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scooterscustom
30 June 2006 @ 04:04 am
(I liked Erin's subject title so I stolze me some)

So I'm on the phone with the dumpster salesman who, for some reason, has a New Jersey accent. He sounds like the one Jerky Boy. (the one with the NJ accent) I tell him I want to rent a dumpster and that I had seen one on our street months ago that should do nicely. He looks in his records and tells me that it was a 12 Yard dumpster and that it would be $335 for 10 days. I was disappointed that he didn't correct me and insist upon calling it a "Maxi Waste Receptacle Module" or some such term. I like to know these kinds of things and lord them over the people around me. I was all set to order it up when he quickly added "We have them in 14, 16, 18 and 20 yards too. or...larger if you need that."  

Now my Mama didn't raise no idiots. I learned long ago that I am easily swayed by the "Well you COULD get the thing you just asked for, or you could have the more expensive thing that is MUCH better and did I mention it's more expensive?" ploy. It's true. Sadly, knowing your weaknesses rarely offers anything in the way of conquering your weaknesses. So my ears prick up. Hmmm. A TWENTY yard dumpster you say? Why, that's almost double the size of the one I had asked for. It's also WAY bigger than we'll ever need. But better to have MORE room than not enough, right? And you say it only costs 60%more than the 12 yarder? Why, I'd be throwing money away by NOT getting it!

And so Monday morning at 8am, bleary-eyed and half-asleep, I am watching the man finagle this behemoth of a dumpster into the yard beside my parent's house. I giggle. It is HUGE. It looks like that thing the Jawas drove in Star Wars.  Ah well. We can always bring some stuff from our house to fill it I muse. I don't know what stuff I was thinking of, but good to have a plan. And for once, a plan with room. A plan with a margin. This plan could hold an entire household of garbage. We would be sitting pretty when we were done and laughing like hyenas while toasting my thriftiness with cheap champagne whilst sitting on the floors of our clean house.

The 20 Yard Maxi Waste Receptacle Module was filled over the brim by  noon on Tuesday.

Through an odd twist of fate, the emails that we had sent out begging for help had actually garnered us some help. Plus the unemployed guy, Dave from across the street smelled work and an outlet for his hatred of "all things not busted up." In the words of my cousin, the guy was "all horsepower." He moved like a sledgehammer with a crack-fueled speedboat motor hooked up to it. Plus he shamed inspired the rest of us to move similarly.

My Dad and his Dad had built a floor to ceiling shelving unit to house all my Dad's media and media players back in the 60's when it must have seemed like one wall unit could actually handle most of it. Now my Grandfather was cheap Scottish and my Dad's cabinetmaking expertise consisted of being enthused about someone else building something for him. Point is - the thing isn't a family heirloom, or a usable piece of furniture, or even salvageable hardwood. It was made from 1/4" plywood, stained dark brown and varnished. Pretty ugly. But it was HUGE. It stood looming over everything in the basement as sort of a symbolic mountain of memories. It was always big, but in the context of cleaning out the house - it was Mammoth. I had several times considered just clearing it of media and stuff and leaving it as a thoughtful gift for the new owners of the house. "Here for to please you in the tradition of my family - is an enormously ugly huge brown plywood shelf unit from 1961. May your lives be enriched by it as you prosper and grow."  But in my head, I knew it had to come down. As ugly as it was though, I have inherited enough of my parent's reluctance to discard, that it was also a bit of an emotional pang to imagine disassembling it.

I had cleared it of all stuff and had barely mentioned to Dave that it was dumpster-bound. I turned my back to sort through yet another box of receipts from my father's mail-order business from 1971. When I turned back to look, the entire shelving unit was a smallish pile of flattened plywood, stacked and ready for the dumpster. 10 minutes. It took 10 minutes for Dave to reduce this monolith to space-saving rubble. How long had it taken my Dad and his Dad to plan and build it? Each shelf area designed to hold a different media format all of which are now completely obsolete.

If only I could shrink Dave and his hammer down and put him to work in my mind and heart - well it would be a big mess and Dave would probably do time for it.

-s-


 
 
State Of Being: awake
 
 
scooterscustom
16 June 2006 @ 01:49 am

I found the unused vintage KISS logo iron on transfer on ebay a year ago. Same one I had in 1975. Rainbow glitter. I found a black tee and washed it a few times with bleach to get it to the right shade of vintage off-black. Then I tried my best at simulating the mall iron-on transfer kiosk heat-press by putting the iron on super hot, laying the shirt on the floor and pracically standing on top of it to apply the logo to the shirt. Did this a while ago and numerous washings have even started to lift up the corner of the vinyl transfer giving it the true retro look. 

