If you have a pool, and invite me over for a swim, I’ll probably pee in it. There. I said it. I’ll pee in it. To me, a pool is nothing more than an oversized toilet designated for number one, which, occasionally one can perform cannonballs into. After all, the bathroom is arguably the most comfortable place in your home just as the pool is the place to be on a hot summer’s day. For centuries, man has peed in every pool he’s laid torso in. Still, for centuries and beyond, we as a society will deny that we’ve ever opened up the floodgates and added a few stray drop to the 700 plus gallons. I’m sick of the charade. It’s been eating away at me, keeping me up many a humid summer night, and frankly, I think it’s time we all spill our bladders.
I recently read a blog about my niece’s “best day ever“. The nine year old wrote that the apex of her little life was when her friend and her stayed in the pool six hours straight with no bathroom break. An emphasis was placed on the bathroom break font, as if to divert all embarrassing attention away from their seemingly shameful act in which they did perform. Name me one girl under the age of ten who can stay in water for six hours and not relieve herself and I’ll show you a tortured corpse with a urinary tract infection. It’s simply not possible.
This got me thinking of how much I hate the fact that everyone, across the nation, are keeping their pools sterile by always going before and after, but never in the pool. Granted, I do not go around looking for pools just so I can let out my Big Gulp of Fresca. Before going in anyone’s pool, I usually use a bathroom out of common courtesy and comfort. Still, after dipping my body in the chilled waters, I cannot help but let it out. The exquisite, inextinguishable relief and release. There’s nothing like building a warm pocket around your goose bumped body. If a stranded scientist did this in the arctic, he’d be called smart. Me, I’m apparently gross. Still, when wadding next to a pile of dead flies and an overturned water beetle, a little urine never hurt anybody. In fact, urine has been called the “new medicine,” being known to help fight cancers and provide nourishment, and proteins to a malnourished body. Urine has also been known to help fight infections. At this point, I can’t see how peeing in a pool has not become essential one’s summer enjoyment.
Another thing I just can’t stand about swimming pools is the folklore. The myth that has kept kids legs crossed for years. I’m talking about the elusive “urine indicator” chemical that can be added to pools to weed out the serial-pissers that descend upon unsuspecting pools. My own ears have heard many a child and adult churn out such a bullshit balderdash to keep other tiny bladders in line and away from peer humiliation. As the story goes, there is a magical chemical sold somewhere in the world that everyone’s best friend or father has obtained and disseminated in the pool to detect any leakage. The myth was furthered in the early ’90’s when an substance named Wee-Wee-See was added to a public pool in the Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete and Pete. Damn you Pete Wrigley’s.
First off, the scientific possibility of such a chemical is not conceivable in such an age. I mean, we don’t even have flying cars yet. To create a chemical that only reacts to the occasional appearance of a body fluid, that, in addition, does not react to chlorine, chemical shock, algae, lifeless insects, saliva, and acid rain is just preposterous. Second, why would any family or pubic pool spend money or tax dollars on something that only benefits in a couple minutes of laughs from a second party and a crying kid who couldn’t hold it anymore. Those waters get cold, dammit.
Once, when I was a Freshman in High School, I almost murdered my one-time enemy with my bare hands for insisting this chemical was real. “My uncle has it. He always embarrasses my brother with it,” he said like the jackass he was. I called him out on this impossibility, having once believed such a fable before reading an official study of it online. “No, it’s real. You’re just jealous ‘cause you want to piss in pools.” Not having the guts to tell the truth in front of a group of giggling girls, I just turned red and called him a jerk. Later, we all went swimming. I made sure I let it all out next to him during a game of volleyball. The front line was extra warm that day.
Also, when babies pee in pools, their parent’s generally hold them up out of the water, letting the stream cascade down as if leaving them partially submerged would taint the water. When this happens, everyone just laughs at how cute the baby is, since they don’t know any better . Well, you know what? I know better, and I gotta go!
