The Stormy Present – Society

So I’m incredibly bored and decided to make an iTune purchase or two (or ten). As I was trolling around iTunes Store I found a thing called “Celebrity Playlists”.

After going through these lists I have a couple of observations that I’d like to vocalize and then I’d like to attempt to make my own Celebrity Playlist and encourage all of you to do the same.

Alright, my first observation is that I am very, very old. At least half the people that have given a Celebrity Playlist look like they should be in Jr High. I have no idea who 50% of the Celebrities on the Celebrity Playlist are due to this age discrepancy. My second observation is that they use the word ‘Celebrity’ pretty loosely. Of the 50% of the people that I knew, at least of half of those were people who I didn’t care what kind of music they listen too (Dane Cook, Carlos Mencia, Kim Kardashian, etc). Thus, if this site gets even moderately famous (or more likely infamous), then I expect that we’d qualify for a Celebrity Playlist.

My other observations are important to the creation or our own Celebrity Playlists. For starters you get to pick 5-12 songs. And since Celebrities are the most self aware people on Earth, they must ensure that the songs they pick make people think that they are musically knowledgeable. This means that all their playlists contain one or two classic rock songs and then a bunch of trendy songs (Modest Mouse, Wilco, The Shins, etc) then a couple songs that are just plain obscure.

So with that in mind, I’m going to try and create the greatest Celebrity Playlist and I encourage everyone else to do so in the comment section. Remember, you get 5-12 songs, you should write a sentence about why you picked each song, and your picks should be pompous and trendy enough to make people think you are like John Cusack’s character from High Fidelity when it comes to musical intelligence (hence, DMB is my favorite band but they won’t be on the list because they are too mainstream). Ok, here I go:

H.W.C by Liz Phair – She is THE indie chick. This song is has the dirtiest lyrics sung with the sexiest voice, which you gotta love.

Train in Vain by The Clash – Come on, it’s the freaking Clash.

Get By by Talib Kweli – You can’t listen to hip hop if you don’t know every word to this song.

Hold On, Hold On by Neko Case – Another hot indie chick that sing like an angel, buy this whole album because I had a hard time picking which song shoudl make the list.

Going to Acapulco by Calexico and Jim James – Just a great song by a band that has a unique sound.

Soul Meets Body by Death Cab for Cutie – A mellow tune that is great to chill too.

The 6^th Sense by Common and Bilal – These guys prove that hip hop can be informative, thought provoking and just really, really smooth sounding.

Way Down in the Hole by the Blind Boys of Alabama – It’s the theme song for The Wire!

Dreadful Selfish Crime by Robert Earl Keen – This is alt country the way it’s meant to be.

Wild Rover by Dropkick Murphys – I’m not Irish, but this song makes me think I am and that I can drink pint after pint and then fight people.

Gimmie Shelter by The Rolling Stones – The Beatles are overrated, there I said it. Gimmie the Stones.

All I Needed Was You by Pat Guadagno – This is seriously one of my favorite songs ever. It literally gives me pins and needles.

Now see, I think that is a perfect Celebrity Playlist. It has obscure songs that imply a high level of musical intelligence, there are women on it to prove I’m not a musical misogynist, it’s an eclectic mix, and all the comments about the songs are snarky. So let’s see if you can do any better.

*  Author’s disclaimer – Due to the evident increase in this blog’s readership and the tendency for those in the blogging community to leave gutless and unnecessarily insulting comments I would like to state, for the record, that what follows is merely my own conjecture.  I have no political expertise or affiliation and have simply chosen to write about what I am currently thinking.

Following the New Yorker’s controversial cover, which depicts presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and wife Michelle as Muslim extremists, the issue of satire and its role in our society has been making headlines.  In a previous post I outlined why I believe satire is an essential element in our society, and that satirists act as the vanguard of societal change.  I stand by that assertion, especially in the wake of recent events.