I wear it when I'm feeling particularly ratty, or particularly stylish. With jeans and a jacket - it's da bomb. 

I was wearing it one day when I was having lunch with my friend that owns a guitar store. As we were coming back to his store from the parking lot, I see a kid coming out of the music store with his Mom and dad. We were walking toward each other and still about 20 feet away. The kid looked about 13. He had this crazy head of permy looking hair, like that dude from The Strokes or those early photos of Dylan where he looks young, geeky,  vibrant, lucid and capable of cracking a smile. 

The kid was with his parents. I don't know if they were picking him up from lessons or shopping for guitars. He was walking with a bit of that 'too cool to be seen with my folks' slump, But not so much that you want to slap him for it. More like he's just trying to distance himself a bit to be cool, but he's respectful that they might be buying him his first Epiphone Flying V. 

He's wearing a 3/4 sleeve baseball tee with a more recent KISS design on it. As I see him and his shirt, he sees me and my shirt. His gaze meets mine and without breaking stride, widening his eyes or giving any other sign of acknowledgement - he simply cocks his index finger and thumb (gun fingers) at me and mouths silently "nice shirt."  As we got closer I returned the gesture with a nod and an audible "right back atcha"  that mystified both his parents and my friend walking with me.

He could have chosen other ways to communicate the brotherhood of the shirt. He could have given the Clinton thumbs-up or the 'metal-devil-horn' fingers. He could have pointed it out to his parents "Look, there's an old guy who likes KISS too Mom!" He could have. But he didn't. The combination of the Sinatra-esque point along with the silence of the  'nice shirt' comment launched him right over the rico suave barrier. 

The kid is cooler at 13 than I ever got to in the height of my powers. 
The world could use more of him. 
Adolescent white teen suburban rockers who dig KISS and know the difference between seeming like you're not with your parents and just being a prick. 

-s-



 
 
i-tunes in play: The Donnas: Strutter
 
 
scooterscustom
08 April 2006 @ 12:14 am
Alexander and I went to the house on Wednesday to carry all the bags of garbage I had created over last weekend out to the sidewalk. We've been generating a dozen full heavy bags pretty regularly now as we're trying to get more dilligent about the job.

As we near the front door we are both startled by the excited fleeing from the hedge of a turtledove that chooses to pass within inches of Alexander's face instead of the three other less human occupied directions it could have flown.

We enter the house and start lugging out the bags and my Mom's old recliner chair all out to the curb. Quite a pile-up for the trash guys. I've been avoiding the inevitable dumpster rental and was hoping to make it until June when Erin is off work and I can devote a solid week to this stuff. But we've started to make some progress with the bags.

As we're taking some of the last items out I hear a noise from the dining room. We had just been in there a second ago so I assumed something just got knocked over. I probably would have let it pass but Alexander looks at me and says "What was that Dad?" So I lead us into the room to investigate.

I'm looking around the floor for a fallen object when we hear it again. No mistaking it this time. It was the window. Something hitting the window. Again.

I look up at the window and see a small but plump robin flapping, hovering in air and bumping into the window for a fourth time. Then it alights on the ledge just outside the window and looks right at us. Not flying away.

It does that tilty, curious robin head thing and has an expression that was pretty clearly "If you'd open this dumb glass thing I could get in there with you two where it's warm more easily..." It had been unseasonably cold that day and we actually had snow flurries. I had a hesitant moment where you don't want to move or scare it off but then I became utterly convinced that if I opened the window, it would just wait and then fly in.

I pick up Alexander and we watch the bird for a bit until it flew away.

We go out on the back porch because I assumed it was one of the birds perrenially building wacky, unsafe nests in either the transom of the back door, or just behind the upstairs air conditioner bracket. No sign of any nest anywhere on the back of the building. No twigs, nada. Then I remembered that was the noisy, spastic Bluejays that were always doing that.

So it was just a short visit.
Just a short visit from a little black and red bird.
A short visit from a little black and red bird that just happened to pick the few minutes that Alexander and I were at the house to bang a couple times at the window and return our gaze for a full clock minute on the ledge outside the window.


"The little conversation
Is over very soon
And I watch in admiration
From my corner of the room."

