|
|
|
June 29th, 2019
08:53 am - Looking for cheese?
All my cheese entries are now over at my website: Gordonzola Dot Net. If you're an LJer there is a feed set up you can subscribe to here: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif?v=92.1) gordon_edgar. See you there! If you are more into facebook, you can follow my cheese entries here.
Thanks!
Oh, and if you're looking for my book, It's available here
(This is dated 2019 so it stays on top of my journal.)
|
May 3rd, 2012
06:09 am - Gordon watches TV
Living in San Francisco means you don’t need to get cable if you are not TV obsessed. With just an antenna you can get all the major networks, PBS, and a few indie stations. Occasionally at my parents’ house, on vacation, or at a motel I will watch something and my mind will get blown. This is really on TV?
I’m looking at you, Dance Moms.
But we got ROKU for x-mas and I have been checking out those reality shows* that seem so intriguing when I’ve seen them advertised on my TV holidays. OMG. Most of them are so bad that they trigger my depression. I realize these things are subjective. I’m not judging anyone who likes these shows. I’m just saying I’m glad I didn’t waste money on cable all these years.**
Here’s what I have been watching. Anything I should check out that I haven’t found yet?
Old episodes of Top Chef
These are great. The only Top Chef I had ever watched was the one season that is on DVD and a few episodes of Season 3 that I watched while stranded on the tarmac on a two hour flight delay on the way to Seattle to sign a contract with my agent. I had no idea there was no Padma in season 1. They have made some really smart moves over the years… getting rid of the caterers and home chefs, making better challenges with better food etc. We watched the current season as well and I just wanted to say, again, that all of you who had sympathy for Beverly and hated on Sara were just wrong, wrong, wrong. The thing about this show, which differs from the horrible “Hell’s Kitchen”, is that the contestants are talented and the judges, for the most part, seem legit.
Storage Wars
It took me a bit to get over the horrible premise of the show. People bidding on the possessions of others left behind in storage lockers is not something that would be allowed in a just society. But, on the other hand, I find it fascinating to see how things get to thrift stores. Except for maybe Brandi and Laura, no one is really likable on this show, but I have to admit that the buried treasure aspect of the storage lockers carries this for me. I really do want to know what’s in there and what it’s “worth”. I got kind of addicted to this show.
Pawn Stars
This show, on the other hand, is just awful. It combines the unlikeable aspects of Storage Wars with a scripted arrogance that made it unwatchable. The only episode that I saw, the main dude bought a cannon for $30,000. At least on Storage Wars you get the feeling – with a couple thousand being about the biggest bid– that the folks making the money on the lockers are not too far above – and sometimes clearly below – the people they are making money off of. If you have $30,000 for a cannon, my sympathy is gone. Plus they mock people who come in with things of no value. Whatever dudes.
Work of Art
This show is actually pretty awesome even though Stagey and I only half way through season one. Reality show of artists? It makes no sense! Here’s one day – MAKE ART! An acquaintance was on Season One and didn’t do very well – and some of the “artists” are terrible – but hey, Top Chef had some real terrible cooks in season one as well. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) nihilistic_kid wrote about these episodes when they came on and I really wished he tagged his entries.
Project Runway All-Stars
Just not the same without Heidi, Tim, and Nina.
RuPaul’s Drag Race
I know lots of you love this, but I was bored. It owes a lot to America’s Next Top Model for sure, and maybe I just watched too many episodes of that show, but it has all the fake drama and arbitrary rules that I began to hate about ANTM. I’d probably need to watch more episodes to have a coherent analysis – or come to like it.
American Pickers
After about five minutes I wanted to punch these assholes in the face. Two dudes self-importantly drive around the country looking for poor people to exploit. They strategically bother people until they give in, lowballing them despite the fact that some appear senile or unaware of where their next meal will come from. After the Rev, these folks definitely have a date with the firing squad for crimes against the People. Plus they have a goth-y gal back at home base who seems to be trying to be that goth girl on that military cop show or that quirky computer girl on that serial killer show.*** The only thing of value in this show is that it could inspire hatred of the entire capitalist system based on the ruthless actions of two Randian douchebags in a van.
*I consider Project Runway and Top Chef to be the crowning achievements of this genre, btw.
**Being able to watch Giants games would certainly be a mitigating factor, however.
***The difference between punks and Goths in a nutshell? Punks hate representations of themselves on TV and view all such fictional representations as sell outs. The Goths think it’s cool to have one of their own working for 1. The military and 2. The cops. That may be a lot of things, but cool will never be one of them.
|
March 26th, 2012
10:55 am - We Need to Talk About Kevin
I loved “We Need to Talk About Kevin” as a novel. Lionel Shriver did the near-impossible with this book. She situated being the parent of a teen murderer as part of the continuum of motherhood, rather than a freakish aberration. Without sugarcoating the mother’s character, mistakes, or motivations, Shriver manages to get at a lot of the ways that mothers (not fathers) are blamed for things their children do. Without minimizing the horror of the killings in this story, it is a very delicate and constructed balance of compassion and realism for everyone involved.
The movie, not so much.