The Obama camp is reportedly extremely upset by the cover, and understandably so.  Taken at face value the cover of the magazine seems to imply that Obama is in fact a Muslim.  Obama has done a tremendous amount of work to distance himself from that belief, which remains prevalent in many parts of the country.  I don’t think it’s that Obama can’t take the joke, simply that because most people aren’t familiar with satire they see the cover without nuance, and this is damaging to the image he is trying to project, or rather, who he really is.  Some have complained that the cover would have been fine if readers had been given some sort of contextual clue, such as this author’s disclaimer above (which I was loathe to write).  The only contextual clue you really need is that it’s the bloody New Yorker, a magazine known for its satire, as well for it’s liberal leanings.  It’s highly unlikely that they would seriously insinuate that Barack Obama is a terrorist.  And yet, without such a hint the majority of people took it as a legitimate portrayal of a presidential candidate.  While the intended subject of the satire was the general populace’s ignorance as to Obama’s image, the intended audience clearly didn’t get the joke, or at least didn’t think it was funny.  Although it probably wasn’t the original intent of the satirist, I think the resulting backlash illuminated a far greater problem with out society.

Are we really, as a society, so unable to take a joke?  Again, I understand Obama’s lack of amusement as it jeopardizes his carefully crafted public image and propagates a far more nefarious popular image.  But still, is it that hard to deduce that his magazine cover was satirical?  And if they had put a disclaimer on the cover it would have ruined the subtlety and humor, which would have effectively made it not satirical.  I think this nation would be better served if we had more people like Thomas Nast.  It’s not the satirists’ job to be politically correct, it’s their job to show us our own shortcomings.

Another issue I have, and this is slightly off topic, is how some totally inexcusable remarks are defended as satire.  Typically, but not always, this is done by the extreme right wing.  For example, a while ago Fox News ran a segment entitled “Is the Daily Show dangerous for America?”  I really don’t need to elaborate on that.  Also, when Kurt Vonnegut, arguably the greatest satirist of the 20th century, died, Fox News was extremely critical of his work, which has been acknowledged by multitudes as being nothing less than genius.  And yet, when Ann Coulter, noted hack, called John Edwards a “faggot”, she was defended by the likes of Bill O’Reilly as being a satirist.  Not that I take anything they say seriously, that kind of blatant hypocrisy drives me crazy.

I went to Avenue Q the other night, which is a play that sort of spoofs Sesame Street by having puppets and people interact but they talk about issues that affect people in their 20s. So they talk about searching for your purpose, getting a job, relationships, and sex. It’s hilarious, and probably the best play I’ve seen. But that get’s me to the subject of this post.

I’ve probably only seen about 5 plays in my life. And of all of those, maybe only one other than Avenue Q was good. The other times I came away from the play wondering why plays suck and why people continue to keep that pathetic art form alive. However, when you think about it, we should embrace the idea of plays because plays could be the answer to all the stuff that bother us about cinema and TV.

I like all the Die Hard movies, but you couldn’t turn any of them into a play. A play version of a Die Hard movie would suck because as good as those movies are, there isn’t enough plot to keep you entertained for 90 minutes. You need the fight scenes, explosions, and special effects to make Die Hard good, but you can’t get those things in a play. However, since a play is limited in terms of special effects you’d think that plays would be the perfect incubator for great stories, which are increasingly being forced out of Hollywood in favor of mindless blockbusters (I’m looking at you Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and JJ Abrams). So why don’t I go to more plays and why is that when I do go they usually suck?

As far as I can tell, as someone who is not an expert on plays or theater at all, the modern plays fall into two categories: trying too hard to be like movies or trying too hard to be exactly the opposite of movies.

Plays shouldn’t try to be like movies because the bottom line is that movies have too many advantages over plays in terms of ‘the spectacular’. I never saw the play or movie Chicago, but I bet that the movie had more spectacle than the play because the movie isn’t bound by the same constraints. So if plays try to compete with movies for spectacle, they’ll lose.

The other category of plays is also afflicted. If plays try too hard to not be like movies, which they see as mindless, then they end up becoming overly intellectual crap fests. Shouldn’t I be able to go to a play without having to refer to my notes from a Master’s level philosophy class?