- Concrete Blonde


 

Footnote: I've been meaning to write down my version of the original bird visit and I was gearing up to do so and went back to one of Erin's old posts for some research. When I read her post again tonight, almost a year later, I realized that she had already recorded the definitive version of the story. there's no need for me to augment it. So here's a link to it: http://fine-mingler.livejournal.com/2005/06/16/

 
 
scooterscustom
11 January 2006 @ 10:29 am
"No More Games. No More Bombs. No More Walking. No More Fun. No More Swimming. 67. That is 17 years past 50. 17 more than I needed or wanted. Boring. I am always bitchy. No Fun _ for anybody. 67. You are getting Greedy. Act your old age. Relax _ This won't hurt."
-Hunter S. Thompson's suicide note, February 2005

Hunter S. Thompson and my Father were the same age when they died. They were born in the same year and died 10 months apart.

There's really nothing else I can tie together about them, which maybe is why it seemed to catch my attention. In just about every possible way (except maybe for a general grumpy, overbearing, curmudgeony wacky-genius way) they were nothing like each other. And I would never have guessed they were of the same era. Certainly my Father was tired of living in the condition he was in - but he didn't literally kill himself, quite. So there are not a lot of similarities between them.

Until you read the title of the note Hunter left. Football Season Is Over.

I never shared or fully understood my Father's latter-day obsession with Pro Football. It certainly wasn't present during any of my formative years for it to get shared with or handed down to me or my sister. I like the Steelers and when they are doing well, I get excited, watch more - learn more and appreciate more. But there are usually a bunch of things I find myself doing instead.

As it didn't really become a big part of him until he was well over 40, it has always made me wonder what lies ahead for me. Will I just replace one distracting obsession for another more societally supported and shared one someday? Will I suddenly start planning my Sundays around kick-off times and leave the house for major holidays only during halftimes?

I like that it's a mystery. I dislike that it's a mystery.

For both of those men - they felt that Football Season Was Over.
I prefer to believe they just left the house during halftime.

Hope to catch you in the 2nd Half, Dad.
 
 
State Of Being: contemplativecontemplative
i-tunes in play: None
 
 
scooterscustom
31 December 2005 @ 02:50 am

You made it through worse than I have ever had to yet.

For five years you tried. For five years we all tried.

For five years we watched a newcomer make all the difference in the world.

Then we lost our guiding star.

Your heart failing, your body compromised by ignorance and apathy.

Your heart empty, your mind compromised by loss and exhaustion.

We knew she was all that held you.

We blamed you for all her sorrow.

But we wanted to bolster you. We wanted to save you. We wanted to be enough.

We promised her we'd take care of you. Of each other.

You were all we had left of her. Of the set.

But you saw.

One shoe without a match becomes less than useless.

You sank, you rose. You were saved - twice? Three times?

Or do we flatter ourselves and never really made a dent in someone's plan.

 

I called all day, felt familiar fear when you didn't answer.

I rationalized. I've felt the same countless days before.

You were out. You were with Erin. You were Christmas shopping.

Then I found Erin and she hadn't gotten through all day either.

My heart knew.

I sped up my pace. I called again. Late in the day now, even for you.

To be safe, I dropped off Alexander at home before going to Dormont.

My heart knew.

You had been out the day before on your own, hunting camcorder batteries. I Mapquested it for you. You stopped at Best Buy and did some shopping. If your car is not in its space - all is well.

I turned the corner from Ordinance to Voelkel and saw a distant figure down the street standing outside  your house. Still too far away and dark to tell - but not tall enough to ease my fear for more than a moment. And both your cars are in their spaces.

As I approach, the house eminates darkness like a negative image of a well-lit house in a warm holiday painting.

In 30 years the house has never appeared that dark. Not one light visible from the outside. Even the Christmas lights that Erin and I hastily put up last week -  that you would never turn off far into February were now somehow black. It looked to me like a one-house power failure.

I park in front, the figure becomes an older neighbor and fades away into the landscape as I steel my confidence to go inside.

It is usually now that I have been made to feel foolish in past times. It is usually now that I find you just having gotten up after staying up until 4am the previous day. It is usually now that you are sitting in a t-shirt eating cereal out of a sherbet container with gloves on because the neuropathy keeps your fingers so cold.

It is right now that I try to anticipate feeling stupidly anxious. It is right now that I try to convince myself that I have been foolish. But the absence of all light doesn't allow confidence to take hold.

