tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58352903251208549912024-03-05T21:03:32.549-05:00BLECCH!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-62702143825523450002012-12-07T23:18:00.004-05:002012-12-07T23:28:00.393-05:00The Wretched Timesheeters of the Earth<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">I'm in the furniture trade </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Got a new job today </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">But stick the cretin </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">On the number-three lathe</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Went down the town </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">To a HM club </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The sign had a cross </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Through a couple well-dressed </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">They looked at my coat </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">They looked at my hair </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">An Easy Rider coot </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Grabbed the edge of my coat </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Said: 'You're too smart for here' </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">I said: 'I'll see the manager'</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">He was the manager!</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Up the stairs mister!</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Analytics have got </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">My type worked out </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Analytics on me </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The poison render </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">I grope about </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">And when I go out </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">My mind splits </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">My eyes doth hurt </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The musical chairs </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Have been swallowed up </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">By a cuddly group </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Who land and rub off </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Hoping that</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Whatever it is </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Will land and drop off</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">I met a hero of mine </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">I shook his hand </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Got trapped in the door </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Felt a fool, I tell ya</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Charmed to meet ya</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Up the stairs mister</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Became a recluse </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">And bought a computer </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Set it up in the home </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Elusive big one </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">On the screen </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Saw the Holy Ghost, I swear </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">On the screen</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Where's the cursor?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Where's the eraser?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Where's the cursor?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Where's the eraser?</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">G-O-H-O-H-O-9-O</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">H-O-9-O-G-O-H-O</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">What's a computer?</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">What's a computer?</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The Kevin Ayers scene </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">South of France </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Plush velvet </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Aback! Aback!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Aback! Aback!</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Levis Fridays </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Greek holidays </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Barratt heritance </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Mit-Dem! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Don't wanna be a mit-dem! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Pick the fleas mister</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter?</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Who tells you what </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">To tape on your vid. chip </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">How do you know the progs you miss </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Are worse than those you single out? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">And what'll you do when the rental's up? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">And your bottom rack is full of vids </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Of programs you will nay look at </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The way they act is, oh, sheer delight </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Cardboard copyright </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Make it right! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Panic in Sudan! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Panic in Wardour! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Panic in Granadaland! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Panic all over! </span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">By the wretched timesheeters </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Of my delight </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">One starry night </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The powers that be will have to meet </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">And have no choice but to...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat each other!</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat each other?</span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Portly and with good grace </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The secret straight-back ogre entered </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">His brain aflame </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">With all the dreams </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">It had conjured It had conjured It had conjured It had conjured</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Mit-dem! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Don't wanna be amid dem!</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">The centimeter square</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Said it purged fear</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Eat y'self fitter!</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #676767; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">These lyrics are certainly sublime, but what's an HM club? Not that the rest of it is pellucid, but for some reason that's a sticking point for me.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-86418315446491863612012-11-12T02:11:00.001-05:002012-11-12T14:49:01.516-05:00Presidential PoliticsDuring the course of my life, it seems like people have made generalizations about the different parties' success at winning presidential elections--for a while it was said the G.O.P. had done better, during the period when Jimmy Carter's one term came amid 20 years of G.O.P. administrations (20 out of 24 years, with Carter's term making up the other four). However, if we take a longitudinal view of the matter, since World War Two up until 2017 when Obama's next term will end, the two parties are exactly even. In fact, the White House has switched hands every eight years in that period, with the two exceptions balancing each other out.<br />
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If we start with Truman (although Roosevelt won the election and served a few months before dying, I'll count the beginning of the post-Roosevelt era from the beginning of that term, which I trust is a benign enough decision as far as its implications go), there were 8 years D (Roosevelt/Truman), 8 years R (Eisenhower), 8 years D (Kennedy/Johnson), 8 years R (Nixon/Ford), 4 years D (Carter), 12 years R (Reagan then Bush), 8 years D, 8 years R, 8 years D (up until the end of Obama's coming term, in 2017).<br />
