then-NBC President (and then-living human being) Brandon Tartikoff publicly admitted canceling it was a mistake.

You can go ahead and make fun, but watch this and tell me that you won't watch it tonight.

Okay, Fine.

After much (MUCH) resistance (I'm always compelled to nerd out and quote Star Trek: The Next Generation--"Resistance is futile!"--God, I'm a dork, you hate me already, don't you?), much time spent poking gentle fun at blogging, and generally thinking it's sort of odd to spill your guts for any and all to stumble across, I have started a blog.

And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin? Oh, wait...nevermind. I'm meandering again. I write about music about 98% of the time that I am writing anything (excluding e-mails, posting idiotic shit on people's Facebook/MySpace pages, etc.) and I want to write about other things I guess. Stuff about my life, or for what passes as my life. I watch bad TV a lot and sometimes I'll write about that, I go out with my friends and my friends do funny shit. A lot. This isn't going to be about just a few things though. I'm going to treat this thing as my therapist because at least when you say "Well, I can't help you, you're overly neurotic and just plain nuts." I can't hear you. So, it's going to be like every other blog you've read probably, just more self-involved, I suppose. I'll try to entertain you, but we'll see how well I do.

This is what I'll leave you with today: My friend JP revels in torturing me about my "obsession" with Hollywood, even though I swear to God I don't have one, it's just her perception, honest. But asking her gets you a different story and we constantly argue about this, which makes the rest of our friends sort of uncomfortable because we argue like siblings about everything and this particular disagreement can get semi-heated (we say needlessly mean things to one another, loudly tell each other to "shut the fuck up" often, claim the other one is adopted, etc.) One time this guy who we both sort of know but don't know real well (we both see him at a weekly coffeehouse gig, so there isn't a ton of audience interaction and we're at first-name-only status) asked me if we were in fact related and it was in direct response to the way we speak to each other. The point of all of this is Shiloh Jolie-Pitt, or whatever the hell that goddamn kid's name is. Late last week it was reported that Angelina Jolie had her twins, then all of the news sources backpedaled when it became obvious that there was still only one white kid present in that ever-growing brood that is starting to resemble the collective offspring of Cletus The Slack-Jawed Yokel from "The Simpsons". There was a report on Yahoo! today that "Entertainment Tonight" still had not retracted their report. For some reason the editor in chief of OK! Magazine, Sarah Ivens, was interviewed for the story about why ET had not retracted their story and she had this to say: "Essentially you have two of the most beautiful, famous people in the world. We've all seen they've had one baby, Shiloh, and it is the coolest, most adorable baby on the planet. And this time they're having two? It can't get any better." Hmm, I have a couple of questions. Firstly, is this Sarah Ivens person possibly fifteen years old? Shiloh is "the coolest, most adorable baby on the planet"? You have to be fucking kidding me. Yeah, ok the kid's cute or whatever and her tiny track jacket probably cost half as much as my car, but that kid is not any cooler that any other two-year-old. A two-year-old is a two-year-old. She still throws temper tantrums and probably wets the bed every so often--definitely not cool things to do. No two-year-old is cool. Oh, I know what you're thinking: that I'm anti-kid and that's not true. But kids are kids, none of them are "cool", they're just kids, they aren't supposed to be. She probably can't even spell "Shiloh" for Christ's sake, I can barely spell it. And there lies the rub: Yeah, I pay more attention to Hollywood than I would care to admit, but Hollywood sort of pisses me off. People that say things in public about two-year-olds being the "coolest, most adorable baby on the planet" are awarded editor in chief positions at magazines and my buddy, The Doctor, who's a screenwriter out there, writes whip-smart, affecting, sometimes funny scripts and you don't know his name. So while I am paying attention to it, I'm really paying attention to it, if you follow me.