So here’s my thought, and again, I know nothing about the theater so let me know what you think; plays should strive to fill the gap being left by movies instead of either going to the extreme of what movies are already about or the extreme of what they aren’t about. So you can’t make Die Hard the play, but you could come up with a play about a cop that has a really great plot minus all the cool explosions. You could make a play kind of like Sin City with fewer fight scenes. You could make a play along the lines of Shawshank Redemption. So do that! Write plays that have really amazing plots that don’t require a BA in English or Fine Arts to discern. Wouldn’t that make sense?

I saw this on media matters and immediately thought of Jim:

On his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage claimed that autism is “[a] fraud, a racket. … I’ll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it’s a brat who hasn’t been told to cut the act out. That’s what autism is. What do you mean they scream and they’re silent? They don’t have a father around to tell them, ‘Don’t act like a moron. You’ll get nowhere in life. Stop acting like a putz. Straighten up. Act like a man. Don’t sit there crying and screaming, idiot.’ “  (source)

I know right?! Um, here’s all that can be said about this: who would continue to listen to this guy’s show after a statement like this? Seriously, who hears someone say something as dumb as this and doesn’t recognize the stupidity and insensitivity of that statement?

But the real insight of this comment is that it summarizes how those over the top assholes on uber-conservative radio operate.

America does have a serious problem when it comes to using medication to solve our problems, especially with children. Also, and I say this as an unmarried man with no children, there is a problem in America when it comes to disciplining children. So Savage could have said something as inflammatory as ‘American parents are wussies who are afraid to punish their children and would rather try to explain away their children’s flaws through dubious medical excuses than have to do the hard work of dealing with their children with a firm hand.’ He could have even used ADD as an example of this and I would have be ok with. In fact, I think there is a great deal of truth to the alternative statement that I’ve posited. And it is inflammatory enough to get ratings. So why would Savage choose to not make a statement like the one I’ve suggested in favor of the one he made?

Here’s the answer to that question: because he is a fucking idiot. He just opens his mouth about a subject that his producers have chosen knowing that such a subject lends itself to controversy. Savage doesn’t think, he just says stuff and for some reason people listen. He isn’t a doctor and he isn’t a statistician, so he just pulled the stat ‘99% of these cases’ straight out of his fat ass. And yet he presents that stat as fact.

In conclusion, and hopeful Jim will have more to say on this in the comment section, it’s one thing to be a complete shill who says things just to be controversial and picks on public figures without mercy and for no good reason and generally ignores what would constitute rational thought. But to apply that sort of cruelty and ill logic to people suffering from autism and the parents who have to deal with autistic children is unforgivable. Of course I’m not saying anything new and of course I’m not going to be able to get Savage off the air, but my question is who listens to this guy? Back in the day I listened to Howard Stern and he was constantly getting fined and petitioned by the FCA and various concerned groups. Why did Howard get this treatment for running a comedy show and Savage seemingly gets to continually make dumb ass statements that he purports to be factual or politically important and yet is under less direst than Howard was?

Anyway, let me know what you think or just use the comment section to make fun of douche bag Savage.

Tonight VH1 will be honoring the legendary rock band The Who.  In my opinion, accolades for the Who come far too infrequently.  While they are usually mentioned in any top ten list of the greatest bands of all time, I feel they rarely get the respect they truly deserve.  The influence of the Who on later generations of musicians cannot be overstated.  Did you grow up in the 90s?  Did you think Wonderwall was the greatest song ever?  Don’t thank Oasis, thank the Who, because there would be no Oasis if not for the Who.  Do you like punk rock?  Not even the Sex Pistols could write a “fuck off” song like My Generation.  Do you like Rush, Yes, Pink Floyd or any band that pushes rock n’ roll to weird and unexplored territory?  Listen to Tommy and you’ll see where Tom Sawyer took his cues.