Call me a baby. Call me a slob. When it’s your time to go, your privacy is safe under the waters. And why do you think the chlorine’s in there? Just to sting your eyes? So this summer, when you look in the bathroom mirror before diving into your neighbor’s pool, ask yourself if you have the guts to admit you’re human.
February 27, 2007
February 20, 2007
QUEST: The Year I Watched 365 Movies
Some people set out to cure cancer, climb Everest, or become a vigilante, fighting the scum of the city with a nifty black cape. I decided to watch movies. And lots of them. 365 movies in 365 days, in fact. Did I prove to myself and future generations that with a little bit of physical laziness and expansive brainpower anyone can run the gamut of movie history? I wouldn't rule out the possibility just yet. In 2006, I decided to cram 111 years of photographed visuals into my head in one year's time. Ridiculous you might say? Yes. Let us travel back in time to see how this exhaustive waste of everyone else's time, but mine, started and how it almost buried me in a grave of celluloid dreams and late rental movie fees.
2005 was dying fast and Father Time was ready to bury it. The New Year waited eagerly in the cold wings of late December, ready to bare the torch of time. With the 2006 just six hours away, most people my age began to dream of throwing back shots while making useless resolutions, like going tanning more often, and figuring out ways to reduce their hangovers the next morning. Me, I thought about a forth-rate get-together I'd be attending that night with a laggardly shrug. To kill time, I decided to pop in Stanely Kubrick's 1957 classic, Paths of Glory, into my DVD player, a film of his I hadn't seen yet. Although I was thoroughly enjoying it, I found myself in an inexplicably bad mood, having always hated New Year's Eve. I shut it off halfway through. Heading out into the night I promised I'd finish it tomorrow. Little did I know, I was about to embark on an adventure of a lifetime…. or a year, to pin it down.
Indeed I did finish the movie the next day. The following day I watched another movie. And on the third of January, I watched another. Things tend to move pretty slowly in the dead of winter. On January 5th, I began watching one of my favorite music documentaries, Killing a Camera, about the criminally underrated band, Braid. In it, their guitarist, Chris Broch, mentioned their singer, Bob Nanna, had watched 365 movies in 1998. Eureka. It hit me. What a remarkable feat. Never in my life had I heard of such a brilliant idea. Jefferson helped write the Declaration. Rodney Mullen invented the flat-ground ollie. And Bob Nanna watched 365 movies. One movie for each day of the year. Not even learning about Kennedy's assassination, the 1981 USA Olympic hockey team's miracle win, or watching FOX's Alien Autopsy when I was nine, got me so worked up. I knew then what I had to do.
I began documenting my work in a notebook, trying to cram in movies day after day. But the harsh depression of the dead winter break, mixed with a redundant substitute teaching job I recently undertook, took its sullen toll. By January 22, I had given up, having only watched 20 movies up to that point. Admirable, but losing its luster fast.
In February, I began dating my girlfriend Kristin, and, naturally, with dating comes watching and talking about movies. If you're like me, and prefer talking about director's work to make-out sessions and sex, then you know exactly how invigorating this can be on several levels.
Sometime around March, I had mentioned to her my original goal.
"What the hell? Why did you give up? That sound pretty cool to me," she said.
"Come on. I've got better things to do, like try to seduce you and get out of this room for a change. Besides, I'm more than 25 movies off pace at this point," I reasoned.
"No. You should do it. That sounds like a really cool idea."
Thinking this was some twisted way of being sexy and impressionable to her, I decided I would continue my conquest, knowing full well this could possibly destroy my newfound relationship from the inside out. I will do it, I decided. I was pretty obsessed with movies anyway and this would do me good. It later occurred to me, maybe this is some sort of demented female test to see what I loved more; her or Alfred Hitchcock. Who knew? With little thought, I began loading up my Netflix waiting list with hundreds of movies. I was armed, dangerous, and ready to sit on my fat ass, a lot!
