dedoty
tomcreoThis is my account of a concert that I went to recently:
I recently spent an evening at a musical performance of Maryland-native jam-band O.A.R. (Of A Revolution). The concert was solid, the crowd friendly, and the bros out in full force. Yes, you read correctly - the bros were in their element.
(If you are unfamiliar with bros, watch this.)
As I pulled into the parking lot, the first thing I saw made my (strong, well chiseled) jaw drop to the floor (immediately followed by uproarious laughter) : An approximately 22 year old Caucasian male, shirtless, sitting on the roll bar of his jacked up yellow convertible Jeep Wrangler, complete with a can of bro-favorite Natural Light - more affectionately known as Natty. This is too good (funny) to be true.
Apparently, beautiful (often scantily clad) girls go for this, because there was one nearby every bro.
I decide that I can have too much fun with this: I will join them. I make a solemn promise to myself to “bro out” until the night is finished. I remove my shirt, grab a solo, and begin what seemed to be a never ending evening of guys chanting, arms slung over one another, in the bliss of drowning away insecurities with beer and “Bro-therhood.”
After 3 solid hours of tailgating, my friends decide that the crappy opening band is done, and that those of us with lawn seats need to get a good spot. We get a good spot - front “row” of lawn seats, but to our dismay the opening act is not finished. We are happy to hear them announce that this is their last song, and that they are from Sydney, Australia. OK, so the Sydney thing isn’t that great, but we are certainly glad to hear that they are soon going to shut the hell up. Their “last song” is a 20 minute slow jam that nobody there liked. Their feet apparently were cemented in place, and there were no words. Then they decide to tell us again that they are from Sydney, and that this is their last song. Everyone there though that they played the same song again.
After the set change, the lawn starts to fill up. This is a homecoming show for Rockville, MD darlings O.A.R., and people are excited. The energetic jam-band has grown recently in popularity, famously being one of the “smallest” acts to sell out Madison Square Garden. By the time the lights dim, you cannot sit down. Merriweather Post-Pavilion is at capacity.
O.A.R. plays a great show for their voracious hometown crowd, but I think that the real show was not on the stage, but in the crowd. My buddy’s friend is truly enjoying himself. I turn around and see him talking to two girls who had been hitting on us earlier - I tried to keep my distance. They were nothing special. I turn around again a few minutes later, and Jared is making out with both incredibly below average girls. They had tried to say that he was gay, and he later told me that he had to “prove them wrong.” This saddens me in a way, because I had been told multiple times that night that we both looked and acted the same. I feel like my allowance of him to make this grave mistake was similar to me doing it. I felt better about a half an hour later, when he was dancing with what I will refer to as a “Babraham Lincoln.”
At least 75 percent of the people there are not wearing shirts. And if they are, they are either lacrosse jerseys or have a popped collar.
I did not break character. I am a method actor. I feel like the Daniel Day-Lewis of investigative reporters. A guy spills some beer on me, and apologizes. “Sorry bro - my bad.” I break into a brief but severe fit of laughter (as do my friends who are aware of my objective). “No problem bro,” I reply, huge grin on my face. He offers me a cigarette, which I decline. I decided not to call him “bro” again, lest he catch on to my thinly vailed “bro-verload.” (Note: Bro-verload is the abundance of bro related topics, or conversational over usage of the word itself.) I’d like to see Geraldo’s mustache do that.
As I lay in bed that night, I thought to myself, “I had a great time.” I had a great time… pretending to be a bro. Oh no.
Filed under: Politics
With investor and consumer confidence rising, a recent jump in sales of new homes, and the apparent success of George Bush’s troop surge, one has to wonder if Obama might well start to stumble in the coming months. Though supporters cannot admit it – it would discredit his “newpolitik” appeal – Obama, like all politicians, does play on America’s fears for political gain. Fears of another Vietnam, of a collapsing economy, of diminished standing in world affairs…each lives in the hearts of potential Obamacons all across the country, and his success in bringing them to the forefront without looking like a fear monger certainly contributes to his strong showing in national polls.