I enter the house and hear no noises. Not one of multiple televisions are on. The lights you always left on , the media you kept running even when you eventually, reluctantly climbed the stairs to sleep only after nodding off several times on the couch - all is silenced. I feel brave as I turn on the overhead living room light. Then relieved. You are not crumpled over the couch or coffee table. One hurdle passed.

I climb the stairs making conspicuous noise and calling your name. You've been harder to wake than this before.

I pause outside the bedroom door for a moment. Conflicted. My rational, pragmatic side wants to burst in loudly and find you stirring, groggy and just finding your voice. My spiritual, intuitive side wants to slip in carefully - not knowing what shape your already long-dead body will be twisted into.

It is Schrodinger's Cat in that moment. For a second you are both alive and dead. For a split second, I feel that I will turn back, because If I don't find you dead, then you are NOT dead. For that moment I think that I am God. But God could manifest any reality he wanted to then. And nothing in me believes that I could cause change. Only that by not yet discovering reality - that it will allow God to alter it as he sees fit. Like I am honoring a covenant of the possible. I am Candide.

If I turn the door handle a certain amount - you will be sleeping. Turn it a bit more and Mom will be in there with you, the Sunday paper spread all over the bed, Shannon sitting on them, her tail beating in greeting, the TV blaring QVC while you tell me to move out of the way of the infra-red remote's myriad pathway down to the stack of VCR's downstairs in the living room. Turn it a notch more and I come into an empty room and I will need to look in the bathroom or down the cellar steps for you. Turn it just a little more and I come into a darkened room to find you in bed, the illusion of peacefulness - the way we all claim to want to go - but contradicted by an eyes-wide-open watery stare into vague nothingness, and your upper denture plate slipped downward behind your blue-tinged lips so as not to offer the slightest hope that the inevitable 911 call will help at all. Or that anything remotely peaceful awaits us at any point in the future ever.

And I turned the knob all the way quickly and came into the room.

And I found you.

Better me than Erin. Better me than Mom.

 
 
i-tunes in play: Iron & Wine - Sunset Soon Forgotten
 
 
scooterscustom
28 December 2005 @ 03:23 pm

A Man's a Man for a' that

Is there for honest poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that?
The coward slave, we pass him by --
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Our toils obscure, an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a' that?
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine --
A man's a man for a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that,
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie ca'd 'a lord,'
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that?
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a cuif for a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that,
The man o' independent mind,
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that!
But an honest man's aboon his might --
Guid faith, he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities, an' a' that,
The pith o' sense an' pride o' worth
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may
(As come it will for a' that)
That Sense and Worth o'er a' the earth
Shall bear the gree an' a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's comin yet for a' that,
That man to man the world o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that. 

-Robert Burns

 
 
i-tunes in play: None
 
 
scooterscustom
08 December 2005 @ 11:52 pm

When does innocence die - or does it fade?

People often measure it globally and generationally.

For the generation before mine, some say that watching JFK get killed on national television marked it for them. I have to think for the generation before that, Pearl Harbor must have been quite a blow to any collective hope left after the Great Depression. 

Maybe it would be better to measure it individually. I know exactly the moment it happened for me. It was 25 years ago tonight. About this time exactly. We had been watching TV with no real interest when the news broke in with the bulletin that John Lennon had been shot and killed outside the front door of the Dakota in New York City.

I remember my Mother cried. I remember just staring unbelieving at the images that unfolded for the next hours. Who on Earth would have killed one of the Beatles? Was it just a random act of typical New York ultra-violence, stereotyped for years to Middle America )really to anywhere that wasn't NYC) by movies and TV? No it wasn't that. We learned quickly that it was a deranged fan, one who I won't validate by using his name.

He was a nobody. And apparently that was the problem.

What it did to me I cannot describe accurately. It wasn't the loss. It wasn't the way it happened. It wasn't because I was a huge Beatles fan. It was all those things and more. Maybe because I hadn't lost any family members at that point. I mean, I was really into the Beatles at the time. The Beatles were like Santa Claus, God, Mom and Dad, and the Pledge of Allegiance all rolled up with a killer soudtrack. Yes, they had not been a band for almost 2 decades, but their music was still the bible, and they were icons. Permanent, all powerful icons. The idea that another human being had intentionally stalked and killed one of the Beatles - One of the FUCKING BEATLES - was heresy. And incomprehensible to me.

And John was the King.

