Author: kim

…from a stressful, unhealthy weekend MC’ing GonerFest 4. I did a terrible job, dropped the ball, and let the nature of that particular audience overwhelm me into passing on 70% of the material/jokes that were planned. The experience drove home the fact that I’m a behind-the-scenes type, a writer, an idea man, and less of a performer. Too bad the organizers of the event had to be the recipients of this revelation. Of course, everyone I mention this too responds with, “no, you did a great job, I didn’t notice anything.â€Â They’re just being nice. Also, the past two weeks have been insanely trying on a personal level, due to several variables, and I was in no shape whatsoever to “performâ€Â in front of 300 – 500 people.

On a lighter note, some items….

1. Through random, out-of-sequence viewings, Band of Brothers is climbing the ladder to sit underneath The Wire in my TV Hall of Greatness. I’m still in a Vietnam phase, as far as war history/cultural history/fiction/non-fiction goes, but one thing Band of Brothers drove home was the fact that there are no real men anymore. Where did the balls go? The guts? The military is no longer the proud, dignifying avenue of yore. My father and uncles had a duty to be proud of, not to downplay what our troops are dealing with now, on a individual level, but they have no goal to relish, no reason to be over there, and the military has slowly devolved into a last resort for semi-literate rednecks that will return home to no support, no gratification, no medical plan, no thanks, painkiller addiction, spouse beatings, and if they can, will return to their previously conceived plan of littering with world with dullard offspring (about 5 – 6 little unfortunate toeheads per household). Thanks for allowing me a moment to get all Jello Biafra/Feral House/Bill Maher on your asses. You will rarely read me doing this. On that note…..

2. A recent Real Time with Bill Maher featured Riot Grrrrrrrrrrrrranny Janeane Garofalo solidifying her place as a simple “personalityâ€Â with typical lefty views as opposed to a comedian. Politics have made this woman lose her mind, adopt the same focus as a million other famous mouth-holes, and removed her from the club of people with anything interesting, fresh, or funny to say (not that she was really in that club to begin with). Oh, and nice tats. How many of those were done within the past 3 years? Good choice.

3. Late Night Talk Shows – I’ve always been fascinated in this pop-cultural semi-ghetto, not a particularly original fixation, of course, but these two clips, forwarded to me by Bob Mehr and chronologically disparate, made me think, “Hmmmm, has anyone written a truly definitive history of late night talk shows? A 1,000 page monster?â€Â The idea then entered my world in a concrete way, when I created a still-blank file in my ‘Book Ideas’ folder, the same folder of which 80% is comprised of projects that I will never start on, much less finish.

Yes, Letterman still has it. He just doesn’t want to these days. I had heard about this, but it takes a viewing for maximum impact. “What is it that you did? Do you know what you did?â€Â Not to state the obvious or state anything re: such a slow-moving target, but this idiot deserves every second. People that know better, coupled with the media, are far too interested in what this brainless tramp and her untalented ilk are up to. It’s a negative concern, strengthened by a disturbingly thickening audience for reality TV, and based around the simple fact that we enjoy watching famous people fuck up in public. And the famous people that fuck up in public circa-2007 are a different from before. Meaning, they are not interesting. I read some crap, yes. I read idiotic crime novels and predictably get sucked into ANYTHING related to true crime. Also, I harbor a possibly alarming taste for the paranormal. That said, I don’t feel a need to further melt my brain with unclever nonsense like perezhilton.com. It’s a sad day when THAT is what some people consider cultural criticism. Sure, it’s dumb and harmless, but I just can’t add some flaming moron’s prosaic pranks and commentary to my repertory of dumb and harmless.

Not only is this one from another time period, it’s from another planet.

3. Am I going to get into noise, free-improv, or true outsider insanity….again??

The answer is no, and truth be told, I was never that into it before. I tried, found some artists with outputs that occasionally warmed my heart and successfully comunicated a desolate form of emotion (Dead C., Gate, Supreme Dicks, a handful of Japanese artists), then abandoned the form due to the saturation of needless bullshit. Noise, free-improv and the like, more so than any other genre, is THE musical breeding ground for bullshit artists. It’s there that you will find four man bands that create albums that one guy with a table of effects could easily knock off in an afternoon (Black Dice, for instance). Creepy slobs have been making Wolf Eyes records, in editions of 500 with homemade covers, for the last 20 years, it’s just that today’s “tastemakersâ€Â lack the musical frame of reference to know this. Trust me, it’s not that I “don’t understandâ€Â this genre. Oh, I understand it, and suggesting that someone might not “get itâ€Â is awarding the direction with far too much credit. Where does free-jazz fit in? Not sure, other than the fact that I will never spend any future time with it. Make that the case for any jazz as well. Jazz is for humorless assholes.

With that out of the way, I am blown away by the opening track (â€ÂYour Far Churchâ€Â) on the new Mouthus album (out soon on Load). Spooky beauty. I was also blown away by Mouthus live. Here is a band that is extracting every option from their confining genre of choice. I wanted to like the new Sightings album, but it does nothing for me. I felt nothing. If someone claims that Andrew W.K. sitting in as producer actually did something new for their discography, they are feeding you a line. “Yeah, sounds like Andrew’s signature style!!â€Â What you are looking at is a bid for street cred on the part of W.K., and an attempt to sell 30 more albums than usual on the part of the band. Broken down, it means nothing. I’ll “reviewingâ€ÂÂ (if you include snarkified, 100-word blurbs in the writerly realm of what constitutes a review) both of these albums for the November issue of Vice, and neither will resemble what you just read. Hey, just trying to rock a little integrity over here.

1. Here’s something I just wrote for Paste online that’s not likely to be in the running for DaCapo’s Best Music Writing of 2007.