With the passing Spring semester, I sunk deeper and deeper into my expedition, renting and copying movies onto my computer as if every movie itself contained the secret of the Holy Grail. To gain valuable viewing time, I had to devise plans to cut out the social life I had once mildly participated in. For one, I became a MacGyver of alcohol, researching and concocting vicious schemes in which I'd buy the cheapest, lo-carbonated beers, so my girlfriend would ultimately consume them, not burp, retain the alcohol, and fall asleep before me. Meanwhile, I'd finished up on my dirt cheap six pack of Miller HighLife and would dive into the night with a two-and-a-half hour film and a slight buzz, ready to tackle the dawn and all the omni-present metaphors that lay before me on the glow of my television. When the phone would ring in the middle of a movie, my parents or friends on the other end, I'd hang up. No I don't want to hang out with you. I'm hanging out with Spike Lee and Sergei Eisenstein. Hmm, what a peculiar ménage tiors, indeed.
On Fridays in the Spring, I'd substitute teach, which required little to no brain power. I had to pass out worksheets or quizzes and continually tell ungrateful twerps to "sit down" and "shut up" R. Lee Ermey style. On Thursday nights, when the sleep wouldn't come, and the thought of knocking off a couple movies entered my brain, I ultimately opted to go on little to no sleep. After the film, with an hour sleep under my belt, I'd cursed the phone call from the superintendent in the morning. She'd assign me to my class room for the day. "Fuck off superintendent. What do you know about Ingmar Bergman's films anyway? Do his extreme close-ups mean nothing to you? What about his representation of settings as a reflection on character emotions? I don't think so! And for that matter, I don't need a paycheck," I'd dream of saying. Instead, I'd humbly agree to work, throw the blankets off my sleepless body, pump myself full of coffee, and head over to the school.
After the Spring semester ended, and my substitute teaching job became seasonally obsolete, I headed into a new realm. For the past five summers, I had worked laborious night jobs, warehouse slave tasks, and delivery nightmares. This summer was gonna be different. I became completely obsessive and engulfed in my goal. Catching up to my pace of one movie a day was growing closer as I began consuming two to three films in a 24 hour succession. I scrolled notes on the movies in marble notebooks that began to tatter under my feverish pen. Scratching out the name, director, and a meaningless rating next to each movie, I became fanatical about updating it daily, if not tri-hourly.
To make some money on the side for my CD and dinner collection, I decided to take up one of my old jobs delivering newspapers. This meant my internal clock was again thrown a knuckball of delirium. In my insomnia, and drive to stay awake until four in the morning to be the best newsy I could be, I wrapped my whiskey stained eyes, and caffeine fueled brain around an array of foreign films, soaking up the subtitles like a livid vacuum.
Despite constant threats from my mom to get a real job I never cracked under the pressure.
"Are you just gonna sit here all day and watch this movie. Everyday, I come in your room and you're sitting in this chair watching that television. It's like your eight years old again," she'd say.
"What do you know about film anyway Mom? Go watch Sleepless in Seattle and write me a shot-by-shot analysis and then we'll see who's laughing. And it's not television, it's a movie," I'd say, but only silently in my head. Generally, I'd end up murmuring something like, "Yeah I'm gonna…uh… sit here. I like… this movie thing here…..okay….yeah."
The summer dragged on as I pressed onward. I walked a fine line of cult, contemporary, and classic film, fueling my knowledge with any director or off-beat piece of picturesque narrative that intrigued me. My brain became a cinemaphile's wet dream.
Eventually, when my fall 2006 semester of college started, I had officially caught up, and even surpassed my one-movie-a-day average. By the first day of classes, I was, in fact, two movies ahead of schedule. I began boasting to my girlfriend. She cheered me on as if I had just found a formula to reduce the size of tumors in lab rats. The select few of my friends who knew of my project began saying things like "Good job" and "Wow" instead of an uninspired "Oh, okay." Even my parents began asking me how many I had seen so far, sometimes recommending films like America's Sweethearts, Bloodsport 37, and Dirty Dancing to me. A smile and an "I'll check it out" usually soothed them for about a week.