But what if the problems start to fade? If this economic recovery proves to be more than a temporary upswing, and victory in Iraq sounds less like an ironic slogan and more like a realistic possibility, it will be much harder to sell Americans on the idea that the Half-White Knight is the only man who can save us from a bumbling, out-of-touch Republican party. Traditional concerns like social security reform, energy independence, and colonizing Mars will play a bigger role in America’s choice for President, and Obama won’t be able to rely so heavily on his hope-filled promises to lead us out of the darkness.
Common sense would dictate that a Republican has no chance in this year’s elections. John McCain may be old, he may support the Iraq War, and he may be the most unpleasantly sarcastic man ever to race for the presidency, but I still cannot subscribe to the notion that Barack Obama’s victory is a foregone conclusion. This race is far from over, and, though it is unfortunate, America’s messianic perception of Obama has left him nowhere to go but down.
I’m sorry that “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” is the first thing I’ve posted about in over a month, but sometimes you see something that hurts your heart so badly, you just need to write about it. I was going to turn this blog post into a diatribe against Andy Garcia for selling himself out and appearing alongside Drew Barrymore in a movie about Chihuahuas until I remembered that he left his dignity in the coatroom at the premier of Ocean’s 12. Worst Movie Ever. I would like, then, to take this opportunity to address a short open letter to Disney and any other producers out there who might have unfortunate thoughts of making another “talking dogs” movie.
Dear Producers,
You know, I really used to love your animal movies. Dumbo, the Lion King, 101 Dalmatians…and the Fox and the Hound! God, that movie made tear up every time. Even Balto was alright. I don’t know which of you slacker Disney-wannabes made it, but for once you kept from failing, and I’ll give you props for that.
I have to tell you, though, you really have to cut all this bullshit with the live-action talking-animal movies. Beverly Hills Chihuahua? Cats ‘n’ Dogs? And I’m going to go ahead and throw in Alvin & The Chipmunks and Underdog too. I know Michael Eisner probably told you that “CGI is the best thing since cramming a horse’s mouth full of peanut butter,” but you have to remember that he said it right after he greenlighted 112 Dalmatians and right before he suggested Pirates of the Caribbean Four: Captain Jack Allies With Ninja Sailors To Take Back The Flying Dutchman From Horatio Hornblower.
Don’t listen to that Mickey-killing, Goofy-stomping son of a bitch. America can and will keep shoveling buckets full of money into your pockets as long as you keep feeding us shitty movies to drag howling kids to. With that in mind, though, is it so much to ask that you shelve the CGI for awhile and make something tolerable? You can animate animals just as easily in cartoon form, and I hear you can use computers for that too these days. Kids won’t know the difference, and parents will thank you.
Please, just think about it.
Love,
Dan
My brain just exploded.
As an AP student in our awesomely failing compulsory education system, I agree.
I am the student that deserves a C in one class and suprisingly receives an A or a B. Sure, I’m thankful when I do get rewarded with an easy A (though, often it’s not an A awarded, which brings me to my next point). I am the kid who should be in Honors for some of my courses, but instead is forcefully pushed into a realm of education that should be beyond what my personal limitations are, all to avoid being in the cut-up class of Honors students who were pushed into that level of education. In a nutshell, I am a prime example of the failure of the U.S. education system. I am a product of my environment.
The A that I was awarded (or that 5 on an AP exam) may get me into a college - but what for? To be in another institution filled with students who were also pushed into courses in which they were given A’s but should have earned C’s?
