Remember going to the record store, browsing for hours, listening to tons of recordings on headphones, soaking up the culture and that vibe we can all feel in our memories, but can’t describe with words?
Remember getting the tape, even though you really wanted the record (that you could make into a tape), because you could listen to the tape in the car, right away?
Remember getting home and listening to the whole album, both sides of it, for the very first time?
Remember buying a CD because the single was great, only to discover that you spent 18 dollars on a piece of shit, and you were stuck with it?
Remember discovering a record that did not have a single bad track on it, and how rare that was?
I don’t know how many of you share similar experiences, but I suspect it’s not zero.
This is where we all expect me to dump on streaming or something, right? That’s not what this is about.
I love the convenience of streaming. I love the access to basically the entire history of human recordings, so when I feel compelled to listen to The Andrews Sisters and Tones On Tail in the same day, it doesn’t involve a trip to the mall. I love massive playlists of music they don’t play on the radio, that I can shuffle into my own sonic time machine. I can do all of those things I remember (except for going to record stores; I’ll still do that whenever I can), with the added bonus of never being stuck with a shitty record, ever again.
But I’ve noticed that the playlists have taken over, and I haven’t actually listened to a full album in a really, really long time. Like, other than Pink Floyd records, which must be listened to in their entirety, always (I will not be taking questions at this time), it just hasn’t occurred to me to listen to, say, all of In Utero.
I reset the counter on DAYS SINCE I LISTENED TO AN ENTIRE ALBUM to 0 last night. I really wanted to hear Drain You (yes, I know it’s off Nevermind, and I was just talking about In Utero; settle down), I saw the cover for In Utero, just sitting right there like, “Remember me? Let’s have a cuddle.” And I was like, “this is the best idea anyone has ever had.” I pushed play, then sat there and listened to the whole thing for the first time in … I’m going to describe the amount of time as “an embarrassment”.
Wow, I forgot how much I loved this album when it came out, how I played it on repeat in the car, on the boombox CD player when we played street hockey, how it was such a revelation to young me. I’d forgotten a couple of the songs, too, so it was like discovering them for the first time all over again.
When it ended, I immediately listened to all of Bleach, followed by Nevermind.
I remembered those days, before Smells Like Teen Spirit was everywhere almost over night. I briefly thought about an entire generation that grew up hearing it as just another track on Now That’s What I Call Arena Rock While Missing The Point Of The Lyrics, Volume 5, and how the context for them and Gen X is so profoundly fucking different. Mostly, I remembered how much I loved all three of these records, how much I loved Unplugged, how I played them all as loud as I could stand, and how devastated I was when Kurt Cobain died. I remembered how angry I was at him, back when I didn’t know how to feel any other emotion if I was hurt or felt a loss.
ANYWAY. When the last note of Endless, Nameless faded, and I had fully experienced all of those memories, it occurred to me that I had listened to the entire Nirvana studio catalog — the band that will likely go down as my generation’s Beatles — and it was just over two hours long. Holy shit. They changed an entire generation in, like, 120 minutes (that sounds cooler if you imagine it in Kurt Loder’s voice) and I can’t even imagine what they would have done if Kurt hadn’t died, and they’d stayed together long enough to do their American Idiot. …right?
I then took a moment to be grateful, and to admire Dave Grohl, for having the strength and courage to carry on and form Foo Fighters, which is another band that means a lot to me. He’s talked about feeling intimidated around Kurt, not believing in himself as a writer, and doing whatever it took to power through it all because he had to. In my own way, I can relate to that. I think a lot of us can. And to carry on after Taylor Hawkins died, too? Jesus Christ, man. Dave Grohl doesn’t know I exist but I am so sorry for the loss he has experienced. May their memories be a blessing.
I still love grunge, even if it hurts my heart when a kid calls it Classic Rock. But I’m old and out of touch. Who is this generation’s Nirvana? I mean, it’s probably Nirvana, but who is speaking to kids the same way, now, as they did, then?
I have a small part in the 1987 television movie (failed pilot) version of The Man Who Fell To Earth. Lewis Smith played the titular character. Beverly D’Angelo played my mom, his love interest. (Fun Star Trek connection: Bob Picardo is also in it).
My character was a Troubled Youth, which I gotta tell you was not a stretch for me at all. I was deeply, deeply hurting at the time we made it. I was struggling not to suffocate on all the emotional and financial burdens my mom put on my shoulders, and fully aware of just how much my dad hated and resented me. You need a kid who doesn’t want to be an actor, whose eyes can’t hide the pain? I’m your guy.