Through casual, but wretched, stomach viruses, sinus crushing colds, and Italian 101 homework, I continued to chisel away at my goal, locking myself in the basement of the Montclair Library, viewing movies in between classes. At night, I began skipping meals and packing pre-made wraps from convenience stores just so I'd have time to scribble down my homework and finish my movies. To better my foreign language skills, I began diving into the films of Fredrico Fellini and Victor De Sicca. Still, I got a D in Italian.
On January 31, 2006, one year after I put Paths of Glory into my DVD player, I watched the last twenty minutes of Herschell Gordon Lewis' drive-in splatter classic Two Thousand Maniacs and I began to ponder. I felt about the same, thinking of a get-together I only wanted to go to so we could sulk over Dick Clark's stroke afflicted voicebox. I thought about the year that changed my life, almost drove me mad, and convinced me to stay an extra semester in college to obtain my film minor. I thought of my girlfriend who inspired me to achieve this goal in the first place and how last New Year's I was wondering how it'd be to kiss her. But most importantly, I thought, Shit, this is that last twenty minutes of the 365 th film I've gotta watch. And Goddamit I did it. As the credits rolled, I lifted my hands above my head and clapped as if I were watching Joe DiMaggio make his farewell speech. In the aftermath, I had gained about 20 pounds from lack of moving all day, run out of money in my checking account, learned how to substitute sleep for art, and forgot most of the good points and great shots I told myself I'd hang onto forever back in the Spring. It nearly killed me. I ejected the movie. With the goal finalized, I realized the future was mine for the taking. I could do anything as long as it didn't involve any accounting skills or strenuous physical activity. I had achieved the impossible. And all I have left was a notebook full of film titles and an expansive bootlegged DVD collection.
BELOW IS A LINK TO A LIST OF ALL 365 MOVIES I WATCHED IN 2006. COPY AND PASTE PLEASE!
http://365moviesin365days.freeservers.com/
2005 was dying fast and Father Time was ready to bury it. The New Year waited eagerly in the cold wings of late December, ready to bare the torch of time. With the 2006 just six hours away, most people my age began to dream of throwing back shots while making useless resolutions, like going tanning more often, and figuring out ways to reduce their hangovers the next morning. Me, I thought about a forth-rate get-together I'd be attending that night with a laggardly shrug. To kill time, I decided to pop in Stanely Kubrick's 1957 classic, Paths of Glory, into my DVD player, a film of his I hadn't seen yet. Although I was thoroughly enjoying it, I found myself in an inexplicably bad mood, having always hated New Year's Eve. I shut it off halfway through. Heading out into the night I promised I'd finish it tomorrow. Little did I know, I was about to embark on an adventure of a lifetime…. or a year, to pin it down.
Indeed I did finish the movie the next day. The following day I watched another movie. And on the third of January, I watched another. Things tend to move pretty slowly in the dead of winter. On January 5th, I began watching one of my favorite music documentaries, Killing a Camera, about the criminally underrated band, Braid. In it, their guitarist, Chris Broch, mentioned their singer, Bob Nanna, had watched 365 movies in 1998. Eureka. It hit me. What a remarkable feat. Never in my life had I heard of such a brilliant idea. Jefferson helped write the Declaration. Rodney Mullen invented the flat-ground ollie. And Bob Nanna watched 365 movies. One movie for each day of the year. Not even learning about Kennedy's assassination, the 1981 USA Olympic hockey team's miracle win, or watching FOX's Alien Autopsy when I was nine, got me so worked up. I knew then what I had to do.
I began documenting my work in a notebook, trying to cram in movies day after day. But the harsh depression of the dead winter break, mixed with a redundant substitute teaching job I recently undertook, took its sullen toll. By January 22, I had given up, having only watched 20 movies up to that point. Admirable, but losing its luster fast.