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So it looked like the Republicans had a little advantage if you were around when there were 8 years of Nixon/Ford, Carter, then 12 years of Reagan/Bush. But from a wider angle, it can be seen that there were two times when the party held the White House for only one term during our time period, one each for the Democrats and Republicans. If we draw a line between the Carter--Reagan period and the Bush--Clinton period, they basically cancel each other out, each being a one-termer followed by a two-termer from the other party. The fact that Bush followed another Republican doesn't have much significance if we do the math from Truman through Obama, which shows that there will have been 36 years of Republican administrations and 36 years of Democratic administrations in the period from 1945--2017.<br />
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Roosevelt was clearly a special case, since he was elected to four terms, and since he left office that has been made illegal. Before Roosevelt it was an entirely different era, before World War Two, and it seems reasonable to designate the period beginning with the first Truman administration as an "era," although I am not being too rigorous or placing too much importance on that. My thinking is basically that, since presidential terms are four years and there can be two for any president, any trend will take a long time to identify, and 72 years is probably a long enough time, whereas things were too different before that to lump in the data with current phenomena. So that's my specimen--1945--2017.<br />
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If we accept that as a reasonable sample, then the conclusion seems to be that the Republicans and Democrats basically trade off the White House every 8 years, with no party having much of an advantage, or really any long-term advantage. I am pretty skeptical about the claims currently being made that the G.O.P. is down for the count, if for no other reason than because Romney only lost by about three percentage points. Maybe the demographics are changing, as has been constantly pointed out recently, but there's no reason to think the Republicans can't figure it out, make some adjustment, maybe run a Latino woman, that sort of thing. Not that I think my observations here can help us predict the future very much, there are a lot of variables, but the numbers show that the two parties have split the White House down the middle for 72 years (or will have by 2017, anyway).Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-66162220968551918822012-10-25T19:08:00.002-04:002012-10-25T19:09:38.448-04:00Yaargh<br />
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I planned to write a series of posts on the Kinks, but job hunting, teaching, and finishing my dissertation have sapped my will to allocate enough time to blog. If anyone is reading, I will get back to this blog when I have more time. </div>
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By the way, if Mitt Romney wins this election, it will seriously challenge the "beer" theory. Is there anyone alive who would be willing to have a beer with Mitt Romney if I paid you 100 dollars? I may have mentioned this before though.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-10073644797049082762012-09-27T13:03:00.002-04:002012-09-27T13:03:42.307-04:00WIlliam Faulkner Resigns From the Post Office<blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px;">As long as I live under the capitalistic system, I expect to have my life influenced by the demands of moneyed people. But I will be damned if I propose to be at the beck and call of every itinerant scoundrel who has two cents to invest in a postage stamp.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 19px;">This, sir, is my resignation.</span></blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-81574449367874255822012-08-30T01:20:00.005-04:002012-08-30T02:07:37.679-04:00From Somewhere ElseI haven't been able to figure out what any of this means yet, but it's from a source I trust to usually be interesting and enlightening, and it's short enough to plunk it right on here for further consideration:<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 22px; line-height: 30px;"><b>Five thresholds of the remote:</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b>i.</b></span> If it is to preserve its categorical integrity, the Law must suspend itself at whichever place there has been a transgression against it – or else decant itself into the lowly posture of <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">taking offence</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b>ii.</b> If Law must recoil from every possibility of transgression against it (as an ideal evades contamination by experience) it must constitute itself generally as a preparedness for flight. If it is to preserve itself as Law, it must retreat from, in anticipation of, every likely or unlikely occurrence of violation.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b>iii.</b> Similarly, Crime, if it is to establish its own reasons within its own world, must not infringe upon the Law, and thereby provide opportunity for other, external reasons to be ascribed to it. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b>iv.</b> The secret of successful transgression is forbearance – that is, if the would-be transgressor does not wish to draw the Law into a place where it otherwise would have no business.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b>v.</b> Community must shrink from the touch of its members – that is, if it is not to be reduced to the level of naming an agreement, or common cause. </span></blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-73642827773632292502012-08-30T01:05:00.001-04:002012-08-30T01:06:01.338-04:00The Beer Test Again<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">From the New York Review of Books blog:</span><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #111111; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Georgia, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Part of it is a recognition that Romney has a specific problem, that like Al Gore or John Kerry before him, the former Massachusetts governor comes over as stiff and wooden and fails the beer test: he’s not somebody most voters would choose to have a drink with.</span></blockquote>
In an earlier post, an <u>EARLIER POST</u> I say (but it's not really a link because I don't know how), I suggested this was an iron-clad indicator of who would win an election. So Romney is doomed, or we'll have to rewrite the book on politics.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-16252472116263136202012-08-24T01:15:00.000-04:002012-08-24T01:15:07.201-04:00I Hateanti-lock brakes. The way I learned to drive is, you pump the brakes when in slippery conditions rather than lock them. Anti-lock brakes render you helpless, taking your fate out of your hands, and they result in the brakes turning off when you hit big bumps or really want to lock them, which is dangerous. Why does anyone think they are a good idea??Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-62456055930592987762012-08-13T00:27:00.000-04:002012-08-13T00:27:20.770-04:00The KinksIn the rock genre, I think I would say that my three favorite bands are the Grateful Dead, the Ramones, and the Kinks. The case of the Kinks is more difficult than the other two--I could give somewhat objective <i>reasons </i>why the former two are among the very few <i>greatest </i>rock bands, but in the case of the Kinks I'd be hard pressed to say they are superior to the Beatles, for instance (I made a case for the Ramones being in the same league as the Beatles in a previous post. I'd make the words "previous post" a link if I knew how to do so).<br />
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If we compare a Kinks album from 1967, <i>Something Else</i>, to <i>Sgt. Pepper </i>of the same year, we'd have to say that, while the high points of the Kinks' album match or surpass the high points of <i>Sgt. Pepper</i>, the minor songs on the former are not of the same quality as the minor songs on the latter (however much I may like them). But I'm not sure that is the truest criterion; anyway, I can say I <i>like </i>the Kinks more than I like the Beatles.<br />
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Part of it is Ray Davies' singing, and Dave Davies' harmonies; part of it is the songwriting, and the rest I am not sure of.<br />
