In respose to your question, Chelsea

Let's begin by introducing the dialogue at hand. My friend Chelsea made the observation that every guy says that only the early Saves the Day and AFI albums are any good. I replied with "I've said all that shit because it is true," to which she posed the question "why?"

First of all, I don't think all males say that. I can easily imagine many-a-dude who like Pantera in metal forums posting something along the lines of "Saves the Day and AFI R 4 fggtz."

But the reason why I have a higher regard for the early works of these bands rather than their later efforts is pretty simple: they stopped doing what they did well.

Saves the Day's first two albums, Can't Slow Down and Through Being Cool, are excellent pieces of pop-punk/melodic hardcore: fast, fun and full of energy. Thir third album that found them success, Stay Where You Are, was more along the lines of that 3rd wave of emo a la Jimmy Eat World; it wasn't bad. In fact, it was quite enjoyable. But it did show the band beginning to lose that energy which made their first two albums so great. Everything after this third album...snoozefest. They started to pull that "we're respectable artists" card. Maybe Pitchfork or some other snooty zine ate that shit up. Sorry, I'm not buying it. Saves the Day were a pop-punk band. Their first tour was with Bane. And then suddenly they're the fucking Beatles? They done forgot their roots.

AFI is a similar case. Great punk/hardcore band that always had a slightly darker edge, one that came out fully on Sing the Sorrow - a rad album, despite what the haters say. But when that "Miss Murder" single dropped, they had traded their punk/hardcore energy for shitty goth makeup and haircuts. Look, I like The Cure as much as the next misunderstood teenager. But the only guy who gets to look like Robert Smith is Robert Smith. Oh, the music? Yes/no. Watered-down and generic. It sounds like they spent more time putting on eyeliner than writing songs.

I can see someone saying "Dave is just selfish and immature. He doesn't like it when bands to grow artistically." To that I say, slow your roll. Growth is fine. Growth can be great. But it's best when artists evolve within themselves. Not when they go off the deep end, because that rarely works. Think of it this way: can you imagine what would have happened if John Steinbeck had written a fantasy novel? Orcs and wizards and unicorns: the whole nine yards. Tolkien would have kicked down his front door and beaten him within inches of his life with a first edition of The Hobbit yelling, "Are you trying to fuck with this?" And that's merely in addition to Steinbeck's fantasy novel sucking really hard.

MORAL: Do what you do well. Do it to the best of your ability. You don't have to do the same thing for five albums. But don't trip out. Stay rooted (to some degree) in what you came up in. Otherwise, start a new band. Because you're tricking old fans into attending your shows with the naive hope that your setlist might contain some classic material, about which you now act as if it had never existed in the first place.

And above all else, do not try to sound like The Beatles. We get it. They kind of changed music. Now let's move on. Because surely you aren't changing it by aping them. Rather, you become - to quote Wayne's World - The Shitty Beatles.

What the hell was wrong with this? Absolutely nothing.

Rock the bells.

Weddings, man. This, my brother's, was the fourth I've been to, but the first I've actually taken part in (as the best man). My responsibilities were relatively small, limited to a few ceremonial requirements. But just being in the midst of the chaos, a chaos which lasted a good half-a-day, was draining. Again, it wasn't even me getting hitched. Rain forcing the ceremony to be moved to the area for reception (The Uptown Hideaway), a debacle with the slide-show (which must have been completed minutes before it was shown), a delay on the ice for the beer, and a bunch of other stuff I won't go into here - shit happens. Let's just say that I couldn't pound an IPA soon enough. Warm or cold.