For any young Beatle fan, after the bubbly discovery phase goes away, when you are so intimate with the material you stare in disbelief when people tell you they can't really tell the lead voices apart - it is inevitable that you gravitate to John as the King. His was the poetry, the angst, the rebellion, the soul of the Beatles. Maybe of the 60's themselves. Regardless of what incoherent mumbling ranting that Dylan was able to spew out - John said it for the rest of us. He said it with brevity and skill. He said it with British wit and charm. And once the Beatles had become more powerful than 22 year olds should ever have to deal with - he said it with the unstoppable, rebellious middle finger of a decade that had just started to look inwards and see decay. Paul was all about making it rhyme. Making it fun and cute. Making the melody unforgettable. John was all about cutting through the horseshit. John was everyman. The working class hero. Even when he had more millions than he could give away. And he loved this country. He was more American than many Americans knew how to be. He certainly appreciated our freedoms as only an immigrant can.

But this isn't really about what a fantastic example of humanity John was. On the contrary. Later on, as Beatles fans grow older and information becomes more available - we become sadly aware that John used to be kind of an asshole. He was a classic bipolar, jacked-off deadbeat Dad who had left his wife and 5 year old son when things started going well for him. While Paul was a devoted family man who worked for Peta and sent Christmas cards and phone calls every year to the son John had abandoned. But just like the posthumus fact that Martin Luther King bedded down dozens of nubile followers (Yeah Doc, lots of guys have THAT dream) doesn't affect his message or worth as a leader - we choose to look past the bumps and the thorns and breathe the smell of the rose anyway.

The sad thing about finding out the faults of heroes who have died is that they never get the chance for  redemption. They stay frozen with their mistakes and their faults lumped on them and and only conjecture about what could have been.

John never got to finally apologize to Julian. He never got to see his first album in 10 years go platinum. He never got to see Sean turn six. And the rest of the world never got to see what it would be like to live through the 80's or the 90's or now with John Lennon as a part of it.

And in the end - the love you take is equal to the love you make.

December 8, 1980

 
 
State Of Being: melancholymelancholy
i-tunes in play: John Lennon - Woman
 
 
scooterscustom
22 November 2005 @ 10:19 pm
I decided to try to keep a tradition of my Mom's alive by attempting to make apple pies from scratch this year. Solo. No help. Nobody else even home to bail me out. Have been reading different "perfect apple pie" recipes for weeks. Compared notes with three other baker friends. Got everything out in front of me. Know the science of the dough. Feel the craft of the baker. Feel prepared. I UNDERSTAND.
 
Prepping the apples for 2 pies takes forever. Peel. Core. Pare. Sugar. Cinnamon. Nutmeg. Flour. Salt. Set aside.
 
Crust dough: Problem with the sifter. I don't mean the device. I mean me - the sifter. Not doing it right so it takes forever. After 19 minutes, I discover what I am doing wrong and finish the last third of the first batch and all of the 2nd batch in 30 seconds. Cut in the shortening, Half crisco. Half butter. Not brave enough to use the Kitchenaid first time out so I am hand cutting. Looking for little peas. Don't see little peas. Keep looking. Still no peas. Must be ready anyway.
 
Form into balls.
(enter advice of a few friends and multiple internet sources) Refrigerate for a while? Use right away? Let the dough relax at room temp for 30 minutes? I try to split all the differences. I open all the windows and doors and decide to let it sit at the new "room temp" for 30 minutes. But after about seven I feel like it is time to start rolling.
Not staying together. Not even a little bit. Should be a big circle that spans the little concentric cirlces on the pie circle making mat. Not a circle. More like a map of Ireland. Hmmm. Make it thinner and bigger. Eventually there will be a 10" circle in there.
 
Now pick it up. Ha ha.Lay it in the pie pan. This does not look right. Better dump a bunch of apples in there immediately. Hey my apples are floating in a sea of sugary, cinnamony juice? Shouldn't that juice still be in my apples so the pie is juicy? Maybe the hour they've been sitting there has somethjing to do with it. Plop. Looks um...not horrible.
 
Now the top. Roll more. New shape. Not a circle. Map of an exploding Nova this time. I am nevertheless undaunted. Pick up. Ha ha. Fold. Drape over top of filled shell. Not draping. Piece together over top of filled shell. This does not look right. Better rush it to the oven. Bam.
 
Now while the first pie is baking and will doubtless be perfect, I will drive quickly to the 24 hr. supermarket to get Pillsbury crust dough, suggested to me earlier this same night by a baker friend (To which I scoffed inwardly at the time) for the 2nd pie. I didn't even know such a thing existed and my friend says it is indistinguishable from homemade. That's what I need. Indistinguishable.
 