In February, I began dating my girlfriend Kristin, and, naturally, with dating comes watching and talking about movies. If you're like me, and prefer talking about director's work to make-out sessions and sex, then you know exactly how invigorating this can be on several levels.
Sometime around March, I had mentioned to her my original goal.
"What the hell? Why did you give up? That sound pretty cool to me," she said.
"Come on. I've got better things to do, like try to seduce you and get out of this room for a change. Besides, I'm more than 25 movies off pace at this point," I reasoned.
"No. You should do it. That sounds like a really cool idea."
Thinking this was some twisted way of being sexy and impressionable to her, I decided I would continue my conquest, knowing full well this could possibly destroy my newfound relationship from the inside out. I will do it, I decided. I was pretty obsessed with movies anyway and this would do me good. It later occurred to me, maybe this is some sort of demented female test to see what I loved more; her or Alfred Hitchcock. Who knew? With little thought, I began loading up my Netflix waiting list with hundreds of movies. I was armed, dangerous, and ready to sit on my fat ass, a lot!
With the passing Spring semester, I sunk deeper and deeper into my expedition, renting and copying movies onto my computer as if every movie itself contained the secret of the Holy Grail. To gain valuable viewing time, I had to devise plans to cut out the social life I had once mildly participated in. For one, I became a MacGyver of alcohol, researching and concocting vicious schemes in which I'd buy the cheapest, lo-carbonated beers, so my girlfriend would ultimately consume them, not burp, retain the alcohol, and fall asleep before me. Meanwhile, I'd finished up on my dirt cheap six pack of Miller HighLife and would dive into the night with a two-and-a-half hour film and a slight buzz, ready to tackle the dawn and all the omni-present metaphors that lay before me on the glow of my television. When the phone would ring in the middle of a movie, my parents or friends on the other end, I'd hang up. No I don't want to hang out with you. I'm hanging out with Spike Lee and Sergei Eisenstein. Hmm, what a peculiar ménage tiors, indeed.
On Fridays in the Spring, I'd substitute teach, which required little to no brain power. I had to pass out worksheets or quizzes and continually tell ungrateful twerps to "sit down" and "shut up" R. Lee Ermey style. On Thursday nights, when the sleep wouldn't come, and the thought of knocking off a couple movies entered my brain, I ultimately opted to go on little to no sleep. After the film, with an hour sleep under my belt, I'd cursed the phone call from the superintendent in the morning. She'd assign me to my class room for the day. "Fuck off superintendent. What do you know about Ingmar Bergman's films anyway? Do his extreme close-ups mean nothing to you? What about his representation of settings as a reflection on character emotions? I don't think so! And for that matter, I don't need a paycheck," I'd dream of saying. Instead, I'd humbly agree to work, throw the blankets off my sleepless body, pump myself full of coffee, and head over to the school.
After the Spring semester ended, and my substitute teaching job became seasonally obsolete, I headed into a new realm. For the past five summers, I had worked laborious night jobs, warehouse slave tasks, and delivery nightmares. This summer was gonna be different. I became completely obsessive and engulfed in my goal. Catching up to my pace of one movie a day was growing closer as I began consuming two to three films in a 24 hour succession. I scrolled notes on the movies in marble notebooks that began to tatter under my feverish pen. Scratching out the name, director, and a meaningless rating next to each movie, I became fanatical about updating it daily, if not tri-hourly.
To make some money on the side for my CD and dinner collection, I decided to take up one of my old jobs delivering newspapers. This meant my internal clock was again thrown a knuckball of delirium. In my insomnia, and drive to stay awake until four in the morning to be the best newsy I could be, I wrapped my whiskey stained eyes, and caffeine fueled brain around an array of foreign films, soaking up the subtitles like a livid vacuum.
Despite constant threats from my mom to get a real job I never cracked under the pressure.
"Are you just gonna sit here all day and watch this movie. Everyday, I come in your room and you're sitting in this chair watching that television. It's like your eight years old again," she'd say.