The clear highlight of the evening would have to have been the musical selections. They were a pleasant surprise. Emphasis on "surprise". While rehearsing the entrance of bridesmaids and groomsmen, no music was played. All I knew was that my brother's wife-to-be was going to walk out to a Cat Power song. So I was taken aback when the procession commenced to the tune of Outkast's "So Fresh, So Clean". It was dope. After the ceremony, the playlist included the likes of Lupe Fiasco, Souls of Mischief, Grandaddy, Ice Cube, Bloc Party, Arcade Fire, along with all the other jams I am forgetting. One of the photographers claimed it was the best music he'd ever heard at a wedding. I'd have to agree with him. Though my wedding hasn't happened yet (a largely hypothetical event), where there is sure to some Dropkick Murphys pumping through the system. In fact, if I don't get to drunkenly sing along to the following, it was never meant to be.

Besides myself, everyone else seemed to have a great time. Especially my family: both immediate and extended. Like I said in the previous post, my folks are a pretty reserved bunch. But whether it was the infectious joviality of spirits or the alcohol, they busted out of their shells. Right onto the dance floor. Seeing them all out there, immersed in uninhibited fun, I had to join. So I did what any other self-respecting white guy does in the presence of loud hip-hop: poorly executed break-dancing. I also dusted off a few choice moves from my golden years at 80's Nights in Bellingham. My mom proceeded to ask where I learned to perform these pelvic gyrations. I explained to her that college wasn't all about books.

In summation, the wedding was a rager. I only hope I didn't ruin the photos with my bulldog front. I swear, it can't be helped. I'm just a mean-looking son of a bitch.

I know this is a horrible transition, but I wanted to share my favorite passage from Molloy. Despite the lack of a real story, it shows Beckett dropping profound knowledge on a rather taboo subject. Keep in mind that this was written in the late 1940's. How it made it into the final draft, I do not know.

For as long as I had remained at the seaside my weak points, while admittedly increasing in weakness, as was only to be expected, only increased imperceptibly, in weakness I mean. So that I would have hesitated to exclaim, with my finger up my arse-hole for example, Jesus Christ, it's much worse than yesterday, I can hardly believe it is the same hole. I apologize for having to revert to this lewd orifice, 'tis my muse will have it so. Perhaps it is less to be thought of as the eyesore he called by its name than as the symbol of those passed over in silence, a distinction due perhaps to its centrality and its air of being a link between me and the other excrement. We underestimate this little hole, it seems to me, we call it the arse-hole and affect to despise it. But is it not rather the true portal of our being and the celebrated mouth no more than the kitchen door. Nothing goes in, or so little, that is not rejected on the spot, or very nearly. Almost everything revolts it that comes from without and what comes from within does not seem to receive a very warm welcome either. Are not these significant facts. Time will tell.

Wow.

"Yet I don't work for money. For what then? I don't know."

My brother is getting married this Saturday. The weather forecast calls for rain. Hopefully it will be wrong like it is normally supposed to be. I will be representing as best man - something I've always considered myself to be. Now the title will make it official. In all seriousness, the wedding should be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to getting to see an aunt from Oregon and a couple of cousins from California that I rarely get to see. One of the cousins I haven't seen since I was 11. It will also be interesting to see what the dynamic will be like between the two families. My side is pretty reserved. And I consider myself to be the same when I'm around them. But who knows what's going to happen once the alcohol starts flowing and Prince comes on over the dance-floor. I say the freaks are coming out.

Had the bachelor party this last weekend. Took a shot and a half of the shit above. No sips. Down the hatch. Instant sore throat. Foulest of foul libations.


Molloy
by Samuel Beckett

After finishing this book, I was at ITT Tech when I got into a strange conversation - considering my surroundings - about literature with a teacher. He asked me what literature was. I said that, as an art, it is a form of human expression and, moreover, describes the human condition (that's "what it means to be human" for all you idiots). He thought on that for a second and then returned with, "Okay. But I've always experienced literature as a journey. Where characters begin and end and all that's in between." I thought how convenient and replied with "you're apparently not familiar with Samuel Beckett."