It wasn’t bad, mind you, just not as ambitious or interesting. While it certainly makes you feel the mother’s pain, for whatever reason it is unable to make Kevin and his killings a horrible part of a bigger picture. The result is a much shallower and more easily forgettable work.
The movie version certainly leaves an impression. The first half hour reminded me more of the incredible but hard to endure “Killer of Sheep” than anything else. Immersed in the life of the mother during a few interspersed time periods with very little dialogue, it’s agonizing to watch; but not in a bad way. In the way that makes you feel like you are experiencing a small portion of what a woman in that position must be feeling. So far, so good.
Making a work of art where a mother of a mass murderer is even a semi-sympathetic character is a hard job. How can that character ever feel any happiness? Any laugh or smile is an insult to the families of the dead. It’s hard to tell what seeing the movie would be like if I hadn’t read the book, but one pivotal scene really limited the movie’s possibilities.
In the book, the mother, Eva, often sits in the prison waiting room -- always alone, never talking to the other women who are almost all, if not exclusively, women of color. She uses her son’s name as a way of not having to interact because bringing him up usually shuts up anyone trying to talk to her. But one day another woman does not allow her to shut down the conversation. She tells Eva that Eva is a good mother because, even after everything her son has done, she still comes to jail regularly, trying to do what she can. It’s a brief conversation – one not examined thoroughly by the mother narrator -- but it brings up so many issues that – to me – it was the most weight-bearing few pages of the book.
What is motherhood? How much ability does a mother really have in shaping a child? What is the responsibility of a parent for the horrible things a child can do? How is the experience of black mothers different from white mothers in a society that imprisons black youth at a much higher rate than white youth? Are the incarcerated deserving of attention and support, even if unremorseful?
Additionally, it shows that while having a murderer in the family will certainly get you thrown out of the respectable upper-middle class, there are other communities in this world, other people who you may never have interacted with before who may actually have things to offer, in fact may have a richer, more complex view of life than you previously thought possible.
In the movie, the whole scene is reduced to a sobbing black woman sitting next to Eva. After some delay, Eva reaches out and holds her hand. Neither woman says a word. End scene.
The biggest failing of the movie is that it just left me with nothing to discuss. It was a two hour wallow in the misery of the mother of a teen school murderer. After I read the book smallstages and I talked about it on-and-off for days. It’s a pretentious cliché to advise people to read the book rather than see a movie based on one (Hello “Hunger Games,”)* but in this case it’s really the truth. The book was the best novel I have read in years. The movie is forgettable.
*The “Hunger Games” movie is better than the book (which I have never read) for one undeniable reason: outing racists.
Current Music: Buddy Holly - "Everyday"
|
February 7th, 2012
12:45 pm - The Government “33 1/3 E.P.” (1979)
Canadian new wave! I will admit I forgot all about this record. I had to clean the needle three times there was so much dust on it. And there are only 4 songs!
I was going to just dismiss this as generic, overly enunciated new wave. But after the second listen it really started growing on me. It is New Wave with capital NW. Everything takes Eff-ort! and clever E-NUN-c-ation!
OMG there’s a vid for “Flat Tire”!
Smash that radio! Shoot out that tire! Burn that gas station!
Heck, this 7” is even kinda catchy. You could have danced to it with stripes and a skinny tie back in the day. “I’m a SPONGE! I SOAK up every-THING!” C’mon it was 1979. Things were out-of-sorts back then and the future looked bleak. Slightly detached, almost ironic dance music was what folks needed to feel better.
Rating: An ear fungus that grows a little with every listen
(It's been awhile so I will remind you all, dear readers, that this is part of a series. You can click the tag below to read them all)
|
January 3rd, 2012
11:04 am - Your monthly Schnitzel
In the various online communities devoted to schnauzers, you rarely see one 1. dirty, 2. at the beach or 3. having fun. Here's your white schnauzer splosh porn that others won't post.
1. Dirty
2. At the beach
3. Having fun (Schnauzers are faster than you think!)
4. All three together!
|
December 12th, 2011
10:49 am - The Weekly Schnitzel
Dancing a jig at the beach
Current Music: Wanna Be Texans
|
December 7th, 2011
06:04 am - Faith No More – “We Care a Lot”/ “Spirit” (1987)
I was living in upstate NY when this song got re-released. Suddenly this song that annoyed me when it came out a couple of years earlier was playing all the time on the local college rock station. “Why?” I asked, “Why did I have to live through this song twice?”
If you haven’t heard it, here it is:
I love/hate this song. I actually find the video kind of endearing. They were all older than me then, but they just look like kids having fun now. This song sticks in my head for weeks when I hear it, probably as the result of exposure at an early age.
I hate that whole “funk metal” era of bands though. I hate Primus. I hate Mr. Bungle. I’m ok with Victim’s Family I guess… but was that really the best that Northern California could do? Sadly, it seems that – post-Dead Kennedys and pre-Gilman St -- it was. When the option was seeing a Verbal Abuse/Fang bill again, well, I would have gone to the Verbal Abuse show, but I could see why others wouldn’t. But if I want some “funk” mixed in with my rock, I’ll go listen to a Big Boys record any day.