This degradation of the public school system may put more kids in college, but only hurts us in the long run - that “long run” being the post-college career. It would not be so detrimental to the U.S. if the education system were slackened (as it has) were it not for one minor problem: The global position of U.S. education. This (pardon the cliche) “real world,” in which economics and business and policy are all counted and measured and judged and pitted against each other play out on the international stage - not the American stage. In this worldwide play, American students are slowly becoming the extras - the ones which people know are there, but everyone except that kid’s parents are too captivated by the leads to notice. Perhaps the most poignant observation (among many) is that College Board should grade teachers.
Here is a prime example of why.
Starting with the class of 2009, the state of Maryland’s Public Education System put in place standardized High School Assessments - tests which all MD students must pass to graduate. Is this fair? Does it ensure that teachers are being held accountable? To put it simply, no. This new, shiny, state government supported, fail-proof, strict measure has already been given elasticity to its intended rigidity: Students did not pass, teachers are not being fired, and not surprising in the least - its being challenged. Parents will not stand for their child, who is enrolled in an advanced Science course, to be told that they did not make the cut.
This intended swift hammer of justice did not strike. Nor will it. Not until school systems stop pushing for the school with the most enrolled AP students, and start pushing for the most students passing the AP exams.
We need to follow a survival of the fittest approach to education, not the “Oh-well-everybody-had-fun-here’s-a-juice-box” t-ball technique that we are using now.
this is a short paper that I wrote for an argument assignment in my AP Language course back in November(I chose to do mine on charter schools). Just putting it out there:
“They are so common that students have given them names… drawn pictures of them”. These are the words of Ariel Smith, a college student who worked at an after-school program at in a Washington, D.C. public elementary school. The “they” she made reference to was not a local running group, a nest of birds in the school yard, or interesting cars. “They” is a reference to the rats seen running through the cafeteria and kindergarten room. Why, you may ask, has this D.C. public school (and so many like it) been neglected, been allowed to fall through the cracks? While some may say that it is the school principal’s fault, it is actually caused by a relocation of educational funds. Where is the money that could be saving the community’s schools? The answer is obvious: charter schools. Charter schools are public education facilities which have been created for any student who wishes to “escape” the disintegrating public schools. While many may say that this is an excellent idea because it allows students to get away from unproductive learning environments, it is, in reality, causing the existing schools to be further neglected, and in the end, allowing students to become “left behind”.
The District of Columbia has put great faith in charter schools to be the savior of the public school system. The charter schools, once seen as the magic remedy of the ever failing facilities and staff, have themselves failed. This year, a review of all public schools in the District was conducted to determine if they met health and test standards. 30 of the schools failed. Included in the list are charter schools. Although some of the charter schools have seen moderate success, a great number of them have failed to meet educational standards. 26 out of the 30 failing schools are regular public schools; the other 4 are charter schools. Washington charter schools are evaluated every 5 years by a charter committee, as well as an annual review (which the regular schools are subjected to as well) dictated by the No Child Left Behind Act. If it is determined that test scores are too low, they have a two year probationary period to improve them before they are added to an “In Need of Improvement” list. If after those two years the school still fails to raise its scores, the school is eligible for additional monitoring, or to be shut down. It is evident that charter schools are not only failing to be the champion of public school system, but rather they are becoming the nemesis of success, as is obvious in the growing number of schools who after more than two years still cannot raise scores.
Some say that charter schools are a great success because test scores are rising. However, this rise in test scores is found only in the charter schools, which draw the more academically advanced students from the regular public schools, and not throughout the entire District school system. Besides failing to ameliorate the entire District’s failing test scores (three out of four D.C. students fail to meet math standards), charter schools also use vital funds which should be used to rehabilitate the struggling regular public schools. Although in theory charter schools should be met with great success, they are actually money pits which consume large amounts of government funding. The school system fails to be productive with the money granted not because of a fundamental flaw with charter schools, but because of the District’s crumbling infrastructure. Blatant statistics show misuse of funding (and of deep internal issues) in Washington’s school system. The school system ranks third in the nation’s 100 largest school districts in spending, while it ranks last in the classroom and instruction spending category. Charter schools are merely the latest step in a colossal fumbling of grant location; they are the biggest layer that needs to be peeled away, and one that when removed will make the underlying infrastructure problems visible and ready for reform.