"What do you know about film anyway Mom? Go watch Sleepless in Seattle and write me a shot-by-shot analysis and then we'll see who's laughing. And it's not television, it's a movie," I'd say, but only silently in my head. Generally, I'd end up murmuring something like, "Yeah I'm gonna…uh… sit here. I like… this movie thing here…..okay….yeah."
The summer dragged on as I pressed onward. I walked a fine line of cult, contemporary, and classic film, fueling my knowledge with any director or off-beat piece of picturesque narrative that intrigued me. My brain became a cinemaphile's wet dream.
Eventually, when my fall 2006 semester of college started, I had officially caught up, and even surpassed my one-movie-a-day average. By the first day of classes, I was, in fact, two movies ahead of schedule. I began boasting to my girlfriend. She cheered me on as if I had just found a formula to reduce the size of tumors in lab rats. The select few of my friends who knew of my project began saying things like "Good job" and "Wow" instead of an uninspired "Oh, okay." Even my parents began asking me how many I had seen so far, sometimes recommending films like America's Sweethearts, Bloodsport 37, and Dirty Dancing to me. A smile and an "I'll check it out" usually soothed them for about a week.
Through casual, but wretched, stomach viruses, sinus crushing colds, and Italian 101 homework, I continued to chisel away at my goal, locking myself in the basement of the Montclair Library, viewing movies in between classes. At night, I began skipping meals and packing pre-made wraps from convenience stores just so I'd have time to scribble down my homework and finish my movies. To better my foreign language skills, I began diving into the films of Fredrico Fellini and Victor De Sicca. Still, I got a D in Italian.
On January 31, 2006, one year after I put Paths of Glory into my DVD player, I watched the last twenty minutes of Herschell Gordon Lewis' drive-in splatter classic Two Thousand Maniacs and I began to ponder. I felt about the same, thinking of a get-together I only wanted to go to so we could sulk over Dick Clark's stroke afflicted voicebox. I thought about the year that changed my life, almost drove me mad, and convinced me to stay an extra semester in college to obtain my film minor. I thought of my girlfriend who inspired me to achieve this goal in the first place and how last New Year's I was wondering how it'd be to kiss her. But most importantly, I thought, Shit, this is that last twenty minutes of the 365 th film I've gotta watch. And Goddamit I did it. As the credits rolled, I lifted my hands above my head and clapped as if I were watching Joe DiMaggio make his farewell speech. In the aftermath, I had gained about 20 pounds from lack of moving all day, run out of money in my checking account, learned how to substitute sleep for art, and forgot most of the good points and great shots I told myself I'd hang onto forever back in the Spring. It nearly killed me. I ejected the movie. With the goal finalized, I realized the future was mine for the taking. I could do anything as long as it didn't involve any accounting skills or strenuous physical activity. I had achieved the impossible. And all I have left was a notebook full of film titles and an expansive bootlegged DVD collection.
BELOW IS A LINK TO A LIST OF ALL 365 MOVIES I WATCHED IN 2006. COPY AND PASTE PLEASE!
http://365moviesin365days.freeservers.com/
February 6, 2007
This Party is OVER!: An Cranky Listener's Observations of Bloc Party's "A Weekend in the City"
When I was five, I found a gigantic empty cardboard box in my garage. Immediately upon discovering it, I almost pissed my shorts with uncontrollable excitement. It looked just like an airplane! My mind began to sculpt a joyous ride through the clouds as I waved to the ones I loved below. So, I got out some scissors and tape.
All afternoon, I went to work, cutting a hole in it so I could fit my Hostess-Twinkie saturated body out the top. I taped fake wings to the side. I wrote Eric Airlines on the side. Pure poetry indeed. When I was done, I looked at my plane. It was beautiful. Placing it on the sidewalk, I made airplane noises and got lost in the high altitudes of my young mind, intoxicated with imagination. "Come look at my plane!" I yelled. My dad continued to caulk the cracks in our front steps, periodically looking up with a forced smile. My mom peeked out the window, waved, then disappeared back into her chores. My best friend, and neighbor at the time, came over and told me the plane was stupid. It was at that point, I reexamined my construction of fantastic aviation and thought, "Darn. All that work and this is what I get?" Point being, I invested a whole afternoon just to fuck up a perfectly good box. And in the end, no one remembers this pointless shit but me.