Part of the reason the Who are underrated is because they stand in such stark contrast to other bands that there’s no point of reference.  It’s easy to compare, say, Aerosmith and AC/DC, because they play exactly the same kind of music, relatively.  I’d wager that the vast majority of people can probably name only one or two members from either of those bands, and they’d probably be the lead singer and lead guitarist.  Basically, most rock bands are the same, they play some variety of guitar centric blues/rock, have a recognizable front man and a rhythm section no one really cares about.  The Who, from a musical standpoint, are a totally unique band.  Guitarist Pete Townshend rarely played lead, instead anchoring the song with heavy power chords.  Thus the band was led by its “rhythm” section, with bassist John Entwistle playing the most thunderous bass ever heard at that point (listen to his solo on “My Generation”, then realize it was recorded in 1965 and try and find anything that comes close to it), and drummer Keith Moon literally having an epilectic seizure on his drum kit.  All of this combined to give the Who an incredibly unique sound.  Further contributing to this was the vocal abilities of lead singer Roger Daltrey, as well as Entwistle and Townshend, allowing for intricate three part harmonies that no band except the Beatles ever really used to great success.

Apart from their inimitable style of play, there are two things I believe also distinguish the Who.  The first is their musical synthesis.  I think the focus of rock music tends to be on only one aspect of a composition.  You listen to Led Zeppelin to hear Jimmy Page riff or John Bonham solo or Robert Plant scream, but the focus is always on a singular member.  You’re not listening to Stairway to Heaven you’re listening to Page or Plant.  With the Who, I find, because the pieces fit together so well that the music is elevated into its own singularity, becoming an entity unto intself.  When you listen to Won’t Get Fooled Again you know you’re listening to something whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Another aspect of the Who that speaks to their greatness is the songwriting ability of Pete Townshend.  To me, there’s nothing better than music that’s actually about something.  I love Led Zeppelin, but at least 50% of their repertoire are blues numbers about sex and women, which can get kind of stale.  Townshend, on the other hand, had a much grander notion of what rock ‘n roll was and could be.  Many of his songs speak to the power of music, and the possibility  of the harmonious union of mankind through rock music.  He pushed the boundary of what rock music could do, writing two critically acclaimed “rock operas”. 

Throughout the various stages of their career the Who did more for rock music than any other band since the Beatles.  Led Zeppelin is generally heralded as the godfather of heavy metal, and they have certainly influenced an enormous number of musicians.  But the Who also influenced a signicant amount of musicians, and while there are countless bands that sound like Zep, there is no one who can imitate The Who.

To best sum up, I will leave it to the Who themselves, with the following lines from the song “Pure and Easy.”

I listened and I heard, music in a word, and words when you played your guitar.  The noise that I was hearing was a million people cheering, and child rode past me riding in a star.  There once was a note, pure and easy, playing so free like a breath rippling by. 

There once was a note, listen….

At some point either Jeff or myself will get around to writing an entire post about hip hop; what it is, what it’s about, why it is great, and what great hip hop artist are out there right now. Until then, I’m going to assume a certain level of hip hop knowledge as I write this review. So if you think you know what hip hop is because you really like 50 Cent then just stop reading right now.

When I say hip, you say hop. When I say hip hop, I think The Roots. They are hip hop. No one is more informed than they are, no one expresses themselves with greater clarity than them, no one is more passionate than them, no one is more musically talented than them, and no one combines all that in a way that is not only brilliant but also aesthetically pleasing.

I’m not trying to knock the likes of Mos Def, Talib Kweli, or anyone else; just to say that even though there are vastly talented guys out there in the world of hip hop The Roots stand head and shoulders above everyone. Their new album, Rising Down cements this reputation.

The discology of The Roots basically goes as follows: Things Fall Apart introduced me (and most everyone else) to a groups that was remarkably smart, informative and musically talented; Phrenology was a little too commercial and made me wonder if The Roots had succumb to their popularity; The Tipping Point managed to perfectly combine songs that were ‘radio friendly’ with songs that were overtly political and controversial in a way that created a tone that fit with what The Roots are all about; Game Theory was much darker and brooding than anything previous; and Rising Down takes the dark, rough sensibilities of Game Theory even further.