The first step in fixing the mounting problems in Washington, D.C. schools is to phase out charter schools and focus on rehabilitating the decrepit facilities which already exist. Once this happens, more qualified teachers will come to teach in the District, and eventually, test scores will rise. But I stress once again, to give incentive to these teachers, it is paramount that we refocus our funds away from money pit projects (such as the $125,000 “production room” at a Washington middle school intended for announcements and television broadcasts, which, after three years still has not been used due to miscommunication between the school board and the principal) and towards the rehabilitation and expansion of regular public schools.
Teachers do not want to work where rats scurry through classrooms, adorned with rusted through lockers, and where they will lack proper funding for classroom instruction. Until these issues are met head on, Washington test scores will fail to improve across the board. While system-wide reconstruction will not be easy, the first (and always hardest) steps are to phase out charter schools and refocus funds.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: -1, bees wax, emo kids, greek orthodox church
Sound probable? Well it is more than you think. And you know what? It’s about time those hair flipping, girls pants wearing scensters get their Vans Slip-On shod feet held to the fire. Who would have thought that it would have come from their choice of cosmetics?
Our little story starts off in September 2007. That month saw the release of a number of albums by emo darlings like Motion City Soundtrack, Rilo Kiley, Iron and Wine, Every Time I Die, The Bled, and Hot Hot Heat. Additionally, the charts were filled with hit emo “rockers” like Simple Plan’s “When I’m Gone”, Fall Out Boy’s “I’m Like a Lawyer…”, BoysLikeGirls’ “Hero/Heroine”, Paramore’s “crushcrushcrush”, and who can forget Plain White T’s “Hey There Delilah”. Finally, the number one independent CD of that month was Dashboard Confessional’s “Thick as Thieves”.
At the same time, the L’Oreal Corporation saw the highest gain in stock prices outside of holiday season booms. In one month, the stocks ballooned $10 a share. This drastic gain is usually caused by a spike in demand for the conglomerate’s product. We all know the two things that emo kids love: makeup and skinny guys crying about their fat girlfriends. Usually consuming, per capita, enough eye shadow, mascara and hair dye to make the cast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show gasp in astonishment, it can be assumed with roughly one emo kid per every 4 suburban households (or, 1000 per every Hot Topic storefront), that that climb in stock prices could be a reflection of the prosperity of the emo fad. I won’t even begin to talk about the amount of disposable income 14-18 year old suburban white kids have at their availability…
One of the key ingredients in cosmetics like lipstick, mascara, hair dye, hair wax/pomade is beeswax. Most of the world’s beeswax is sourced from Eastern Africa. Since the spike in demand the profit margins for the sale and export of beeswax have skyrocketed. This is reflected by the amount of aid groups that have intervened and under the premise of “creating a market structure” set standard prices (ones above the pre September ’07 levels) in order to increase the standard of living for the producers. This disguised price gouging can be absorbed by the cosmetics corporations, but other enterprises are not as fortunate.
The Greek Orthodox Church mandates that all candles used for religious services must be made from pure beeswax. As I said before, the area of largest export is Eastern Africa. With a standard price raised by non-profit groups like “Honey Care Africa”, the Greek Orthodox Church is facing the ass end of socialized market economies. The price hike is huge when you consider the scale of wax the church must consume regularly. As a non-profit organization, there is not nearly as much room for price fluctuations as there are in private industries. As such, there is a question to be raised about the viability of the church’s use of the wax candles.
So what’s the moral of the story? If you are a member of the Greek Orthodox Church and an emo kid, you are wrong. If you are an emo kid, shame on you. If you are a member of the Greek Orthodox Church, it is your holy obligation to cease the consumption of cosmetics by emo kids by any means necessary.