There are no two ways about it: Beckett is a real bastard to read. Mainly because he doesn't subscribe to the "journey" theory of literature. Trying to understand Molloy through such conventional devices like "story" or "plot" quickly becomes a futile and incredibly frustrating exercise. This lens provides little more than the two main characters who, seemingly destined for conflict, never meet - both instead are absorbed and crippled by internal ramblings of a most incoherent nature. In short, the story makes almost no sense; it's just weird people behaving weirdly, without any logical sequence of events to establish significance.

To begin to "get" Molloy requires a rejection of literary norms. The reader either continues to bang their head against the wall of non sequitur text or they develop a new approach. That is, breaking the confines of tradition where you are a reader reading/being told a story; Beckett attempts to accomplish this by feeding you a story you can't make heads or tails of, along with contradictory narration that helps the literary foundations unravel: "Now my sick leg, I forget which, it's immaterial here", "I wouldn't know myself, if I thought about it", "No matter, no matter", "I say that now, but after all what do I know about then", "But to tell the truth (to tell the truth!)", etc.

In the process of struggling, most likely with these phrases and the void of conflict, you're bound to say something along the lines of "I cannot understand what he's doing." Here, distinguishing the "I" and the "he" becomes important, signifying that the story has indeed become "immaterial" and that the main conflict of the novel has formed: that which is not between characters, but between the reader and the author. No longer is the reader in the familiar position of that passive observer of events. Beckett forces us into a not-so-old fashioned donnybrook: not over the literary (of symbolism and what not), but about what literature is.

But what of my "human condition" definition (let's just assume I'm an authority here)? Does it hold true for Beckett? Because merely trying to push the limits of form would be too sanctimonious and self-serving to be considered art. It would be a vain performance of art-for-art's sake: ego stroking, or, if enjoyable, entertainment - which this is most definitely not.

With the reader/author conflict in mind when considering the goal of art, there emerges a successive conflict between this goal in literature and why people read. If literature truly is to describe what it means to be human, it must do so in all its facets. Yet so much of fiction falls back on artificial conventions: the synchronization of memory and time (infallible recollection), sequential placement of events, cumulative significance, a narrator that speaks after the fact. All these elements are used to lend clarity and create a sense of ease with which the reader encounters a story. But they in no way help illuminate human experience. Instead, they romanticize it with a falsely assumed logic and cadence to provide people with a nice leisurely activity. But art? No, they fall short of that.

With almost all of the aforementioned literary comforts absent in Molloy (except for narrators speaking after the fact, but they hardly lends any ease or clarity in their jumbled mess of memories), it's as if Beckett is asking "what the fuck are you here for?", giving readers requiring a pampered tale the opportunity to walk after the first few pages (where they will encounter the one paragraph that will span the next 80). As someone who decided to, as Salman Rushdie says in the introduction, "surrender" to the end of Molloy, persevering whether out of curiosity or ambition or stubbornness or whatever it was, I could not have answered Beckett's question from the outset. For I could not have known the question. Though I had a sturdy definition of art and an understanding that it takes both the book and the reader to make meaning, my analytical perception still placed me as an interpreter disconnected from that which he studied. But in the case of Molloy, it was the author who beheld me and, essentially, turned me and every other reader into characters to be scrutinized. Characters that don't find simple or precise explanations to the complex issues of their reality.

What the Faulk?

I said I was going to post examples of Faulkner's extensive use of parenthetical statements in The Reivers. So here you go. Reading these out of context, they may not seem so bad. But when they're right in the middle of a larger paragraph, your ability to follow along can get thrown for a loop.

pg. 74
But just tough men then, no more, until Colonel Sartoris (I don't mean the banker with his courtesy title acquired partly by inheritance and partly by propinquity, who was responsible for Boon and me being where we at this moment were; I mean his father, the actual colonel, C.S.A. - soldier, statesman, politician, duelist; the collateral descending nephews and cousins of one twenty-year-old Yoknapatawpha County youth say, murderer) built his railroad in the mid-seventies and destroyed it.