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The two early Kinks singles, "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night," present a picture of the band that isn't really sustained beyond these songs, not in the rest of their LP material from the time and certainly not in their later work. But the combination of a raucous, distorted guitar riff and Ray Davies' unsure, almost hesitating, jerky and self-effacing vocal delivery does display the essence of the Kinks in a very concentrated way, even if that exact formula was soon abandoned.<br />
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I think the Kinks are a kind of band one comes to love for different reasons than one has for loving the Beatles; there's a certain insistence on minor pleasures and a less triumphalist feel to the whole thing. Even the name, the Kinks, seems to suggest a shadowy and maginalized perspective, as well as a crooked path taken.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-32301334520955834292012-08-13T00:12:00.003-04:002012-08-13T00:12:51.822-04:00WondermentA proper sense of wonder seems to me to be an <i>achieved</i> thing--childhood is more a time of ignorance than wonder. We think of a child as open to the miraculous, but it is more the case that children take the miraculous as a matter of course, because they don't know any better. I liked a lot of things as a child and as a teenager, but they didn't amaze me the way they do now, at least not to the same extent. The enormity of a Jerry Garcia solo, a great poem or novel, even something as cliched (as an example in this context, not in itself) as a sunset or the moon is much more astounding or amazing to me as I get older. In the case of cultural artifacts, I suppose part of it is that the older one gets, the more the experience of a life of failure weighs against examples of resounding success, the more things one has tried and the longer one has worked at things so the difficulty of things becomes more intelligible to one, and the portion of one's life that one can defer to some time of future achievement becomes smaller in comparison to the actual record of a completed life of frustration and incompetence. But that is not all, or people who have been wildly successful most of their lives would not have an increased capacity for wonder as they get older, and I think they do. I think whatever reason this is probably bridges the gap from wonderment at Jerry to wonderment at sunsets and moons, but I don't know what the reason actually is. Maybe it's that as we learn and comprehend and taxonomize the world, some portions of it stand out more to the extent that it has become more articulated for us. Maybe, I'm not sure, but I think that's part of it, anyway.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-2686874992290529912012-08-13T00:00:00.002-04:002012-08-29T21:38:16.800-04:00A New Post--A Question is Answered (But Perhaps Not Asked)The imaginary readers that I imagine closely following my blog and hanging on my every word (narcissistic medium that in many ways is) I now imagine asking themselves the question, "But what is he <i>listening</i> to lately?"<br />
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There was quite a bit of stuff about the Ramones on here for the past year, as I listened to almost nothing else from October to June. That, for some reason, is the way I listen to music; I don't wake up and look at my cds and think "What am I in the mood for today?" as so many people claim they do. That is an impossible question to answer, and when I get to that point I usually just listen to talk radio. Instead, I usually get sucked into one band (or sometimes genre) for an extended period of time. I listened to nothing, voluntarily, besides bluegrass from around 1998 to about 2004 or 2005. At the time, I thought that was about all I'd ever listen to, at least in the deepest throes of it around 2001 or so.<br />
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If I was blogging between 2009 and 2011, there would have been a lot of posts about the Grateful Dead. There is a vast supply of live shows available by them, each one different, so one could go a lot longer than two years devoting one's days to Jerry & co., and indeed a lot of people do.<br />
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But there is one band that I have long admired and to a certain extent loved, and that has become one of my top few favorite bands this summer, i.e. the Kinks. I liked them as a lad but never got really deep into their catalogue until fairly recently (and there is still work to do in that regard). I realized with surprise a couple of days ago that <i>The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society </i>is probably the cd I've listened to the most times over the past five years or so. And after the recent Ramones period I listened to Cheap Trick for a couple of weeks, and since then it's been all Kinks.<br />
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So the curiosity of my imaginary readers has been satisfied.<br />
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I haven't had much to say about the Kinks though and that, coupled with completing my dissertation, is why I haven't posted here lately. But there are posts now to come; take heart, imaginary reader!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-47358964800132890412012-07-25T15:13:00.003-04:002012-07-26T00:42:42.313-04:00Chuck Berry<i>Fantastic</i> article about Chuck Berry's lyrics:<br />
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<a href="http://www.themillions.com/2012/07/chuck-berry-neoclassicist.html/comment-page-1#comment-67863">http://www.themillions.com/2012/07/chuck-berry-neoclassicist.html/comment-page-1#comment-67863</a><br />
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Who could argue with this:<br />
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Compare:<br />
I want to run, I want to hide<br />
I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside<br />
I want to reach out and touch the flame<br />
Where the streets have no name.<br />
(<strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">U2</strong>, “Where the Streets Have No Name”)<br />
Way down South they gave a jubilee<br />
Them Georgia folks they had a jamboree<br />
They’re drinking home brew from a wooden cup<br />
The folks dancing there got all shook up.<br />
(<strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Chuck Berry</strong>, “Rock and Roll Music”)<br />
Now, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and because I’m one myself I know how devoted rock and roll fans are to their favorite bands, but it must be seen that compared to the Chuck Berry lyric, the U2 lyric is, well, shit. I say this as a fervent admirer of U2 and one who was lucky enough to witness the band perform “Where the Streets Have No Name” in 1987 or so, when to hear it for the first time was to be swept up in a tide of communal idealism. Who could argue with such lofty sentiments, especially when accompanied by the surge of the Edge’s ringing guitar and the most propulsive rhythm section in all of rock? Alas, there isn’t a word, phrase, or image in the whole song not utterly staled by cliché. As in much of the best rock and roll, the majesty of the music disguises the triteness of the lyrics.<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0671671596/ref=nosim/themillions-20" style="color: rgb(171, 24, 0) !important; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: underline !important;"><img align="right" alt="cover" border="0" src="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0671671596.01.MZZZZZZZ.jpg" style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 3px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></a>There’s no triteness to be disguised in “Rock and Roll Music.” It is what “Where the Streets Have No Name” manifestly is not: poetry, or at least a variety of folk poetry that delights in language and its own expressiveness. </blockquote>
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?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-21463539736578546502012-06-14T23:56:00.000-04:002012-06-15T20:54:40.883-04:00Ideology, Science, and ExistenceIt strikes me that, at the time of <i>The German Ideology</i>, Marx has become (under the influence of Stirner, whom he nevertheless appropriates in a very critical manner) basically an 'existentialist,' in the broadest and most generic sense of the term. His text centers on a critique of ideology. What ideology means for Marx is the following: Ideology is first of all (1) the mistaken notion that human beings suffer under “the rule of concepts.” Secondly, (2) Marx and Engels call these concepts themselves ideology, and thirdly (3) certain spheres of society or “estates” are said to be ideological.<br />