Both 24 hour groceries are closed. One doesn't even have a sign that tells it's new hours. All it has is a huge light up sign that says "Open 24 hours" I think of Steven Wright in my head and say to myself "Yeah, but not in a row..."
 
So. Nothing for it but to go back and use my 2nd batch. Maybe it will be better. Maybe it has had time to relax and won't flatten out into shooting lengths of fijords.
 
2nd batch is a dried up chalky ball of butter flour that crumbles as I step nearer to it.
 
Nothing left to do but make a new 2nd batch. A 3rd batch as it were. I look over at my bowl, my plastic baking matt, my cutter, my fork, my measuring cups, and alas, my sifter - all soaking in the warm soapy water I dilligently dumped them in as I moved along earlier.
 
This is going to be a long night.
 
-S
 
 
 
scooterscustom
08 November 2005 @ 11:19 pm

These posts are starting to seem like only my music reviews, which originally I was going to keep for another blog. But maybe I'll just comingle them here a bit more.

I have a whole list of artists who, while very good in their own right, perhaps - just plain wouldn't exist if it weren't for some other artist. I don't mean literally - I mean artistically. I call it the "In their album collection" thing. Meaning, for example - If you take the Joan Armatrading records out of Tracy Chapman's album collection, her music wouldn't exist anymore.  

It's slightly different than the "Meets" observations. As in - if Radiohead never had met U2, we'd never get Remy Zero, Starsailor, or Coldplay (and many others.) In the Album Collection thing - there is usually ONE influence that is so sleeve-worn, without them the new artist simply would cease to have a musical career or voice. They would be hairdressers or accountants who hummed a lot. Often the earlier influence is less well known adding to the glut of irony in the musical world.

So without Joan Armatrading - NO Tracy Chapman. Without Fairport Convention - NO 10,000 Maniacs. Without Scott Walker - NO Cousteau. Without Dave Matthews - NO John Mayer...und so veiter.

And with no Kate Bush - NO Bjork and NO Tori Amos and practically NO Sara MacLachlan and a host of other haunting, melodic, powerful, quirky, sensual orchestral female solo artists.

Kate has been off raising a baby boy since 1993's "The Red Shoes" album. Her new album came out yesterday and is ethereal, magical, and typical Kate. Except it's a double album. So typical Kate with a healthy dose of George Martin style - "I am crazy rich just from the royalties of Running Up That Hill. If I feel like doubling my new album by including a whole shitload of orchestral pieces, or me tweeting like a bird - I'm a do it."

Buy it. Download it. It's very good.

 

 

 

 
 
State Of Being: artistic
i-tunes in play: Kate Bush: King of the Mountain
 
 
scooterscustom
17 October 2005 @ 02:32 am

There's a one-panel cartoon I saw in a magazine a dozen or more years ago that has a sad, loser-looking guy sitting on the floor amidst a bunch of record albums and a woman going out the door and addressing him: "I'm going out to the store for a bit. Try not to identify with too many song lyrics before I get back."

It's funny because it's true. It's also almost impossible to avoid sometimes. It's like EVERY song is EXACTLY what you are feeling. Oh my God.

I defy anyone who has ever felt any human emotion to put on the Decemberists "Picaresque" album and not find one song to identify with.

I've had some live Decemberists tracks from shows from 2002 and 2003 for awhile. To be honest - I was looking forward to getting out to see them, but maybe more for the solo drive to Columbus. I love the band but they didn't sound THAT great live on the few tracks I had downloaded from other fans.

Well the THING happened between their constant touring for the last album and then the recording of this new one and this tour. That same thing that happened to the girl next door that one summer in 1977 when she went out a lamb and came back in September a Lion.  The band is now fan-fucking-tastic live. They are now better live than on studio album. They are now this tight, confident band that is treading on Smiths level transcendance circa 1986.

I highly reccomend you try them out. Picaresque is a beautiful album. But there are many amazing diamonds among the last 4 albums as well. The bonus is the name of their label - Kill Rock Stars.

The Decemberists are not for everyone. But then, neither am I.

RIYL: The Smiths, Robyn Hitchcock, The Beatles, Victorian and Elizabethan England, The Sea, Ghost stories,  Old unused words like 'parapets', 'pantaloons', 'petticoats', or 'pinions', Bands comprised of ex-theater and english literature majors.

 
 
State Of Being: tiredtired
i-tunes in play: The Decemberists: Of Angels & Angles