Anyway, one of the scenes I was in took place in a record store, where Troubled Youth steals some albums, before he is chased by the cops and The Man Who Fell To Earth, uses a glowing crystal to save his life from … some scratches on his face.
We filmed the interior of the record store at Sunset and La Brea, in what I think was a Warehouse Records and Tapes, and at the end of the day, I was allowed to buy some records at a modest discount.
I was deep into my metal years, on my way from my punk years to my New Wave years, so I only bought metal albums. I know I bought more than I needed or could carry (I was making a point that I was allowed to spend my own money, mom), but the only ones I can clearly remember are:
Iron Maiden – Piece of Mind
Judas Priest – Turbo and Defenders of the Faith
W.A.S.P – The Last Command
Of those, Piece of Mind is the only one I never really stopped listening to, even through all the different it’s-not-a-phase phases. I still listen to it, today.
Ever since I became an Adult with a Fancy Adult Record Player And All That Bullshit, I have kept my records in two places: stuff I want right now, and stuff I keep in the library because of Reasons.
Generally, records move in one direction toward the library, even if it takes years to happen. I just don’t accumulate albums like I once did, because I’m Old and set in my ways, and every album in the library was something I loved listening to at some point in my life, even if I’ve mostly forgotten them.
Earlier today, I decided that I wanted to listen to an album while I cleaned up the kitchen, and because I wanted to make my life more interesting, I opened the library cabinet for the first time in at least five years. I reached in, and pulled out the first album I touched.
It was the very same W.A.S.P album from that day in March, 1987. I don’t have any of the others — I looked — but The Last Command was right there. I looked at it, curiously. Why do I still have this?
Before I fully knew what I was doing, I put it on the Fancy Adult Record Player and dropped the needle.
I watched four decades of dust build up with a satisfying crackle, and there was something magical and beautiful about hearing all the skips and the scratches, realizing I remembered them from before.
The first track, Wild Child, was just as great as I remembered. It struck all the same chords in me that it did in the late nineteen hundreds. The rest of the first side was … um. It just didn’t connect with me, and during the few moments I spent trying to find a connection, I realized that I don’t think it ever really did. I would remember.
What I did remember how much I loved making those mix tapes, and what a big part of them that song was. I did remember how empowering it felt to not just spend my own money that I earned doing work I didn’t want to do, but to spend it on music my parents hated, right under their noses. I did remember how impressed Robby Lee was, when I showed him my extensive heavy metal album collection, and he gave me a cassette with Screaming for Vengeance on one side, and Metal Health on the other, on one of those iconic Memorex tapes.
Remembering all of that, in one of those cinematic flashes of rapid cut visuals and sped up sounds, told me why I kept this record, while I gradually sold or replaced the other records I bought that day with CDs, then mp3s, then lossless digital files, before finally coming all the way back to records, where I started. This record lives in the library for reasons that have nothing to do with the music.
I didn’t listen to the second side. I didn’t need to. I took it off the Fancy Adult Record Player, and put it back into the library, next to the George Carlin records.
If I cared any less about the NFL, it would take effort. I get that it’s massively popular, and for some of its fans, “I like football” is their entire personality. Good for them. Sincerely. It’s just not my thing.
But! I love and admire Taylor Swift, which is the only reason I know that the Chiefs had some kind of huge comeback against Detroit and they are going to the Superb Owl against a team I can’t remember and don’t need you to identify. (EDIT: whoops. I mixed up the two playoff games. I still don’t care.)
I still don’t care about the NFL or the game, but oh my god do I love love love love love how outraged and furious and unhinged all these toxic right wing idiots are about Taylor Swift and her boyfriend the football guy. I love it so hard. I love how it’s waking them up at night, I love how they’re just so goddamn angry about it they feel sick. I love how self-inflicted it all is, and how they keep punching themselves in the dick about it, howling with what they think is righteous outrage, but sounds an awful lot like a toddler having a tantrum.
But the thing I love more than anything, the absolute best part of all of it, is watching a political party, under the complete control of the weakest, most pathetic, tiny little man, discover a new and novel way to alienate millions of voters they desperately need, while they push away countless voters who may have been open to their message, if only it wasn’t … this. LOL.
Republicans have already made it crystal clear that they hate women and want to have absolute control over every single thing a woman does. Voters have responded to that with record turnout to codify laws that protect women, and to replace as many misogynist lawmakers as they can.
So please join me in a robust round of mocking applause for whoever made the choice to attack and vilify and attempt to terrorize the most popular and influential woman of her generation, who polls more favorably than their entire party and all of their candidates.