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In other words, concepts abstracted from actual existence are ideological. But actual existence can never be apprehended without abstraction because actual existence is singular. Therefore all concepts have an ideological drive, as it were, and any concept can be ideological if it is not in some way referred to existence.<br />
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There is not one but two term complements to "ideology"--on the one hand "science," and on the other revolutionary activity, or praxis. Marx does not consider that thinking can be anything other than representation: the method of science is abstraction, but warranted abstraction that is not ideological because it remains referred to existence, and in doing so recognizes its own inherent incompletion. </div>
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Marx leaves the middle ground between existence and representation vacant, and this is why he has often been misinterpreted as some sort of economic or even technological determinist. This is a misinterpretation because it assumes that there is some sort of pure activity or process that is distinct from thinking, but that is wrong--in fact there is no <i>pure</i> process, it's just that there is always a remainder in any representation. Since representation is conceptual abstraction, at the very least it cannot account for its <i>own </i>singularity. Marx does not want to give a <i>complete </i>representation of a <i>pure </i>process, rather he recognizes the constitutive incompletion of representation as such and thus wants to limit thinking, which is his biggest differend in relation to Hegel, of course. Theory is always referred back to practice, not as something wholly other (unlike for Althusser, who thus gets into an epistemological quandary) but as otherwise incomplete. </div>
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What Marx does not consider is the possibility that there may be a <i>non-representational </i>thinking that is precisely concerned with singularity. Marx's thought points to the necessity of (without fully cashing out) an 'existentialism' that does not simply invert the traditional order of priority between essence and existence but (to use an apt but lamentably loaded term) <i>deconstructs </i>the polarity between the two. This would not simply be a method of abstraction, but a hermeneutic approach to the world-forming potency of that which exists. </div>
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Ultimately, however, in order to do this a <i>constructive </i>approach, which goes wholly beyond Marx, would also be needed--to think without representing. This is what Heidegger often describes and also, less often, attempts to enact. His most notable attempts at enacting such a thinking are probably his essays that deal with the fourfold. </div>
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This non-representational thinking would open up possibilities for thought and action that are non-ideological, in other words it would not be a conceptual precis of what lies in existence but a signpost and guide for a kind of thinking and action (the polarity of which would thus also become entirely questionable) that <i>shelter </i>singularity rather than seizing it conceptually. In other words, this sort of thinking would be neither science nor ideology, nor even distinct from action in any <i>essential</i> manner.</div>
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Hence: Marx and Heidegger, Heidegger and Marx.<br />
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-6127455437440300732012-06-14T23:18:00.003-04:002012-06-14T23:20:05.143-04:00P.S.Here is my current best attempt at star ratings for all the Ramones studio albums (except <i>Acid Eaters</i>) and Joey's solo albums:<br />
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Ramones *****</div>
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Leave Home*****</div>
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Rocket to Russia *****</div>
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Road to Ruin *****</div>
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End of the Century ****</div>
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Pleasant Dreams ****</div>
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Subterranean Jungle ***1/2</div>
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Too Tough to Die ***</div>
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Animal Boy **</div>
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Halfway to Sanity **1/2</div>
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Brain Drain **1/2</div>
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Mondo Bizarro ***1/2</div>
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Adios Amigos*1/2</div>
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Joey Ramone:</div>
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Don't Worry About Me ***</div>
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...Ya Know? ***1/2<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-42848334872666604842012-06-14T23:11:00.003-04:002012-06-14T23:11:30.430-04:00Leave Home and (maybe) Final (for now) Ramones ThoughtsFirst, <i>Leave Home</i>: This is probably the greatest Ramones album, especially now that it's the 90s and "Carbona Not Glue" has been restored to it. For one thing, it has three of the greatest two-song pairs in music history: "Glad to See You Go" then "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment," "Oh, Oh, I Love Her So" then "Carbona," and "Swallow My Pride" then "What's Your Game?" Oddly this is treated as the weak sister of the first three, judging by the internet and the musical press. The cd version has an entire show from 1976 on the special features, and it is <i>amazing</i>. But that doesn't factor into my judgment of course, that would be wrong.<br />
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I <i>never </i>heard "Carbona" until 2005! That is like a little gift from heaven, to be allowed to come upon something like that so late in life. Also, "Babysitter" is included in the special features, and that is also a fantastic song that I never knew until '05.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>"I Don't Want You" from <i>Road to Ruin </i>is a song that I knew by heart for 25 years or so, yet it never quite stood out from the pack until recently. But I now realize it is one of the best songs I've ever heard.<br />
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By far the most underrated Ramones album is <i>Pleasant Dreams</i>. For one thing, the production is <i>not wimpy </i>even though everyone in the world, including the band, says so--it is for the most part appropriate for the material. It's a very poppy album and needs a little less chain sawing than some of the others, and anyway if you compare the production with <i>Subterranean Jungle </i>or <i>Animal Boy</i>, it's pretty much perfect.<br />
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It's important to note that <i>Pleasant Dreams </i>is clearly, far and away, better than <i>Too Tough to Die, </i>the most <i>overrated </i>Ramones album. TTTD is more rocking but great songwriting always beats decent songwriting in my book.<br />
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The best song on PD, "The KKK Took My Baby Away," is better than the best song on TTTD, "Howling At The Moon" (which is a marvelous song nonetheless). And every song on PD is good, whereas TTTD has some clunkers.<br />
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<i>Subterranean Jungle </i>has weird sounding drums from the 80s, and a couple of dispensable songs (their cover of "A Little Bit of Soul," a song I love but that they don't do justice to, and their cover of "Time Has Come Today," a song I never liked but that they probably do OK with, I usually skip it anyhow). Otherwise, though, it's one of their most interesting albums. Weird classic: "Highest Trails Above," which lyrically is basically Dee Dee having a manic episode. Most underrated widely acknowledged classic: "Psychotherapy," the humor of which escapes a lot of people I know, it seems like. And "In The Park" is an absolute classic, one of the greatest Ramones songs I would even say, that nobody ever seems to mention for some reason. It is definitely the best song on the album.<br />
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Speaking of humor, what happened to it on <i>Too Tough to Die</i>? It's not exactly po-faced, but it does seem a bit serious (which makes lyrics to songs like "Planet Earth 1988" and "Humankind" a little painful; although I try to give Dee Dee the benefit of the doubt on the former, Richie's attempts at social commentary on the latter are pathetic).<br />
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From there on, the best effort is clearly <i>Mondo Bizarro</i> although that suffers from good-but-not-great syndrome on a lot of the songs. Yet, "I Won't Let It Happen" is in the Ramones pantheon, and "Poison Heart," despite some second-rate lyrics, remains a powerful number.<br />