Supposedly this was some kind of statement/parody of “Live Aid” but it’s pretty incomprehensible at this day and time in 2011. Wanna hear the best “Live Aid”/”We are the World” parody?
You’re welcome. (The Steve Perry part is my favorite visual. But long-time readers probably assumed that.)
“We Care a Lot” did give of the theme for on of my favorite shows, “Dirty Jobs” so for that we should be grateful I guess.
The B Side is unlistenable. I don’t even know where this came from. It has no sleeve so I think it was in a free pile somewhere.
Rating: Don’t make me listen to this again. Even Amoeba won’t take it.
|
December 3rd, 2011
10:54 am - Au Pairs – “You” /“Domestic Departure” “Kerb Crawler” (1979)
First, I have to say that this era of UK leftist, feminist post-punk is one of my all-time favorite punk sub-genres. Bands like Au Pairs, Gang of Four, Delta 5, etc. were involved in – or paid lip service to*-- the anti-Thatcher political movements of the day, at least in my view 8000 miles away in California. The music was more jagged, still treble-y like punk is supposed to be, but not as scared of the bass as most punk, before or since. The lyrics of the songs of this era were some of the most astute ever written for pop music, and many would still resonate today if they were set to an electronic beat and auto-tuned.**
This 7” is Au Pairs first release but I didn’t pick it up, or hear it until the mid-‘90s sometime. I won’t say it’s my favorite record of theirs, but I do love it. What it lacks in their later lyrical and musical development, it makes up for in shear enthusiasm.
Unlike their other records, the mix makes the lyrics harder to understand so I always listen to this record for the overall sound. That said, I never knew what “Kerb Crawler” meant until I went to England. I had always assumed it meant (ala Tragic Mulatto) a “creep in the streets” instead of a guy cruising around in his car trying to solicit sex from women. Oh English slang, you confuse us American punk wanna-bees. For years we though the Sex Pistols wanted us to get angry, not drunk, with the lyric “Get pissed… destroy!”
Here’s “You”. I love that so many youtube vids show the actual 7” sleeves!
Rating: I love it, but it was just a warm-up for the great records that were to come.
*which, really is all you can expect in a pop band. Thank you Miley Cyrus.
**I like electronic beats and a lot of auto-tune so don't read that as snarky.
Current Music: Miley Cyrus -- "Liberty Walk"
|
November 28th, 2011
07:03 pm - The Daily Schnitzel
I love this shot. It helps that we had just vacuumed the hall and stairs. He's so thoughtful
|
November 10th, 2011
08:16 am - Los Crudos/Huasipungo “Nunca Nada Cambia…a Menos que lo Hagamos Cambiar” (1993)
This is a Spanish language political hardcore split, Los Crudos from Chicago and Huasipungo from NYC. I hadn’t listened to this in years but I remember this being pretty amazing when it came out. Listening to it for the first time in a decade, I can say that the Los Crudos side is awesome, Martin at his hardcore screaming best. There’s always one side of a split that you gravitate to –even if it’s purely subjective (for me: Blatz over Filth, Code of Honor over Sick Pleasure, Dicks over Big Boys etc.)– and the Crudos side is the one I always played first. And yes, I’ll sing along phonetically.
I herniated a disc in my neck and missed the Los Crudos show at Epicenter that I was supposed to help put on. It was a show for our anniversary week and – I heard – one of the most amazing shows I ever missed. That and the Minutemen/Husker Du/Meat Puppets show that I missed due to emergency wisdom tooth surgery are two of my biggest punk show regrets. I’ve seen martin in other bands, but this – by all accounts – was something special.
And the record was something special too. Much like riot grrrl and queer punk, Latino punk in the early-mid ‘90s de-centered the white male hetero hardcore world. * To me, that was exciting. To others, less so. MRR often had scene reports from Spanish-speaking countries to be sure – and L.A. had the Suicidals – but Latino punks in big urban areas singing Spanish-language punk ostensibly to a Spanish-speaking audience: this was new.
Records like this and Latino punk shows also underlined how relatively privileged the punk scene in the mid-‘90s could be. Immigrant (or children of immigrant) punks who may or may not be legally in the country, have different and more pressing issues than the average backpack-wearing scenester of the time. Could the two scenes exist as one? One Epicenter Collective member asked if it was ok to print out fliers for that Los Crudos gig in Spanish and distribute them in non-English-speaking punk areas of the Mission. People were super enthusiastic, but it underlined the distance –even though he was a collective member putting on the show, he didn’t feel comfortable enough to do that without seeking the permission of the whole group.
Either way, if one listened to this brand of HC at that time, there is no denying that Crudos was among the best band of the time
Huasipungo is pretty good too, don’t get me wrong. Though when I read the lyrics for my favorite song “Tacones Altos”I was disappointed to see that it was one of those criticizing women for wearing makeup/certain clothes etc. that just never works when a man sings it. I actually don’t know much about Huasipungo, never saw them back in the day or anything. I see that they actually still have a website and keep it updated.
Rating: Important record that I pretty much never listen to.
* and there is overlap among all three of these genres, of course.
Current Music: Army of Lovers - "Les Greatest Hits"
|
|
|