Just a huge, roaring, standing ovation for whoever decided that the party of angry, toxic, predatory, authoritarian men will *absolutely* increase their support among a demographic they can’t afford to lose by picking a fight with their Joan of Arc.
Outstanding work, gentlemen. I have never seen a group of people slam their dicks in the door so beautifully and successfully. I wish you all the worst as you stare directly at the sun, but never in the mirror.
I asked Spotify to play me some rock. It’s horrifying how well you know me, I said, but do what you do so well. I may as well make the most of this Faustian bargain.
So Spotify went to work. Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Love and Rockets, Placebo, Eagles of Death Metal, you get it.
Nice work, Spotify. I’m absolutely positive this has no Monkey’s Paw consequences in my future.
Then it gets to Reptillia, by The Strokes, and I realized that the last time I heard this song, I was playing it in Rock Band.
And that just really hit me right in the Old, you know?
I know you’re not going to believe this, but it just started playing 3’s & 7’s. Guess what game I was playing the last time I heard it?
I’m gonna go put my feet up for a minute, while I continue rocking.
It’s another one of those round up posts, like in the Before Times! Also, my silly choice to do that outrageous 90s theme (I bet you are all going to miss the dancing baby) has served its purpose, and now we are back to something a bit more readable.
So the phrase “you have too much time on your hands” came across my event horizon, as a response to a silly thing I did to amuse myself. I’ve heard this for my entire life, and every few years, I write a post like this about it. This is a slightly edited version of my response.
I doubt very much you mean to be hurtful when you say this. It’s just a silly thing you say, like “tell us how you really feel”. It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a little joke.
About that. This is one of the most insulting, degrading, things a creative person can hear. We have all kinds of fun making something, and we put it into the world, and “you have too much time on your hands” devalues our creative experience. It’s another way of saying “don’t you have anything better to do?” Actually, dad, I don’t. This is exactly what I wanted to do with my time and energy.
I had exactly the right amount of time to make whatever the thing is. I choose to invest my time in doing something amusing, or silly, or whatever. “You have too much time” implies that this was a waste of the time I have, time that should have been spent doing something else, rather than the thing I chose to make, because it made me feel good to do that.
I am so confident that most people who say this don’t mean to be hurtful, and if you’re one of them, I hope you’ll hear me, as a creative person who has been dismissed like that his whole life, when I tell you how hurtful and insulting these words are. Don’t take my word for it, listen to all the other creative people who will reply to this, if they choose to share their experiences.
I’m not calling you out. I’m not putting you on blast, and I’ll ban anyone who brigades or attacks you. I’m just taking this moment to share this for you and anyone else who doesn’t want to be hurtful in the future. A teaching moment.
We don’t have too much time. In fact, nearly every creative person you ever talk to will tell you that we don’t have enough time. Please don’t dismiss us or the stuff we make.
Thanks for listening 🙂
NB: Facebook is bad for civilization. There is a future coming where someone researches and produces data which will show how absolutely destructive the whole damn thing is. There is a future where social media as it exists today is looked at the way my generation looks at DDT. We cannot believe it was ever a Thing, and the people who were poisoning us knew it all along. Facebook and Twitchan are a catastrophe for democracy and marginalized people. I can’t wait for the day to arrive when all of social media is regulated like tobacco and alcohol, and gets broken up into some parts that are less predatory and dangerous.
I just want to amplify my dear friend who is not here for anyone’s bullshit:
Okay. Let’s step out of that place and into something more fun!
I’ve wanted to round up some of the TV I’ve been watching:
Holy shit The Last Of Us is perfect. Flawless. Worth the entire subscription.
Netflix’s 1899 went from “interesting, compelling” to “steampunk LOST” so fast I gave up halfway through. The era of “weird for the sake of being weird, style over substance, vague hints of story instead of real character development, and we’ll sort of loosely wrap it up eventually” cannot end fast enough. Honestly, it should have died with Charlie. RIP Charlie.
Conversely, I had to force myself to not binge Wednesday, Brand New Cherry Flavor, The English, The Recruit, and Sandman. Highly recommend all of them.
The Justice Department has been scrutinizing a controversial artificial intelligence tool used by a Pittsburgh-area child protective services agency following concerns that it could result in discrimination against families with disabilities, The Associated Press has learned.
The interest from federal civil rights attorneys comes after an AP investigation revealed potential bias and transparency issues about the opaque algorithm that is designed to assess a family’s risk level when they are reported for child welfare concerns in Allegheny County.