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<i>Animal Boy </i>is better than the production, which is so 80s it's painful. And I go back and forth about <i>Halfway to Sanity</i>. One thing that's clear is that <i>Adios Amigos </i>is by far their worst album, sadly; it starts to sound a little like muscle-rock, the songs are not great, and even the best songs are more forgettable than the best songs on <i>any </i>other Ramones album with the possible exception of <i>Animal Boy</i>, and anyway I prefer <i>Animal Boy.</i><br />
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Anyway, this may be the last you hear from me about the Ramones for a while, I've got to start blogging about something else, and I've finally started listening to other things again.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-1065387760888790732012-06-14T22:30:00.001-04:002012-06-14T22:41:55.941-04:00Least Favorite Ramones ClassicsOne thing about the early Ramones is, the songs are so incredibly great that it's hard to know which ones I like <i>less </i>than the others, since I can potentially always be talked out of it, by myself or by others. In any case, they are all songs I've sang along to and loved and cranked and cherished for decades. Looking at the first four albums, these are probably the songs that hit me a little less than others (leaving aside the covers, of which "Surfing Bird" is the only one that I don't love unequivocally).<br />
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First album: nothing.<br />
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<i>Leave Home</i>: Sometimes "Suzy is a Headbanger" seems less great than some of the others. This confuses me, since it is clearly so great and I never would think of skipping it, and I love every second of it when I listen to it. "Now I Wanna Be A Good Boy" has at times been one of my favorites on the album but right now it seems to me to be less than, say, "Commando." The last two ("You're Gonna Kill That Girl" and "You Should Never Have Opened That Door") are also confusingly brilliant but nevertheless maybe slightly inferior to "Swallow My Pride," for instance.<br />
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"Oh, Oh, I Love Her So"--I used to like this less than others. A friend recently mentioned it was a favorite of his, and for some reason something clicked after that and now it is my current favorite Ramones song. This is why this question is so confusing. (And I have no doubt it is also uninteresting to anyone but a Ramones maniac. You don't have to keep reading. I'll even do the little page break thing.)<br />
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<i>Rocket to Russia</i><br />
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Sometimes "Sheena" doesn't hit me as much as other things do. I know, it's weird--"Sheena!" And this means I sing along to it and am in a state of complete bliss while it's playing, yet maybe it isn't quite as cool as "Locket Love."<br />
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"We're a Happy Family" has been a favorite at times but maybe not right now. "I Wanna Be Well" is clearly a masterpiece (despite what you may think from the last few posts, I do <i>not </i>use this term lightly) but nevertheless--is it as good as "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?" See what I mean? This is a tough question.<br />
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<i>Road to Ruin</i><br />
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For some reason I am not always bowled over by "I Just Want to Have Something to Do." Or, rather, I <i>am </i>bowled over by it, but not as much as I am by "Don't Come Close."<br />
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"Bad Brain" has actually been leaving me cold lately--this is the first song I would say that about, <i>none </i>of the songs I mentioned above <i>ever, ever </i>leave me cold, even if I am trying to introduce some differentiation in the greatness of the early albums by throwing them under a very small, lightweight bus. Isn't there something called a "microbus"? That's what it would be--a bus you need a microscope to see. But "Bad Brain" may be a slightly non-classic song, the first in the Ramones' career if it's true! Even here, though, I could be talked out of it, and anyway it occurs to me that if this were on <i>Brain Drain </i>or <i>Adios Amigos </i>I'd be falling all over myself about how great it is. I think the main thing is I don't like the chimy percussion interlude.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-21296060866060116312012-06-14T22:10:00.005-04:002012-06-15T00:10:00.753-04:00Road to RuinI have been listening near-obsessively, or anyway pretty much exclusively, to the Ramones lately. Looking at the blog history, I was surprised--I thought this latest Ramones phase had lasted a couple of months, but I was listening to <i>Too Tough to Die </i>back in October, and I know by the time I bought <i>Mondo Bizarro </i>I was listening to nothing but Ramones. I would have guessed this was in April, but the blog tells me it was February. So almost half a year of nothing (voluntarily) but Ramones! Anyway I should have been able to review all the albums by now, but I'm running out of stamina--recently I've been listening to The Kinks, Cheap Trick and Big Star, so the Ramones phase is winding down a bit and that means I may not even listen to them at all for a while--I usually have tunnel vision when it comes to music, I may like a variety of things but I am generally passionately in love with one band, artist, or at least style at a time, and at these times I'm unable to enjoy large doses of much of anything else.<br />
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So I will wrap it up (maybe) with a few comments. First, <i>Road to Ruin</i>. This is the hardest album for me to figure out. First of all, there is no question in my mind that this is a five out of five, in terms of stars. Not the slightest doubt, it is a masterpiece. But <i>within </i>that range, when put up against the other three five star Ramones albums, I vacillate about its status. Sometimes I am sure that it is their <i>best </i>album--on paper it would have the best claim to that title apart from the first, which has simplicity, brilliance and epoch-making significance to recommend it. I mean, all of their albums have simplicity and brilliance, of course...the first one has the <i>most </i>simplicity, and also earns a lot of cachet by coming first.<br />
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<i>Road to Ruin </i>is their most adventurous album. Some of the basic formulaic songs on it, on the other hand, seem a little less <i>necessary </i>than the earlier material. If this was their first album and the first three didn't exist this wouldn't even occur to me to say. But there is something about the lapidary density of the earlier songs that makes them seem like a necessary component of the universe--if "I Don't Want to Walk Around With You" were somehow zapped out of existence, it seems like a galaxy somewhere would explode, or a mountain somewhere in Sri Lanka would collapse, or something. I'm not sure if "I'm Against It," as great as it is, is indispensable in the exact same way.<br />
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In that sense, a lot of <i>Road to Ruin </i>is like <i>ordinary </i>great music--not mundane, I mean, but great music like the great music made by <i>other bands. </i>You actually have to try to remember the words to "I'm Against It" or "Gone Mental." But this is kind of balanced by the fact that a lot of the songs are more interesting on <i>Road to Ruin</i>. And there are acoustic guitars.<br />
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In any case I think RTR (I'm tired of switching to italics) is so incredibly fantastic, both moving and fun to listen to in an off-the-charts kind of way, that it's not really a question of quality, it's more of a matter of determining what the really<i> </i>quintessential and <i>classic </i>Ramones period was--the first three albums or the first four? It might seem a needless scholastic question, but hey, it seems interesting to me. I think any Ramones fan knows what I'm talking about and anyone else probably isn't still reading this post anyway (if anyone actually does read this stuff--you motherfuckers don't comment!).<br />
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I think that the first three, for all their differences, are kind of a unitary statement of Ramones-ness, whereas this one sort of innovates and messes with the formula a bit. So in that sense, the opening troika lays down the blueprint, and this is the most successful variation on it.<br />