This was one of the first things I thought about when listening to Bloc Party's newest album A Weekend in the City. The lame title alone is enough to send up a red flag. However, after enjoying their full-length Silent Alarm, this hunk of far-reaching aural boredom falls hard on it's face, like me, the fat kid trying to get his foot out of that damn box airplane.
Bloc Party used to a far above average post-punk influenced group of young punks, displaying a impeccable balance of sincerity for both lyrics and music with a desire to get themselves and the listeners moving. Throughout the duration of A Weekend in the City, I wasn't moved in anyway possible, with the exception of my bowels.
Instead of pressing on with the formula that worked so damn great in the past, Bloc Party have taken the path every "serious" group of musicians seem to in their career. And that is reach beyond the capacity of their capable songwriting. There's this inexplicable desire that often plagues some of the most promising bands. I've seen it happen with The Mars Volta and The Flaming Lips' last album. Frankly, I'm sick of it. It's like watching your favorite extended family members die off in unnecessary kitchen remodeling accidents. The oak cabinets were fine Aunt Stella! WHY? These bands feel some need to flash moments of brilliance and show musical maturity. Still, the brilliance on these albums generally come off as purely forced and pompously grandiose. Bloc Party is no exception. It's as if they sold their early Gang of Four albums to Coconuts for store credit and bought Coldplay CDs full of yawn rock.
Towards the end of this album, it hit me. Almost every song starts off relatively the same. Sensitive ballads, full of layering synths, and useless beeps. Bloc Party, again, seem to be following the ever growing trend of the digital advantages of the studio. Leave your guitars at home fellas. There's a perfectly good laptop and piano in the studio. Give me a break!
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of guitar outbursts on this album, but by the time they generally show up, I'm already sleeping behind the wheel. Other times, I'm trying to get over the fact that singer, Kele Okereke's voice doesn't match this type of music. His desperate melodic chants on past tracks like Banquet and She's Hearing Voices sound downright out of place in this space-dance context. Even the studio compression and voice alternators don't help. But even that is like trying to get off methadone by undertaking a heroin addiction. It just adds to the mounting problems.
The album isn't all cracked foundation and chipped stucco though. I found myself turning my ear to I Still Remember, wondering if it was lifted from The Wedding Singer soundtrack, smiling, remembering the early part of a decade I didn't live through. Waiting For the 7.18 also works for the most part, utilizing well placed guitar swelling mixed with danceable drumming of the Bloc Party I used to appreciate. But on songs like Sunday, where Okereke swoons and croons over a perfectly good waste of syncopated toms, I find myself asking "what's the point?" And how long must we wait until Bloc Party gets back to it.
Like my box plane that I invested so much time into, this album is similarly made little impression in the scheme of things. It may have been the ultimate goal for Bloc Party to conquer the world, expand on their sound by adding ambient noises. But they ran before they could walk, breaking their legs and falling into territory they weren't ready for yet. Stick with what works. Leave the box intact. Don't mangle what you've got. I don't understand why band's are so concerned with keeping a workable sound these days. They're like major networks axing off sitcoms after four episodes. So what if they'd make a Silent Alarm part II and don't end up jerking off the critics?Make what you can, while you can, and then over time, you might evolve into the band you where meant to be. At least, eventually, we'd have something to move us in anyway possible. Until then, I'm not attending this party again anytime soon. Let the cops shut it down.