Filed under: Uncategorized
A few days ago, I went to go see “Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay.” Really, just looking at the title I figured it would be shitty, but a friend texted me and said she thought it could be a fun study break. And besides, movies are only $10 and it’s like an hour and a half long. Sounds like a pretty safe decision. Right?
Wrong. This sounds snobby, I know, but to even review this movie almost feels beneath my dignity. The only reason why I can even bring myself to do this review is because Harold & Kumar is the angriest a movie has made me in years. To paraphrase a good friend of mine, who said that “How I Met Your Mother” is “one Neil Patrick Harris away from a shitty sitcom,” this movie was one Neil Patrick Harris away from the worst movie of the century. And maybe he didn’t even save it.
Let’s start off with some of the lighter misdemeanors the movie commits. Every time somebody got punched in the stomach (which happened far too often) it was accompanied by a fart noise. Inmates at Guantanamo Bay eat cock meat sandwiches for their meals, evidently, which played out in an entirely pointless scene where a group of guards came in and told some unconvincing “hardened terrorists,” and our protagonists Harold & Kumar, to “get sucking.” At a completely unnecessary “bottomless party,” a male friend walks from the water and Kumar yells that his pubes “look like Osama bin Laden’s beard.”
And Rob Cordry? Horrendous acting aside, his “racist Homeland Security Officer” character might have come off as quality satire to middle schoolers who get their foreign policy news from Green Day songs, but anybody else it’ll just come off as annoyingly contrived. His death satisfied me more than any comedy casualty in history, probably because I knew that the miserable Homeland Securityplot line was gone, never to return.
Now for the cinematic war crimes. Attention Everybody: Spoilers to follow. To be honest, though, the movie is so thoroughly rotten there’s no way I could spoil it for you. The characters are all completely two dimensional. Even Harold & Kumar, who managed to pull off some degree of likeability and depth in their first film, completely lost it in this one. I didn’t give a shit one way or the other what happened to them, or to any other characters in the movie. When Kumar interrupted his ex-girlfriend’s marriage, it made me happy the way that reading a news report about a car accident two states away makes you sad. The only thing that aroused any genuine emotion was when Neil Patrick Harris died after 15 minutes in the movie. Seriously? Why did they do that? Killing NPH literally killed all the funny.
Some people liked it, evidently. One reviewer from MSNBC wrote that Escape “[A]ctually scores more points off the nation’s paranoid and repressive post-9/11 mindset than all of Hollywood’s hand-wringing war-on-terror dramas put together.” In the same review, he had the audacity to compare this movie with Dr. Strangelove. In his warped mind, John Cho and Kal Penn are to George Bush and the War on Terror what Slim Pickens and Peter Sellers were to the Cold War.
When I was looking around for other reviews of this movie, I also found this. “Postal” only saw a limited release in the United States, but its most famous actor is Verne Troyer, which I feel really explains everything. What’s more, movies inspired by video games aren’t worth the DVDs they’re burned on, or even the bandwidth it would take to download them. This one claims to be more than just a video game movie, “lampooning religious extremists, minorities, bureaucrats, immigrants, cops, women, the Holocaust, gun nuts and more with evenhanded abandon.”
Really? Verne Troyer headlines a movie in which characters dressed like George Bush and Osama bin Laden hug it out after some other B-list actors poke fun at the Holocaust?
Save yourself the hassle, put the War on Terror and all the rest of America’s problems (which, really, aren’t all that funny) aside for the moment, and laugh at Seth Rogen and crew in Pineapple Express or Forgetting Sarah Marshall. If you still insist on watching either of these movies, at least consider the last ditch alternative: you might be better served flushing eleven dollars down the toilet and smashing your head against a wall for two hours.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Advanced Placement, Chester E. Finn Jr, Jay Matthews, Washington Post
There was a great debate in the Washington Post online today about who should be taking Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate courses in high school. It can be found here. WaPo education writer Jay Matthews takes the position that the advanced courses should be far more inclusive, and educational guru Chester E. Finn Jr. argues that the courses should only be used as college prep for the most capable students. What is really great about this discussion is the thinly veiled contempt the two men have for each other. There’s plenty of petty tit-for-tat to go around.