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On the other hand, in terms of quality--in terms of how much it <i>kicks ass, </i>to adopt the parlance of our times for a moment--the first four albums are the classic Ramones period, and <i>End of the Century </i>(still brilliant) begins the "everything else" phase.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-71743589601189167932012-06-14T21:39:00.002-04:002012-06-14T21:39:34.999-04:00...Ya Know?This is the title of the new Joey Ramone album released a few weeks ago. The album consists of demos that were stripped down to just the vocals, then instruments were added. It is a lot better than I expected it to be, considering it is composed of leftovers. In fact, it's better than Joey's previous solo album <i>Don't Worry About Me</i>. This clearly isn't four stars out of five; it's definitely three and a half. Hence, this makes me realize I need to downgrade <i>Don't Worry About Me </i>to three stars (which I consider a good rating; a three-star album on Allmusic is usually crap, at least when the rating isn't just random and unrelated to the review! Anyone who reads Allmusic knows what I'm talking about...)<br />
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Every song is at least decent, several are very good, and there is one masterpiece, a number called "Waiting for that Railroad." My only quibble is that this song is done up to be basically a power ballad; it might have been better served keeping it a little more understated (for comparison, listen to the acoustic radio version from the early 90s on Youtube). In any case, it's still clearly the rock & roll classic of 2012. Not that anyone seems to have realized this.<br />
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There is more stylistic variety on this album than its predecessor, and that is also good. It is a long album (15 songs) and might be better in two installments. This is because, despite the fact that there is more variety, there is a certain similarity of tempo throughout.<br />
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Ed Stasium, the producer, said Joey's pitch was perfect on the demos, and so nothing was auto-tuned. I was a little skeptical about this, but today I saw a short promo video with Richie Ramone (who plays drums on a few tracks) and he also said that Joey's pitch was perfect--and then added that this is surprising because, if you listen to a live Ramones recording, no matter how well or poorly the band could hear themselves, Joey's pitch was <i>always </i>off! This seems like a bit of an exaggeration but Joey's live vocals in the 80s were often definitely <i>not</i> great (although in the studio they usually <i>were </i>great. [According to me, not Richie] ).<br />
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Other highlights: "Going Nowhere Fast," "New York City," "What Did I Do To Deserve You?", "Seven Days of Gloom,""Party Line." That's a lot of highlights, but it is a long album. Again, nothing on it is bad.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-92052495474550569572012-05-06T12:35:00.002-04:002012-05-06T12:35:22.808-04:00DMC on the Beastie Boys<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">"The Beastie Boys are one of the greatest groups, and I'm not just talking hip-hop — the Beastie Boys are one of the greatest groups in history. You could call them the Ramones of hip-hop."</span></blockquote>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-35915995706676584262012-04-30T16:23:00.002-04:002012-06-14T23:13:58.362-04:00Don't Worry About MeJoey Ramone's 2002 solo album of that name, which I finally caught up to a few days ago, is way better than I expected it to be. I suppose I didn't expect as much based on the things I've read about it, on the internet and elsewhere, which for the most part were by no means negative but rather sort of lukewarm.<br />
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The cover of "What A Wonderful World," the only widely familiar thing from the album (I think it was in a movie or two), is really a beautiful piece of work. So is the second song, "Stop Thinking About It," which is a nearly perfect song in the way that so many of the best Ramones songs are. "Maria Bartiromo" and the title track also stand out, and "Searching for Something" is something remarkable--catchy, beautifully constructed, musically mature and narratively complex--it seems like the kind of thing the Ramones might have done if Johnny let them grow up.<br />
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There's nothing really bad on the album, but it will take some more listens for me to decide how high to rank a few of the songs. The cover of "1969", while well-executed, doesn't do much for me, and "Venting" and "I Got Knocked Down" don't seem like particularly strong songwriting efforts after three listens.<br />
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Anyway, the new Joey album comes out this month, we'll see if they're just scraping the bottom of the barrel or if his left over recordings have more to offer (at the very least it will include "Waiting for that Railroad," so it has to be obtained). This one I am inclined to give 3.5 stars out of five.<br />
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***1/2<br />
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UPDATE: after living with this for a little while, I have downgraded it to three stars (still a good rating in my system).<br />
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***Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-61245167044038517812012-04-24T16:39:00.000-04:002012-06-14T23:12:52.102-04:00The Seventies: Am I Deluded?Warning: this is an extremely idiosyncratic and self-indulgent post; feel free to tell me I'm delusional or incoherent.<br />
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Lately I have been thinking that I grew up during a time of cultural richness that was perhaps unique for generations of American children. Most people my age, I think, are aware of most of the things I'm talking about below, but there's not much comparable that I've seen among younger folk, and to a lesser extent maybe not as much among older folk (the edge over the latter being that in my time high culture and politics were mixed in with popular culture for kids as a matter of course). But this seems absurd, and has never occurred to me before, so maybe I'm just getting old and nostalgic.<br />
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The Seventies and early Eighties seem from my current vantage point to be a golden age to be a child. I kept up with the current Marvel comics, but it was by no means an atypical occurrence when I bought an omnibus edition of the early Hulk strips at my local drug store for a couple of bucks. Something similar is now selling on Amazon for 90 bucks and will fall into the hands of adult collectors, no doubt.<br />
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I also grew up on the Pogo comic strips which were then 20 years old or so but still freely available in book form. Those books are now priced into the stratosphere, again, chiefly for collectors. <i>Pogo </i>taught me about what had been happening politically in the 1950s and to a certain extent the '60s; my first exposure to Joe McCarthy and Nikita Khruschev came from reading <i>Pogo. </i>And of course there was the contemporary strip, <i>Doonesbury</i>, which fulfilled a similar function in regard to current events; although <i>Doonesbury </i>still runs, it was actually very funny and wildly entertaining back then, not the equivalent of eating your lima beans as no doubt its current incarnation would be for a 12-year-old now (I doubt any youngsters read <i>Doonesbury</i> these days, but I can attest that it's boring for a 43-year-old). My first inkling about things like Nixon's visit to the Great Wall of China ("It is indeed a great wall"), Mao's Cultural Revolution, William Sloane Coffin (whom I later met), communes and even Hunter S. Thompson came from reading <i>Doonesbury </i>in the 70s and early 80s.<br />
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<i>Mad </i>magazine was not exactly in its prime in the 70s, but it was still really great, and Don Martin was still around which meant that there was some actual work of genius in nearly every issue. I remember buying issues of <i>Mad </i>that had comic-book sized inserts of the original magazine from the 50s, which nowadays are also only available to adult collectors, unless a kid's paper route is enough to get them 32.50 for a volume of the collected early <i>Mad</i>s.<br />