Rising Down is basically Oprah’s nightmare. For her and her lamb-like audience, the term ‘uplifting’ is supposed to mean something along the lines of self affirmation that is positive and happy. The Roots’ new cd is not uplifting in that sense, but it is uplifting in the sense that by listening to it you are constantly challenged and angered and pumped up by the various issues brought up in the lyrics and reinforced by music that ups your heartbeat. So it is uplifting in terms of the fact that by listening to it you are elevated from a submissive existence into one of defiance. Listening to this makes me think that The Roots are leaning toward the realm of Dead Prez, but The Roots manage to get that same confrontational message across in a way that is more thought provoking, more well thought out, and musical.

This album is exactly what you expect from The Roots. It is a socially conscious, smart, angry, brutally honest cd full of songs that will challenge your views without being preachy or phony. And why wouldn’t this be the tone of this cd since The Roots have been pointing out societal ills for over a decade now and inexplicably things only seem to get more and more out of control? In fact, maybe the cd is best summed up by the fact that it was released on April 29 of this year, which was the 16^th anniversary of the Rodney King riots.

On multiple occasions friends and I have tried to come up with a list of the greatest movies of all time. The problem that confounds our attempts is that there are so many good movies and so many different genres of movies that the feat proves impossible. So I’ve decided to ask a different sort of question: what is the most underrated movie of all time?

Now for a movie to be underrated it has to be one that most people, included your friends that have similarly good movie taste, are not likely to have seen or only saw once as kids when they could not have fully appreciated it. Thus, Glory is a great movie, but I have to figure that most people have seen it and understand its supreme quality, so it can’t be the most underrated movie of all time. The most underrated movie of all time, therefore, will be one that combines the highest level of obscurity and the highest level of quality. OK, here’s my short list with the winner at the end:

The Power of One – very few movies can make me cry. This one makes me cry like a bitch. Like a bitch. It’s about a white kid and a black kid who are boxers in apartheid South Africa. Also my special lady friend would be mad if I didn’t mention that it was filmed in Harare.

Hamburger Hill – it’s a Vietnam movie that isn’t polished or political; a gritty tale that focuses on the brotherhood of soldiers. Too often overlooked in favor of Platoon or Apocalypse Now.

The Ghost and the Darkness – maybe people have seen this one so it fails to qualify much like Glory, however, it is a good movie.

There are probably others that I’ll think of later and put in the comment section, but for now that’s my short list. The winner, however, tops all of these in obscurity and is of the highest quality.

Geronimo: An American Legend is far and away the most underrated movie of all time.

Basically the storyline follows a young army officer (played by Matt Damon before he got famous) as his army column scours the American west in search of the rebel Geronimo. There are four reasons this is a great movie. First, the characters are all very rich. By the end of the movie you want to be like the Lieutenant in charge of Damon’s column and the guy playing Geronimo (also the guy who is Mogwui in Last of the Mohicans) is brilliant. Second, it is in the American west so there are copious amounts of amazing desert shots, which makes for great cinematography. Third, it tells the tale in a way that familiarizes you with a piece of history that is interesting but surprisingly unfamiliar. Fourth, it has amazing morals. The Lieutenant teaches Damon that the Indians are an amazing people and that we could learn a great deal from them. He also has to deal with the fact that he is charged with catching Geronimo and his moral quandary is set in contrast to the sentiments of frontiersmen and some of his superior officers. Ultimately, this moral struggle presents a view of each side’s vision for how to deal with Geronimo that can be extrapolated out onto a number of other issues. Hence, the issues of American expansion, American morality and morality in general are all contained within the storyline.

All in all it is a great movie and one that I bet none of you has ever seen. Thus, it is my submission for most Underrated Movie of All Time. If you’ve got some other movies in mind for the title or for honorable mention, I encourage you to list them in the comment section.