pg. 100
The middle right-hand upper one was gold; in her dark face it reigned like a queen among the white dazzle of the others, seeming actually to glow, gleam as with a slow inner fire or lambence of more than gold, until that single tooth appeared even bigger than both of Miss Reba's yellowish diamonds put together. (Later I learned - no matter how - that she had had the gold one taken out and an ordinary white one, like anybody else's, put in; and I grieved. I thought that, had I been of her race and age group, it would have been worth being her husband just to watch that tooth in action across the table every day; a child of eleven, it seemed to me that the very food it masticated must taste different, better.)

pg. 109
His supper was hot: not a plate, a dish of steak smothered in onions at his place. ( You see? how much ahead of his time Mr Binford was? Already a Republican. I don't mean a 1905 Republican - I don't know what his Tennessee politics were, or if he had any - I mean a 1961 Republican. He was more: he was a Conservative. Like this: a Republican is a man who made his money; a Liberal is a man who inherited his; a Democrat is a barefooted Liberal in a cross-country race; a Conservative is a Republican who has learned to read and write.) We all sat down, two new ladies too...

pg. 166
Though some of it has not changed: the big rambling multigalleried multistoried steamboat-gothic hotel where the overalled aficionados and the professionals who trained the fine bird dogs and the northern millionaires who owned them (one night in the lounge in 1933, his Ohio business with everybody else's under the Damocles sword of the federally closed banks, I myself heard Horace Lytle refuse five thousand dollars for Mary Montrose) gathered for two weeks each February; Paul Rainey also, who liked our country enough - or anyway our bear and deer and panther enough - to own enough Mississippi land for him and his friends to hunt them in: a hound man primarily, who took his pack of bear hounds to Africa to see what they would do on lion or vice versa.

pg. 169
But still behind the bit; he had never once come into the bridle, his whole head bent around and tucked but with no weight whatever on the hand, as if the bit were a pork rind and he a Mohammedan (or a fish spine and he a Mississippi candidate for constable whose Baptist opposition had accused him of seeking the Catholic vote, or one of Roosevelt's autographed letters and a secretary of the Citizen's Council, or Senator Goldwater's cigar butt and the youngest pledge to the A.D.A.), on until he reached Ned, and with a jerk I felt clean up to my shoulder, snatched his head free and began to nuzzle at Ned's shirt.

pg. 190
So Butch and Boon went that way, and Everbe and I (you have doubtless noticed that nobody had missed Otis yet. We got out of the surrey; it appeared to be Butch's; anyway he was driving it; there had been some delay at Uncle Parsham's while Butch tried to persuade, then cajole, then force Everbe to get in the front seat with him, which she foiled by getting into the back seat and holding me by one arm and holding Otis in the surrey with her other hand, until Boon got in the front with Butch - and first Butch, then the rest of us were somehow inside the doctor's hall but nobody remembered Otis at that moment) followed the doctor into another room containing a horsehair sofa with a dirty pillow and a wadded quilt on it, and a roll-top desk cluttered with medicine bottles and more of them on a mantel beneath which the ashes of last winter's final fire had not yet been disturbed, and a washstand with a bowl and pitcher and a chamber pot that somebody hadn't emptied yet either in one corner and a shotgun in the other; and if Mother had been there his fingernails would have touched no scratch belonging to her, let alone four cut fingers, and evidently Everbe agreed with her; she - Everbe - said, "I'll unwrap it," and did so.

A pain in the ass sometimes? Perhaps. But dude was (and still is) the man.

Get off my lawn.

The great NW summer weather seems to have finally come around, so lately I've been able to break-out the bike and hit Burke-Gilman. I'm sure all the Tour de France nerds think I look pretty goofy on a mountain bike, cruising down a paved road. But they are Tour de France nerds, so I'm not losing sleep over it. As much as I enjoy getting out to ride, I have noticed one glaring omission of trail etiquette: side-by-side riding. I understand that it's nice to chat it up with your friend while on a bike, but the width of the trail really doesn't allow for it. When I try to pass two double-wide chatty Cathy's on a hill, but have to yield to an oncoming rider, being forced to downshift and fall back, losing all my momentum...that's no good. Next time I see two people doing this side-by-side business, the one on the outside is going to become the unlucky recipient of a clothesline. Ultimate Warrior style.