All afternoon, I went to work, cutting a hole in it so I could fit my Hostess-Twinkie saturated body out the top. I taped fake wings to the side. I wrote Eric Airlines on the side. Pure poetry indeed. When I was done, I looked at my plane. It was beautiful. Placing it on the sidewalk, I made airplane noises and got lost in the high altitudes of my young mind, intoxicated with imagination. "Come look at my plane!" I yelled. My dad continued to caulk the cracks in our front steps, periodically looking up with a forced smile. My mom peeked out the window, waved, then disappeared back into her chores. My best friend, and neighbor at the time, came over and told me the plane was stupid. It was at that point, I reexamined my construction of fantastic aviation and thought, "Darn. All that work and this is what I get?" Point being, I invested a whole afternoon just to fuck up a perfectly good box. And in the end, no one remembers this pointless shit but me.
This was one of the first things I thought about when listening to Bloc Party's newest album A Weekend in the City. The lame title alone is enough to send up a red flag. However, after enjoying their full-length Silent Alarm, this hunk of far-reaching aural boredom falls hard on it's face, like me, the fat kid trying to get his foot out of that damn box airplane.
Bloc Party used to a far above average post-punk influenced group of young punks, displaying a impeccable balance of sincerity for both lyrics and music with a desire to get themselves and the listeners moving. Throughout the duration of A Weekend in the City, I wasn't moved in anyway possible, with the exception of my bowels.
Instead of pressing on with the formula that worked so damn great in the past, Bloc Party have taken the path every "serious" group of musicians seem to in their career. And that is reach beyond the capacity of their capable songwriting. There's this inexplicable desire that often plagues some of the most promising bands. I've seen it happen with The Mars Volta and The Flaming Lips' last album. Frankly, I'm sick of it. It's like watching your favorite extended family members die off in unnecessary kitchen remodeling accidents. The oak cabinets were fine Aunt Stella! WHY? These bands feel some need to flash moments of brilliance and show musical maturity. Still, the brilliance on these albums generally come off as purely forced and pompously grandiose. Bloc Party is no exception. It's as if they sold their early Gang of Four albums to Coconuts for store credit and bought Coldplay CDs full of yawn rock.
Towards the end of this album, it hit me. Almost every song starts off relatively the same. Sensitive ballads, full of layering synths, and useless beeps. Bloc Party, again, seem to be following the ever growing trend of the digital advantages of the studio. Leave your guitars at home fellas. There's a perfectly good laptop and piano in the studio. Give me a break!
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of guitar outbursts on this album, but by the time they generally show up, I'm already sleeping behind the wheel. Other times, I'm trying to get over the fact that singer, Kele Okereke's voice doesn't match this type of music. His desperate melodic chants on past tracks like Banquet and She's Hearing Voices sound downright out of place in this space-dance context. Even the studio compression and voice alternators don't help. But even that is like trying to get off methadone by undertaking a heroin addiction. It just adds to the mounting problems.
The album isn't all cracked foundation and chipped stucco though. I found myself turning my ear to I Still Remember, wondering if it was lifted from The Wedding Singer soundtrack, smiling, remembering the early part of a decade I didn't live through. Waiting For the 7.18 also works for the most part, utilizing well placed guitar swelling mixed with danceable drumming of the Bloc Party I used to appreciate. But on songs like Sunday, where Okereke swoons and croons over a perfectly good waste of syncopated toms, I find myself asking "what's the point?" And how long must we wait until Bloc Party gets back to it.
Like my box plane that I invested so much time into, this album is similarly made little impression in the scheme of things. It may have been the ultimate goal for Bloc Party to conquer the world, expand on their sound by adding ambient noises. But they ran before they could walk, breaking their legs and falling into territory they weren't ready for yet. Stick with what works. Leave the box intact. Don't mangle what you've got. I don't understand why band's are so concerned with keeping a workable sound these days. They're like major networks axing off sitcoms after four episodes. So what if they'd make a Silent Alarm part II and don't end up jerking off the critics?Make what you can, while you can, and then over time, you might evolve into the band you where meant to be. At least, eventually, we'd have something to move us in anyway possible. Until then, I'm not attending this party again anytime soon. Let the cops shut it down.
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