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<i>Creem </i>magazine was my major reference for music criticism then, and it's hard to imagine the wimpy journalists crying about rockism and 'deconstructing' Lady Gaga measuring up to the likes of Lester Bangs in his heydey. <i>National Lampoon </i>was like an adult version of <i>Mad</i>, complete with dirty jokes and surrealist comics. An entire sensibility was formed around these touchstones...by the time I picked up James Joyce in my teens, the language and humor were already familiar from <i>Pogo </i>and John Lennon's <i>In His Own Write</i>, and this sort of punning slant on everyday reality blended with the absurdity of <i>Mad</i> and <i>Creem </i>always seemed more revelatory than the earnestly ideological psyche-plumbings of surrealism, much less the flatfooted, merely dishonest language of politicians and editorialists.<br />
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There were enough cultural and political references in the above material alone to provide a reasonably curious youngster with the basis for a decent education (certainly more than I ever got in school!). When I see how ignorant and uncurious about the kind of things that interested me (note, not necessarily about <i>everything</i>) most young people are now (and I'm exposed to a lot of them), it's puzzling. But after years of pondering it, I am beginning to suspect that they have been raised in an era that is, for youngsters, culturally impoverished, for whatever reason.<br />
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The popular music on the radio was not always good, but it was so much better than it is now that it's not even possible to compare, really. By the mid-70s there was some drop off from the late 60s-early 70s barrage of classic music, but the albums that came out in 1975 included: <i>Blood on the Tracks</i>, <i>High Voltage</i>, <i>Blow by Blow</i>, <i>Katy Lied, Toys in the Attic, Red Headed Stranger, Tonight's the Night, The Basement Tapes, Sabotage, Born to Run, Blues for Allah, Wish You Were Here, Physical Graffiti, The Who By Numbers, Dreamboat Annie, Nighthawks at the Diner, Still Crazy After All These Years, Zuma, A Night at the Opera, Horses, Northern Lights-Southern Cross, Fandango!, Young Americans, The Last Record Album </i>and <i>Mothership Connection, </i>and these were chosen from the Wikipedia list because nobody my age would need to have the artist identified upon hearing these titles (for you whippersnappers that's Dylan, AC/DC, Jeff Beck, Steely Dan, Aerosmith, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Dylan/The Band, Black Sabbath, Springsteen, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Heart, Tom Waits, Paul Simon, Neil Young, Queen, Patti Smith, The Band, ZZ Top, David Bowie, Little Feat, and Parliament). Not to mention three albums by Lou Reed, two by John Lennon, two (admittedly bad) by the Kinks, two (admittedly by Rush) by Rush, plus work by Merle Haggard, George Jones, Ted Nugent, Thin Lizzy, The Allman Brothers, Paul McCartney, Kiss, Lynyrd Skynrd, Smokey Robinson, James Gang, Elvis, Gil Scott-Heron, Richard and Linda Thompson, Jackson 5, Elton John, Frank Zappa, Todd Rundgren, The Meters, Al Green, and the debut album by The Dictators (with the Ramones debut one year away)... even the worst stuff out of the above is way more engaging than almost anything I hear on the radio now, and that's being generous. Can anyone seriously dispute this? I may seem like an old crank, but it seems seriously deluded to even make the argument. I would actually suggest that anyone making it has simply never developed the requisite taste in order to make such judgments, due to being reared in such an impoverished age.<br />
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The Beatles had only broken up a couple of years before I started listening to them, and the music of the 60s was still fresh enough that every discerning adolescent was very familiar with it. Back then it was not only acceptable but common for popular musicians to question the dominant values and political ideas and priorities of the time, and exposure to rock music led to a lifelong commitment to rejecting conformity (not always merely to replace it with "non-conformity," of course!), and as corny as that sounds it's nevertheless the first and unsurpassable condition of a decent education and the formation of a reasonably healthy character. Needless to say, nowadays even the "punk" bands support the troops.<br />
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Not that my youth was all comic books, magazines and records, but I have deliberately avoided discussing the high cultural artifacts that are available to everyone at all times. Anyway this is long enough for now, I'll ponder what more should be added and perhaps write a future post continuing this train of thought.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-41417441747043178762012-04-17T13:41:00.001-04:002012-04-17T13:41:54.792-04:00Scandalous Revelations!I've been reading the memoir by Joey Ramone's brother Mickey Leigh, entitled <i>I Slept With Joey Ramone. </i>It's a decent book without too many shocking revelations, but there was this titillating tidbit on page 72:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">My brother was in agony, desperately trying to hang onto his sanity. He began listening less to the heavier rock & roll and more to soft, introspective music. We had heard that James Taylor's song "Sweet Baby James" was about the time he'd committed himself to a mental institution in Massachusetts for nine months. [Joey] got heavily into the song and that album.</blockquote><br />
Wow! Somehow this is way more shocking than hearing that Joey was into the Airplane, the Dead, and Quicksilver, which doesn't actually seem all that weird to me. And way more shocking that he was into the <i>whole album</i>. Think about it: <i>Joey Ramone </i>was into <i>James Taylor</i>.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-74724146928689858432012-04-14T17:36:00.003-04:002012-04-14T21:47:02.108-04:00Robert CaroI'm not sure when I first came to the conclusion that I had to read the books of Robert Caro's biography of Lyndon Johnson, but there were already three of them when I started (now there are four and soon, one hopes, there will be five). I had read an excerpt or two in the 90s and then there was a bunch of hoopla when 2002's installment, <i>Master of the Senate</i>, was released, and I read an excerpt of that one too. It was all compelling and very readable stuff and Johnson came off as a fascinatingly entertaining character, an impression I already had from reading Arthur Schlesinger's (fawning, even hagiographic) biography of Robert Kennedy. I read about the books one too many times, someone mentioned how much they liked them, and next thing you know I checked them out of the library and started reading them.<br />
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Although the three volumes I've read so far comprise, by my quick estimate, 2500 pages, it didn't take very long to read them. The books were far better than I could have ever imagined, even taking into consideration the fact that I must have been pretty sold on the idea of them already to undertake such a reading project. Caro's prose is a bit much at times if you stop and think about it, but he keeps you glued to the page. The New York Times magazine did a piece on him this week and the author does a good job of describing what's a little bit excessive about Caro's writing:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Caro has a bold, grand style — sometimes grandiose, his critics would say. It owes something to old-fashioned historians like Gibbon and Macaulay, even to Homer and Milton, and something to hard-hitting newspaperese. He loves epic catalogs (at the beginning of “The Power Broker” there is a long list of expressways that would not be out of place in the “Iliad” if only the Greeks and Trojans knew how to drive) and long, rolling periodic sentences, sometimes followed by emphatic, one-sentence paragraphs. He is not averse to repeating a theme or an image for dramatic effect.</blockquote>But I'm not complaining. The one-sentence paragraphs are hilarious, but the books are (all) masterpieces.<br />
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</div><div>I have been recommending these books ever since, whole-heartedly, but I have only ever succeeded in convincing one other person to read them--I guess a multi-volume biography of LBJ is a hard sell. But that person has become as enthusiastic a fan of the books as I am. </div><div><br />
</div><div>In two weeks the 4th volume comes out. Caro was to have finished the series with this volume (at one point there were only going to be three), but he is now planning on writing one more. They have been coming out at a rate of, on average, one every ten years. Caro is 76 years old. He has apparently made a will stipulating that, if the last volume isn't finished when he dies, nobody is to finish it for him. So now fans of Caro are holding their breath, hoping that he stays healthy. God forbid he gets hit by a train or something. It would be a real tragedy. After all, he hasn't even gotten to LBJ's presidency until this latest volume, which supposedly only goes up to 1964. </div><div><br />