[…]
Algorithms use pools of information to turn data points into predictions, whether that’s for online shopping, identifying crime hot spots or hiring workers. Many child welfare agencies in the U.S. are considering adopting such tools as part of their work with children and families.
Though there’s been widespread debate over the moral consequences of using artificial intelligence in child protective services, the Justice Department’s interest in the pioneering Allegheny algorithm marks a significant turn toward possible legal implications.
Supporters see algorithms as a promising way to make a strained child protective services system both more thorough and efficient, saying child welfare officials should use all tools at their disposal to make sure children aren’t maltreated. But critics worry that including data points collected largely from people who are poor can automate discrimination against families based on race, income, disabilities or other external characteristics.
(bolding is mine)
This was timely, as I just watched this short from Aperture about Algorithms a couple days ago.
tl;dr: algorithms are inherently racist, classist, and not at all neutral because the data used to train them is largely drawn from a system that has elevated the opportunities and privileges of CIS white men. It’s appalling.
Let’s stay at YouTube for a minute, because I said this was going to be fun.
I didn’t know about The Electric State until I saw this video. I bought it, and Tales from the Loop, immediately. If you like the things I like, I know you will be entranced by this video and the book that it talks about.
It’s going to be a movie? I just saw that when I looked for a link to the publisher’s page. Hmm. I hope they do it justice. I hear they missed the mark with Tales from the Loop, but I haven’t watched it yet so take that with a grain of highly radioactive 236 U.
Also, I noticed a Still Just A Geek coffee mug in the background of one of Hank Green’s videos and I’m not gonna lie: I squeed with extreme delight.
One last YouTube mention. I can’t get enough of CGPGrey. I don’t know anything about them, except that their brain is amazing.
This video is about choosing a theme for yourself, like “my theme for this month is reading.” or “my theme for this month is mindfulness.” The idea is to help us build on little successes that fit into a broad theme, rather than setting a single goal and feeling like a failure if we don’t complete it to our liking.
My theme since I turned 50 has been self care and gratitude. I’m spending all kinds of time working on healing my cptsd and trauma, and I’m showing up for myself every day to support that. I’m making a choice to work on specific things in therapy (EMDR has changed my life), and then do the hard work in between sessions to build on the insights I’ve gotten from my therapist.
I felt this fundamental shift beneath my feet last week. This HUGE thing changed in me. It’s so big, I can’t see all of it, you know? Like, I can just see this small part of it that I let go of, and until I get farther away from it, I won’t know what all of it is. I feel so good, so unburdened, that I have spent substantial time being suspicious of it. I legit wondered if I was manic, but after talking with my therapist, I’m pretty sure what I’m feeling is the lack of generalized anxiety that has defined my life for so long I didn’t realize it was there. “This is water,” as they say.
If you only take one thing away from this post: work on your shit. It’s worth it. YOU are worth it. And I’m going to tell you something that’s going to be upsetting: all your friends know you are lying to yourself, and to them, about your mental health. We can’t do anything to support and help you until you choose to be honest and do that incredibly hard work that is so terrifying.
In the land of music, I can’t believe how much I like Miley Cyrus’ new song, Flowers. I love her smoky voice and “fuck you I’m fabulous” attitude.
I’ve been listening to Alkaline Trio, Taking Back Sunday, Get Up Kids, Ataris, and all that fabulous early 2000s stuff we all associate with Warped Tour. Yes, I made a playlist at Spotify.
Speaking of, I had no idea that Spotify used so much shitty compression, until my son pointed it out to me with a side by side comparison to Apple Music. The difference between the two is astounding. Real quick: I hate Apple. Their UI is the worst. Their design is stupid and non-intuitive. Oh, how I hate iTunes. And Apple’s refusal to use open standards in messaging can get fucked.
But Apple Music is remarkable (The Linux client, cider, is amazing). The lossless sound is so much better than the over compressed shit Spotify squirts into my ears, and I had no idea until I put them side by side. Spotify is like putting a wet paper sack over your speakers, by comparison. Once you hear the difference, it’s real hard to go back.
Too bad Spotify didn’t invest in sound quality like they did in centering and spotlighting a conspiracy theorist. This is the year I let my membership expire.
Okay, last thing: I searched high and low for a really solid RSS reader that wasn’t full of crap. I eventually settled on Fluent Reader. You can grab the Appimage here, if you’re a Linux user like me.
Oh look the morning is behind me and now I’m late for work. Which will happen in a virtual desktop two clicks over, where I’m writing a brand new thing.