The inception of this intellectual sissy fight is Jay Matthews’ annual ranking of schools who have the most students enrolled in AP or IB classes, take the most tests, etc. Finn claims that Matthews is fueling a misguided push to enroll kids that are not prepared or motivated enough to do well in these classes. That seems dubious to me. Although Matthews is a major advocate for inclusion in these classes, his lists merely compiles and codifies a phenomenon that is already happening across the country. As public schools continue to fail its students, the top students, followed by the mid-ranging students are flocking to more rigorous courses. Finn thinks this is a bad thing.
The dialogue between the two highlights an interesting dichotomy between two liberal-minded thinkers. Matthews is a populist who has for some intents and purposes abandoned (I’ll explain this in a moment) the public education system as we know it. Finn is an elitist arguing for the protection of public education.
What scares Finn - and is not fully realized by Matthews - is that the growth of College Board’s AP and IB classes that represent a failure of public school curriculum. It is the educational equivalent of “voting with your feet”. As our schools continue to dumb themselves down to the lowest common denominator, those students and their parents who want more substantial classes (or perhaps just a reprieve from unruly kids who don’t care to learn) move to more advanced classes. When “regular” A-level classes ceased to prepare kids for college, “Honors” classes became the norm for good students. Then everyone wanted these better classes, and teachers were once again forced to teach to the lowest common denominator. Thus the advent of AP and IB classes.
Make no mistake about it: these classes are a privatization of public schools - and for good reason. We do not let public schools enforce any real standards: you cannot fail students, you cannot exclude them from taking a certain level class, tests are made easier, teachers water down curriculum. By purchasing curriculum from a private company who provides a test that is rigid and gives a concrete score, public schools allow students to opt into a real learning environment. Public schools can continue to pass failing students and coddle trouble-makers, but decent students can be challenged. If we allow more kids into these challenging classes, will they continue to be challenging?
The whole movement of education says “no”. Up to the 1950’s, a high school diploma was enough to get a good job. That piece of paper meant something because standards were enforced in schools. Failing students failed. That simple system, loathed by liberal educators, still works today. Japan’s school are so good because they are modeled after ours post-WWII. The next couple of decades saw public schools turning into a social service they refused to uphold standards and discipline. The result was that an undergraduate college education was necessary for good salaries. More kids entered college, including more unprepared ones, so the universities picked up the slack. Today you generally need a post-graduate degree to be in the same place you would have been with a BA 30 years ago and a high school diploma 60 years ago. So goeth the way of the buffalo.
The upshot here is that more people from more diverse social stratum are getting more schooling. The downside is that the quality of the education is plummeting. I don’t know about you, but I would rather go through 20 years of solid education than 30 drawn out years. That’s on a personal level. On a much grander scale, the education of our country ensures our survival, primacy, and quality of life. Long story short, we must be able to compete with other countries. For example, or upper-level math and sciences are far behind other industrialized countries. If Japan’s high school seniors are at the same level of math that our third year college students are, that is bad.
So we have two options, represented today by Mr. Matthews and Mr. Finn. Matthews sees a quick fix to help students immediately by enrolling more of them in AP classes. Mr. Finn thinks this is doesn’t tackle the hard issue of fixing the system which is failing students to the point of a massive bailout to privatized curriculum. I tend to agree with Matthews up to a point, at which I flop over to Finn. Here’s why:
AP is successful because it is a brand colleges trust. Just like a private school that is known to turn out good students, a student who scores well on AP tests is quality-assured. Forget failing schools and rural schools and the whole gamut. AP is standardized across the board, so a perfect 5 is a perfect 5, and this is a tremendous boon to kids that aren’t in elite private boarding schools in New England. Because the tests are guaranteed to stay the same (College Board needs to keep that brand strong) it doesn’t matter too much if less smart kids are in the classes. They simply will not do well on the tests. The value of AP does suffer a little, as merely taking AP classes will become the norm, and more weight will be placed on how well you do on the actual tests.