</div><div>If all goes well, though, the fifth volume will be finished before Caro is. I plan on rereading the first three before I read the fourth. These are some of the greatest books of our time, and also some of the most pleasurable to read. I cannot recommend them highly enough, read them now!<br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-17685874910388215902012-04-05T15:52:00.004-04:002012-04-15T22:29:03.752-04:00Let Us Pause To Marvel At The Uncanny Genius That Was The Ramones In 1976-77<div><i>It's Alive </i>is a remarkable live album; it plays like a greatest hits collection, or, since the Ramones never had a hit, perhaps it's better to say a "best of." There are 28 songs culled from the first three Ramones albums. There is no filler, there are no weird outtakes or interesting experiments, and nothing is included to showcase one or more of the musicians--every minute of the album is a full-bore frontal assault on the hypothalamus. There are no low points. It's a remarkable achievement for a band with only three studio albums--every song is taken from the albums, every one could have been a single, the songs are not embellished yet there is never a moment when one is tempted to think "do I need a live version of this?" As if that's not enough, however, take a look at the remaining songs from the first three Ramones albums, the ones <i>not </i>included on <i>It's Alive</i>:</div><div><br />
</div>Beat on the Brat<br />
<div>I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend</div><div>I Don't Wanna Go Down To The Basement</div><div>Loudmouth</div><div>53rd and 3rd</div><div>I Remember You</div><div>Carbona Not Glue</div><div>Swallow My Pride</div><div>What's Your Game</div><div>You Should Never Have Opened That Door</div><div>Locket Love</div><div>I Can't Give You Anything</div><div>Ramona </div><div>Why Is It Always This Way?</div><div><br />
</div><div><i>This </i>could be an exceptional "best of" collection. In fact, <i>every </i>song from the first three Ramones albums could be a "best of" selection. How many bands in rock history could have a "best of" collection taken from their first three albums as good as the above list of songs <i>not </i>on <i>It's Alive</i>? Probably none; maybe not even The Beatles, and if we add the other 28 songs, <i>definitely </i>not the Beatles! That's a powerful argument for why the Ramones are on a very short list of the absolute greatest rock bands of all time. </div><div><br />
</div><div>The Beatles' genius was more diverse than that of the Ramones; they were more innovative and adaptable after the initial phase of their career. The Ramones' palette was much more limited than a lot of bands, probably than most other bands. But that was a good bit of the point of the Ramones; every song was a manifesto for simplicity and sticking with what works and jettisoning the rest (although the claim repeated <i>ad nauseum </i>that the Ramones were a three-chord band is simply false). And, if anything, that makes the Ramones' achievement even more impressive: they managed to write the greatest 2-minute pop song anyone had ever heard over and over and over, filling whole albums with them (This wouldn't be an easy claim to make about the albums that followed, but "I Wanna Be Sedated," "She's The One," "Do You Remember Rock n Roll Radio?," "Rock n Roll High School," "The KKK Took My Baby Away" and "Psychotherapy" didn't even exist yet when <i>It's Alive </i>was recorded).</div><div><br />
</div><div>Considering that <i>It's Alive </i>was recorded at the end of 1977, and the first Ramones album was released in early 1976, it's positively staggering to consider what the Ramones achieved in <i>less than two years. </i>I doubt any other band, ever, could claim to have produced as many great songs in a comparable period of time (even subtracting the four cover songs, that's still 38 classic original songs). If anyone wishes to contest this claim in the comments below, I'm all ears.</div><div><br />
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</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-69852549269885638502012-04-04T18:54:00.003-04:002012-04-15T22:30:00.269-04:00Brain Drain againThis is one of two Ramones studio albums I never previously owned or was at least extensively familiar with. The few times I heard it in the 80s I was not impressed. For one thing, I was turned off by the notion that the Ramones did a song called "Pet Sematary" and didn't really give it a chance. I was always turned off by Stephen King as a youth, probably because all my classmates read him while my typically anguished and alienated teenage existence was spent reading things like Joyce, Faulkner and Yeats (if that sounds snobby and pretentious so be it).<br />
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But now I like "Pet Sematary," mostly because of Joey's singing. It's definitely lightweight and corny, but for some reason these qualities seem less threatening when considering a 20 year old album than when deciding if "the new Ramones" is worth buying. I do not skip this song.<br />
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I love love love "I Believe in Miracles," out of proportion, I am sure, to its actual merits. Again this is mostly due to Joey, I think. The guitars on this album, by the way, are not recorded in a very satisfying way. Anyway this song is the greatest, even if it isn't. Lyrically it's like one of those embarrassing celebrity memoirs where the protagonist exults over their salvation from drugs, only to publicly fall from grace again..."I used to be on an endless run/Believe in miracles 'cause I'm one" writes Dee Dee, 12 years before dying from a heroin overdose. But Joey sings it, not Dee Dee, so it is easy to downplay the autobiographical aspect of it...<br />
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Zero Zero UFO is perplexing, not bad but not great, I generally don't skip it. "Don't Bust My Chops" isn't terrible but I often skip it. Unlike "I Believe in Miracles," it's probably better than the enjoyment I get out of it (almost none) would indicate.<br />
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"Punishment Fits the Crime" is a fascinating artifact. It is sung by Dee Dee but is nothing like any of his other efforts. It might be one of the worst songs ever recorded, I'm not really sure, but it's still kind of engaging and I don't always skip it. I don't know what it means, and the closest genre I can ascribe to it is probably glam metal...Here's the chorus: "Let the punishment fit the crime/The footprint on the sand of time/The philosophy of the poet's rhyme/Make a man humble in his prime." Laughably bad stuff but I almost enjoy it sometimes.<br />
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"All Screwed Up" almost hits the target but not quite. I do not generally skip it. There's a kernel here worth keeping but I am not convinced they pull it off. "Palisades Park" is a good idea but for some reason the cover doesn't work, I don't know if it's too fast or what exactly happened. After that is "Pet Sematary," already reviewed above. "Learn To Listen" I skip, there's nothing very enjoyable there, it's kind of a hardcore mess.<br />
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"Can't Get You Outta My Mind" is brilliant, maybe even a classic, I like it more and more and I'm no longer convinced the <i>Pleasant Dreams </i>outtake version is better, this one is probably a bit heavier and the Mama's and Papa's harmonies on the first being pared down a bit may not be a bad thing.<br />
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"Ignorance is Bliss" is so-so but I don't always skip it. "Come Back Baby" and "Merry Christmas" are both very nice Joey numbers, never to be skipped.<br />
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So: five really good ones. I am going to upgrade the stars on this below, because this is a much more engaging album than I thought.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5835290325120854991.post-70009514271633556832012-03-30T17:02:00.003-04:002012-04-15T22:31:33.713-04:00StarsThese are all potentially subject to revision (except the first four) but here's an attempt at rating all the Ramones studio albums, five stars maximum:<br />
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Ramones *****<br />
Leave Home*****<br />
Rocket to Russia *****<br />
Road to Ruin *****<br />
End of the Century ****<br />
Pleasant Dreams ****<br />
Subterranean Jungle ***1/2<br />
Too Tough to Die ***<br />
Animal Boy **1/2<br />
Halfway to Sanity **1/2<br />
Brain Drain **1/2<br />
Mondo Bizarro ***1/2<br />
Adios Amigos*1/2Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0