Recently checked my email for the first time in about a month. Yeah, a little behind on that. Facebook has become my main medium for correspondence. So my email ends up accumulating a lot of dust. Of the two-hundred or so pieces of junk I sifted through, there was one particularly interesting email. It was from WWU Libraries. They claim that I have yet to return a couple of movies (Lost Patrol and The Man Who Came To Dinner - two from old-Hollywood) I checked out from them two years ago. This claim is completely false (I returned everything). More surprising is the fact that this is first I've heard about any unreturned items in the two years since leaving Bellingham. Oh right. I'm getting charged $16. To the WWU Libraries, I say thus:

I owe you many a thanks. During the years I didn't have cable television, I pillaged you and discovered a world of cinema I did not know existed. You made me appreciate countless films of brilliance; films that most people couldn't be payed to watch. In this way you helped me realize my intelligence and become a snob. For this, I am eternally grateful. But as to the money I "owe", you shall not see a dime of it. Eat me.

Watched Gran Torino again. First time since it came out in theatres. Perhaps a little too heavy-handed (bad guys are completely one-dimensional and the ending gets too obvious with the symbolism) to be considered a "great" film, but there's still something about it that I love: Clint Eastwood - the biggest badass of all time. Even as a dying old man (albeit an incredibly racist, dying old man), he is one mean dude. There aren't really any of his ilk left in Hollywood - the kind of actor that isn't necessarily physically imposing but can still make you say "that is just not the guy to fuck with." Get yourself a PBR and throw one back for Eastwood.

What the hell is Adrian Brody doing in the new Predator movie?

Read The Reivers by William Faulkner. Here's a brief account of my history with Faulkner: The Sound and The Fury - practically unreadable; As I Lay Dying - "My mother is a fish." Big gulps, huh? All right! Well see ya later; Absalom, Absalom! - difficult as all hell, but worth the effort (there's no shame in using Wikipedia or SparkNotes). So it should be apparent that I've had a tumultuous relationship with the esteemed author. Yet, I continue to come back to his works. This is in part due to being a literary masochist, as well as simply trying to add notches to my bookshelf (what up, ladies). The Reivers, however, isn't like the majority of Faulkner's novels - it's accessible. The story is more or less linear and doesn't employ the advanced literary techniques he was famous for, such as the shifting stream-of-consciousness. Because of this it has been marked as one of Faulkner's minor works by English professors who subsist off teaching courses on antiquated and indecipherable texts and is consequently overshadowed by his other books. Though it should be said that even an "easy" Faulkner novel still takes more work to get through than most contemporary popular fiction. The man displayed a heartless affinity for parenthetical statements; not only numerous, but of an incredible length. It's funny that in now searching through the book I'm having trouble finding a good example of this issue. (Rest assured, I will find one and post it as a followup.) Anyways, if you want a well-constructed adventure, this one is as good as any. Stolen cars, backwoods horse races, gold-toothed professional sluts: it's the goods.

Also just wrapped up Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Unless I'm mistaken, this was his first foray into Young Adult literature. I'd say it was a successful venture. Though more optimistic than not, there is enough strife in the story for it to feel genuine and earned - something today's generation of pussies (Clint Eastwood's words, not mine) wouldn't know anything about. My only complaint is that Alexie's attempts at adolescent humor occasionally come across awkwardly. It's the old-people-trying-to-sound-youthful shtick. And it's painful to read. Big Sherm, go talk to M.T. Anderson. He knows how it's done.