This is an acceptable devaluation because in the long run it is still standardizing the curriculum. What is not acceptable -and why I ultimately side with Finn- is that the system itself needs to be fixed. More kids can enroll in AP and IB, but teachers cannot let the grading be easier. They need to be able to fail students that do no deserve to pass. They need to give C’s to students that deserve C’s. If the last few decades of public schooling is any indication, I do not have high hopes. What we will have is the inability of a broken system to implement a fixed curriculum.
Which leads me to think about a lot of complicated things. Why doesn’t College Board ramp up its teacher cert program to monitor scores and revoke certifications for teachers that have high graded students who score poorly on the tests? Why not have College Board branded teachers. Then you could count on quality education. Why not have schools become more entwined with a trustworthy brand? Why not privatize everything? This is why Matthews is a little naive, and Finn is so scared. AP has the power to destroy everything.
Which is cool because I’m all for charter schools.
To put it simply, they’re back. Most people —myself included— think that Counting Crows have spent the past 6 years writing catchy little ditties for the Shrek soundtracks that appeal to both eight year olds and their moms who listen to it on the way to school. But when the opening track “1492″ explodes like a shotgun blast to the gut, it’s a whole different game. The first 70 seconds of the album reference guns, all-night partying, skinny girls performing fellatio, and tranny whores. Ladies and gents, we are no longer in the Kingdom of Far Far Away.
“Hanging Tree” keeps the rapid fire good times rolling, complete with screaming guitar solos and all the hooks you could ever cram into a chorus. The song slows, then winds itself back up like drinking off a hangover. It’s the musical equivalent of running to catch the tour bus before it heads full speed for the next town.
“Los Angeles” starts out sounding like every Ryan Adams song about New York, which is to say it sounds like long, slow, whiskey soaked nights, which is to say it sounds like damn good rock n roll. Especially when the staccato chorus offers amends for sexing, drugging, and rocking: “I’m just trying to make some sense out of me.” Ah yes, rock n roll indeed.
“Sundays” trolls along with a Grateful Dead lead guitar before an echoing crash cymbal sends it into wistful crooning backed by mandolin. “Insignificant” is full of erupting guitar chords and high lonely solos that could be coming out of Springsteen’s amp. I couldn’t shake the feeling I’ve heard the song before, which is probably more a sign of a strong chorus rather than a retread.
The highpoint of the album naturally comes at the end of the Saturday half of the album. “Cowboys” returns to that crazy never-ending dizziness of “Hanging Tree”, but is darker. The song will turn sweet for a few bars but then it’s back down the rabbit hole. The song blisters as Duritz loses it beautifully. He gets angry, shouts, stutters, points fingers, and gives up. Favorite line of the album? “She says she doesn’t love me, like, like she’s acting/But it’s as if she isn’t talking/’Cause Mr. Lincoln’s head is bleeding/On the front row while she’s speaking”.
The second half of the album slows down to reflect on the morning after. The first song here, the lackluster going home song “Washington Square”, is a complete misfire. “Almost Any Sunday Morning” and “Michelangelo” are salvaged by pedal guitar, banjo plucking, and pattering percussion. In fact, these two are probably the best Sunday songs here with their tastefully rationed instrumentation.
“Anyone But You” helps break any mopey mold being cast. With its lilting coo, some odd effects, and a squawking guitar helps the album pulls itself out of a mediocre B side. The addition of the catchy first single “You Can’t Count on Me” buoys it even further. It has a simple 4/4 chorus that works well, which excites me because its not even their strongest song. If this one takes off with radio play then we could have a classic Counting Crows album on our hands.