2. I’ll be MC’ing Gonerfest 4 – Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. More info here. One of the dates is shaping up to be “character nightâ€Â – see post from 9/20. No, I’m not dressing up as Steve Malkmus.

3. For 20 seconds of grocery store reading, check out my two reviews in the October issue of Spin Magazine. The Shocking Pinks album is wonderful (it’s on DFA) and could pose as a lost Flying Nun recording circa-1989. Have I mentioned how hard it is to write a 90-word review?

1. The Laughing Policeman (1973) – A weird little movie. There’s possibly two people reading right now that have seen it. Dern plays Matthau’s short-fuse, talk-the-paint-from-the-walls partner. Contains what is easily the best line of Dern’s career: (to an overweight cop) “I see that you’ve been putting in some overtime with the ‘ol knife and fork.â€ÂÂ 

2. The Driver (1978) – Nothing beats Dern as an obsessed cop, and he played a lot of them. If you’ve yet to see a good Walter Hill film, here’s a great place to start. Good example of the tail end of great American 70’s cinema. You can have your French New-Wave (granted, probably the biggest influence on American 70’s cinema), your post-1990 indie bullshit, and whatever quasi-intellectual concerns that you don’t understand but claim to. In the 70’s, with a year or two of before-and-after wiggle room, American directors, writers, and cinematographers created the greatest genre/period of film EVER. Disagree? Welcome to WRONG MOUNTAIN, start climbing! Wow, that was a stupid closing line. 

3. The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) – Dern is the only redeeming quality of this misguided (and unofficial) Five Easy Pieces sequel. 

4. Silent Running (1972) – My favorite Rated-G movie. Not sure it’s ever a good idea to confine a mouthy character actor alone in a space station. 

5. Coming Home (1978) – Next time I get tempted to watch this Vietnam vet emotional holocaust, I’ll stick my head in the oven instead. 

6. Black Sunday (1978) – The blimp-over-the-stadium scene still kills. As paranoia films go, this has a 50% hit-rate. 

7. “Big Loveâ€Â (an HBO original series, coz!!) – I once said that a show with Harry Dean Stanton, Bill Paxton, and Bruce Dern must be VERY bad to keep me away. That definitive comment has since met with some trademark Earles apathy. I an not passionate about it. That last sentence serves to state that there ARE television shows that pull the passion right out of my stomach, leaving the butterflies to deal with the bleeding peptic ulcer (no brown/tree liquor, no gin, no rum, no tequila…..conversely, vodka, beer, wine, and some liqueurs make the cut). Well, there’s one, and it’s called “The Wire.â€Â Communicating any degree of distaste for “The Wireâ€Â gets one a coupon for a free exit from my life. There are those that do, and those that don’t. What all of this means is….I’ve watched and enjoyed 6 or 7 episodes of “Big Love.â€Â It lacks, or I lack, that very special something. 

8. Thumb Tripping (1972) – Bad Movie + Dern = Watch It!! (Remember this equation) 

 

Slate ran this piece about Portland being a destination for indie rockers. The title is a slightly misleading. A city being described as an “indie rock meccaâ€Â implies that it is choked with fans and bands alike, when this little exercise focuses on established (term used relative to the genre discussed) names…..I hope you have some padding back there…..living next to normal people in a mid-sized city!!! Silly me, I thought that Stephen Malkmus lived in a home made entirely of tropical aquariums, fanned with palm leaves and fed grapes by that redhaired girl that used to be in Verbena. Guess what? You know what’s coming! I haven’t even read the piece.

I will do so now.

I’m back, and I was wrong about Malkmus’ home. It’s just huge. No aquariums.

This passage should irritate the guys in Pond.

If there’s any alluring indie mystique to Portland, it’s most likely due to the late Elliott Smith, who attended high school on the west side of town and recorded his most-loved work here. (Mercer even owns Smith’s old house.) Before Smith, Portland’s primary musical contribution to the universe was the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie.â€Â”

There’s also a chance that it may irritate those tired of hearing about the late Elliot Smith and his marginal-at-best songwriting talents. Yes, it was a depraved tragedy that continues on open-ended (I can envision the first Mumblecore conspiracy/crime film being based on his death).

And let’s peruse this passage:

…it’s probably just proof that musicians like him (Malkmus) moved to Portland for the same reason as the rest of us: It’s easy to live here. In the words of a friend of mine who used to be the music editor at the local alt-weekly, Portland is like a resort community for indie rockers who spend half the year working themselves ragged on tour. You can venture into public dressed like a convicted sex offender or a homeless person, and no one looks at you askew. It’s lush and green. Housing is affordable, especially compared with Seattle or San Francisco. The people are nice. The food is good. Creativity is the highest law. For young, hip Portlanders, financial success is a barista job that subsidizes your Romanian-space-folk band or your collages of cartoon unicorns.

Read the last two sentences and try not to destroy your laptop with a vomit tsunami.

I imagine that it IS easy to live in a community that’s largely devoid of racial variety (they usually make up for this by screaming RACISM!!! at the rest of the country…over such things as the proven fact that 95% of the politicians nabbed in the Tennessee Waltz sting are black). And the people that perpetually walk in from of my moving vehicle, on a daily basis? They are rarely white. These are proven facts. Yet to some, they sound like the rantings of a Grand Wizard of the KKK.

That’s the PCeeeefic Northwest for you.

Lastly, I do not bemoan the sudden Mayor Giuliani-style disappearance of the crustie punks from Memphis’ streets (back around 2001). I did hear rumors of an underground Memphis-to-Portland railroad. The boarding fee was a Disrupt patch and a half a forty.