CURRENT FAVORITE

The Sounds - Dying to Say This to You

Back in the early-00's, there was an interesting resurgence of an 80's phenomenon: new wave. It was almost as if everyone burned out on the brooding rock music that filled the airwaves during the late-90's, collectively deciding to shut up and dance. From this retro-movement emerged some okay bands like The Killers and some less okay bands like The Bravery. In my opinion, this stuff was hot for a minute but was ultimately superficial gimmickry and lacked substance - like much of what characterized the 80's.

Of all the new wave revivalists, The Sounds were one of the better acts. With them, it wasn't just dumb fashion and shitty keyboards. They were The Clash playing Blondie songs with New Order's gear. And while they did look the part, they brought the energy to back it up - much of which was channeled through the spitfire vocalist, Maja Ivarsson. When I saw them live 5-6 years ago, she had this sassy charisma that was way hot (I said it, I meant it), holding down the stage better than the average knuckle dragger. Probably the most entertaining live band I've seen to date.

Now I'd be lying to you if I said Dying to Say This to You was better than Living in America - which was a cold hard bitch with a penchant for the dance. But I can still say it's really, really good. Maybe as good. And it avoided the sophomore slump. Catchy, infectious, brazen...honestly, this music doesn't require much description to appreciate. But it will definitely have you moving your head in ways you once thought impossible.

You don't know Jesus.

A quick and belated thanks to Josh and Emily for taking me in on the 4th of July. Otherwise, I would have been hanging out with my parents, watching the KOMO 4 coverage of the fireworks display over Lake Union. I'm getting older, but not that old. So thanks again for helping me avoid a depressing holiday.

Another thanks to Jordan, who graciously gave me a discount rate on a Mariners ticket so that I might accompany him to the game Tuesday evening with the Royals. The seats were better than any I'd ever had before: second row, just behind third base. Even though it was a losing effort for the M's (3-2), it was still a good night at the ballpark; Jack Wilson made a couple of nice plays at short and Chone Figgins turned what had to be longest double-play ball in the history of the MLB. The bats were...terrible like they've been all season. I've now seen in-person that trading Cliff Lee is a must.

I just finished Christopher Moore's Lamb last weekend. For the unfamiliar, it's a light-hearted satire on the missing years of Christ's life as told by his best friend, Biff. Coming into it, my thoughts were somewhere along the lines of "well, it's all fiction to me anyways - at least this time it will be funny." Indeed, there is a quite a bit of humor, much of it in how Christ comes to inherit the traits which are commonly associated with his biblical personage - such as his steadfast celibacy (holy shit). Yet what really makes Lamb a unique tale lies in how Jesus is treated as human, rather than the extension of God in shell of man. Yes, he performs his fair share of miracles. But here the messiah doesn't know how to be the messiah right from the beginning. He is not the great shepherd on day one. Instead, he must learn through experience and - at some points - failure. (Character progression in the Almighty's son? I know, total blasphemy. ) So in that sense, it's kind of like Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ made enjoyable by way of crude sexual jokes. Ultimately, the narrative isn't really altered from the one we're already familiar with. And I still don't believe in any of it. But that's not the point. Lamb is great for what it is: fiction.

CURRENT FAVORITE

Mogwai - Special Moves (First off, I rarely get into live albums; I'd rather just go see the band in person. Secondly, I did catch Mogwai on tour about two years ago and was, to be frank, a little underwhelmed. I say this as a big fan of their studio work. Having been previously blown away by performances from the likes of Mono and Red Sparowes, groups that Mogwai unarguably paved the way for, it was a bummer that the Scots weren't able to match up. I don't know if it was the venue, the crappy opener, or merely an off-night for the band. Something was missing. So imagine my surprise when I first listened to these tracks and said "Damn. A Mogwai live album is better than seeing Mogwai live." There is no logic to that statement. Yet, it's true - for me, at least. There's a powerful intimacy to this recording that I didn't experience firsthand. Highly recommended.)

This is not youth culture.

Trial (Full Set, w/ soundboard mix) from hate5six productions on Vimeo.