But you can add “Le Ballet Dor” and “On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago” to the scratch list. Combined with “Washington Square”, these are the major pitfalls detracting from the flow of the album. Which is a shame because at 14 songs they could have spared a few songs and made an airtight album. I’m sure the desire to balance out Saturday night with Sunday morning led to some weaker songs being included.
“Amsterdam” is the real tragedy here. It has truly amateurish lyrics, complete with over explaining the context of the song (see song title), and tacking objects and verbs on the ends of lines to make rhyme schemes work. Some nonsensical lines muck up the song even more. “She is the film of a book of the story of the smell of her hair” just seems dopey. Same with the melodramatic “Come back to me!” chorus, where Duritz forces his strong voice to compensate for a weak song. I seriously can’t stand listening to that song.
Luckily the album closes on a high note, just the way it came in. Same tempo, but with a more conciliatory message that fits the Sunday theme. It just sounds like a closer, as the wounds of Saturday night have duly healed on Sunday morning. And it certainly echoes the Counting Crow’s favorite phrase. There are probably a half a dozen references to coming home, coming back, coming up, and coming around. Pretty fitting for a great band that has done just that. Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings is one hell of a rock n roll album, especially the heavier half. And just like we can forgive “Accidentally in Love”, we can ignore the few missteps on the album’s second half. Duritz even says as much: “After I’ve been missing for a while…We’ll still come around. We will come around.”
There’s been a hell of a lot of negativity going around recently on the news, in the blogosphere, and in the homes of SUV-driving soccer moms around the country about rising oil and gas prices. The Drudge Report had a running ticker on the top for a little over a week constantly advertising the new records oil prices were breaking. It was getting updated, it seemed, almost by the hour. Farmers are switching to mules to pull their tractors, saying it’s “the way of the future!” Cops are going old school too; with their cruisers chugging gasoline like desperate alcoholics, they have no choice but to start walking their beats in an effort keep costs down. And it’s only going to get worse says Robert Hirsch, an economic analyst and apparent Prophet of the Apocalypse. Hirsch stated on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that “$12 to $15 gas is inevitable” in the next two decades. That would mean that, the average American, filling a fifteen gallon tank just once a week, would spend between 20 and 25 percent of pre-tax income on gasoline.
Anyway, with all this pessimism floating around it was refreshing to find an article that, perhaps inadvertently, took a step back and put things into perspective. Some of the highlights:
- When you adjust for current exchange rates, gas costs $7.70 in France. Somehow it seems like it should feel better to know that somewhere, there’s a French guy getting screwed worse than you.
- Currently, an average of 3.7% of disposable income in America goes to covering fuel for transportation. That sounds like a lot, especially compared to 1.9% just ten years ago, but it’s still not as bad as the 4.5% people paid in 1981.
- Also, when you factor in improvements in fuel economy (which averaged LESS than 10 mpg in the 1970s!) and inflation, Americans are paying less per mile—“only” fifteen cents—than in 1981, when the cost was just a little over seventeen cents per mile.
But things are still pretty terrible, right? Well, not necessarily, for the middle class at least. In a heart-wrenching tale worthy of the silver screen, this same article wrote, “For many people, high energy costs mean fewer restaurant meals, deferred weekend outings with the kids, less air travel, and more time close to home.” Since I don’t have kids who could spend all Memorial Day weekend complaining about how we don’t get to go to Disneyland, maybe I don’t have room to talk, but it seems to me that staying at home with your family and friends to barbecue and play Frisbee instead of going to Applebee’s and spending three days crammed into an overcrowded campground with every family from suburbia is far from the worst tragedy that could befall today’s American home.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the gas crisis today is certainly a serious one. But it’s far from another Great Depression:
It isn’t even the worst energy crisis our country has faced. Just like the last one, we’ll get through it alright, and who knows? Maybe this was just the wakeup call our country—and our leaders—needed to make major strides towards energy independence.
